“Engaging the People’s Republic of China in a dialogue is perhaps the most dramatic and far reaching decision undertaken by the Nixon administration,” as noted in a new volume of the U.S. State Department’s official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series devoted to that topic.
A 1972 NSC memorandum for Henry Kissinger published in the new volume expressed concern about efforts by the Federation of American Scientists and its then-President Jeremy J. Stone to promote scientific exchange with China.
“The Chinese, by encouraging Stone, are effectively undercutting the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the PRC, a group we have recommended to Peking,” complained NSC staffer John H. Holdridge in his August 28, 1972 memo to Kissinger (see document 248).
Nestled in the cuts and investments of interest to the S&T community is a more complex story of how the administration is approaching the practice of science diplomacy.
Surprise! It’s a double album drop with the release of both the President’s Budget Request (PBR to us, not Pabst Blue Ribbon) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) last Friday.
If properly implemented, a comprehensive reform program to accomplish regulatory democracy that is people-centered and power-conscious could be essential for addressing complex policy changes such as the climate challenge.
Once upon a time, the President’s budget was a realistic proposal to Congress about what the federal government should spend money on. These days, it’s essentially just a declaration of everything the President would do if Congress didn’t matter at all.