V. Scientific Diplomacy 



The rise of the United States to mihtary, technological, and 

 diplomatic preeminence may have diminished somewhat the apparent 

 need for U.S. scientists to be posted around the world to secure knowl- 

 edge, establish contacts, and promote the flow of "brains" to this 

 country. It is possible that the move to establish systematic scientific 

 representation in U.S. embassies abroad came too late to be fully 

 useful. However, this section of the stud}^ recounting the erratic 

 history of the use of U.S. scientific attaches, suggests that with certain 

 modifications in emphasis these offi^cials can be much more important 

 in the future than they have been permitted to be in the past. 



Early Stirrings: Ad Hoc Scientific Attache 



As near as can be determined, the first person to serve in a U.S. 

 embassv and be called "scientific attache" was Charles Wardell Stiles 

 (1867-1941).^^ He served in the Embassy in Berlin 1898-1899 as a 

 zoologist "especially accustomed to the use of the Microscope." His 

 mission was to ease German restrictions on the importation of pork 

 products from the United States. The problem was trichinosis. The 

 United States had instituted microscopic inspection of pork products 

 for export but local governmental levels in Germany were insisting on 

 reinspection and obstructing sales of U.S. pork in a lucrative market. 

 Accordingly Ambassador Andrew D. White wrote to Secretary of 

 State John Sherman asking for "one or more experts fit to deal with 

 the whole subject . . .," and the Department of Agriculture, in turn, 

 was approached to provide the required expertise. "The State Depart- 

 ment [then] commissioned Stiles as Agricultural and Scientific Attache 

 to the United States Embassy in Berlin." Stiles had excellent quali- 

 fications for the assignment. He had connections \\dth a number of 

 European scientific societies, had been U.S. delegate to the Inter- 

 national Zoological Congress, and was secretary of the International 

 Commission on Zoological Nomei'iclature. In the Department of Agri- 

 culture, after taking his doctorate at Leipzig, he had specialized in 

 helminthology and thus spoke with authority on the subject of animal 

 parasites. 



At the Embassy he was referred to as "our scientific attache." 

 His work "involved more areas of science than those ordinarily 

 associated w^th agriculture." Thus, in the judgment of this source, 

 "White had good reason to use the term scientific attache." Even so, 

 it represented "something of an innovation in America's handling 

 of its international scientific affairs." 



As part of the growing maturity of United States society and the increasing vigor 

 of its intellectual institutions, American science was rapidly expanding in size 

 and complexity in the post-Civil War decades. Up to this point diplomatic 

 activities which were scientific in nature had usually been taken care of bj'' the 

 ministers or consuls themselves, with occasional matters handled directly by 



79 The source for this account of early scientific diplomacy is James H. Cassedy, "Applied Microscopy 

 and American Pork Diplomacy: Charles Wardell Stiles in Germany 1898-1899," his 62, No. 211, Part I 

 (Spring 1971), pp. 5-20. 



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