1837 



learning was facilitated by mass migrations of scholars in search of 

 greater intellectual freedom and material rewards. 



Human brainpower — especially the skills of mind and hand working 

 together — is also indispensable to the balanced development which 

 is a goal of the United Nations today. However, unlike other re- 

 sources, human brainpower has built-in mobility; persons of talent 

 tend to seek out the best conditions in which to live and work. The 

 international migration of talent has been a widespread practice 

 historically, despite attempts of governments to dissuade highly 

 educated or skilled persons from leaving their domains; today the 

 right of free movement is a widely accepted principle in the non- 

 communist world. 



But unplanned talent migration has its societal disadvantages. For 

 example, it was pointed out in the Global Health study (Issue Two) 

 that half the world's people have access to no health care at all. The 

 negative implications of this potent fact, both for global health and 

 for balanced development, are greatly out of scale with the small 

 investment which the public health/preventive medicine approach, 

 as contrasted with the private/curative, requires to reach large masses 

 of population. Yet, as the Brain Drain study shows, thousands of 

 physicians from less developed countries annually enter private 

 medical practice in the United States. ^'^ The process represents a 

 diminution of development aid where augmentation is needed; the 

 eflFect is a kind of reverse technology transfer. 



There is a double irony in the fact that the United States, which 

 invented the highly effective institution of the county agent for the 

 transfer of agricultural technology, has had minimal success in 

 applying this technique ia aiding less developed countries and has 

 been tomioderately, if inadvertently, successful in attracting talent 

 from the aided countries. 



This reverse aid, moreover, has substantially offset the benefits of 

 U.S. aid to those countries. Dr. Whelan observes that the brain drain 

 thereby contributes to the widening development gap between rich 

 and poor countries, which "constitutes a potential threat to U.S. 

 national security. This threat arises from two sources: (1) the in- 

 creased UkeUhood of confrontation between rich and poor caused by 

 poUtical, economic, and social differences; and (2) world competition 

 for vital mineral resources, the main sources of which are located 

 in the LDCs." ^^° Further: "As the requirements of interdependence 

 press in upon the Nation's security interests, a national policy choice 

 may compel reengagement on the broader scene of international 

 development. Meanwhile, as this study points out, the Nation is 

 not without recourse in providing at least some remedies for the 

 brain drain." ^^^ 



In his address of September 1, 1975, to the United Nations General 

 Assembly on "Global Consensus and Economic Development," 

 Secretary Eassinger pledged that the United States would "contribute 

 to, and actively support, the new United Nations revolving fund for 



5" /6idrSee especially ppl 112S-n26. 



520 Ibid., pp. 1303-1304. 



521 Ibid., p. 1313. The remexHes are discussed on pages 1254-1275 of the study. In speaking here of "reengage- 

 ment" the author is referring to an earlier comment (p. 1312) on "the indifference and apathy which char- 

 acterize the Nation's [current] response to development problems that specialists insist can be managed 

 only within the framework of an actively pursued policy of interdependence." 



