Wanted: A National Science Policy

LLOYD V. BERKNER

THE shadow of the Russian satellite is surprisingly large and persistent for so small an object." So commented Henry Smythe at the meeting of the American Nuclear Society last October. The truth is that the Soviet satellites have shocked Americans into an awareness of the phenomenal rise of Soviet science during the last thirty years. We are chagrined to have lost the lead that American science, we believe, should have maintained.

Western science unquestionably still holds a dominant position in most areas, but the rate of Soviet scientific growth assures its inevitable rise to pre-eminence in the next few years unless the defects of our present policy are recognized and corrected. Already Soviet scientists have achieved or are projecting an imposing list of "firsts" among the tools of science: the largest proton accelerator, the most intense neutron source, the largest optical and radio telescopes, imposing programs of meteorological and oceanographic research, as well as the first intermediate and long-range ballistic rockets. They have announced their intention to conquer the moon and the planets, and to explore outer space generally. Appraising Russian technical capability in 1948, Admiral Leslie C. Stevens in his penetrating Russian Assignment wrote: "Interplanetary travel is just the thing to catch the Russian imagination. Among my Russian books is one which is a serious technical discussion of just that, written simply and clearly in 1903, although my copy is one of fifty thousand of the tenth edition, published in Leningrad in 1935. There is an excellent chance that the Russian engineers, who do not lack for brains, will pioneer in this field." Admiral Stevens' remarks were prophetic. The Soviet program is so bold as to invite frequent failure, but it has the stuff from which achievement rises. Scientific leadership in the West must be equally bold and imaginative if it is to compete successfully.

Our major weaknesses at present stem from a lack of a coherent science policy on the part of the federal government. Totalitarianism in Europe drove many of her best scientists to our shores, and their presence greatly aided our scientific progress. The sudden expansion of our scientific and technological effort during World War II, engineered so skillfully by our Office of Scientific Research and Development, resulted in the triumphs of radar and atomic energy which we managed swiftly and economically. Since the war, however, the organization and incentive with which we achieved our great successes have, with few exceptions, been neglected. Among the exceptions has been the creation of the national laboratories, operating with notable success in the field of nuclear energy. But on the whole, American research support has been an on-off unimaginative affair, ultimately controlled largely by fiscal agents of the federal government using methods and criteria that have been extraordinarily frustrating.

My purpose in this article is to show how we may correct the serious deficiencies that have slowed our progress.

IMAGINATION

Fundamentally, research becomes sterile unless its leadership encourages its direction into new, exciting, and significant avenues.

Real discovery steins from an unconquerable spirit, working in an atmosphere free from frustration and challenged by the opportunity to interpret new-found knowledge to the full extent of its meaning. The ability to generate and preserve this quality of scientilic spirit is basic to true scientific leadership.

Imaginative research is always open to charges of extravagance, since it often appears on the surface to be headed in quite unpredictable or unproductive directions. Only a few months ago a leading official of the Department of Defense stated publicly that the armed forces had no interest in "the back side of the moon." This is comparable to the deprecatory statements made in Congress a century and a half ago which opposed support for the Lewis and Clark expedition that later opened the Northwest. If America is to lead, and not follow, its leaders must be able to perceive developments of great significance and have the strength of character to support them despite the ribaldry of the ignorant. Occasional failures should be expected — indeed, such failures are a necessary concomitant to sufficient imagination in research. The nation and its leadership must accept as a fundamental tenet of national science policy the need for support of imaginative and unusual programs when these are advocated on a scientific base.

The management of government-financed research is highly important, for inept and unimaginative management can easily reduce or indeed nullify the effectiveness of research. The good research administration provides opportunity for both individual and group effort, but it does not attempt to dictate the solutions to be obtained. One defect in the project method of research administration is that it tends to limit the scientists to objectives which must be defined rather too specifically. It encourages the scientist to relate his results to the terms of his original objective rather than to the large context of the advancement of knowledge.

The great scientific successes of our century, such as heavier-than-air flight and the development of nuclear power, have come from faith in costly and imaginative effort as exemplified in the NACA and the Manhattan District. Conversely, the heavy hand of the unimaginative has greatly impeded American scientific progress, as in the case of the earth satellite, by constant sniping that has made difficult the job of public officials who could not themselves evaluate the prospects. Basic national policy for science is not worth its salt unless it is administratively geared to sponsor and encourage imaginative proposals for exploration of nature's secrets. The appointment of Dr. James Killian as presidential scientific adviser is a step in the right direction. But grudging acceptance of imaginative proposals is not enough; budget cutting and skepticism have no place in a scientific endeavor that aspires to world leadership.

CONTINUITY

The great curse of American research has been the fumbling starts and stops in support. Real research usually takes years to accomplish and involves tedious accumulation of scattered specialized knowledge, careful preparation of experimental apparatus for testing and extending that knowledge, the slow growth of skill in the manipulation of new and critical experimental procedures, and above all a continuous familiarity with the background from which the clues to brilliant deductions are derived. Research simply cannot be turned on and off at will. Literally millions of dollars have been wasted by arbitrary withdrawal of support after groups have been organized, apparatus prepared, and skills developed, but before the experiment could be carried to its conclusion and the critical conclusion could be drawn. Scientists subjected to such an experience justifiably feel that they have been robbed of ideas and recognition which were almost within their grasp. Such an experience is often sufficient to drive them from creative research into applied science, where the effect is more productive for them personally.

The government's wave of "economy" cuts last summer is illustrative of the disastrous effects of indiscriminate cancellation of research projects. Fiscal reduction effectuated by decree rather than selectivity automatically strikes research first as having the least immediate bearing on the objectives of the agency concerned. Some 80 per cent of Air Force research projects, for example, were arbitrarily canceled or put in suspended animation and the scientific resources they represent dissipated. Many of these researches had just reached the point of productivity and then were wiped out. Others were producing results that are vital to the continuance of research projects which depended upon them for essential data. Many of America's best scientists found themselves without support, and damage to American research effort by such arbitrary action is incalculable. As examples, the expensive hurricane research project was wrecked by withdrawal of the aircraft and removal of equipment after two years of effort to bring it to the point of fruition. Support was withdrawn from solar research, which depends upon continuity for its results and the data from which are essential to many other researches. By edict of the Budget Bureau, the financing of the national laboratories was put on a month to month basis, leaving the future in doubtful balance.

Support for the first-class air-rocket research at the Naval Research Laboratory has been withdrawn twice since the war, and competent research teams at the laboratory twice broken up and their skills and equipment dispersed. Yet this work at NRL was the direct antecedent of our satellite effort. There is little doubt that had research behind the NRL rocket effort been continuous since the war (as General Blagonravov, leader of the Russian satellite program, tells me it was in the corresponding Russian laboratory), the time scale of the Vanguard satellite would have been very different. Upon his return to Russia, Blagonravov was constrained to remark with almost British conservatism: "In rocket techniques, the U.S. is not doing badly, but it is far behind the U.S.S.R." After the satellites, Q.E.D.

This is not to say that research is holy; periodic review by competent scientific directors is essential. But our national science policy must remove control of research from officials ignorant of objectives and methods. The overall direction should be firmly in the hands of a competent scientific administrator who can apply reasonable criteria and restraint in the adjustment of support levels to insure continuity.

BALANCE

We cannot afford to be without skill in any important area of scientific activity. Moreover, as new opportunities arise, we must be quick to explore them. The history of science in this country is replete with examples of discoveries made here but never followed up for lack of support. The four major discoveries of radio astronomy were made by American scientists, yet the great radio telescopes to exploit these discoveries are situated abroad. Only recently has the National Science Foundation been able to provide the beginnings of a National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which will require years before it can reach the level of foreign activity. The basic methods for outer atmospheric research originated here, yet there is not a single professorship in the United States on the outer atmosphere. There are many in foreign universities.

Although the world is approaching the era of greatly improved forecasting and some measure of weather control, our support of meteorological research is negligible. Much of the existing support is for the pursuit of crackpot schemes for rain making that make no pretense of understanding the underlying physical phenomena involved. The promise of meteorological research is such that adequate research would be repaid a hundred or thousandfold. Moreover, the nation that develops some measure of weather control will enjoy an advantage far superior to the controller of Sputnik; control of our environment has unlimited social, economic, and military implications. Strong support for meteorological research at the university level together with the creation of a great Meteorological National Laboratory to focus, integrate, and sponsor large-scale research on the physics of weather would be a cheap investment.

But failure to organize and support research in so vital an area as meteorology is only a single example of our failure to achieve a balanced program. The same could be said for oceanography, for the oceans cover three quarters of the earth and contain incomparable wealth in their influence on our lives. Of their total of eighteen oceanographic research ships, the Soviets have five to ten of these at sea at all times, led by the excellent laboratory ship, the Ob, of more than 12,000 tons. The U.S. effort in oceanography is limited to a few struggling centers with small yachts whose recent meager opportunities have been financed from the funds advanced for the International Geophysical Year.

In February, 1955, a conference of sixty leading geophysicists met in the halls of the National Science Foundation to voice their concern at the stagnant state of theoretical geophysics in the United States. In the strongest terms, men such as von Neumann and Urey recommended the establishment of at least one U.S. Institute of Theoretical Geophysics to create opportunity for new and specialized professorships in the study of the physical aspects of our environment. Several universities expressed their interest in sponsoring such an institute. But nothing has happened.

These are but a few of many examples of the neglect of research in literally dozens of important scientific fields. In any one of these fields, the Soviets may next leapfrog the United States in their bid for world scientific leadership.

This point is worthy of emphasis. It is often said that Soviet scientific efforts are concentrated in a new direction to the exclusion of others. This is not true, for Soviet science is growing with remarkable balance. The concentration is on these carefully selected ideas emerging from science that the Russians choose to exploit in the technological sense. If, after Sputnik, we throw everything into rocket research to the exclusion of other fields, we risk the danger of being surpassed in a dozen other areas of science that we are neglecting. We should avoid this trap. In our underestimate of Soviet capability we might remember Mark Twain's comment: "It can be no sufficient compensation to a corpse to know that the dynamite that laid him out was not of so good a quality as it had been supposed to be."

What is needed is a strong and adequate level of support for university research in new fields of endeavor. Competent individual skill needs encouragement wherever it appears. Closely coupled with such aid must be new scientific institutes or national laboratories to provide the major instrumentation which is beyond the capacity ol the universities to provide but to which their faculties should have access. The present national laboratories are models for such purposes. Similar laboratories should provide expanded opportunity in every area of science.

LEVEL OF RESEARCH

Many of the weaknesses of imagination and balance in American research exist because there is not enough money to broaden research activities. With the limited funds available, the expansion of science into new and necessary areas is often and quite naturally opposed by men whose own valuable work would be curtailed or stopped as a result of any diversion. Nothing is to be gained by the development of a new field of scientific skill if an equally important existing project is killed.

One often hears public officials quote figures of billions of federal research support. Such figures are most misleading. They reflect principally the large costs of engineering and development of specific products.

The National Science Foundation puts the total support for U.S. programs of research at $435 million, of which federal support represents less than half of the total. When one includes development, the total jumps to $5.37 billion. Therefore, about $5 billion is spent on development of ideas emergent from research costing less than one tenth as much. With such a ratio one is probably not far wrong in suspecting that much development is too often expended on obsolescent ideas or devices.

The basic research effort of the Department of Defense is about $30 million, and that of the National Science Foundation is $40 million. Since either of these amounts represents only a fraction of our total annual expenditure for chewing gum (estimated at $280 million), the national interest would seem to dictate that basic research expenditures of such agencies be raised at least to the chewing gum level.

The failure of Congress and the Administration not only to support research at an adequate level but to take the initiative in calling for such support is deplorable — and illogical. Certainly more than half the U.S. income is derived from ideas produced by research in the present century. Consequently, the federal government has a direct financial stake in the support of research at a level that can maintain the federal income. Ideas emergent from research are capital investment that continue to produce for the public good without depreciation or maintenance costs.

Certainly the nation has every right to make necessary budget cuts, but these should be made in terms of the present, where the effect can be estimated. Cuts that jeopardize the future in ways that cannot be assessed are certainly of doubtful wisdom — yet arbitrary reductions in the scientific research budget have jeopardized our future in just this way.

Because the federal budget cycle is long, federal science officers should have some free funds which permit the nation to follow exciting new leads or break-throughs. Moreover, in constructing new research devices it is seldom possible to estimate costs accurately, since there is no base in experience from which estimates can be made. Some such funds could be made available through the judicious review and cancellation of unproductive research activities. But additional free funds would pay great dividends by permitting prompt action in grasping research opportunity.

Moreover, the level of research support should be increased, not diminished, at periods of economic upset. In the past, research has been cut when industry and government have most needed ideas. It is hardly necessary to say that this makes no sense, especially since research support is a tiny fraction of the total budget. During economic stress, ideas emergent from research can have a hundred times the economic effect of a WPA or CCC.

The National Science Foundation was established by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to secure the national defense," and American science has the right to expect strong leadership from the Foundation in securing adequate funds for research to ensure the national welfare. Although Vannevar Bush believed in 1947 that support of American research by the NSF should grow to $125 million in five years (that would be perhaps $175 million in 1957 dollars), its support has reached less than one fourth of this goal in the intervening ten years. It is true that congressional temper and national complacency are partly responsible for this fiasco, but the nation expects the Foundation to be vigorously articulate in breaking down this resistance to appropriations so vital to its welfare. When the national future is at stake, members of the Foundation have the responsibility to marshal the forces of science and to utilize every means of makingknown the needs of science.

If America is to maintain scientific pre-eminence and economic stability, research funds must grow to five or ten times their present value in the next few years. The government's aid to science is essential, but there is an equally powerful source we must look to for the education and development of American sciences in the future. In 1956, big business invested something like $35 billion in new capital. Yet it contributed only $100 million to education. Certainly private investment in the men that must man our industry and government to insure its pre-eminence is comparable to the importance of other forms of capital investment.

The support of research underlying required theses in graduate schools is a critical matter. A great deal of such support comes from the federal government in the form of research grants or contracts for research, development, and engineering. This latter type of support is especially important for advanced engineering graduates. Of the government money going to the universities for such purposes, some $400 to $500 million originates from the Department of Defense and less than one fourth of this amount comes from all other government agencies. While a substantial part of the contribution of the Department of Defense goes to specialized laboratories for specific military development and engineering, nevertheless the Department of Defense almost unwittingly controls the level and welfare of graduate activities in science by its fiscal policies in support of the universities. This is not necessarily bad. But if the welfare of graduate training in science depends on the Department of Defense, that department must exercise great caution and wisdom in administration of this responsibility.

SECURITY

The Moss Subcommittee of the Government Operations Committee of the House of Representatives has examined so thoroughly the interaction between science and secrecy, personnel clearance, and security of information generally that it seems unnecessary to amplify the subject here. Generally, in a free political system the security of information and the security of progress are mutually inconsistent. Security of information can easily be pressed to such rigid compartmentalization that progress is slowed; and when you fall behind your competition, you have few remaining secrets worth keeping by any standard. Even more, failure to progress is hidden by security of information until revealed by some dramatic act such as the launching of the Soviet satellite or a Pearl Harbor.

The success of our Manhattan District arose in the infancy of American security, when scientists were trusted and communication among them was relatively free. But post-war security has imposed tighter and tighter compartmentalization, and scientists who could contribute much never learn of their opportunity. Now that we have been surpassed in important scientific advances, we must rightfully question the security of information that unquestionably has slowed our progress. There are always some secrets that will be vital to American welfare — these are few and must be kept at the penalty of treason. These must be selected because of their genuine value, and they should not be devalued by confusing them with thousands of bits of information that have no real secrecy and for which security of information can never really be retained in our democracy.

Aside from military men, scientists are the only distinctive group in American life who are exposed en masse to the security procedures. Consequently, celebrated security cases among scientists and among no other identifiable group are certain to emerge, regardless of their injustice. In spite of brilliant scientific performance in developing the decisive weapons of the last war, security procedures have driven a devastating wedge of doubt between these same scientists and the American public. This doubt dulls the aspiration toward scientific achievement that must motivate great science. The disgrace of great scientists pushed aside by the security machine when honor should be their reward is deeply disturbing to all conscientious Americans.

The specter of security measures in dividing us from our allies and forcing duplication of research effort has been most distressing. The extraordinary picture of a thousand British research workers under Sir William Penny carrying on research on nuclear devices for which we already know the answers makes no sense at all; this seems the more extraordinary when we recall the mighty scientific contributions of our British allies during the war. The free world should be uniting its efforts to maintain its superiority.

Failure to recognize and to solve problems like these has unnecessarily embarrassed our scientists and our government by our untutored responses. Our national policy for science should reduce security of information to its absolute minimum. For no longer can we say that the mighty Russian rockets were derived from stolen secrets. Our security must be built on bricks and mortar, on steel and concrete, on the laboratories well equipped for research, engineering, and production. It must be created in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence between science and the American public, between ourselves and our allies.