102 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE OX SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



Mitchell and Daddario Patents Subcommittees. Later served as staff direci 

 the Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology. Over the years, Yeager 

 has been identified with perhaps mo ssful hearings and reports than any 



other stall member, and in 1979 was appointed General Counsel. 



Chairman Miller continued the practice initiated by Chairman 

 Brooks of asking for the detail of a series of Army, N'avy, and Air 

 Force officers who served tours ol duty an average of one year apiece, 

 and assisted the professional staff ol the committee in its work. Among 

 the abler and more effective military officers assigned to the committee 

 were Col. Earl G. Peacock and Lt. Col. (later Col.) Harold A. Gould. 

 ^Gould became deputy director in 1975 and executive director in 1979.) 

 Chairman Miller discontinued the practice of assigning military 

 officers in 1964, and it has not been revived since. 



At the close of 1961, when Representative Miller assumed the 

 chairmanship, there were 11 professional and 6 clerical members of 

 the staff. At the close of 1962, the stall had dropped to 10 professional 

 and 6 clerical. The size of the staff increased very slowly in the ensuing 

 years, and the number of the stall members under Chairman Miller 

 reached a high point of 17 in 1971. One of the notable additions in 

 1963 was James 1 Wilson, who was appointed staff director of the 

 Manned Space Flight Subcommittee when Philip B. Yeager moved 

 over to become staff director for the Subcommittee on Science, Research 

 and Development. Wilson had been Director of Research and Develop- 

 ment for the Naval Propellant Plant in Indianhead, Md. 



DELEGATION TO SUBCOMMITTEES 



Chairman Miller's wise decision to delegate responsibility to the 

 subcommittees was universally applauded by all the committee mem- 

 bers and staff". To be sure, some officials in NASA grumbled that the 

 authorization hearings were too long and too detailed. Other critics 

 tried to argue unsuccessfully that the Senate Aeronautical and Space 

 Sciences Committee members in House-Senate conferences had a 

 broader picture of NASA operations, but these critics quickly con- 

 ceded that there were few areas of NASA operations that some House 

 committee members didn't know best. But the predictable effect of 

 subcommittee specialization was that more committee staff was 

 desperately needed. 



Nearly all the committee members indicated they needed more 

 complete briefings in preparation for the hearings on authorization 

 bills, investigations, and for general understanding of the issues 

 involved in the policy decisions confronting them. Time after time, 

 committee members stated that they had to "accept so much of the 

 agency presentations on faith," instead of having the staff personnel 



