ABSTRACT
Science and technology issues in the Reagan White House were handled in the same manner as most other subjects. The Economic Policy Council, whose members consisted of about half the Cabinet, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and the Science Adviser, handled several science and technology issues. The National Security Council (NSC) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) provided relatively well-defined input, consensus, and resolution mechanisms, despite personalities and emphasis on individual initiative in even these offices. The Strategic Defense Initiative had been created by the President in 1983, deliberately outside normal channels, and it continued to be handled on an ad hoc basis with substantial resultant turmoil. The first topic concerned the attacks on freedom of communication of basic science, attacks which originated in segments of the national security community. When the White House Science Council issued its major report on the Health of Universities in early 1986.
