U4 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



tee, I will put you under oath and make you testify. You just stay out 

 of this." 



Chairman Miller encouraged Teague and the other subcommittee 

 chairmen to poke around whenever necessary, to travel extensively, 

 and to expand their oversight functions on a personal basis. When 

 Teague gave his subcommittee report in 1962, Miller commented: 



Of course, I don't want to say too much about Teague, because I used to sit right 

 below him on the Committee on the District of Columbia. I was in the lower tier. 

 He was in the upper tier. Anytime I didn't vote right, he didn't do as I do with many, 

 and try to reason with him. He used to just reach out and conk me on the head. 

 I can show you the bumps. 



Glancing toward two bald-headed members of Teague's sub- 

 committee, Representatives Daddario and Tom Morris of New Mexico, 

 Miller remarked: "You see, you haven't any padding like I have." 

 On behalf of the bald-headed members, Morris had this to say about 

 Teague: 



He is a fine chairman. However, I am not too impressed with that habit he had 

 of throwing the gavel at junior members of the committee at times. 



Daddario added: "His aim is usually very bad, Mr. Chairman." 

 The inquiries by each subcommittee were searching, grueling, ex- 

 haustive for both members and witnesses, but not without their 

 lighter moments. Maj. Rocco A. Petrone, Chief of the Heavy Space 

 Vehicles Systems Office at Cape Canaveral, had been testifying at 

 length one day early in 1962, when he was asked about his pay status. 

 Then he was asked whether he would be eligible for hazardous duty 

 pay. Major Petrone responded: "Probably only for appearing before 

 the committee, sir." 



KARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE 



Hanging in Joe Karth's office was a letter to attest that he had 

 once outdriven Arnold Palmer in a golf match. Aside from consistently 

 winning the annual congressional golf tournament, Karth, a square- 

 jawed, brawny, no-nonsense legislator with a firm handshake and 

 clear-eyed gaze, was the workhorse of the Science and Astronautics 

 Committee. A charter member of the committee, by early 1961 he was 

 chairing a subcommittee in his sophomore term, participating in con- 

 ference committees, and quickly making his mark as a tough, hard- 

 nosed inquisitor. 



In 1958, when Minnesota's Eugene McCarthy went to the U.S. 

 Senate, Democrat Joe Karth captured McCarthy's St. Paul seat in the 

 House of Representatives. A union organizer, he had studied engineer- 

 ing two years at the University of Nebraska. His backers wanted him 



