1794 



CASE three: the political legacy of the international 



GEOPHYSICAL YEAR 



This case involved worldwide cooperation of scientists, supported 

 only in part by governments, with policy on the program largely in the 

 hands of the scientists themselves. Certain major projects were, of 

 course, managed by governments: for example, the placing of satel- 

 lites in orbit, Antarctic expeditions, and the like. But the important 

 consequences for private industry were largely unplanned and in- 

 advertent, with little consideration given by either the scientists or the 

 governments involved in the IGY as to its commercial consequences. 

 The converse is also true: the industrial community appears not to 

 have recognized the potential commercial significance of the tech- 

 nological advances that were to be spurred by the IGY. 



An enumeration of some of these advances in technology may be 

 helpful. The stimulus of the first orbiting satellite led to the creation 

 of NASA with its multibillion-dollar program of space exploration and 

 utilization, along As-ith communications satellites and ground ter- 

 minals, useful spin-off technology in computers and solid state devices, 

 weather forecasting from space observation, military surveillance 

 satellites, and a general stimulus to the "military-industrial complex" 

 in the new field of outer space. 



Another consequence of the IGY was the great impetus given to 

 education in the physical sciences. A little more than a decade later, 

 Servan-Schreiber *^^ was to attribute in part to this U.S. educational 

 emphasis a superiority of United States over European economic 

 advance, the so-called "technology gap." 



These were only a few of the more outstanding consequences for 

 public/private relations with diplomatic significance that grew out 

 of the IGY. The question to be asked at this point is whether any of 

 them were foreseeable, and whether the Department of State ought to 

 have had a voice in guiding the substantive directions of the research 

 program. This point leads in turn to the question as to whether the 

 Department of State has resources of its own to study such proposed 

 scientific initiatives in advance, and also whether communication of 

 the Department with the scientific community and with technologi- 

 cally oriented people in private industry is not also a required input 

 to the study of future scientific initiatives. 



CASE four: THE MEKONG PROJECT 



Few diplomatic initiatives could match in intensity or scope the 

 potential impact on private industrial opportunity offered by aggres- 

 sive support of a regional development program like that of the Lower 

 jMekong basin. The concept involved a coupling of engineering control 

 of a major liver with economic development of the watershed and its 

 resources, along with education and training of indigenous populations 

 in the best use of these resources to advance their opportunities. 



Clearly involved are social planning and civil works planning and 

 construction. But the project extends to the general betterment of the 

 condition of populations in the basin: improved agriculture, mineral 



"6 J. J. Servan-Schreiber, The American Challenge, translated from the French by Ronald Steel, New 

 York, Atheneum, 1968, 201 p. 



