CHAPTEft XIII 



Science in the White House 



"Doctor, who is your boss?" 



Chairman Teague, never known to beat around the bush, dis- 

 armingly directed this simple question on July 17, 1973, to Dr. 

 H. Guyford Stever, Director of the National Science Foundation, who 

 had just been given a second hat to wear as Science Adviser to the 

 President. It took all of 77 words for Dr. Stever to answer the chair- 

 man's question at a committee hearing. It was not an easy question 

 to answer, because President Nixon had recently shooed out of the 

 White House all of the scientific policy machinery expanded by 

 President Eisenhower in 1957 and more elaborately structured by 

 President Kennedy in 1962. President Nixon's Reorganization Plan No. 

 I, effective on July 1, 1973, abolished the Office of Science and Tech- 

 nology and transferred its functions to the Director of the National 

 Science Foundation. NSF Director Stever in 1973 took on the duties 

 of Science Adviser to the President — reporting initially through the 

 Secretary of the Treasury. 



Essentially, Dr. Stever answered that the President was his boss. 

 But the fact it took that many words to explain it is one of the indica- 

 tions why the committee felt concerned enough to hold the hearing 

 in the first place. Dr. Stever carefully explained that he had a letter 

 from the President naming him as Science Adviser, but he noted that 

 as NSF Director he also reported to the National Science Board. 



BIPARTISAN OPPOSITION TO SCUTTLING OF SCIENCE MACHINERY 



The reaction against President Nixon's dismantling of the science 

 machinery in the White House was not a partisan one. In an interview 

 with Teague and Mosher in 1978, former President Ford stated: 



I thought President Nixon made a serious mistake in downgrading the science 

 advisory role — organization — and when I was Vice President, I had a meeting with a 

 group of about thirty associations in the various disciplines in science and I first 

 expressed to that group my concern with the Nixon approach and my support for the 

 legislative establishment of a Science Adviser in the White House. 



Goldwater noted that the reorganization might have the effect 

 "to deemphasize or to undermine the importance of science and 



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