1025 



Telaxation of bipolar tensions; the increasing need for concerted 

 bilateral and multilateral cooperation to solve global problems of 

 technology ; increasing interdependencies in discovering and exploiting 

 the fruits of science and technology ; the need for the United States to 

 share in the scientific and technical advances of other nations, and the 

 desires of the less developed nations to share in the benefits of U.S. 

 scientific excellence and technological know-how.*^^ 



OBSTACLES TO INTERAGENCY COORDINATION 



A number of factors militate against coordinated program planning. 

 'One of these is that U.S. international science programs and poUcies 

 have not been fully recognized as part of either foreign policy or 

 science policy .*^^ A second is that while each program has a number 

 of overlapping purposes, each is carried out under its own statutory 

 authority and is reported to different congressional committees.*^' 

 A third is that some bilateral agreements pro\dde for funding and pro- 

 gram commitments which are rarely brought to the attention ■ of 

 Congress until they are ajait accompli}^* 



«> These themes are developed in R. L. Keohane and J. S. Nye, Jr. eds. Transnational Relaiions and World 

 Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 428 pp. 



<»2 Most U.S. scientific exchange programs proliferated in response to specific oppwrtunities presented by 

 either diplomacy or science. Only a few were established under explicit congressional mandate. The latter 

 include, for instance, the international health activities of the National Institutes of Health, authorized by 

 the International Health Act of 1960 (PubUc Law 86-610); and the exchange programs of NASA and AEG 

 sanctioned by formal intergovernmental agreements, some with congressionally mandated authorities. The 

 Fulbright-Hays program was estabUshed under a mandate for advancement of cultural and educational 

 cooperation; NSF and NAS programs were fully estabUshed and functioning long before the Congress gave 

 the Foundation an expUcit authority to support foreign and international science for their own merits rather 

 than primarily to enhance the domestic science base. 



On the need for more expUcit legislative statement of international science policy goals, Herman Pollack, 



■ director, Bureau of International Scientific and Technological Affairs, has "advocated a 'more adequate 



statement of national policy and legislative authority for international scientific ventures.' " (U.S., 



Congress, House, Committee on Science and Astronautics, Toward a Science Policy for the U.S.: Report, 



October 15, 1970, p. 50, citing Pollack's testimony in hearings on National Science Policy.) 



Dr. Edward E. David, Jr., as President Nixon's science adviser, suggested "... that we need an inter- 

 national science policy just as it has been suggested that we need a national science poUcy and that can only 

 be enunciated with the aid of the Congress. If such a poUcy were put forward strongly, I believe it would have 

 a major impact on the agencies of Government, in that they would then see it as part of their mission. I 

 think today, because of the way our programs are structmred or not structured, very often the mission 

 agencies do not see their role in international science cooperation as being on a par with their domestic mis- 

 sion." \a General Review of International Cooperation in Science and Space: Hearings, op. cit., p. 7.) 



"3 Herman Pollack in 1965 summed up the effects of this fragmentation: 

 ". . . The budgets of the various departments and agencies that carry scientific and technical programs 

 are . . . built around the . . . domestic missions .... They are in the process of putting together an 

 annual or a projected plan over several years ... in terms of priorities that are developed essentially from 

 their perspective of the domestic considerations .... Each of these departments . . . is . . . concerned 

 with its own responsibilities. ... It protects its own budget . . . and there is ... a mutual diffidence 

 about not getting into the other fellow's territory. 



. . . There are opportunities and . . . requirements . . . where it will be desirable for the United 

 States to pursue a scientific relationship, . . . that is neither related, perse, . . . to the priorities that have 

 been estabUshed ... for the pursuit of domestic pm-poses or that do not fit the jurisdictional territories 

 and boundaries tliat have been estabUshed by the nature of the U.S. Government organization. . . . Agen- 

 cies don't feel . . . that they are authorized to spend funds available to them for this kind of activity. 

 [And] it hadn't been anticipated in the development of their budgetary program. They have their own 

 congressional committees to deal with, their own constituencies in the United States to take into account. 



, . . . If it involves more than one agency, it immediately gives rise to coordination and division of respon- 

 sibiUty, and when you get to three or four you have all the compUcations and problems of committee manage- 

 ment. (Government and Science: Review of the National Science Foundation, Hearing: Vol. 1, 1965, 89th Cong., 

 1st sess., 1965, pp. 469-470.) 



*" Legislative recognition of this problem was indicated in the passage of PubUc Law 92-403, August 22, 

 1972, which required that the Secretary of State transmit to both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 

 and the House Foreign Affairs Committee copies of aU international agreements, other than treaties, entered 

 into by the United States. However, these agreements are to be transmitted after the fact within 60 days 

 after their signing; thus, intensive congressional consideration is Ukely to occur only in the most unusual 

 •circumstances involving severe legislative-executive differences. Also, the sheer number of such agreements 

 miUtates against their in-depth consideration by the Congress. See the extensive Usting of such agreements 

 in: U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Congres- 

 Monal Oversight of Executive Agreements: Hearings on S. 5475, 92d Cong. 2d sess.. April and May 1972, 

 •668 pp. 



