Policy, Politics and Science in the White House (The Reagan Years)

Abstract

The first 5 years of the Reagan Administration was a time of disruptive change. Domestically this was seen in attempts to downsize government and free up non-governmental forces to stimulate economic expansion. Internationally it was seen in shifts in relations with foreign nations based not so much on US economic self-interest as on the projection of American values of independence and individual freedom. During those 5 years US–Soviet tensions first heightened, then waned, then led just a few years later to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. For reasons I will present in this chapter, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) played a larger than usual, and larger than expected, role in helping President Reagan during that intense period of transitions.