THE ADMINISTRATION: The New Influence

So smoothly and quietly as to be barely detectable, the U.S., over the past three or four months, has considerably modified its policy on willingness to try for a workable agreement with Russia on ending nuclear weapons tests. U.S. policymakers were solidly committed to one disarmament package: tests could not be stopped unless nuclear-weapons production was simultaneously stopped and conventional arms were cut down. But last week a U.S. scientific delegation sat down peaceably with a Russian scientific delegation in Geneva to discuss the feasibility of nuclear test inspection systems (see FOREIGN NEWS). Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had ringed the meeting with the warning that the results would not bind the U.S. on any next steps, but the mere fact of the session was important evidence of an important new influence at work in the U.S. Government.

The new influence: Dr. James Rhyne Killian Jr., 53. for nine years president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, since November the President's special assistant for science and technology. Almost daily, he pops in and out of the President's office or on and off the President's private telephone line. More and more, the President holds off proposals with a "Let's see what Jim thinks about this.'' Among the most meaningful scribbles on official memorandums is "Killian has no objections." At a recent press conference, the President, asked whether the U.S. ought to get a Cabinet-level department of science, said he thought not, but that "one of my appointments today is with the advisory committee under Dr. Killian, and if I thought there was any need for [such a department], I should refer it to him at once for a study, a complete study."

Balanced Panels. Much of Jim Killian's influence derives from the need that the President and the nation had for such a man when he went to Washington last fall. The Communists had put up Sputnik I, and the editorialists were crying for a "Science Czar." Dr. Killian got the headlines, if not the specific job. He added to his influence at once with a shot of his old M.I.T. organizational energy. He expanded membership of the President's Science Advisory Committee from twelve to 17, recruited scores of scientists coast to coast to set up 20 or so panels to study space programs, scientific education, missiles, translations of Russian documents, anything relevant to science. Before long he had generally set off a ferment of excited scientific mind-rubbing.

The scientific community did not miss the point that Killian bolstered the Washington standing of many of Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer's friends and followers, who had had some trouble finding a high-level ear since Oppenheimer's security clearance was suspended in 1953. Yet Killian carefully balanced the politics of his panelists, then strongly warned them never, never to let political viewpoints influence scientific judgments.