SCIEM ! R! si ARC 1 1 WD TECHNOLOGY, 1970-79 563 



Daddario .is the father of OTA and its first Director ha J his own ideas 

 as ro what it would take to make OTA succeed. 



Unlike NASA or the NSF, OTA had no vast executive branch to 

 nurture ir. The all-Congress Hoard included strong-minded individuals 

 with their own constituencies, used to asserting their own preroga- 

 tives. The Advisory Council was composed of knowledgeable, inde- 

 pendent, and influential leaders in their own right, who believed in 

 speaking out strongly and not having their advice ignored. The rela- 

 tionship among the Board, Council, and OTA staff was described by 

 Mosher as "a very uneasy troika arrangement which has produced 

 unfortunate difficulties and frustrations for all concerned." 



OTHER OTA PROBLEMS INVOLVE THE SUBCOMMITTEE 



And as if these factors did not produce enough problems, the House 

 Commission on Information and Facilities, the Commission on Opera- 

 tion of the Senate, and later the House Commission on Administrative 

 Review conducted investigations of OTA which were not altogether 

 friendly in character. OTA staff spent a lot of their time preparing for 

 these investigations and agonizing over their results. 



Dr. Harold Brown, president of California Institute of Technology, 

 first Chairman of OTA's Advisory Council (and later President Carter's 

 Secretary of Defense), resigned in December 1975 as Advisory Council 

 Chairman with a publicly critical letter. Dr. Brown protested that the 

 Board wasn't listening to the advice of the Advisory Council on many 

 issues. One observer compared this to "unhappy prep schoolers bang- 

 ing their spoons on the cafeteria table." 



In June of 1976, the Board decided to hold some hearings "to 

 identify technology assessment and related activities." This decision 

 angered Symington, who was then chairman of the Subcommittee on 

 Science, Research and Technology. He wrote a blistering letter to 

 OTA Director Daddario: 



I was not apprised that these hearings were being held until given this informa- 

 tion the morning hearings got underway by members of our own committee stall and 

 my office staff. I am not sending this note in order to lodge any formal complaint, nor 

 am I doing so in a spirit of pique. But I believe that when the Board undertakes hear- 

 ings which, under the rules of the House or Senate, encompass areas which are specifi- 

 cally within the jurisdiction of certain standing committees of either House, it would 

 be helpful to notify the chairmen of the appropriate committees or subcommittees. 

 I am sure you will agree that there may be times when this procedure could avoid 

 considerable misunderstanding or ill feeling. 



It was not the kind of letter which good friends send, but Daddario 

 was informed that it was being sent and he was not too unhappy with 

 its tone or substance. The letter was intended as a sharp warning by the 

 subcommittee to the Board that it should stop acting like a joint 



