National Science Policy

Archive Report

Shifts in Science's Federal Role

Discontent Caused by Budget and Reorganization

The American scientific community, anguished by its slippage in public esteem and beset by self-doubt, is wor-ried that the role of science in the councils of government is also faltering. This worry, expressed in science journals and by leading scientists, has been reinforced by two recent develop-ments: President Nixon's resbuffling of the White House science advisory staff and the implications of the federal budget he sent Congress for the coming fiscal year. The first is interpreted as a sign of science's diminishing influence in the federal government and the second as a further sign of de-clining support for basic research.

In Reorganization Plan No. l of 1973, issued Jan. 26, Nixon ordered the Office of Science ...

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