On April 13, 1971, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that the district court below had improperly exempted the Office of Science and Technology (OST) from compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. Soucie v. David, 1 ELR 20147. The lower court had sustained OST's refusal to furnish the plaintiff, the Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, with a copy of the Garwin Report, a scientific study commissioned by the president on the proposed supersonic transport plane (SST). The district court held that the OST is not an "agency" for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act; that instead it is a part of the Executive Office of the President; and that for this reason the Garwin Report was protected from compulsory disclosure by the doctrine of executive privilege.

In reversing and remanding, the Court of Appeals held that the OST was in fact an agency for purposes of the Act and that the Garwin Report was an agency record. On remand, the Court of Appeals instructed the District Court to consider whether the report was protected in whole or in part by the specific exemptions set forth in the Act. See the extended discussion of Soucie v. David in Summary and Comments at 1 ELR 10109.