ABSTRACT
Congress, the president’s science advisor, and many government agencies requested Academy advice on a wide variety of topics, some involving much science, and others involving little. In a typical year during the period of 1973-81, the Academy issued some 250 reports. The official requests came first to the relevant board or committee,
then to the appropriate assembly or commission, and finally to the Governing Board for official approval; some requests for reports were encouraged by the responsible NRC staff member. Requests for reports were rarely turned down, but they were often considerably modified in this elaborate acceptance process. From my own long service on that governing board (14 years at one time or another), I suspect it might well have been much more selective-not all of those apparently pressing problems can be illuminated by science, and not all problems proposed are really pressing.
