THE EARLY MILLER YEARS 



105 



made in rapidly expanding areas of space and science, committee 

 members struggled with the problem of how to get objective infor- 

 mation and advice. 



As noted in chapter II, Chairman Miller strengthened the use of 

 the Panel on Science and Technology which had been started by his 

 predecessor in I960. Under Miller's leadership, the meetings of the 

 panel were held more frequently, the focus of the meetings was sharper 

 and members had opportunities for airing some of the current com- 

 mittee policy decisions while panels were in session. One member 

 suggested that the panel should be called on more frequently to back- 

 stop the staff, and to answer questions by members between the times 

 the panel was actually meeting in Washington. It was felt that this 

 would be too much of an extra burden on the hard-working panel 

 members. 



A similar suggestion was made by Representative Mosher: "Per- 

 sonally I like the idea, recently suggested by several people, that the 

 standing committees should be able to employ science specialists for 

 brief periods of time, and for rather intensive work during those 

 periods — preferably scientists who have some knowledge of Govern- 

 ment's relations to scientific activities and some understanding of the 

 congressional process as such." Later, the Daddario Subcommittee on 

 Science, Research and Development established a Research Management 

 Advisory Panel, which proved very successful, yet its primary assistance 

 was provided to the Daddario subcommittee. In the period when tough 

 decisions were being made on the space program every day, a majority 

 of the members groped and grasped for the tools to do the job. 



Some members rationalized their lack of staff help by contending 

 that Congressmen were supposed to react like their taxpaying constit- 

 uents in measuring the value of complex programs. It was further 

 argued that Congressmen should be generalists and not be armed with 

 the specialized knowledge which might bias their decisions on behalf 

 of one particular phase of a program. But most of these arguments 

 seemed to apply to the qualifications of the Congressmen themselves, 

 rather than go to the heart of the issues. 



By its held trips to NASA installations, by its insistence that 

 NASA witnesses express themselves in "everyday English," and by 

 working long hours, the Manned Space Flight Subcommittee was 

 probably as well informed as any subcommittee. Yet in the early 

 1960's, it was this subcommittee which really led the fight for more 

 and better staff assistance. On April 11, 1962, the subcommittee had 

 this discussion in executive session: 



Mr. Riehlman. I want to make the statement * * * that the chairman be advised 

 that as far as I am concerned — and I think it should be unanimous that we should 

 be provided with a staff sufficient to follow this program through and to see that we 



