The National Academy of Sciences The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 (1978) / Chapter Skim
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14. The Postwar Organization of Science
14. The Postwar Organization of Science
Pages 433-474
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From page 433... ...
The Division of Medical Sciences had been the foundation on which OSRD'S Committee on Medical Research had built its program. The Academy-Research Council had directed much of the metallurgical research and had had a significant role in the development of new weapons and equipment, including the atomic bomb.
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From page 434... ...
That partnership, the Academy felt, could replenish in peacetime the nation's store of basic research, largely exhausted during the war. The Academy sought through the establishment of its Research Board for National Security the continuation of weapons research.
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From page 435... ...
Atomic Energy Commission and the National Science Foundation. Research Board for National Security The War and Navy Departments, aware that OSRD would terminate automatically at the end of the war, were anxious to retain the collaboration of top-level scientists in the postwar research program.4 In April ~944, Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal called a joint service conference of forty senior military personnel to discuss ways and means, and invited Bush, his assistant Lyman Chalkey, Hewett, and Hunsaker of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to attend.
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From page 436... ...
The committee was to study the postwar needs of the services, the Academy-Council offer, and the best means for carrying out the fundamental research required. Four months later, on September ~4, ~944, the Wilson committee reported that, although the services should retain their own research programs and facilities, "a way should be found for keeping the country's outstanding scientists interested in military research" after the demobilization of OSRD.6 To this end, the committee recommended that Congress be asked to create a research board for national security (RBNS)
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From page 437... ...
Furer, Coordinator of Research and Development, Navy Department and a member of the OSRD Council.8 The Research Board was launched with much acclaim in the press and with Academy expressions of high hopes for its future. Compton, who had chaired the ill-starred Science Advisory Board a decade before, saw it as "definitely understood Eto be]
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From page 438... ...
[it would be] highly dangerous" to hastily legislate the creation of an agency which would be "devilishly hard to modify or eliminate." More to the point, Jewett remained convinced that experience would show the Research Board established under Academy auspices on an interim basis "to be the best permanent mechanism for accomplishing the desired objectives."~ Hewett felt that the majority of the Wilson committee had been unduly influenced by the Academy's need to obtain its funding through the Army's and Navy's appropriations bills, unlike an independent agency, which could receive funds directly from Congress.
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From page 439... ...
e946. The Wilson committee's recommendation of an independent federal agency had been opposed by Army representatives on the committee, and in February ~945 General Borden had reiterated his department's opinion that care must be exercised in avoiding any arrangement which would take away from the War Department the .
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From page 440... ...
z946 would give the Academy RBNS inevitable permanence, and urged Congress to create immediately a permanent independent agency: "An independent Federal agency would simplify the questions of direct responsibility and accountability to Congress, as compared with an agency under the aegis of a corporation." 0 1 6 Research and Development. Hearings, May 1945, pp.
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From page 441... ...
Following closely the recommendations of the Wilson committee majority, S 825 would establish an independent federal RBNS, appointed by the President and, through him, reporting annually to Congress.22 Vannevar Bush also opposed a permanent Academy RBNS and suggested that the May committee amend H.R.
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From page 442... ...
Bundy, Special Assistant to the Secretary of War, that six months had passed and the Academy's expenses of organizing the Research Board were still being met out of OSRD and Carnegie funds. The proposed service contracts with the Academy had become unduly restrictive, contained unworkable patent provisions, and imposed in minute detail limitations on the operations of the Board.27 In his reminiscences of the war years, Admiral Furer wrote of the likelihood "that the influence which from the beginning opposed the participation of NAS in the general program helped to mold opposition to the contracts [proposed between the services and the Academy]
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From page 443... ...
. 32Jewett to Bundy, June 13, 1945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.81 General)
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From page 444... ...
However, if you feel that it would be undesirable for the Academy to pursue such a post-war research program under contract, I believe it would be better to have no civilian post-war military research program at all for an interval, leaving this to the Services, and constituting the new board merely as a planning and advisory body, to review such programs and report directly to the Secretaries.33 The President agreed to the latter plan and asked Bush to take it up with the Secretaries.34 Two months later Hewett wrote to Harvey Bundy offering to disband the Research Board and set up an Academy advisory board to the military departments under a simple contract, with service liaison along the lines of NDRC.35 At hearings on science legislation in October ~ 945, Dr. Hewett spoke ruefully of the "ill-fated Research Board for National Security." Then dramatically he announced that the Board had just been reactivated by a new directive from the Secretaries of War and Navy.
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From page 445... ...
, rather than a Board essentially civilian controlled. A month later the services asked the Academy to terminate the Research Board, and it was formally discharged on March 25, ~946.39 That summer the question of research for the Army and Navy was largely resolved with the unopposed passage of legislation creating an Office of Naval Research and the creation of a Research and Development Division within the War Department.
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From page 446... ...
Even before hearings on science legislation began, it was clear that federal support of research after the war, fundamental and applied, would be enormously increased and would be concentrated in national defense. The RBNS, in its proposal to assume responsibility for directing the fundamental research of the services, had estimated a heady $17 million for the initial program.40 The principal issue at stake in RBNS, the administration of federal research funds in an organization outside the immediate control of the President, was at the heart of all hearings-on science legislation in that period, precipitating a new phenomenon in the history of American science the political organization of scientists for the specific purpose of influencing public policy.4 The First Kilgore Bill The history of the National Science Foundation goes back to August ~942, a perilous period of the war, when the junior Senator from West Virginia, Harley M
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From page 447... ...
Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Military Affairs, 78th Cong., fist sees., ~943, Part I, pp.
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From page 448... ...
scientific talent in American youth."49 The President's request stirred Kilgore to action again, and on February 5, ~ 945, he submitted to his colleagues, to Bush at OSRD, and to Hewett at the Academy printed copies of a "Discussion Draft of a National Science Foundation Bill."50 The foundation, which would be an independent agency in the government, would consolidate the gains and maintain the momentum of wartime research under a director and a national science and technology board of ten members appointed by the President. "Far from regimenting science," and "in no sense ...
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From page 449... ...
W Palmer, Professor of Medicine at Columbia University; the Committee on Science and the Public Welfare, headed by Isaiah Bowman, President of Johns Hopkins University; the Committee on Discovery and Development of Scientific Talent, headed by Henry Allen Moe, Secretary General of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; and the Committee on Publication of Scientific Information, headed by Irvin Stewart, Executive Secretary, OSRD.
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From page 450... ...
As a member of the House Naval Affairs Committee and of the Special House Committee on Post-War Military Policy the year before, Magnuson, recently elected Senator from the state of Washington, had discussed the question of science legislation with Bush. His bill, prepared at Bush's request with the aid of Carroll Wilson, closely 52 Science, the Endless Frontier, pp.
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From page 451... ...
Unlike the Magnuson bill, which assumed the flexible patent policy in force in federal science agencies, the Kilgore bill made mandatory public access to all patentable discoveries financed through public funds. The question of the inclusion of the social sciences in the foundation, soon to become, along with the appointment of the director and the matter of patent policy, key issues in science legislation, did not arise in either the Magnuson or Kilgore bills.55 Both bills sought to promote scientific research and science education through large-scale appropriations for the support of basic, medical, and military research and for fellowships and grants-in-aid.
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From page 452... ...
Hearings on Science L egislation The Senate hearings on science legislation in October and November ~945 were convened to consider the Magnuson and Kilgore bills, those introduced earlier by Byrd for an independent research board for national security, that by May for the Academy Research Board for National Security,57 and a fifth by Senator Fullbright (S.
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From page 453... ...
64. 6t Hearings on Science Legislation, pp.
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From page 454... ...
It was essentially similar to a draft prepared earlier at the request of Secretary of War Stimson by Vannevar Bush, Chairman since ~94~ of the Manhattan Project's Military Policy Committee; James Conant, Chairman of NDRC and Bush's alternate on the committee; and Irvin Stewart, OSRD Executive Secretary. The May-}ohnson bill represented the views of the OSRD, the War Department, and, at that time, the Administration.64 As Secretary of War Robert P
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From page 455... ...
A key paragraph in the bill permitted appointment of members of the armed forces as administrators or commissioners.65 Following widespread protests of the proposed legislation, and of the brief hearings held in October ~945, massive opposition to the War Department bill developed from the newly formed Federation of Atomic Scientists, a coalition of alarmed and politically determined scientists and technicians from the atomic laboratories and plants at Chicago, Oak Ridge, Columbia, Los Alamos, and MIT. Soon numbering almost three thousand members, the group was spearheaded by Leo Szilard, Harold Urey, Harlow Shapley, and Edward U
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From page 456... ...
Among the amendments were those providing for a general manager to head the commission's staff, a general advisory committee on scientific andtechnical matters, and a military liaison committee. It was signed by the President on August 1.69 In October, when first Conant and then Karl Compton- who was recuperating from a heart attack~eclined appointment, Truman selected David Lilienthal, Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, to head the new Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
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From page 457... ...
New Science Legislation Immediately following the end of the initial science hearings in early November ~945, Isaiah Bowman met in his office at Johns Hopkins with Roger Adams, Detlev Bronk, and James Conant, and, with the concurrence of Carl D Anderson, Edward A
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From page 458... ...
~ 7eo, which, still adamant on the point of responsibility, won no new adherents.73 Seven days later, Harold Urey and Harlow Shapley, joining science legislation to their atomic energy polemic, countered the Bowman committee with their Committee for a National Science Foundation, numbering more than two hundred members, including Einstein, Fermi, and Oppenheimer. In letters to Kilgore and Magnuson, the new committee offered its cooperation in finding a middle ground between their bills on which all might agree.74 The Kilgore-Magnuson compromise bill, S
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From page 459... ...
A mock valediction was delivered over it that August by Howard Meyerhoff, Executive Secretary of the AAAS.78 Congress and a strong element in the scientific community had demonstrated their objection to a peacetime foundation in the image of OSRD. In the impasse, other legislation and the assumption of OSRD programs by other federal science agencies seemed to lessen the immediate need for a national science foundation.79 The Dispersal of OSRD With the Academy's Research Board for National Security dissolved and the nation's scientists unable to agree on means for public 76 Jewett to Harold W
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From page 460... ...
Several months before, an Academy-Research Council Committee on Insect and Rodent Control had taken over the functions of the OSRD committee of the same name.82 In an effort to prevent the scientific isolation of the services that had followed World War I, the Navy perpetuated its OSRD underwater research through the establishment in the Research Council of a Committee on Undersea Warfare.83 With the discharge of the Research Council's wartime committees on military medicine in June ~ 946, the Surgeons General of the Army and Navy and the Administrator of the Veterans Administration requested their reconstitution as advisory committees under contract to guide the postwar medical programs of their departments. The Veterans Administration further contracted for a new Committee on Veterans Medical Problems in the Research Council to advise on clinical follow-up studies and other research for war casualties in their hospitals.
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From page 461... ...
47, so. On the Joint Research and Development Board, Conant headed the Committee on Atomic Energy; Hartley Rowe, the Aeronautics Committee; Karl Compton, the Committee on Guided Missiles; Julius A
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From page 462... ...
It continued its advisory and coordinating functions until ~953, when it was abolished and its place taken by a new Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Development.86 On August I, ~946, President Truman signed the law creating the Office of Naval Research (oNR) .87 The origin of ONR went back to the Army-Navy conference in April ~944 that had resulted in the establishment of the Academy's Research Board for National Security (RBNS)
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From page 463... ...
Eisenhower, "Memorandum for Directors and Chiefs of War Department General and Special Staff Divisions and Bureaus and the Commanding Generals of the Major Commands: Subject, Scientific and Technological Resources as Military Assets," April 30, ~946 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.729) ; "War Department Research and Development Division," Science 104:369 (October ~8, ~946)
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From page 464... ...
12~128. 93 Copy of Executive Order 979~, October ~7, ~946, in OSRD Box 32; NAS Archives: EXEC: President's Scientific Research Board: ~947.
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From page 465... ...
Gerard, Henry Allen Moe, and W Albert Noyes, fir.; and invited representatives of the Joint Research and Development Board, the President's Scientific Research Board, the U.S.
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From page 466... ...
Chairman Edmund Day reported the results of the poll to Representative John H Wolverton's House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce at hearings held early in March.96 The hearings were otherwise notable only for Vannevar Bush's predictable support of Mills's H.R.
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From page 467... ...
It had become a national resource, subject to national planning, and responsible to the President. The veto registered a further shock, for by default it left the 98 Jewett to Bush, June 5, ~947 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Nominations for Proposed National Science Foundation)
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From page 468... ...
Day, and Luther P Eisenhart, who agreed that Truman's insistence on his appointment of the foundation director must be complied with.~°i As Vice-President of the AAAS Inter-Society Committee, Shapley also met with Senator Smith, Congressman Wolverton, representatives of the Bureau of the Budget, and Vannevar Bush, and urged the legislators to prepare new bills based on the Senate's amended version of S
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From page 469... ...
Preliminary discussions with foundation trustees were encouraging, but Jewett realized that any formal request needed to be supported by a clear statement of the Research Council's unique capabilities, its intended activities, and its projected needs.~05 He had become increasingly concerned, also, about problems of internal organization disclosed by the wartime activities of the Academy. The rules governing the operations of the Research Council had served fairly well during the war, but had proved cumbersome at times and not sufficiently specific with respect to authority and responsibility.
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From page 470... ...
In July new Articles of Organization and Bylaws, besides ensuring the Research Council of stronger support by the Academy and the greater autonomy it needed in its operations, redefined the duties of the Research Council's Executive Board and its Chairman, the functions of its committees, and of officers of divisions. in Proposing this autonomy and an improved NAS-NRC relationship, Jewett earlier that year had asked Detlev Bronk whether he would consider becoming full-time Chairman of the Research Council.
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From page 471... ...
But he did set the Research Council firmly to the task at hand. The postwar world of science had "burdened and tempted the Council" with enormous challenges, but it had already begun, and would continue, its "efforts to avoid large-scale administrative operations which can be done better by other agencies and which distract the Council from its primary scientific objectives." As Bronk said, the NRC was recognized as a cooperative agency in the nation for the promotion of military i09 Jewett to Bronk, March 28, ~946; Jewitt to members of the NAS Council, June ~ I, ~946 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.7~)
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From page 472... ...
. Besides eliminating a number of unnecessary committees in the Research Council that first year, Bronk restructured the fellowship program; expanded the Committee on Radioactivity, making it the Committee on Nuclear Science; established a Chemical-Biological Coordination Center and a Pacific Science Board; saw activated a Committee on Atomic Casualties, a Committee on Undersea Warfare, and a Building Research Advisory Board; and appointed a Committee on UNESCO.
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From page 473... ...
And the recent reorganization within the Academy sought to assure continuation of that effectiveness by confining Academy committees to those which are wholly concerned with matters of advice at top scientific level and assigning all others to the Research Council ... [and by conferring]
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From page 474... ...
Jewett's personal conviction that the Chairman of the Research Council ought also to be a member of the Academy and so automatically a member of the Academy Council would be met a decade later. So, too, would the question of Academy initiative in serving the government on "any subject of science or art." ~9 Jewett to Yerkes, May 7, ~947; Jewett to Carmichael, May 26, ~947 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.7 ~ )
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