Curiosity is My Profession: A Scientific Manager

In the rooms of the five-star hotel in Munich, where the conference halls are still adorned with the rounded arches and bulky curtains familiar from German films of the early 1960s, with Spanish trellises breaking up the view, a swell of voices reveals a wealth of languages and lively, acute intelligence at work. There is no mental labour in the absence of pressure. The pressure here comes from the fact that in just a few hours, the lobbyists will have to impart new ideas into the cooperative minds of the decision makers in attendance, new in view of the situation, the change in all matters of US strategy that has come about with President Bush's new administration. This is the primary reason for the electrified buzz of conversation which fills the room all the way up to the chandeliers, fuelled by coffee.

On the median strip in front of the hotel: a small group of freezing people. They hold signs protesting the National Missile Defence (NMD) project and cautioning against a new arms race. One of the activists, Berthold G., has managed to make his way into the hotel; he is dressed as a waiter, and blends in with the others who are serving small cups of coffee to the security-conference delegates. A triumph over the security forces. Exploiting the fact that the hotel is so large that individual employees do not necessarily know one another. Berthold G. could set out flyers or start a critical dialogue with someone. But with whom? Starting such a conversation would blow his cover. Who among the thinkers here would listen to him, the critical intellectual?