ABSTRACT
President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) had a split personality. It had an intended function of providing advice to the President, from a somewhat broader sense than that which the President’s Science Adviser alone could provide. This exemplifies one half of PSAC’s split personality: to provide advice to the President on policy-relevant issues that required technical expertise in science, ordinarily covering a range greater than that spanned by a single discipline. The other half of PSAC’s split personality was that of advocate for government expenditures on science, that is, a representative of “science” in the government to help insure the health of science. The issue which more than any other precipitated the killing of PSAC by President Nixon was closely related to this question. PSAC reviewed allocations for scientific research and development in the government’s budget, and generally advocated greater expenditures through its chairman, the Science Adviser.
