During the past spring, the American medical community awaited with great interest the announcement of the appointment of several positions in the federal offices for health affairs: among these were the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, the Director of the new Bureau of Health Resources, and the Director of the newly rearranged Health Services Bureau. To several observers it seemed possible that the announcements of these appointments were to some degree delayed by the public disclosures linked to what has been termed, the Watergate Affair. A question has been raised as to why so many offices in the health field—primarily concerned with biomedical science, with health education and manpower training, and with the delivery of health services—should depend so directly on the varying degrees of fortune of a political administration? One of the answers to this question may be that