Until 1980, Dr. Vaško was a member of IIASA’s Council and Finance Committee. After that he joined the Management and Technology Area at IIASA, became Project Leader of its  Networking Activities, and for many years was Dean and Scientific Coordinator of theYoung Scientists Summer Program (YSSP). In 1981, Dr.Vaško was awarded the title “IIASA honorary scholar“. Before his scientific activity at IIASA he had been Science attaché (1965-1969) at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington D.C., and Head of the Department of Automatization and Computers in the Federal Ministry of Technology and Investment of former Czechoslovakia (1969-1980). He is a member of the “US Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers.” After his retirement in 1996 Dr.Vaško remained active at IIASA. Each year he is invited to adress the participants of YSSP, and to give lectures on IIASA’s history.

Publications: Problems of Economic Transition (Avebury, 1992); Long Waves and Life Cycles ( Springer, 1992) with Prof. Ayers and Prof. Fonteville (both Frace); The Long Wave Debate (Springer, 1987), and The Methan Age (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988) with others. In addition, he wrote more than 100 papers, which he presented at conferences in Austria, England, Germany, Georgia, Sweden, Finland, France, Italy, USA, China, Russia and Iran. He also organized conferences and seminars in Florence, Siena, Varna, Montpellier and Novosibirsk. He is fluent in the Englisch, French, German, Russian, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian languages.

Solon: Prof. Vaško, during your lifetime you experienced many crises, not only economic and strategic ones, but also financial breakdowns. Last week’s turbulences on the global financial markets with their epicenter being the US-housing market had a domino effect on the whole global financial system. In Germany, some leading representatives even drew a parallel to the big banking crsisis of 1931, and warned of the danger of a systemic crisis. How do you judge this global crisis?

Vaško: If I would have an answer to this very complicated question, I could be considered a candidate for the Nobel Price (laughs). I studied the long waves in economic activities very carefully for years; I even edited a book published in 1987 by the scientific publishing house Springer Verlag. [Tibor Vaško, ed.: Selected Papers from the IIASA- international meeting on long-term fluctuations in economic growth; their causes and consequences, held in Weimar, GDR, 1985 (Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, 1987)] All these ups and downs in the world economy might have different sources, so it is very difficult to judge these fluctuations just from the waves of some economic variable. The particular wave we ate witnessing right now reflects a very special financial type of crisis; some use the word “bubble” to describe it, and there are many economists in the world, who predicted these kind of development. One was [Hyman] Minsky, who became internationally known for the socalled “Minsky credit cycle”. In essence this means that in financially stable periods, investors start to borrow excessively, are pushing up asset prices, and are creating an asset bubble, which ultimately can burst; then many investors, who were attarcted by rising prices – in the present case especially housing prices – run into trouble. In fact, what happened last Friday with the the New York Stock Exchange dropping by about 350 points, has happened, by and large, several times before, although without very critical consequences. In such an interconnected world as ours today, where the transfer of money is so fast, and where the possibility to exchange money has increased so much, we have a completely different system than in the 1930ies. Then, we had a quite specific crisis situation. Up to now there is not a clear cut generally accepted explanation, what really was responsible for the crisis then: Because it merely started in Austria with one bank, which triggered the fall of many others afterwards.

This crisis reminded me of the collapse of the energy system in the United States, which happened on the 5th of December 1965, when a small relay in a hydro-powerplant in Canada simply malfunctioned and caused the switch-off of just one single powerplant in Canada, and then the rest of the system became overloaded. A lot of the people, who were managing the power grid, gave utmost priority to saving their own plant, since all indicators showed maximum or zero data – a situation which was never experienced before. So they switched off their plant, simply saved it, and suddenly those, who remained in the pool, could not manage it any longer. The huge load was spread over a smaller number of power plants, and the result was a big blackout up to New York City. In the aftermath of this crisis, after the system had been slowly restored, a new commission was created: the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), which studies the security and reliability of the entire energy system and keeps certain norms.

(Couldn’t the financial experts of today learn from this example?) In studying this big blackout, the experts of NERC discovered that some power plants, for example in Manhattan, were designed in such a way that either the power plant was working and there was no power on the line, or the power plant was not working, but there was power on the line. If a power plant is designed in such a way, the engineers do not have any problem in switching on the power, and starting the pumps and all other equipment, which a power plant needs for functioning, immediately. But during this big blackout, none of these conditions were fulfilled, so there was no way to jump-start the plants. As a result of this discovery an official order was issued that each power plant must be designed in such a way that is has some independent type of power for jump-starting it.

This is just an analogy to the present financial system. I am not a specialist in finances –  I am an electrical engineer by education. Some of these hedge funds have had a definite positive side, because they spread the risk, and by that have made many operations safer. But the problem is that even that kind of instrument can be misused, and if it is overdone and an “overkill” occurs, some processes could take place, that may cause a dysfunctioning of the process with all bad consequences to follow. To illustrate what I have in mind, I give you some data, I just saw on the Internet: The world's total GDP for 2006 is estimated at 60-65 trillion dollars, while current estimates on the derivative exposure worldwide is about 450 trillion dollars! If these derivatives run into trouble, the whole world is not in a position to help immediately.

There are also many other processes to be considered. For example, there was a big financial breakdown in 1987, and I remember having read that it might have been caused by the fact that all bankers internationally used the same model for handling critical situations, and that therefore everybody did the same thing at the same time. And when you do this, when you simply react in the same way as everybody else, you act similar to a military unit marching in one step over a bridge – which can even cause such severe vibrations that the bridge is falling apart.

Solon: You get a kind of a “lemming effect”, this way. The only problem with this crisis is the fact that at some point, it is the proverbial man on the street who has foot the bill. Certainly there will be more takeovers and more cartelisations as a result of this crisis; banks will buy up other banks, than bigger banks and also bigger industrial conglomerates – and ultimately the consumer is the one who has to pay.

Vaško: Of course, that is unfortunately true. Other developments which are worth studying are those crisis we first had in Latin America, starting with the crisis in Mexico, the followed in the 90ies by the crisis in Malaysia, as well as by the Russian GKO crisis. There are lot of explanations for these crises. Some say, they are simply caused by speculators. In fact, some speculators are very well able to shift money in bigger amounts than even states or governments can do it. This can definitively create an environment which is risky, or, as I would formulate it, can create chaotic situations.

Solon: Let us please shift to a question concerning the military-strategic side of international politics.

Presently, there is a heated strategic debate caused by the United States government announcement to install anti-missile defence bases in Poland and in the Czech Republic. To this unilateral decision, Moscow has reacted harshly. The Chief of Russia’s General Staff, General Balujewski, for example during a press conference in July, gave a very severe warning to the Polish people in this respect. Then there was the Kennebunkport summit between President Bush and President Putin, where this question was discussed. Soon after that, the Russian government declared a moratorium on the CFE-Treaty, the one which regulates the reduction of conventional weapons in Europe.

How do you see this missile defence project from a military standpoint?

Vaško: It is part of the strategy, which the United States administration has developed and which it is holding on to. There may come another administration, which will design a different strategy where this kind of defence may not be part of. The reaction of Russia, I think, is a very natural one. Nobody is very pleased, when somebody else is erecting missile sites close to his borders. I am especially surprised about the US reaction: when Moscow, as I remember, installed rockets on the island of Cuba, the US reaction was not very friendly. I think the present Russian reaction is still more moderate, than President Kennedy’s reaction in 1962.

Solon: President Putin proposed the common use of the radar station in Gabbala, Aserbaijan, but so far the reaction of the USA was a clear cut “No”.

Vaško: I know. There might be some technicalities involved which are not known to me, but this is principally, I think, an interesting suggestion; it depends on what technology you will deploy to destroy the incoming missiles.

Missiles have three phases of flight: the booster phase, then the central flight phase, and finally the “re-entry” phase, i.e. shortly before they hit their targets. The question is: When do you want to destroy them? If you want to destroy them during the booster phase, your sites should be positioned, may be, less than 600 km off the launching site, otherwise you will not be able to reach the incoming missiles with the recent state of technology. Unless you use a type of laser weapons; then, perhaps, the situation will be different. If the idea really would be, to have a defence against missiles coming from Iran, then, in fact, Azerbeidjan would be that type of place. If you want to destroy incoming missiles during the flying phase, you have more time to react – for computation etc. –, provided that the incoming missile is not of the type of the Topol M 1 ,which has a special non-ballistic flight trajectory and flies with hypersonic speed. And then, there is of course, the “re-entry” phase shortly before hitting the target; then the defence rockets could be positioned even further away from the launching site, because you will have much more time to follow the flight of the incoming rockets, prepare your defence rockets etc., which means you can position your anti-ballistic sites much closer to the potential targets – if we take Iran, for example, in this case you can put them anywhere in Europe, or in any other part of the world.

Solon: In Europe there is not so much interest in those anti-missile defence plans. When Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber recently visited Russia he expressed very clearly his reservations about these plans, and underlined that, if these plans were discussed at, these discussions should take place in the framework of NATO/ Russian consultations.

Vaško: I may be wrong, but it seems to me, that the American side – very similar to what happened in the socialist countries earlier – is sticking to its plan, even if the relevant people in Washington are starting to recognize that their plan might not be the optimum. But nevertheless, they are sticking to it. European governments, instead, would react only to what they perceived as a real danger. And this difference in perception does create the present gap between Washington and most European capitals. The European governments do not see such a big danger coming from Iran presently.

I think, this question of missile defence is up for a discussion in the future; i is not so hot now. In 10 or 15 years from now, new technologies for anti-rockets might come up, lasers for example, and they will open new possibilities for defence.

Solon: A question related to your own history. You were teaching at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analaysis (IIASA) in the Austrian Castle of Laxenburg for about seven years?

Vaško: Yes, I was Dean of the Young Students Summer Program (YSSP) for some years.

Solon: Can you tell us something about the history of IIASA? How did it come into being? What effect did it have on world politics? What about your personal role in this institution?

Vaško: It was an interesting undertaking and we must commend those, who gave birth to the idea to found this institute. These were two great Presidents, or dignitaries, I would say: One is former US-President Lyndon Baines Johnson, and the other is Alexey Kosygin, who was at that time prime minister of the USSR – officially Chairman of the Council of ministers. At the occasion of the Extraordinary Assembly of the United Nations in June 1967 – this took place at the time of the Arab-Israeli war – these gentlemen met half way between New York and Washington in the city of Glassboro, New Jersey. In that meeting they decided that it would be interesting, perhaps even useful, to create an East-West Institute, which originally was meant to be only a US-USSR Institute, with the purpose to study problems of common interest.

The task to work on that idea was given to McGeorge Bundy, who was representing the American side, and to Academician Jerman Michailovich Gvishiani, who represented the Russian side, and who happened to be Kosygin’s son-in-law. And they immediately started to work on this project.But with the events in Czechoslovakia, and the invasion there which occurred a year later, a cooling of relations occurred. So it lasted until October 1972 that, finally, the official decision was made, to found such an Institute.

Interestingly enough, the founding meeting was held in London under the auspices of the Royal Society, and the meeting was chaired by a very interesting personality, Lord Solly Zuckerman, one of the fathers of “Operations Research”. At that time, eleven countries agreed to become members IIASA; Czechoslovakia, which I represented there, was also a founding member. I had the honour to sign the Charter of the Institute. So the institute was officially created, and then there was a discussion where to place it. Fontainebleau in France, Laxenburg in Austria, and, I think, Sussex in England, were proposed, but ultimately Laxenburg, near Vienna, was chosen. The Austrian government gave a castle at the Institute’s disposal: a beautiful castle, which Maria Theresia had used as her weekend residence, so to speak; it was roughly 18 km away from the centre of Vienna.

At that time, the castle was more or less a ruin, but the Austrian government managed to give 8 rooms to the institute already after half a year, so at end of May in 1973 IIASA started to work there. This institute was quite an interesting institution, since it was practically the only non-governmental “bridge” across the iron curtain, to put it simply. Of course, this institute was not exactly unknown to the many secret services on all sides of the curtain, but the work at IIASA achieved many interesting results. One of the first conferences was on energy, primarily coal, where many important American and Russian energy experts met; this was a big conference in Moscow.

Also environmentalists were there. Immediately it became clear then that, by discussing these questions, American energy people can understand their Russian colleagues in the field of energy much better than American environmentalists. Sometimes there were bigger barriers between the various disciplines – energy and environmentalism –, than between nations or nationalities. Therefore one slogan for the Institute was to be as multi-, and inter-disciplinary as possible.

When IIASA was created, there were two different views about the specific task of this institute. One was the American view: Americans were more pragmatic. They said, since there are plenty of theories, which are not yet applied, let us apply the known theories to the existing hot problems, and spread the results and experiences. The Russians were still more  under, I would say, ideological influences; the may have had the fixed idea, that there must be some kind of ideal systemic set up, which can do the trick, so to speak. Already at that time, many dysfunctional aspects of the socialist economies were openly discussed in the socialist press. Therefore, the two different approaches were merged, and the name “applied systems analysis” came into being…

Solon: ..hence IIASA’s name: “International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis”.

Vaško: Yes, the Americans liked the word “applied”, and the Russians liked the expression “systems analysis”. Both sides were satisfied with this name.

Solon: Were there also “stormy” conferences? You mentioned conferences on energy, but were there also meetings on military-strategic questions, like START, or on real hot political conflicts, where people stormed out of the room?

Vaško: IIASA had some political ideological restrictions. We could not discuss problems concerning high technology, or military matters, because it was difficult to find any solution there; other institutions dealt with that. Right from the beginning we saw that energy, food and agriculture were big problems globally. For instance, acid rain was a big problem in Europe, so IIASA produced mathematical models on acid rain in Europe, which became the basis for the United Nations Economic Commission in Geneva. One of the researchers of that project at that time was Leen Hordijk, who happens to be the Director of the Institute right now. Another example: Canada was interested in finding a mathematical model how to fight the budworm, because in Canada huge waves of budworms are causing big damages in the pine forests, all over the country. In order for IIASA to tackle this problem, Canada’s forest service gave us all the historical data on the budword they had at their disposal, and Professor C.S. Holling, known as “Buzz” Holling , developed a mathematical model to fight the budworm plague. This is where, for example, the Russians received something they had expected. This model told them, what to do, depending on the density of budwarms: Nothing; cut down the trees; or just spray the forest. This is just to illustrate the work of the institute.

Solon: What happened during the summer programs? Did you and your colleagues give, for example, philosophical classes?

Vaško: No, generally in these summer months we are dealing with three types of doctoral programs. Over twenty students are preparing doctoral dissertations which must be grosso modo in the scope of IIASA’s interest. Each student receives his tutor, his sponsor, who simply helps him to work on his own. Sometimes the interests of these summer students so widely overlap with the ongoing research at the institute, that the students are completely integrated into the rank of the institute. They work for three month, from June 1 to the end of August, and they publish in one way or another what they researched, or produced. Everybody gets his or her own computer, and there is a special computer service, which helps the students. If necessary, they also go into some “IIASA country” to do their studies. Many of these summer students later become members of Parliaments in their respective countries, some even Ministers, or they teach as professors in famous universities. This is a very useful project, usually there are up to 50 students from up to 20 nations working each year in this summer program.

By now, IIASA has completely changed its orientation. Initially, IIASA was a bridge over the river, but after 1989 the river disappeared. You then had a bridge in the desert (laughter). A lot of people said, that would be the end of IIASA. But this was not the case. IIASA not only lives, but it finds a new identity.

Solon: You mentioned the word “bridge building”. Approximately four weeks ago there was a meeting in Moscow among senior politicians from the United States and Russia. Among the participants were Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, former Treasury Secretary Rubin, and I think [former deputy foreign minister] Strobe Talbott may have been there too. From the Russian side there were former prime minister and foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov and present foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. The group met and discussed also with President Putin. It was reported that this was a “working group”, whose purpose was to iron out differences between Washington and Moscow. In September, they would meet again. Do you see this as a kind of an attempt to avoid a developnet towards a cold war?

Vaško: Definitely yes. Academician Yevgeny Primakov visited IIASA many times. He gave lectures there, actually quite a few project leaders had lunch with him, I was among them. He came to IIASA during his time as advisor to Mr. Gorbachev, around 1989. So he definitely knows how to tackle problems like the present ones, and this kind of bridge building is very useful. Practically, the Cuban crisis was also solved this way; already before there were some contacts and some type of “bridge building” going on between Moscow and Washington, which only later came to the fore – the activity of bridge building is certainly preferable to anything elss; it is certainly much better than fighting. I would always support activities build bridges, just in order to exchange views.

Solon: There is obviously a need for this, which brings us to another question: the strategic hotspots. After 9/11 the US started – with the support of NATO – the war in Afghanistan, followed by the war in Iraq in March 2003. And at the end of Bush’s presidency there might even be some type of attack against Iran; some people in the US are very much pushing for such a military strike. How do you judge the whole situation, and what would be an exit strategy?

Vaško: It is difficult to give any clear cut short explanation, which will have relevance. I would refer to one American scientist, born in Teheran; his name is Lofti Zadeh. He defined the principle of incompatibility and published it in 1973. He said, in essence and very roughly that when we approach a very complicated societal or political problems, it is difficult to make very precise and yet relevant judgements, theorems or expressions. If the system is very complicated, we may reach a situation, where precision and relevance almost cancel each other out; you can be precise, but not relevant, and relevant, but not precise. This is some kind of “societal Heisenberg principle”. In what you said, there are so many things involved that the outcome might be very foggy at best. Iraq has been an artificial state, which was put together after the First World War by the British from three main components, like Czechoslovakia stems from two components. Czechoslovakia already split. Whether Iraq will split, remains to be seen, but the question is, whether the Iraqi people can find some common reason to live together; without that it is difficult.

One thing – and I don’t envy the Americans in this respect – is to look for partners there. What the Kurds like to hear, the Sunnis, or the Shiites might not like, and vice versa. This is already the first big problem. In a different way there is a similar situation in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the fighting is going on for over 180 years; fighting has been almost a way of life for the past 8-10 generations. Before children in Afghanistan learn to read and write, they learn how to use a Kalashnikov. The question in these areas is: How to find an equilibrium? And how to live in a kind of peaceful coexistence?

Then take the 9/11 events. America never experienced this kind of terror attack, and from that point of view Washington’s reaction is justifiable. But the question is: Will that fight of terrorism gain many friends in the world? Putting so much emphasis on this fight against terrorism, while forgetting that there are so many other things that America can offer to the world, might not be the optimal policy. I think, there are many things which Americans can offer in respect to their history, their development , and their multicultural life. If you go to Manhattan, you can see how Chinese, Jews, Slavic people, etc. are living and working together. They are tolerant.

Why only in Manhattan?

The wealth, which the USA accumulated as a nation is tremendous. Just regard the miracles the US-industry did in the Second World War: When the war started, the Americans had 17 bombers of the type B17; within 3 years they filled the sky over Germany with planes –  nobody had expected that. Now the Chinese are trying to do similar things, and are flooding the world with ther products. I think, there are so many things, which we can do as an alternative to fighting. The question is: How to reach that goal? How to have some kind of renaissance? Europe went through terrible wars. Yesterday in our discussion you mentioned the Thirty Years War, which ended with the Westphalian Peace agreement. If you look into the Thirty Years War – after thirty years of terrible bloodshed, the various countries ended where they had started, but one half, or at least one third of the population was killed either in battles, or by misery, or by diseases. That is a terrible example how things may end up, and this example illustrates that war is not, and never has been the desired instrument for solving those kind of problems.

Solon: This brings us to a question linked to the history of your country. We recently visited an exhibition in Bratislava which – based on archive material – illustrates the circumstances of the Heydrich assassination in Prague 1942. The original exhibition was conceptualised in Prague. What lesson can young people draw from this event, and the heroic acts of resistance generally?

Vaško: These events in Prague have probably more relevance for people here, because it did happen here in this city, even if the place, the crossing of the street, where the “attentat” occurred, does not exist any more. Nevertheless, that was a very important historical event. But there are many events of this kind in history. The farther we are away in time from the Attentat, the more objectively we can assess the reasons and consequences of it. It was done by Czechoslovakian citizens, trained in England, and it was done with the approval of then President Beneš, because Czechoslovakia was in war with Germany. There can be an argument, of course, whether you would accept the exile government, which was in London, or the puppet government, which was in power in the “Protectorate [of Bohemia and Moravia”] at that time. But legally this was an act of war, and from this standpoint – I am not a lawyer – you can find a legal justification for such an act. The response was certainly not adequate. It was a revenge on Lidice and Ležáky, where, incidentally, the people had nothing to do with the act. I have a friend, who was in jail in Pankrác at that time in war. He shared his cell with a locksmith, who had repaired a bicycle two years before; this very bicycle was used by one of the paratroopers during the Attentat. How the Germans found out about it, I don’t know, but this locksmith was sentenced to death, and in one morning at five o’clock, he embraced my friend, was taken out and was shot in the backyard of the prison – because two years before he had repaired this bicycle!

This is only one side in such a military situation, but it very much increased the importance of the position of Czechoslovakia. Who else in the world made such an Attentat on the number two, or three in the Third Reich? After that, the government of President Beneš got a certain credit, because the paratroopers proved that they were contributing to the fight against Nazi Germany. Also, in judging this act, one has to take into account the many strategies for liquidating the Czech Nation, with Heydrich being one of the authors. Today, we can situate this event in its historical relations and consequences much better than immediately after the war, when many things were covered by ideologies in one way or the other.

It is true that only now some facts are coming to the fore, how things really were during the so called “Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren”. Czechoslovakia, being an active fighter against Nazi Germany, was much less bombarded than Germany itself. This was one reason, why many production sites were shifted to Czechoslovakia. The military production in Prague produced the planes Focke-Wulf 189, the “Fieseler Storch” in Chocen, and even the jet fighter Messerschmidt 262 was assembled here; also some parts of the rocket V2, and many of the electronic tubes were produced here. This went on even after the war: The first TV set produced in Czechoslovakia, called Tesla 2000, functioned with high power tubes from the war production. For many years the LS 50 – the Luftwaffe Senderröhre 50 W –, which we had produced here during the war, was used for this purpose, up to the mid-fifties.

Solon: Our last questions deals with education. Presently there is a debate, not only in Poland, Germany etc. that because of the standardisation in Europe – we call it the “Bologna process” – , the education level is downgraded very much. But in order to develop more powerful innovative young minds, we have to have a much more intensive debate between natural sciences and humanities. With the background of the history of your country in mind: What scientific personalities from the past should be studied and serve as areference point for a scientific renaissance?

Vaško: This question pertains to the more general issue of moral values, the way of life, family life, and many other things which are somehow “derailed”. Classical cultures have been traditionally looking into the future, helping to master it. Take Michelangelo’s David sculpture, which was created at the time of the Renaissance. David expresses that not only God is beautiful, but man is also beautiful, and we need something similar now. Not only money, at present a functional equivalent of God for many people, is beautiful, but also people are. By the way, are not Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett, the two richest persons on the globe, by donating tens of billions for charity, listening to such a call?

Modern culture, at least the major part of it, is not looking into the future, but tries to induce us to forget the present; we are killing the time, instead of using it for us. Millions of people sit in stupid sitcoms – and what do they learn from it? They even forget to read and write, and all this is like junk food that gives you very little nourishment. So this kind of culture gives you no idea, it only forces on you a passive way of thinking. The Americans discovered it first, and they started to call it “functionally illiterate”. Those people are not totally illiterate, but when they read something they cannot remember it properly. Again, there are other scientists, who studied this and could be much more specific and more precise than me, as a layman. I spoke to people from Italy, from the US, and other countries, and they say that they have the same problem. You have fourth or fifth grade children, who are reading and they need to follow with their fingers the line they are reading. They are not accustomed to read –   this is a real problem. Either we will foster real learning, and even more of it, for the future, or we will have problems to communicate with children form other countries on an equal basis; especially with children from some countries of the “Third World”, who are very busy studying and learning. When I was giving lectures at our university, I had students from Latin America, the Middle East, Vietnam, Korea etc., and it was quite obvious that our students were accustomed to a certain comfort. Of course they deserve it, but I saw a Vietnamese student sitting on stony stairs, who was studying under conditions, which are unacceptable to one of our students. So I think, Europe will have to think twice, whether we should not sit on those stony stairs, take some books, and decide to learn – otherwise the others, who are diligently learning at present, will teach us to learn.

As far as personalities relevant to education are concerned, being in the Czech Republic, we should draw on such a personality like Jan Amos Komenský, better known as Comenius (1592-1670). He was a Czech exile, and a pedagogic giant, who had studied in several European cities, Herborn and Heidelberg among them. Comenius was asked to be the first President of Harvard University. One of his works, Via Lucis (The Path of Light), written in 1642, but published for the first time in 1668 (in England), describes how light should “crowed out” darkness; of course, by light he meant knowledge and wisdom. It is amazing, how relevant that work is even now. Therefore, in Europe an educational program is named “Comenius”. Germany has also its giants in education. So Europe has rich foundations in this discipline. But that would be another story, for another time.

Solon: Prof. Vaško, thank you very much.

Excerpts from this year’s adress of Dr. Vaško to the participants of the Young Students Summer Program (YSSP 2OO7) in Laxenburg, Austria

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Friends,

I feel honoured and privileged being invited to speak to this year’s YSSP participants. This year is the 30th anniversary of this successful project. What an occasion to renew many old and pleasant memories! For my IIASA cohort of “75 plus” years old, there are not many pleasantries of this calibre. I would like to join Professor Hordijk and Dr. Mahendra Shah in welcoming you to IIASA here in Laxenburg, Austria. If you, in addition to your scientific interests, are looking for a friendly country and a beautiful countryside, as well as for good food and wine, you are in the right place.

Every year, this is an occasion for me to review memories, now 35 years old, as this year, on October 4th, IIASA will be that old. That was the day in1972 when IIASA was officially created in London: after many years of preparations, and as a result of American bridge building efforts. And I had the pleasure and honour to be there, representing the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Now there is neither Czechoslovak, nor Socialist, but there is still, as you can see, IIASA, which just proves, how robust and resilient were the founding fathers’ ideas of co-operation and mutual benefit, IIASA’s origin was based on. Is there a lesson to be learned from all of this? One lesson is, as you will see later, that grey is the theory, and green is the tree of life.

(.....)

It took more than 5 years from the [June 1967] meeting of  Mr. Johnson and Mr. Kosygin [in Glassboro, New Jersey], until the idea was ripe enough, and the Institute could be founded.

(.....)

After the founding, the activities of the Institute shifted to Austria. In building up the Institute, the Austrian Government, especially Premier B. Kreisky and Foreign minister Kirchschläger, who later became President of Austria, helped tremendously. IIASA was also supported by the Austrian community at large, including such fascinating personalities as the late Cardinal König, who visited us many times.

(.....)

IIASA is an institute, which is unique in its conception, history and achievements. This uniqueness is a precious resource, but it is very difficult to capitalise on it. Speaking at IIASA, I would not dare to say that to select the right problem fitting the endowments of the Institute is as difficult as to devise a way to solve it. IIASA has many drawbacks (small size, small resources, etc.) in comparison to standard national institutions, or universities.

Its advantage lies in its diversity. One of the first discoveries of IIASA was that American and Russian physicists understand each other better, than American physicists and American sociologists, or Russian physicists and Russian environmentalists. That seems to indicate that the barriers between disciplines may be larger then the barriers between scientists of different nations.

Less than half of IIASA’s life was spent in the environment of the Cold War. There are many experiences from that time, which might, in spite of many changes, carry some messages today, not the least methodological ones. If you permit me, I would like to share with you some of my experiences for illustration, which have not yet been told in such a detail. Before I came to IIASA, the bulk of my experience was in engineering, but I also had to handle economic problems. I knew that in the former socialist countries the economy was dysfunctional and not able to accommodate enough new knowledge, mainly because of a lot of dogmatic thinking and a strong aversion to change. At that time, in the early 1980ies, it became fashionable in economic theory to study the socalled “long wave phenomenon” in the economy. It was refused by some and ridiculed by others, but at that time the paradigmatic changes were being felt in the world economy, and there was no easy explanation at hand.

“Long waves” have never been a part of the mainstream economic theory. As you know, it was Schumpeter, an American economist of Austrian origin (and born in what is now the Czech Republic), who labelled these events by the name of a Russian economist, D.N. Kondratyev, who perished [in 1938] in a Soviet prison. I had got the idea that the “long wave phenomenon” could be a vehicle to smuggle new ideas into the socialist countries, where the ideas of Kondratyev were strictly taboo. With the help of brilliant IIASA scientists like Prof. G. Bruckman from Vienna, Dr. C. Marchetti, and Dr. J. Bianchi from Florence, we managed to organise a conference on this topic in Siena and Florence in 1983, with the support of an Italian bank named “Monte dei Paschi di Siena”. The bank offered us its fantastic premises from the 15th century in Siena – it simply was a dream. I tried to get also Soviet scientists to attend the conference, using all the help I could assemble, but until the very  last moment I was not sure, whether somebody would come. Finally, two Soviet scientists arrived; one of them was Prof. S. Menshikov, who happened to be an advisor to Mr. Ponomaryov, the most dogmatic member of the Soviet Politburo at that time, the other was Dr. Entov.

At the conference, Mr. Menshikov learned in detail from the French participants that the theory of long waves was the very center of the economic policy of the French Communist Party. When he came home and reported to the members of the Politburo, he argued that if they keep the long wave idea taboo, they may not be able to understand their French comrades, and – interestingly – as a result, the long wave issue was “de-tabooized”. Few months later, when Prof. Yakovetz reported in his research paper in the USSR on our meeting in Siena, I could see for the first time IIASA’s name in a Russian book in Cyrillic letters. I followed the idea of the long waves intensively, and wanted to bring it back to the Soviet Union. To make the long story short: We succeeded to organise a conference on this topic in Novosibirsk in March 1988. Not to irritate dogmatic economists, we could not use the words long waves, but rather a proxy – “regularities of economic development”. This is an example, how IIASA managed to ”tunnel” new useful ideas through ideological barriers. The iron curtain does not exist any more, but there are many barriers left between people, nations, religions, etc. These barriers hamper the search for the solution of many pressing problems, therefore there is still a need for IIASA’s ability to tunnel useful ideas through various barriers of whatever character.
(.....)