A Brief Biography

William T. Golden was born in New York City in 1909, received his AB degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1930, and pursued a course of study in business administration at Harvard University the following year. He was associated with various New York investment firms from 1931-41. During World War II, Golden served in Washington with the U.S Navy with the rank of Lt. Commander. He received Letters of Commendation with Ribbon from the Secretary of the Navy as a result of his service. Golden returned to Washington in 1946 at the request of Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis B. Strauss, with whom he had worked during the war, to assist in organizing the newly created agency, and remained as a consultant to the AEC until 1950. In August 1950, he was induced by Charles Staffacher, Executive Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Budget, to consider the consultancy on which this volume is based. Golden has remained deeply committed to science, and to government-science relationships. He serves (or has served) on a wide array of advisory bodies both to government agencies and non-governmental science organizations. In particular, he is treasurer-emeritus, and member of the board of directors, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Golden has edited three volumes dealing with various aspects of science advice to government:

Science Advice to the President, New York, Pergamon Press, 1980; World Wide Science and Technology Advice to the Highest Levels of Government, New York: Pergamon Press, 1991; Science and Technology Advice to the President, Congress, and Judiciary, Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993. The first of these volumes contains essays by all but two presidential science advisers from the Truman through the Carter administrations (Oliver Buckley and George Kistiakowski, who was President Dwight Eisenhower's second science adviser), and several other long-time observers of science and government. In 1988, Golden was named as co-chair (along with Joshua Lederberg, President Emeritus of Rockefeller University) of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government. In that capacity he oversaw preparation of 20 substantial reports, (including a 1992 summary report entitled A Science and Technology Agenda for the Nation: Recommendations for the President and the Congress, which he coauthored), along with assorted occasional papers.