NFLC Testimony for Congressional Hearing

Friday, September 29, 2000

The National Foreign Language Center director, Richard Brecht, recently presented testimony to the Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. The Subcommittee was addressing "The State of Foreign Language Capabilities in National Security and the Federal Government." The text of Brecht's submission to the Subcommittee follows.

Testimony of

The National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland

To the

Subcommittee on International Security,

Proliferation and Federal Services

of the

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs

Hearing on

The State of Foreign Language Capabilities in

National Security and the Federal Government ? Part II

Tuesday, September 19, 2000

Testimony on
The State of Foreign Language Capabilities in National Security
and the Federal Government ? Part II

Submitted to the Subcommittee on International Security,
Proliferation and Federal Services
of the
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs

At the National Foreign Language Center,our mission is to document the nation?s needs for language and to develop policy and planning for building capacity to meet those needs. Our position today is that the political, social, economic, and technological developments of the last decade dictate that foreign language be treated on a par with mathematics and science as vital to national security and deserving of similar Federal support.

National crises have often provoked a Federal response in support of research and education in math and science:

The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in order to ?whenever called upon by any department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art;?[1]

In anticipation of America?s entry into the First World War, the National Research Council came into being in 1916, ?at the request of the President by the National Academy of Sciences, under its Congressional charter, as a measure of national preparedness? [2]

As a response to the critical role of science and engineering in winning the Second World War, in 1950 the Congress established the National Science Foundation to ?promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense; and for other purposes.? [3]

In 1958, the Congress passed the National Defense Education Act, whose goals included the advancement of math and science in higher education in the US.

In all of these instances, the link between national security and math and science was clear and, thus, so too was the Federal mandate to build the nation?s capacity in these areas. These interventions have placed this nation in the front ranks internationally in a wide range of technical and scientific fields, and have created a comprehensive set of structures to advise the Federal Government on key issues of science and engineering (the NAS), perform key research as requested by agencies of the Federal Government (the NRC), and support academic-sector research in the sciences (the NSF).

Similarly, foreign language has always been considered essential to national security and, as such, has been the target of Federal interventions. The Army Special Training Program was founded in 1942 to train linguists for World War II, and the School of Language Studies of the Foreign Service Institute was founded in 1947. [4] Title VI of the National Defense Education Act (and its successor, the pro