CHAPTER 16. Functions of Participants Using Science and Technology in Foreign Affairs
 

 "The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never forget."
 "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it."
 Lewis Carroll
 Through the Looking Glass

Legal Basis
The Constitution in Article II empowers the president "to make treaties...appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls...and all other officers of the United States...whose appointments...shall be established by law..."  He may recommend measures to the Congress and "...receive ambassadors and other public ministers...and shall commission all the officers of the United States."  The president derives his authority in the field of foreign affairs from this article.  The article also states, "He may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments..."  Thus, through his ambassadors and "other officers" whom he appoints, and whose appointments are established by law, he heads what has become the U.S. foreign affairs establishment.

Legislation
CongressCongress:and foreign affairs Congressand foreign affairs  established the Department of Foreign Affairs in July 1789 and renamed it Department of State in a further act of September of that year.  Before this establishment of a government based on the Constitution, a committee on secret correspondence chaired by Benjamin Franklin pursued relations between the colonies and foreign governments beginning in 1775.  There had actually been a colonial agent acting on behalf of the colonies in England from 1760-75.  Franklin's group was renamed the Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1777 and then the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1781; it met in Philadelphia until 1784 and then it moved to New York.  The first national diplomatic representatives abroad were Silas Deane, Arthur Lee and Franklin, appointed in 1776 to negotiate treaties in Europe.  Franklin later became minister to France.  Thomas Jefferson replaced him 1785-90, returning to the United States to become the first secretary of state in March 1790.

A small department, State had no more than 700 employees by 1930 and only 900 by the outbreak of World War II.  Before the war its main business concerned treaties of commerce or navigation and providing services to American travelers and businessmen.  In 1950 the number of employees had grown to 5000 and by 1974, 14,000.  In 1994 there were 26,500; of this number 16,000 were overseas.  About half the total were Americans and half foreign nationals.  In 1997 State's budget was $4.8 billion (a decrease from $5.7 billion in 1994).   The Department of Defense had a total budget of $254 billion in 1997.

Congress funds all government projects and thus indirectly controls foreign affairs.  It exerts influence through its funding of the S&T agencies like NSF, NASA and HHS that have substantial interest in international cooperation.  In 1973 it established by public law the science and technology bureau already in the Department of State and changed its name to Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) (see Chapter 15), and in 1976 it similarly reestablished at the White House the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) after President Nixon had abolished it in 1973.  Congress has taken a particular interest in expensive S&T initiatives like the space station, which some members have repeatedly tried to kill; the human genome project; and the superconducting super collider, which it did kill in 1994.  Occasionally an international policy initiative arises in the Congress; an example is the so-called Lujan amendment to an appropriations bill of 1985 that proposed greater S&T cooperation with Latin America.  (Manuel Lujan was ranking Republican member on the House Committee for Science, Space and Technology at the time; he later became Secretary of the Interior.)

Legislation set up both the National Security Council (NSC) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947 to coordinate planning among the different agencies proposing programs or seeking solutions requiring presidential decision.  Both have S&T staffs.  The NSC staff has at times mirrored that of the State Department, with experts for geographic regions and functional areas like space, but it has had its own opinions.  Often this S&T staff, together with that of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (1939, 1970 and 1977), competes with or opposes the staffs at State and other departments and agencies.

President Eisenhower made the first wide use of the NSC, but President Kennedy dismantled it.  President Johnson struck a compromise between the two, but it was President Nixon who used the National Security Council as his most powerful foreign affairs agency, reorganizing it under the stewardship of Henry Kissinger in 1969.  When Kissinger moved to the State Department as Secretary in 1973, he took with him much of the power amassed by the NSC.

Executive Orders
In the same way that President Eisenhower set up the first White House S&T office in 1957, presidents may order anything that is within their constitutional prerogatives and consistent with relevant legislation.  An executive orderExecutive order Executive order  may be rescinded by a president or, worse, ignored.  It has the force of law while in effect.  Congress concurred in President Kennedy's executive order in 1962 strengthening the White House S&T office, but President Nixon rescinded it in 1973.

Decision Papers
Documents circulate in the executive branch seeking agreement and decision on particular policies.  The names of the documents change: National Security Decision Memoranda (NSDM -- pronounced NIZZ-DEM) were all the rage a few years ago, to be replaced by other acronyms.  The famous decision document NSC 68 in 1950 launched U.S. policy for the cold war, increasing conventional forces while holding nuclear weapons in reserve.1  The idea here is that the president must decide on a policy usually contested by one or more of his cabinet secretaries.  His staff presumably gives him the memorandum listing a group of options and the arguments pro and con for each, and then he chooses one, signs the document and the document is policy.

Main Government Agencies
In principle the Department of State is the senior and primary foreign affairs agency.  Three foreign affairs agencies besides State have to a certain extent taken over activities it formerly carried out: for example, foreign aid by AID, cultural exchanges by USIA and the whole arms control negotiating function of ACDA.2

The Agency for International Development (AID)Agency for International Development (AID) Agency for International Development (AID)  (1955, 1962) provides economic assistance programs for developing countries and disaster assistance under the popular rubric of "foreign aid."  Its Bureau of Science and Technology has specifically supported use of technology for development and strengthening the technological capacity of developing countries.

United States Information Agency (USIA)(1948), called the United States Information Service abroad, was established to increase understanding of the United States abroad and to promote educational and cultural exchanges with other countries.  USIA publicizes U.S. S&T achievements and includes scientists in its exchange programs.  It also sponsors U.S. visitors abroad who discuss science policy.3  The agency has made a policy of promoting NASA, its space achievements and its astronauts.  Visits of NASA astronauts usually sponsored by USIA have been tremendously popular in every country where they have been arranged.

The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA)(1961) centralized U.S. government efforts for disarmament and arms control, negotiation of related treaties and agreements and U.S. participation in arms control activities.  The director of ACDA, Gerard Smith, for example led the U.S. delegation to the disarmament talks with the Soviet Union that led to SALT I and the Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaties in 1972.  Science permeates much of the agency's operation.  It owed its creation to President Kennedy's Office of Science and Technology.

Cooperation within the Department
The new Bureau of Oceans and International Scientific and Environmental Affairs (OES) from 1974 has generally had hard going to carve out and retain for itself a role in foreign affairs within the Department.  Regional bureaus in the department cover Europe, Latin America, Africa, Mideast and Asia, although the exact country groupings change.  These bureaus are staffed largely by political and economic officers devoted primarily to studying and reporting on the government organization and politics, economics, trade and finance in foreign countries.  Mainly in these FSOs is lodged the power of the department and the foreign affairs establishment.  Their responsibility has been continuously eroded by other agencies.4   They are the State Department's last bastion against further encroachment and interlopers.  As such they are all the more tenacious in their defense of their remaining prerogatives against upstart bureaus in their own department.  They may have lost battles to other agencies and departments, but they don't intend to within their own walls.

The roles of AID, USIA and ACDA raised rivalries theoretically impossible, since, for example, each agency was shown on the State Department organization chart as being connected to the Secretary of State.  It is doubtful that the Secretary of State or anyone else at the department devoted much effort to exerting foreign affairs primacy over these agencies.  State may have had the responsibility, but its controls over these agencies depended more on the personalities of the leaders involved than any careful following of a prescribed chain of command.

Some of the SCI and OES bureau personnel have been specialists who entered service at levels higher than those for new foreign service officers.  They raised suspicions if not the hostility of the career FSO who entered at the bottom, served his apprenticeship at consulates in disagreeable or dangerous locales, learned several languages and mastered the convoluted, arcane history of little-known places.  Procedures in force for years if not decades alter slowly to accommodate new bureaus, new officers, even new ideas.  The methods of the foreign serviceForeign service Foreign service  have been successful and served the country well, so that there was no reason to change things just for the sake of change.  And slowly, as in any traditional institution, change has come about: specialists were recognized as useful, even essential, and new officers such as scientists or information specialists were appreciated for their decisive contribution to the modern conduct of foreign affairs.

One key to making a contribution or at least being useful in foreign affairs is accessAccess:foreign affairs Accessforeign affairs .  Control of information is crucial: who sees the telegrams, sensitive or not; who gets invited to the briefings; who sees the "reading files" of important documents; who has the opportunity to answer the telegrams from embassies or to originate similar ones; even who has the opportunity to "clear" or concur in these replies.  Clearing a telegram at least guarantees one sees it.

As an example: President Pompo of Farawaia is coming to Washington on a state visit, with calls at the White House, state dinner, wreaths at Arlington and a visit to a high-tech lab in nearby Reston, Virginia.  His entourage will include the Farawaian foreign minister, the research minister, legislators, businessmen and press.  The State Department sets up a panel or task force or ad hoc committee to plan for this visit.  Important of consideration are the topics for discussion brought up by our president, the best guesses what Farawaia's president will bring up and what the U.S. responses should be.  Our embassy in 'N Longago, Farawaia's capital, predicts what President Pompo's topics will be.  Sometimes the whole dialogue is worked out in advance.  At any rate the two sides develop a pretty complete scenario.

Unless S&T offices of the State Department are consulted at this stage, they will have no impact on the visit nor on the role of science and technology in U.S. relations with Farawaia for several years.  It is important, then, to get on the distribution list of the memorandum from the Farawaia desk of the regional bureau that sets up the task force for the visit.  This is relatively easy to do once, for always-harried officers in the regional bureaus will be only too happy have someone in OES handle the Farawaian research minister and the visit to Reston.  Nevertheless, a state visit is a serious event, and if OES or any other bureau or cooperating agency fails to do its part it will not soon be requested to participate again, whether there is a research minister in the presidential party or not.

The chain of command for relatively few issues originates in the science bureau of the department.  This is a fact of life; the most important foreign affairs issues relating to defense, arms control, nuclear weapons, terrorism, technology transfer and drug trafficking -- regardless of their S&T content -- will usually be the major occupation of some other bureau.  This does not mean that the science bureau cannot make essential contributions, but only that it will not be the so-called "lead" bureau.  But its staffing is frequently indispensable in such issues as nuclear nonproliferation, environmental protection, alternative energy sources and energy conservation, technology for economic development or cooperative S&T programs in general.

Policy vs Operations
The Department of State is primarily a policy organization; it serves as staff to the secretary and to the president and occasionally to other department and agency heads, especially overseas.  It directs.  In general it does not have line or operations responsibilities.  This state of affairs is a continuing source of difficulty.  Take for instance the simplified example of the visit from Farawaia.  Imagine a likely outcome: the U.S. president proposes an S&T cooperation agreement with Farawaia; President Pompo gratefully concurs.  It will look good at home for Farawaian science to be seen as a subject fit for cooperation with the United States.  The State Department expertly draws up the agreement, the presidents sign it and President Pompo returns triumphantly to 'N Longago, his capital.

Two years pass.  There have been three exchanges of graduate students and one joint research project that was actually started by a physicist from the United States who met a Farawaian colleague at an international meeting.  Farawaia may or may not complain; after all, it has the signed agreement proving the international viability and competitiveness of its science.  If Farawaia doesn't complain, the regional bureau is unlikely to act.  Yet if President Pompo, noting that after two years there are precious few fruits of the presidential signature, asks the embassy if that is representative of the importance the United States attaches to the relations between the two countries, the embassy cables the regional bureau and the regional bureau calls the science bureau to task.  The problem is that OES is nominally overseeing dozens of cooperation agreements and it has not yet had the personnel to drum up U.S.-Farawaia projects among the S&T agencies.  Most agencies have an interest in international cooperation and are willing to help up to a point, but they uniformly reject the idea that State should negotiate an agreement -- perhaps without consulting them -- and then expect them to pick up the pieces and fund the work regardless of its merit or relationship to the agency's mission.

Another important example of the policy-operations problem comes up in a multiagency cooperative program.  Everything may be going fine; all participating agencies are enthusiastic about the value of the cooperation.  Yet who can oversee this multiagency approach?  No single agency, surely.  The obvious candidate is State the policy-maker and nonoperational entity, whether it has the personnel and budget or not.  State has indeed served as operational director in multiagency cooperation programs with Spain (see also Chapter 19), India, Italy and the former USSR (Chapter 18).

This arrangement puts severe strains on the relations between participants.  The State Department is variably staffed to handle the operation of programs; the S&T agencies themselves are not qualified to address the foreign affairs aspects.  State has the ultimate responsibility for its initiative with Farawaia but it has limited authority for carrying it out, mainly due to lack of its own S&T funding.

Funding at State
The issue of funding strikes twice.  First, the State Department has had with few exceptions no funding for S&T cooperation programs, or any other S&T programs or operations.  (Exceptions include past use of excess foreign currencies in Yugoslavia, Poland and India and special appropriations for Israel, Yugoslavia and Poland -- quite limited in the latter two cases.)  When it finds itself operating a program in which several US agencies participate but in which it is putting no money itself, its influence is greatly reduced.

The second funding problem is that the science bureau generally has no funds to support its own science officers in overseas embassies and missions.  Rather, these positions are carried on the budgets of the regional bureaus.  If the European Bureau wanted to cut out the science officer in Stockholm for whatever reason, it could -- and it did.  The OES Bureau often suggested new positions or changes among positions overseas.  Acceptance was up to the regional bureaus.  The regional bureaus should, of course, determine staffing of their embassies, but OES deserves some say in the use of the pool of science officers -- and when a regional bureau wants a science officer position OES should be able to provide it.

The number of science officers overseas  overseas is shown in the table.
 

Year	Number
1951	5
1974	22
1986	40
1997	40

Science and Technology Agency Funding
Estimated U.S. government R&D funding for 1998 was $66 billion.  Of this, $3.4 billion was for NSF and $4.8 billion for NASA, two agencies with large international programs.  The lions' shares of the rest were $37 billion for DOD and $14 billion for HHS.  Only a small fraction of these funds goes to S&T cooperation, of course.  The entire appropriation for State in 1998 was $4.7 billion.  The departments that handle science and technology have the funding for international cooperation if not the foreign affairs responsibility.  They also have the authority.

Particularly the mandates of NSF, NASA and DOE provide for international activity.  The charter of NSF calls for it to "promote international cooperation through science and engineering."  NASA "arranges for the most effective utilization of the scientific and engineering resources of the United States with other nations engaged in aeronautical and space activities for peaceful purposes."  The Department of Energy (1977) assumed the scientific mandate of the Energy Research and Development Administration, among others; that agency had succeeded the Atomic Energy Commission in 1974, the postwar civilian arm entrusted with the nuclear weapons and nuclear energy programs.  Its 1998 R&D budget was $2.5 billion.

Early on NASA and the AEC had large, strong international programs and big, able staffs in keeping with their mandates and new-found importance.  Overnight the two agencies not only somewhat swamped the State Department's efforts in S&T affairs, but the AEC in particular also provided specialized personnel for the State Department and its embassies when the foreign service personnel system and the private sector could not provide them.  The NSF has done this as well, although NASA and NSF have also from time to time placed their own officers in a small number of embassies as independent attachÈs.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) (1974) licenses and regulates nuclear power and nuclear energy for civil use.  It approves exports of nuclear technology.  Its duties and interests frequently take its commissioners and staff to foreign countries using nuclear energy, with many of which it has cooperative agreements.  An NRC commissioner, Frederick Bernthal, became assistant secretary of OES in 1987.  The Environmental Protection Agency (1970) is another new institution with a vast scientific establishment and international concerns because of the subject matter of pollution and environmental protection.

The Department of Energy and EPA have also seen fit occasionally to station their own officers in embassies overseas, either from the perceived importance of their mandate in particular countries or their belief that State and the foreign service could not devote effort commensurate with these mandates.  These embassy positions established by Washington S&T agencies have been extremely vulnerable to shifts in headquarters fashion, personalities, policy and budgets.  Nor are they what is ordinarily called science officer positions; their incumbents usually handled only the work of their parent agency, and reacted little with the rest of the embassy or with State.

The Health Department, whose title is currently Health, Education and Welfare, naturally has a large S&T program with an international component to focus on diseases that know no boundaries and to take advantage of expertise wherever in the world it might be found.  Besides the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, the Fogarty International Center operates a number of programs specifically designed to take advantage of international achievements through international cooperation.

Other old-line departments also have international S&T programs: Commerce with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)(founded 1978), its older Weather Service and the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- NIST); Interior (1849) with the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS); and Agriculture (1862) (USDA) with the Foreign Agricultural Service.

The authority for EPA, HHS and NOAA is not as broad as for NSF, NASA and DOE, but their permissible engagement in international activity is considerable.  Agencies such as NIST, USGS and USDA have less authority for international work.  Their legal authority may be effectively augmented or diminished by interpretation and precedent and by congressional intent revealed in committee reports.

The legislative authority of AID has been subject to severe and continued critical scrutiny and alteration by Congress.  The agency became understandably cautious and perhaps lost some of its incentive to innovate.

Military and Intelligence Agencies
Since World War II the Department of Defense has generally had the largest budget nominally devoted to science and technology.  Because of its relation to national security, this support has understandably tended to be for domestic rather than foreign or cooperative research.  Much of it of course was for applied research and development.  Parts of the Defense Department dedicated to basic research, like the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), initially followed the cardinal rule of funding the best research done by the best scientists in the best laboratories regardless of where they were.  In the 1960s ONR and AFSOR supported many research projects in foreign laboratories.  These were not cooperative or exchange programs; they were projects carried out by foreign scientists in foreign countries.  Their impact on foreign affairs was indirect but worth noting.  It is also worth remembering that ONR played a major role in the development of  basic science in the United States after World War II.  The office was established in 1946, predating NSF (1950) and NASA (1958) although in the same year as the AEC.

Both domestic and foreign research projects supported by the Defense Department were dealt a series of blows beginning in the late 1960s.  First was the inevitable conflict between support of domestic and foreign research.  With their ranks growing and money limited, some American scientists resented support going overseas.  A second blow was dealt in about 1970 by the so-called Mansfield AmendmentMansfield Amendment Mansfield Amendment  to a Defense Department authorization act (named after its proponent, Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana, later U.S. ambassador to Japan).  This provision of questionable wisdom betrayed its author's lack of understanding of science.  It required that all DOD-sponsored research, whether basic or applied, have a clear relationship to a military objective.  This requirement clearly flew in the face of science as a curiosity-oriented, investigator-initiated pursuit of knowledge.  Only imaginative and inspired descriptions of Defense-sponsored research projects after that time enabled the department to continue supporting any basic research at all of the type that had contributed to its support of the discovery of the laser.  It is hard to remember now that for twenty years or so after the discovery of the laser in 1957 it was considered brilliant but of little or no practical use.

Foreign critics exaggerate the effect of defense researchDefense research:effects on U.S. science Defense researcheffects on U.S. science  on U.S. science.  Defense research funding is immense, but much military science and technology is somewhat surprisingly not "cutting-edge," not state-of-the-art.  The drive for reliability, ease of use, mass production and cost-effectiveness is greater than any drive for novelty.  Indeed, military history brims with stories of resistance to technological change rather than any insistence on being on the cutting edge.

The foreign affairs players in the Defense Department dominate the stage whenever they choose to step onto it, however.  As mentioned in Chapter 6, this was particularly true in the area of export controls.  Defense attachÈs and military advisers in embassies may involve themselves in certain S&T questions, particularly relating to host country military facilities for science.  (In Argentina, for example, much of the nuclear program was under its navy, and the space program under its air force.)

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)(1947) has a pervasive presence in Washington and overseas, with a large S&T component.  State Department officers often envy the agency's resources for gathering and analyzing S&T information.  By overt and covert means it collects data on open and closed installations such as nuclear power plants, other nuclear facilities, space establishments, laboratories and factories.  Its officers overseas occasionally compete with foreign service officers for the same meager and often public information.  The competition was often intensified by the fact that many CIA officers were widely known to serve under cover as "science officers" in embassies.5

Other Agencies with International S&T Programs
The State Department function of negotiating international trade agreements on behalf of the United States (as under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade  -- GATT) was transferred in 1963 and 1974 to the Executive Office of the President, Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).  USTR is a peripheral but powerful player in the international S&T game since U.S. technology trade is so large.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget all play a prescribed role in proposing and deciding international S&T policy.  By virtue of their closeness to the president in the Executive Office organization and in the physical location of their offices, this role can be considerable.

Outside the Government

Science community
Without direct power the scientific community nevertheless has considerable influence in the conduct of foreign affairs involving S&T.  Directors of OSTP are generally eminent scientists with a large set of contacts within the community.  Henry Kissinger reportedly relied on Professor Paul Doty of Harvard for scientific advice.  Shadow staffs for government S&T positions may sometimes exist at Harvard, MIT, Stanford and elsewhere.  Scientists have not been shy in lobbying for funds and serving in Washington as consultants or in writing letters on behalf of Russian dissident scientists, U.S. participation in UNESCO and IIASA or government support of science and technology in developing countries.  Several scientific associations have set up committees to deal with public policy issues.  Some have lobbied against the U.S. space station on the basis that the project will not be cost-effective with respect to the scientific results obtained.  One of the most famous impacts of a private scientist on the U.S. government was the letter Albert Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt in 1939 urging initiation of the program that led to the nuclear bomb.

Much of the influence of the scientific community comes to bear via the National Academy of SciencesNational Academy of Sciences National Academy of Sciences ,6 itself a private scientific institution chartered by the government since 1863, among other things, to carry out studies for the government.  Membership is elective and considered a career-crowning honor.  Much of the work of the Academy is carried out by a staff under the nominal direction of the members.  To a great extent the Academy has served as an objective and apolitical source of information and advice.  Its international office, on behalf of the membership and with the direct participation of Academy presidents, was instrumental in sustaining the spirits of Soviet scientists during the cold war, directly contributing to the establishment of democratic government in Russia (for more on this subject, see chapter 18).

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is open to all scientists, not just elected members.  Through its location in Washington (where the NAS also has its headquarters), its annual meetings and its weekly magazine of news and research Science, the AAAS is an influential force in the scientific community.  Its meetings and seminars always attract high-level government policy-makers as speakers and attendees alike as they air science policy issues of the day.  The Association established a program with the State Department in which it nominated and paid the salaries of fellows to serve in the OES Bureau.

Eminent scientists frequently serve as delegates to international meetings on science policy, environmental protection, defense studies, communications issues.  They are pledged to follow the lead of the delegation head, usually a government official, but they may influence the delegations' premeeting deliberations and ultimate positions.

One outstanding example is the long-time service of Edward David as the U.S. representative to the NATO science committee.  David filled this role 1979-95 upon his return to the private sector after serving as the president's science adviser from 1970 to 1973.

Business Community
Already pointed out was the business sector's role in urging or preparing certain U.S. policies toward export controls (Chapter 6); developing countries, especially in Latin America (Chapters 11-13; see also Chapter 21); and the design of an institute to promote scientific and technological cooperation (the ISTC) (Chapter 14).  Chapter 22 describes the interest of business in the OECD project preventing erection of nontariff barriers to the flow of personal data across national boundaries.

It suffices to mention here that business often proffers aid on issues where it has interests at risk or it may make potential gains.  It is only fair that business be well-informed about government policy trends and have a voice in issues of concern to it.  The final government decisions and policies must take all national interests into account.

A private-sector group composed of business and academic representatives and called the Department of State Advisory Committee on Science and Foreign Affairs has provided outside expertise to the department since the 1970s.  Composed of about a dozen members, the group met and gave its opinions and recommendations at three or four meetings a year. Its level of use depended on the person heading the science bureau.

Decision-making
Most problems are difficult; choices to resolve problems are usually few, not a lot different from each other and only marginally effective at best.  Events solve or compound problems more often than decisions do.  Events force decisions more than policies do.  Secretary Kissinger claimed, "The act of choice ...is the ultimate act of statesmanship," yet, "decision-making can grow so complex that the process of producing a bureaucratic consensus may overshadow the purpose of the effort."7

The formal process of making decisions in government is both well-developed and inefficient.  Nominally, a decision as to whether or not to offer S&T cooperation to a country like our Farawaia will arise as an option in a State Department position paper that discusses steps that might be taken with that country to advance U.S. national interests.  Other agencies will "sign off" on the idea: perhaps NSF, HHS, NASA, the Geological Survey.  Their signing off means that they believe that the cooperation is possible and potentially useful to U.S. S&T interests.  They don't necessarily commit funds at that stage.

Decision-making facility depends on the "visibility" of any issue.  If the visibility is low, it may be settled between State and the funding agencies, sealed with signatures of government emissaries and put into operation for the good of international S&T and U.S. foreign affairs.

If, however, it were a question of the order in which countries' requests are honored for satellite launches by NASA; if it were a question of S&T cooperation with Cuba; or if it were a question of the U.S. position at a contentious international conference on environment -- if it's one of these "high-visibility" questions -- then the decision-making process is much less clear-cut.

The established process requires that concerned departments express their views to the president through the National Security Council and other components of the Executive Office of the President.  A brief, neat options paper with boxes to check is designed to settle the issue but does so only in some cases.  Wording of the options often expresses more clearly the bias of the drafter than his objectivity.  Agencies with strong opinions on supercomputer exports, launches of U.S. satellites by foreign firms, underground nuclear testing, abortion as an element of population control or some similar issue try to influence the decision before it is made or to reverse it afterwards.  If they did not contribute to the options paper sent forward by the NSC to the president, they begin a belated telephone and memo campaign on behalf of their interests.  Allies are recruited; opponents are ridiculed if not savaged.

A department sets its own policy without intervention only when it doesn't bring about objection by another.  Much of what State does in science and technology is either with the S&T agencies' approval or silent concurrence.  In "important" or "political" cases of "high visibility," another department or the White House questions State's judgment and a presidential decision is required.

Science and technology issues contested by two or more agencies rarely take top priority with the White House staff, so the decision is often delayed.  Eventually, the president may read the options papers, confers with the key member on his staff and makes his decision.  As such it becomes policy for his administration.

Once made, a decision nevertheless may be ignored or undercut by one or another department or agency.  This lack of follow-through or outright sabotage is often blamed on willful and unmanageable career officers in the civil or foreign service, but it is much more often due rather to aggressive political appointees who either on their own behalf or that of pliant principals knowingly ignore, oppose or scuttle programs approved by the president.

Lack of a decision can be worse than an adverse one since it leaves a part of the governmental S&T apparatus in limbo, unable to fish or cut bait.  An example was the space station.  A strong presidential initiative in 1984, the space station failed to retain much attention at the White House during long preliminary negotiations with the Europeans, Japanese and Canadians for participation; nor did the White House seem much interested in settling serious challenges to the program raised by the Department of Defense.  The station was even criticized as outmoded by a close presidential adviser.  This ambivalence left the State Department and NASA vulnerable in their dealings with contractors and foreign governments.