10 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



When the committee was not yet three weeks old, the first witness 

 was called on March 20: Allen W. Dulles, Director of the Central 

 Intelligence Agency. The CIA operatives startled the committee by 

 coming up several days in advance of the briefing to "de-bug" the 

 small room in the Capitol where the session was to be held. According 

 to George Feldman, Dulles read a long statement but declined to leave 

 a copy of the statement with the committee because of its classified 

 nature. Although Feldman noted there wasn't anything in the state- 

 ment that had not already appeared in the newspapers, a partisan 

 argument quickly flared up between the Democrats who insisted they 

 wanted a copy and the Republicans who defended Dulles' refusal. 

 Finally, Chairman McCormack, on the advice of Feldman, quieted the 

 furor by suggesting that any member who wanted to do so could go 

 down to the CIA and look at a copy. 



During a discussion before the full committee in 1959, Chairman 

 Brooks mentioned: "We have plans to have the CIA appear in execu- 

 tive session." McCormack countered: "If you get as much out of them 

 as the select committee got out of them, you won't know any more 

 than you do at this time." 



In the public hearings through May 12, the hearing record con- 

 stituted 1,542 pages. Led by Dr. Wernher von Braun, the witnesses 

 included top rocketry and scientific talent in the three military services, 

 on duty and retired, including Rear Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, 

 Maj. Gen. Bernard A. Schriever, Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin, Maj. Gen. 

 John B. Medaris, Rear Adm. John T. Hayward, Brig. Gen. H. A. 

 Boushey, and Dr. Herbert F. York. From the National Advisory 

 Committee for Aeronautics came its Chairman and Director, Drs. 

 James H. Doolittle and Hugh L. Dryden. From the academic world 

 came Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, president of the California Institute of 

 Technology, and Dr. James A. Van Allen of the University of Iowa. 

 Among those testifying from private industry were Kent T. Keller, 

 former president of Chrysler Corp., Dr. Walter S. Dornbergcr of Bed 

 Aircraft Corp., and Krafft Ehricke of Convair. In addition, representa- 

 tives and leaders of the National Science Foundation, Weather Bureau, 

 Department of State, and other Federal agencies testified. 



All the witnesses discovered that the committee members had 

 done their homework thoroughly, as a result of which they found that 

 most committee meetings extended far beyond their allotted time in 

 probing questions. Aside from the brief flareup during the Dulles 

 hearing, there was a remarkable degree of bipartisanship shown in 

 both the sessions and the reports developed by the committee. A 

 strong partisan Democrat as ma|ority leader, McCormack ran the 

 select committee with a conscious effort to weld a unity of approach. 

 He successfully achieved this aim. 



