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NOMINATION '1'‘

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

OR AND PUBLIC WELFARE

JNITED STATES SENATE

EIGHTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

)ME B. WIESNER TO BE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OV

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

JULY 17, 1962

Printed for the use of the

Committee on Labor and Public Welfare

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

86922 WASHINGTON: 1962

ttlIVEpt.

SEP 10 19 62

'44TAN
COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE

LISTER HILL,

PAT McNAMARA, Michigan

WAYNE MORSE, Oregon

RALPH YARBOROUGH, Texas

JOSEPH S. CLARK, Pennsylvania

JENNINGS RANDOLPH, West Virginia

HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, JR., New Jersey

QUENTIN N. BURDICK, North Dakota

BENJAMIN A. SMITH II, Massachusetts

CLAIBORNE PELL, Rhode Island

STEWART E, 111GCLURE, Chief Clerk

JOHN S. FORSYTHE, General Conned

II

Alabama, Chairman

BARRY GOLDWATER, Arizona

JACOB K. JAVITS, New York

WINSTON L. PROUTY, Vermont

JOHN G. TOWER, Texas

MAURICE J. MURPHY, JR., New Hampshire
CONTENTS

Statement of—

Smith, Hon. Benjamin A., II, a U.S. Senator from the State of Massa- Page

chusetts 1

Wiesner, Dr. Jerome B., nominee to be Director, Office of Science and

Technology 2

Biographical sketch of Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner 3

III

NOMINATION OF DR. JEROME B. WIESNER

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1962

U.S. SENATE,

COMMII. LEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

T a8hington, D .0 .

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in room 4232,

New Senate Office Building, Senator Lister Hill, chairman, presiding.

Present: Senators Hill, chairman (presiding), Morse, Yarborough,

Clark, Randolph., Williams of New Jersey, Burdick, Smith of Massachusetts, Pell, Javits, and Tower.

Committee staff members present: John S. Forsythe, general counsel; Robert W. Barclay, professional staff member; Michael J. Bernstein, minority counsel; and Raymond D. Hurley, minority associate

counsel.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will kindly come to order.

Senator Smith, we are happy to have you here as a member of the

committee this morning. We will be glad to hear from you and to

have you present the witness to us.

STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN A. SMITH II, A U.S. SENATOR FROM

THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS

Senator Smirrx. Thank you2 Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee. It is a distinct privilege I have this morning to present

to the committee Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, for confirmation to the new

office of Director of the Office of Science and Technology.

Dr. Wiesner is one of my constituents in Massachusetts, a man of

whom we are very proud, an able scientist, and a man who has been

working with the President here in this administration during the last

year and a half. I am sure that he brings to this position a great

wealth of ability. I wish that more scientific people of his caliber

would come into the Government service.

I am very happy to present him to you, Mr. Chairman and members

of the committee, this morning.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. We appreciate that statement very

much. Dr. Wiesner, will you tell us just what is the nature of the

new office that has been created by the President, and then add anything that you might wish?

1
2 NOMINATION

STATEMENT OF DR. JEROME B. ViTIESNER, NOMINEE TO BE

DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Dr. WIESNER. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the

office for which I have been nominated was created as a successor to

the previous office, and represents a step in the evolution of the development of governmental scientific activities, an evolution begun

by the creation of the position of Special Assistant for Science and

Technology in the White House. That position, which I am sure you

are all aware, was created in 195'T when the Nation became aware of

the fact that we had to accelerate our scientific and technical programs

and to improve and increase the technical education activities in the

country.

The initial efforts of the Office of the Special Assistant for Science

and Technology were devoted largely to the problem of providing

policy assistance to the President; to provide guidance in areas in

which technology impinged on national policy. However, slowly

through the years, as the office matured, it was recognized that a need

existed for an evaluation and coordination of responsibility for science

in the Government. Slowly the Office of the Special Assistant has

assumed responsibility for this activity as well.

There have come to be two quite distinct scientific activities carried

out in the White House both by my predecessors and my group.

One of these is of a confidential nature, that is, giving policy

assistance to the President when scientific matters are involved.

The second is of a general surveillance and evaluation nature to

Provide some overall coordination and judgment concerning the very

large and rapidly growing scientific programs in the Government.

About 2 years ago a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on

Government Operations, headed by Senator Jackson, made a study

of the management aspects of the research and development activities

of the Federal Government and concluded that there was a rather

serious need for more intensive and extensive coordination to avoid

overlap and duplication. He also saw needs in the training of scientists and engineers and so on. As a result of his study, the subcommittee recommended that the group that I now head carry out this

task in a more thorough fashion.

He, also, felt that there would be a considerable advantage in having the group that provided such evaluation and coordination accessible to the Congress, and that this was possible for such information

was not of the same confidential nature to the President as giving

policy assistance and advice on security matters. Consequently he

recommended that a permanent Office of Science and Technology

be set up to do this in the Executive Office of the President, rather

than in the White House itself.

These recommendations were made at approximately the same time

that I became the President's Special Assistant for Science and Tech.-

nology. These proposals and others were studied by the Science Advisory Committee and discussed with the President and members of

the White House staff. During this session we submitted to the Congress the Reorganization Act creating the new office. Early in July

we transferred to the new office the entire staff that had been in the
NOMINATION 3

White House. I have been Acting Director and will become the Director if you confirm me.

I will have a deputy who has not yet been chosen.

As to my qualifications I have been working as a scientist and engineer since 1937-38, when I graduated from the University of Michigan,

where I studied mathematics, electrical engineering, and physics.

My principal activities have been in electronics and the communications field. About one-third of my activities during my active professional life have been associated with military technology problems.

I worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory during the war on radar developments. Following that I

worked at Los Alamos Laboratory on nuclear weapon development.

Subsequent to that I worked on air defense problems. I was also a

member of the so-called Van Neumann Committee that started the

ballistic missile development program in this country.

My own research has been in the field of communications systems,

and computer applications in that field.

I have been on the staff of MIT since 1942 except for excursions from

MIT for the Government work primarily here in Washington.

I taught at MIT during most of that period. For a period of time

I was also head of the Department of Electrical Engineering. For

the past decade I was also director of the Research Laboratory for

Electronics at MIT.

I am now open for questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, we will place your biographical

sketch in the record at this point.

(The biographical sketch follows:)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR. JEROME B. WIESNER

Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, the President's Special Assistant for Science and

Technology, was born in Detroit, Mich., on May 30, 1915. He is married to the

former Laya L. Wainger, and they have four children, three boys and one girl.

Dr. Wiesner received his B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of

Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1937; his M.S. in 1938; and his Ph. D. in 1950.

Upon graduation from the University of Michigan, Dr. Wiesner joined the

staff there and remained in Ann Arbor for 2 years. In 1940 he was appointed

Chief Engineer of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and while there

he developed the recording and acoustical laboratory and did some record preservation work. In 1942 he joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., where he stayed until 1945 when he went to work at

Los Alamos, N. Mex., with the University of California's Los Alamos Laboratory.

In 1946 Dr. Wiesner returned to MIT and in 1952 he became director of its Research Laboratory of Electronics. In January 1961 President Kennedy appointed

Dr. Wiesner his Special Assistant for Science and Technology. Dr. Wiesner also

serves as the Chairman of the President's Science Advisory Committee and of

the Federal Council for Science and Technology.

Dr. Wiesner has done research on scatter communications techniques and

radar problems. While at MIT he assisted in the establishment of the Lincoln

Laboratory which worked on development of the radar, computer, and communications systems for the continental air defense system. Prior to coming

to Washington as special assistant, he served on numerous advisory committees

to the Department of Defense and the White House on scientific and technical

matters. In 1958 he was staff director of the Conference of Experts on Methods

of Preventing Surprise Attack which met in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a member of various technical societies such as the Institute of Radio Engineers, the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the

Acoustical Society of America, etc. Dr. Wiesner has published numerous technical papers in the Journal of Applied Physics, Scientific American, Proceedings of

the Institute of Radio Engineers, Science, Physical Review, etc. He has been
4 NOMINATION

awarded honorary degrees from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (1961) , the

Lowell Technological Institute (1962), and the University of Michigan (1962).

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions?

Senator CLARK. I share Senator Smith's high regard for the nominee. I think the Government of the United States is most fortunate

in Dr. Wiesner being willing not only to continue with his confidential

guidance job to the President but, also, to take on this job.

I would like to get your views on a policy matter with which you

will have to cope. I am referring to the impact of government research and development contracts on the enonomic life of various communities in the United States. It seems to me to be quite significant.

The location of the research and development activities in various parts

of the country is of keen interest to communities anxious to seek and

acquire new industries and new jobs, and to the universities desirous

of obtaining additional research grants from the Federal Government.

Because most research and development work initially went to Cambridge, Mass., and to California, it has tended to give those two areas

the lion's share of the research and development grants. You will be

the coordinator of many of those contracts from now on, although

there are, of course, many which will continue to be administered by

the National Science Foundation.

We are making strenuous efforts to get additional research contracts

in Pennsylvania. So is the State of Michigan, and so are several other

States.

Our argument must be that it is wise to diffuse to a substantially

greater extent then at present the geographical distribution of these

different scientific activities. It may well be that in making our application for greater research grants we will not be able to show, in

the first instance, that we are as fully equipped with top-flight scientific and research people as institutions that already have the experience in dealing with these contracts. Nevertheless, some us feel that

in terms of long-range public policy it will be wise not to conduct

these activities so as to be unduly concentrated in any particular

area.

I wonder if you would comment on that problem.

Dr. WIESNER. You have touched upon one aspect of the problem

that we have been concerned about, and that is the issue of the technological growth of the Nation, the fact that our economic growth

and development is linked and will be increasingly linked to the technical innovations of research and development, so that we must be

concerned about the concentration of such technical resources. To

put it conversely, I would say that one really has to be concerned

about the technically underdeveloped areas of the country. I do

think that we must take some rather specific steps in some parts of

the country to do something about this.

Some of the Government agencies have taken this problem into

account when they have made decisions concerning the location of new

research and development facilities. We can do this even more.

And we should do it even more.

I and my advisers have spent much time studying this problem.

We have become firmly convinced that the growth of technical industry in an area requires the existence of adequate academic facilities.

It is very difficult to maintain or build technical competence in an
NOMINATION 5

area that does not have a good scientific educational base. And so

while I think the Federal Government can do its part in attempting

to diffuse the development and research resources, I think that the

local communities have a very important responsibility to create the

proper kind of scientific and academic environment. Many parts of

the country have undertaken to do this.

The Federal Government can help by its granting procedures.

However, we have to be very careful in the use of this technique. I

think it would be a serious mistake for the Federal institutions that

make the grants for research and development to weigh too heavily

considerations other than technical competence. I think that we

might want to provide additional funds, supplementary funds, for

area development, but I think that if a large proportion of the resources of the Nation to be spent on research and development and

engineering were allocated on a basis other than the qualification of

the institutions and the industries to do the best possible job, we would

risk having serious deterioration in our work.

So what I would suggest is that in the field of research and the

field of scientific education we consider the special provision of additional resources for these development problems, rather than to try

to change the basis on which research activities are allotted.

Senator CLARK. I would like to make one more statement and ask

you to comment on it. It occurs to me that this is like the question of

which came first, the chicken or the egg. There are a couple of institutions where there is great emphasis on research and development

in certain fields. Naturally, they try to become perfectionists in those

areas and people seek appointment in those institutions where that

exist;. The end result is to make it even more difficult for the third,

fourth, and fifth centers of learning to acquire the required excellence

and ability. And I take it that you agree that in these fields that is

in short supply and will, probably, be in short supply for the foreseeable future.

This poses a dilemma as to whether we are going to concentrate on

the existing areas of excellence, even though there may be other possibilities. Perhaps I am exaggerating, but for the present purposes

let us assume that California and Massachusetts have A near monopoly

of technical knowledge in certain fields. Is it not a legitimate goal of

prime national policy to spread this technical knowledge about among

the people?

Dr. WIESNER. I think that, first of all, there are some very good

areas.

There are also some areas of the country that used to be outstanding; for example, the Midwest where I came from. I think there has

been a scientific decline there during the past decade or two, because

of too large a concentration on the consumer goods industry. I know,

for example, of a Midwest college that produced 150 Ph. D.'s during

the last decade in a specialized field and only one of them remained

in the Midwest, probably because there were few research opportunities in the area as challenging as those on the west and east coasts.

It is a very real problem. I think it is a problem that the Federal

Government should help to correct. I am confident that we will

try. However, it does require very active support and participation of

the local groups. I would call your attention to what has recently
6 NOMINATION

been done in Texas where the initiative came initially from the citizens who recognized the need for academic facilities and provided

them.

Senator CLARK. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions?

Senator JAVITS. Dr. Wiesner, I am delighted to have you here, and

to say that your qualifications for the task for which you have been

nominated have been well covered, and I have no doubt that the.

Senate will confirm you and I will cheerfully join in this action.

I did want to ask about the much bruited argument about whether

we are graduating enough engineers. That is a curbstone opinion,

I know. I trust that you will explain it for us. In a great many of

the things we do in the field of education, scholarships versus loans

in which we are engaged in conference on the higher education bill,

and in many other matters the general idea is inherent in everything

we do that we are not graduating enough engineers—we are not giving enough of our meritorious young people the opportunity for professional training in these hard, cold war times. And I was wondering if you did have any general views—I know that they cannot be

pointed specifically at a particular degree

'

at doctorates or anything

like that, but anything that you could tell us I think would be helpful in setting the general tone on this subject.

Dr. WIESNER. I left a meeting of the President's Science Advisory

Committee to meet with you. There was a very heated discussion

on just this subject. We have had a panel working for the last several months, trying to understand this situation. There is no simple

answer to this question because we are trying to predict the future.

Also the problems are not the same in all fields; that is, in the field

of medicine, the field of physics, the field of mathematics, and in the

field of engineering. And the problems—and the answers—are somewhat different.

A related question is whether we are using our manpower effectively. Sixty or seventy percent of the technical people in this country work for the Government, directly or indirectly, and the efficiency

and the effectiveness with which we use these people make a very great

difference.

I can make some general comments which I might not like to be

confronted with several months from now, for we are still trying to

understand the problem.

At the moment our general feeling is that there is no shortage of

scientific manpower or at least no large and general shortage. There

is a very great shortage of the more highly trained people, people with

advanced degrees.

Therefore we believe that the Nation must make a major effort to

increase the percentage of students who study for advanced degrees.

We also see serious problems, though, in maintaining the growth in

the technical fields, for we must almost double the number of working scientists and engineers in the decade if we want to continue our

past rate of growth. These numbers have doubled each 12 years for

the past 40 or 50 years, but doubling was not so difficult when the

numbers were small. I believe that the Federal Government will

have to help in a large way, particularly in increasing the quality,

that is, in increasing the number of college-trained people with ad-
NOMINATION 7

vanced degrees. But I would not want to make specific recommendations on this, because we are still in the middle of our studies.

Senator JAVITS. In the order of magnitude, say that we double

the number of our personnel in the next 12 years, what is the order

of magnitude—what is it now and what will it be?

Dr. WIESNER. When I said that we would have to double it, I

make the assumption that we want to continue the present rate of

growth in our economy in the next decade. The number of scientists and engineers together today is something over 1 million, so

we will need to go to 2 million. I think that we ought to recognize

that the quality of the labor force is increasing at every level. As.

a matter of fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that

our greatest unemployment is in the totally unskilled labor force.

We should look forward with a great deal of enthusiasm to

increasing the quality of the work force.

Senator JAVITS. Do you have any ideas as to incentives which

could be given, perhaps of a nonacademic character? For example,,

we hear so much about the fact that in the Soviet Union a scientist

gets the Order of Lenin, that he gets a dacha and he might get a car,

when nobody else gets one, that he gets preferred tickets to the opera.

Is there anything that we can do like that in our country; for example,

to be very practical about it, I have a bill pending before another

committee to give a civilian award, a medal—is there anything like

that, that we can do—give a tax-free amount up to $10,000, which

is a British custom, which has been going on for a century—I am

not saying that we should do that—but what is the extent we could

go to add something? It struck me that we must find ways and

means of adding other things, whether it is in the higher reaches

of science and technology, or in the general run of sciences and technologies that we have today.

Dr. WIESNER. First of all, I think that most American scientists

would feel that it should not take special bribes to get people into

the field, but I do think that there are many things that we can do.

First of all, as some of you are aware, I feel that one of the most

serious problems that the Nation faces is in our ability to attract

scientists and engineers into government. I spent a considerable

amount of time trying to persuade people to come into Government

employment. We have, probably, a half dozen high-level technical

positions in government unfilled today. In some cases I have talked

to dozens of people to attempt to fill them. This is a very serious

matter, because, as I said before, the Federal Government is responsible

to a very large extent for the scientific activities of the countr.y.

Unless we can have in our Government, in our laboratories and in

the administration of research, people of outstanding caliber, people

who are as good as the people they are trying to supervise, we cannot

and will not make effective use of our resources.

Here, I think that pay is the primary problem. The Federal pay

scale has not kept pace with the industrial scale. I am told by my

legal friends that a similar problem exists in attracting lawyers into

the Federal Government.

While I think that we have to be concerned about how to attract

people into the field of science, by methods such as you have proposed,

through recognition by scholarships and awards, I think that we

should provide similar incentives for nontechnical people, too.
8 NOMINATION

Senator JAVITS. Could you ,crive us an order of magnitude—what is

the order of magnitude in salary necessary to attract them?

Dr. WIESNER. It is really hard to say the President's prepared pay

legislation was an attempt to meet the need. Studies made by the

Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Science Foundation, and other groups

show that to put the Federal pay scale on the same basis as a selected

group of large industries, would necessitate having the top research

directors, the laboratory directors, and other equivalent scientific people in government, making a top salary of about $35,000. There are

now a few people who make $21,000. For most, the top is $19,000.

This would require a big step. Incidentally, the Government is competing with institutions that it largely finances.

Senator JAV1TS. May I ask one other question?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Senator JAVITS. One of our colleagues had a proposition on which

he did not get many votes, but he was interested in having appointed

a special commission for space techniques, connected with the space

appropriation, which would deal with the proper husbanding of scientific manpower to see that it was properly distributed, that one company did not raid another or that one Government agency did not

raid another Government agency, and so on. Do you have any comments whatever upon any difficulty in that field? For example, the

most obvious question would be the losing of a top-level scientific

brain abroad to the newly prosperous European Economic Community. Are we in other ways not adequately looking after the husbanding of manpower that we do have in this country?

Dr. WIESNER. First, to answer your question about the loss abroad,

I think, that the movement of technical manpower is still in our direction.

Senator Javrrs. It is in this direction?

Dr. WIESNER. It is in this direction, yes. As a matter of fact, the

European countries are quite concerned about the amount of recruiting

that has been done by American industry abroad.

There is a need to reduce—I do not want to call them abuses—a certain amount of motion in that connection. It is my own impression

that the people change jobs more frequently than is desirable from

the point of view of a productive career.

The National Academy of Sciences is planning to study the question of the use of technical manpower. They believe that this is a

very serious problem. It involves many policies related to the question you raised earlier regarding Federal policies and procedures.

I do think it is a field in which we will have to be extremely careful.

There is a reluctance to impose too much direction in the areas where

there is Government financing of the work. However, there appears

to be many opportunities to increase the effectiveness and productivity

of our technical manpower resources.

Senator JAVITS. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions?

Senator TOWER. I would like to know what your opinion is of the

proposition that there should be a Department of Science of Cabinet

status.
NOMINATION 9

Dr. WIESNER. I really am of two minds regarding a Department of

Science. I think that some of the proponents of a Department of

Science feel that a Department of Science would provide coordination,

that is, a pulling together of the scientific program of the Government

and an avoidance of duplication. I do not believe that complete

coordination is possible, because we have a number of government

departments with unique missions engaged in research. If we took

the research and development out of the agencies they would not be

able to carry forward their job. On the other hand, there are a number of independent activities in the Federal Government which are

located where they are only for historical reasons.

It might be that a collective, what you might call a department of

science, would make them more effective. On the other hand, this

would be true of only a small part of the total Federal research and

development effort.

Furthermore, if you made the head of such an agency a member

of the Cabinet you would still not have solved the evaluation and coordination problem because anyone who had the responsibility for

the department of science would be in competition with all of the

other departments that had scientific programs, particularly for funds;

and he could not very well provide objective advice to the President

regarding the relative quality of his own programs. While I think

there is some justification for the proposition that we bring related

activities together, I would be very much against putting them all in

one agency. Nor am I at all certain that it would make any substantial improvement in our management of the scientific programs to

have the head of that department a member of the Cabinet.

Senator TOWER. Is there not the fact that the establishment of such,

in it there is some fear that it would be arbitrary and not scientific?

Dr. WIESNER. I think you can find every conceivable viewpoint

among scientists. I know people who believe there should be a Department of Science. There are other people who feel as I do that it

would have a limited use. There are also people who are much opposed to it. Also, there has been a proposal that there should be a

Cabinet officer without portfolio.

My own view of the problem is that we should try to get the very

best people into the agencies to have more unusually able people.

That is what we need more than anything else, and if we succeed

in finding them, many problems we are now worried about will disappear.

Senator TOWER. What would be your idea about the possibility of

creating a Science Advisory Commission, made up of representatives

of scientific institutions, that would advise the Members of Congress

and its appropriate committees on scientific matters?

Dr. WIESNER. I do think that Congress could profit from some

additional advice on technical problems. As you know, during the

last year the National Academy of Sciences has set up a Committee for

Governmental Relations and one of their principal motivations was to

provide the kind of assistance you are talking about.

I do not know whether there should be a single advisory committee

to the Congress, or whether the various independent congressional

committees should have advisory committees of their own, but I do
10 NOMINATION

think that Congress could use help in its effort to evaluate scientific

programs and to secure a proper perspective on them.

This problem is complicated by the many committees of Congress,

much the same problem as in the executive branch. This is because

scientific programs are a relatively new development but the departments have existed for a long time. Similarly we often find many

committees of Congress concerned with a single field of science. You

may have to do a similar coordinating of the problem here in the

Congress. I think an advisory committee could help you on this

problem.

Senator TOWER. May I go to another subject? As to nuclear testing,

do we have devices that adequately show arrangements about these

tests that they should be curtailed?

Dr. 1VrEsNER. Senator Tower, I do not want to talk about that subject for it is one on which I am a confidential adviser to the Preseident.

Senator TOWER. Would your office be advising those who are engaged in atomic research in any way?

Dr. WIESNER. My office will probably advise the President on the

technical aspects of some of these matters. We have in the past.

Senator Tow. What is your thinking about disarmament—we

should freeze armaments at the present levels, is that a relatively bad

or good position?

Dr. WIESNER. If we could freeze them and then provide adequate

verification procedures so that we would know that they were frozen,

I believe it would be to our advantage. This is a technical problem

that we must face in detail when we talk about it. That is, how can

we ascertain that agreements are being honored?

Senator TOWER. Thank you, Dr. Wiesner.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further qeustions ?

Senator PELL. I would like to follow up, with one further question,

the question by Senator Javits concerning the problem of getting more

people into the engineering profession. A survey was conducted for

me by the U.S. Naval Underwater Ordnance Station in Newport, and

many of the engineers who participated in the survey said they would

not advise their children to go into the engineering profession, since

they felt that there was insufficient social status in being an engineer,

And one recommendation that was made was that engineers should

be licensed the same way as doctors or lawyers.

I was wondering what your view is on that proposition.

Dr. WIESNER. Well, I do not think that you can achieve social

status by licensing. I think there is a general feeling among engineers that the social status and the recognition of the importance of

an engineer has decreased. I think part of the reason—well, it is real.

It stems in part from the fact that there has been an increasing;

participation by scientists in the more advanced work that was formerly the work of engineers. It also is due to the nature of some

engineering education. It has often been difficult for engineers to

evolve as rapidly as their fields change.

Thirty or forty or fifty years ago a man who entered the engineering

program was in a field that. did not change very rapidly. During

World War II the situation changed. And we have come into a situation where there is constant change. This means that a man must
•

NOMINATION 11

keep on learning to keep abreast; this is necessary to a greater degree

than it was previously.

Most good engineering schools have recognized this and have made

many changes in their curriculum.

I think part of the problem is semantic. It is commonly believed

that all technical accomplishments nowadays are the work of scientists.

I think it is the whole cultural attitude that has created the problem

you are talking about.

Senator PELL. How would you recommend that the curriculum be

changed?

Dr. WIESNER. I think working on the educational problem that I

have mentioned probably is the most important thing to do.

Senator PELL. Would you support the concept of licensing?

Dr. WIESNER. I think that you might want to license engineers in

certain fields for other reasons. In my own opinion, I do not believe

you will add any prestige or improve the social status of engineering

by licensing people—quite the contrary. In certain fields there is a

need for licensing.

Senator PELL. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you this: Have you worked out the

organization which you expect to have; for example, with respect to

how many deputies you might have?

Dr. WIESNER. The Reorganization Act specifies that there will be

one Deputy Director to be confirmed by the Senate, so you will have

an opportunity to meet him when I identify him.

We are going to transfer the organization that was built up in the

White House to the new office. We have a staff of about 25 people.

And we plan to add to the group, so that there might be 35 people

in a year. I expect that it will stay reasonably close to that level.

It is not our proposal to build up a very large staff. We will pay

considerably more attention to the coordination functions I have

talked about than in the past. We have already identified a number

of areas in which we expect to work.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you someone particularly qualified in the

field of biological medicine?

Dr. WIESNER. Yes. Let me explain this structure that has existed

and some of which will continue to exist.

First of all, as you know, there is the President's Science Advisory

Committee which has 18 distinguished scientists in it. There are 4

men in the biological or life sciences on that committee—that is, of

the 18.

I have on my staff 12 technical scientific staff members. Two of

those people are medical scientists and work with the National Institutes of Health and other agencies in the field.

Then we have an intergovernmental coordinating committee called.

the Federal Council on Science and Technology, which includes representatives of Health, Education, and Welfare, and Agriculture,

and other organizations. The composition of the group tends to reflect the national problems. In the past the emphasis had not been

in the life sciences, but we have begun to pay increased attention to

them.
12 NOMINATION

The CHAIRMAN. Would you have specialists represented in your

organization?

Dr. WIESNER. I do not intend to have specialists in all possible

fields, but I will draw very heavily on consultants from the Government, from the universities, and from industry. We have about 250

consultants available to us. And among these consultants we have

people who are knowledgable in most fields of interest.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions, gentlemen?

Senator MORSE. I should like to give my reaction to your nomination, Dr. Wiesner, because it is very much the same as the reaction of

my present administrative assistant, who says that you are one of

the most able, dedicated public servants that he knows of.

I also have that feeling. We are very fortunate that you are willing

to make this sacrifice for your country. I want to express my congratulations to the President upon this appointment, and extend my

thanks to you for taking it. It is a very important public service.

The country will be greatly indebted to you. That is my reaction to

your nomination.

Dr. WIESNER. Thank you. I do not regard it as a sacrifice. You

may all recall that Dean Acheson once wrote in the New York Times

magazine section, an article in which he discussed the rewards of

public service and in which he stated that anyone who has had important public service found the rewards of any other activity inadequate. I think that is why I serve and why you serve.

Senator MORSE. That is a wonderful comment. It explains my

reason for commending you for undertaking this assignment.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions? If not, Dr.

Wiesner, we certainly want to thank you for your appearance here

this morning and for the very enlightening statements you have made

in answer to the questions we have put. We deeply appreciate it.

Thank you very, very much.

The committee will now go into executive session.

(Whereupon, at 11:25 a.m., the committee proceeded into executive

session.)

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