7. Looking Back
If I could use an analogy to describe my two years in Washington, then it
would be the following. Working in the Executive Office of the President
was liked being locked up with a thousand 25-year old Assistant Professors.
The staff were inexperienced, full of energy, working around the clock,
while actually accomplishing relatively little.
Government at this level is more about process then about getting results
(or so it seemed to me). It is important that all key constituencies are
consulted and involved in the decision making "process." Consequently
this means that little actually gets accomplished (at least within the two
year time horizon I observed). By measures that most of us would understand,
it is extremely difficult to detect progress in any administration. At least
one person experienced in the ways of Washington has said that the only
thing an administration can do is to move the ship of state a few degrees
to port or starboard.
The EOP is the power center of the free world, but why is it that everyone
there is a lawyer (including even people answering the telephones)? Few
people have technical expertise, and even scientific experts in the Office
of Science and Technology policy do not have computing and communications
technical backgrounds. While on the White House Information Technology Task
Force, I had an opportunity to check out the White House's Resumex system,
a UNIX-based application for scaning and indexing resumes. Its 50,000 resume
database contained not a single profile that fit my own: Ph.D. in engineering
with 10 or more years of experience. But the vast majority of those therein
were for people with law degrees (and recent experience as staffers or lobbyists
was very common).
All things considered, I believe that it is possible to have much higher
impact at agencies like ARPA or NSF where you actually have the research
dollars to make something happen. In general, detailed technical expertise
within government is very scarce. If you are ever asked to participate on
a National Research Council study or some government board, I encourage
you to say yes. They really need your help and insights in Washington!
Based on my first hand observations, it is clear to me that the implicit
post-World War II contract between research, continued technological innovation,
and society has become broken. Americans are no longer willing to make the
long term investments in science and engineering research. It is no longer
taken for granted that more science is better science. Advanced technology
is largely incomprehensible to the person in the street. And the popular
press is rife with anecdotes on how technology fails (e.g., trains that
drive off the track, auto death traps, etc.). The Unabomber is only one
element of a dangerous trend.
The current mood in Washington is that research funding can no longer be
treated as an entitlement. Arguments of the form "Give us the bucks
and good things will happen" or "Keep that money flowing"
no longer work in Washington (see [NY Time 95a]). Research universities
are perceived as a huge "white tower" enterprise, highly leveraged
on the backs of the tax-paying public. It is shocking to hear of at least
one United States Senator actually denigrating "curiosity-based research."
We are fortunate that there are a few people with strong academic backgrounds
in key positions within the Administration. People like John Deutsch, current
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, former Deputy Secretary of
Defense, and former Provost at MIT, and Anita Jones, Defense Director of
Research and Engineering, and a former Professor at the University of Virginia.
This team was able to turn a $900 million cut in University research programs
into a $200 million cut, but it is still painful. [29]
There are several questions that we as a research community must address.
What is the role of University research in the greater context of society?
How much of it is creating new knowledge and how much is training the next
generation of enquiring minds and technological leaders? How can we convince
the American public that their investment in scientific research is good
value for money? How can we, as a research community, participate more fully
in the decision making processes of government? How can we better educate
our representatives about the value of what we do? Computer science has
reached a state of maturity as a discipline and importance to society as
a field of endeavor that we must play a more active role in the technology
policy debates.
Acknowledgements
The White House Information Technology Task Force consisted of Janet Handel,
Chair, Brian Boesch (ARPA), Jack Finley (GSA), Michael Leavitt (CIA), Bruce
McConnell (OMB), Stephen Squires (ARPA), Paul Tisdale (OMB), and Thomas
Weber (NSF). Its early sponsor in the White House was Mr. David Watkins,
Assistant to the President for Administration. [30]
Following his departure, our activities were overseen by Ms. Patsy Thomasson,
head of the EOP's Office of Administration. [31] My
involvement with the National Performance Review's Reengineering Government
through Information Technology team started under the leadership of Dr.
Vic Reis, now Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs, and concluded
under James Flyzik of Treasury, who is also chair of the IITF GITS subcommittee.
Special acknowledgements are due to my superiors at ARPA, particularly John
Toole, Duane Adams, and Gary Denman, who permitted me to be diverted from
my primary ARPA duties to "help out" downtown. My immediate superior
during the early stages of my ARPA assignment, Stephen Squires, is a unique
individual and a "living national treasure." He is the one largely
responsible for giving me the opportunity and the leeway to take on the
highly visible and high risk activities described herein. Nevertheless,
all of the opinions expressed in this paper are completely my own.
Footnotes
29. Deutsch's move to the CIA probably means less support
for R&D within the Department of Defense.
30. Mr. Watkins left the Clinton Administration after
"borrowing" a Presidential helicopter to scout out a golf course
near the President's retreat at Camp David. Despite being forced to resign
from the administration, he remains in charge of the planning group for
the Clinton Presidential Library.
31. Ms. Thomasson is perhaps best known for controversial
search of the office of Deputy White House Council Vincent Foster soon after
his suicide.
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Randy H. Katz, randy@cs.Berkeley.edu, Last Updated: 20 December
95