Remarks on Presenting the National Medal of Science Awards for 1973.

Dr. Stever, Members of the Cabinet, Members of the Congress, and particularly all of our distinguished guests and your friends:

On this occasion, we make the science awards, and it gives the President, who has the honor of making these awards on behalf of all the American people, an opportunity to say a word about a subject that he claims no particular expertise in and, for that reason, has great admiration for those who are truly expert, as these various citations will indicate.

As I looked over the list of the award winners, I realized some things about science and scientists that sometimes we forget. First, the award winners cover this country geographically; that means that all of the brains don't happen to be in New England or, for that matter, in California. Because, as you will find out, there are award winners from California, from Texas, from Florida, from Illinois, and of course, from MIT in New England.

Also, it will be noted that, when we read the biographies of the various award winners that we realize another truth about science and about all greatness, and that is its universality. The tendency sometime for us to be jingoistic in this country is quickly washed away, as it was recently when we swore in, in this room, the new Secretary of State--the first time in the history of America that an individual who was not born in America was Secretary of State. And four of our award winners today of the II are naturalized Americans, which shows how fortunate we are in this Nation to draw from all of the brains of the world in creating our scientific leadership.

Another point that made a very great impression upon me as I read about the award winners and their citations was the singular fact that for the first time in which these awards are being made, all of them are in the field of what I would call peaceful activities.

We meet at a time when a very dangerous situation exists in the Mideast, when a war rages there, that the United States is trying its best to play a mediating role and bring the fighting to an end and then, beyond that, to help to build not just a temporary but a lasting peace for the people in that very troubled section of the world.

When we look back to the year 1959 when these awards were first established and the years since then, we find that over 50 percent of the budget of the Federal Government for science comes from the Department of Defense. We also must recognize that through the years it has been necessary for the scientific community to make a contribution in the area of defense, and I could only remind this audience that unless the United States were strong and its strength were credible at the present time, we would not be able to play the role that we believe is a peacemaking role in the Middle East or in any other part of the world.

And so the scientific community need not be in any way ashamed of the role it has played in helping to develop the defense capabilities--and I use the word "defense" rather than "offensive"--the defense capabilities of the United States in that area.

But putting aside for the moment the problem in the Middle East and looking at the United States itself, let us recognize something we can be very grateful for today. For the first time in 12 years the United States, at the 'time these awards are being made, is at peace with every nation in the world, and that is symbolized, it seems to me, and brought home by the fact that the 11 award winners are concentrated in the area of peaceful enterprise.

That is what you want, that is what young Americans want. We are a peaceful people, and we would like to concentrate our pursuits in the areas of peace, rather than in those areas that happen to deal with war.

In that connection, if I could again relate the problems that we presently have and face in the Mideast to the future insofar as government support of research is concerned: The flare-up in the Middle East reminds us again of how dependent the United States and, even more so, of course, much more so, Western Europe and Japan are on the oil supplies of the Mideast.

And what is happening in the Mideast today reminds us again of a fundamental fact that we must face up to in the years ahead. The United States, as a great industrial power, cannot continue to be dependent upon an uncertain source for energy which could be cut off at any time. That is why one of the major goals of this Nation must be to become self-sufficient in energy.

Now, to say that is easy; to accomplish it is difficult. But this opens, of course, a great new peaceful challenge to the men and women of science. While we are short on oil reserves, as you know, the United States has almost half the known coal reserves in the world. But developing coal in a way that it can be a clean fuel, developing it in a way 'that excavating it will not despoil the geography or the environment too much--this is a great task for science and requires a much greater contribution in the field of research than we presently have been making, than we have made in the past, or are presently making.

A second area so well known to the scientific community is in the area of nuclear power. And here the peaceful use of nuclear power, the fast breeder reactor, the possibility of even leapfrogging that and going to fusion for purposes of creation of peaceful power at a cost that will be competitive--this is another area which could help us toward becoming self-sufficient in energy, which, as a nation, we must adopt as a goal.

I turn then to a subject of concern to all of us, particularly to young Americans, the subject of the ecology, the environment. And we often hear that energy and all that is required 'to produce it is directly contradictory toward our goal of a clean environment. And the answer is that must not be so, and anyone in the scientific community would agree, it is not necessarily so.

We face, for example, it is said, 'the possibility of a fuel shortage, particularly in the northeastern part of the United States this winter. We believe that we can find a way to meet that problem. But those who particularly and exclusively, should I say, concentrate on the need for clean air, a better environment, would recognize the truth that if one freezes to death, it doesn't make any difference whether the air is clean or dirty.

And so, which comes first? The energy in that case, but--and here is the problem for science--we can and must develop the energy that America needs for its jobs, for its progress, for its transportation, but at the same time, develop that energy in a way that will not despoil the environment of our country and, in fact, will clean it, as one of the award winners from Southern California, his citation, will indicate today.

Finally, ladies and gentlemen, let me simply conclude by pointing up something that I know concerns many in the scientific community, and that is, why is it that the budget for science is not moving up at the levels that many of you think is essential if the United States is to maintain a position of leadership in this area?

Well, the budget is a problem in many areas. I can only say, however, that in the field of basic research, when it comes to problems of energy, when it comes to problems of the environment, the other areas that I have mentioned, we must allocate a larger proportion of our national income to these areas, and by doing so, we not only will make a contribution toward the scientific community and developing the scientific capabilities of our people but we also will make a very great contribution to a better nation here at home.

What I am saying very simply is this: We all know that because the United States needed a concentration on defense at a critical time, and then later a concentration on space, that this opened broad, new vistas in the area of science, and this also resulted in a much greater Federal contribution and the justification for it from a budgetary standpoint. But now, as we turn from war to the works of peace, we must not cut back on that research.

What we must do is to channel the efforts in the field of research to peaceful uses, the field of energy, ecology, and not to mention--and not, of course, by mentioning these two to in any way downgrade the efforts we should make in the field of health, in education, and the others, which these citations will cover.

So, on this occasion, for these and many other reasons that I have generally touched upon, I congratulate all of the award winners today, each of you individually when you come up to receive the award. And I will simply close on a very simple quotation from Winston Churchill. Speaking in that rather eloquent and sometimes overstated but beautiful English prose of his, he once said, once the secret of the atom was discovered, that "The destruction of mankind might come on the gleaming wings of science." Let this not be so.

What we can determine--we who are not the scientists, because there is no political science, I can assure you--what we must do is to be sure that science, rather than leading to the destruction of mankind, will lead to a better world, a better nation for our children, for generations to come.

Thank you.

Now, Dr. Stever will read the citations, and please translate them into English, if you will. [Laughter]

[At this point, H. Guyford Stever, Director of the National Science Foundation and Science Adviser to the President, read the citations, the texts of which follow.]

EARL W. SUTHERLAND, JR.--For the discovery that epinephrine and the hormones of the pituitary gland occasion their diverse regulatory effects by initiating cellular synthesis of cyclic adenylic acid, now recognized as a universal biological "second messenger," which opened a new level of understanding of the subtle mechanisms that integrate the chemical life of the cell while offering hope of entirely new approaches to chemotherapy.

DANIEL I. ARNON--For fundamental research into the mechanism of green plant utilization of light to produce chemical energy and oxygen and for contributions to our understanding of plant nutrition.

HAROLD E. EDGERTON--For his vision and creativity in pioneering the field of stroboscopic photography and for his many inventions of instruments for exploring the great depths of the oceans.

RICHARD T. WHITCOMB--For his discoveries and inventions in aerodynamics which have provided and will continue to provide substantial improvements in the speed, range and payload of a major portion of the high performance aircraft produced throughout the country.

JOHN WILDER TUKEY--For his studies in mathematical and theoretical statistics, particularly his pioneering work on broad analysis and synthesis problems of complex systems, and for his outstanding contributions to the applications of statistics to the physical, social, and engineering sciences.

CARE DJERASSI--In recognition of his major contributions to the elucidation of the complex chemistry of the steroid hormones and to the application of these compounds to medicinal chemistry and population control by means of oral contraceptives.

WILLIAM MAURICE EWING,---For extending and improving the methods of geology and geophysics to study the ocean floor and to understand the last remaining unexplored province of the solid earth--that which lies under the sea.

VLADIMIR HAENSEL--For his outstanding research in the catalytic reforming of hydrocarbons which has greatly enhanced the economic value of our petroleum natural resources.

FREDERICK SEITZ For his pioneering contributions to the foundations of the modern quantum theory of the solid state of matter, and to the understanding of many phenomena and processes that occur in solids.

ARIE JAN HAAGEN-SMIT--For his unique contributions to the discovery of the chemical nature and source of smog, and for the successful efforts which he has carried through for smog abatement.

ROBERT RATHBUN WILSON--For unusual ingenuity in designing experiments to explore the fundamental particles of matter and in designing and constructing the machines to produce the particles, culminating in the world's most powerful particle accelerator.

[After the presentation of the medals by the President, he resumed speaking as follows:]

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that completes the ceremony, and we want all of you to enjoy, if you have the time, some coffee and refreshments in the State Dining Room, and we again congratulate the winners and members of their family who are here, some of whom we had a chance to meet earlier.

This is, it seems to me, a very great day in a sense for them in a personal way, but it is also a very splendid day for the United States when we see these men who have contributed so much to a goal that all Americans so deeply feel, of using the great talents that we can develop in the field of science for peace rather than war. Thank you.