haps peripheral to this committee's main concerns but I thought I would mention two thoughts concerning such transfer. Efforts along these lines fall naturally within the region of principal AEC concern, well within the coherent endeavor of which I spoke earlier, and I believe they contribute in an important way to the overall effectiveness of our other efforts. In addition, a major part of efforts along these lines are closely integrated with the operation of one of our plutonium production plants, the Savanah River plant in South Carolina. I doubt that this sort of transfer would clarify the very real problems in setting priorities for efforts of this type, and perhaps it was suggested only as part of a larger plan that includes an attempt to describe very briefly integration of AEC programs into those of other agencies. I would hate to see programs which are being carried out with the marks of success which these programs have, sapped of their vitality by any too disruptive reorganization. In many of my remarks this morning I have, by implication, emphasized the important advantages of a highly pluralistic organization of Federal science activities, and, indeed, I see much of the present pluralism as a natural reflection of the many-faceted role of science in Government and the general desirability of tying scientific efforts to meaningful and coherent purposes. I have expressed my continued belief in the AEC as an organization with vitality, coherency, and clarity of purpose. At the same time, I cannot help but be aware, sometimes painfully aware, of the problems which continue to plague us. Our failures in clarifying and communicating the relationship of scientific and technological efforts to the welfare of the individual is one of my major concerns. I recognize the difficulties, in a complex organization, of being sure that workers in one area are fully aware of what workers in related but organizationally distinct areas are doing. I face, as each of you do, the problem of questions of priority among projects of great potential value to our society not all of which can be supported. I feel concern about the instability and inadequacies in the support of academic science and engineering. Many of these problems, perhaps most of them, are not addressed by the type of reorganization proposed in the report. The present pluralistic framework has many advantages which should be continued. However, it has the disadvantage that comes with the Government appearing to speak, and actually speaking with more than one voice. This unfavorable aspect and the serious problems caused by sudden reductions in financial support must be overcome by the introduction of more rational apparatus at the Federal level. An example is the sort of action we saw this past year, where the National Science Foundation asked the central administration of the universities to impose severe cuts on projects at each campus. Also we need to establish a relationship between Federal support for academic science and the emerging Federal role in the overall support of higher education. I think that increased coordination in this area, perhaps, may well be necessary to help formulate a wise overall response to sharp budgetary changes. As you can see from the foregoing, I believe that I am not able right now to endorse strong efforts to centralize Federal science activities, mainly because I cannot now see that such efforts will meet the major objectives in Mr. Daddario's prefacing statement. Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. Seaborg, you refer in your report from time to time to our own report on the "Centralization of Federal Science Activities." I want to make it clear that in no instance is the subcommittee suggesting that any of the proposals contained therein be gone ahead with. They are not our proposals, but rather points of reference to which we wanted you and others to look at and come to some determination about. Dr. SEABORG. Yes. Mr. DADDARIO. It is for that purpose, rather than for any other purpose of making recommendations of any stiff nature on the part of the subcommittee, that those were offered. Dr. SEABORG. Yes, I understand that. Mr. DADDARIO. I am concerned, as you are. Every member of the subcommittee is, about the importance of the individual in our society. This may be the strongest thrust of the subcommittee's concern. As we examine this particular administrative and management problem, we are concerned about how our science resources are being handled. Your reference on page 15 about the effect of the National Science Foundation imposing severe cuts in projects at each campus. It did have a tremendous depressing effect on many of our young graduate students and on many emerging programs in some of our schools where we had been prodding for scientific activity to go ahead. They were drastically affected even though the amounts were relatively small. Dr. SEABORG. Yes. I think the effects were perhaps more important on the young investigators than on the more established investigators. It affected them more, the young investigators. Mr. DADDARIO. And therefore affects our ability to handle problems in the future which are going to become more intense than they presently are because we will not have the manpower to handle some of these problems. Dr. SEABORG. That's right. Mr. DADDARIO. And manpower appears to be in short supply in many of these complicated problems of society with which we deal. But this is not the only problem either. For example, during the last few years $19 million in projects were transferred from Department of Defense and other agencies to the National Science Foundation, especially in the area of high energy physics. Because this did happen, and since the National Science Foundation did not get additional funds to make up for that $19 million, this hindered the flexibility of the Foundation to support other worthwhile projects. I think this raises a serious question so far as transfers are concerned. How does this take place? Was the AEC consulted? What relationship is there between you and OST, DOD, NSF, so that this can be an orderly process and so that proper preparations can be made for the transfer and still not affect other important and meaningful development programs? 33-257-69- -4 Dr. SEABORG. I don't think that we have as an agency been involved in such transfer of funds to any appreciable degree. I might say a word about how we coordinate with other agencies. In the application of nuclear energy to space we have a joint effort with NASA which is administered through a joint office, Space Nuclear Systems Office, which is staffed by AEC and NASA people; and all of our efforts that involve the application of nuclear energy in any form to space is administered through that office. We budget our share of it and NASA budgets their share of it, but we coordinate the administration of the work through that office. We have similarly a coordination with the Department of Defense in all the work that we do with them in the development of nuclear weapons, and of course we have what amounts to a joint operation in the case of the application of nuclear energy to naval propulsion in Rickover's operation. Our coordination with the National Science Foundation is rather close. We don't have any joint budgeting or transfer of funds, but we have a continuous consultation with the objective of trying to avoid duplication and to cover areas that require support when they are in an area of mutual interest, like high-energy nuclear physics. Overall, we work very closely with the OST, the Office of Science and Technology, in our support of basic research and academic science. Mr. MOSHER. Mr. Chairman. Mr. DADDARIO. Mr. Mosher. Mr. MOSHER. Mr. Chairman, you raised the question concerning TOD's desire to transfer the high energy work to some other agency. It is my understanding that DOD had asked AEC to take that work on and AEC refused, and then at that point the National Science Foundation was expected to pick it up. Dr. SEABORG. Yes. This is something that we would have loved to take on, but we are budgeted on a line-item basis and we had no funds that could accommodate new activities of this kind. Mr. MOSHER. NSF has somewhat the same problem, and yet NSF was expected to pick it up. And I think this is the basic question that the chairman is raising, isn't it? Mr. DADDARIO. I think that is exactly the point. When you were asked to do it, you wanted to but didn't have the funds. Then there was some shopping around so that it would go somewhere else. And you finally found a home for it because you felt that it was necessary. This would appear to be bad management practice. Dr. SEABORG. This is an argument Mr. DADDARIO. This is a point which we would like some help on now. Dr. SEABORG. Yes. This is an argument for better coordination in the administration of science, that's right. I think in this particular case, it never got to the point where the DOD offered to transfer the money to the AEC. Mr. MOSHER. That is the problem. I think what we would like is just sort of a blow-by-blow description of how this was accomplished, if that is possible. Dr. SEABORG. We could supply that for the record. I think we have the broad outline here, but we could supply the blow-by-blow account for the record. (Information requested for the record is as follows:) AEC ACTION RELEVANT TO THE TERMINATION OF DOD UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PROGRAMS IN HIGH-, MEDIUM-, AND LOW-ENERGY PHYSICS By letter of May 8, 1967 (J. S. Foster, Director of Defense Research & Engi neering [DDRE], DoD, to G. T. Seaborg, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission), the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was informed by the Department of Defense (DoD) of the latter's intention to withdraw support of selected high energy physics programs. We were informed that a similar communication was sent to the National Science Foundation. Subsequently, by letter of June 9, 1967 (F. J. Larsen, Office of DDRE, DoD, to G. T. Seaborg) and later communications, the AEC was informed that with the exception of some cryogenic accelerator work at Stanford University, it was the intention of the DoD to withdraw support of all their university research in the area of elementary particle physics and to drastically reduce support in the area of nuclear structure physics and nuclear astrophysics. While interagency meetings were held to determine the extent and timing of the impending DoD terminating actions, the Atomic Energy Commission took several actions, to attempt to alleviate the problems. By letters of October 3 and October 26, 1967 from Seaborg to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, specific action was requested in order that the AEC be able to financially support terminated DoD research programs. The earlier letter was the formal FY 1969 budget transmittal letter which included a request for additional funds required by the AEC in its role as executive agent for high energy physics including additional funds for support of the terminated DoD high energy programs. The letter of October 26, 1967 dealt specifically with the DoD plans to reduce university support in high, medium, and low energy physics and requested additional funds for FY 1969 of $4.25 million for High Energy Physics and $2.10 million for Low and Medium Energy Physics. Funds provided in the AEC's FY 69 budget, developed subsequent to these appeals, did not permit support of a significant portion of DoD's terminated programs. On the basis of these latter fiscal developments, it was deemed necessary to inform the DoD (letter of December 13, 1967 from Seaborg to Foster), that the AEC would not be able to give significant assistance to the terminated university programs. In addition to these communications and considerations interspersed in the period beginning in May 1967 were numerous interagency meetings on the part of the above involved agencies which also included the Office of Science and Technology, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Technical Committee on High Energy Physics. It is our understanding that the National Science Foundation was permitted to include in its FY 1969 request to Congress funds for support of DoD terminated research under the Physics budget category. Subsequent decreases and limitations on the Foundation FY 1969 budget are, of course, well known. No transfer of funds from DoD to the AEC or the NSF has taken place. The AEC was able to merge a single ONR terminated high energy physics accelerator user group with the existing AEC accelerator user group at Princeton University. We have been informed that with few exceptions the majority of the DoD terminated university research programs in recent years have been supported at reduced levels by the National Science Foundation. 1. May 8, 1967, letter from J. S. Foster, Jr., to G. T. Seaborg. 2. May 23, 1967, letter from G. T. Seaborg to J. S. Foster, Jr., 3. June 9, 1967, letter from F. J. Larsen to G. T. Seaborg. 4. September 15, 1967, letter from G. T. Seaborg to J. S. Foster, Jr. Hon. GLENN T. SEABORG, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, DEAR GLENN: We have a problem which stems from both the attached proposal from Stanford University and a 1965 interagency agreement regarding support of the high energy physics program there. I am writing to both you and Lee Haworth simultaneously in order to ensure the widest consideration of the matter. This latest proposal from Stanford requests us to replace the Mark III accelerator with an accelerator of a new design, which purports to be a significant advance in the state-of-the-art in accelerator technology. It is a superconducting linac cooled with helium below the lambda point. Furthermore, they propose to bypass the technology development phase and proceed with construction and operation because of recent "breakthroughs" in the cryogenic equipment field. The concept of a superconducting accelerator was mentioned during the 1965 interagency discussions. Since it was not considered to be a safe design at that time, the agreement did not approve funding for this accelerator. At those meetings we did agree to support the modernization of the Mark III so as to make it more useful for research. At this time I do not feel that the Department of Defense should support major advances in the high energy field. Because SLAC is such a major national facility, it would appear in this particular case that the DOD and AEC are competing on the Stanford campus. Everyone should understand by now that the AEC is carrying the major high energy research programs for the nation. On the other hand we are interested in continuing the Navy support of cryogenic research at Stanford and in a more vigorous manner than that permitted at present. The attached plan entitled "Planned Navy Support" contains most of the funds necessary for accomplishing this and simultaneously supporting $5.4 million of non-severable facilities needed both for cryogenic experiments and for the proposed superconducting accelerator. In order to complete the latter and continue research in high-energy physics on this new machine an additional $8.6 million would be required during the period 1968-1971 inclusive. Since $1.3 million of this amount can be financed from carryover funds already in the Navy contract only $7.3 million in new funds would be needed to complete the machine, and for the time period FY 69 through FY 71. I would appreciate hearing from you with regard to possible AEC interest in supporting the Stanford superconducting accelerator concept. If the work proposed is of great importance to future accelerator technology, then perhaps it should be given serious consideration by the AEC. Please contact me regarding this matter after your staff has examined the issues involved. If I or my staff can provide any additional information, please let us know. Sincerely yours, JOHN S. FOSTER, Jr. HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS SUPPORT NEEDED (FOR COMPLETION OF SUPERCONDUCTING ACCELERATOR) 1 This amount can be provided by Navy from carryover funds already obligated under the Navy contract. |