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Having spent a fair part of my life in the scientific community — 

 I have about 100 papers in the Hterature and then I moved over 

 to the engineering world where I was awarded 20 patents — I have 

 always had the conviction that the best way to assure societal pay- 

 off was to provide an adequate amount of money to support a broad 

 spectrum of good basic researchers in a wide array of research ac- 

 tivities. 



I do not think that any of us are wise enough to predict ahead 

 of time where we're going to have societal pay-off. I doubt that Ma- 

 dame Curie had any notion that her discovery would lead to nu- 

 clear medicine, to nuclear power, and to atomic weapons. 



I think that the best way to assure societal pay-off is to support 

 a broad array of research activities conducted by good researchers. 

 I cannot tell you where we will have societal pay-off. I can tell you 

 that there will be societal pay-off. 



There always has been. 



I think that it is very unwise — I think that we're probably the 

 least competent people in the country in the Congress to determine 

 which basic research activities are going to have societal pay-off. 

 And my preference would be just to support a wide array of activi- 

 ties with enough dollars. 



And I wonder if you all would comment. 



Dr. Press. You said that right off the top of your head and I 

 couldn't think of a more eloquent statement that we would all sup- 

 port. 



Thank you. 



Mr. Bartlett. Thank you. I wish it had that broad a support in 

 the Congress. 



Thank you very much. 



Mr. GUTKNECHT. The Chair would now recognize the gentleman 

 from New Mexico, Mr. Schiff. 



Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Dr. Press, I'd like to join in the welcome to you and your col- 

 leagues for testifying today. 



There is just one area that I would like to touch upon and it al- 

 ready has been, and that is national laboratories and universities. 



I don't want it to become, and I'm sure you do not, either, a con- 

 test between the two. In New Mexico, I believe that we do some 

 substantial research in our universities and of course, we have two 

 major national laboratories. 



But I have to say, although I understand your testimony, this 

 was expanded a bit, I still have to say that in the statement that 

 prefers, as a generality, funding for university research versus na- 

 tional laboratory research, I'm not against university research. I 

 don't want to be interpreted that way. But I think some of the gen- 

 eralities I think apply to national laboratories — in other words, 

 flexibility. 



In the multi-disciplinary laboratories, at least, they're very flexi- 

 ble. I'm most familiar, of course, with Sandia National Laboratory. 

 To a great extent, I think Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore 

 Laboratories, where they are not one function. They have a great 

 ability to be as flexible as I believe university research is. 



