The Minerva Consortium--named for the Roman goddess of wisdom--was introduced by Robert M. Gates, secretary of defense, in a speech before the Association of American Universities in April. Quoting the late historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who said after Sputnik's launch, in 1957, that the United States "must return to the acceptance of eggheads and ideas if it is to meet the Russian challenge," Gates declared his interest in establishing a project that would finance social-science research relevant to national security. Two months later, the Department of Defense has officially begun the new program, inviting universities to apply for grants to study topics like the Chinese military, cultural change in the Islamic world, terrorist ideologies, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein--research that will be based, according to a Pentagon announcement, on the "vast number of documents and other media" that "came into the possession" of the American military during the war in Iraq. This effort to foster cooperation between the Pentagon and academe has elicited reactions ranging from excitement to deep skepticism to outright opposition.