WHITE HOUSE ADVISER SELLS SCIENCE, CLINTON, NOT MISSIONS TO MARS

President Bill Clinton was urged in August by then-White House adviser Dick Morris to call for a manned mission to Mars within five years.

But instead, Clinton decided to convene a space summit in November, said White House speech writer Rick Borchelt.

Borchelt said he and others disagreed with Morris, who had gone so far as to write a speech for the president laying down the challenge. The speech was never given.

"My real role most of the time is short-circuiting stupid stuff like that," Borchelt told a crowd of 130 people Friday morning at Southeast Missouri State University.

Morris resigned on the final night of the Democratic Convention in August after being implicated in a sex scandal.

Borchelt's lecture was part of the university's Homecoming celebration.

Borchelt graduated from Southeast in 1978 with a biology degree. He was a former member of the university's debate team.

He received the 1996 Alumni Merit Award from the university's College of Science and Technology at an award dinner Friday night.

Borchelt works for Clinton's science adviser as a special assistant for public affairs.

He previously was press secretary for the science and technology committee of the House of Representatives.

Borchelt always had an interest in science. Even as a kid, he liked spiders.

He once worked for the Smithsonian, and said he found children asked more relevant questions about the insects in the institution's collection than did scientists.

Borchelt said the renewed interest in Mars was prompted by research on a Mars rock that suggested microscopic life may have existed on the Red Planet 3.6 billion years ago.

Borchelt said NASA jumped the gun in publicly disclosing the research before other federal agencies had a chance to consider the findings.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration did so because it wanted to take all the credit, he said.

Borchelt said he and others were caught off guard when Daniel Goldin, NASA administrator, briefed Clinton about the research.

The information was quickly disseminated by staffers to reporters.

"Candidates for election like to associate themselves with science even if they don't understand it," Borchelt said.

That sometimes leads to problems. In 1994, Clinton in his state of the union address decried federal funding for studies of plant stress.

Scientists responded that such studies are important when it comes to food supply, Borchelt said.

America's presidents had little use for science advisers years ago. But that has changed in more recent times.

Borchelt said American voters were attracted to Clinton and Vice President Al Gore in 1992 in part because of their commitment to investing in science and technology.

Clinton spoke from the bridge of the "Star Trek" Enterprise film set and Gore conducted the first candidate news conference via Internet.

Americans like science, but they don't always understand it.

Borchelt said his job as a speech writer is to make science understandable.

Clinton, for example, wanted to talk about what science and technology can mean for the American people in his convention speech. It was Borchelt who saw to it that the president's speech talked about science in understandable terms like vaccines and treatments for HIV rather than resorting to more scientific language.

Borchelt said the job of a speech writer is basically to sell candidates.

His job also involves talking to reporters about science and technology issues.

Scientists today must make a case for what science will do for "Joe Six-Pack," he said.