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Canada and the United States 573 a Means of Critiquing American Culture, Simultaneously New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press Canada and the United States 573 a means of critiquing American culture, simultaneously New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. 2008. Pp. xix, demonizing him in the process. Thus, Nixon’s image be- 454. $49.95. came a centerpiece in the culture wars during the sec- ond half of the twentieth century. Zuoyue Wang’s history of the President’s Science Ad- Moving beyond the relationship of Nixon’s character visory Committee (PSAC) places in focus and in con- to the myth of the self-made man, Frick also examines text vast changes in the relationship between scientific, the famous politician’s relationship to “the myth of na- technical, and professional experts and American pres- tional mission, that is, the expectation that God intends idents. Beginning with a concise review that spans the the United States to play a messianic role in world his- creation of the National Academy of Sciences during tory” (p. 32). One of Frick’s more interesting contri- the Civil War, World War I, the New Deal, and World butions is his examination of Nixon’s speeches as a form War II, the author highlights how already fluid relations of jeremiad. Nixon borrowed rhetorically from the Pu- between science and the state rapidly expanded in the ritan sermons that “detailed the colony’s misfortunes, context of what he calls the Cold War liberal consensus explaining them as God’s punishment for the settlers’ and then degraded as bilateral U.S.-Soviet relations sta- sinful failure to fulfill the divine mission.” Such sermons bilized and this consensus gave way to Vietnam War- were meant to “rededicate them to their mission” (p. era distrust and divisiveness. 49). Echoing these rhetorical forms, Nixon explained This period of liberal consensus, defined by its “an- the woes that beset the nation even as he prepared his ticommunism abroad and incremental reform at home” followers to join him in a crusade against communism (p. 183), extended from the late 1940s through the mid- or other threats to the national mission. 1960s, encompassing the prehistory of PSAC in the Frick’s focus on image and narrative is particularly form of the Korean War-era Office of Defense Mobi- useful in light of the fact that we live in a society where lization’s Science Advisory Committee (ODM-SAC), technology has only intensified the fixation on, and the the Kennedy administration, and at least part of Lyn- manipulation of, image and narrative. The author pro- don Johnson’s time in office. The main narrative ends vides a wide-ranging treatment of Nixon’s role in Amer- with the committee’s demise shortly after Richard Nix- ican culture. Although much of his analysis is derived on’s re-election in 1972, followed by an epilogue that from the customary forms of political expression (mem- discusses science advising for subsequent presidents oirs, cartoons, advertisements, slogans, and such) he is through the administration of George W. Bush. Spe- most creative in incorporating popular cultural outlets cialists in presidential history as well as American sci- ranging from the Beverly Hillbillies to Lynyrd Skynyrd ence policy will find this treatment thoughtful and re- (p. 58). He also points to ways in which the debate over liable, as will many general readers. Nixon’s legacy is still relevant—indeed, that is his con- Following his brief historical overview, Wang pro- cluding statement—but also to ways in which the debate vides a number of case histories of PSAC policy input has not served the nation. His treatment of the Nixon during key Cold War developments: the H-bomb de- Presidential Library and Museum, an institution whose bate of the late 1940s; its relation to the J. Robert Op- fate has been bound up with that of the Nixon papers penheimer clearance revocation episode of 1954; the and recordings, is an excellent examination of legacy creation of a civilian space agency to manage the Amer- building fueled, in part, by the necessity of selling Nixon ican response to the October 1957 launch of Sputnik; kitsch to remain solvent. The discussion of the Nixon the debate over a nuclear test ban treaty with the So- library being rented out for weddings is, in and of itself, viets; the federal support of Big Science (specifically the worth reading. Stanford Linear Accelerator project); the decision to Frick has written a valuable book for those of us who send American astronauts to the moon as a demonstra- are interested not only in Nixon but also in understand- tion of the superiority of American liberal capitalism; ing the political world in which we live. While one may the role of academics in planning and fighting the Viet- not agree with all of his conclusions, his study goes be- nam War and, later, the impact on campus of revela- yond Nixon to look at the world that Nixon helped cre- tions of their academic complicity; the response to hu- ate. Although some may scoff at the idea of the second man-caused environmental degradation highlighted by half of the twentieth century being the age of Nixon, few the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962); can doubt the importance of this political figure. Frick debates over the development of nuclear-powered air- has written a book that helps explain why the postwar craft and then supersonic transports; and, finally, the decades might be the age of Nixon, albeit not in the way debate over anti-ballistic missile technology. that Nixon’s supporters would argue. The monograph Organized chronologically, the case studies mostly also transcends the topic of Nixon to help us understand support one of the book’s major assertions, namely, what it means when we, so many decades after his pres- that the status of science and the academic elite tapped idency, still find ourselves debating his legacy. for PSAC membership was constantly changing. In the PHILLIP G. PAYNE last months of World War II, Vannevar Bush’s widely St. Bonaventure University read Science, the Endless Frontier (1945), which was in part a reaction to Depression-era doubts about the so- ZUOYUE WANG. In Sputnik’s Shadow: The President’s cial utility of science as well as anticipation of postwar Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America. requirements, advanced the so-called linear model. It AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 574 Reviews of Books argued that scientific advancement was a prerequisite sensors in the late 1950s to the climate-debate-driven for, and the proximate cause of, innovation, which in model requirements of the late twentieth century, turn was the engine of progress (for example, in the NASA has been heavily involved in providing relevant areas of public health and economic prosperity in ad- research data—and funding basic atmospheric sci- dition to military strength). At least from the explosion ence—while remaining aloof from operational satellite of the Soviet Union’s first atomic weapon in 1949 and commitments. Conway argues that the earliest atmo- the start of the Korean War, the military strength ar- spheric science programs ultimately led NASA to enter gument predominated. However, the United States’ ap- politically controversial territory when it became em- pearance “in Sputnik’s shadow” a few years later made broiled in the climate change debate. Considering that national prestige the most important argument for ex- NASA’s focus on Earth coincided with the much earlier panding the public investment in scientific research and termination of the manned Apollo Program (and the training as well as raising the profile of science in gov- agency’s need to find a new mission), that argument ernment. falls short. Had Apollo continued to operate, it is Wang’s main argument is that, regardless of the doubtful that NASA would have done much more than changing public notion of what science was good for, provide satellite platforms for the earth science data- from the Eisenhower administration onward it was gathering needed by other government agencies. presidential desire to manage public and congressional In several respects, Conway’s book brings a new di- overestimation of what technology could do—in the mension to the historiography of space science, which sense of having expert evaluation serve as a substitute has primarily focused on the development of space ve- for market discipline for the expanding one-customer hicles and sensors, planetary exploration, and manned growth industries of aerospace and weapons develop- missions. Most people connect weather satellites with ment—that served as the prime source of PSAC’s in- orbital photographs of clouds, but satellite-based sen- fluence. In this view, PSAC’s demise coincided with a sors of basic atmospheric conditions (e.g., temperature, growing perception that the “dual allegiance” (p. 15) of humidity, wind velocity) are critical for the sophisti- PSAC members, who were looked to for their disinter- cated weather prediction models that aid both weather ested perspective on the presidential policymaking pro- forecasting and the development of explanatory theo- cess (“science in policy”) while at the same time they ries for atmospheric phenomena. Technological im- were advocating for science (“policy for science”), un- provements have allowed atmospheric scientists to col- dermined claims that PSAC’s technological skepticism lect additional data for climate models that have was any more valid than the enthusiasm exhibited by contributed to the scientific and political debate over other interest groups. This dual allegiance, Wang ozone depletion, the existence of climate change, and shows, was hardly new. What was new was the dissi- their possible causes. But while arguing that NASA pation of the idea that scientists, because of their train- tried to create an entirely new discipline of earth system ing and demeanor, could be counted on differently than science based on its global view of Earth, Conway does the myriad other interests vying for presidential favor not connect NASA’s work to the larger community of and federal largesse.
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