This kind of authority for coordination of the whole Government structure and for balancing our whole scientific and technological enterprise, cannot be the function of an agency but must be a function of the White House. This was the reason that the Office of Science and Technology was created-to work with the Science Foundation, with the Defense Department, with NASA, with AEC, with the other agencies to try to get a picture of the total Federal science and technology operations, to assist the agencies in identifying gaps in their programs and to assist the President in finding gaps in the total program.

I believe that this question of coordination is a White House level job and not a departmental job.

Mr. DADDARIO. Well, Dr. DuBridge, how does OST fit into this? If we were to develop a mechanism through which the National Science Foundation would be placed in this independent position through some new structure or other, what would we have to do to build up OST which appears to me to be presently understaffed and therefore unable to perform this function as adequately as it ought to?

Would the National Science Foundation be used to help you do this, would it be given some authority in this area, or could it be? Or would it just necessarily serve you in a staff way as it does now? Dr. DUBRIDGE. Well, the OST for many years has been attempting to do this coordinating function. It does it, of course, through its two important arms. There is the President's Science Advisory Committee, on the one hand, drawn from the university and industrial community, and all its panels and consultants who see the science and technology picture throughout the country and who can identify areas in which there are problems and gaps and inadequacies.

The President's Science Advisory Committee has a variety of panels in the field of defense technology, space technology, environmental science, urban problems, academic science, and so on. These various panels work very hard in trying to find out what the scientific and technological picture of the country is in these respective areas, and then bring to the attention of the cognizant agencies their views on the gaps or inadequacies or lack of coordination. A report from a panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee, submitted to NASA or DOD or AEC, has proved to be a fairly influential document in helping those agencies.

The OST has been very influential in helping the Science Foundation; and the Science Foundation has been enormously helpful to OST. Since we have common interests and objectives, OST can turn to NSF and say, look, we don't have the facilities or staff to undertake these studies, can't you provide the information, the background and so on?

The NSF has carried on extensive statistical studies, informationgathering studies and so on, at the request of OST to assist the Science Advisory Committee and OST staff in getting a view of science in the country.

The other important arm of OST is the Federal Council on Science and Technology. There are those who say that in times past it hasn't been as effective as it could. We are trying earnestly to make it more effective. The Federal Council, as you know, consists of the top scien

tists or research officers in each agency; the Assistant Secretary for Research and Development in each of the Departments, or the heads of such agencies as AEC and NASA. Here at this level, the agencies concerned with science get together and compare notes; they find out by discussions among themselves where they think the troubles and problems lie. The Federal Council in turn has a whole series of committees that deal with these areas of environment and urban affairs, academic science, material science and so on. The Federal Council is advisory and doesn't have power as a committee, but when the Federal Council issues a general report, this in a sense has the authority of the White House. Many of the reports of the Federal Council suggesting remedies for inadequacies in our science and technology picture have had a very great influence in bringing attention to these problems and in encouraging agencies to take further action or revise their activities or policies.

So that while OST has a small staff-and, incidentally, we are seeking funds to increase the staff-it does have an important correlating function and can get the support of the staffs of other agencies through the Federal Council. It has the immediate cooperation of the staff of the Science Foundation.

I grant you that I am not an empire builder but I do think the OST does need further strengthening. It will have to be further strengthened now in view of its responsibilities in connection with the Environmental Quality Council. I think OST has the potentiality of improving the science picture.

Furthermore, OST does represent the White House. In representing the case for the various science activities to the Congress, I think we possibly can bring a little influence on congressional committees to see the total picture. I am trying to work with the White House congressional liaison officers to see how more effectively we can get the proper information to the congressional committees as to the total science and technology needs of the country and how the needs of the various departments fit into this picture.

We also work closely with the Bureau of the Budget in looking at the whole science and technology budget of the Nation. We are now conducting a very intense study in collaboration with BOB to see where our total science and technology budget is adequate or inadequate.

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. DuBridge, while we are on the subject, I would like to ask one further question and then we can go on to the balance of your report.

OST is one of the coordinating agencies in the White House. You have the National Aeronautics and Space Council which was created by the Space Act. The Vice President is the Chairman. You have the National Marine Council, which was established in 1966, also with the Vice President as Chairman. And the Federal Council for Science and Technology with 11 standing committees.

Now, beyond the idea of strengthening the staff of OST, should we eliminate gaps and overlays which exist in these coordinating agencies and bring them all together, or do they serve a better function by being set up in a multiagency way?

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Well, this is a rather puzzling question. We are attempting to establish a closer relation between OST and the staff

of the Marine Council under the Vice President and the staff of the Space Council, also under the Vice President. We have very good relations with the Marine Council staff. We are trying to work closely with them on marine problems, and they in a sense supplement the OST work by giving their attention to the problems in those particular areas. As you have probably seen, the Vice President has recently named Colonel Anders, one of the Christmas astronauts who flew with Frank Borman, as the Executive Director of the staff of the Space Council. We have been in close touch with Colonel Anders and he is working to strengthen his staff there. We believe that he wants to and we want to develop a staff relation which will tie the Space Council staff closely with the OST staff. So I think if it is properly arranged one can say that the staffs of these two councils supplement the work of OST and help us in those particular areas.

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DADDARIO. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman MILLER. Doctor, you described these interagency coordinating councils for different facets of science. How do you find that they have worked in the past? Have you studied their operations? Do you think that they have been successful?

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Well, I realize that there are many difficulties in socalled interagency committees. My experience is obviously somewhat limited. But there are different kinds-for example, the President's new Council on Environmental Quality, and the President's Council on Urban Affairs, of which the President is the Chairman. I assure you he sits in the chair and take an active part in these meetings. These I believe are quite effective Cabinet-level agencies for bringing together the problems and policies of the Government in their respective fields. At the table where these meetings occur, with the President's presence in the chair, specific directives can be given to individual Cabinet members or to groups of them to coordinate or carry out or initiate or change the work in their field.

So I do not put the Presidentially chaired Cabinet-level councils in the same category as I do the many sub-Cabinet and lower level interagency committees.

Chairman MILLER. Well, I would certainly agree with you; in anything that the President personally interests himself, other members of his Cabinet or his staff are going to take a great interest. Dr. DUBRIDGE. Yes.

Chairman MILLER. But isn't it asking the President to cut his time on things pretty thin when he has to get down and do this sort of thing on many of the great important problems before him? Now, my experience has been that you don't get to the President very often.

I had experience in one of these interagency things. One trouble was that even the Cabinet members who were on it didn't have time to give to it, so they would send one of their Assistant Secretaries, and not always the same person. The results weren't anything. You would arrive at a decision and then you would have to go back to the principals to get confirmation. Maybe one or two Secretaries were readily approachable, but it would be quite some time in trying to get to another one. By the time you got the decision, the thing was pretty well gone. The time had elapsed and it was a transient sort

of thing. I have never had great confidence in interagency committees directing some of this work since that time. Of course, as I say, this

was

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Was this a Presidentially chaired commission that you are talking about?

Chairman MILLER. No. None of them—as far as I know, the first ones that are Presidentially chaired are taking place in this administration.

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Yes. You see, the President, President Nixon, has selected those areas where he does wish to spend time and take a personal interest. And aside from the Cabinet itself, he has selected the National Security Council, urban and environmental affairs, and economic and tax affairs for special Cabinet-level committees which he chairs. And he has been at every meeting except one of the Urban Affairs Council. There has been only one meeting of the Environmental Quality Council so far, a 2-hour meeting at which he took vigorous leadership and he was there the full time. He has invited the Environmental Council to have its next meeting at the summer White House at San Clemente, Calif., in August, and we are planning the agenda for that meeting.

The President must select those areas which he is going to take an interest in, and the ones I mentioned are the ones that he has selected. For the other councils like the Space Council and Marine Council, chaired by the Vice President, this depends a great deal upon the interest of the Vice President, of course. Mr. Agnew has taken a keen interest in marine affairs and in space affairs, and he has taken a keen interest in making sure he has good staff for these two councils. They do not have to meet very often, but his interest in getting a good staff is very much there and I think he has restimulated these two committees. So that is another kind of interagency arrangement.

The Federal Council for Science and Technology is still a third type of interagency committee. This is chaired by the Director of the Office of Science and Technology, and it includes purposely the sub-Cabinet officers who are the principal officers in the science and technology field.

My experience with that has been somewhat limited, obviously, but so far the chief science officers, the identified members of the Council, have been at the meetings. We have had some good and vigorous discussions and we have revamped our committee structure, and so it indicates to me that this committee functions and is lively and there are important enough issues that come before it so that the top people involved will be there and will feel it worthwhile and will feel something is being done.

Now, an interagency committee cannot be a management committee. It can't manage a specific enterprise but it can coordinate, it can see to it that there is adequate information. It can identify problems and inadequacies and gaps and difficulties. It can consider broad problems that go beyond the purview of a single agency. And I don't see with our complex Government structure any other way of having some kind of cooperation and coordination among the departments except by getting the departments together through assembling in interagency committees of one form or another the key people in the various

departments that are concerned, and just getting them to talk to each other and getting them to sit down in the council or in the subcommittee to identify and study and bring out information on the areas. Many important reports and studies have been undertaken and I hope more will be undertaken by the Federal Council.

Chairman MILLER. Do you envision, Doctor, that although these are not management agencies and shouldn't be management agencies because they would be interfering then with the work of the Government agencies involved, that they do need vigorous executives who can keep the pressure on the several agencies? Because I have seen in my own experience where one agency might surrender a little of its authority and it would be very reluctant to thwart these things. The only one I have known any great success in was the prerunner of the Marine Council. I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Oceanography. We wouldn't have gotten so very far, but Dr. Wakelin took a great interest in the thing and went out of his way to nudge other agencies into line. I wonder if you envision this is going to have to be necessary in this case.

Dr. DU BRIDGE. I only mention the Federal Council as one arm of the Office of Science and Technology. The Federal Council is staffed by the Office of Science and Technology.

OST staff frequently serve as chairmen of the committees of the Federal Council. The Director of OST serves as the chairman of the Council.

For every committee of the Federal Council there is a staff member of OST designated to serve as its chairman, chief executive officer, or member. It is the OST's job to make the committees work. But again the Federal Council is only one arm of my office. The President's Science Advisory Committee and its panels constitutes another arm. The OST staff itself constitutes the central staff for this.

Now, it is not assumed that OST can do everything I am only saying that when one comes to any kind of supervision, coordination, attempt to fill in the gaps of the many existing Federal agencies interested in science and technology, OST is the only agency there is that can have that kind of a general cognizance over the whole Government effort. It must draw on staff and other support from many agencies. But you cannot give this kind of a function to any single agency which competes with all other agencies of Government for funds and authority and prestige and so on.

Chairman MILLER. If we could continue with the report, we may have some time after you finish it.

Dr. DU BRIDGE. All right; I am almost through, Mr. Chairman.

My recommendation to leave the National Science Foundation separate from any operating agency leads me to raise the question as to whether a new operating agency, possibly called the Institutes for Applied Science, not including the Science Foundation, should be created to absorb a number of existing applied science operations. For example, some of the laboratories of the Atomic Energy Commission, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the labs of the National Bureau of Standards, the labs of the Environmental Science Services Administration, and certain others have been mentioned as possibly operations which might be gathered together in what we might call a new Institute of Applied Science.