| Summary/Abstract |
In the early Cold War, the production, dissemination, and control over scientific-technological knowledge became a central concern of the fledgling national security state. Soviet scientific and technological achievements posed a severe threat to American military power and global political hegemony. Maintaining the United States’ competitive edge required both a major injection of federal resources to stimulate the national Research and Development (R & D) system, and a clamp down on the international circulation of knowledge, including the travel of scientists in both directions across the U.S. border. The U.S. security agencies began to monitor the international travel of scientists in order to control the knowledge they carried in their heads and in their hands. Passport denials and restrictions became one of the main instruments of control and surveillance.
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