Science at the White House: A Political Liability

Originally published in 1980. In 1973 the US president's Office of Science and Technology was eliminated, a victim of its own incongruity. It was not, as was popularly proclaimed at the time, simply because the Nixon administration was particularly hostile to the scientific and academic communities. It was eliminated, argues physician-scientist Edward J. Burger Jr., because the office had tried to do its job too well—and had become a political liability. Science at the White House takes a c...