626 



China, the rejection of tlie U.S. proposal to transfer an atomic mo- 

 nopoly to international control, and the rise to power of an inward- 

 looking Labour Government in the United Kingdom. 



The first manifestation of U.S. technological diplomacy after the 

 war was the highly successful Marshall Plan to restore European 

 industry. Early in this program, the United States scored a tech- 

 nological coup by the Berl'in Airlift, which demonstrated the capa- 

 bility of preserving a large city's viability by air shipments alone. 

 However, elsewhere U.S. employment of technology as an instrument 

 of foreign policy enjoyed only limited success. 



Frustration of U.S. Efforts to Wield Technological Power 



The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 was the signal for an 

 intensification of military research and development, and vigorous 

 expansion in industrial capacity. However, this war (like the Viet- 

 namese conflict later on) was to demonstrate the serious, painful, and 

 frustrating limitations of technology in waging a limited war against 

 a highly organized and resourceful, if teclmologically unsophisticated, 

 adversary. 



The Soviet Union had quickly caught up with the United States 

 in the development of fission weapons, and was nearly even also in 

 fusion (hydrogen) bombs. But in the United States, progress in nu- 

 clear development had not been matched by progress in the develop- 

 ment of delivery systems. "Thus, at a decisive period, when Russian 

 science was organized in an all-out effort to close the gap between 

 Soviet and American strength, there was a substantial deterioration 

 in the efficacy with which the pool of American science and technology 

 was applied to military problems." ^^ This trend was to change 

 abruptly, with the evidence of Russian advances in nuclear delivery 

 capability. 



There is no clear analogy in American history to the crisis triggered by the 

 launching of the Soviet earth satellite on October 4, 1957. This intrinsically 

 harmless act of science and engineering was also, of course, both a demonstration 

 of foreseeable Soviet capability to launch an ICBM and a powerful act of psy- 

 chological warfare. It immediately set in motion forces in American political 

 life which radically reversed the Nation's ruling conception of its military 

 problem, of the appropriate level of the budget, and of the role of science in 

 its affairs. The reaction reached even deeper, opening a fundamental recon- 

 sideration not only of the organization of the Department of Defense but also 

 of the values and content of the American educational system and of the 

 balance of values and objectives in contemporary American society as a whole.^® 



The most direct response, in the United States, was an expansion 

 in outlays for space activities. These virtually doubled in each fiscal 

 year after Sputnik, until 1961; they peaked at $7,688.5 million in 

 1966. Military R«S:D similarly rose : peaking in the Korean War period 

 (fiscal year 1953) at a little more than $1 billion, rising again to $3 

 billion in the fiscal year 1957, to $5 billion in 1959, and continuing to 

 rise thereafter to a peak of $8 billion in 1967.^*^ 



World admiration for U.S. achievements in manned lunar missions 

 was tempered by reservations over U.S. inability to solve such domes- 



is Ibid., page 248 



w Ibid., page 366. 



2" U.S. National Science Foundation. "Federal Funds for Research, Development, and 

 Other Scientific Activities, Fiscal Years 1968, 1969 and 1970." Vol. XVIII. (Washington, 

 U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969), pages 248-9, (NSF 69-31.) 



