158 



HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



In opening the July hearings, Daddario made an unusually sharp 

 statement concerning the crisis facing Federal science activities and 

 their management in 1969: 



The status of American science and technology is in serious question. We have 

 recently witnessed the rejection of the National Science Foundation's growth by the 

 House for the second year in a row. The Department of Defense is challenged by 

 academic dissidents and congressional budget-cutters to get out of all research that is 

 not obviously and immediately applicable to its mission. The National Institutes of 

 Health feel the pressure for tangible results at the expense of continual exploratory 

 research. The new agencies for housing, urban development and transportation are 

 under the gun to produce service now, not research. NASA struggles with its future, 

 and has seen its university sustaining program seriously curtailed. * * * 



At the same time, every single important national goal is dependent on better, 

 cheaper, more reliable, and more versatile technology. Population, food supply, 

 environmental quality, transportation, housing, education, defense, communications, 

 medicine — all need an expansion of human knowledge for satisfactory progress. 



Daddario emphasized that "we have no preconceived stand in this 

 subcommittee." Nevertheless, it was significant that the subcommittee 

 called as its first witness on July 10, 1969, Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, 

 Science Adviser to the President, Chairman of the President's Science 

 Advisory Committee, and Executive Secretary of the recently created 

 Council on Environmental Quality. Dr. DuBridge, former president of 

 Caltech, had also served for 10 years as a regular member of the Science 

 Committee's Panel on Science and Technology. This prompted 

 Chairman Miller to greet him by noting: 



We feel like it is old home week when you are around, because you are, after all, 

 sort of an alumnus of the committee. 



In the midst of a very serious and also productive discussion of how 

 to organize the scientific machinery of the Federal Government, 

 Representative Fulton sidled into the committee room. Fulton was, 

 like Chairman Miller, an ex officio member of all subcommittees by 

 reason of his position as ranking Republican on the committee. Dad- 

 dario could see that Fulton had that sort of glint in his eye which 

 spelled impending trouble. He tried to head off a long and disruptive 

 discourse by introducing Fulton in this fashion: 



Mr. Fulton, who is the senior member of the Science and Astronautics Committee 

 on the Republican side, on occasion likes to wander into this subcommittee's meetings. 

 I wouldn't want to foreclose him from taking the opportunity of saying hello to 

 you, Dr. DuBridge. 



But it didn't exactly work. Fulton launched into a diatribe 

 against Dr. Franklin A. Long of Cornell, whom President Nixon had 

 asked to head the National Science Foundation and then withdrew the 

 nomination when it became apparent Dr. Long was an opponent of the 

 antiballistic missile program. Daddario used his full bag of diplomatic 



