The Reshaping of White House Science Advice: Various groups take keen interest in role, identity of future science adviser as they await Bush's choice; Graham and science and technology community differ over current effectiveness of office

John H. Gibbons, director of Congress' Office of Technology Assessment, is fond of quoting the middle portion of a sonnet, number 137, written half a century ago by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The lines seem to squarely address the debate crackling today about scientific and technological advice to the President: " Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour , Rains from the sky a meteoric shower Of facts ... they lie unquestioned, uncombined . Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill Is daily spun; but there exists no loom To weave it into fabric " The science adviser as "weaver" of relevant information for a country through its President is perhaps the key quality in a job that has Washington's science and technology community buzzing. So important does Bush regard "S&T," as they are abbreviated, that he will raise his next science adviser to the highest White House rank in more than a generation. The entire S&T ...