alan kay's piece on arpa, influences and history. long and interesting reference list.

For example, it is no exageration to say that ARPA/PARC had "visions rather than goals" and "funded people, not projects". The vision was "interactive computing as a complementary intellectual partner for people pervasively networked world-wide". By not trying to derive specific goals from this at the funding side, ARPA/PARC was able to fund rather different and sometimes opposing points of view.

have to read: waldrop, m. mitchell, the dream machine: j.c.r.licklider and the revolution that made computing personal, viking, 2001