IN THI-: BEGINXINC, I ill Si I 1 c I COMMITTEE 



23 



In arguing for the adoption of the conference report, Chairman 

 McCormack made these remarks about the patent provisions during 

 the House debate: 



The original patent provision was too closely patterned after the stringent 

 requirements in the Atomic Energy Act which are not fully applicable to the space 

 field. The substitute provision agreed to by the conferees protects both the interests 

 of the Government and affords enough flexibility to the Space Administrator to let 

 him meet needs for preserving the incentives of the individuals and companies whose 

 efforts it is public policy to encourage. 



The 1958 Act did not settle the controversy over patent rights, 

 despite the initial attempt by the select committee and the Congress 

 to meet the issue head on. Down through the years, droning through 

 voluminous pages of very legalistic testimony, the issue remained one 

 of the most complex to be tackled by the committee. From the start, 

 contractors felt that the 1958 act went too far in depriving them of the 

 benefit of their inventions which involved heavy investments. As we 

 shall see, the original provisions of the 1958 act on patent policy 

 were softened by administrative rulings in subsequent years. 



THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE COUNCIL 



During the debate on the Space Act of 1958, the House had pro- 

 vided for an advisory committee and the Senate for a policy board. 

 To achieve a compromise, Senator Lyndon Johnson persuaded the 

 President that the Space Council would not erode his power if the 

 President were made the statutory Chairman of the Council. Senator 

 Johnson sold the idea to the House and the conference committee. 



When Chairman McCormack presented the concept of the Council 

 to the House of Representatives on July 16, he was eloquent: 



Like the National Security Council, this new group will bring together a small 

 number of top leaders of Government, and additionally allows the President to recruit 

 leaders in science and administration from private life to advise him on the overall 

 needs for a thoroughgoing national program and how it should be divided and co- 

 ordinated between the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and 

 Space Administration. * * * The result is to place the space program at the high 

 level of Government that its great importance deserves. 



Subsequently, President Eisenhower never filled the position of 

 executive secretary of the Council. The Council lapsed into innocuous 

 desuetude. James R. Killian, Jr., writing in Sputnik, Scientists, and 

 Eisenhower, put it this way: "The Space Council never did very 

 much during the Eisenhower administration, to the relief of the 

 officers of NASA." It was revived under President Kennedy when Vice 

 President Lyndon Johnson was made Chairman of the Council. 



