1354 



oflfice.) Nor would it serve better to diffuse scientific specialists 

 throughout the bureaus of the Department having scientific concerns, 

 although, again, this arrangement might usefully be coupled with a 

 strong central science office. He suggested also that Foreign Service 

 officers could receive specific training for "science affairs competence." 

 What, he asked, were the functions of the office? They were at three 

 levels: participation in policy making, operational responsibilities, and 

 bridging from State to the science community. The latter two were 

 easy, inescapable, and excessively time-consuming; the first — help in 

 policymaking — was "broadest, hardest, and most important." It was 

 the key job. It meant that the office should be not only on call but 

 prepared to take the initiative "when opportunities are seen for using 

 science and technology to advance political objectives." It should be 

 highly selective in the issues it studied. It could tap the reservoir of 

 expertise in the "outside" science community. The Science Officer 

 needed the rank of Assistant vSecretary, but more importantly such 

 leadership qualities as "scientific stature," skill in technology fore- 

 casting relative to foreign policy, a competence for representing the 

 State Department's interest in domestic scientific and technological 

 developments, and "concern for the general abilit}^ of Foreign Service 

 officers to deal with the day-to-day interactions between science, 

 technology, and foreign policy." ''* 



NEED FOR ATTENTION TO TECHNOLOGY 



One of the problems of the State Department's science office that 

 persisted during this period was the constraining effect of focusing 

 heavily on science to the neglect of technology. For example, a study 

 of the international role of Federal agencies, conducted by the Inter- 

 national Committee of the Federal Council for Science and Tech- 

 nology (FCST), June 20, 1961, began by noting the "revolutionary 

 influence" of "science and its application in technology" and the need 

 for taking these into account in U.S. foreign poUcy. But the aspects 

 addressed in the report were mainly in science : international scientific 

 organizations, support of research abroad, participation in inter- 

 national meetings and exchange of persons, and the "image of U.S. 

 science abroad." Consideration of technology was limited to its role 

 in foreign aid. 



On the other hand. Burton M. Sapin, wi-iting in 1966, expressed 

 hope that the expanded responsibiUties of the office would "provide 

 an opportunity ... to enter into some of the main currents of 

 foreign policymaking and play a more vigorous and influential role 

 in the Department." He conceded that in the past its general orienta- 

 tion had been "toward the research activities of the scientific com- 

 munity, primarily the physical and biological sciences, and the various 

 ways in which these affected and were affected by foreign policy." 

 It had had "very little to do with the major problems stemming from 

 the convergence of foreign policy, militar}^ policy, and scientific and 

 technological advance. . . ." *^ 



<" Skolnikoff. op. cit., pp. 265-278. 



« Burton M. Sapin. The Making of United Stales Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C. : The Brookings Institu- 

 tion, 1966') pp. 228-231. The author noted also, p. 227, that the President's Science Adviser and OST had 

 helped oflset the science gap in the Department of State. 



