At Columbia University, months before Sputnik, Dean John Dunning of the School of Engineering confided a pet peeve to Dean Edward W. Barrett of the Graduate School of Journalism. Said Dunning: because most reporters assigned to science stories—and nearly all scientists—are ill-equipped to describe them in dramatic, comprehensible style, the public frequently fails to grasp the importance of scientific developments, such as Columbia's radically new omnirange digital radar (TIME, Aug. 19).
After promises of cooperation from several nearby industrial laboratories and the National Association of Science Writers, as well as from Columbia's top scientific and engineering brains, ex-Assistant Secretary of State, ex-editorial...
