 Thank you. Thank you very much. And Secretary Verity and Dr. Graham, thank you all. And welcome to the White House. Please be seated. The awards will be presenting in just a few moments stand for our nation's scientific and technological progress. And would you be surprised if I said that reminded me of a story? And you get to my age, you discover that quite a few things remind you of stories. My only fear is that I've told this so often that maybe I've told it to you already, and don't let me know if I have. It happens to be one of my old bosses, Harry Warner, back in the days of silent pictures. Technician came up to Harry, very excited and told him that there was a new breakthrough that had taken place. Would make it possible to give soundtracks to motion pictures and we have talking pictures. Harry Warner stood there for a minute and then said who the heck wants to hear actors talk. But it's true that I have a special belief in American science and technology because I've lived long enough to have witnessed breakthrough after breakthrough. I've seen the rise of the automobile. Indeed, I can remember my first ride in an automobile. Before that it was horse and buggy and the development of the modern media, radio, movies and television. The advent of space travel. And now the computer and the microchip. Indeed, I often reflect that it was not too long ago when sand was just the stuff that beaches were made of. In fact, one of the lines in my old speeches said if we put the government in charge of sand there'd be a shortage. And now the mind of man has given the silicon and sand virtually limitless value in the form of the microchip. A tiny invention that's transforming the world economy more dramatically than any event since the industrial revolution. And I haven't even mentioned the newest breakthrough, high temperature superconductivity. It's important to remember too that it's not just economic productivity that science and technology have improved, but the whole quality of human life. New fertilizers have been coupled with new types of grains providing greater crop yields here at home and around the world. Medical science has produced advance after advance combating disease, improving our overall health, and expanding the year, extending the lifespan. Technology is adding a new dimension to education. Consider, for example, that it's now possible to put an entire encyclopedia on a disk that can be used on a home computer. Technology is even having a profound effect on my former field of entertainment, making available music and movies of all kinds in home entertainment centers. You are the men and women who are leading us into this new era of information and technology. You're the builders, the dreamers, the heroes. Our administration has supported basic scientific research from the start. We're going forward with the funding of a superconducting supercollider. We're moving ahead in a permanently manned space station and commercially developed space facility. We're funding crucial new research as part of our Strategic Defense Initiative, research that holds out the hope of putting peace on a firmer footing throughout the world. And our budget request to Congress have contained billions of dollars each year for research and development, although I'm sorry to say that too often Congress has trimmed back those requests, but I'm convinced that perhaps the most important action we've taken has involved knocking down the barriers to progress that government itself had erected. Our tax cuts, for example, have revitalized the entrepreneurial economy. Indeed, in recent years, we've seen tens of billions of dollars devoted to Fender Capital and tens of billions more in new public stock offerings. And during this economic expansion, hundreds of thousands of new businesses have been formed. Many of them link to specific new technologies. All of this represents the application of knowledge to human needs on a massive scale, not by government, but by committed individuals acting in freedom. You see, America's greatest resource is not the land, vast and beautiful, though it is. It's not our climate or even our abundant natural resources. America's greatest resource is the genius of her people. And so to express our gratitude to you, but also to set an example for all the world and an example of what free men and women can accomplish, we honor you. I can't help but tell you another little item out of my past. More than 20 years ago, when I was Governor of California, and you remember those the rioting days on the campuses and all of that trouble, and one day I received a very arrogant demand from the student body presidents of the nine state universities of California demanding a meeting with me. Well, I was delighted, because if I tried to go to the campus to see them, I'd start a riot. Well, they came in barefooted, T-shirts, most of the T-shirts torn, slouched into their seats in our cabinet room there at the state, and then the spokesman started in, and he said, Governor, it's impossible for you to understand your own children. He said, your generation didn't live at a time of instant electronics, of communication, of space travel, of journeys to the moon, and jets, and he went on listening, all of these things. Usually, you think of the answer after your home and the meeting's over, but he talked just long enough that when he paused for breath, I said, you're absolutely right. We didn't have those things when we were growing up. We invented them. Well, thank you all. God bless you, and now we'll be presenting the awards. I will announce the names of the recipients of the National Medal of Technology, and then we'd like each of you to come forward and receive your medal from the president. First is John L. Atwood for Distinguished Leadership, Technical Competence, and Integrity in the Technological Advancement of Aviation and Space Travel. Arnold Beckman for Exceptional Creativity in Designing Analytical Instruments, and for Developing a Business Whose Products Have Helped to Keep the United States in the Forefront of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Biotechnology. This medal will be accepted by Dr. Ralph Landau. Paul Cook for his vision and entrepreneurial efforts, his technical accomplishments, and his business and technical leadership as the key contributor in creating a worldwide chemically based industry. Raymond Damadian for his independent contributions in conceiving and developing the application of magnetic resonance technology to medical uses, including whole body scanning and diagnostic imaging. Robert Dennard for invention of the basic one transistor dynamic memory cell used worldwide and virtually all modern computers. Harold Edgerton for the invention of the electronic stroboscopic flash and for finding a multitude of applications for it within science, technology, and industry. Clarence Kelly Johnson and this award will be accepted by Mrs. Johnson who's here to receive the medal for his outstanding achievements in the design of a series of commercial, military, and reconnaissance aircraft and for his innovative management techniques which helped develop and produce these aircraft in record time and at a minimum cost. Edwin H. Land who could not be with us today for the invention, development, and marketing of instant photography. Paul Lattaber for his independent contributions in conceiving and developing the application of magnetic resonance technology to medical uses including whole body scanning and diagnostic imaging. And David Packard for leadership in both industry and government, particularly and widely diversified technological fields which strengthen the competitiveness and defense capabilities of the United States. And now Mr. President for the recipients of the 1988 National Medals of Science, William O. Baker for pioneering studies of the complex relationships between the molecular structures and physical properties of polymers and for leading in the disciplines of science and engineering. Conrad E. Block for discoveries of the principle of suicide inhibitors of enzymes, subjects that cause an enzyme to self-destruct, and for an example of that principle, his discovery points the way to the rational design of therapeutic agents. D. Allen Bromley for seminal work on nuclear molecules, for development of tandem accelerators and semiconductor detectors for charge particles, for contributions to particle gamma ray correlation studies, and for his role in founding the field of precision heavy ion physics. Congratulations. Michael S. Brown and Joseph L. Goldstein for their historic discovery of the basic mechanisms controlling cholesterol metabolism, opening the way to a new pharmacologic approach to the treatment of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death and disability in the Western world. Paul C.W. Chu for contributions in achieving stable superconductivity above the temperature of liquid nitrogen and for participation in the discovery of a superconducting compound stable at yet higher temperatures and not requiring rare earth elements. Stanley N. Cohen for discovery of methods for propagating and expressing the hereditary information of DNA introduced into living cells, thereby enabling the cloning of individual genes and the study of their structure and function. Elias J. Corey for his strikingly original contributions to organic synthesis, which have brought the science of organic chemistry to a new level of power and precision. Daniel C. Drucker for pioneering contributions to the theory of plasticity and of limit design for leadership in engineering education and in engineering societies and for his advisory service to the nations. Congratulations. Milton Friedman, Dr. Friedman's son, David Friedman, will accept the Medal of Science on behalf of his father for theoretical contributions and for applications of the principles of scientific, empirical, and statistical methods to economics and the social sciences and to problems critical to the nation in general. Ralph E. Gomery for contributions to the mathematics of discrete optimization for bringing to a leading position one of the industry's most significant research establishments and for contributions to public and private scientific enterprise. Congratulations. Willis M. Hawkins for contributions through invention, development, management, and advice to the technical health and competitive status of U.S. aeronautical products, deterrent weapon systems, and space prowess. Maurice R. Hilleman for brilliant discoveries in basic research and inventiveness in creating vaccines that are the foundation for control of infectious diseases, preventing death and disability in millions of persons worldwide. George W. Hausner for profound and decisive influence on the development of earthquake engineering worldwide. His research guided the development of earthquake engineering and has had impact on other major areas as well. Eric R. Candel for discovering the first cellular and molecular mechanisms contributing to understanding of simple learning and memory and for providing a stimulus to research that promises to lead to greater understanding of mental processes. Joseph B. Keller for contributing to the geometrical theory of diffraction, a major extension of geometrical optics, which succeeds after centuries in adding the physics of diffraction to the simple ray theory concepts of optics and other wave motions. Walter Cohn for contributing to the theory of the electronic structure of solids, including the effective mass approach to defects and semiconductors, the KKR method of band structure, and the density functional approach of the many electron problem. Norman F. Ramsey for seminal investigations in broad areas of atomic, molecular, and nuclear physics, and for his dedicated service to the nation and to the scientific community. Jack Steinberger for incisive illumination of the properties of subnuclear particles, including exhaustive measurements of strange particles, neutral caons, and high-energy neutrino interactions. Rosalind S. Yallow for contributions to the discovery and development of radio immunosay, a technique that employs radioactive isotopes to detect and measure levels of insulin and hormones in the blood and in body tissues. Thank you, Mr. President. And may I ask the metal recipients to stay here for just a moment and then you will be escorted to the first floor for interviews with the media. And after the interviews, then you'll be escorted to the Indian Treaty Room where you can join your family and friends for a reception in your honor. Thank you again, Mr. President, for joining me.