876 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



there is an impasse in the political process, there is always a search for 

 accommodation. Most of the players in this high stakes game realized 

 that something had to give or else the bloody battle would go for years 

 more, with everybody the loser. 



President Carter gave Secretary Schlesinger authority to try and 

 negotiate a compromise with Teague. Following several lengthy 

 discussions, the Secretary proposed a letter to Teague outlining a 

 suggested compromise. Teague refused to consider the suggested letter 

 because it opened with the blunt statement that CRBR would be 

 terminated. This was the major hangup which stymied the negotiations 

 on repeated occasions. Teague insisted over and over again that the 

 CRBR was not going to be killed, and he refused to allow any phrases 

 in the law which so stated. Furthermore, he repeatedly refused to 

 allow language which deauthorized the CRBR, which had been 

 initially authorized by law in 1970. The President and Secretary 

 Schlesinger faced a dilemma: how do you end a project without coming 

 right out and stating that fact? To win Teague's support, some way 

 had to be found to escape the horns of that dilemma. Before the right 

 was over, many tufts of hair were scratched out trying to resolve that 

 one. Teague was insistent that he could never get a compromise through 

 Congress if the CRBR were killed outright. 



On the night of March 13, 1978, Secretary Schlesinger went to 

 Capitol Hill and met with Teague and several senior committee mem- 

 bers. Teague told the committee the next day: 



There are a number of things going on downtown in the executive branch of the 

 Government. We met here last night until about 9 o'clock with Dr. Schlesinger, and 

 they are proposing some things that I am not able to comment on. 



Teague told his committee that "what Dr. Schlesinger is proposing 

 requires some considerable liaison work and consultation, hundreds 

 of questions of different people and suggested amendments and what- 

 not." 



The spirit of compromise was in the air. As presented by Secretary 

 Schlesinger, the White House proposed that to replace the CRBR the 

 administration would study and design a more modern breeder reactor, 

 utilizing six years of work on CRBR as well as much of the equip- 

 ment as possible. In a series of meetings in Teague's office and else- 

 where, the compromise was examined carefully. It did not satisfy the 

 pronuclear forces because it stopped short of making an absolute com- 

 mitment to build a new breeder reactor; the administration would 

 only go as far as to promise to study plans for such a reactor. Strenuous 

 efforts were made on both sides to work out a compromise which 



