Guyford Stever Dies

Guyford Stever, who headed up the National Science Foundation and served as science advisor to Presidents Nixon and Ford, died, reports the Los Angeles Times. He was 93. Stever was trained in physics at Caltech and worked with radar during World War II. After the war became the Air Force's chief scientist and helped establish NASA before leading NSF and convincing Ford to re-create the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy after Nixon abolished its predecessor. Stever was "a key figure in twentieth century science" says current NSF president Arden Bement in a statement. "As director of NSF in the early 1970s, Dr. Stever strengthened the agency's highest priority mission as supporter of basic research, conducted primarily in universities by peer-reviewed principal investigators."