198 



Let me speak very briefly to the NSF. I think that NSF's inter- 

 national cooperation in science role should be much stronger. It 

 has all the necessary authorization in the acts from the Congress, 

 but it would need budget strengthening to do it. I don't think we 

 have done a very good job in the overall coordination and manage- 

 ment of international cooperation in science. It's not to say that 

 there aren't very well handled individual programs and projects. 

 But the agencies involved are under strength. 



OSTP. If there is an item that is very important to this current 

 administration or previous administrations and previous OSTP's, 

 they can move in and do a good job in coordinating getting togeth- 

 er. But they don't have a long-term staying power in the business, 

 and anything connected to basic science and long-range engineer- 

 ing needs some staying power. 



The State Department has never had the total strength. They ob- 

 viously have the approval power and act as much as they can and 

 take on special projects. But they have never really had the total 

 strength really to take a leadership role in thinking out the future 

 of this thing. They do mind the traffic to make sure that the laws 

 are kept and our friends are kept and so on. 



But even there there is failure because again, as Mr. Gavin 

 pointed out, we don't have a good reputation overseas with respect 

 to our continuity in these things. We are very rough on our friends, 

 and all you have to do is travel the world these days on anything 

 related to science and engineering, and you will get that message 

 constantly and everywhere. 



NSF has been examining its international cooperation role, and 

 it is very clear that there are lots of jobs that it could do to help 

 out. We tried a decade ago to get NSF in a stronger total coordinat- 

 ing role, as you know, and there was some resistance. 



But NSF could supply better analysis, data gathering on the ef- 

 fectiveness of all of our international science, data gathering as to 

 what is happening, and analysis of what is happening, and in fact 

 some kind of an evaluation capability. They haven't carried out 

 that role too well, and to do that, they would have to strengthen — 

 the current minions of OSTP would have to strengthen— their own 

 capability, organizationally, I think, and also with respect to 

 budget and also with respect to budget and assignment of people. 

 But I do think that the three agencies of OSTP and State and 

 NSF working together could put together a better picture of what 

 is happening and what is needed and so on. And clearly, the agen- 

 cies that are interested in this. Defense and so on, can carry out 

 and do carry out major important things. NASA, all of the agencies 

 have important programs. But no one seems to put it all together. 

 [The prepared statement of Dr. Stever follows:] 



