During the 1980s, the acquisition of advanced technology from U.S. universities and federal laboratories by Eastern Bloc nations for enhancing their military capabilities was perceived as a significant threat to national security. In 1982, the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation asked the National Academy of Sciences to assess the need for controls on scientific information. The resulting report, Scientific Communication and National Security, also known as the “Corson Report” after its chair, Dale Corson, President Emeritus of Cornell University, concluded that, while there “has been a significant transfer of U.S. technology to the Soviet Union, the transfer has occurred through many routes with universities and open scientific communication of fundamental research being a minor contributor.”¹²

In response to the Corson Report and other concerns about the effect of government restrictions on the free flow of scientific information, NSDD-189 was issued by President Ronald Reagan to set forth official national security policy for the guidance of the defense, intelligence, and foreign policy establishments of the U.S. government. (See Box 2A.) In developing this directive, administration officials were cognizant that the U.S. leadership position in science and technology was essential to economic and physical security, requiring “a research environment conducive to creativity, an environment in which the free exchange of ideas is a vital component.”¹³ Today, many believe that if it were determined that the greater threat is more economic than physical, it would not change the need for or the currency of the directive.