Will Clinton-Gore Prevent the ‘Millennium Bug’?

At an international conference today entitled "Protecting the Force" sponsored by ComDef ’98, the director of the William J. Casey Institute’s parent organization, the Center for Security Policy, delivered a keynote address about the threat posed by the so-called "Millennium Bug." Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. used the occasion to declare that, with just 641 days to the Year 2000, "a Manhattan Project-style, emergency national program" is required to address the dire implications of this software and hardware problem poses for U.S. security, economic and public safety interests.

Interestingly, according to the 29 March edition of the Sunday Times of London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was expected to make a similar point in a speech to be delivered today before representatives of small and medium businesses in the U.K. Under a headline "Blair Warns of Economic Chaos Unless Millennium Bug is Cured," the Sunday Times reported that Mr. Blair will say:

"There are few, if any, areas of modern life which are not touched by information technology. We need to ensure essential parts of the national infrastructure are ready to cope. If we do not, the economy could slow as many companies will divert resources to cope with computer failures. So we need to act on the problem now. If we do, we will avert major problems and keep our reputation as a safe country to invest in."

In his remarks (excerpts of which are attached), Mr. Gaffney warned that, "Scarcely any business, community or even individual citizen will remain unaffected — some in minor ways, others in potentially catastrophic ones — if the Year 2000 (also known as Y2K) problem is not universally corrected." He noted that experts in the field are increasingly convinced that, as things stand now, there is no chance such a universal solution will be in place by 1 January 2000.(1)

In light of the possibility that critical defense systems, power grids, financial flows and critical functions of government could be at least temporarily disrupted (among many other manifestations of the Y2K problem), Mr. Gaffney urged President Clinton and Vice President Gore to mount a concerted national effort with, at a minimum, one near-term objective: "To validate and bring to bear automated techniques for addressing in the most cost-effective and least time-consuming manner possible the most daunting challenge, [namely] making the Nation’s civilian (government and private sector) and miltary mainframe computers Year 2000-compliant."

Toward this end, Mr. Gaffney made reference to an offer by Dr. Morris Davis, the inventor of Transition Software, a 2nd generation automated Y2K compliance program, to convert 100,000 lines of software code on a government mainframe at no cost to the taxpayer as a stimulus to the prompt evaluation and early embrace of this and/or other approaches. Such a competition could prove an important catalyst to — and vehicle for — a nation-wide effort to prevent this computer-dependent society from driving off the "Bridge to the 21st Century."

1. See the Casey Institute’s Perspective entitled Bridge to Nowhere: Inattention to the ‘Millennium Bug’ Threatens the Nation’s Security, Economy in the 21st Century (No. 98-C 24, 6 February 1998).