1777 



advanced countries of the West are amply supplied in the United States: eco- 

 nomic resources and research support; universities and scientific institutions; 

 laboratories and experimental centers; great teachers; a communication net- 

 work connecting all professional organizations into a composite grid; a cooperative 

 spirit among the scientific institutions, industry and government — in brief, the 

 total infrastructure for the development of science and technology.^^ 



The severest brain drain into the United States at present is that 

 of the foreign medical graduates (FMGs), most of whom come from 

 less developed countries. As pointed out earlier in this essay in 

 connection with Issue Two, medicine in the United States tends to 

 be a high- technology field. The essence of the brain drain in this 

 instance is that less developed countries in desperate need of the low 

 technology of preventive medicine may be deprived of it by the 

 transfer of talent to the high-technology practice of curative medicine 

 in the United States. At the same time, while they fill an actual need 

 in terms of the existing structure and philosophy of American medicine, 

 these FMGs by their presence foreclose, for a substantial number of 

 aspiring and qualified American youth, the possibility of entering 

 the field of medicine. 



In general, if it is true that the United States leads the world in 

 high technology and lags in low technology (surely a large over- 

 simplification but necessary to make the point), then logic would 

 have it that the United States should pursue a policy of attracting 

 skilled technologists in the low technology area. This was, in fact, 

 the pohcy advocated by Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treas- 

 ury in his Report on Manufactures. The rapid evolution of the New 

 England textile industry after the immigration of Samuel Slater is a 

 case in point. Most studies of technology transfer include among their 

 findings an appreciation of the importance of the educated, informed, 

 and motivated individual as a transfer agent. How much of this kind 

 of transfer actually occurs is undetermined and the extent to which 

 it could be systematically and selectively planned to optimize the 

 consequences for the countries concerned is a subject warranting 

 further investigation. 



ISSUE six: science and technology in the department of state 



This study addressed primarily the organizational, institutional, 

 policy, and management aspects of the science and technology inter- 

 face with diplomacy. By this point in the overall project it had been 

 abundantly documented that technology has a decisive impact on 

 foreign policy. Government decisiomnaking, by its influences on the 

 rate and direction of technological change and innovation, also pro- 

 foundly affects the situational factors, the problems, and the processes 

 of diplomacy. As the principal agency in the field of diplomacy, there- 

 fore, the Department of State has a broad and pervasive concern with 

 government decisions affecting technology. 



The question to be dealt with at this point is whether the Depart- 

 ment of State, in treating of high versus low technology, should per- 

 form on different time scales, should adopt different diplomatic 

 and analytical modes, or should in any other way behave differently 

 toward issues of high and low technology. 



«6 Whelan, Brain Drain, Vol. 11, p. US?. 



