O The :
5[Rockefeller& THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY
. University /< 1230 YORK AVENUE NEW YORK. NY 10021
oO Ly

v S* November 5, 1986

TOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT

Dr. David A. Hamburg
President

Carnegie Corporation

437 Madison Avenue

New York, New York 10022

Dear David:

I may have a chance to see you before you get around to
reading this but thought I should get some thought on the
record.

You may recall when I used to write a weekly column that
one of the things that would bedevil me would be that I would
start to think further about the very matters that I had ad-
dressed, and that could get me into a variety of concerns.
This has happened to some extent about the piece that I wrote
about PSAC. I have been surprised to get very little flak
(as I might have expected) from my scientific colleagues, and
to the contrary have had some encouragement about trying to
pursue that issue.

To come to the point (and this is supported by people like
Bill Golden) right now might be a rather propitious time for a
fairly general study of expert advice to the government. It
would not be confined at all to the White House, although the
latter should probably be the centerpiece. If this were to
come out in mid or late 1988 it could have some salutary in-
fluence on the way the next administration is organized. No
matter which party comes in at that time I am sure there will
be a receptivity to new thinking that has not prevailed during
the current regimes.

The 20th Century Fund has approached me spontaneously
about chairing such a study but I wondered whether this was a
matter that would not benefit from more prestigious sponsor-
ship. In particular might it be elevated to one of the smaller
commissions of the Carnegie that have been so influential in
past history?
Dr. David A. Hamburg
November 5, 1986

-2-

I have some reinforcement about this from Jim Coleman,
who did write one of the most thoughtful papers in the Bill
Golden book on science advice about five years ago. He
agrees with the principle, and equally importantly would
agree to share the work with me in trying to put a program
together.

Dave, I would very much appreciate your counsel about
the general concept of this kind of a study together with

your reaction about trying to target it as a Carnegie ini-
tiative.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg

Encl. S 27