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in our science or our art operations.  The average government agency uses a different method which buffers their requests and allows Congress to understand their operations.  We are not buffered, nor do the Congressional committees understand what, for example, our research endeavors are about.  When the National Science Foundation puts forward its request, it is explained and described in terms of what benefits are going to be derived.  It belongs to the Nation.  It is with the people.  We say we are going to put some bones together, or take some bones apart, or buy some paintings.  We are operating in a field that is fairly new to the understanding of most Congressmen.  Our problem has been much more difficult all along the line.

I have tried to correct this situation over the past years in various ways.  For example, I felt that we might obtain more gradual and incremental support for our operations if we developed some thematic approaches. Ten years ago the Institution was not researching cancer, or heart disease or stroke, but we were researching the environment, and we could speak about our ecological efforts.  These were very new approaches ten years ago and, although we had been in the business for some time, few people understood the significance of our work.  I remember approaching one individual for support who didn't know what I was talking about when I said that we ought to do an ecological analysis about the results of trying to blow up a canal at sea-level between the Atlantic and Pacific.  He thought I was referring to studying fall-out.  Now, of course, ecology has become so public, so overworked, that it attracts little attention or support.  It is, of course, still important to the Institution.  It enables us to describe what we do, and to compete with other interests.

A second example which came down the pike, and which we approached in a thematic way, was the Bicentennial.  By using a programmatic approach, with the help of our internal budget unit, we have been able to develop the Bicentennial program.