Senator SYMINGTON. That is your third point. I will get to that later.

Dr. WIESNER. But some of the money we are talking about-the money in the Science Foundation request-was to help us develop these new programs.

I think it is shortsighted to support increasing amounts of applied work and create an increasing demand for highly skilled manpower and then not lay down the foundation for the training of the people you are going to need. It takes 7 to 10 years to train a person of the kind we are talking about.

IF WE ARE TO ACHIEVE GOALS, WE MUST PROVIDE THE MONEY Senator SYMINGTON. Let me be sure. Yesterday we had criticism of the NASA budget, of the rate of increase in the amount of money required. I am afraid some of the people in the discussion yesterday did not really understand-it is logical that your expenses increase very heavily when you go into the production of a program of this character.

I was wondering, therefore, if you feel there is serious danger in not going ahead with the scope of that NASA budget; and if so, if you blame that primarily on the relative progress that you say in your statement today the Soviet Communists are making in this field.

Dr. WIESNER. I would not like to try to guess at the motivations that have caused people to think our space budget is too high. I would just say, that the NASA budget is scrutinized very hard by everybody in the White House and Mr. Webb is made to defend most of the items very vigorously. I am sure he will tell you that this does not represent his first request to the President, either. He has had to conform to the budgetary realities.

If we intend to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves in this field, I think we have to be prepared to provide the money. The worst thing we can do is keep repeating that we have those goals and kill the appropriations necessary for their attainment.

DR. WIESNER SUPPORTS LUNAR PROJECT

Senator SYMINGTON. I assume you are 100 percent for the lunar project?

Dr. WIESNER. Yes; I am for the project.

Senator SYMINGTON. Are you 100 percent for the celerity with which it is being conducted today?

Dr. WIESNER. Until the President changes his goals, until the Nation changes its goals, we have to have the drive, the speed, of the program we have today.

Senator SYMINGTON. I am not asking what the President thinks, because we get an opportunity to look at that every time he sends a message down. There have been some indications you think we have been moving too fast.

Dr. WIESNER. No; I have never said that. I have had some arguments about the direction in which we are going.

I participated in the President's decision to go to the moon at this pace.

Senator SYMINGTON. And you think this decision is right?

Dr. WIESNER. Yes. But many of my colleagues in the scientific community judge it purely on its scientific merit. I think if I were being asked whether this much money should be spent purely for scientific reasons, I would say emphatically, "No." I think they fail to recognize the deep military implications, the very important political significance of what we are doing and the other important factors that influenced the President when he made his decision.

Senator SYMINGTON. I think that a fine answer. What you are saying is if you embrace science, it may be going too fast. If you embrace the political implications, our image, our posture in the world, and also the military significance of the space program, you feel that we should proceed on the present level, is that correct?

Dr. WIESNER. That is right; yes, indeed.

Senator SYMINGTON. Have you any suggestions about any changes incident to the current status and setup between the military and the NASA organization or your own organization?

Dr. WIESNER. I do not think I should talk about those matters Senator Symington, because that is an area in which I function as a confidential adviser to the President.

Senator SYMINGTON. So you feel that under executive prerogative, you do not want to discuss that this morning.

Dr. WIESNER. That is right; yes.

DISCUSSION OF DEVELOPMENT AND LOCATION OF UNIVERSITIES

Senator SYMINGTON. All right, sir.

Now, I am a little puzzled by the apprehension you have of limiting the Federal assistance to only the needy. There is a saying that he who has gets. That is certainly true with respect to some of the leading universities, Stanford, MIT. I notice we put up $10 million to help our desert area, that part of the country you mentioned once in a previous talk. I am sure you were quoted out of context. But then we take the first 30 percent of that and put it back in MIT. I thought that that $10 million was going to try to help us in certain areas get what you say is necessary in order to later on get economic benefit from the standpoint of Government work. Yet it went right back to where you already have so much.

How would you interpret your problem? How would you interpret need from a technical standpoint in cases of that character?

Dr. WIESNER. As I said earlier, there is a great need to do something about many of these areas. Even when I made the statement about problems in the Midwest that brought me so much notoriety, it was not this statement that was attributed to me. I think everybody realizes that there is a very serious problem in many parts of the country, like the Midwest area. You see, when I was a boy, I grew up in Michigan and I never regarded it as the Midwest-I regard St. Louis as the Midwest. People in St. Louis attributed what I said to St. Louis, but my definition of the Midwest was intended to be more limited.

Senator SYMINGTON. You are going a little fast for me.

Dr. WIESNER. In my discussion of what the problems in the Midwest were, my reference did not include St. Louis. That is what I was trying to say.

I do think there is a tremendous need to do something to help these areas. But the initiative has to come from the local people. They must have cores of good academic institutions, good industry. But I think the Federal Government is the only source of the large measure of support for programs needed so that these second-tier institutions can become better. As I said, we tried very hard in Science Foundation and other budgets to provide funds for these purposes. The schools need them and other areas need them.

On the other hand, I am extremely concerned lest the quality of the performance of the institution should be ignored in the choice of location for the work you are trying to get done. In other words, if you want to have an airplane developed, I think you must give major consideration to the quality of the proposal and the quality of the staff of the organization that is going to do it.

If you receive proposals that are comparable, then I think that it is quite appropriate for one to consider the welfare of the areas involved in addition. I am just saying that I believe one must pay some considerable attention to the ability of the institution expected to do the work.

We were talking earlier about criticism of NASA, which I have heard, too, that it was not able to absorb

Senator SYMINGTON. No; the criticism was not of NASA; but of the scientific and engineering-of the money the Federal Government is putting into scientific and engineering development. It was made by one of the most successful businessmen of the United States, who also is a great scientist, a former president of one of the leading scientific organizations in the world. He did not localize it against NASA at all. He simply said we are putting too much money into basic research and applied research in the universities, more than we can handle. It had nothing to do with NASA. If you want to localize his criticism against any particular organization, I would pick the National Science Foundation.

Dr. WIESNER. Well, the National Science Foundation is putting in a relatively small amount of money into universities as against

Senator SYMINGTON. He feels the amount of Federal money going into the scientific educational field every quarter, including the military, and NASA, and NSF, all these other organizations; he believes you are choking the would-be patient. I want to make that clear. It was not a criticism against NASA.

Dr. WIESNER. I was going to make a different point. This has to do with whether the total space budget was growing so rapidly that it could not be absorbed. I would say there are many, many very able organizations still with capability to work for NASA. I also know that there are many academic institutions-large and small—that are inadequately supported. Now, maybe this gentleman believes the Nation should not be growing as fast as it is developing.

Senator SYMINGTON. No; I do not think that would be a conclusion. Dr. WIESNER. You know the institutions in St. Louis better than I. Senator SYMINGTON. Incidentally, I come from Missouri, not just from St. Louis.

Dr. WIESNER. I do not know the whole State, but I do know their academic institutions.

Senator SYMINGTON. I was surprised to see how little support the National Science Foundation had on the floor yesterday. I voted for the National Science Foundation increase of $50 million on the floor.

On the other hand, if you take your point 3, the only place we can start is in things like the National Science Foundation, which, incidentally, does not give my State anything commensurate to what it deserves from the standpoint of its population and productive capacity.

In addition, you will find that in Missouri, we have great universities graduating Ph. D.'s in research; at least in proportion to population as many Ph. D.'s as any other part of the country. I do not see what the out is if you are going to reward the places that already have so much business. I do not know the details in other States, but I do know in mine we are entirely capable of absorbing it. But we do not get it; so how are we going to start?

Dr. WIESNER. I do not have the figures, Senator, but I do agree with you about the competence of your institutions. They do meet the criteria I have established; namely, that they should be first-rate programs.

Now, if they are not receiving their fair share of support, I can not explain it.

Senator SYMINGTON. All these matters, especially a person in your position would agree, depend to a great extent on education. And your answer to the criticism of the NASA program on the part of scientists, they would not criticize it if they knew what they were talking about. That is, they know what they are talking about scientifically, but they do not know what they are talking about from the standpoint of the political and diplomatic position of this country in the world; nor about defense requirements necessarly; especially if we are going to continue to bank freedom around the world in the future as we have in the past. You, because of your present position, do know about those problems as well as the scientific problem. How are we going to educate these men?

Dr. WIESNER. First of all, I think it is probably true that the fraction of scientists who criticize the space program is no greater than the fraction of Senators.

Senator SYMINGTON. Well, you elevate us quite a lot, right there.

THE GREAT BULK OF SCIENTISTS HAVE NOT BEEN OUTSPOKEN AGAINST THE

SPACE PROGRAM

Dr. WIESNER. The great bulk of the scientific community has not been outspoken against the space program. As a matter of fact, a great many outstanding scientists have publicly supported the program. It is just that, as I have learned in the last day, criticism-and you know this as well as I-criticism and controversy receive much more attention than statements that are made in support of a program. The problem is not only one of educating the scientists but of making the whole community understand, as much as we can, the motives that we have in supporting these programs.

Senator SYMINGTON. I think that a very good answer, and appreciate it.

Mr. Chairman, I have some other questions but already have taken too much time.

The CHAIRMAN. You go ahead, Senator Symington, if you wish. I think this is a very good witness and we ought to get as much information as we can while we have him here.

DISCUSSION OF EDUCATION OF SCIENTISTS

SOVIET UNION

AND ENGINEERS IN THE

Senator SYMINGTON. Then I will proceed a little more, if I may, especially because of my respect for the witness. He has been a friend for many years.

As I understand it, Doctor, you feel that the Soviets are graduating a good many more engineers and scientists than we are in the United States. Is that correct?

Dr. WIESNER. That is right.

Senator SYMINGTON. How do their qualifications, when they are graduated, compare with ours when ours are graduated? In other words, are these figures of quantity also interpreted in quality, or only partially interpreted?

Dr. WIESNER. It is really very hard for me to make a statement that I would defend in great detail, but let me tell you my impressions. I think that it is generally felt that the very best of the Soviet scientists are as well trained as the very best we produce. It is my impression that they do not have as many first-rate institutions as we have—that is, the quality of their academic institutions, I think, drops rather more rapidly than ours.

I think they train more applied scientists than we do. What little I saw of that education when I was in the Soviet Union in 1960 appeared to be very good. My impression is that their engineering education is inferior to ours, but I saw not enough for that to be an affirmed judgment.

Senator SYMINGTON. To help me out, would you put it into the categories of basic research and applied research?

Dr. WIESNER. Yes. I think their very best people in basic research are as well trained as ours. I think we train more people for basic research of high quality than they do, but this is not something I can support with statistics.

They train vast numbers of engineers and their training ranges from extremely good education to something that I would say is the equivalent of what we used to provide in our engineering schools 30 and 40 years ago, and I do not know how the proportions are distributed here. They do, I believe, train many, many more people as applied scientists than we train specifically for that purpose. These people are better trained than the comparable engineers they might replace. The Soviet undergraduate program is a 5-year program, so it has that extra year that I said earlier is so important for engineers.

Incidentally, Dr. Wenk reminds me that the Soviet Union has a total of 28,000 Ph. D.'s in engineering and we have a total of 9,000. Senator SYMINGTON. Is that on an annual basis?

Dr. WIESNER. No; this is an integrated total of people with engineering Ph. D. degrees. You see, in this country there have not been many engineers graduated with Ph. D.'s.

Senator SYMINGTON. Would you repeat those figures again?