FOREWORD 



This publication of Science, Technology, and American Diplomacy 

 represents the culmination of 7 years of research and brings together, 

 in a current perspective, results previously published in a series of 15 

 committee prints of this committee and its Subcommittee on Inter- 

 national Security and Scientific Affairs. 



In the foreword to the first of the 15 committee prints — an anno- 

 tated bibliography published in March 1970 (superseded by an exten- 

 sive new bibliography in the present collection) — I noted that previ- 

 ous work by the subcommittee had revealed many instances in which 

 U.S. foreign policy had lagged behind technological innovations of 

 worldwide importance. In asking the Congressional Research Service 

 to undertake the Science, Technology, and American Diplomacy re- 

 search project, the subcommittee sought to move toward improving 

 xVmerica's performance in this vital area. 



It seems appropriate here to recapture some of the thoughts ex- 

 pressed in presenting other committee prints of the series. Collec- 

 tively these brief excerpts suggest the broad sweep of the study, the 

 depth and durability of the committee's concern, and why the subject 

 is one of compelling urgency and significance for legislators, officials 

 throughout the executive branch, industrial leaders, scholars, and the 

 American people : 



With the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 the 

 United States and the world entered the nuclear age. The development of the 

 bomb revolutionized world affairs and set off a strategic arms race. . . . (The 

 Baruch Plan: U.S. Diplomacy Enters the Nuclear Age.) 



Put to destructive ends by the wrong hands, that discovery [nuclear fission] 

 represents the potential unleashing of a force capable of destroying civilization. 

 However, given wise and prudent management, it also represents the release and 

 increase of human energy capable of opening a new phase in human history. 

 (Commercial Nuclear Power in Europe: The Interaction of American Diplomacy 

 with a New Technology.) 



As our consciousness of the world as a "global village" intensifies, we are be- 

 coming increasingly aware of the dangers and opportunities involved when tradi- 

 tional values of time and space are no longer relevant. (The Politics of Global 

 Health.) 



Although our times are often characterized as the Space Age . . ., they might 

 also be characterized as the Sea Age because for the first time human beings 

 have begun to explore below the waters of the world. . . . the seabed has become 

 the object of intense economic, legal, and political interest. This interest is almost 



(HI) 



