Dual-Use Program in Science, Technology To Be Run by Five-Agency Group: • Concern about need for civilianrdefense approach counters optimism over easy development of technology plan

With the Cold War ended, a new and largely experimental phase in science and technology policy is descending in Washington—the era of so-called dual-use technology. EXiring the next four years, the Clinton Administration says it intends to spend as much as $20 billion of Defense Department research and development funds for support of technologies that, in theory at least, equally serve civilian and defense goals. For fiscal 1993 the figure totals more than $1 billion. "This is just the beginning" said Gene Sperling, deputy assistant to the President on the National Economic Council, in announcing the dual-use program earlier this month. "We have an opportunity" he added, "to do something that has never been done before—take a comprehensive and integrated approach to a defense drawdown." The day Sperling made his remarks, the Pentagon announced its Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) that will use $472 million of the more than $1 billion in a coordinated program ...