ence for 1958, "the year brought an impressive array of organizational innovations for the management of government programs in science and technology and for the provision of scientific advice at policy-making levels" (14).

EXECUTIVE OPPOSITION

The spokesmen for science at the Presidential level made plain their distaste for a Department of Science and Technology. Killian, speaking at the AAAS meeting as the President's Assistant for Science and Technology, took pains to quote from Don K. Price's 1954 study: "In the organization of the Government for the support of science we do not need to put all of science into a single agency; on the contrary, we need to see that it is infused into the program of every department and every bureau" (15). The President's Science Advisory Committee in its new eminence regarded a Federal Council for Science and Technology as the instrument for achieving coordination and cooperation among government science agencies. A single department, in PSAC's collective view, would not be able satisfactorily to administer either the mission-oriented scientific and technical functions of existing departments or the "unique" specialized programs of AEC, NASA, and NSF. This seemed to be the prevailing sentiment among scientists, though there were notable exceptions. Lloyd V. Berkner would settle for a department excluding the three aforementioned independent agencies; Wallace R. Brode would combine them with a host of others, including the National Institutes of Health, in a Department of Science and Technology (16). Perhaps the strongest argument from a practical standpoint against immediate legislative action-that the President had not recommended a new department— was made by Representative John W. McCormack as chairman of the House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration. He wrote to Senator Humphrey in 1958 (17):

"While I believe there should be a Department of Science, I feel that until whoever is President either recommends the establishment of such a Department, or would not object to such a Department being established, it would be unwise to force such a Department upon them. I want you to know that I am strongly in favor of a Department of Science being established and, in my opinion, it is only a matter of time that one will be established."

In March 1959 in a review of the state of science affairs, the Humphrey subcommittee observed morosely (17, p. 19): ". there have been certain administrative actions taken which tend to evade the question as to whether a Department of Science and Technology is necessary or desirable, and there are a number of indications from the scientific community that there will be opposition to such a proposal, at least until the need therefor has been more clearly established."

The subcommittee held hearings in April 1959 on S. 676 and S. 586 (Senator Kefauver's bill) to establish a Department of Science. Senator Humphrey, aware of the opposition, hedged a bit. His opening statement said that the proposed Department of Science and Technology was to be considered one possible solution to the problems of centralization and coordination of federal science programs and operations, but not a final conclusion of the committee. The witnesses before the subcommittee were divided. Lewis L. Strauss, as Secretary of Commerce, opposed departmental status for science. Brode, as scientific adviser to the State Department and chairman of the AAAS, strongly favored it. Others pressed for a stronger advisory apparatus at the Presidential level or a study to determine the need for a department and what agencies should be included (18). It was easier to agree on a study commission which, to the advocates of a department, appeared better than nothing, to the dubious, a means of seeking more information, and to the opponents, a device for deflecting action on a controversial subject.

At the conclusion of the April 1959 hearings, the staff of the Senate Committee on Government Operations drafted a bill proposing the establishment of a Commission on a Department of Science and Technology. This was introduced in the Senate on 5 May 1959 as S. 1851, under the joint sponsorship of Senators Humphrey, Capehart, Mundt, Gruening, Muskie, Yarborough, and Keating. In a 1-day hearing (28 May) on S. 1851, S. 676, and S. 586, the subcommittee heard no comforting words from the Eisenhower Administration. Alan S. Waterman, whose NSF budget had been increased from $50 million to $136 million after Sputnik, opposed both a Department of Science and Technology and a commission to study the matter. The Bureau of Budget representative, the official spokesman on all matters dealing with reorganization, did likewise, doubting that “the 33-257-69-29

scientific members of the Commission would necessarily be best able to judge the optimum form of Government organization in this field." Leonard Carmichael, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, endorsed the study commission but suggested that, if it were established, the membership nominations be made by the National Academy of Sciences (19).

Notwithstanding the administration's opposition, Senator Humphrey for the Committee on Government Operations reported S. 1851 favorably on 18 June 1959 (19). A bipartisan commission was needed, the report said, so that "the Congress and the President may have the benefit of the recommendations of qualified experts in the fields of science, engineering, and technology" as the basis for legislation to improve federal science programs and operations. The committee justified a study commission mainly on the ground that the Congress needed more and better information. As a case in point, Killian had politely declined an earlier invitation to appear before the committee because it might conflict with his advisory role in the White House. Science policy coordination or control at that level, in the committee's belief, would not assure an ample flow of scientific and factual data to the Congress. The Department of Science and Technology, or at least a commission to study its feasibility, was the committee's proposed solution. The Senate did not take up the bill. A companion House bill (H.R. 8325) introduced on 22 July 1959 by Representative Brooks of Louisiana, chairman of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, was referred to the Committee on Government Operations but received no action.

THE OST ALTERNATIVE

Early in 1960 Senator Humphrey put the case for a department or a commission before the American Academy of Political and Social Science (20). But those who favored strengthening the Presidential advisory apparatus rather than a new department for science found a champion in another subcommittee of the same Senate committee-that on National Policy Machinery chaired by Senator Henry M. Jackson. The Jackson subcommittee held hearings in April 1960 on the role of science and technology in foreign and national defense policy. A staff report of 14 June 1961 entitled "Science Organization and the President's Office" rejected the Department of Science idea on the by now familiar ground that the diverse scientific activities of the federal government could not be conveniently extracted to form a new department. It approved such views expressed before the subcommittee by James Fisk, president of Bell Telephone Laboratories, and then observed (21):

"Eight departments and agencies support major technical programs and all parts of the Government use science in varying degrees to help meet the agency objective. This diffusion of science and technology throughout the Government is not a sign of untidy administrative housekeeping. Rather it reflects the very nature of science itself. Organizationally, science is not a definable jurisdiction. Like economics, it is a tool. It is an instrument for accomplishing things having nothing to do with science."

The staff report emphasized the President's responsibility for science policy direction and accordingly recommended the strengthening of his advisory support by the creation of an Office of Science and Technology. It pointed out that the President could take this step through submission of a reorganization plan rather than through the conventional legislative route. The Kennedy administration was asked to submit to the Congress by January 1962 "its considered findings and recommendations for action." On 29 March Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1962 creating the OST was submitted, to take effect within 60 days if the Congress did not disapprove (22).

Before the plan was formally sent to the 87th Congress, S. 2771 was introduced on 31 January 1962, jointly sponsored by Senators McClellan, Humphrey, Mundt, Cotton, and Yarborough. S. 2771 was similar to S. 1851 of the 86th Congress, which had been reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Government Operations. The revised bill contained a broad declaration of congressional policy and objectives in science and placed more emphasis on the need for improvement in federal programs for processing the retrieval of scientific information. It also provided that the 12-member commission be strengthened by a scientific advisory panel with prescribed qualifications which included "ability to communicate not only to professional scientists but to laymen." Hearings were held on 10 May and 24 July 1962. Some moral support was provided by Carl F. Stover's report of March 1962 on "The Government of Science" to the Center for the Study of

Democratic Institutions. A Department of Science and Technology, the Stover report said, would establish for science a major center of policy studies, higher stature, and a more favorable environment for scientific work. Combining all government science functions made no sense, but a single department for those functions less mission-oriented was "a sound and desirable next step in the evolution of Government action with respect to science" (23).

The committee now had to take judicial notice of the alternative scheme recommended by the Jackson subcommittee and seized upon by the Kennedy Administration as a sufficient response to the demands for improved science organization. Administration spokesmen pointed to OST as a needed mechanism for coordinating science policies and advising the President, whatever the organization of science functions for the government as a whole. Waterman, who was assessing NSF's truncated policy role in the wake of the OST plan, again opposed a commission, as did Elmer B. Staats, deputy director of the Budget Bureau, where all reorganization plans are put together. Their plea was that OST, being new, should have a chance to work. Furthermore, by the "statutory underpinning" of a reorganization plan, OST would give the Congress the kind of access to scientific information sought by the sponsors of S. 2771. This was the persuasive point for congressional acceptance of the plan (24).

Jerome B. Wiesner, who would serve the Kennedy Administration in the quadruple capacity of OST director, President's science adviser, chairman of the President's Science Advisory Committee, and chairman of the Federal Council for Science and Technology, made his first appearance before Congress as OST director when he testified on 31 July 1962 at hearings of the Holifield subcommittee (House Committee on Government Operations). In amplifying his views on science organization, Wiesner gave conditional endorsement to a Department of Science. To "set up a radically new organization" encompassing all the scientific activities of the federal government he considered unworkable. If a "less comprehensive Department of Science were created," including the Atomic Energy Commission, National Science Foundation, National Bureau of Standards, and certain other agencies, he believed the operations of these agencies might be improved. At the same time, the need would remain to coordinate and integrate the activities of these agencies with the related scientific and technical programs of the mission-oriented agencies. "In other words, the OST is neither a substitute for nor in competition with a Federal Department of Science” (25).

The Senate Committee on Government Operations, not daunted by the new presence of OST, reported favorably (with some technical revisions) on S. 2771, proposing a Commission on Science and Technology (26). The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent on 8 August 1962 (27). In the House it was referred to the Committee on Science and Astronautics on 9 August, and there it died. The exercise was repeated in the 88th Congress. S. 816, sponsored by Senators McClellan, Humphrey, Mundt, Gruening, Javits, Cotton, and Yarborough, was introduced on 18 February 1963. Chairman McClellan, now the leading sponsor, emphasized that Wiesner, in his testimony before the Holifield subcommittee, maintained that OST and a Department of Science and Technology were not in conflict (28). The bill was approved by the Senate Committee on Government Operations and reported to the Senate on 4 March 1963 (29). It passed the Senate by unanimous consent on 8 March (30) and was referred to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, which also had a companion bill, H.R. 4346, introduced by Representative Teague of Texas (31). No action was taken on these bills in the House committee.

In place of a mixed commission, the reaction on the House side was to create several new subcommittees on science. Thus in August 1963, the House Committee on Science and Astronautics created a Subcommittee on Science, Research and Development, chaired by Representative Daddario of Connecticut. And the House of Representatives, a month later, created the Select Committee on Government Research, chaired by Representative Elliott of Alabama. The Select Committee took a dim view of departmental status for science, judging by its tenth and concluding report of 29 December 1964, which contained this statement (32): "The specters of overlap, gaps, conflict, and duplication among agency programs can best be met through adequate top-level coordination of agency programs. Consolidating research and development into one or a few separate agencies-such as an often suggested Department of Science and Technology-would separate such work from the purposes for which it is performed, the committee believes, with devastating effects both to the work and to the capacities of agencies to carry out their missions."

In the 89th Congress Chairman McClellan, joined by Senators Mundt, Ribicoff, Gruening, and Yarborough, reintroduced the commission bill (S. 1136) on 17 February 1965, and Representative Wolff sponsored the companion bill (H.R. 5609) in the House. By now a congressional interest in the proposal had waned. No hearings were held, and the Senate committee did not bother to report it out. Humphrey, no longer a Senator, presided over the Senate as Vice President and became immersed in intricacies of space and ocean programs as statutory chairman of technical councils in these areas. Occasionally, other voices renewed the call for a department. Ralph Lapp proposed a Department of Science in his 1965 book. The New Priesthood (33). J. Herbert Holloman, after 5 years as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Science and Technology, recommended to the Ribicoff subcommittee in 1968 that a Department of Science and Technology be a prime subject for study by a proposed Commission on Organization and Management of the Executive Branch (34). At the year's end, Donald F. Hornig, from the vantage point of "five years at the bench of U.S. science policy," spoke out before the AAAS in favor of a Department of Science as well as a strengthening of the President's science advisory setup (35).

As one traces the lines of argument for and against departmental status for science, it is apparent that they thread back to the controversy of the 1880's. The positive side, projected by the NAS committe report of 1884, is that science will benefit from the status and prestige which go with cabinet rank and large departmental resources. The negative side, well stated by Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler before the congressional commission in 1884, is that science is not a government mission in itself but an aspect of other and proper departmental missions; consequently science bureaus or functions should be placed or remain within the department to which they are "naturally related" (36). Contemporary formulations haven't improved much on these themes. Proponents of a separate department for science view its secretary as a protector and spokesman of science in government councils, while opponents see a bureaucratic monstrosity in which politics prevail over scientific objectivity. On both sides attitudes are hardened by conviction or softened by practical considerations. Doubtless many who are otherwise well-intentioned toward a new department fear that it would cut down opportunities for grants and contracts given by various uncoordinated government science agencies. Others who are moved more by a concern for economy in government than for prestige in science believe that departmental organization would eliminate duplication and insure closer coordination of costly government programs.

CASE FOR A DEPARTMENT

That it is impracticable to tear out research and development functions from department and agency settings and bring them all together in a new department goes without saying. But the case for a Department of Science and Technology cannot be that easily dismissed. To argue that science is a means and not an end, or that science (and technology) is not by itself a major purpose of government justifying departmental organization, narrows the issue unduly and overlooks some very practical problems. Agricultural research, let us quickly agree, is properly a part of the Department of Agriculture mission, but what about the large relatively self-contained or semiautonomous agencies with missions which fall almost completely in the domain of science and technology and which overshadow in size and importance some of the older departments? If AEC's mission is atomic energy development and NASA's is space exploration, it is merely tautological to distinguish these missions from science and technology in given fields. Then it becomes a pragmatic problem of government organization (and politics) to determine whether it is advantageous to bring together in a single department selected agencies and subagencies associated by shared purposes, related functions, or some other definding element of mutual involvement. Modern precepts of government organization and administration favor a rela tively few strong departments encompassing similar or related functions in place of a profusion of independent agencies. The quest here is more compelling than a desire for organizational symmetry or housekeeping tidiness. The President, as manager of the executive branch, does not have the time to deal with scores of agencies. To maintain a proper "span of control" he must strive to bring agencies within departmental confines and depend on the department heads to administer the manifold affairs of government (37).

The challenge is that government in all its diversity does not lend itself easily to departmentalizing by major vurpose or mission or any other organizing prin

ciple. Most organizational arrangements are less ambitious-expedient responses to urgent problems dictated more by politics than political science. Government takes on a patchwork appearance. From time to time attempts are made to sort out and rearrange agencies and functions in more orderly patterns, even to the extent of disestablishing or reforming old departments. Not every worthy government cause which seeks wider acceptance and ampler resources through separate departmental status can be accommodated. A multiplicity of departments would defeat the rationale for departmental organization. On the other hand, if a department embraces too many missions or disparate functions, it becomes unwieldly-a conglomerate or a holding company in which the secretary struggles constantly to keep in line strong-willed administrators of operating agencies.

In a dynamic, democratic society, governmental reorganization, despite the obstacles, signifies changing policy, a new approach-and reorganization on a departmental scale makes the greatest impact. Accordingly every administration can be expected to give special attention to such possibilities. Since World War II, each President has opted for a new department-Truman for DOD, Eisenhower for HEW, Kennedy for HUD, and Johnson for DOT (38). The Nixon Administration has established an advisory group on reorganization, whose recommendations are yet to be made (39). Characteristically, the post-World War II departments each represent a coalescence of established agencies and resources to subserve a broader policy or purpose of government. In several instances, the way was prepared by interim coordinating organizations. Thus, the DOD was preceded by a looser federation formally known as the Military Establishment, HEW by the Federal Security Agency, and HUD by the Housing and Home Finance Agency. The Department of Transportation, the latest departmental creation, did not go through a transitional form but established transportation agencies were a base upon which to build.

Science and technology, comprising large sectors of government activity with various organizational forms, have a similar potential for departmental organization. When great national problems arose, requiring positive and pointed government response, independent agencies were created-the AEC for the control of atomic energy after Hiroshima, the NSF to preserve the post-World War II momentum of research and development, and NASA after Sputnik. With the passing years, as missions are completed or redirected and as agencies mature, it is difficult to maintain the momentum and the excitement of the early days. New problems emerge, priorities are reassessed, talents are turned elsewhere. The atomic energy program is about 25 years old, the NSF has been in business 18 years, and the space agency, past its 10th birthday, will age rather quickly after a lunar landing. Reorganization generates its own excitement, infuses new energies, develops new missions.

CANDIDATES FOR INCLUSION

Thus AEC and NASA, independent technical agencies with multibillion-dollar yearly budgets, are prime candidates for transfer to a new department. Their interests increasingly will overlap as boosters and spacecraft come to depend more on nuclear technology. Both are sponsors of hardware development as well as basic research. Both are involved in intricate ways with Department of Defense programs. Both have large laboratory complexes and diversified resources for research and development. Both are faced with probable cutbacks and the need to reassess missions for the long term. The reassessment, in NASA's case, is associated with the moon landing, which will climax a decade of technical effort directed largely to this single goal. New vistas of space exploration beckon, but in the welfare decade of the 1970's more earth-bound causes will exert a strong gravitational pull on funds.

As for the AEC, the growth of nuclear stockpiles to what many regard as overkill dimensions and the gradual shift to industry of responsibility for nuclear power development are less climactic. The safety and regulatory functions associated with nuclear power, which some foresee as AEC's major responsibility ahead, could well be transferred to the Federal Power Commission, possibly helping to rejuvenate an old-line agency, just as the Federal Communications Commission has had to grapple with the regulatory aspects of satellite communications. Nuclear ordnance development and fabrication possibly could be shifted to the Department of Defense (40). The Department of Science and Technology would have, one may conceive, a space service and an atomic service, perhaps less ambitious than at present but still performing vital scientific and technical