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Panama News Briefs

Smithsonian chief's replacement reverberates in Panama

by Eric Jackson, mainly from other media

Panama is academically underdeveloped. It has no particularly prestigious scholarly journal, no internationally renowned university publishing house, no world class library and a national university headed by a rector with a fake doctorate. The Catholic Universidad Santa Maria la Antigua (USMA) and the Universidad Tecnologico de Panama (UTP) do have good reputations, as do a few of the departments at the University of Panama. But by and large this country's only scholarly institution with a worldwide reputation for excellence is the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), a part of the Smithsonian Institution that was founded in the 19th century by an act of the US Congress and is both an American government institution and a charitable organization for funding purposes, even if its team of scientists is very much international.

After seven years of both successful corporate fundraising and serial scandals, banker Lawrence M. Small has been forced out as the Smithsonian's secretary, which is the top executive post in the organization. Small was criticized by members of Congress and embarrassed in a series of reports in the Washington Post over some $2 million in office and housing expenses, on top of the salary that started at $333,000 per year when he started in 2000 and went up to $915,000 by the time he stepped down on March 26.

Small had raised nearly $1 billion in private donations during his tenure, more than the total fundraising sum for the Smithsonian's previous 153 years of existence. But he also pleaded guilty in 2004 to violating a federal law and international treaty against international trafficking in endangered species, by importing indigenous Latin American headdresses that included feathers from endangered birds. Then last year, federal investigators criticized Small's performance at his previous job with the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), where they said he pressured subordinates to ignore generally accepted accounting rules in order to boost paper profits and thus his own compensation.

Despite the impressive fundraising, the institution's research arms stagnated or declined from the financial perspective. Almost all of Small's fundraising was for capital improvements, things like the new National Museum of the American Indian and additions or renovations to the National Zoo, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Air and Space Museum, the Museum of American History and the National Museum of Natural History. Meanwhile in both real and absolute terms, funding for Smithsonian research declined, a trend that predated Small's tenure. STRI has done relatively well in the scramble for grants but has also been affected by the research funding shortfall.

The decline in federal appropriations for research began early in the 90s, when the budget deficits and national debt had been spinning out of control for years and the Clinton administration set itself to the task of balancing the budget by making many spending cuts.

There was an ideological aspect to the funding cuts as well. The religious right has taken aim at all science that conflicts or might conflict with the Old Testament story of the Earth's creation in seven days, or which advances theories of evolution. Especially after the GOP took control of the House of Representatives in 1994, it became ever harder to get the US Congress to appropriate money for the cutting edge biology that's at the heart of STRI's work. Other funding sources were cultivated but the long term research for which STRI is most famous is not the sort of thing that gets a lot of foundation grants. Most of that sort of money is granted for only a few years.

With Small's departure, National Museum of Natural History director Cristián Samper was promoted as interim secretary. Samper, a biologist and a native of Colombia, worked at STRI for a time before assuming the museum post. The Smithsonian's regents are conducting a search for a permanent director and Samper may or may not get the post.

Meanwhile, long time STRI director Ira Rubinoff has been promoted to acting under-secretary for science. That leaves Eldredge "Biff" Bermingham --- the number two administrator under Rubinoff in recent years and probably the top expert in the fish that inhabit Gatun Lake --- in an acting capacity at the top office at STRI's Tupper Center.

So where does that leave the Smithsonian, STRI and its long-term problems? That's largely up to President Bush, under whose administration a "permanent" new secretary will be named, the Democrats in Congress, who will have a lot to say about funding issues, and US Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts, who also heads the Smithsonian's board of regents.

Although there are several steps of insulation that keep the Smithsonian from being a political patronage system of the sort we see at most levels of the Panamanian government, the power of the purse does count. While the campaign arguments about science may be about stem cell research and missile defenses, the decision that American voters make in November 2008 is likely to affect Smithsonian research budgets for years to come.

Even then, however, the White House doesn't come with a grove of money trees, nor are such plants among the perks that US senators and representatives get --- the United States is now an increasingly de-industrialized debtor nation and that hard fact will not be magically altered by the results of one election. The Smithsonian's scientific research funding problems are a detail of a much larger picture.

And some of the individuals involved? Samper leapfrogged over several senior Smithsonian officials to get the acting secretary spot, and one of these has already resigned in annoyance. He says that if he doesn't get the top spot on a permanent basis, he'd like to go back to his old post at the museum. Rubinoff has been eligible to retire for some time now but has become accustomed to Panama from decades of living here. Bermingham is still a relatively young man, with an actuarial expectation of many years of working life still ahead of him. The chances of the posts in which these three men are now in acting capacities being filled by other people and all of them going back to their old jobs intuitively seems remote, but then a lot of things appear to be up in the air at the Smithsonian and the London bookmakers have yet to post any odds on what will happen there.

Street protest against dolphin capture plan
National Assembly accepts partial presidential veto, passes Penal Code

Police sweeps, political posturing in aftermath of Curundu fire

Bocas town runs dry, US Army steps in to help
Former US Air Force intelligence officer stalks journalist's family

Top Smithsonian exec's ouster has ripple effects on STRI
Panama News Briefs