1651 



Other specific questions might be asked: 



Should the Foundation enlarge its overseas science staff? 



Should the Foundation evaluate the merits of delegating to the NAS increasing 

 responsibilities in international science? 



Should the Foundation improve in-house reporting requirements and coordina- 

 tion of foreign and international activities? 



Should the Foundation reestablish the International Science Advisory Com- 

 mittee? 



Should the Foundation require more systematic evaluation of it> far-flung 

 support activities, especially in examining apparent inadequacies of some bilateral 

 technology-assistance programs? 



Should the Foundation provide for more systematic coordination with the 

 activities of the Bureau of International Scientific and Technological Affairs, 

 Department of State (now the Bureau of Oceans and International Environ- 

 mental and Scientific Affairs)? '"* 



THE NAS-NRC INTER-ACADEMY EXCHANGES 



"The NAS-NRC exchanges with the Soviet Union and the countries 

 of Eastern Europe ilhistrate a unique dimension of programs which 

 support nongovernmental scientists abroad. . . ." ^^^ These poUti- 

 cally sensitive programs call for high-caliber nongovernmental 

 scientific participation in planning and execution. 



Before 1959, Americans were not permitted to participate in any 

 scientific activities in the Soviet Union. Even today all Government- 

 funded exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union are 

 conducted under formal, rigidly enforced, official treaties and quid 

 pro quo exchange agreements. The first of these was signed in 1959 

 between the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and 

 the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.; it has been renewed every 

 2 years since and now takes the form of an annex to the biennially 

 renewed Cultural Relations Treaty between the two countries. The 

 inter- Academy agreements specify reciprocity in numbers, subjects, 

 and duration of exchanges. 



The inter-Academy agreement of 1959 provided for a sn^.ai! 2-year 

 program. Subsequent agreements have gradually expanded the 

 scientific exchange. As the then NAS Foreign Secretary, Dr. Harrison 

 Brown, described the program in the May 1971 Heatings of the 

 House Committee on Science and Astronautics (published as^l General 

 Review of International Cooperation in Science and Space) : 



The inter-Academj^ exchange commenced with provision for 44 scientists of 

 each country to visit the other for a total of 70 months over a period of 2 years, 

 an extremely modest beginning which .stressed short visits of 1 month. In 1962, 

 when the program was renegotiated, the NAS took the initiative to adjust the 

 balance away from the short survey visits in the direction of the longer research 

 visits, for w'hich Americans at least took their families along to participate in the 

 new experience. In 1962 a new pattern was established which has continued more 

 or less up to the present: 30 lecture-survey visits of 1 month; 26 research visits 

 totalling 160 months for the biennium, with more emphasis placed on the longer 

 research visits.^"" 



The 1970-71 inter-Academy agreement made provision for the two 

 Governments to facilitate exchanges of professors to lecture in the 

 natural, technical, and social sciences and the humanities. The 

 1972-73 agreement expanded the permissible volume of exchange 



i»8 /6id.,p. 981. 

 iM Ibid., p. 870. 

 200 /()id.,p. 991. 



