310 



It 1s not an overly impressive document, notwithstanding its bulk; the 

 list of activities appears substantial only until one recollects that this 

 represents the international dimension of a Federal RAD budget of over 50 

 billion dollars. Then, it seems minor indeed, to v/hich most of those who have 

 been engaged in attempting to promote international cooperation in science and 

 technology from inside the Government can quickly attest. In the abstract, 

 one would assume that the shared interest in R&D progress among friendly and 

 even not so friendly countries, the global nature of many problems, the wiae 

 diffusion of technological competence, the importance of building science and 

 technology in developing countries, the budgetary pressures all are 

 experiencing, let alone the political interests that can be served, would all 

 lead to substantial pressure for increased cooperation. In practice, of 

 course, other pressures -- economic and scientific nationalism, domestic 

 institutional interests, concern over technological leakage, bureaucratic 

 difficulties, ignorance of developments overseas, a commitment to leave it to 

 the private sector, and the general domestic orientation of the U.S. 

 Government (of which more below), conspire to keep the number and scale of 

 government-supported international programs a quite minor proportion of total 

 R&D support. 



It was not always so; even though international cooperation was alv;ays a 

 relatively small part of the budget, the present situation is in fact poorer 

 than in earlier postwar years. Following the Second Uorla l^ar, and 

 particularly after the Marshall Plan and the onset of the Cold War, there was 

 a substantial U.S. interest in science and technology cooperation with OECD 

 countries. Research was supported directly by U.S. agencies in Europe, and 

 the climate was generally supportive for expansion of cooperation wherever 

 possible. A major program of cooperation was begun with Japan in the late 

 1950's, and formally in 1961. NASA's legislation, passed in 195&, explicitly 

 called for an international approach, as had the NSF legislation in 1950. 

 Early objectives in NATO included major interest in joint research ana 

 production, and the NATO Science Committee was started in 1957 with grand 

 ideas of spurring cooperative R&D. Even the OECD, when it was reconstitutea 

 out of the former Marshall Plan OEEC, included science policy cooperation 

 among member countries as an important segment. 



But the climate substantially changed. Absolute resources going for 

 international cooperation in science and technology may be larger today, but 

 relative to total research and development budgets, they are a much smaller 

 portion. Certainly, the atmosphere in which cooperation must be developed and 

 funded is less supportive, notwithstanding the discussion at recent Summits 

 about international cooperation. 



From economic, budgetary, political and scientific perspectives, this is 

 unfortunate. Public sector goals in science and technology could benefit from 

 a different climate toward international cooperation, and certainly this 

 nation's objectives in foreign affairs and in technical assistance to 

 developing countries would benefit from much greater ability to tap American 

 scientific and technological resources. 



Among the several reasons for the relative lack of support for 

 international cooperation is one "family" of reasons that has received 



