Tsutsui Report   (minoru Tsutsui)         Nov. 6, 1968

BBAOOY

Conversation with Dr Tsutsui wrt to the plea for increased
federal support

JL

I- I am very hesitant about joining It.  I have very serious
reservations about this demand for a 15% growth rate.  I think
unless that document is justified
in much more detail than this it will be thrown out as
laughable.  I don't know if you have encountered this reaction
before, but

MT   Yes, we discussed it at the last meeting ad hoc committee, to
spell all the details how 15% came out.  The report will be in the
out

I-

JL   Well, I think It can't be done just in those terms. There is a
question of how It can possibly be financed, and how it ought to
relate to the economic growth of the country, and how long will
such growth continue.  It's obvious one can demonstrate there will
be more scientists than people after n years, and I think it will
be parodied and lose its effectiveness unless you're extremely
cautious about making that kind of claim.  Now, the way in which
that number could be used is that/pending the development of a more
comprehensive policy about the role of investment in science ,
-that one can take it that it would be possible to absorb a 15%
growth rate over the next few years in terms of having the
availability of personnel, of the availability of excellent
projects to support, and that it would be in the national interest
to continue to maintain this kind of growth until we have reached a
different posture, different relationship, of science to the other
sectors of the society.  But without some qualifying language of
that kind,just so easy to parody e--end that-means it'll just be
shrugged off.  I have had that discussion with Don Hornlg when I
complained to him about the problems a year or two ago, and he
said, well,. we have to find a rate of growth that's
acceptable.  I just think that's the wrong way to pose the problem,
I guess that's really my main objection to it.  Now, let me make
some more specific, positive recommendations, although 
I feel strongly enough about it I would not sign the
report if it has that kind of reference to a guaranteed rate of
growth for science.

MT    I think we need a tremendous study in this year to get the
right answer for this.  Even in the New York Academy of Science I
think may not be able to do this.  We hired a Professor of
Economics but he

JL    Well, I can understand that, and I think this is a subject --
I think this is a new administration and I think one might put in a
proposal that this is worthy of study.

MT    That, of course, the government should do, but they haven't
done it. If they ask us, we need some manpower to do this.

JL   I think that this is an important problem, that
scientists do realize that science has to be developed in keeping with
the development of the rest of the economy.  There is almost a
total ignoring of that issue, and all you have to do read Senator
Allott's remarks in Science about two weeks ago, and you'll see the
kind of thing you're running into. Now, I think that there are
more important things that need doing. First of all, there is the
question of what we are talking about when we are talking about
research.  He still uses that number $17 billion, and it makes an
enormous difference if you are predicating a growth rate of 15% a
year if you are talking
about 15% of $17 billion, or 15% of $1-l/2 billion, and I
think it is very important to get that straightened out.  The second
point is, and maybe you will have some deviance on this, in that we
are talking about the seedcorn--we are talking about protecting the
center of advanced research which is in our educational 
system, and the distinctions are not so much as to
whether research is basic or applied as it is as to whether they
contribute to the further education of the country.

MT   That we have discussed; why NY Acad Sci. doesn't get much
money, because they are only supporting basic research
Congressmen do not understand at all what basic research Is.

JL    I think it can only be justified in terms of its
educational function. I think you do do it, but there's confusion
about the amount of money that you are talking about in saying
this.  My second point is that what needs further study is the
relative balance of support between applied work and basic work.

Let me remark that when it comes to financing I think one ought to
say there could very well be a fluctuation in the amount of
investment In the more applied end of the game; that this Is the
part that can go up and down with the economy, and that the basic
part is the part that ought to have a greater degree of stability
since it has such an important generative function with respect to
its relationship to education, and in fact, the way in which the
current emergency ought to be financed is unquestionably out of
deferable applied projects.  Now I know you run into political
headaches when you do this, but it seems to me completely
unjustifiable to have proceeded with the supersonic transport, and
I think you can probably name a half-a-dozen others,of this kind,
and starve out basic science.  The supersonic transport kind of
investment can go up and down, depending on how comfortable we
feel; It is a project that can be done at different rates, and it
isn't going to make all that difference if it's stretched out for
one or two years, Where it makes an enormous difference in the
educational process if you have the sudden turning off of funds.
I don't want to focus on any one applied project 
because that's politically dangerous,

JL   This is what we're concerned about, and it's a relatively small
amount of money.  I think the New York Times editorial that I sent
back to you was one of the best statements on this point that's
come out.  It was better than the original hardship announcements
of your Town Meeting, which I have to agree, at least as they came
out in the press, were hysterical. I think they did the whole
----they drew some attention to this problem, but I think they did
more harm than good, in my own opinion.

The second point that I would like to make is that the amplitude of
the investment In applied work should reflect social concern for
getting those particular results, and I feel, for example, that to
talk about a specific growth rate is nonsense.  You talk in
applied work in terms of what problems you want to solve.  It may
end up being another billion dollar investment starting fairly
suddenly to go into artificial hearts, to give you one particular
example, and you can encompass that within a growth rate figure.
When you start major new programs they have justifications in and
of themselves, and they compete for resources, in manpower and so
on with the rest of the programs, but they've got nothing to do
with growth rate.

Now, I think there's a point that should be made also; that I feel
very strongly that at a private university -- you do mention it,
but very late in the report, and it ought to be I think almost in
one of the early stages, in the general summary.  The cutbacks in
grant funds have come at the same time that private institutions
are under very heavy pressure to meet social needs in the
community.  We feel this very strongly in the Medical School; for
example, we are trying to set up a minorities program, and if we
had any funds to do it they are under very severe attack because of
the cutback in federal support for research and for our other
functions. The coincidence of these two happening
together makes for an intolerable strain.  You do mention
that fairly late in the report, but I think it is something that
has to be brought forward. The accusation that is being to be
leveled against this report and against its authors is that they
just are not giving any concern for all of the major upsets in
society.  All they care about is protecting their own bailiwick,
they are acting out of strict self-interest, and I think you must
answer that kind of accusation.  You must anticipate it.

MT    We had a discussion about this last week - Dr. ...
and Dr.  Bentley Glass came to our committee.  He said the state
universities also the same thing as the private universities.

JL    I think these problems are general, and I'm really not trying
to distinguish the state from the private in this respect; I think
that one can say that at the state universities there are state
resources that should be called upon for these matters, and that
whether or not the university goes into minorities programs can
depend on the policy of the legislature.  But a private university
hasn't even that possibility.  We have very fixed resources, there
is no one that we can appeal to to try to do this, and we would try
to scrape the barrel for the funds for it, but then it happened at
the same time as these other cutbacks.

Now, to go back to the distinction of basic from applied.  I think
the important point is intramural university support is the kind of
budget number that we ought to look.  There is no justification
whatsoever that this segment should be taxed against --that the tax
against our credit for doing research in our own laboratories
should be connected with the fact that Los Alamos is administered
under a university contract, That is not university research.
Besides it's being mission oriented, it is not done at a
university.  I am trying to make a separate 
distinction, not between basic and applied, but whether it's
educationally contributory or not.  And that's the core of the
money that we're trying to find here, and that's where all the
crunch is coming from.  And then you're talking about less than a
billion dollars that's at stake, and a $200 million cut in that is
an enormous burden.  It keeps coming up because we see an
allocation of resources to the different states -- California
always comes out on the top in terms of federal resources for
research and education, and one of the main reasons is that the
University of California has the Los Alamos laboratory contract,
and it has the Livermore laboratories, which have negligible
educational function.  I presume I've made my point.  Additional
points to be made directly to Mrs.  Jean Fitzpatrick, who will
call.