Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, a quarterly publication entitled Bee-Hive

which is the house organ of United Aircraft recently carried an article on a

youthful activist by the name of David Fradin, a junior at the University of

Michigan. Under leave to extend my remarks in the RECORD, I wish to include

this article and commend it to the Members of this body:

A worried look crossed David Fradin's face. 

The junior engineering student shifted

nervously in the chair on stage behind the

speaker's platform, riveting his attention on

the three auditorium entrances in the rear

of the hall. A handful of troublemakers was

coming in.

One by one they came through the doors

and down the carpeted aisles, gradually

forming groups first on the left side, then on

tbe right. While Fradin watched, William

Magruder, former U.S. supersonic transport

manager and now a special consultant to

President Nixon continued his talk. Ma-

gruder seemed unconcerned by the gradual

buildup of potential trouble in his audience

of 125, made up of students and faculty at

the University of Michigan and residents of

Ann Arbor.

The verbal clash that followed Magruder's

talk on a recent Friday evening was not un-

like many he has handled before on cam-

puses and in public forums across the coun-

try. From young members of the audience,

some claiming to be employed engineers,

other students, came catcalls, hisses, and

boos whenever the speaker linked technol-

ogy with war or dollars with defense. When

the Nixon aide talked of the cancellation of

the supersonic transport program, a few of

his listeners applauded.

"But that's the point," Magruder said

later. "They are listening. And many of the

so-called anti-technology groups are sophis-

ticated in their approach and sincere in

their enthusiasm. They believe as strongly

in what they are saying as we do in what we

say."

One person in the audience called Ma-

gruder a "fool and a liar." Another thought

he was a "bigoted war profiteer." And another

asked passionately if the Nixon administration  "was going to perform a cost-effective

analysis of war deaths in Vietnam?"

Fradin listened tensely to the questions

and comments, somewhat embarrassed at

the treatment his guest was receiving. But

he knew the issues raised by the audience

resulted from the attitudes his own small,

on-campus organization was designed to

Counter, and William Magruder was a good

:spokesman to counter them.

Even a brief scuffle that broke out between

a student and an adult failed to ruffie Ma-

gruder, who praised his critics's enthusiasm

and suggested redirection of their energy.

Magruder said his views and those of his

young critics were not so far apart as they

seemed.

Fradin had invited Magruder to the Michi-

gan campus to outline the Nixon adxninistra-

tion's New Technology Opportunities Pro-

gram. Magruder headed a team of representa-

tives from several government agencies that

compiled information for preparation of the

President's program which had been submit-

ted to Congress the day before the Michi-

gan speech.

"It is a major effort to accelerate balancing

the application of our technology in the

United States," Magruder told the campus

audience. Since 1946, he pointed out, the

U.S. has spent $200 billion in research and

development. Most of the money has gone to

the Atomic Energy Commission, into space

prograxns, or for defense.

Magruder said the President's program

does not call for reducing current emphasis

on national defense, since "not everyone

agrees with our way of life. Rather, we are

seeking a better balance between security,

exploration, and the application of tech-

nology to domestic problems. I think this is

what the young people who are called 'anti-

technology' by some want us to do."

Magruder's speech on technology and na-

tional priorities was the last event in a busy

week for Dave Fradin. He had testified for

the second time before a U.S. House of Rep-

resentatives subcommittee in Washington,

D.C.; arranged student and faculty briefings

with a representative from North American

Rockwell on technology and the U.S. space

shuttle program; arranged a press conference

and faculty meetings with Magruder, and

set plans to visit aerospace firms and colleges

in Texas the following week.

If the schedule is somewhat unusual for a

20-year-old college junior, it is typical of

the way Fradin has spent his time since en-

rolling at Michigan two and a half years

ago. The same night Magruder spoke, there

were at least 15 other activities on the 40,000-

student campus in Ann Arbor, including film

festivals, parties, and a concert by a popular

vocal group. Pro basketball's Detroit Pistons

were playing a home game in nearby Cobo

Hall, and local restaurants were jammed with

traditional Friday night college crowds.

Despite these activities, and after seeing

Magruder to his hotel that night, Fradin re-

turned to his small office-apartment to work

into the early morning hours preparing let-

ters to members of Congress, who have ex-

pressed opposition to the space shuttle.

Dances, parties, dates, sports-he foregoes

them all in his single-minded pursuit of the

task he has set for himself.

Fradin, in addition to being an undergrad-

uate student in the university's interdisci-

plinary engineering department, is founder

and president of the Federation of Americans

Supporting Science and Technology. FASST,

as it is called, is a small group of students

who have refined the techniques of other stu-

dent activist groups and applied them to

FASST's goals: promoting international sta-

bility, a clean environment, and social prog-

ress through science and technology. The stu-

dents pass out leaflets in the ''Diag," or cen-

ter of the university campus; demand that

the college newspaper pay some attention to

their ideas, and tirelessly chase down faculty

members and present their views to them.

Most often the leaflets set forth the bene-

fits aerospace technology has brought man-

kind, or announce that a speaker will discuss

the pros and cons of the U.S. space shuttle

program. The group has also prepared testi-

mony for Congress, most recently for Con-

gressman Olln E. Teague's House of Repre-

sentatives Subcommittee on Manned Space

Flight.

FASST was born in 1970 during the heated

debate over funding of the SST. Fradln orga-

nized FASST, then short for Fly America's

Supersonic Transport, out of his conviction

that America needed the SST. FASST sup-

ported the program in campus debates and

on Detroit area radio and television interview

programs. It also sent Fradin to Washington

to testify at congressional hearings on the

SST and was active in providing members

of Congress with information on the program.

"We lost that one," Fradin said, pausing

while stuffing letters in envelopes, "and some

of the arguments that were raised then dis-

turb me even now. It became obvious that

the SST had exposed a deep wound in many

Americans, including students. They felt that

technology was destroying the environment

and was taking away control of their future.

The SST was no longer just an airplane.. It

was an opportunity to punish technology for

every dirty river, traffic jam, smoke plume,

and oll slick."

After the defeat of the SST, Fradin feared

that some of what he calls the "wholly irra-

tional" arguments instrumental in killing

the project might be transferred to future

technological programs. He decided FASST

should be ready to oppose any such argu-

ments, especially on the college campus, and

so he restructured the organization, giving

it its current name.

"The SST was an experiment killed by what

I think was an extremely powerful and un-

ethical play on people's fear," Fradin said.

The SST was no longer just an airplane. It

convinced, for instance, that the SST could

cause skin cancer and that it would wreak

havoc with the earth's atmosphere. People

disregarded the power of the plane's engines

and believed instead that the SST would

need runways three and four times as long

as conventional planes and that the runways

would eat up our land. It simply became a

scapegoat for everything that was wrong with

our country."

Fra.din insists that science and industry can

make headway against the anti-technology

groups provided the effort is intellectually

honest, coordinated, properly funded, and

utilizes the proper people. He thinks the

college campus is the place to start.

"It's like Magruder says," Fradin remarked.

"Students must have training in many

areas to meet the challenges ahead. We must

pursue interdisciplinary education."

Fra.dln, whlle majoring in aerospace en-

gineering, is also taking courses in jour-

nalism, public speaking, business administra-

tion, and political science.

He acquired his interest in aviation al-

most by accident. A friend "dragged" him to

a Civil Air Patrol meeting in 1964.

In 1968, at the age of 16, he became the

youngest Civil Air Patrol cadet captain in

the state of Michigan. When he entered his

senior year at Cass Technical High School in

Detroit, he held a private pilot's license.

He graduated from the school's aerospace

curriculum and enrolled in the University of

Michigan's College of Engineering.

Fra.din currently shows 1,200 :flight hours

in his logbook and is a certified ground

school and :flight instructor. He built up most

of his air time with a flying club he organized

at the university during his freshman year. The University of Michigan Flyers. 

Today the club has 100 members and five

aircraft in its inventory, and it showed a

profit last year of more than $6,000 through

plane rentals. Fradin remains an active fly-

ing member, though his course work and

FASST duties have left little time for ad-

ministrative work.

FASST operates out of Fradin's apartment

near the center of the university's campus. A

copying machine, two desks, and file cabinets

leave just enough room to squeeze in a couch

and a bed in the one-and-a-half-room effi-

ciency apartment. The bed and couch often

serve as work tables when FASST 1s readying

a large mailing.

EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS

Funds for the organization's activities have

come from a. few major aerospace companies

around the country that responded to a

letter from Fradin earlier this year. Other

companies have volunteered printing and

mailing services. Some have offered to send

speakers to the Michigan campus.

While support of FASST was "good at

first," according to Fradin, the dollars are

running out. Office space is at a premium

both on and around the campus.

"We just couldn't afford to rent office

space, so we work here," Fradin said, indi-

cating the cluttered apartment. He says pay-

ing the $200-a-month rent is "a struggle."

While FASST members strongly advocate

funding of the space shuttle, Fradin is just

as anxious to succeed in FASST's other role,

that of serving as an information center for

students interested in the technology.

"Few major aerospace companies have pro-

grams to automatically inform colleges and

universities of the progress in their areas of

activity. Even our deans have to write to get

information that should be flowing regularly

to schools. If the school administration peo-

ple don't have new information, the students

won't get it either."

Fradin has contacted aviation and aero-

space companies across the country for lists

of available materials that he could send to

students at other schools.

"We're trying to establish chapters at other

schools to be certain students in aerospace

are kept up to date on what's going on. I

think if the aerospace industry had done a.

better job of informing students a few years

ago-even at the high school level-the anti-

aerospace sentiment wouldn't be as strong

today," Fradin said.

The young organizer sees another func-

tion FASST could serve.

"Bill Magruder has told us that there

is no place he or members of the Adminis-

tration or Congress can go to get balanced

pro and con presentations about vital tech-

nological programs. I think F ASST can pro-

vide that service in connection with aero-

space and other high-technology projects!'

Magruder told a press conference at the

university that the proposed establishment

by Congress of a Technological Assessment

Organization was a "devastating indictment

of the universities and technical societies"

for failing to present accurate and objective

reviews of technological programs. He praised

FASST for its initiative toward providing

balanced information and expressed hope

that the movement would spread to other

campuses.

Fradin isn't worried about student resent-

ment toward technology. That can be

changed, he contends, by distributing bal-

anced information.

What he is concerned about is a down-

ward trend of enrollment in engineering

schools.

"Students want solutions to overcrowding,

transportation, poor education, health care,

unemployment, inadequate housing, and the

other problems that trouble our country,"

he said. "Technology can't solve any of these

by itself. But by applying the same scientific

and management techniques learned by put-

ting man on the moon, many of the problems

can be at least partially solved. But the

people who will be applying these techniques

in the decades ahead should be in school

learning them now."

Fradin hurried to finish stuffing the let-

ters to Congressmen. He wanted to get them

in the first mail pickup at 6 o'clock in the

morning.

"I've read that someday we'll be able to

send first class letters coast-to-coast elec-

tronically in an hour," he said, placing the

last letter in an envelope. "That service sure

will make things easier on presidents of

student activist groups."

Published July 26, 1972 in the US House of Representatives Congressional Record