12
Responding to Rachel Carson’s
Silent Spring, 1962–1963
On August 29, 1962, when President Kennedy held his forty-second press conference, foreign policy, especially the nuclear test ban and suspicion of Soviet shipment of missiles to Cuba, dominated the exchange until one reporter brought the
discussion closer to home. “Mr. President,” he asked, “there appears to be growing
concern among scientists as to the possibility of dangerous long-range side effects
from the widespread use of DDT and other pesticides.” “Have you considered
asking the Department of Agriculture or the Public Health Service to take a
closer look at this?” “Yes,” Kennedy answered, “and I know that they already are.
I think particularly, of course, since Miss Carson’s book, but they are examining
the matter.”1
“Miss Carson’s book” was, of course, Silent Spring, a critical account of the consequences of excessive uses of pesticides by Rachel Carson, a marine biologist and
popular science writer. When first excerpted in the New Yorker and then published by
Houghton Miffl in that year, it evoked a strong, sympathetic public response. Many
people have since credited it as the beginning of the modern environmental movement, often comparing its impact in history to that of Harriet Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s
Cabin or Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.2 The initial reaction to the book from pest
control scientists, the industrial establishment, and agricultural officials in the Kennedy administration, was not, however, anywhere nearly as sympathetic as Kennedy
appeared. A review by the biochemist William J. Darby in the Chemical and Engineering News carried the condescending and damning title “Silence, Miss Carson.”3 The
Department of Agriculture—the federal agency responsible for both the promotion
and the regulation of pesticides—regarded the controversy as a “public relations
problem” and aimed to “contain the damage.”4 Thus, at the time of Kennedy’s press
conference, it was not at all clear that the book would ever result in any significant
change of federal policy on the use of pesticides, one major goal of Carson’s.
The tone changed dramatically a year later when PSAC sent Kennedy its
eagerly awaited report Use of Pesticides. It was universally greeted as a vindication
of Rachel Carson and became a harbinger to changes in federal policy. Although
recognizing the indispensable role of pesticides in modern agriculture, the PSAC
report reaffirmed Carson’s warnings about the harmful effects of persistent pesticides and called for tighter governmental control of pesticides to protect the environment and human health. Kennedy ordered federal agencies to follow up on the
recommendations in the report, and Congress passed laws that were advocated by
Carson and PSAC. By the weight of their proximity to presidential power and their
scientific prestige, PSAC scientists helped to certify the seriousness of Carson’s
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seemingly radical claims of environmental cataclysms. The episode marked a high
point in the history of PSAC, offering one of the most significant and successful
examples of American scientists’ involvement in public policy in this period. Carson herself was clearly heartened by the report. She regarded it as one of the most
important government documents in many years. “I think no one can read this
report and retain a shred of complacency about our situation,” she wrote shortly
after the release of the report in May 1963.5
The making and reception of the PSAC report, often mentioned but not
explained in accounts of events following Silent Spring, raise fascinating questions
about the role of science advisers in public policy, and the relations of science and
the environment in this early stage of the modern environmental movement. How,
for example, did a scientific group like PSAC, until then best known for its part
in nuclear and space policy, emerge overnight as environmental experts and did
so with apparent effectiveness? In this chapter I argue that it was the same sense
of technological skepticism that PSAC had articulated in its evaluation of nuclear
weapons that led it to embrace Rachel Carson’s critique of the chemical industry
and of government pesticide policy. Examining the making of the PSAC report
also shows how such government reports were constructed and especially how that
process responds to many different types of input, including such popular science
writing as Silent Spring, the media, and contending government bureaucracies.
Environmental Locus in the White House
In 1962, PSAC did not have much of a reputation in environmental policymaking
but it was not a complete novice on the topic either. It was true that nuclear and
space issues dominated the agenda of the committee—so much so that several
members not willing to work on these subjects resigned from it shortly after joining—but Eisenhower, if not the rest of his Republican administration, did encourage PSAC to get involved in some civilian matters, such as an evaluation of the
National Institutes of Health’s research program and a study of the conservation
of natural resources.6
Indeed, the “cranberry crisis” of 1959 marked PSAC’s first foray into environmental and health policy, when, just before Thanksgiving, trace amounts of an
herbicide were detected in the crop leading the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) to impound some shipments of cranberries. A frightened public stayed
away from the fruit and related products for the holidays, which enraged cranberry farmers and their political supporters, including the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA). They put pressure on the Eisenhower White House to revise
future FDA policy on the matter, but the latter cited the Delaney Amendment
that had mandated zero tolerance for any potentially carcinogenic chemicals. A
PSAC panel examined the issue and recommended a reasonable moderation of
the Delaney Amendment, but it was met with resistance by the HEW, and, to
Kistiakowsky’s surprise, with skepticism by the full PSAC.7 In the end, PSAC’s
cranberry study had very little direct impact, but it did establish the science
advisers as the unit within the White House to handle environmental issues. The
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201
creation of a standing Life Sciences Panel in 1959 also facilitated PSAC’s expansion
in these new directions.8
Even PSAC’s focus on nuclear and space matters was not without environmental relevance. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, for example, the committee had
sponsored or supported several experiments in space. Project Argus (continued
later under “Starfish” and other code names) exploded nuclear bombs in space to
create artificial van Allen belts of electrons (as a possible shield against missiles),
and Project West Ford (“Needles”) spread millions of copper filaments in space
to form a communication reflector. PSAC endorsed these projects as scientifically
exciting and militarily intriguing, but they carried potential global environmental
risks, drawing protests and criticism especially from radio-astronomers. PSAC’s
predictions that any adverse effects would be small or short-lived turned out to be
largely on the mark. However, the controversy did alert the public and the scientific
community about the dangers of global environmental changes made possible by
modern technology. It also highlighted for PSAC the importance of open, international communication about the environmental impact of any large-scale scientific
experiment. In both cases, PSAC pushed vigorously and successfully for the declassification of the projects as soon as possible.9
What might also have helped establish PSAC scientists’ credentials in the
environmental area was the often-commented parallel between nuclear weapons
and radiation fallout, on which they were the acknowledged experts, on the one
hand, and pesticides, on the other.10 Carson herself evoked the analogy several
times in her book. “Along with the possibility of the extinction of mankind by
nuclear war,” she warned, “the central problem of our age has therefore become
the contamination of man’s total environment with such substances of incredible potentials for harm.”11 Like his predecessors, Wiesner was actively involved
in the Federal Radiation Council, an interagency group set up to discuss policies
on protection from radiation, especially that caused by the making and testing of
nuclear weapons.
Yet another factor that prepared PSAC for the pesticide study was its expansion, especially under Kennedy, in health and environmental policy. The Life
Sciences Panel of PSAC was reconstituted and expanded, with ad hoc subpanels
in agriculture, behavioral sciences, and bio-engineering.12 Two physicians, James
Hartgering and Peter S. Bing, served on the OST staff.13 In early 1961, Wiesner put
together a PSAC ad hoc panel to help the Public Health Service (PHS) evaluate its
plans for what eventually became the National Institute of Environmental Health
in Research Triangle, North Carolina.14 Although, strikingly, none of PSAC’s
studies on agriculture or even environmental health highlighted the problem
of pesticides until the publication of Carson’s work, the committee did react
quickly when Carson’s articles brought the issue to its attention. In the FCST,
Boisfeuillet Jones, special assistant to the secretary of HEW, first suggested the
need for an interagency review of federal policy on chemicals in the environment
as a response to Carson’s New Yorker articles in July 1962.15 Independently, several
members within PSAC, including Richard Garwin, brought the matter up after
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reading the articles. As a result, the whole committee decided to conduct a study
on pesticides.16
The Kennedy Administration Reacts to Silent Spring
Thus, by the time Kennedy held his August press conference, Wiesner had already,
as Kennedy indicated, set the science advisory wheels in motion to study the pesticide problem. On July 24, less than a month after the appearance of Carson’s New
Yorker articles, Wiesner had asked Jones to head an ad hoc FCST panel to review
federal policy and gather national data on pesticide use in preparation for “a much
deeper look into this whole problem” by PSAC’s Life Science Panel.17 In contrast
to the “contain the damage” strategy adopted by the USDA, Wiesner made it clear
to the Jones panel that federal agencies should take real actions to understand and
control the effects of pesticide use on plants, animals, and the environment. The
group, which included representatives from Interior, the HEW, and the USDA,
agreed that “in light of the enlarging and justifiable national concern, no government agency should minimize this problem.”18
The Jones panel quickly found that there was little federal effort to predict
and control the environmental changes caused by pesticides. The Department
of Commerce’s main concern with pesticides was that the national debate might
adversely affect the pesticide chemical industry.19 The DOD did have a group on
pest control, but it “does not concern itself with long-range ecological effects.”20
What little research went on in the USDA and HEW was mainly concentrated
on the direct effects of pesticides on humans and animals, not on their ecological
impact and without much coordination. In fact, in a 1961 special message to Congress on natural resources, Kennedy, anticipating Carson, had already recognized
the danger of “one agency encouraging chemical pesticides that may harm the
song birds and game birds whose preservation is encouraged by another agency.”
Even though Kennedy directed the secretary of the interior to take the lead “to
end these confl icts,” the USDA refused to give up its control over the pesticides
program.21 Thus, by 1962, as Roger Revelle, science adviser to the secretary of interior, pointed out, the Fish and Wildlife Service, where Rachel Carson once worked
as a marine biologist, still did not have the regulatory power but had to rely on the
states to try to protect fish and wildlife from pesticides.22
The few federal coordinating bodies on pesticides were either weak or biased.
The midlevel Federal Pest Control Review Board (FPCRB), for example, was so
dominated by the USDA that its chairman, Robert Anderson of the PHS, had
declined Wiesner’s invitation to conduct a review on pesticides for the FCST. The
semipublic NAS–NRC Committee on Pest Control and Wildlife Relationships, too,
came under such sway of proponents of pesticides with ties to the industry that
its reports in 1962 and 1963 had served as a common reference point for hostile
reviewers of Rachel Carson.23 In a way, the recognized flaws of these two players
in the pesticide policy landscape facilitated the entrance of PSAC into the fray and
pushed it into the center of the growing national debate. Shortly after Kennedy’s
press conference, the OST began to receive, alongside the voluminous mail from
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203
concerned public, letters from chemical companies that attacked Rachel Carson
and urged Wiesner to consult with pro-pesticide scientists. “In our opinion,”
Thomas H. Jukes, a distinguished biologist and director of biochemistry of the
American Cyanamid Company, wrote, “the main problem is Miss Carson.”24
The PSAC Investigation
Although Wiesner and PSAC were much more sympathetic to Carson’s views
than Jukes and company, they made efforts to ensure balance in their own investigation. Chaired by MacLeod, the PSAC panel included, among its most active
members, James G. Horsfall, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and a moderate advocate on the use of pesticides, and William H.
Drury, Jr., director of the Hatheway School of Conservation Education under
the Massachusetts Audubon Society, representing the views of the conservationists. 25 Other members of the MacLeod panel were mostly prominent academic
biomedical researchers, including the well-known biologist James Watson of Harvard, and administrators with no apparent ties to the pesticide industry.26 There is
no evidence that Kennedy had put pressure on PSAC to support Carson’s views,
but they were certainly aware of his concern over the matter from his August
1962 press conference.
As the reports from federal agencies came in, Chairman MacLeod became convinced that “the magnitude of this problem is going to require a distinct reorientation on the part of many.”27 By the end of the summer of 1962, the FCST group
had gathered enough data about the federal pesticide programs for the PSAC panel
to plunge into work evaluating them. On October 1, 1962, the MacLeod panel met
with the FCST group to go over the data. Presided over by Wiesner, the meeting
resulted in a broadening of the investigation from the direct effects on human
health to the impact on national economy—the poisoning of fish and crabs, for
example—and wildlife. The next day, the panel met with Jones to pose further
questions for the agencies about the history of pesticides, the reasons for different
actions of common pesticides on different species, the synergistic action of two
pesticides combined, the role of federal government in the control of pesticide use
outside of the federal government, and other questions relating to the chemical
and ecological aspects of pesticides.28 In addition, the panel invited and received
testimony from university scientists and industry representatives, including the
Manufacturing Chemists Association. The staff also worked closely with consultants such as Alfred M. Boyce, dean of the College of Agriculture of the University
of California, Riverside, who, like Horsfall, tended to emphasize the benefits of
pesticides but was not a hardline partisan.
Besides data from American sources, the panel obtained information from the
World Health Organization and the British government.29 Sir Solly Zuckerman,
chief science adviser to the British Ministry of Defense, for example, sent Wiesner
an exchange in the House of Lords over “the story of the cannibal in Polynesia
who now no longer allows his tribe to eat Americans because their fat is contaminated with chlorinated hydrocarbons.”30
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Back in the White House, the pesticide project continued to widen beyond the
staff ’s original conception, as Peter Bing reported to a former OST colleague in
late October 1962:
As you might expect Jim [Hartgering] and I, trying to get our toes wet in the
pesticide problem, have both managed to be pushed off the brink. While floundering in the soup, Jim got the superb idea of bringing in a man [John L. Buckley] from the Department of Interior to spend three months working through
this whole problem. Although we have nearly completed a review of Federal
pesticides programs, these constitute only 5% of the total chemicals applied
in this country each year, and the picture becomes increasingly complicated
technically the more we look at it.31
The choice of an Interior scientist obviously did not please pesticide proponents,
but the USDA apparently did not object. The communication also indicated the
important but often neglected roles staff played in the process of science advising.
In January 1963, the PSAC panel invited Rachel Carson for an informal meeting
to discuss her concerns. It was, as she wrote a friend, “not a command performance, but just come if I’d like to.”32 It was the first time that a woman scientist
was involved in a major PSAC investigation. Believing that “perhaps it’s a chance to
straighten out some thinking,” she met with the panel for nearly a day on January
26, 1963, impressing the panel members with her moderate views and reassuring
especially those who had questioned some of the radical claims in her book.33 For
her part, Carson was pleased with the seriousness with which the White House
had taken the investigation. President Kennedy, she learned from friends in government, “often asked about the progress of the Committee and urged speed in
getting out the report.”34
Two weeks after its meeting with Rachel Carson, the PSAC panel finished
the first and, as it turned out, highly controversial draft of its report, simply titled
“Working Paper on Pesticides.” In broad outline, the draft recognized the indispensable role of pesticides in modern agriculture and public health, but devoted
most of the text to the dangers that excessive use posed for human beings, fish and
wildlife, and the environment. It called for a reevaluation of toxicological data on
pesticides, intensified research on pesticide effects, a shift to safer and more selective pesticides, and the elimination of “protest registration,” an incredible loophole
in the law that allowed companies to market products even when disapproved by
regulators. It also advocated close coordination among all federal agencies in the
use and regulation of pesticides, revisions of laws to extend protection to fish and
wildlife, and the establishment of a new Regulatory Commission in the Executive
Office of the President, with a National Advisory Committee of distinguished citizens and experts, to replace the FPCRB in regulating pesticide use.35
Boundaries, Interests, and Negotiations
The USDA reacted to the draft report with alarm and bitter criticisms. Secretary
of Agriculture Orville Freeman sent his departmental comments to Wiesner along
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205
with a “personal” note pleading for caution in this “very sensitive area.” “Should
this be handled improperly,” Freeman wrote, “I can assure you we could have
a negative effect which would make the cranberry fiasco and the problem with
strontium and iodine fade into complete insignificance.”36 The USDA regarded the
draft as biased—too little on pesticides’ benefits and too much on their hazards.
In its present form, the PSAC report “could profoundly damage U. S. agriculture”
and “lead to a breakdown of public confidence in control programs, pesticide use,
research scientists and their findings, governmental regulations of pesticides, and
the safety and wholesomeness of our food supply.”37 Had PSAC panel members not
been prominent scientists, the USDA would probably have accused them of being
“antiscience.” One USDA official urged that PSAC hear from more pesticide scientists, especially from the USDA, and have its report reviewed by the NAS–NRC
committee on food protection.38 The Manufacturing Chemists’ Association also
sent Wiesner a list of scientists it favored as potential witnesses.39
Self-interest similarly colored reactions from two other major federal players in the controversy. Like the USDA, the HEW feared that the report would
“cast doubt on the safety of our food supply and governmental health protection
measures.” One HEW official suggested that the panel merely recommend more
research on the health effects of pesticides and clarification of each agency’s role
in the pesticide area.40 As can be expected, the Department of Interior was more
enthusiastic about the draft report. Donald L. McKernan, director of the Bureau
of Commercial Fisheries of the Fish and Wildlife Service, called the report “well
done,” although he was concerned that the documentation of pesticide residues
in food fish (which he questioned) might expose the fishing industry to a possible
“cranberry scare.” He recommended only restricted distribution of the report.41
At least one prominent entomologist outside the government saw in the draft
report too much parallel with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Robert Metcalf of
University of California at Riverside believed that “This document suffers from
the overemotional and biased approach which has characterized the ‘Silent Spring’
and other inflammatory writings on this subject. . . . It seems to me this tenor of
writing is not in keeping with the dignity of the President’s Science Advisory Committee.” Despite his critical tone, Metcalf ’s specific comments proved helpful to
the panel in revising its draft.42
Clashes continued when the PSAC panel met in early March to rewrite the
report, especially in response to the USDA’s criticism. Although accepting many
specific changes it suggested, the panel refused to give ground on fundamental
points. For example, next to a USDA comment that “Before pesticides receive a
blanket indictment, there should be positive evidence of significant damage rather
than localized transitory losses,” panel members and staff wrote these marginal
responses: “Who says so?” / “ABSOLUTELY NO” / “Shows serious misinformation.”43 In other words, there was a fundamental division over the burden of proof:
Whereas the USDA held that pesticides should be presumed innocent until proven
guilty, the PSAC panel believed in the precautionary principle of erring on the side
of being conservative. As to the point of balance, the panel pointed out that it had
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explicitly asked the USDA to prepare a case for the pesticides to be included in the
final report.
One incident illustrated for the PSAC panel the urgency of acting on admittedly incomplete information. At a meeting with USDA and HEW scientists on
March 8, 1963, Wiesner and the PSAC panel members sought to clarify some
disturbing new findings about the hazards of dieldrin, a pesticide ten times more
toxic than DDT. They pointed to new data from Britain that seemed to indicate for
the first time the presence of dieldrin in human fat tissues, and asked whether the
USDA should withdraw registration of the pesticide. The USDA and FDA officials
conceded that dieldrin caused tumors but contended that “we need more data
before we can decide whether dieldrin tumors are cancerous or not.” In any case,
even if the USDA withdrew registration, the manufacturer still could market the
product as one registered “under protest.”44 The manufacturer then could take the
USDA to court, forcing the agency to prove that its product was unsafe. “We would
not have evidence to back up our case” on dieldrin, the USDA feared. Wiesner was
incredulous: “This is a peculiar approach to the subject. We are protecting agriculture, but then we pollute the environment with the same chemical.” He and the
PSAC panel encouraged the USDA to ask Congress to change the law to remove
“protest registration.”45
The exchanges on dieldrin made the PSAC panel members feel far from
reassured about the safeguards on pesticides. On March 11, they wrote Wiesner
expressing their concern:
The tolerance level of certain very stable chlorinated hydrocarbons may be too
high and may conceivably result in a health hazard to the general public. . . .
We guess that a significant fraction of the American people is being exposed
to dieldrin at the tolerance level. . . . FDA has classified the liver adenoma as
benign and thus has not felt that the Delaney amendment relating to cancerproducing chemicals is applicable. However, the distinction between benign
and malignant is not always clearcut. We are concerned that farther studies
may show these tumors to be malignant.46
In other words, the meeting with the USDA experts did not allay, but rather heightened, the panel members’ concern about pesticide use.
The battle over the PSAC report intensified as the panel neared completion of
what was expected to be the final draft in March 1963. By mid-March, the panel had
finished rewriting the report and titled it Hazards of Pesticides.47 On March 19, the
full PSAC approved the new draft with only minor changes. Even though the text
made it clear that it was the Life Science Panel that conducted the research and
drafted the report, the report now gained an enhanced status as an official PSAC
draft report, no longer just a working paper of the panel. The USDA was furious
that the revised version went to the full PSAC committee without its clearance and
asked Wiesner to halt any further action on the report pending its own review.48 In
the meantime, Elmer Staats, deputy director of the BOB, also cautioned Wiesner
that “because of the high degree of sensitivity on this subject I believe we should
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207
arrange to get comments from the agencies directly concerned before the report
gets ‘frozen.’” The White House should not commit itself to making the report
public, he suggested, and definitely not make public any budgetary estimates that
might tie the administration’s hands.49 The BOB was also unhappy with the PSAC
recommendation that a new regulatory mechanism on pesticides be established
within the Executive Office.50
There was congressional and industrial pressure on PSAC as well, as Rachel
Carson revealed in a letter to a friend:
This morning I had a fascinating phone call from a man on the Republican
Policy Committee of the Senate. He wanted to know whether I had seen the
original draft of the report of the President’s pesticide committee. Of course I
haven’t. His group has heard that this draft was so “hot” that enormous pressure has been brought on the committee, especially by two senators, and also by
industry, etc., and that in consequence they have watered it down considerably. I
told him I hoped he was misinformed, but if not, I hoped they could be instrumental in bringing out the original report . . . Now isn’t that interesting?51
The PSAC panel, once again, tried to accommodate the USDA’s and the BOB’s
criticisms without giving in on principles. It added more materials on the benefits
of pesticide use, making a case for its essential role in modern society “in as strong
a way as possible,” and incorporated specific suggestions from other agencies.52 It
softened its advocacy of a pesticide regulatory agency to a recommendation that
“existing Federal advisory and coordinating mechanisms be critically assessed and
revised as necessary to provide clear assignments of responsibility for control of
pesticide use.”53 Finally, it changed the title of the report from Hazards of Pesticides
to the more neutral Use of Pesticides.54
The USDA considered the revised draft “a great improvement,” but was clearly
still not satisfied. One of its major worries, which was shared by the FDA, was the
report’s implication that widespread use of pesticides threatened the safety of the
nation’s food supply. “I am deeply concerned,” Secretary Freeman wrote Wiesner
again, “by the possible public impact of a report on this subject from the highest
official source.” He wanted an explicit statement in the report to assure the public
about American food safety. Otherwise, the Europeans would seize the report as
justification for erecting new import barriers.55
In response, the PSAC panel once again made concessions on specific points
but stood its ground on its main conclusions. It agreed to state that food intended
for interstate and foreign commerce had very low levels of pesticide residues, due
to FDA regulation. However, it refused to guarantee this for food items marketed
within their state of origin, due to lax local regulations, or to make an unequivocal statement that the food of the nation was safe.56 The PSAC panel also rebuffed
the USDA’s request to remove the only passage in the report where they paid a
quiet but warm tribute to Rachel Carson’s work. “Writings in the public press as
well as the experiences of Panel members indicate that, until the publication of
Miss Carson’s book, people were generally unaware of the available information
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on pesticide toxicity,” the draft stated. The USDA objected to the mention of Carson’s book in the PSAC report because “such a reference to a commercially available publication is inappropriate in a scientific report.”57 As Hartgering reported to
Wiesner, the panel did debate “at some length” before it decided to include such a
reference in the report. “It is noted that it is included under the recommendations
on the need to increase public awareness [of the pesticide problem]. The Panel
members felt that it would be a deliberate slight if they did not make reference
to the book.”58
Although the USDA and the industry grew increasingly fearful that PSAC
appeared to side with Caron, Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall backed the
scientists. Calling the revised draft report a “factual, unbiased treatment of the
pesticide problem,” Udall’s only regret was that the draft report made no mention of the role his department should play in the evaluation of effects of pesticides on fish and wildlife. He wanted the final report to highlight Interior’s role
in this respect.59
Meanwhile, the highly charged atmosphere in the pesticide debate finally
began to erode the considerable camaraderie that had prevailed in the PSAC
panel. During the last stage of drafting the pesticides report, perhaps not surprisingly, Drury and Horsfall tried to pull it in opposite directions. On the one hand,
Drury felt that the first section of the report on the positive side of pesticides
“gives tacit approval of the status quo—the situation is unfortunate but necessary,”
and feared that the report might be used “as vindication of industry’s stand.” He
would rather see the report “reflect the panel’s conviction that Rachel Carson is
essentially correct.” He also believed that the full PSAC shared his sense of the
gravity of the situation:
I remember that everyone on the Committee has been surprised at the abundance of evidence of danger, that they have been irritated at the evasiveness
and dishonesty of industry’s campaign, and seriously concerned that strong
remedial action needs to be taken. That message doesn’t come through to me
in the publication as is.60
On the other hand, Horsfall complained to Hartgering that:
I do not believe the Panel thinks that the country is in danger of poisoning
itself really, and yet the tone of the thing is frightening. I know that it was made
to sound that way, but I still think that we might close up by indicating that we
are, at least, taking a reasonable view of the matter and that we are not just
saying to Miss Carson, “We, too.”61
Fortunately for MacLeod and the embattled staff, there was a strong consensus
on the seriousness of the problem in the panel and enough common ground
even between Horsfall and Drury for them to fashion a coherent and balanced
final report.62
As federal agencies fought over the PSAC report, the media also joined the
battle. On April 3, 1963, the CBS television network aired a prime-time special
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209
on “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson” as part of its popular CBS Reports series,
hosted by Eric Sevareid. Featuring interviews with Rachel Carson and a wide selection of government officials and scientists, including two PSAC staff members, it
dramatically intensified the public debate. President Kennedy was likely among
the millions of viewers that night, having been alerted by Wiesner about the show
earlier that day.63 What he heard probably disturbed him: “Eight months ago, the
President’s Science Committee began its investigation,” Jay McMullen, reporter
and producer of the program, told viewers, “but up to now no report has been
issued, and CBS News has learned that dissension among government agencies is
delaying that report.”64
The show brought to home to Kennedy and the American public not only
the intensity of the backlash against Carson by a powerful establishment that
evoked the authority of science and the government, but also a disturbing trend
of experts at odds with each other over assessment of environmental pollution. A
white-coated Dr. Robert White-Stevens of the American Cyanamid Company, for
example, attacked Silent Spring as “completely unsupported by scientific experimental evidence.” He prophesized that “[i]f man were to faithfully follow the
teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and
disease and vermin would once again inherit the earth.” Surgeon General Luther
Terry and Secretary Freeman defended pesticides as vital to public health and
agriculture. Both White-Stevens and FDA Commissioner George Larrick assured
the public of pesticide safety: “There is no danger to either man or to animals and
wildlife” if used properly.
As the program continued, however, viewers began to see that these reassurances were built on shaky ground. Larrick acknowledged that existing controls
of pesticides might not be “truly sufficient” in view of rapid technological developments. Freeman conceded that damages to wildlife did take place “before” his
term. Page Nicholson of the PHS told an incredulous McMullen that “in some
instances” the public was drinking water contaminated with pesticides and that
the PHS had no regulation over the matter. John Buckley, here identified as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Research Center, further contradicted WhiteStevens by asserting “extensive damage to wildlife” even when the pesticides
were applied in “carefully carried out programs.” Likewise, Hartgering, identified by Sevareid as “a staff member of the President’s Science Committee,” told
McMullen that, at least indirectly, pesticide use could affect human reproduction
as it did other animals.
The best defender of Carson’s Silent Spring on the program turned out to
be Carson herself. In a calm but firm voice that contrasted sharply with WhiteStevens’s stridency, Carson called on the public to maintain a healthy skepticism
toward technological promises. “We’ve heard the benefits of pesticides,” Carson
told Sevareid and viewers, “we have heard a great deal about their safety, but very
little about the hazards, very little about the failures, the inefficiencies . . . so I set
about to remedy the balance there.” Judging by the overwhelming number of
favorable letters received by CBS and by Carson, it appeared that Carson’s warning
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resonated with a significant portion of the public and that a strong undercurrent of
anxiety existed even in the post-Sputnik age of technological enthusiasm.65
A Closure and an Opening
Perhaps the goading from CBS Reports helped. After eight months of intensive
investigation, debates, and last-minute “hectic fussing between agencies and countless redrafting,” the PSAC report was finally completed and delivered to President
Kennedy, who released it to the public on May 15, 1963.66 Arguably, no PSAC publication was ever fought over so fiercely because none carried as much implication
for American public policy. To a striking extent, the PSAC report endorsed both the
specific claims and the general philosophy Rachel Carson presented in Silent Spring.
Although recognizing that “the use of pesticides must be continued” for food production and control of diseases, the report made it clear that their widespread use
“may also be toxic to beneficial plants and animals, including man.” It emphasized,
as did Carson, that pesticides represented only the iceberg of a broader environmental problem and that there was a need to act even before full knowledge of the
problem was obtained:
The Panel is convinced that we must understand more completely the properties of these chemicals and determine their long-term impact on biological
systems, including man. The Panel’s recommendations are directed toward
these needs, and toward more judicious use of pesticides or alternate methods
of pest control, in an effort to minimize risks and maximize gains. They are
offered with the full recognition that pesticides constitute only one facet of
the general problem of environmental pollution, but with the conviction that
the hazards resulting from their use dictate rapid strengthening of interim
measures until such time as we have realized a comprehensive program for
controlling environmental pollution.67
Thus the report set a powerful precedent for the argument that when faced with
the potentially disastrous consequences of environmental changes, it was more
prudent to take steps to mitigate the problem and err on the conservative side than
to wait for all the data and proofs to come in before initiating actions.
The panel pointed out that the problem admitted no quick technical or technocratic fixes; instead its solution required dynamic interactions between scientific
understanding and technological progress within a democratic framework:
It [the panel] can suggest ways of avoiding or lessening the hazards, but in the
end society must decide, and to do so it must obtain adequate information
on which to base its judgments. The decision is an uncomfortable one which
can never be final but must be constantly in fl ux as circumstances change and
knowledge increases.68
In demanding the public right to know and to choose, PSAC echoed Carson’s own
call in Silent Spring that “The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on
the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.”69
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211
Structurally, the twenty-three-page document included a general introduction summarizing the panel’s assessment of the problem and sections on “gains,”
“hazard,” “pest control without chemical,” “role of the government in pesticide
regulation,” and “recommendations.” The body of the report explained the classes
of compounds used in pesticides, their distribution and persistence in the environment, and their biological effects on humans and animals. As if to confirm the
British joke about Americans being less edible, the report revealed that indeed
Americans had twelve parts per million (ppm) of DDT in their body fat as compared with two ppm for the English.70 The report encouraged, as did Carson, biological controls as an alternative to chemical pesticides, and most important, made
proposals for the USDA, HEW, and Interior to strengthen pesticide regulation. Like
Carson, PSAC deplored the fact that “decisions on safety are not as well based as
those on efficacy despite recent improvements.” The panel blamed the domination of the USDA, with potential confl ict of interests, and the weak or nonexistent
roles of the HEW and Interior in the regulatory process for this outcome. Thus
it called for a role for the HEW in decisions on pesticide registrations when they
were clearly related to health.71 It also pressed for the protection of fish and wildlife
by their inclusion under existing federal pesticide laws and thus for an end to the
exclusion of Interior in pesticide regulation.72
Above all, PSAC called for increased openness in public policy on pesticides—
“The Panel believes that all data used as a basis for granting registration and
establishing tolerances should be published, thus allowing the hypotheses and the
validity and reliability of the data to be subjected to critical review by the public
and the scientific community.”73 Significantly, what PSAC endorsed here was a profound shift in the authority of American public policy from government technocrats to a scientifically informed public, and with it a new model of policymaking
based on contested rationality. Although it did not provide details as to how the
system would work in practice, PSAC’s goal was no less than putting the public
in public policy. In view of the BOB’s opposition, the PSAC report did not repeat
its earlier advocacy for a new regulatory commission, but it persisted in calling for
a critical reassessment of existing federal advisory and coordinating mechanisms
so they could have the power to restrict or disapprove pesticides on the basis of
“reasonable doubt” of safety.
Finally, to make the federal pesticide programs “models of correct practice”
for national guidance, it suggested that each of them include an “evaluation of the
associated hazards.”74 The report further advocated that “every large-scale operation be followed by a complete report which would appear in the public literature,”
thus anticipating the powerful Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs) as a regulatory tool.75 PSAC argued, in essence, that skepticism and transparency furnished
effective antidotes to technological abuse.
True to its call for transparency, the PSAC report advocated public education
programs on the effects of pesticides. It not only mentioned Carson’s name, but
also added the title of her book in one of the most quoted sentences of the entire
report (or of any PSAC report): “Public literature and the experiences of Panel
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members indicate that, until the publication of ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson,
people were generally unaware of the toxicity of pesticides.” The PSAC report
recommended that “the appropriate Federal departments and agencies initiate programs of public education describing the use and toxic nature of pesticides” and
that “The Government should present this information to the public in a way that
will make it aware of the dangers while recognizing the value of pesticides.”76
Most controversial to the USDA and other pesticide proponents were the
report’s proposed changes in federal pesticide policy. Once again echoing Carson,
PSAC called for the eventual elimination of persistent pesticides such as DDT and
the termination of insect eradication programs, terming them as unrealistic.77 Pesticide advocates at the USDA and elsewhere argued that long-lasting poisons were
indispensable for certain applications and that such use actually helped reduce the
amount of pesticides used. They also contended that eradication worked in some
regions and likewise helped reduce pesticide use. What they failed to consider was
the harmful effects both approaches had for fish and wildlife.78
Ultimately, what made the PSAC report a striking vindication of Rachel Carson was not only its confirmation of her specific charges about pesticide abuse,
but its sympathy for her philosophical critique of misguided technological enthusiasm. Like Carson, the PSAC panel focused on the relationship between science
and technology in its appraisal of the excesses and deficiencies of pesticides. In
Silent Spring, Carson had argued that human abuse of the environment derived
from an unfortunate imbalance between our underdeveloped science and overdeveloped technology:
The “control of nature” is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists
for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming
misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern
and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also
turned them against the earth.79
PSAC, although not quite as eloquent, clearly agreed with Carson that it was
important to understand nature—through science or basic research—before
attempting to control it with technology. The PSAC report pointed out, for
example, that the lack of basic research on the long-term, environmental effects of
these chemicals was in large part responsible for the crisis facing the nation. Such
basic research would serve both as a foundation for future pesticide technology
and as a way to solve the environmental problems caused by its abuse. In her book
Carson had lamented the “pitifully small” funds devoted to research on pesticides’
environmental effects. PSAC agreed: “approximately $20 million were allocated
to pest control programs in 1962, but no funds were provided for concurrent field
studies on the environment.”80
Both PSAC and Carson, who would proudly identify herself as a marine biologist in congressional testimony on pesticides, believed that scientific research
Responding to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, 1962–1963
213
would eventually offer a way out of the technological impasse. In Silent Spring
she had cited, for example, the “brilliant successes” of biological control that
had come from “the minds of imaginative scientists . . . based on understanding
of the mechanism they seek to control, and of the whole fabric of life to which
these organisms belong.”81 Likewise, PSAC tried (once again) to turn a flawed
technological program into a justification for basic research. It called for increased
federal funding for research on alternatives to conventional chemical pesticides,
including biological controls, for toxicological studies of the long-term effects of
pesticides on humans and wildlife, and for basic research and education at universities. The science–technology boundary remained as important a subject for
negotiation in the debate over pesticides as it did in those over nuclear weapons
and space programs.
Reaction to the Report
Outside the circle of entrenched pesticide interests, the PSAC panel report was
universally greeted as a powerful affirmation of Rachel Carson’s message in Silent
Spring. “Rachel Carson Stands Vindicated,” headlined The Christian Science Monitor
the day after its issuance. The New York Times announced soberly, on its front page,
that “The President’s Science Advisory Committee cautioned the nation today
on the use of pesticides.”82 Interestingly, some of the scientific publications that
had published damning reviews of Carson’s book now joined the popular press
in applauding the report.83 For example, the Chemical and Engineering News, which
had published Darby’s almost personal attack on Carson, now responded to the
publication of the PSAC report with a laudatory lead article in its May 20 issue.
Characteristically, it found assurance in elitism: “the committee’s panel on the use
of pesticides was composed of men of achievement in the scientific and public
affairs, whose positions imply recognition of their judgment and responsibility.
The tone of the report reflects those qualities.”84 The American Chemical Society,
which published the CEN, made sure that a copy of the article was sent to every
PSAC member.85
What gave particular weight to the PSAC report was, of course, Kennedy’s
brief but crucial statement in the report that “I have already requested the responsible agencies to implement the recommendations in this report, including the
preparation of legislative and technical proposals which I shall submit to the Congress.”86 It was a rare case where PSAC prevailed over the objection from the BOB.
In a way, it marked the end of the first phase of intra-administration debate over
pesticide policy, although even those recommendations in the PSAC report were
subject to different interpretations.87
Rachel Carson was elated by the PSAC report. Having read the penultimate
draft of the report, Carson was able to react quickly and comment on it enthusiastically to CBS on the day of its White House release:
I think it’s a splendid report. It’s strong. It’s objective and I think a very fair
evaluation of the problem. I feel that the report has vindicated me and my
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principal contentions. I am particularly pleased by the reiteration of the fact
that the public is entitled to the facts, which after all, was my reason for writing Silent Spring.88
That evening, CBS aired Carson’s comments in a special program on the report—
The Verdict on the Silent Spring of Rachel Carson. Sevareid, again in the anchor’s
chair, called the report “prima facie evidence” that Carson had achieved her goal to
“build a fire under the Government.”89 The next day Hartgering wrote Carson to
send her copies of the published report and to thank her for her discussion with the
panel and “your kind comments on the CBS program.”90 A few days later Carson’s
detailed analysis of the report appeared in the New York Herald Tribune. The report
“marks the end of an era of complacency,” she wrote, and if its recommendations
were adopted “we shall have taken a long step forward in our search for a sane
policy” over pesticide use.91
In Congress, Senator Abraham Ribicoff, a Democrat from Connecticut who
had been secretary of HEW early in the Kennedy administration, saw to it that his
former Cabinet colleagues follow the president’s instruction. With good timing, he
opened a series of Senate hearings on interagency coordination on the pesticide
problem the day after the release of the PSAC report. In his hands, the “Wiesner
report,” as Ribicoff called it, became a reference point; he frequently quoted from
the document and asked officials from the USDA, HEW, and Interior about how
they were following up on the recommendations. As the first witness at the hearings, Wiesner made headlines with his claim that, because of the rapid increase in
the use of chemicals such as pesticides, they presented potentially a much greater
danger than radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing.92 In making this pronouncement, Wiesner might well have been following the advice from Margaret
Mead, who told PSAC staff shortly before the release of the report that her survey
research found that the public often linked the pesticide problem with fallout as
top environmental issues of concern.93
Secretaries of the three departments in question gave largely positive responses
to the PSAC report in their testimony, with Udall being the most enthusiastic. He
wanted to see the various agencies carry out its recommendations, especially the
one giving Interior a role in the protection of fish and wildlife from pesticides.94
To Congress he openly complained about the USDA’s exclusionary practice in the
past, thus intensifying what he later called “a little cold war” between the two
agencies.95 In his testimony, Secretary Freeman welcomed the PSAC report, crediting it, along with Silent Spring, as contributing to public awareness of hazards of
pesticides. He also promised to work with Interior in working out a satisfactory
registration process. Although the USDA disagreed with the PSAC report on the
desirability of eradication programs, Freeman endorsed most other recommendations, including the abolition of “protest registration,” expanding public education,
and increasing basic research on biological control.96 Indeed, following established
practice in Washington, the USDA and the Public Health Service began to use the
PSAC report to justify their requests to the BOB for increased research budgets.97
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215
Carson also testified at the Ribicoff hearings, elaborating on her case against
unrestrained use of pesticides and giving her support to the PSAC recommendations, especially those on the elimination of persistent pesticides, medical education, basic research, and Interior’s role in pesticide regulation.98 Two days later
she testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, where she called for the
establishment of an independent commission within the Executive Office of the
President to set pesticides policy that had been advocated in the original PSAC
report draft. “Confl ict of interest should be eliminated completely,” she said, perhaps by excluding members from the government or the chemical industry. “The
Commission,” she suggested, “should be made up of citizens of high professional
competence in such fields as medicine, genetics, biology, and conservation.” So,
even if her challenge to the chemical expertise would help erode public trust in
scientific authority in general,99 she herself maintained faith in the possibility of
public interest science. Carson’s positive experience with the PSAC pesticide panel
probably contributed to the idea that many saw as the seed for the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).100
The agricultural chemical industry greeted the PSAC report with mixed
reactions. It welcomed PSAC’s recommendation for expanded educational and
research efforts. The big manufacturers even supported PSAC’s call to eliminate
“protest registration,” for, with their enormous research resources and intimate
connections with the USDA, they were confident that their products could pass
the registration process without resorting to antagonistic procedures. The industry
as a whole, however, disliked PSAC’s call for tighter federal control and regulation
of pesticides, regarding it as unnecessary interference with American “free enterprise.”101 PSAC’s recommendation of phasing out a pesticide if a less poisonous
one could do the job raised especially the long-feared specter that the government
would meddle in the marketplace, arbitrarily picking one pesticide producer over
another.102 Jukes of Cyanamid now emerged as a prolific spokesman for the pesticide industry, arguing that the PSAC report marked the first time “that segment
of society represented by the antivivisectionists, antifl uoridationists and organic
farmers is interpreted to have obtained official endorsement by a committee of the
Federal Government against current scientific technological practice.”103 Given the
high scientific stature of the PSAC panel members, however, it was not so easy to
tar them as antiscience. “I don’t think it is necessary to be an expert in toxicology
to understand what is a good control experiment,” William McElroy, chairman of
the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins and a PSAC panel member, replied
to Jukes.104
Like Jukes, a number of agricultural scientists and public health officials disagreed with PSAC on the danger of pesticides and the desirability of eliminating
persistent pesticides. Emil M. Mrak, chancellor and professor of food science of
the University of California at Davis, for example, called a PSAC statement that
pesticides were “affecting biological systems in nature and may eventually affect
human health” as “contrary to the present body of scientific knowledge.”105 Several
witnesses questioned the expertise of PSAC and its pesticide panel. Representatives
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of chemical companies complained to the White House about PSAC’s exclusion
of industry scientists in its panel.106 PSAC responded that it did receive input from
industry. Furthermore, the panel’s focus was not the applications of pesticides, but
their environmental effects. Industrial scientists might have been highly qualified in
the former, they were “in no better position to evaluate the toxicological effects,”
as Bing answered one chemical company executive.107
Indeed, the point of the PSAC report was that there were no experts on the
environmental effects of pesticides. Ecologists were the one professional group
most closely associated with the study of the environment and, by the early 1960s,
had been well-established in American academia.108 Among all scientists they
responded, as a profession, most warmly to Rachel Carson’s book. Yet, their voices
were surprisingly muted in both the controversy over Silent Spring and the ensuing debate over public policy.109 As ecologist F. R. Fosberg reviewed the pesticides
controversy, he was struck by the disappearance of his colleagues: “where were the
ecologists, whose proper concern is the environment in which we live?”110 Apparently they were neither invited, nor did they demand, to be represented on the
PSAC pesticides panel.
Conclusion
This study of PSAC’s involvement in the debate over pesticides, especially the
contrast between PSAC’s prominence and the ecologist’s absence in it, tells us
something about the negotiation of environmental expertise during the early years
of the modern environmental movement. Much still needs to be done to understand how environmental expertise and ecological consciousness emerged and
gained acceptance in American society and public policy. Here, in the early 1960s, it
appears that environmental expertise as we understand the term today, an interdisciplinary body of knowledge about the natural and social aspects of environmental
problems, with the goal of controlling and regulating them through public policy,
was still in its infancy. There were experts in a variety of fields that would contribute to the new discipline, such as ecology, public health, agricultural science,
toxicology, and epidemiology. However, the concept of environmental expertise,
especially in the arena of public policy, seemed to be a new one, to be invented
and contested. In fact, the PSAC pesticide study represented, for the first time, a
synthesis of state-of-the-art research findings on a major environmental problem
from different agencies, sources, and disciplines, generating new knowledge and
helping establish the field of environmental studies in the process. In many ways,
PSAC’s role in environmental policy in the early 1960s resembled its experience in
arms control in the late 1950s.
PSAC’s involvement in the environmental field also resembled its work on
arms control in the sense that it achieved only mixed success. Its study did result in
several far-reaching changes in the federal pesticide policy. It helped to eliminate
the “protest registration,” reduce the dosage of and eventually ban the use of
DDT and several other persistent chemicals in the United States, increase research
and education on the hazards of pesticides as well as on alternative methods of
Responding to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, 1962–1963
217
controlling pests, and bring about a stronger Federal Committee on Pest Control
to replace the weak Federal Pest Control Review Board.111 As the Consumer Union
pointed out, the PSAC report also helped focus public attention on the hazards of
household pesticides.112 Respectable, this list of specific achievements was, however, probably not as impressive as PSAC, Carson, or other environmentalists had
hoped for. As Shirley A. Briggs, Carson’s fellow crusader against excessive pesticide
use and later executive director of the Rachel Carson Council, stated, the volume
of pesticides produced and used increased every year after Silent Spring and the
PSAC report.113 Perhaps even more disturbingly, at the height of the national controversy over pesticides, the U.S. military began its massive program of applying
herbicides, such as Agent Orange, in Vietnam, which was not mentioned in the
PSAC report at all.114
In retrospect, the real contribution of the PSAC report was its critical role in
changing public and official perception of the environmental problems discussed
in Carson’s Silent Spring. The panel’s scientific reputation, its balanced but clear
articulation of the risks of pesticides, and Kennedy’s strong endorsement combined to give a powerful jolt to the complacent attitude of the pesticide establishment. It was no longer convincing to paint Rachel Carson and her supporters
as “antiscience” in alliance with, as one reviewer put it, “organic gardeners, the
anti-fl uoride-leaguers, the worshippers of ‘natural foods’ and other pseudoscientists and faddists.”115 Furthermore, with its reasoned treatment of the issue based
on compromise among the various interests involved, the PSAC report offered
an early example of what scholars have called a “negotiated model of regulatory
science,” a process that admits of scientific uncertainties but still encourages
policymaking to be guided by dynamic research and by conservative assessment
of potential risks.116 In many ways, PSAC’s pesticide study helped pioneer environmental studies as a serious, interdisciplinary scientific field.
This examination of the PSAC pesticide study also shows that in the area of
the environment, as clearly as in military technology and arms control, the president needed expert but independent science advising. Without the timely and
effective backing of the PSAC, it would have been difficult for Kennedy to stem
the scientific and bureaucratic tide of attacks on Carson and her book.117 PSAC
scientists’ institutional loyalty to, and connection with, the presidency gave them
certain freedom from being swayed by the parochial interests of federal agencies.
The resistance to policy change by the USDA, FDA, and the BOB confirmed historian Samuel Hays’s assertion that “the administrative agencies and the Executive
Office of the President sought to exercise restraint on environmental demands.”118
However, Kennedy’s creative use of outside science advice helped him overcome
such resistance, and the domination of university scientists also made it easier
for them to fend off pressure from the chemical industry. In addition, PSAC’s
flexible panel system made it possible to combine expert depth in the panel with
interdisciplinary breadth of the full committee. By conscientiously seeking members of different points of view on the panel, as well as input from rival agencies,
PSAC also reaped the benefits of the adversarial process to ensure balance and
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credibility in its final advice to the president. Thus, largely as a result of this PSAC
study on pesticides, the science adviser’s office became even more the center for
environmental activism in the White House and the federal government, at least
until the establishment of the EPA in 1970.
Above all, PSAC’s technological skepticism, its appreciation of the limitations
of technological solutions, acquired during the long struggle with the nuclear
arms race, played a key role in shaping its approach to the problems of both pest
control and pesticide effects. Just as it cast doubt over the promise of new nuclear
weapons as a solution to the political problem of the Cold War, it drew attention
to the danger of misguided enthusiasm for chemical control of pests. Just as it realized that the achievement of the nuclear test ban was a political problem that could
not be solved by technical designs, PSAC recognized that the pesticide problem,
and environmental problems in general, could not be left to the experts. That was
why in the pesticide report they, echoing Carson, called on society to decide on
the use of pesticides based on adequate information. Once again, they emphasized
the need for the public to recognize the limits of any technological solution in the
complex social, political, and natural/ecological context. It was a view much less
technocratic than the NAS–NRC pest control panels and much more in tune with
that of Carson.
There was no question, of course, about the Rachel Carson’s crucial role in
the entire process as a popular, woman science writer. If it were not for Carson’s
book, PSAC probably would not have undertaken its investigation on pesticides
for several years, if at all. Both the clarity with which Carson argued her case and
the accompanying public interest pushed PSAC to go beyond the needs for further
research and make forceful proposals for policy change. They certainly helped to
garner crucial presidential attention for the issue and to weaken the bureaucraticindustrial resistance to the committee’s recommendations. Carson’s appearance
was a historical milestone for PSAC, which had by then been largely a world without women. It was no accident that the first major PSAC report on a topic other
than the masculine military technology, space, and science policy, was instigated
by a woman scientist and science writer, belonging to a marginal group in the
hierarchical scientific community. As recent studies have indicated, the movement
toward appropriate technology, with its recognition of the limits of technological
fixes, represented a feminization of American culture in the 1960s and 1970s.119 In
the end, it took incisive political leadership, enlightened technological rationality,
and scientifically informed public activism to turn the pesticide debate into the
beginning of a modern environmental movement.