Keeping Ford Honest On Research

Far more important than the sum of money the Nobel Prize confers on its winners is the prestige that accompanies the laureate's wreath. So when ten Nobel prize-winners, including four from Harvard, last week accused President Ford of erroneously taking credit for the American sweep of this year's prizes, it was not surprising that their statement made national news.

The laureates' wrath was prompted by a comment Ford made at the award of the National Medals for Science earlier this month. According to the laureates, Ford implied that his administration was responsible for the nation's Nobel sweep, and that this was clear evidence that the country is not a weak one, despite Jimmy Carter's claims to the contrary.

In fact, the laureates' statement--written by George B. Kistiakowsky, Lawrence Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, who is not himself a laureate--says the Ford administration has cut the appropriations for basic science research by 10 per cent, and most of the work that earned the scientists their awards was done over the last several years anyway.

A White House spokesman claimed last week that while Ford's comments were indeed an attempt to refute Carter's statements about the country's prestige abroad, they were not intended to imply that Ford was taking credit.

But George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology, who won the Nobel in 1967, said yesterday that Ford's "use of the Nobels was completely irrelevant politically," and that the laureates' statement was a response to the "realization that large numbers of highly gifted young scientists just starting their career are left entirely without funds."

Wald and two of his co-signers, William N. Lipscomb Jr., Lawrence Professor of Chemistry who won a Nobel this year, and Edward M. Purcell, Gage University Professor who won a Nobel in 1952, agreed that their reasons for endorsing the statement were unconnected to Carter's campaign.

"The statement dealt with that particular episode exactly as it should have--it simply set the record straight," Purcell said yesterday.