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posed of thtree principal frequencies to restore the conversation in the called formants. The precise fhape of ~ erased 18 minutes and in any other the formants in each sound is influ- gaps that may come to light. The 20 enced by those of the preceding sound. July tape is already undergoing tests Thus if the word "not" were excised in the laboratories of the Federal from the phrase •`He was not involved;' Scientific Cqrporation in New York. rne t»rrnants, 01 the "i auureu' vt sn- A me,vioer hf tlte 5itiea ,Nw.n volved" would still indicate that the R. Weiss. is the corporation's vice- "i" had actually been preceded by a president for acoustic research. At this "t", not an "s." stage, it seems that, in order to resur- •:• .'^i.. •cac a".! •her •PM rhe erased portions of the 20 July methods of detection? "In overview if tape, it will be necessary to subtract the looks rather impossible," Blesser says. hums apparently made by the electric "But given enough time and equipment typewriter and tensor lamp in the office and expertise you could make your of the Presid;nt's seeretary. With the editing undetectable." There are prob• hum removed, the hiss that remains ably no more than a hundred people in can undergo signal enhancement anal- the country who are even aware of all ogous to that used to process the video the technical issues. Only it the wnitc piutwua sttit l.aa: b; t:pa:csaft. Ti:ic House had access to the National Secur- kind of processing is apparently a ity Agency ot the CIA could they get a standard technique in the intelligence perfect editing job done, Blesser be- communityr without it, the low grade lieves. Other experts feel that detection reco,rdings obtained from the bugging of a well-edited tape is far from certain. of embassies and the like would be "You can't guarantee that you can virtually useless. Certain of the panel detect very professionally done altera- members have access to the intelligence tions." says Amar G. Bose, professor agencies or aheir contractors who have of electrical engineering at MIT and the necessary, expertise. • chairman of Bose Electronics. A simpler way of •restoring the lost Besides testing the authenticity of portion may be available if the heads the tapes. Sirica's panel will also try of Miss Wotids s tape recorder, as is I l Cancer: Select Committee Calls Virus Program a Closed Shop The lau few weeks have not been all that one might hope for the nation's premier biomedical research enterprise -the war to conquer cancer. First, assistant sectetary for health Charles C. Edwards declared the whole opera- tion an "administrative mistake." Then, a special committee of the National Cancer Advisory Board tartlied in a review of the multimillion dollar Virus Cancer Program (VCP) that was not exactly complimentary. Edwards's remark won him as many friends as it did adversaries. Right from the start, many, many scientists op- posed the administrative scheme that set the Natidnal Cancer Institute (NCI), which is running the war, apart from the rest of the National Institutes of Health. But the National Cancer Act of 1971 was passed just the same, and the guestiod+ of whether that ever should--have happened became sub- merged as cohtroversies arose over de- tails about how the cancer crusade should be staged. So, a lot of people, including sonie' membets of the cancer board itself, were happy to see Ed- wards resutrect what they consider still to be the basic issue. The catch Is that, were Edwards to have his way by withdrawing the NCI's special status within NIH and cutting it down to size, It does not necessarily follow that future decisions about the level and style of support of cancer research would revert to the scientific community. Nor does it logicaliv fol- low that less money for cancer would mean more for anyone else. What does follow is that scientific decision-making would become even more oetttralized within the Administration ahan it is now ( Srienr•e. 2 November). i often the case with amateur's machines, were not absolutely eiean. Pieces of gunk accumulating on the erase head can sometimes lift the tape away from the erasing signal and leave a thin strip of unerased material on the tape. The .. 1... .....,01:.,.A o7n,wlv hv-n 6nP. iag the tape with a solution of car- bonyl iron partieles, which settle only oti the strip of tape that has remained ma¢netized. Also, tape recordittgs grow stronger with age as the magnetic pat- tefin recruits new particles that are more resistant to erasure. The tape of 20 July, 1972, erased on I October 1973, may be jutt old enough to ahow this effect. Third, if the erase head were misaligned, it may have left an unerased fringe. Lisrty ^f he tess fcr tampering described by Blesser and other experts are statistical in nature, which means that, unlesi some particularly crude forgery has been perpetrated, the panel may only be able to give probabilistic conclusions. And exhaustive tests of all seven reels of tape could take a long 'time-S man-years according to one estimate. One way or another, Sirica's court will be lucky if it reeeives any quick or definitive answers from its panel.-NtcHOt.es WAne • The strongest exception to Edwards's charge that the cancer program is ann administrative mistake has come from investment banker Benno C. Schmidt. who is President Nixon's principal ad- viser on' the cancer crosade. °iDesj+ite expressions to the contrary by the as-' sistant secretary for health, it is my opinion that the National Cancer Act of 1971 is a sound piere of legislation that has worked exttemely weB " he told a crowd of physicians atteadiog the National Conference on Virology and Immunology in Human Cantxr, held reoently, in N'ew York. The mis- takes that have been anade, in his opinion, should be blemed on the Ad- mipistration, not the cancer itgisllation. Schmidt thinks it was a mistake for the Administration to cut teseat+dt ttwiniog grants and to reduce funds for other areas of researoh at a tirne whm.ptFo- gress in cancer depends alwa Vrogrtss in other aueas as well. "At 1ha, time we wote nrging on Caatl¢e:a amd the Administration a stater e1111o/t..ia can- cer, we wrre very ettpticit 1o+lda,posi- tion thai the ittt:raaeed ottnca3: z$on tthould niH ite ,t~ter ~I~ r~ l ant Lelieret 3hat that fo

frequency, a feature known as the start transient. The start transients will be present on the original tape but not on any rerecording, because the bias fre- nnencv is toe% h;gh to be reproduced by conventional playback heads. The White House tape recorder a Sony 800B-may have left other dis- tinguishing marks on the tape besides UlC Ola! IIC{tuC11Cy. VI/C 1! 111C illlglt Ol the recording head to the tape; any shift from the vertical can be measured •- by a reduction In the efficiency of the recording. Another measurable feature is the degree of wear on the recording bead (or, more precisely, the diference in WPAr between the too and bottom halves of the head). The wow and itut- ter, caused by imperfections in the cap- stan, are also a characteristic of each machine. Though none of -these features by itself is definitive, together they should serve to fingerprint the White House machine beyond any reasonable doubt. Unfortunately the particular speed at which the White House recorder was played may put the bias frequency studies suggested by Blesser at or even beyond the limits of present technology. To pick up the, bias requires a play- back head with n gap between its mag- netic poles which is no wider than the frequency wavelength. The Sony SOOB has a bias frequency of 55,000 cycles per second and was played at a_speed of 15/16ths of en inch per second, giving a wavelength of 17 microinches. The smallest gap avail- able in commercially produced heads is 60 tnicroinches. Even with a custom- built head, the minute separation caused -. simply by the surface finishes on the recording head and the tape might have prevented the bias frequency from be- ittg recorded in a recoverable way. If the bias frequency cannot be re- covered, it may' be possible to use otbe,c periodicities on the tape instead, such as the 60-cycle-per-second bum of alternating current. Another approach outlined by Blesser is to look at the acoustics in which the recording was made. Ac- I cording to the White House, some of I, the microphones were concealed in desk drewers. A desk drawer will act like a sound box, with a paiticular dominant resonance that can be identi- fied from the tape recording. If any rerecording had been made with the mike outside the drawer or even in a different position in the drawer, there would probably be a noticeable dis- continuity in the energy pattern of sounds recorded on ¢he tape. The ex- pen placed on the panel to study this possibility Is Thomas, Stockham of the University of Utah. 5tockham has de- veloped a computer program for im- proving old t:aruso iecormngs oy sutr'- tracting the undesirable ticaustic qualities of the horn Caruso sang into; The same method should be capable of A third )Cind of teat for editing, aa. cording to Blesser, is analysis of vari- ous speech factors. One such factor is the intonation pattern that rises and falls continuoutly throughout a sen- tence. lFACision ~.i insertion of a phrase wu, piudu..4 an in the pattern. Another a»omaly caused by trying to edit the continuoras stream of human speech can be detected by ~-^- . prints. Most speech sounds ato eom- SIPI Appeals for Aid to Vietnam 37te 8cientistt:` Iaatiqtte fot cuolie ILtwmatlon '=j has ttwrtel a drive to mobilize the raources of the American sdenti5c comrtiunity to aid' in the recovery of war-damaged Indochina. Scientific Aid to Indochina (SAI). a task fom established by SIPI, plans to determine what scientific and technological help is needed by the peoples of Indochina to restore their agricultural lands and to help supply it throug4t voluntary contributions of time, equipment, and money by scientists. Arthur W. Galston, professor of b?ology at Yale University and ;4APs chairnian, said that the first ptoject of the task force will be to estAbJish a small Research Institute of Agricultural Botany in North Vietoaan iti response to a direct request from the North Vietnamese governoaent. The institute is expected to bd staffed by 25 to 30 scaeatists and a dsnm- ber of technicians. The govornment of South Vietnam has made no such request, but in the event that they do, Barry Commoner, chairman of the board of directors of SIPI, says that SAI,would make every effon to provide similar help thera. - The Research-institute of Agricultural -Botang is of first priffity be- . cause of the dspendence of the Vietnamese people on agriculture. The destructioa of agricultural lands by U.S. eatlbmovers, bombs, herbikidea, and other weapons calls for advanced techniques In repairing the hmd I and niaking. it productive again. Existing agricultural retearcb labora- tories tvere destroyed during the war, according to the 3AL I Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.), who has Introduced an Ecoliagical Damage Assessment bill to determine the long-term eoolollical effects of the war, is fully in aupport of ehe task force and ifs first project. The SAI was• established last spring to infortn American citbedss of the extent of htttaan and ewlogical damage in Indochios and wlaat an , be done to ropair it. Its first project was developed after two of its ntembers, E. W. Pfeiffer, professor of zoology at the University of Montaaa, and Arthur H. Westing, professor of botany at Wintlham College, returned from a tour of North Vietnam last aummer. They told of massive bomb craters and large areas of dtsvastatxd farm land After Pfeiffer and Wasting had ditcussed the situation with the Sate Committee for Science and Technique of North Vietnam and thr Soo- ciety for the Dissemination of Scientx and Techoique, SIPI'a counterpart in North Vietnam, SAl adopted ghe research itustitute as its 6rst ptohct. The letter of appeal front SIPi, signed by Commoner and Cia;aton, • has been sent to more than 10,000 scietttieb. At:oordiog to laatstod, the project will have no connection with any gavernment-ralated effort Gal-. ston likens the voluntary participation of U.S. scientists In this roeattote to "an act of personal restituNoa for war datrtage." The immediate gbal is to raisC $100.000 by eaily 1974 so-thatfiabton can travd to Nortb Vk.t• , ttam ia the spring to tstabifab tW instiate.-Booits, jotz,-.ris, aad cVIp" _ ment um also needed, as well as eeientisss to train the ImNtute ~., t Prospective contributors may contact SAl at 36 Eait 68 Smeet, Ns,FT _ . •..r..°j/~f`•~:* ' ~ 9742 M hcrpLlnFit f9t3

W I testified. Several of them were aske4 for their views about doing research by contract rather than by grant. In addition, the committee apparently eon- sidered the issue repeatedly as it evalti- ated the VCP through various routes durine the course of its investigatiotd. Most of the members of the committee do research by grant, rather than by conuac4 and their feeling that this is the right way to conduct research is apparent. One gets me impression uidt the committee is sympathetic to the use of contracts to procure specific services or materials. It makes sense, for in• stance, to contract with someone to pro- duce viruses, run certain standardized tests, obtain human biopsy material, and so forth. But scientists supported by VCP contracts are also doing a large amount of what can only be called basic research in the strictest sense. ' The Zinder committee seems to have two objections to this. One is simply that such studies should be done by grant. The other is that because the review of contracts is, in its vieW, not as rigorous as the review of grant ap- - plications by NIH study aections, a Iot of mediocre contract work is being supported at what ' may be the expense of grant research. There really are two issues. Should all basic research be done exclusively by grants? It is a question the biomedi- eal community_ has been fixated on for quite a while. Some people say yes. Others, emphatically no. It is not ap- parent why there has to be an ttither-or answer, but there are very fev; people who really believe that there is room for both. Most of those who do are scientists who used to work oh grants ahtd now have contract support. Jh0ut0 rnWjOcre wutis, wO~r uw. would be turned down as a graiat appli- cation, be supported, sometimes virtual- ly indefinitely, by contract? Obviously not, anu i7mc a.+u.r- ui u.r ::.:.:.."..u."'....~..." tions of the Zinder committee surely have a place. Scientists should,not, for example, sit in the room when their own contracts come up for epptovaL Nor, for that maner, should members of one review group have control over the oon- ttacts of another member. (VCP scien- tasts say tbis procedure will be avoided under aeKly instituted regulations.) The clincher, which may be legally impossi- tvle for the NCI to implement, even vbere it to want to, is a recommendation to clean house and start all ovbr again. •'All contractors should be notified that their contracts will be terminated over the next 3 years." According to Rauscher, who was re- sponsible for cjosing the portion of the board meeting at which the Ziader re- port was discussed, the board gave it mixed reviews. (Among the members of the board, it should be noted, are persons funded by the VCP, persons known to be antipathetic toward it, and persons in between.) There' was some Nuclear Safeguards: Holes in the Fence Stealing a warm silvery lump of plu- tonium and fashioning it into a make- shift weapon is a scenario of high-tech• nology terrorism that has fired the imagination lately of tnulear critics and Hollywood scriptwriters alike. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) acknowledges that skilled technicians could assemble a crude weapon from stolen plutonium or highly enriched uranium. But is It really plausible to tuab off with a critical mass or two? Jf a new inveatigative teport by the C3eneral Aceolmting, Office (GAO) Is any indicatiote, the short answer Is Yes. The ABC teaOy agnees that in- b:ntives exist- for aealing fissionable anaterial, and that losses have occurted (Science, 9 April 1971), but it stead• fastly malfitains that it is unaware of any actual theft. If the AEC'a t+~ecord_ really Is nnblettdshed, though, the .norypw shat a thief could penetrate (iAO'a report suggests it may be more the security Imposed by the AEC on - by virtuf af Itdck than v$gltatux. "special nuclear materials," as It calls The GAO's investig®tion, began in the fissionable metals, and could he the summer of 1972 and centered on 3 till feeling, be says, that the report focused too much on the contract vetr8rs graht issue. Others felt it failed to ttwcognirs some of the very real achievements of VCP scientists, achievement wh}ch they believe ean be attributed to the fact that the resources, of the program and the .........», a » : ».,.-. _.......f; e-y:- offer something grant tesearch does not. Others felt the report was 6ne. Zinder prefers not to coatment in de- sCl r..ne,.e- t- f..le nl.lins/.A Vn rnAtM- tain the confidentiality of the board and the NCI, although he says be would have been willing to present the report in open session. He will say, however, that he and the oonunittee etand behind the report and that it was issukd with- out a single niinority opinion. , Tedaui.,aiiy, the+."cer twsd'has not yet officially received the report atYd may not do so until iu next meeting- in Mareh. Meanwhiler disqt5sian of de- tails of the seport will continue through a eommittee of the board, a committee of the Zinder oolmnittee, and a codo- mittee of the VCP staff. Whatever finally happens to the VCP. there are members of the board who say that the Zinder committee report must not simply be accepted and then shelved. Their intention is to see that it is not, which it:iparticularly importtint at a time when the' AdministRation is putting pressure on the scientific coan- munity to do more t:aearch, by cdn- tract-not le.cs.-BattBettA f. CttLr.rnsrw of nearly 100 organizations that possk'ss nuclear materials of "high strategic im- portanoe'• mder oontraets or lioeuees granted by the AEC None of the three companies ii ideatf8ed ih the re- port, althatrgh It ae learned that at least one praoates - bighly enricLed uranium near Oak Ridge, Tmnessee: At each of the three pant&, tnve,tti- gatora fottnd. ftssionable ataterial stored in portable containers about tlre ttt:e of small coffee eans. -The eontainers were kept in sheet4teel or ciawderblock storage sheds surrounded by fences, wired with alamu, watched by guards, and protected by loohs. Nevertheiess, t6o GAO fouad that at two of the plants-descn'bed only as "Lsoensoa A" and `T.ioensee B"---ane matt equdpped with an adjurtable poeOtet wrench and a etrottg•atm could bsedcls these harriets and lay •his' huads, unde- tecfed, on ade pottabfe Aattainers in a matter •of mioutei i.ocki erone AD"d ttnfoaked, aeaft ware ba+akea; 41iLrms ~'LN ~ 18724