508 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



resolution expressed the need for a national science policy for purposes 

 of coordination, effective utilization, and continued progress. The 

 resolution also called on Federal agencies having scientific functions 

 to study the desirability of a national science policy and report recom- 

 mendations to Congress within one year. Daddario, opening hearings 

 which covered a three-month period in the summer of 1970, labeled 

 the question "one of the paramount issues of our times." He read 

 Lindbergh's April 15, 1970, letter which not only stressed the need for 

 technology assessment, but also the necessity for a national science 

 policy. Lindbergh wrote movingly about protecting the environment — 

 a subject which had widespread congressional and public support in 

 1970 but which the committee moved away from later as energy nudged 

 toward center stage. Lindbergh advised the subcommittee: 



But important as National Science Policy is and will become, it seems to me it 

 must be based on even deeper fundamentals of national policy. After all, it is the 

 quality of man we are concerned with, and this is inseparable from his environment- 

 all of it; even major parts are not enough. * * * I think we should establish our 

 policy on the fact that no system of government, warfare, economics, education or 

 religion can be satisfying or successful unless it eventually improves the quality of 

 man. 



Although they strayed from Lindbergh's basic admonition, 

 the hearings zeroed in on a central issue which neither the President 

 nor Congress had confronted thoughtfully — how to organize to make 

 science and technology the servants of mankind. The subcommittee 

 report, transmitted by Daddario to Miller on October 15, 1970, is one 

 of the most penetrating and influential documents produced by the 

 committee. Entitled "Toward a Science Policy for the United States," 

 the study furnished the basic building blocks for the legislation 

 eventually signed in 1976 which reestablished the fundamental adminis- 

 trative machinery for producing a coordinated science policy. This 

 was genuine "horizon-scanning." 



Daddario stated in submitting his report that the subcommittee 

 was trying "to determine what our national science policy is and 

 what it ought to be." In the three-month period, the subcommittee 

 heard 60 expert witnesses, including present and past Presidential 

 science advisers, and the Nation's outstanding authorities on science 

 and public administration. The subcommittee concluded that the 

 administration should "immediately form a blue ribbon task force 

 to draft a basic national science policy for submission to the Congress 

 no later than December 31, 1971." Daddario panned this dark picture 

 of what would happen in the absence of such action: 



I lu- Nation will continue to flounder in its efforts to solve many of the great 

 issues confronting it foi wani of adequate knowledge and understanding of the issues 

 themselves. 



