Snow, C. P., 1962. Science and government (from the Godkin lectures at Harvard University, 1960). vii+128 pp. pp. New York: New American Library / Mentor (by arrangement with Harvard University Press).

Excerpts:
[p.9, opening paragraph, punctuation sic] One of the most bizarre features of any advanced industrial society in our time is that the cardinal choices have to be made by a handful of men: in secret: and, at least in legal form, by men who cannot have a first-hand knowledge of what those choices depend upon or what their results may be.
[p.9, from para. 3] It is in the making of weapons of absolute destruction that you can see my central theme at its sharpest and most dramatic, or most melodramatic if you like. But the same reflections would apply to a whole assembly of decisions which are not designed to do harm. For example, some of the most important choices about a nation's physical health are made, or not made, by a handful of men, in secret, and, again in legal form, by men who normally are not able to comprehend the arguments in depth.
This phenomenon of the modern world is, as I say, bizarre. We have got used to it, just as we have got used to so many results of the lack of communication between scientists and nonscientists, or of the increasing difficulty of the languages of science itself. Yet I think the phenomenon is worth examining. A good deal of the future may spring from it.
[p11, final para. of Ch. 1] No one that I have read has found the right answers. Very few have even asked the right questions. The best I can do is tell a story. The story is intended to contain a little of something which actually did happen. I shall not pretend that the story is not supposed to bear some relation to our present problems. I shall try to extract a few generalisations from it, or, to be more sensible, a few working rules.