The Higher Education Policy Act, the acts of 1958, '59, just like theNationalDefence Highway Act of 1956 were vehicles by which public goods were generated under the rubric of nationaldefence.
Mr Clinton had reluctantly signed theNational Missile DefenceAct, which commits the president to deploying national defences as soon as technologically feasible.
TheNationalDefence Highway Act actually is very interesting because the entire system of interstate highways was developed under the Eisenhower administration.
When he signed theNational Missile DefenceAct last year, Mr Clinton was hoping to avoid election-time accusations that his Democrats were soft on defence.
Similarly with theNationalDefence Education Act of 1958 and the related act in 1959, again the rhetoric is about keeping up with the Soviet Union, particularly after Sputnik.
But if you go back to the debates in Congress over why those investments were important you see that it was all about, according to the individual members of Congress who were supporting theNationalDefence Highway Act, it was all about getting munitions rapidly from Boston to San Diego and to Dallas and everywhere else in the event of a national emergency.