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.t •. :a, r•' ~C a .='.~f".~.~ ~ I T'• : i fiscal year 1973, e~ien though the can- cer act itself places the oeilung for the fiscal year at $53r) million. Asked whether the additional $100 million could be wise!y spent if alloc.ated, Baker told a House appnopriations dteating that it could. Why, tLen, he didn't ask for It in the first place is something of a mystery. In a sense, a host of things, many of them txntering around matters of per- sonality, have conspired to force Baker's ouster. It appears that there is no sin- gle, fatal faux pas that can be held against him. By iate March it was known among members of the inner circle that Frank Rauscher had been tapped for Baker's job, and by mid-April it was fairly widely known, although the White House has yet to make an official an- nouncement Meanwhile, the cancer community is half-functioning in limbo while waiting for the change of com- mand, and Rauseher is trying to estab- fish the new order as best he can in the a>9sence of the authority that has ` .. • _i•. 'i,..~" atill to be transfemed. The selection of taien who $guted iri-titc 6ho of whst Rauscher was made by the VVhite would everitually.:~beoonae ;dho multi- House and Schmidt. Clark and Good million dollar Spec3al •Vjjkua Cancer concurred. Nobody else's approval drea formally sought although a few board me+nbers were polled privately. Rauseber. 41, Is a native of Helier- , town, Pennsylvania. A Ph.D. graduate of Rutgers, he ia one of a long line of tumor vImlogists who ntudied under Vincent C3roupr, one of the piotteers In that field. He came to the NCI in 19,59, secured his soienttflc reputation in 1962 with the discovery of the Rauscher virus, which induces tumors in anini.als (he says the discovery was a combi¢ia- tion of "what I like to think was good virology plus a good deal of luck"), and moved into administration in 1964. It was then that Congress appropriarted $10 million for research on ean= viruses-the first large sum so ear- marked--ar+d Kenneth Endioott, who was then the head of NCI, asked Rauscher to help in drawing up the initial research plan. The other two NSF Official Resigns as Job Sinks The Administration policy of reducing the national output of scientists has squeezed an assistant director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) out of office, the second to resign within the last 8 months. Louis Levin, NSF assistant director for Institutional programs, said in a letter last week to President Nixon that the program he headed had been substantially phased out and he thought it proper to resign. The NSF assistant director for education, Uoyd Ci. Hurcphreys, quit lost Sept.-mber in protest against a decision by the Office of Management and Budget to withhold $30 million from the funds appropriated by Congress for the NSF's education support programs (Science, 17 Sep- tember 1971). Levin, who has been with the NSF for 20 years, told Science he is not resigning in pique, but ximply because of the shrinkage of the programs under him, from a high point of 380 million in 1967 to $12 million tcquested in next years budget. The decline, Levin notes, started during the previous Administration. The institutional support programs of the NSF were used, in part, as a kind of slush fund to fill the chinks between more categorical programs. Some funds could be used at the discretion of the institutions concerned, while others were assigned to building and improving the quality of instruction and research. The program was particularly important during the period of university expansion. Levin is remaining with the NSF as an assistant to the director. Hie duties will include "sponsoring of research on the ethical and human value implications of science." The NSF will not attempt to lay down guidelines, but simpi;r to encourage research that •`illuminates the issues" and provides a basis for Cecision-making, Levin said. The assistant directorship Levin vacates will presumably be allocated to some more fashionable NSF activity than institutional support, such as the fast arowing RANN (research applied to national needs) program, for which there is $80 million in next years budget, or the experimental R & D incentives program, a new S22-million venture designed to en- courage industrial investanent in R& D.--N.W. L!8B Pmgram (SVCP) were • 'Bairer and Louis Carreae, now'vits id Baioer'a top aides. "Witbin 6 moatbm," Bauscber neca116, ''thd program trag off and rua tning, • and I had to 'deddle vrheether to stay with it or retunn to the /ab. It wa,s then that I dhose to go inAo admirtistre,- tion:' The SVCP has beea off and run- ning ever since. Today it ia•ahe financial and organi:ational backbone of cancer virus reseaech in this eoAmtry, one af the few examples of a pmgrammed, targeted research ei#ort, and one of the mote oontroversisl pnograms around (tst+e Scienee, 24 Dea, g9'71).•= • Rattscher;, Itvnically:'wadt on to fo1, low in Baitex'a ~a footsteps, becoming sdeati@c dirs+etdr for etiobo in 1969, wben Bater succeeded F.ndi- cott. Both Itadioott and Iitaloer are aai$ to have ptedicted that Rauscher would oaa day head the insudtDt". ~~°+ °• Ilttle kabwn vattde •trhb'IVortd af r,anoer etioldegy, Rattscher, is widely re- gatded by his pews as a fair and intelfi- geat man. By and lnrge, tmord of his promotion has been warmly received within the P1CI, where even those staff ' scientists who ats lese tbaa vnthus{aatip about the choice say tDstltlte.ie "tial- anoed." "eerteinly closer to science than Baker," and '®n esrcntially boaeat person." From the outside, tbere has been Iktle tttspoase. Baker has received some calls frotn physicians protesting the fact that Rauscher is not an M.L:, but they reportedly have come fnom •individunls, not g<+ottpsi and qnyway it is generally thought that the objection 6as no valid basia. ' ' ' - Many members of ti:e • board, wben asked for their teaction, pointed out that they knesv 8atreeber only slightly but, as one aomnaented, "Y like what i•ve ta:ea." I;is performance at the first board msedng impsessed Mnet of Its members. (A few months ago, he made a ®imdle:ly •tiavo.mbte ,ita>pzagon on Richard Nixon during ceremonies markiog the oonveta3on of +Maryland's Fort Detrick from a chemical and bio- logicat warfate VeMer 4!%,et,dantxr- researeh facility.) ,x. •. , . Rauscber hns tbe' tacit approval of many board tmmbeta and the active astpport of otben. Of those'oontected by Selence, ~Ty pteon of Hatvard t~nioe8 '~ teegatto~ti opinion, saying, "it Is a very ~tpgoittt- tatent, a very, tad ani<, ve tto further eomment•" of itatucbar"a~~~ ~r a • ..rj.~~. t