1693 



Prospects and Options 



The last section of the study (XI. Summary and Concluding Obser- 

 vations) begins with the observation that the years immediately 

 ahead "look like a time of opportunity in an environment in flux." 



New decisions are pending as to the relationship between the science bureau 

 and other bureaus of the Department, as to the future missions and structure 

 of overseas science staffs, and as to the design of the President's policymaking 

 organization in the field of scientific and technological diplomacy.^" 



There seems to be a promising climate for teamwork among OES, 

 the Policy Planning Staff, and the staff of the National Security 

 Council (the study continues, as of June 1975), and a possibility of 

 congressional action to establish a new science policy institution in the 

 Executive Office; such an institution would present the new Science 

 Bureau in State with further problems, but also further opportunities. 

 Among the opportunities apart from what might arise out of re- 

 lationships with a revitalized White House organization for science 

 and technology could be that involving the improvement of "technical 

 literacy" in the Foreign Service; "the creation of further science 

 units in the functional bureaus of the Department, manned and 

 equipped to cooperate with the science bureau in the formulation of 

 diplomatic policy and the initiation of new science- and technology- 

 based programs toward U.S. foreign policy objectives"; ^^^ the estab- 

 lishment of priorities in dealing with the array of issues already on 

 hand, while allowing for analysis and evaluation of prospective issues; 

 most important, perhaps — and certainly most difficult — development 

 of a comprehensive normative framework of national goals to govern 

 the setting of priorities. But the redefining of goals in a democratic 

 society cannot be the work of government alone. Within the United 

 States this process, involving examination of values and basic assump- 

 tions and sorting out of the important and lasting from the expendable, 

 could be initiated by the State Department, or the White House, or 

 the Congress, and must involve all of these. But it could not be 

 accomplished by any or all of them without the participation of the 

 American people. The process would call for a national debate in 

 which the question of public versus (or in conjunction with) private 

 enterprise, raised above, would represent one important element. In 

 such a debate the most important single question to be addressed — 

 and repeatedly reexamined — would probably be: How can American 

 leadership best be exerted in a world of growing interdependence 

 without sacrifice of what Americans hold as fundamental political 

 and human values? 



Author's Reassessment 



Although only the 2 years have elapsed since publication of Science 

 and Technology in the Department of State, many events have con- 

 firmed the importance of its thesis and suggested the indicated gap in 

 institutional arrangements in shaping U.S. technological-diplomatic 

 policy. 



The frustrations expressed by Assistant Secretary of State for 

 OES Dixy Lee Ray upon her resignation may well have been occa- 

 sioned in part by the low esteem of the subject in the Department. 



3'< Ibid., p. 1490. 

 315 Ibid. 



