380 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE OX SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



Speaker McCormack appointed both men to be advisers to the United 

 Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. In Julv 1966, 

 Miller joined delegates from 28 nations in Geneva, Switzerland, to take 

 part in the negotiations for the space treaty which the United States 

 signed and was ratified by the Senate in 1967. The treaty banned the 

 orbiting of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in space, 

 provided that sovereignty over planets could not be claimed by 

 individual nations, and forbade military bases and fortifications on the 

 Moon and other celestial bodies. In an address on March 15, 1967, 

 Miller commented : 



The most impressive aspect of the agreement is that it was formulated out of the 

 same philosophy that guided the Congress in 1958 when it enacted the Space Act. 

 The common interest of all mankind in the progress of exploration and use of outer 

 space for peaceful purposes, that space exploration should be for the benefit of all 

 peoples, that cooperation in space will contribute to the development of mutual 

 understanding and to the strengthening of friendly relations between States and 

 Peoples — all these and more constitute the basic fabric of the treaty. 



Working through the National Science Foundation, the com- 

 mittee also encouraged support in the mid-sixties for the International 

 Indian Ocean Expedition and the International Years of the Quiet 

 Sun. 



With the death of Dr. Dryden, the committee's central contact 

 on international developments was Arnold W. Frutkin, who served 

 as NASA's Associate Administrator for External Relations. Reflecting 

 in 1978 on the committee's interest in international scientific coopera- 

 tion, Frutkin wrote: 



It was my impression that this interest rested on the committee's perception that 

 NASA's international programs established a basis for important scientific and tech- 

 nical contributions by foreign agencies to the U.S. national space program, with the 

 unique feature that these activities were self-funded by the foreign participants and, 

 therefore, operated to reduce our budgetary requirements. There was, I believe, a 

 concomitant appreciation of possible political benefits in such collaboration, albeit 

 intangible. 



COMPETITION VERSUS COOPERATION 



Throughout the period, the committee kept the Congress fully 

 informed concerning new developments in international cooperation. 

 Yet as a general rule most Members of Congress seemed more interested 

 in the competitive aspects of the program. Like the grade school 

 students in Ethiopia mentioned at the start of this chapter, their major 

 focus was on the burning issue of whether the United States would 

 beat Russia to the Moon. So it came as a surprise in 1966 when Repre- 

 sentative Paul Findley (Republican of Illinois) arose to ask what 

 progress was being made along cooperative lines with NATO nations. 



