I certainly haven't made up my mind firmly one way or the other, but I am absolutely sure that right away we need some additional Federal coordination, long-range planning, and centralization, so that some parts of the things that are used to justify a Department of Science I believe are needed pretty much here now.

Mr. WINN. Well, I agree with your thinking there. But again, being almost facetious about it, it is kind of like the Kansas farmer who was breathing beautiful air, clean air.

Dr. WALKER. Yes.

Mr. WINN. He doesn't really have a problem. He is not too worried about the big problem of New York or East St. Louis, any more than the inhabitant of New York or East St. Louis is very worried about the agricultural price problem.

How do we get everybody on the team, is my question.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DADDARIO. Well, Mr. Winn has asked some questions that are important and they probably underlie the concern of the committee going back to the time when we determined that the National Science Foundation needed to be restructured so that we could point out what it was doing in a better way than it had been able to do up to that time.

We would hope that would become effective and will become effective under a new director, with new assistants, with added opportunities. Yet, these hearings have underlined beneath them the idea that through the better understanding of the way in which we are organized, how we may adjust ourselves in these ways, the public might better understand, develop a feel about science.

I was talking to John Lear at one time. He had a very interesting idea. He hoped that someday in this country we would be able to develop a feeling about science policy in a way that the British have developed a feeling about foreign policy.

Complicated as it is and necessary as it is, I do think that if we can organize, I do believe with you that we must examine more critically the whole process of innovation and invention, the means by which basic knowledge is actually applied to practical use. If more research be done in this particular area, some breakthroughs and better understanding can be accomplished.

Obviously, the people in Kansas, Mr. Winn, not affected by air pollution have to look far enough ahead to the time when they might be so affected that they will support the planning today that they will not find themselves in the same position as in New York and others.

Mr. WINN. I think this is very true, also if you tie the water pollution into the study of air pollution. They are affected by that. Dr. WALKER. Yes.

Mr. DADDARIO. There is no doubt that there is an extremely strong feeling on the part of the public generally about the need to do something about our environment.

Dr. WALKER. Yes.

Mr. DADDARIO. As we are able to translate our ability to handle it, we can get support. The nature of these hearings shows how complicated that is.

Mr. WINN. I think, too, Mr. Chairman, that we have a problem of sort of like a football team, offense and defense. Great parts of this country, particularly through the Midwest, are constantly defending themselves against things like water pollution or flooding.

They want money spent for defense. What we are talking about is reversing it and going to the offense, so we won't have to spend so much money on defense, really.

Mr. DADDARIO. Gentlemen, thank you all. These hearings to this point have become more interesting and have added more to the knowledge of the committee and given us more to work with.

This committee will adjourn subject to the call of the Chair. (Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the committee was adjourned.)

CENTRALIZATION OF FEDERAL SCIENCE ACTIVITIES

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1969

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND ASTRONAUTICS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:10 a.m., in room 2325, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Emilio Q. Daddario (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. DADDARIO. This meeting will come to order.

Dr. Piore and Dr. Keeney, will you come forward together. I think that will probably be the best way for us to have our hearing.

Before commencing with your testimony, I would like to simply remark that today we resumed hearings on the question of whether the present organizational framework for Federal activities in science and education and engineering is as good as it should be.

Frankly, the testimony is closely correlated with the position of where the witness stands; that is, is he presently in or out of Government? The present administration appears to suggest that congressional budget cutting is the first problem to be solved and suggests that any reorganization wait.

Ex-officials are agreed that organizational weaknesses do exist; that more centralization is needed for planning, coordination, and efficiency; and that something need be done.

There is also no clear indication that centralization would, in fact, lead to more funding support. In fact, a billion dollar National Science Foundation would still have to be augmented with considerable money from mission agencies to total up to the required amount for a strong academic research and training program for the United States. As we continue to study the relationships of organization funding and deployment of science and national objectives, we will continue. to consult further with many experienced persons. We are fortunate today in having as our witnesses Dr. E. R. Piore and Dr. Barnaby Keeney.

Dr. Piore is vice president and chief scientist of IBM and has rendered long, valuable, and varied service to the Government including his present Vice-Chairmanship of the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Keeney, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings to these hearings the very necessary viewpoint of the scholarly and academic community. Incidentally, as everyone knows, he is a former president of Brown University and, as many do not know, is a native of Hartford, Conn., which is my home city.

Dr. Piore.

Dr. PIORE. Thank you very much.

STATEMENT OF DR. E. R. PIORE, DIRECTOR, VICE PRESIDENT, AND CHIEF SCIENTIST, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP.

Dr. PIORE. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am delighted to have been asked to participate in this discussion on how the executive department should be organized to optimize the national effort in science and technology. I am also grateful that this subcommittee has opened the dialog and is keeping the issues before the Congress and the public at large.

I would like to observe that I am speaking as an individual and not representing the point of view of any board or any other group that I may be associated with, since I don't know what the consensus would be if I tried to obtain one.

The desirability and the need for a Department of Science on the Cabinet level has been debated for the last 20 years. Until recently, the outcome of these debates could be summarized by stating that it has neither appeared desirable nor in the national interest nor important to the support of science to have a Department of Science. This feeling was very strong in the scientific community.

During the last few years, however, the scientific community's opposition to a Department of Science has been gradually eroding. This change in the general feeling toward a Department of Science has been due, in large part, to the modification of budgets, the shifting of support among various fields and the very large dependence upon Federal financing for the continued forward movement of science in this country and the desire for continued world leadership in scientific fields. When I refer to science, I am referring very broadly to the natural sciences and the social sciences.

It is well to point out that during World War II there was centralized and coordinated direction of our scientific and technological efforts under Dr. Vannevar Bush, who practically had Cabinet status. Under conditions of war and centralized administration, we, as a scientific community, distinguished ourselves. Dr. Bush, in his report to the President, entitled "Science: The Endless Frontier," did recommend certain structures within the executive department to deal with and manage our scientific and technological effort. For a variety of reasons, those recommendations were not accepted, and we faced a period of establishing various new agencies with specialized responsibility for moving ahead in the area of science and technology. Between the end of World War II and now, only two actions were taken in an effort to pull things together across Cabinet departments and independent agencies. They were the creation of the Federal Council for Science and Technology and the appointment of a number of assistant secretaries for science and technology within the Cabinet departments. The creation of this Council was based on a report issued by the President's Science Advisory Committee in 1958 entitled "Strengthening American Science."

There is no question in my mind that the last decade has demonstrated the great creative capabilities in our country in science and technology. The United States has made major contributions and has displayed great intellectual leadership in many fields. Many of the countries of the world have copied our patterns, are increasing their support of science, and are meeting the pace set by us.

Whether we can continue this thrust remains to be seen. There is a danger we may become has-beens in the scientific world community. For the reasons I have indicated, I feel this is a very good time to review the structure in the Federal Government and, at the same time, determine whether we wish to continue to be world leaders. In analyzing the current state of affairs, we must deal with the missions of various agencies, we must deal with science both as an intellectual and a practical field, and we must decide what is needed and in what direction we ought to go in science generally. That implies an element of scientific planning we have not done and an element of scientific policy that is yet to be formulated. We also need to be concerned with the health and stability of the institutions that must perform the work, for, without these institutions, the missions of the various agencies cannot be accomplished and scientific work cannot be done. Thus, these are the three elements: The mission, the health of science, and the health of our institutions.

Some of the executive departments and agencies have very clear and specific missions given to them by the President or the Congress. Others have very broad missions also defined by executive action, by legislation, and by appropriations. The mission of the Department of Defense is very clear. The mission of the Department of Labor is very clear. In its mission, the Department of Defense must rely heavily on science and technology. It must maintain contact with the best that is thought and done in all our institutions, in industry, in the universities, and in its own laboratories.

Similarly, the Department of Labor, with its broad responsibility for our manpower, must be directly coupled to the best thinking and the best work that will give it new insights into the general area of manpower and how the dynamics of our economy relate to employment, et cetera. I realize the Department of Labor has other responsibilities, but this is just one example.

Other agencies have very broad responsibilities that deal more with national goals and purposes. The National Science Foundation is an example. In a phrase, it is responsible for the health of American science.

Similarly, NASA has a broad responsibility which one can best characterize by a single word: space.

In trying to differentiate between a functional responsibility in our society and a broad responsibility that deals with national goals and hopes for the future, we raise a different set of problems. How should support to various scientific fields be allocated? What instruments and facilities are needed? Which are the pacing items that determine the dynamics of our sciences? Are we producing the necessary manpower to continue our scientific activities? What are the shifting needs of our society in terms of technology and culture?

Finally, let me turn to the institutions in which the work is done: industry, the universities, nonprofit laboratories, Government laboratories, et cetera. Each has a different tradition. Each serves more than a single function in our society. Each has a different reaction time to various external forces, the current problems, such as fluctuations in its budget or fluctuations in our economy.

Industry is so structured and managed that it can react quickly.