Presidential Science Adviser Research Articles

An unintended consequence of the IGY: Eisenhower, Sputnik, the Founding of NASA

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first Earth-circling artificial satellite and the United States responded by taking numerous actions aimed at “remediating” a Cold War crisis. This included the establishment of a separate civilian space agency charged with the conduct of an official program of scientific and technological space exploration, consolidation of Department of Defense space activities, the passage of the National Defense Education Act, the creation of a Presidential Science Advisor, and a host of lesser actions. The politics of these changes is fascinating, and has been interpreted as an appropriate political response to a unique crisis situation. Interest groups, all for differing reasons, prodded national leaders to undertake large-scale efforts, something the president thought unnecessarily expensive and once set in place impossible to dismantle. But was the Sputnik crisis truly a crisis in any real sense? Was it made into one by interest groups who used it for their own ends? This paper will trace briefly some of the major themes associated with the IGY and Sputnik and describe the political construction of the crisis as it emerged in 1957–1958. It will also discuss something about the transformation of federal science and technology that took place in response to this “crisis” and how it set in train a series of processes and policies that did not unravel until the end of the Cold War.

In Sputnik's Shadow: The President's Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America

In 1957, elite panic following the launch of Russia's Sputnik changed the way scientists (especially physicists) operated politically. A cabinet-level presidential science adviser position was created. Assisting him was the President's Science Advisory Committee (psac). For the next sixteen years there existed a small panel with direct access to the president and broad advisory mandates. Presidents received relatively disinterested advice about weapons systems and space and arms races. In 1973, however, after the psac opposed an antiballistic missile (abm) program, it and the science adviser position were abolished by Richard M. Nixon. Only partly reconstituted since, science advisory agencies have been ad hoc and decentralized under the conservative presidents Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and—especially—George W. Bush. As one result, the nation has spent $150 billion in twenty-five years on missile defense systems still not successfully tested under realistic battlefield conditions. Presidents have also dithered about addressing global warming. Following earlier analysts including Bruce L. R. Smith and Gregg Herken, Zuoyue Wang surveys the psac to answer these questions: What shaped relationships between scientists and the state? And, what is the proper role of science in a democratic society? Eight case studies clarify these topics: the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; military missile development; the 1963 nuclear test ban; the Stanford linear accelerator; project Apollo; the psac's response to Rachel Carson's pioneering Silent Spring (1962); the Vietnam War; the abm program; and the supersonic transport aircraft. Wang sees opportunity (in Sputnik), agreement (regarding nuclear arms control), and liberal-to-moderate consensus (regarding containing Communism) as answers to his first question on the relationship between science and the state. Toward answering his second question, he argues that psac's key role was to advise what technology would not do. Such “scientific and technological dissent” is “vital” (p. 317). Otherwise, high technology enthusiasm and gadget worship will land the country in large, avoidable troubles.

John Holdren Brings More Than Energy to His Role as Science Adviser

NEWSMAKER INTERVIEWIn one of his first interviews since his Senate confirmation 19 March, presidential science adviser John Holdren told Science last week that he hopes to wield considerable influence on energy. He also spoke frankly on issues ranging from nuclear proliferation to the teaching of evolution.

The Rise and Fall of the Science Advisor to the President of the United States

The president’s science advisor was formerly established in the days following the Soviet launch of Sputnik at the height of the Cold War, creating an impression of scientists at the center of presidential power. However, since that time the role of the science advisor has been far more prosaic, with a role that might be more aptly described as a coordinator of budgets and programs, and thus more closely related to the functions of the Office of Management and Budget than the development of presidential policy. This role dramatically enhances the position of the scientific community to argue for its share of federal expenditures. At the same time, scientific and technological expertise permeates every function of government policy and politics, and the science advisor is only rarely involved in wider White House decision making. The actual role of the science advisor as compared to its heady initial days, in the context of an overall rise of governmental expertise, provides ample reason to reconsider the role of the presidential science advisor, and to set our expectations for that role accordingly.

In Sputnik's shadow: the President's Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America

today's world of rapid advancements in science and technology, we need to scrutinize more than ever the historical forces that shape our perceptions of what these new possibilities can and cannot do for social progress. In Sputnik's Shadow provides a lens to do just that, by tracing the rise and fall of the President's Science Advisory Committee from its ascendance under Eisenhower in the wake of the Soviet launching of Sputnik to its demise during the Nixon years. Members of this committee shared a strong sense of technological skepticism; they were just as inclined to advise the president about what technology couldn't do - for national security, space exploration, arms control, and environmental protection - as about what it could do.Zuoyue Wang examines key turning points during the twentieth century, including the beginning of the Cold War, the debates over nuclear weapons, the Sputnik crisis in 1957, the struggle over the Vietnam War, and the eventual end of the Cold War, showing how the involvement of scientists in executive policymaking evolved over time. Bringing new insights to the intellectual, social, and cultural histories of the era, this book not only depicts the drama of Cold War American science, it gives perspective to how we think about technological advancements today.

What Can Science Do for the President?

In Sputnik's Shadow . The President's Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America. By Zuoyue Wang . Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2008. 477 pp. $49.95. ISBN 9780813543314. Through his examination of the functioning and effectiveness of the U.S. President's Science Advisory Committee, Wang explores the evolution of scientists' roles in executive policy-making during the 1950s and 1960s.

Retooling for the Future: Launching the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence's Laboratory, 1980–1986

In the early 1980s, David Shirley tried to launch a new synchrotron light source for materials science at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL). Building accelerators was LBL's stock-in-trade. Yet with the Advanced Light Source (ALS) nothing proceeded as in the past. Whereas nuclear and high energy physicists had been happy when funding was procured for new machines, materials scientists were irritated to learn that Shirley had brokered a deal with Presidential Science Advisor George Keyworth to fund the ALS. Materials scientists valued accelerators less because materials science had benefitted less from large-scale devices; such devices were therefore uncommon in their field. The project also faced competition and the criticism that LBL managers wanted it only to help their laboratory weather the threatening times that came with Ronald Reagan and his promise to cut the size of government (and in fact that was a part of the rationale). The ALS also suffered because Shirley's deal was ill-suited for Washington in the 1980s. Scientists were less influential than in previous decades and a more robust federal bureaucracy controlled funding. Other ALS advocates eventually crafted a convincing scientific justification, recruited potential users, and guided the proposal through materials science reviews and the proper Washington channels. Although one-on-one deal making à la Ernest Lawrence was a relic of the past, Shirley did bargain collectively with other directors, paving the way for ALS funding and a retooling of the national laboratories and materials science: in the 1990s and 2000s the largest Department of Energy accelerators were devoted to materials science, not nuclear or high-energy physics.

US election: Not the best advice

Concerns about the next president's science adviser miss the real issues, says David Goldston.

"Myth, Mask, Shield, and Sword": Dr. John H. Marburger III's Rhetoric of Neutral Science for the Nation

This article analyzes presidential science advisor John H. Marburger III's use of an idealized vision of science in his February 14, 2005, address on science policy in the context of allegations of Bush administration science politicization. The authors contend that Marburger's speech is both a performative enactment and an active construction of a linear model of science supported by an entrepreneurial vision of science policy. Although incompatible with the actual conduct of science, this view is rhetorically advantageous for Marburger and the present administration in that it both encourages the demarcation of science from politics in ways that serve elite interests and allows for the negotiation of role tensions inherent in the science advisor position.

Who has the ear of the president?

50 years after the appointment of the first presidential science adviser, the White House is flooded with scientific information. Roger Pielke Jr suggests how the next administration might develop ways to use it best. The first presidential science adviser was appointed by Dwight D. Eisenhower 50 years ago this week. The anniversary has prompted reminiscences of a time when the science adviser was closer to the seat of power than at any time since. But in a Commentary, Roger Pielke Jr argues that there's no going back. The role has changed: the job of the science adviser under the next president will be to help his or her administration make the most of the vast infrastructure of expert advice that now exists in the United States.

How the mighty have fallen

In 1957, science advisers were brought into the White House as the President's Science Advisory Committee. Its demise has deprived the US government of invaluable counsel. In the first of a new series of essays on government science advice, Richard Garwin, a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee in the Eisenhower administration, mourns its demise at the hands of President Nixon. Set up in 1957 in response to Soviet exploits in space, PSAC succeeded in bringing science advice into the White House in a way that Garwin feels structures since have failed to do.

Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945–1963 (review)

Reviewed by: Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945–1963 Jacob Darwin Hamblin (bio) Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945–1963. By Benjamin P. Greene . Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007. Pp. xiii+358. $65. Dwight Eisenhower never succeeded in negotiating a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing with the Soviet Union. Benjamin P. Greene offers an intriguing argument to explain why the president failed. His book is carefully crafted, it is methodologically sound, and it makes a genuine contribution to scholarship on the politics of science and technology in the cold war. Greene's conclusions, however, are bound to be controversial because of what they say not only about science advice but about Eisenhower's control over his own administration. Greene takes aim at scholars who doubt Eisenhower's sincerity in trying to achieve a comprehensive test ban. He judges that Eisenhower believed by 1954 that a test ban was the necessary and desirable first step in disarmament. But the president lacked the confidence to overrule his closest advisors, and his style of leadership—based on consensus— prevented him from pursuing his true aims. Eisenhower deceived and misled Americans and the world, claiming that tests were necessary while secretly wishing he could ban them. He wanted a test ban as much as his opponent in the 1956 election, Adlai Stevenson, but he felt unable to admit it publicly. Greene paints a portrait of a frustrated president trapped by his own leadership style, his mistrust of the Soviets, a lack of pressure from his allies and advisors, and most important of all his "understandable confusion with the complex technical issues" (p. 3). As improbable as the scenario sounds, Greene has done an admirable job of making the case. The villain of his story is Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Lewis Strauss, with supporting roles played by politically conservative scientists Edward Teller and Willard Libby. These men monopolized scientific advice during the first five years of Eisenhower's presidency, and virtually all their advice emphasized the need for more testing. Only after the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, and the subsequent creation of the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), did Eisenhower begin to receive a broader range of scientific advice. The PSAC's support for a test ban, the exit of Strauss from the AEC, and the willingness of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to support a test ban gave the president enough confidence to pursue the ban openly. Still, the objections of Strauss and Teller prevailed because of uncertainties about differentiating earthquakes from nuclear tests. Ultimately, the president ran out of time on the job. Some scholars may be uncomfortable about letting Eisenhower off the hook as a frustrated and befuddled victim of scientific manipulation. [End Page 892] Greene's conclusions may derive from his focus on the scientific controversy about detecting nuclear tests, rather than the controversy about nuclear fallout. These were two distinct issues, but they are intertwined here as the "test-ban debate." One was an obstacle on the path to disarmament. The other was a warning from biologists who feared cancer and predicted mutations in future generations. If Eisenhower sincerely wanted to work toward disarmament, then his frustration with scientists on the issue of test detection makes sense. But there is little evidence that he agonized behind the scenes and agreed with his opponents—during, say, the election of 1956—about the dangers from fallout. Eisenhower knew of geneticists' claims but played them down in order to continue testing. If he later was frustrated by the politicization of science, a cynic might conclude that he was simply hoist by his own petard. Greene's book, which is nearly identical to his 2004 Stanford University dissertation, is a provocative indictment of those who control scientific advice, but it is also a disturbing apologia for Dwight Eisenhower. The president appears as a moral man wishing to do the right thing, but with his hands tied by narrow-minded ideologues. Greene insists that Strauss misled the president and was the dominant influence on him until Eisenhower finally was freed by PSAC scientists. Was he really such a creature of Lewis...

Foreigners Welcome, Bush Aide Says

The Bush Administration appears to have thrown its weight behind a proposal to grant automatic green cards to foreign students graduating from U.S. universities with Ph.D.s in science and engineering. Speaking earlier this month at the annual S&T Forum of AAAS (publisher of Science ), presidential science adviser John Marburger noted that it is “foolish to send [foreign Ph.D.s] home when we want to take advantage of their training and they often want to stay.” The proposal is contained in a comprehensive immigration reform bill that is scheduled for debate in the Senate this week and could get a vote in the coming weeks. (A similar bill passed the Senate last year but died in the House due to its guest-worker program.) Backers of high-tech immigration say Marburger's stance is the strongest Administration endorsement yet of opening the doors wider to foreign talent.

U.S. Science Adviser Tells Researchers to Look Elsewhere

At the annual AAAS Science and Technology Forum last week, presidential science adviser John Marburger told researchers that Congress and the White House cannot keep up with the type of budgetary growth needed to capitalize on scientific opportunities. (Read more.)

Science Adviser Says That Pruning Is the Key to a Healthy Budget

U.S. RESEARCH FUNDINGSpeaking last week to Science about President George W. Bush's 2008 budget request to Congress, presidential science adviser John Marburger said the U.S. science community needs to figure out how to live within its means. ([Read more][1].) [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5814/927

Science Adviser Battles Cancer

2008 U.S. BUDGETThis week, presidential science adviser John Marburger's diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma became public when he missed the Administration's annual science budget briefing, over which he normally presides. ([Read more][1].) [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5813/753

The Management of Research When Research–Technology Management was Born

OVERVIEW:The first issue of RTM, then Research Management, featured case histories of research from National Cash Register, Westinghouse Electric and Atlas Powder. Subsequent 1958 issues carried reports from General Electric, General Motors, Corning Glass, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Hercules Powder, RCA, American Cyanamid, Esso Standard Oil, Esso Research and Engineering—and the first Presidential science adviser, James R. Killian. From a time when Sputnik and Univac captured the science headlines, they provide insights into the management of scientists and engineers that remain surprisingly relevant today.

How to Win the Nobel Prize?

Based on the title—The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize—one might expect Peter Doherty's new book to be a handbook targeted to the emerging group of anxious parents whose expectations for their youngsters' achievements have reached the stratospheric level. In truth, this is a delightful history and series of essays by an affable Australian veterinarian—sort of a James Herriott of science—who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in medicine. I enjoyed sitting down with this book as much as I enjoy slipping on a comfortable old pair of shoes and sitting in our garden on a Saturday evening with a glass of wine. Doherty's book will make an interesting and entertaining read for scientists and will provide a delightful experience for the nonscientists, who may be impressed to learn how decent and truly normal an internationally renowned scientist can be.

Epistemological Frameworks, Homosexuality, and Religion: A Response to Hodge

In his recent article in this journal Epistemological Frameworks, Homosexuality, and Religion: How People of Faith Understand the Intersection between Homosexuality and Religion, David Hodge argued that Christians are disenfranchised in the culture and in the work profession because of the intellectual and power of progressives, whom he described as including men and lesbians, feminists, atheists, and metaphysical relativists (2005, p. 208). Following Hunter's (1991) distinctions between orthodox and progressive ideology, Hodge posits that progressives hold hegemonic power in the culture based on their domination of the centers of power, such as the entertainment industry, news media, helping professions, and perhaps most notably, education (p. 209). I wonder whether Hodge has been apprised of the and political power of what is commonly known as the Christian Coalition, group of conservative Christians who have unparalleled access to broadcast media, including talk radio and television news stations. These outlets of popular culture are considerably more powerful shapers of the social narratives that inform the broader society, than the progressives so troubling to Hodge. These popular media outlets tend to reflect the viewpoint of conservative, rather than progressive thought. Conservative Christians' power in shaping our government, as well as our narratives, was aptly demonstrated by the last presidential election. An example of the national platform that traditional Christians have found for their ideas was the recent statement of President Bush, an avowed devout Christian, affirming his support for intelligent design as theory of human creation. The president believes that intelligent design should be taught along with evolution in the nation's public schools, saying that both sides ought to be properly taught, even though much of the scientific establishment, including the president's own science adviser, has argued that intelligent design is not tested scientific theory. Richard Land, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, noted after Bush's remarks, It's what I've been pushing, it's what lot of us have been pushing (Bumiller, 2005, p. A14). The point here is that the ideas Hodge claims are being marginalized by the so-called progressives are well represented in the highest strata of political and power in the country. The White House has unparalleled ability to shape public opinion, far more so than metropolitan newspapers such as The New York Times, paper Hodge and like-minded individuals single out as being in thrall to the progressive point of view (Alterman, 2003). Despite the clear indications of the power of traditional Christians to shape national politics as well as reality, Hodge calls the Christian perspective a limited, minority viewpoint in national discourse (p. 211). After making these and other sweeping and specious arguments about the power of progressive thought, Hodge focused on his central thesis: the Christian belief that homosexual behavior is morally wrong is not allowed fair hearing, either nationally, or most significantly, in the work profession. As far as the national agenda is concerned, traditional Christians, as Hodge calls them, could only have been cheered by the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (P.L. 104-199) in 1996, which forbade federal recognition of gay and lesbian marriage, regardless of whether individual states allow such marriages. Here is clear example of the lack of power of the so-called Progressive Coalition. Traditional Christian viewpoints about marriage also are central to this administration's efforts to tie marriage promotion funds to TANF reauthorization. The heterosexist bias of these two federal measures, along with federally funded abstinence-only campaigns targeted to adolescents that ignore the needs of gay and lesbian adolescents for sex education, privileges the beliefs and values of traditional Christians over progressives (Levin-Epstein, 2005; Lind, 2004). …

Conversation with Joseph V. Brady

Conversation with Joseph V. Brady