GOVERNMENT
State Department Hit on Attitude Toward Science or 40 years or so, panels of outside experts have been telling the Department of State to stop being so oblivious to the importance of science and technology in international affairs and to start showing some leadership. Now a new wave of engaged outsiders—the New York-based Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology & Government—has come forward with an updated critique of the State Department's marginal interest in technical matters. The commission finds the situation disastrous for the future welfare of U.S. diplomacy. It wants a lot of things done fast if the U.S. hopes to contend successfully with a yet-to-be-defined new world order where science and technology will affect economic and political events as never before. The last major step toward a science and technology capability came during the 1970s when Congress legislated into being the State Department's Oceans & International Environmental & Scientific Affairs Bureau (OIESA), which is run by an assistant secretary. That unit supervises the hundreds of research exchanges negotiated between the U.S. and other countries, and responds to events as they arise, such as preparations for the forthcoming United Nations Conference on the Environment (to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June). The Carnegie report complains of "little evaluation of trends" at the State Department. It bemoans all-too-frequent examples of "fragmented preparation for contingencies, superficial anticipation of how best to use U.S. research resources, shallow preparation for negotiations, and lost opportunities." For starters, the Carnegie Commission says a Presidentially appointed commission is needed to review the government's needs in the international science and technology arena. Second, a science adviser to the Secretary of State is needed to give the subject higher visibility in the State Department's bureaucracy. All the depart-
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ment has currently is an assistant secretary with a staff of 115. Moreover, the current appointee, Curtis Bohlen, is but one of 32 individuals with the title of assistant secretary vying for Secretary of State James A. Baker's attention. In another recommendation, the panel says American embassies need several dozen more science and technology specialists monitoring developments and trends abroad. The State Department also needs a larger structure at headquarters in Washington focusing on the strategic aspects of science and technology in economics, foreign policy, international security,
Congress is as much to blame for the mess as anyone and should consolidate its own scattered interests and the global environment. In addition, the report says Congress is as much to blame for the mess as anyone and should consolidate its own scattered interests. Meanwhile, the other federal agencies—the departments of Energy, Defense, and the Interior; the National Science Foundation; the National Institutes of Health; and others—have their own programs and staff in the embassies. But they need to "rethink what they do best, recognize how the imperatives of international competition and cooperation mesh with their missions, settle into more clearly defined lines of coordination with the foreign-policymaking machinery, and declare more forcefully how priorities will be set when resources must be allocated to the international elements of their national responsibilities." The report, largely scanty on policy
details, does give a few examples of impasses among the agencies. One is the botching of international support for the Superconducting Super Collider. The Administration needs considerable assistance from Japan. But from the beginning, it failed to include Japan in the initial planning of the multibillion dollar project and in the process offended the Japanese. After four years, the Japanese still haven't agreed to contribute even a dollar to the project. Another example is the total failure to factor in defense and intelligence activities in the international science and technology picture. The situation is so bad, says the report, that the State Department never even mentions technical involvement of the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency in monitoring science and technology activities abroad. As a result, the State Department navigates essentially "on crutches in the race to rethink foreign policies for a new framework in international security." As a third example, the commission says the State Department completely fails to track the private sector's "rich array of international activities spanning high-technology manufacturing, sophisticated engineering services, science-intensive training, foreign investments, development cooperation, and exchange of executives." The roots of the problem, the panel hypothesizes, lie in the makeup of the department's power structure, namely, "gentlemen diplomats" molded in the 19th century values where "political, verbal, and linguistic ability have been valued more than technocratic, analytical, and strategic skills." Deputy assistant secretary of state for OIESA, Richard Smith, tells C&EN that the report is too harsh and fails to acknowledge the ambitious steps the department has already taken to incorporate science and technology into foreign service training. He also thinks a State Department science adviser would be no more effective than the present arrangement, since Bohlen already has satisfactory access to Baker. Moreover, he adds, the many successful international agreements negotiated over the past several years attest to the current effectiveness of OIESA. "But I agree with the report," he says, "that we need to do more longrange thinking here." Wil Lepkowski FEBRUARY 10,1992 C&EN
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