1838 



natural resources. This fund will encourage the worldwide exploration 

 and exploitation of minerals, and thus promote one of the most 

 promising endeavors of economic development." 



It has been noted that no resources are more important to the de- 

 velopment process, and to technology transfer in general, than is 

 human talent. For the most part, little systematic attention has been 

 given to that fact by the U.S. Government. U.S. Scientific Attaches 

 are not directed to observe and analyze the level of technical achieve- 

 ment in various disciplines or technologies in the countries in which 

 they are stationed.^^^ U.S. aid programs have suffered from lack of 

 knowledge and understanding of the appropriate level of technology 

 required by the receiving country, and have tended to aim too high. 

 The unresolved problem of the brain drain further testifies to U.S. 

 failure to take sufficient account of the role of trained human resources 

 in development. 



"The United States proposes that 1976 be dedicated as a year of 

 review and reform of the entire U.N. development system," Secretary 

 Kissinger stated in the same address. Perhaps, as an element in such 

 reform continued into future years, consideration might be given to en- 

 couraging and assisting the United Nations to establish a country-by- 

 country inventory of available and needed human resources to parallel 

 the revolving fund for natural resources. (Even for the United States 

 no such inventory exists ; a partial effort by the National Science Foun- 

 dation to maintain one — the National Register of Scientific and Tech- 

 nical Personnel — was terminated several years ago.) Along with the 

 inventory, provision might be made for setting up an international 

 pool or registry of persons with needed technical and managerial skills, 

 providing suitable rewards and recog^iition, and enrolling qualified 

 persons who are willing and able to go wherever they are most needed. 



ISSUE six: science and technology in the department of state 



This last of the 12 studies in the series on "Science, Technology, 

 and American Diplomacy" is the most focal of the studies, in that it 

 examines the institution principally responsible for integrating the 

 substance of U.S. foreign policy with the conduct of U.S. diplomacy. 

 Addressing the theme of "Science, Technology, and the Growth of 

 Interdependence," it cites the technology of the atom as responsible 

 for a conversion of diplomacy into new directions: 



The Congress appreciates fully the magnitude of the discontinmty that science 

 and technology have injected into the stream of history, beginning in 1945 with 

 the first atomic bomb and later confirmed with thermonuclear-tipped ballistic 

 missiles launched from silos or submarines. These developments have made general 

 war with its nuclear implications seem an exercise in suicidal foUy, thereby under- 

 mining the military power base of diplomacy and enormously compUcating the 

 practice of that obscure a.Tt.'^^^ 



At the same time, technology has forced the nations of the world 

 into closer contact by many means, such as: 



— Instant communication and visual reports at great distances ; 

 — Unlimited recording and rapid manipulation of data; 

 — Photographic surveys of the total area of the Earth; 

 — Man-made nuclear energy; 



522 Huddle, Science and Technology in the DepaTtment of State, vol. II, p. 1388. 



523 jbid., pp. 1325-1326. 



