Additional hat for NSF Director Bloch.

While the science community buzzes with speculation about who might be asked to succeed George A. Keyworth II as presidential science adviser (SN: 12/7/85, p. 358) and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the White House staff is keeping mum and offering only that lists of names are forming. Keyworth's strategy to speed the appointment of his successor has been to recommend to White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan that National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Erich Bloch be given the added role of interim science adviser.

Choosing Bloch "is eminently logical," Keyworth said last week in a briefing with reporters, because it would further strengthen a "close linkage" between his office and NSF, which "maintains a lot of the same priorities; NSF is the vanguard of American science policy."

Unquestionably, attending to both roles will be taxing. Keyworth acknowledges that his job has claimed about 16 hours a day over the past few years. But it's this aspect that should serve as a natural incentive to find that permanent successor quickly, he believes. Moreover, he notes, there is some precedent for this. When Nixon's White House reorganization abolished the President's Office of Science and Technology in 1973, NSF Director H. Guyford Stever's job description was rewritten to include the task of advising the President.