1349 



Unfortunately, the advent of this new program was soon followed 

 b}'^ a departmental retrenchment. As a Department publication in 

 1960 delicately expressed it: "Despite its successful operation, how- 

 ever, the program was curtailed after a few 3^ears because of a number 

 of factors, of which undoubtedly the most important was the compet- 

 ing demands of other departmental activities for their share of a 

 hmited budget." Wlien Dr. Koepfii returned to California Institute of 

 Technology, July 1953, Dr. Joyce became "Acting" until he resigned 

 in February 1^54, and Walter M. Rudolph, a Foreign Affairs Officer, 

 took over. The attaches (in London, Paris, and Stockholm) were re- 

 placed with other scientists and a fourth was named to the Embassy 

 in Tokyo, but at the end of 1955 the scientific attache program was 

 completely terminated. 



Reassessing in 1967 this dechne of State Department interest, 

 Eugene B. Skolnikoff attributed it mainly to the fact that "under 

 pressure to cut back the leaders of the Department did not feel they 

 were sacrificing a needed or important function." ^^ 



Reactivation oi the Program After Sputnik 



By 1956 the State Department science organization had dwindled 

 to a caretaker Foreign Service Officer, Walter M. Rudolph (an 

 economist), supported by tv/o secretaries. Of this situation Chemical 

 and Engineering News, in a staff article, protested: 



Science today has an even greater impact on society than it did when State 

 first recognized it. To let the science function die now, say the scientists, would be 

 next to criminal and an enormous waste of their time and the taxpaj^ers' money. 

 The course of events mystifies them.^* 



An editorial comment by Dael Wolfle in Science magazine took the 

 same line. He rejected a proposal by the second Hoover Commission 

 that v/ould have transferred the science attaches (of whom by Febru- 

 ary 1956 there were none in the field) to the Central Intelligence 

 Agency. Science, he said, should be considered along with all the other 

 elements that were involved in foreign pohcy. "Whenever scientific 

 and technologic elements are significant for foreign relations," he wrote, 

 "they should be brought to the attention of the embassies and the 

 Department of State and be weighed with pohtical, economic, and 

 other relevant factors." ^^ 



Rudolph himself v/ent into print, early in 1957, to make a mild 

 appeal for support. Identified as "Assistant to the Science Adviser" 

 (a vacant office), he noted that his Department " — specifically 

 the Office of the Science Adviser — [had been asked by the National 

 Academy of Sciences] to serve on the U.S.-IGY National Committee 

 as ex officio member." He promised that "As the IGY planning 

 proceeds, the Department \vi\\ continue its liaison with the . . . Com- 

 mittee to insure the reconciliation between its scientific activities and 

 our foreign policy objectives." ^® 



Apparently, appeals of this sort had some effect. "Following a review 

 of the Department's science program, the decision was made in the 



53 Eugene B. Skolnikoff, Science, Technology, and American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 

 1967), p. 257. (Hereafter, SkolnikofE). 



34 "What's Happened to Science in State?" Chemical and Engineering News, January 9, 1956, p. 115. 



« Dael Wolfle, "The State Department's Opportunity in Science," Science, February 10, 1956, editorial 

 page. 



36 Walter M. Rudolph, "The Mutual Influence of Scientific Activities and Foreign Relations," [Journal 

 of Chemical Education 34, no. 3 (March 1957), p. 110. 



