52 



HISTORY OF THF. COMMITTEE ON S( IINCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



tnighc do something which possibly could be portrayed unfavorably 

 in the press. For example, he made a big public issue of the fact that 

 he was personally turning down the request of Representative 

 Victor Anfuso (Democrat of New York) to take his subcommittee to 

 the Soviet Union to meet with Khrushchev. In a play for press and 

 editorial attention — which he received Brooks publicly expressed 

 his doubt that the Anfuso subcommittee- 

 no matter how talented, sincere, and devoted, could add much to our international 

 cooperation by a visit to Khrushchev, the Butcher of Hungary, and by the action 

 of personally eating caviar and drinking vodka with him. 



COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP 



Six veterans of the select committee helped form the nucleus of 

 the new committee- Brooks, McCormack, Sisk, Martin, Fulton, and 

 McDonough. McCormack seemed reluctant to play an active role on 

 the new committee, lest he upstage the new chairman. McCormack's 

 duties as majority leader became more burdensome during Speaker 

 Rayburn's last term, and McCormack left the committee after the close 

 of the 86th Congress in 1961. Martin was minority leader when he was 

 chosen for the committee, but on January 6, 1959, Representative 

 Charles Halleck of Indiana scored a stunning upset by wresting the 

 leadership position from Martin, 74-70. Although Martin remained 

 on the committee, he rarely attended hearings and was inactive. Martin 

 encouraged Fulton to take the lead as the next highest ranking Re- 

 publican, and be the spokesman for the minority. McCormack re- 

 joined the committee, but he did not stay long. 



With McCormack fading out of the picture, the effective ranking 

 Democratic member of the committee was Representative George P. 

 Miller of California. For Miller, vaulting from 14th ranked member of 

 the Armed Services Committee up to No. 2, the Committee on Science 

 and Astronautics furnished a great new opportunity for responsibility 

 and leadership. For Olin E. "'Tiger" Teague of Texas, membership on 

 the new committee resulted from several conversations with Speaker 

 Rayburn. As chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee — a commit- 

 tee Teague enjoyed and worked hard on — Teague nevertheless asked 

 Speaker Rayburn to be assigned to another committee. "I was working 

 on the past * * *. I also wanted to work on something that pertained 

 to the future of the country," Mr. Teague told Speaker Rayburn, and 

 Rayburn then asked him to go onto the Committee on Science and 

 Astronautics. 



Representative Anfuso attracted a great deal of publicity, not only 

 because of his planned trip to the Soviet Union which he eventually 

 took by himself -but through other activities and statements. A color- 



