0.8 The golden age: 1957-67  (Page 7/10)

Significance of the presidential science advisory system

Because frequent changes in control of the White House and Congress bring just-as-frequent changes in national priorities, making it all but impossible to develop a consistent science policy, federal institutional arrangements are all-important in helping determine the most significant national issues and coordinating priorities on the president’s agenda. Before SAC/ODM, BoB had carried out these functions by default (and reluctantly) through the annual budget process. But SAC/ODM had little direct access to the president except during occasional crises, as when Eisenhower turned to it for advice on defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles. The creation of PSAC and the appointment of a full-time science advisor put the requisite institutional mechanism in place at the highest levels of government.

Science and international relations

Two public reports prepared by PSAC during the Kennedy Administration— Research and Development in the New Development Assistance Program and Science and Technology in the Department of State —demonstrate the president’s interest in, and PSAC’s growing awareness of, the international ramifications of U.S. science policy. International relations, to which the Vannevar Bush report had paid scant attention, had been increasing in importance for several years. The Bowman Committee Report (chaired by Isaiah Bowman, president of Johns Hopkins University), one of the four committee reports that Bush appended to Science—the Endless Frontier , had devoted only two out of one hundred twenty-two pages to International Scientific Cooperation. Vannevar Bush, Science—the Endless Frontier (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1945), 113-14. Its internationally-oriented recommendations, intended to contribute to science for the public good, were: that the U.S. government provide adequate support for international scientific expeditions, as was to happen in the 1956-57 International Geophysical Year, which brought a substantial temporary increase in the National Science Foundation budget; that the U.S. government should provide support for American attendance at international scientific conferences, primarily those organized under the auspices of the International Council of Scientific Unions; that fellowships be offered for American scientists to study abroad and a selected number of European scientists to study in the United States; and that the Department of State post scientists abroad to a selected number of American embassies.

A science counselors program along the lines suggested by the Bowman Committee report was implemented within two years. The State Department also appointed a scientific adviser, whom William T. Golden visited during his October 1950-April 1951 interviews commissioned by the Bureau of the Budget. William A. Blanpied, ed., Impact of the Early Cold War on the Formulation of U.S. Science Policy (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1995). Golden reported that this scientist felt isolated—a complaint that was to be voiced repeatedly by subsequent scientific advisers to the State Department.