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

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Abstract

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.

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Notes

  1. Some of these conflicts are chronicled in Mooney (2005).

  2. These numbers were arrived at by searching Science for editorials authored by its chief editors, Daniel Koshland, Floyd Bloom, and Donald Kennedy, from January, 2003 to December, 2008. The editorial critical of the Clinton Administration focused on its policies related to needle exchange programs.

  3. See UCS (2004a, b) and Waxman (2003). For Dr. Marburger’s response to the USC allegations see Marburger (2004).

  4. Marburger’s opinion about the significance of this move can be found in the transcript of his public interview during a science advisor lecture series that we organized at the University of Colorado, located at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/marburger_transcript.html.

  5. Transcripts of those presentations are available online and are referenced throughout this article.

  6. Notably absent from the scholarly literature that discusses the history of the president’s science advisor is mention of the “Stewart Committee” of the late 1940s which recommended a science advisor to the president (for a cursory mention see Blanpied 1995).

  7. As quoted in Grossberg (1974, p. 29).

  8. Another factor undoubtedly influencing the president’s receptivity to a proposal to establish a science advisor was President Truman’s decision to develop an H-bomb contrary to the advice of leading scientists, and subsequent efforts by the Eisenhower Administration to remove J. Robert Oppenheimer from his advisory roles (Damms 2000; Greenberg 2001).

  9. That the first science advisor was not a scientist does not appear to be widely appreciated, and it is not widely advertised in the science community that Killian did not earn a doctorate. Killian had been awarded an honorary doctorate from Middlebury College in 1945, see Anonymous (1945). Killian was later awarded honorary degrees from Union College, Drexel Institute of Technology, and the College of William and Mary, see Anonymous (1957).

  10. Richard Russell’s biography can be found here: http://www.ostp.gov/cs/about_ostp/richard_m_russell.

  11. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/david_transcript.html.

  12. Contemporaneously, William T. Golden wrote, “As to how many top echelon or key scientists there are, around whom any mobilization would devolve, [Lee] DuBridge said that there is a continuous spectrum and it would be difficult to decide where to draw the line. However, it appears that the number is probably somewhere between 20 and 200” (Golden 1950b). GAO (2004) documents that the explosion of advice to the federal government has not been restricted to the scientific or technical, reporting that in 2003 there were 948 advisory committees with 62,497 members.

  13. This episode in the history of scientific advice, and the sources for the quotes above, are documented in Greene (2007).

  14. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/hornig_transcript.html.

  15. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/david_transcript.html.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/keyworth_transcript.html.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/gibbons_transcript.html.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/lane_transcript.html

  24. Ibid.

  25. The only science advisor to play an active role in a presidential campaign appears to be Jerome Wiesner, who participated in John Kennedy’s presidential campaign (Grossberg 1974).

  26. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/lane_transcript.html.

  27. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/marburger_transcript.html.

  28. Since World War II, if not longer, science has played an important role in international relations (see, e.g., Doel and Harper 2006; Krige and Barth 2006; Miller 2006). As Donald Hornig told us, “Science is a wonderful lubricant for foreign policy initiatives.” For policy makers, the scientific and technological are central to some of the most important questions that they face in international politics, such as trade, defense, and health, while for scientists participation in international relations offers the tantalizing prospect of “additional resources while enhancing their scientific authority and social capital” (Krige and Barth 2006). This topic has been well documented elsewhere (e.g., see the excellent review of Krige and Barth 2006), and thus is not covered here. However, many of the science advisors did refer to international relations as a key element of their tenure.

  29. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/marburger_transcript.html.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Transcript at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors/hornig_transcript.html.

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  1. Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado, 1333 Grandview Ave., UCB 488, Boulder, CO, 80309-0488, USA

    Roger Pielke Jr. & Roberta Klein

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Pielke, R., Klein, R. The Rise and Fall of the Science Advisor to the President of the United States. Minerva 47, 7–29 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-009-9117-3

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