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Nature 449, 543 (4 October 2007) | doi:10.1038/449543a; Published online 3 October 2007

Open Innovation Challenges

Science & politics How the mighty have fallen

Richard Garwin1

  1. Richard Garwin is IBM fellow emeritus at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA and a former member of the PSAC.

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In 1957, science advisers were brought into the White House as the President's Science Advisory Committee. Its demise has deprived the US government of invaluable counsel.

The Second World War left the United States with enormous energy among its scientists and great advances in technology — for example, radar, the proximity fuse, nuclear weapons and the ability to detect sound underwater. Taking office in 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower consulted the little-known Science Advisory Committee (SAC) in the Office of Defense Mobilization.