Hail to the Chief Tech-heads - Government Activity

Industry Standard, The, Oct 23, 2000 by Michael Beschloss

Beyond their Cold War role of overseeing (usually in secret) technological developments such as those in satellites, nuclear weapons, planes and missiles, later presidents dabbled only sporadically in technology.

In 1964, nervous about the popularity of the VW Beetle, Lyndon Johnson asked his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, former president of Ford Motor, to feel out the Big Three automakers in Detroit about patriotically combining to build a competitive American small car. They were unenthusiastic.

LBJ also secretly authorized planning for a Cold War communications system that -- anticipated by almost no one -- would lead; in 1989, to the World Wide Web. If any president deserves to seize the title of father of the Internet -- however accidentally -- it may well be Johnson.

Richard Nixon denounced Congress when it refused to fund a supersonic transport plane. Jimmy Carter covertly authorized development of stealth aircraft, then, under attack by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 campaign as soft on defense, allowed aides to leak the secret to the press.

Possibly the most fateful presidential intervention in technological development since FDR and the Manhattan Project was Ronald Reagan's demand for a space-based strategic defense initiative. Had anyone been president in the early 1980s other than Reagan, with his memories of Flash Gordon and his genuine desire to abolish nuclear arsenals, it is almost certain SDI never would have been considered. Some former Soviet officials argue if Reagan hadn't threatened Mikhail Gorbachev with the prospect of bankrupting Soviet society in an effort to build a competitive strategic defense, the Soviet leadership might not have been so eager to make a fire-sale deal to end the Cold War. Such is the power of vaporware.

Both of this year's presidential candidates have watched the link between presidents and technology from a front-row seat. Al Gore's father, as a Tennessee senator, led the fight to finance Eisenhower's highway system. George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was one of the Republican senators who denounced Kennedy's moon-landing program, warning the price tag would "unleash the forces of inflation."

With the campaign racing to a climax, we are about to witness the first inauguration of a new president in 72 years that does not fall under the cloud of economic crises and wars that compelled earlier presidents to be great technologists-in-chief. Out of habit, the next president may be tempted to emulate Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan.

But, in an era of relative peace and unparalleled prosperity, welding himself to great private-sector initiatives may not be the most helpful thing a president can do.

The unique powers of the presidency will always be needed at crucial moments to ensure fairness, national security and technological explorations not driven solely by the profit motive. Presidents can sometimes spot those moments more acutely than anyone else.

But in their absence, the best contribution the next president can make to the telephones, televisions and Internets of the future might well be to do what most of our presidents have done throughout American history: Stay on the sidelines and cheer.