The IPY-3: The International Geophysical Year (1957–1958)

Abstract

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957–1958 was an extraordinary achievement in the midst of the Cold War. Thousands of scientists from 65 countries were engaged in international collaboration for the purpose of expanding knowledge about the earth and outer space.1 The United States and the Soviet Union, despite crises in Berlin, Hungary and Korea alongside mounting anxiety about atomic weapons testing, were nonetheless willing and able to contribute to a programme of research, which encapsulated inter alia the remote Antarctic continent.2 While science and its associated practices of investigation and knowledge creation unquestionably enabled international co-operation, it would be wrong to conclude that the IGY was untouched by the prevailing Cold War zeitgeist. The US military and national security institutions such as the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency were deeply interested and involved in providing resources, influencing research programmes and encouraging political leaders like President Eisenhower to conceive of scientific endeavour in terms of national prestige and geopolitical advantage.3 The Antarctic and of course the Arctic were major recipients of the apparent largesse of the military–industrial–academic complex.4