ere are signs those problems will worsen before they improve. The departed VCR industry has become a classic illustration of squandered opportunity. Yet the current rush toward high definition TV in the rest of the world presages another $25 to $50 billion industry that U.S. companies seem disinclined to enter. France and England now appear to be enjoying some admittedly expensive success with their supersonic airliner programs - the United States dropped SST research years ago. West Germany and Japan are investing hundreds of millions of dollars for major train systems - America seems a likely customer because it no longer has plans for its own. A number of national economies have gained glowing health because their governments either funded or helped fund practical research and development programs. In many instances these programs led to commercial applications that play a familiar role in American life. The U.S. government has not been tightfisted in appropriating money for research, but, from a practical business viewpoint, its record for obtaining an appropriate return on its investment is questionable. Clearly, some better mechanism than the systems now in place must be found to decide priorities - on a governmental level - that will permit American innovators to create the products that will benefit their fellow citizens and all of mankind. In recent years we have advanced from the vacuum tube to the transistor to the microchip, from typewriter carbon paper to the modern duplicating machine, from the early death certificate to organ transplants, miracle drugs, and genetically engineered health aids - because forward-looking, determined people were convinced there was a better way. But innovation does not occur in a vacuum.Great innovations often spring from the focused thinking of an intelligent, imaginative individual - a phenomenon that is as prevalent today as it was in the past. The most noticeable difference between ...
