SPACE SCIENCE, APPLICATION'S, AND ADVANCED RESEARCH, 1963-69 225 



had not known the ERC was in the budget, but now that it was he 

 felt it would look bad for the United States to take it out. Karth 

 responded: "Mr. President, I just don't think we need it." Webb recalls 

 that Karth made a strong plea for the electronics capability of Min- 

 nesota. In any event, no agreement was reached. 



The strategy utilized to disarm some of the critics of the Electron- 

 ics Research Center in 1963 was very clever. Colonel Gould assisted in 

 drafting language in the bill which prohibited NASA from spending 

 any funds on the proposed center until NASA had transmitted a de- 

 railed study to both the House and Senate committees on "the geo- 

 graphic location of, the need for, and the nature of, the proposed 

 Center." The House committee cut down the request from $5 million 

 to $3.9 million, and sternly warned in the committee report: 



An exhaustive review of the necessity for this project by the committee revealed 

 that the specific site had not been selected; the coordination with other Federal 

 agencies having a like capability had not been properly effected; preliminary planning 

 in general had not been in accordance with good management practice; and the need 

 for the Center was not conclusively proven as essential. Consequently, the committee 

 determined that expenditure of funds authorized for this project shall be contingent 

 upon the result of further study by NASA. 



When the NASA bill was debated on the House floor, the Elec- 

 tronics Research Center received no vocal support whatsoever from 

 the majority side of the committee. Six Republicans — Roudebush, 

 Pelly, Rumsfeld, Weaver, Gurney and Wydler — issued "Additional 

 Views" which urged that the entire Congress, rather than the House 

 and Senate committees, be allowed to vote on the detailed study which 

 NASA was required to make before the funds could be released. 



Wydler waded into the argument on the floor by defending the 

 prerogative of Congress to make the final decision. He added: 



I do not intend to rehash all the innuendoes of "undue influence" that have been 

 leveled against this proposal. By this time nearly every responsible official of NASA 

 has denied vehemently that the President's brother before last fall's election or the 

 junior Senator from Massachusetts after the election played any part in the determina- 

 tion of the site selected. In fact, we are assured by the Administrator himself that the 

 secret was kept from him for months. * * * 



It is, indeed, strange that this matter which hu.i been under consideration for 10 

 months was decided upon so late that it had to be ins he budget estimate 



books of NASA after the books had been originally o i and printed. * * * 



As it stands now, we are being asked to authorize $ for this purpose 



and then to conduct a study to determine if some of us believe thai we need it. The 

 fact is that we may not need it at all, or we may need less - may need more. 



To line up Democratic support, the committee report had some 

 very critical remarks about the process used by NASA to establish the 

 Center. The challenge was how to split the Republicans. 



