26 

 the advanced nations with systematic scrutiny of only our own provincial 

 activities. To this point, travel has been difficult and communication im- 

 possible, and it may have been strategic to devote our attention to tha t 

 which was adjacent and accessible. Travel and communications technology is 

 changing all this. There are coming into existence instant feedback systems 

 of an intercontinental character in which the terms "domestic" and "foreign" 

 lose their significance, and knowledge about a single station in the system 

 is no longer adequate. It may be now more comfortable than strategic to 

 permit oneself the myopia of continuing to ply familiar routines or, worse 

 still, to encourage one's juniors to do so granted the greater lead time 

 that they enjoy. 



Yet the old myths endure, vigorously forwarded by those who were 

 partisan to an earlier circumstance. They sustain the technological special- 

 ist in his misperception that his contribution is not relevant or currently 

 viable in the underdeveloped sector, even though new communications technology 

 may have rendered this perception obsolete. But the systemic nature of the 

 new linkage, which promises to upend the science structure at the underdeveloped 

 station, could not have been expected to have left parallel structure at the 

 advanced station unscathed. We are only beginning to realize that the change 

 consequent upon binational encounter works in both directions, that inter- 

 national activity invites domestic as well as foreign impact. In the final 

 sense, however, the determination of the career pertinence of a broader re- 

 search context only the specialist himself can make and, granted our scientific 

 traditions, will make once the issues become clear. The role of administrative 

 support will be to facilitate the clarification process and to mitigate struc- 

 tural modification at the specialist's home base, and our search which took 



