The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 (1978)

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The Postwar 7A `& Organization r ~ of Science No contractor was more concerned than the National Academy of Sciences about the demobilization plans of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Through its members and the mecha- nism of the Research Council, the Academy had been involved in almost every aspect of OSRD operations. 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. Nor was any contractor more aware than the Academy of the revolution that had occurred during the war years in the relationship of the federal government to science. Without precedent were the centralization of scientific research in OSRD, its scale of operations, the autonomy accorded it, direct appropriations from Congress, and its method of operation contracting for federal research and develop- ment with the universities, industry, and other independent institu- tions. 433

434 / The Postwar Organization of Science The Academy in ~ g40 had demurred at the suggestion that it might assume direction of wartime research and development, only to become indispensable to the operations of both NDRC and OSRD. President Tewett, assessing that experience five years later, saw in the Academy's administration of huge sums of federal money for scien- tific research under contract with OSRD and its own subcontracts with academic institutions and industrial organizations, "another role . . . [an] enlargement of the function of the Academy-Research Council." And he saw, too, that its "professional advisory and consultative services ... [might in the future] be successfully combined with an operating function such as the administration and supervision of research~sub-contracts."i The impact of the war years left an indelible imprint on both the Academy and Council. Their activities in aid of so many departments of Government—both civil and military have so firmly established the capacity of both organizations to give completely unbiased scientific advice at the highest level and to administer intricate research undertakings, that increased calls on them in the future are inevita- ble.2 As the end of the war and the termination of OSRD approached, the Academy, as well as Congress and the military, became increasingly concerned with the necessity of continuing the military-civilian al- liance for weapons research. They wanted especially to maintain that unique invention of the war, the partnership in science between the federal government and the universities that had so rapidly equipped the armed services with new weapons. 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. It saw in the establishment of the National Science Foundation a means for the federal support of basic research. Two other imperatives- continuation of the programs in medical research and the control of atomic energy and its research by a nonmilitary agency—were also of concern to the Academy. Clearly, the federal government would continue to support large- scale programs of research in the universities, private institutions, and industry, both for future national defense and for the nation's general welfare, and needed only a mechanism through which it might ~ NAS, Annul Reportfor 1944-45, pp. As, 3~. 2 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1946-47, p. i.

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 435 continue to draw on the vast research capacity of the nation in peacetime. The apparent danger was that with the termination of OSRD at the end of the war science would lose the freedom required for productivity, a freedom less likely to prevail in peacetime with government agencies subject to continual legislative scrutiny, to ma- neuvering for funds, and to continual political pressures. Perhaps no one was more aware of the difficulties of science under federal auspices than the National Academy, through its long associa- tion with the scientific agencies of the government. Thus, when it was proposed to continue the alliance of government and science after the war, the foremost question was the control of research funds. Van- nevar Bush, intent on ensuring the freedom of scientists by insulating them from political pressure, posed repeatedly two basic principles for successful Government participation in scientific research. First, the research organization must have direct access to Congress for its funds; second, the work of the research organization must not be subject to control or direction from any operating organization whose respon- sibilities are not exclusively those of research.3 These were the principles upon which Bush and his colleagues sought to base the U.S. 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. At the conference, Jewett offered the services of the National Research Council. Still almost wholly organized at that time for the planning and direction of 3 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Military Affairs, Research and Development. Hear- ings before the Committee on Military Affairs on H. R. 2946, 78th Cong., fist sees., May 22, 23, 29, ~945, p. 5 (hereafter cited as Research and Development. Headings, May ~945). 4 For background on the discussions of this need within the military, see Michael S. Sherry, Preparing for the Next War: American Plans for Postwar Defense, 1941-1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, ~977).

436 I The Postwar Organization of Science military research, the Research Council provided an established mechanism for continuing the operations of OSRD. Dr. Jewett re- ported that the Policy Committee of the Research Council, whose members included Conant, Richards, and Millikan, had agreed in a meeting the night before that it would be "very easy to revamp the [Research Council] to set it up for the permanent handling of military problems."5 Acting on the recommendation of the conference, in May the Secretaries of War and Navy appointed a Committee on Postwar Research, chaired by Charles W. Wilson, Vice-Chairman of the War Production Board and President of General Electric, and comprising Jewett, Hunsaker, Merle Tuve as Bush's designee, Karl Compton, and four Navy and four Army representatives. 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 re- quired. 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 recom- mended that Congress be asked to create a research board for national security (RBNS) as a permanent and independent agency in the federal government. However, the committee considered it likely that Congress would be slow to act and was concerned that the momentum for action on the research board would be lost if the war came to an early end. As an expedient, the committee recommended that the service Secretaries ask the Academy to create immediately an interim body, also called research board for national security, to function pending successful congressional action. Both plans called for a board of forty members, under a civilian chairman, half of them officers with technical responsibilities in the two services and half civilians from science, engineering, and industry. An executive com- mittee of five would formulate and direct long-range programs of research on behalf of the services through contracts with existing . . . . private Institutions. 5 "Proceedings of Conference to Consider Needs for Post-War Research and Develop- ment for the Army and the Navy," April 26, 1944, pp. 1, 12-13 (NAS Archives: AG&Depts: War: Conf to Consider Needs . . . Jnt w Navy Dept). 6 Wilson committee report, September 14, 1944, in Research and Development. Hearings, May 1945, pp. 64~9; NAS Archives: AG&Depts: War: Com on Post-War Military Research: Int w Navy Dept: 1944.

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 437 Unlike the permanent RBNS, which would receive its funding through direct congressional appropriations, the Academy RBNS would rely on special items in the annual appropriations bills of the War and Navy Departments. A second difference was that the mem- bers of the temporary AcademY RBNS would be appointed by the ~ , , President of the Academy, while the members of the federal RBNS would be appointed by the President of the United States. (The twenty civilian members of the permanent board were to be nomi- nated by the Academy President.) The precedent established early in the war, permitting federal agencies to advance funds to the Academy, was critical to the Wilson committee's recommendations. For the Academy to undertake a program that might, as Dr. Jewett implied, come to rival that of OSRD, would otherwise necessitate a capital of millions: This obstacle has been substantially removed both by the Acts of Appropria- tions to OSRD which provide reimbursement to the Academy for certain overhead expenses, and more particularly, by the authority given the Army and the Navy to advance funds to provide working capital for work requested ... by a formal contract, or contracts, in which the Services request the Academy to do certain things and in which provision is made for advance of the funds needed, the actual expenses of the work (without remuneration) to be later accounted for.7 On November 9, ~944, Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal formally requested Dr. Jewett to establish the temporary RBNS within the Academy. By February ~945 its organiza- tion was complete; the Executive Committee of five comprised Karl T. Compton as Chairman; Roger Adams; Alphonse R. Dochez of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons; Brig. Gen. William A. Borden, Director of the New Developments Division, War Department Special Staff; Rear Adm. Julius A. 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] a long-term and 7 Frank B. Jewett to Joel H. Hildebrand, December 5, ~944 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.82). ~ Henry L. Stimson and James V. Forrestal to President, NAS, November 9, ~944 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: RBNS: General); Rear Adm. J. A. Furer, "Post-War Military Re- search," Science 100 :461-464 (November 24, ~ 944).

438 / The Postwar Organization of Science forward looking element of national policy."9 A number of research projects were soon submitted by the Army and Navy to the Executive Committee of RBNS and assigned to various members for considera- tion and further study. A Despite the fanfare, Hewett was dissatisfied by the temporary status of the Academy RBNS. In hearings before Representative Clifton A. Woodrum's House Select Committee on Post-War Military Policy in January ~945, he disclosed that the Wilson committee had agreed, though only by a single vote, to seek early establishment of a perma- nent agency, and that he, Compton, and Hunsaker had strongly opposed such a step: "Possibly some years of post war experience will demonstrate to Congress the necessity of such an independent agency but until we have had that experience ... [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 objec- tives."~ 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 inde- pendent agency, which could receive funds directly from Congress. "[T]he principal argument in favor of an independent agency," he told the Woodrum committee, "was that it would be easier to get money that way." While acknowledging the strength of that argu- ment, Hewett considered it "a very questionable basis on which to build a vital part of our national defense mechanism." A permanent RBNS within the Academy, on the other hand, would be able to draw on the Academy's long tradition of unbiased, nonpartisan advice to the 9 The organization appeared in K. T. Compton, "Research Board for National Secu- rity," Science 101:22~228 (March 2, ~945); K. T. Compton, "Establishment of RsNs," American Scientist 33 :1 15 (April ~945). For Compton's earlier reluctance to head RsNs, see Compton to Jewett, December 4, ~944 (Oswald Veblen Papers, Box 33, Library of Congress). A Minutes of the Meeting of the [RsNs], March lo, ~945 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Runs: Meetings). The Navy representatives present assured the civilians that the Board would be free to go beyond the military's suggestions to include fields of basic research. "Statement of Frank B. Jewett . . . before the Select Committee on Post-War Military Policy," January ~9, ~945, pp. 8-~o (NAs Archives: coNc: Select Committee on Post- War Military Policy); iewett to Robert A. Millikan, September ~8, ~944 (NAS Archives: AG&Depts: War: Com on Post-War Military Research: Jnt w Navy Dept).

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 439 government. And, as a nonstatutory body within the Academy, the RBNS could be modified easily as experience dictated. To overcome objections to an Academy RBNS, Woodrum and others on his committee asked Jewett if direct congressional funding would be a satisfactory solution. In a supplementary memorandum ad- dressed to the committee, Jewett stated that after further considera- tion he was "of the opinion that if Congress so desires this can be done . . . without jeopardy to the basic idea of complete independence of the Academy...."~3 Woodrum and Hewett found a sympathetic ear in Representative Andrew I. May, Chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs. On April ~ 8, ~ 945, May introduced H.R. 2946, a bill authorizing appropriations directly to the Academy for a "perma- nent" program of scientific research in the interest of national secu- rity.14 At hearings before May's committee the following month, the Army supported H.R. e946. The Wilson committee's recommendation of an independent federal agency had been opposed by Army representa- tives 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 . . . authority over the development of the weapons and other materials needed by the Army ... [and that the establishment ofl an independent agency might make it difficult [to maintain the Army's voice in the decisions of the Board]....~5 Echoing Jewett's remarks, Borden told the May committee that experience was needed with the Academy RBNS before consideration could be given to the creation of an independent agency. Implicitly, he agreed with Jewett that only "possibly" would this experience lead to an acceptable proposal for such an agency. He also presented to the May committee a letter from Secretary Stimson stating that the is "Statement of Frank B. jewett," p. 9. i3"Supplementary Statement by Dr. Jewett," February ~4, ~945 (NAS Archives: CONG: Select Com on Post-War Military Policy). ~4 Jewett to Millikan, February ~3, ~945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.8~ General). A copy of the bill appears in NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.82.6. For correspondence on drafting of the bill, see NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.8~.5. t5 Rear Adm. ]. A. Furer, "Memorandum for the Assistant Secretary of the Navy," February 22, ~945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.82.5); Jewett to Millikan, September ~8, ~944, cited above. See also Daniel l. Kevles, "Scientists, the Military, and the Control of Postwar Defense Research: The Case of the Research Board for National Security, ~944-~946," Technology and Culture 16:2~29 (January ~975).

440 I The Postwar Organization of Science Research Board's "organization under the National Academy of Sciences will provide the flexibility, independence, and prestige necessary" for its success. i6 The opposition to a permanent Academy RBNS was formidable. Of the four Navy representatives on the Wilson committee, all but Furer had voted for an independent agency.~7 The others were concerned that an agency dependent on the services could be dissolved or denied funds at the whim of future Secretaries. And, the Academy appeared to be primarily "an honorary society," which had been found unsuited to direct military research in either of the World Wars. ~8 Fifteen years later, Furer wrote that "objections to using NAS came from those who believed that the Academy was too conservative and was composed too largely of older men who would not be sufficiently progressive to meet all of the requirements of effective collaboration with the armed services."~9 Furer did not agree with the contention that "the National Academy of Sciences did nothing during the peace period to solve the Navy's research problems." Furer felt the Academy had, in fact, "made an excellent job of everything it has been requested to do," and he placed the blame on the Navy itself, which had failed to turn to the Academy often enough in the prewar era.20 But Furer's views did not prevail. Adm. A. H. Keuren, Director of the Naval Research Laboratory, warned the May committee that PER. 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 ques- tions of direct responsibility and accountability to Congress, as com- pared with an agency under the aegis of a corporation." 0 1 6 Research and Development. Hearings, May 1945, pp. 31-32, 4o. 17Jewett to Maj. Gen. C. C. Williams, September 13, 1944 (NAS Archives: AG&Depts: War: Com on Post-War Military Research: Jnt w Navy Dept). ~8 L. L. Cochrane, Chief of Bureau of Ships, to Capt. T. A. Solberg, August 26, 1944, attached to "Report of Meeting of Committee on Post-War Research," August 31,1944; Capt. C. L. Tyler to Rear Adm. J. A. Furer, July fi, 1944, attached to "Report of Meeting of Committee on Post-War Research," July 6, 1944 (NAS Archives: ibid.). ~9J. A. Furer, Administration of the Navy Department in World War II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1959), pp. 801-803. The matter of age and conservatism is interesting in view of the fact that the median age of the twenty civilian members of the Academy RBNS was slightly over fifty-five; that, subsequently, of the Advisory Committee to the Office of Naval Research, successor to RBNS, was fifty-three; and that of the National Science Board, established in 1950, was fifty-six. 20 Furer, draft of "Memorandum for Assistant Secretary of the Navy," enclosed in Furer to.lewett, February 23, 1945 (NAS Archives: Hewett file 50.82.5). 2t Research and Development. Hearings, May 1945, pp. 74, 76.

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 44i The Academy's private corporate status was also emphasized in a letter to Representative May from the Acting Secretary of the Navy, H. Struve Hensel. He opposed "providing for grants to a non- governmental agency" as proposed by H.R. 2946 and supported S. 825, a bill introduced by Senator Harry F. Byrd on April 4, ~945. Following closely the recommendations of the Wilson committee majority, S. 825 would establish an independent federal RBNS, ap- pointed 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. 2946 to indicate specifically that it was a temporary measure.23 He had reason. On November ~7, ~944, eight days after the service Secretaries had requested the creation of a temporary Academy RBNS, President Roosevelt asked Bush for a report on a program for federal support of scientific research after the war. Since the report was to be transmitted to the President in June ~945, Bush had kept its contents confidential. When Bush testified before the May committee in May ~ 945, not even Jewett was aware that Bush's report, Science, the Endless Frontier, would recommend the creation of an independent federal agency, a National Research Foundation, to provide federal support for all areas of science, including the military research Hewett en- visioned for the Academy's RsNs.24 Perhaps the most powerful opponent of the Academy RBNS was Harold D. Smith, Director of the Bureau of the Budget. Late in March ~945, he warned President Roosevelt that the Academy was "very jealous of its non-governmental status, and under its control the Research Board for National Security would not be responsible to any part of the Government.... A matter as crucial to the national interest as the direction of research on weapons of war," he insisted, "should be carried on by an agency responsible to the Commander- in-Chief." At Smith's suggestion, Roosevelt sent letters on March 3~, ~945, to Forrestal and Stimson barring the transfer of any funds to the Academy for RsNs.25 22 Ibid., pp. 79-80. For Jewett's reaction to the Byrd bill, see his April ~ 7, ~ 945, letter to Congressman Clifton A. Woodrum (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.82.5). 23 Research and Development. Hearings, May ~945, pp. ~3-~4. 24 Roosevelt to Bush, November ~7, ~944; Jewett to Millikan, March ~6, ~945; Jewett to Vannevar Bush, June 6, ~945 (NAS Archives: Hewett file 50.22); Vannevar Bush, Science, the Endless Frontier (Washington: Government Printing Office, ~945), pp. 27-28. 25 Kevles, "Scientists, the Military, and Control of Postwar Defense Research," cited above, p. 35; Roosevelt to Stimson and Forrestal, copies to Bush and Harold D. Smith,

442 / The Postwar Organization of Science Harry Truman's succession to the presidency upon the death of Roosevelt on April ~s moved the Academy to seek a reevaluation of Smith's objections. Hewett wrote Representative Woodrum that he found it hard to believe that after the long interval since [Stimson and Forrestall requested formation of RBNS and of all the publicity which attended putting it in operation, the President realized fully the consequences of the letters he signed.... I am hopeful that the situation can be cleared up satisfactorily when the Secretaries can consider the matter with President Truman.26 Despite Academy counsel, the service Secretaries were reluctant to take their case directly to the President or the Budget Director. Jewett wrote Harvey H. 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 be- come 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 opposi- tion to the contracts [proposed between the services and the Acad- emy]." The services had presented tight contracts to the Academy, remembering some of their ideological clashes in the operation of Bush s OSRD.28 Clearly, the initial excitement associated with the Board was gone, and, in his letter to Bundy, Jewett spoke of it in hyperbole and in the past tense: It was the initiation of a great new experiment in a hitherto unexplored and untried area where there were few if any guiding rules . . . a great experiment undertaken in a great way . . . a pioneering experiment in every sense of the word—in a different sector and on a grand scale it was like sending Lewis and Clark to explore the northwest country or Major Powell to traverse the Grand Canyon of the Colorado for the first time.29 March 3~, ~945, and draft of memorandum, Harvey H. Bundy to Stimson, April 6, ~945 (OSRD Box go). 26 Jewett to Woodrum, April ~7, ~945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.82.5). See also "Minutes of the [RBNS] Executive Committee Meeting," April 12, ~945, p. ~ (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: RBNS: Executive Com: Meetings). 27 Hewett to Bundy, May 8, ~945, and April So, ~945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.8~.9). 28 Purer, Administration of the Navy Department in World War II, pp. 80~-803. 29 lewett to Bundy, May 8, ~945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.8~.9).

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 443 A final attempt to break the impasse came late in May with a suggestion from the Budget Bureau that RBNS members acquire governmental status by being appointed concurrently "unpaid offi- cials of the United States." Hewett found this unacceptable. To do so would involve the members in the morass of federal conflict-of- interest statutes and, more important, jeopardize the Academy's traditional independence.30 On June 8, ~945, in letters to Stimson and Forrestal with copies to Bush and Smith, Truman reaffirmed Roosevelt's policy, declaring that "every function of control of program developments with respect to the military research must at all times be lodged solely within the framework of the government."3i It would be his unalterable policy for all science legislation. Meanwhile, he asked that OSRD continue to function after the war, pending the establishment of a permanent agency for military research, and that RBNS be replaced by a joint Army-Navy advisory board. The Academy reaction was that "the muddle . . . has been made more muddled by Mr. Truman's letters."32 Replying to the President's letter of June 8, Bush stated his views unequivocally: I have given much thought to this subject and I have come to the conclusion that for this Office [OSRD] to undertake post-war research would be highly undesirable, for reasons which become apparent only when the matter is studied at some length. It would reverse the understanding which I had for a long period with President Roosevelt, and with the Appropriations Commit- tee. It would be contrary to the general principle that war agencies should not carry on into the peace.... It would be contrary to the understanding I have had with the scientists, who fill most of the important posts in this Office on a voluntary basis and without compensation, and who were enlisted for the war effort.... Most important there are the conflict of interest statutes. Some of these are very old and admit of interpretations which would practically prevent the use of voluntary personnel by any governmental contracting agency.... It would be quite impossible to conduct our affairs, in the way in which we have gone about it during the war, without using scientists and engineers of high standing on a voluntary basis.... There should certainly be established a permanent civilian agency for .Rinre there ma well he peacetime civilian research on military matters~J1AA=~_ At__ AAA"] ''=AA ~` 30 Draft of letter from Stimson and Forrestal to RBNS members, May 26, 1945; Jewett to H. Strove Hensel, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, June 4, 1945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.81 General). 31 Truman to Stimson and Forrestal, June 8, 1945 (copy in RBNS: General). 32Jewett to Bundy, June 13, 1945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.81 General). NAS Archives: ORG: NAS:

444 / The Postwar Organization of Science lapse of time between the end of the war and leg~slai~on on the post-war organization for this and other military matters, it is desirable that there should be an interim body to maintain the fine relationships that have been established ... between scientists and military men.... The Secretaries of War and Navy moved to establish such a body some time ago, and the May bill just reported out favorably would give it interim standing.... It seemed to me desirable, as a temporary matter, that the body be established within the framework of the National Academy of Sciences.... 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. Approved by President Truman, it restated the original objectives, except that the Board would act in an advisory capacity only. It would formulate long-range policies and advise on specific research projects for con- sideration by the services or by OSRD. The projects would be estab- lished under direct Army or Navy contracts rather than under sub- contracts with the Academy.36 Waiting for the directive to become operative, the Research Board, 33 Bush to Truman, June 12, ~945 (copy in NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: RBNS: General). 34 Bush memorandum of conference with the President, June ~4, ~945 (OSRD Box 48); memorandum, K. T. Compton to Bundy, June ~5, ~945 (OSRD Box ~60). 35 Jewett to Bundy, August 24, ~945 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: RBNS: General); U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, Subcommittee on War Mobilization, Legislative Proposals for the Promotion of Science: The Texts of Five Bills and Excerpts from Reports, 78th Cong., fist sees., August ~945, p. 88. 36 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, Hearings on Science Legislation (S. 1297 and Related Bills). Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Military Affairs, 78th Cong., fist sees., October-November ~945, pp. 443-444, 628; Robert P. Patterson and Forrestal to Jewett, October 18, ~945, and jewett to jerome C. Hunsaker, September Al, ~945 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: RBNS: General); RBNS Executive Commit- tee Meeting, November 3, ~945 (NAS Archives: ibid., Executive Committee: Meetings).

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 445 on a part-time basis, continued planning research projects for the services. But its days were numbered. The legislation debated in Congress that autumn contributed to its end, for it all centered on large-scale research in fundamental science, including that in support of national defense. The blow fell~in December when the Comptroller General ruled that although the services might properly request the establishment of a board or committee in the Academy and contract for its expenses, members of the military could not serve on it. Without them, as the Academy knew, the Research Board would carry no weight nor possess any leverage in a conflict of opinion with the service research . . ^~ organza tons. ~ In January ~ 946, Hewett wrote Karl Compton that the Secretaries of War and Navy were thinking of disbanding the Board for the time being, the long delay having vitiated much of its usefulness. Jewett foresaw a "letter which will write finis on an episode that has now dragged on for nearly two years." There were no legal grounds, he wrote, to prevent the Secretaries from asking the Academy to advise them on scientific matters and to supervise research initiated as a result, so long as "the contract with the Academy did not attempt to specify how the Academy should discharge its responsibility." The real reason appears to lie in the President's decision that if an RBNS is set up it should be a joint Army and Navy Board, controlled by the Services and composed of Military members and civilians (the latter possibly nominated by the Academy), 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 De- velopment Division within the War Department. The RsNs was an earnest attempt of the Academy, the Secretaries of War and Navy, and congressional committees to develop an organiza- tion that would ensure a continuing source of basic research in science, technology, and engineering essential to national defense. It 37 Jewett to Bush, December 20, 1945; K. T. Compton to Jewett, January 8, ~946 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.8 ~ . ~ ). 38 Jewett to Compton, January 22, ~946 (NAS Archives: ibid.). 39 Patterson and Forrestal to Jewett, February 28, ~946, and reply, March 22, ~946 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: RBNS: General); iewett to Wadsworth, March 22, ~946; Jewett to Compton, March 25, ~946 (NAS Archives: ibid.); NAS, Annual Reportfor 1945-46, p. ~ 2.

446 I The Postwar Organization of Science succumbed largely through a misunderstanding of its purpose and the true magnitude of the task. The research funds contemplated for RBNS were unprecedented. 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 na- tional 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 Ameri- can 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. Kilgore, critical of OSRD under Bush, introduced legislation calling for the total mobilization of science and technology in the war effort.42 Kilgore, ardent New Dealer and advocate of national planning, said he first became interested in science in ~94~, while a member of Senator Harry S Truman's Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. Leaving to Truman the repair of inequities in the wartime mobiliza- tion of labor and industry, Kilgore made science legislation his cause.43 His bill, S. a'~ I, sought "to mobilize for maximum war effort . . . all technical facilities, equipment, processes, inventions, and 40 "Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting," March lo, ~945 (NAS Archives: ibid., Executive Committee: Meetings); Research and Development. Hearings, May ~945, pp. 6~70. 4~ See James B. Conant, "The Mobilization of Science for the War Effort," American Scientist 35 :204-205 (April ~ 947). 42,Jewett found Kilgore to be "a man of intelligence and extremely reasonable and easy to talk to . . . [who was] clearly trying to do something constructive in a sector where he thinks help is indicated" []ewett to Bush, November ~6, ~942 (NAS Archives: {ewett file 5°~27~)]. 43 Harley M. Kilgore, "Science and the Government," Science 102:63~638 (December 2~, i945).

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 447 knowledge," by drafting all scientists and technicians and all scientific facilities not already engaged in war work.44 Kilgore won support for his omnibus bill from the American Association of Scientific Workers (AASW), an affiliate of AAAS formed in ~938 to consider the social aspects of science. The AASW felt that many scientists, especially those in chemistry, biology, clinical medicine, and the earth sciences, had been overlooked by OSRD, CMR, and the Academy in defense research planning. They considered the failure to call up the total scientific manpower of the nation a dangerous waste of human resources.45 The Association had some cause for grievance with respect to the utilization of the nation's total scientific manpower. OSRD, in choosing scientists, largely through the rosters compiled by the Academy and the President's War Manpower Commission, had been selective, its research contracts going to scientists of recognized ability and to institutional and industrial laboratories with research facilities of demonstrated excellence. Moreover, as Bush explained, the pressure of time and the restrictions imposed by the secret nature of most OSRD research had imposed further limitations.46 But these considerations did little to satisfy many scientists who felt frustrated at not being brought into the war effort. After consulting with his colleagues, Kilgore rewrote his bill and introduced it again in February ~943 as S. 702, accompanied in the House by Representative Wright Patman's PER. moo. Both bills called for an immediate planned effort for maximum use and coordi- nation of science and technology and continuance of that effort after the war in an office of scientific and technological mobilization directly under the President. The office would have power to enlist all scientific and technical personnel for the duration, engage in the training of scientists and technicians, requisition all scientific and 44 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, Scientific and Technological Mobilization. Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Military Affairs, 78th Cong., fist sees., ~943, Part I, pp. ~-3; Part III, pp. 259-263. 45 Harry Grundfest, Secretary of AASW, "The Complete Utilization of Scientifically Trained Personnel," Science 96:31~319 (October 2, ~942); Theodor Rosebury, Chair- man of the New York branch of AASW, "The Fuller Utilization of Scientific Resources for Total War," Science 96:571-575 (December 25, ~942). 46 Bush, "Research and the War Effort," Electrical Engineering 62 :99-100 (March ~ 943). For Conant's reports on the selection of OSRD scientists and contractors, see OSRD Boxes 208 and 224.

448 I The Postwar Organization of Science technical facilities, and acquire and make freely available all patents and industrial processes in the interest of the war effort.47 Opposing the bills, the American Association for the Advancement of Science protested that the legislation represented not the mobiliza- tion of science but its regimentation. The skirmishing continued through the remaining months of ~943, until Vannevar Bush urged both sides to turn their attention to legislation for a postwar organiza- tion of science that would not seek to perpetuate wartime controls.48 As the prospects of the Allied forces in Europe and in the Pacific began to brighten, the Kilgore and Patman bills were quietly shelved. In August ~944 Bush submitted his program to Roosevelt for the termination of OSRD. In November ~944, as the Allied armies swept toward the Rhine, the President in a letter to Bush expressed his strong reluctance to terminate OSRD, that "unique experiment . . . in coordinating scientific research," and asked what could be done to organize a peacetime agency similar to OSRD "to make known . . . the "wartime] contributions ... to scientific knowledge ... for the im- provement of the national well-being. . . [to continue] the war of science against disease ... to aid research activities by public and private organizations . . . [and to discover and develop for the future] 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 ... competitive with the National Academy of Sciences," Kilgore's foundation sought only a means by which the government 47Grundfest, "The Science Mobilization Bill," Science 97:375-377 (April 23, ~943). S. 7O2 appeared in Science 97:407-412 (May 7, ~943). 4x Gustav Egloff, President, American Institute of Chemists, "The Kilgore Senate Bill," Science 97:442-443 (May ~4, ~943); "The American Association for the Advancement of Science: Resolution of the Council on the Science Mobilization Bill (S. 7O2)," Science 98:135-137 (August 6, ~943); Bush, "The Kilgore Bill," Science 98:571-577 (December 3~, i943) 49 Letter of November ~7, ~944, in Science 100:542 (December ~5, ~944). For the background of the President's request, see OSRD Box 32. 50 Jewett to W. Mansfield Clark, member, NAS Council, and W. H. Kenerson, Executive Secretary, NAS, February ~3, ~945, and attached Kilgore draft (NAS Archives: CONG: Bills: National Science Foundation).

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 449 might draw on the vast research capacity in the private sector for the basic and applied research essential to national defense, to business and industry, and to the development of natural resources. There would be a special research committee on national defense; a major task of the foundation would be the coordination of research in the military services and in other federal science agencies. Although fully occupied with plans for winding up OSRD, Bush turned to the preparation of the report that the President had requested.5~ Science, the Endless Frontier Bush's report, Science, the Endless Frontier, was based on the work of four distinguished committees: the Medical Advisory Committee, headed by W. W. Palmer, Professor of Medicine at Columbia Univer- sity; the Committee on Science and the Public Welfare, headed by Isaiah Bowman, President of Johns Hopkins University; the Commit- tee 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. It was submitted to President Truman on July 5, ~945, three months after the death of Roosevelt and just two months after the end of the war in Europe. Fully aware of the political and scientific milestone represented by OSRD, under which for the first time massive federal funds had been made available to university laboratories for scientific research, Bush sought to perpetuate its achievements through the creation of a national research foundation. He hoped that such a foundation would support fundamental, medical, and military research in the postwar years with the same broad and unfettered authority that had been accorded OSRD. To ensure the independence necessary to scien- tific research in peacetime, Bush proposed the appointment of the administrator of the foundation by an advisory board of nine civilians and scientists unconnected with the government or representative of any special interests, to be selected by the President and responsible only to him and to Congress. The foundation would be empowered to develop and promote a 5~ Bush to jewett, February ~5, ~945 (OSRD Box 32); correspondence in NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.22.

450 / The Postwar Organization of Science national policy for scientific research and science education, support research basic to the needs of the natural sciences, medicine, and national defense in the universities and private institutions, and develop scientific talent by establishing scholarships and fellowships in science. The operations of the foundation were to be carried out through its divisions of medical research, natural sciences, national defense, scientific personnel and education, and publications and scientific collaboration, the five members of each division to be appointed by the advisory board with the assistance of the National Academy.52 Bush also urged the establishment, separate from the foundation, of "a permanent Science Advisory Board [of disinterested scientists] . . . to consult with . . . [federal] scientific bureaus and provide advice to the executive and legislative branches of Government on the policies and budgets of Government agencies engaged in scientific work."53 Within a fortnight of the publication of the Bush report, two bills for the science foundation were introduced in Congress, the first by Senator Warren G. Magnuson (S. ~285) on July ~9, and the second by Senator Kilgore and two colleagues (S. ~297) four days later. As a member of the House Naval Affairs Committee and of the Special House Committee on Post-War Military Policy the year be- fore, Magnuson, recently elected Senator from the state of Washing- ton, 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. 26-~g. Correspondence, working papers, and drafts of the report are in OSRD Boxes 47, 48, 50, 224, 225. The "master copy," dated May 3 I, ~945, is in OSRD Box ~ I. Bush's report was reprinted by the National Science Foundation in ~960, with an extended introduction pointing out its relevance to the subsequent development of science in the federal structure. Recent publications recounting the genesis of Science, the Endless Frontier include I. M. England, "Dr. Bush Writes a Report: 'Science the Endless Frontier'," Science 191:41- 47 (January 9, ~976); D. ]. Kevles, letter, Science 183 :798 (March I, ~974); M. Lomax, letter, Science 182:116 (October 12, ~973); and "The Birth of NSF," Mosaic 6:2~27 (November/December ~975). 53Ibid., p. ~5. Dr. Jewett's interest in a restoration of the Science Advisory Board moved him to write: "If the Academy Act of Incorporation was amended to authorize it to take the initiative in advising Government rather than merely to act 'whenever requested,' would we not have the most powerful and flexible kind of an Advisory Board?" [lewett to Bush, June 6, ~945 (NAS Archives: Hewett file 50.~)]. For comment on the Bush report, see K. M. Jones, "The Endless Frontier," Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives 8 :35-46 (Spring ~ 976).

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 45 ~ followed the recommendations of Science, the Endless Frontier. It called for a director elected by an advisory board of scientists under Presi- dential appointment. Its patent policy was similar to that of OSRD, which established federal rights to discoveries made with federal funds but protected research incentive by making the rights subject to negotiation. Senator Kilgore had been corresponding with Bush on science legislation since ~94z and had hoped to collaborate with him, but there was no meeting of minds.54 Bush and the scientific community in general considered that science was a proper concern of govern- ment, but that it must to the fullest extent possible be left free to govern its own operations. In Kilgore's view, shared by the President and his advisers, science was a national resource, and like other resources, its management was the responsibility of Congress and the President. The science foundation that Kilgore proposed centralized all authority in a director responsible to the President and reduced the board, composed of civilian and cabinet members, to an advisory capacity. 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 legisla- tion, did not arise in either the Magnuson or Kilgore bills.55 Both bills sought to promote scientific research and science educa- tion through large-scale appropriations for the support of basic, medical, and military research and for fellowships and grants-in-aid. They were almost the only common objectives in the bills as the public debate on science legislation, and, almost simultaneously, on atomic energy legislation, began in the fall of ~945. President Truman's special message to Congress on September 6, ~945, a month to the day after the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, reflected the fearfulness of the responsibility that the development and use of the weapon had laid upon the nation and its lawmakers and scientists. Almost as prodigious had been the array of weaponry provided through OSRD during the war. At the heart of the President's message was his awareness that the estate of science had 54 See correspondence in OSRD Box ~85. 55 A comparison of the bills appears in Legislative Proposals for the Promotion of Science.

45 2 / The Postwar Organization of Science been raised to a new and awesome eminence, its governance of vital concern to the national welfare and to national security.56 Pending further study of the implications of the atomic bomb, Truman urged early creation of a federal research agency. He asked that OSRD and the Academy's Research Board for National Security continue their operations until that agency came into being. The debates in Congress were historic. For the first time in Ameri- can history the community of scientists entered the political arena in force, first over legislation for the control of atomic energy and then for a national science foundation. 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. ~248) for a bureau of science research in the Department of Commerce.58 From the outset the hearings focused on the science foundation bills. Like the President's message, the proceedings were dominated by concern with the new dimensions of science. Said Senator Fulbright, "What we are trying to do is utilize the motive that really results from the atomic bomb to get something done.... This bill ... as well as the May-lohnson bill Efor the control of atomic energy], is the result of fear...."59 Of only slightly less concern was the formidable and enigmatic wartime ally whose soldiers American troops had embraced five months before at the Elbe. Repeatedly in hearings, witnesses ex- pressed apprehension over emerging Russia, where science was a function of the all-powerful State. They pointed out that the U.S. government had reluctantly supported the development of the atomic . . . . . . . 56 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Harry S. Truman, 1945 (Washington: Government Printing Of fire, ~ 96 ~ ), pp. 292-294. 57 May's original H.R. 2946 had been replaced by his H.R. 344O. The new bill limited the Research Board's appropriations to $8 million a year and included a provision allowing government audit of expenditures. 58 F. R. Moulton, "The Bush Report and Senate Bills," Science 102:382-383 (October ~2, ~945); "Scientific Research Bills before the United States Senate," Science 102:411- 416 (October 26, ~945). 59 Hearings on Science Legislation (S. 1297 and Related Bills), p. 999.

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 453 bomb. They made clear that there was no possibility of keeping the method of its construction secret and that within a few years any nation with the requisite industrial capacity would have the bomb. No one at the hearings questioned that massive federal aid was vital to national security or that the exhaustion of European science necessi- tated strong federal support to renew as ranidlv as possible the depleted capital of pure science. -—r^ - -I A- r With some dismay, the lawmakers, anxious for any legislation that would establish science as a shield for future security, found the scientists greatly at odds on the form that shield should take. Mem- bers of the Academy and the Research Council and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, who in numbers and extent of testimony dominated the hearings, were by no means in agreement. Frank B. Jewett, President of the Academy and Bush's close associate during the war, surprisingly enough opposed any foundation at all. Of Jewett's opposition to a national science founda- tion, Bush commented: Frank Hewett, as good a friend as a man could have, certainly thought I had gone berserk when I endorsed the recommendations of the various commit- tees, joined them together, and sent them to the President. He was sure that we were inviting federal control of the colleges and universities, and of industry for that matter, that this was an entering wedge for some form of socialistic state, that the independence which has made this country vigorous was endangered. And there were some, I feel sure, who thought this was some sort of a grandstand play by which a chap named Bush was trying to perpetuate into the peace the authority he exercised during the war. These latter were very far off the mark; I was as anxious to get out of government as were nearly all of those who manned the war laboratories.60 So far as Dr. Jewett could see, the aims of the two major bills read like restatements of the Executive Order that established the National Research Council in ~9~8, and he recommended that the Council be adapted to serve the ends proposed for the foundation.6t The OSRD administrators at the hearings, Bush, Conant, and Karl Compton, as well as Bowman, Hunsaker, Detlev Bronk, Henry D. Smyth, I. I. Rabi, and Roger Adams, firmly opposed Kilgore's politi- cally appointed director and his advisory board composed largely of government officials. They favored, instead, the foundation plan 60 Vannevar Bush, Pieces of the Action (New York: William Morrow & Co., ~970), p. 64. 6t Hearings on Science Legislation, pp. 43~43 I, 434.

454 I The Postwar Organization of Science in which the powers were vested in a board rather than in an administrator.62 Elsewhere in the halls of Congress that month a bill on control of atomic energy was preoccupying many of the same legislators and the same Academy witnesses; and in that shrill debate, as Rabi remarked to Senator Fulbright, Congress was witnessing "a new phenomenon, the scientists acting politically."63 Although the emotional content and public response aroused by the atomic energy bill surpassed that stirred by science legislation, its central issues and its outcome were . . slm1 ar. Atomic Energy Legislation On October 3, ~945, the same day that President Truman requested Congress to formulate legislation for domestic and international control of atomic energy, Representative Andrew l. May and Senator Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado introduced in Congress a joint bill to establish an atomic energy commission. 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. Patterson testified, the May-}ohnson bill had the unanimous support of the Interim Committee, the civilian group appointed by the President in May ~945 to advise him on the progress of the atomic bomb and to plan for its postwar development and control. Also supporting it were members of the scientific panel of the Interim Committee, l. Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Enrico Fermi. The May-Johnson bill, like the proposed legisla- tion for RBNS and the Magnuson bill for a science foundation, placed 62 Hearings on Science Legislation, pp. lo, 65-66, ~ ~3, 2O3, 563-564, 628, 649, 659, 826, 982, 99~. 63 Hearings on Science Legislation, p. 992. L. C. Dunn, Columbia zoologist and academician, was critical of the secondary role of the Academy during the war and after and proposed a "Department of Science" rather than the growing congeries of federal science agencies in his "Organization and Support of Science in the United States," Science 102:54~554 (November So, ~945). 64 Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World, 1939-1946: A History of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, ~96~), p. 4Og.

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 455 control over atomic energy in an administrator protected from poli- tics. The part-time board of nine commissioners was to be appointed by the President, with the executive direction of the commission left to a full-time administrator and deputy administrator appointed by the commissioners. 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 number- ing almost three thousand members, the group was spearheaded by Leo Szilard, Harold Urey, Harlow Shapley, and Edward U. Condon, the new Director of the National Bureau of Standards. The Federa- tion vociferously objected to what it considered rash legislation with- out adequate hearings, to the rigid security provisions and penalties of the bill, its emphasis on military rather than peaceful uses of atomic energy, its potential domination by the military, and its neglect of the crucial problem of international control.66 Dr. Jewett, regretting the hastily drafted legislation, offered the Academy's services to Condon, who had just become science adviser to Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, chairman of a recently appointed special committee to study the whole question of atomic legislation. However, the reluctance of the War Department to pro- vide the Academy with the necessary secret atomic data forced Hewett to withdraw the offer.67 65 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Military Affairs, Atomic Energy Hearings before the Committee on Military Affairs on H.R. 4280, 78th Cong., ~ st sees., October 9, ~ 8, ~ 945, pp. 4-5; Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 344-345, 4 ~o-4~s, 432; Marjorie Johnston (ed.), The Cosmos of Arthur Holly Compton (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ~967), pp. 258, 289. The Interim Committee, set up in Secretary Stimson's office, with Stimson as Chairman, included George L. Harrison, President, New York Life Insurance Com- pany and Special Consultant to Stimson; Bush; Conant; K. T. Compton; Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard; Assistant Secretary of State William L. Clayton; and lames F. Byrnes, as a special representative of the President. 66"The Atomic Energy Act," Science 102:441 (November 2, ~945); Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 445-448; Alice K. Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scien- tists' Movement in America, 1945~7 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ~965), pp. ~2~3~, 203 ff 67 Hewett to Condon, November 6, ~945 (NAS Archives: Jewett file so.g~); Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 44~45~.

42j6 I The Postwar Organization of Science Launching an educational program through public meetings and the press, the Federation of Atomic Scientists won support for a new bill prepared by the legal adviser on the McMahon committee, James R. Newman, a brilliant lawyer in the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, and his assistant Byron S. Miller. Its provisions were essentially incorporated in the bill submitted to Congress by Senator McMahon in December ~945, among them exclusion of the military from any policymaking functions and appointment by the President of a full-time commission of five members, one of whom would be designated chairman.68 The debate that raged in the Senate for more than five months ended on June I, ~946, when a compromise version of the McMahon bill passed the Senate by a unanimous vote. Among the amendments were those providing for a general manager to head the commission's staff, a general advisory committee on scientific and- technical 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 Author- ity, to head the new Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and Carroll L. Wilson was brought from OSRD to set up the administrative machinery and to serve as General Manager. Two months later President Truman appointed the General Advi- sory Committee for the AEC, its members Oppenheimer, Conant, Fermi, Rabi, Glenn T. Seaborg (University of California discoverer of plutonium), Cyril S. Smith (University of Chicago and NDRC metallur- g~st), Hood Worthington (DuPont chemical engineer with the Han- ford project), Lee A. DuBridge (President of the California Institute of Technology), and Hartley W. Rowe (Chief Engineer of the United Fruit Company, Chief of Division ~ ~ of the NDRC and Consultant to the Manhattan District, Los Alamos). Of the nine, five were members of the Academy and two, Seaborg and Smith, were subsequently elected. The Advisory Committee met for the first time January 3 and 4, ~947.7° 68 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee on Atomic Energy, Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Hearings before the Special Committee on Atomic Energy on S. 1717, 78th Cong., ad sees., January 22-April 8, ~946; Howard A. Meyerhoff, "Domestic Control of Atomic Energy," Science 103: 133-136 (February I, ~946). 69 Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 5 ~ 5-5 ~ 6; Patterson testimony in U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Military Affairs, Atomic Energy. Hearings on S. 1717, 78th Cong., 2d sees., June ~ I, ~2, 26, ~946, pp. ~8-20; The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (Public Law 585, 78th Cong., 60 stat., 755-75; 42 U.S.C., ~80~-~g). 70 Science 105:37 January lo, ~947); Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 62 I,

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 457 That same year, as the AEC began organizing its staff and opera- tions, it established a $1 million AEC-NRC fellowship program under the administration of the Research Council's new Office of Scientific Personnel, under which the whole of the NRC fellowship program had recently been placed. The first group of fellows, selected by five AEC-NRC boards set up in the Office, were ready for the academic year 948-~ 949.7~ Without the immediacy of atomic legislation and the cohesive forces behind it, legislation for a national science foundation continued to lag. 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. Doisey, Lee A. Du- Bridge, Caryl P. Haskins, Linus Pauling, A. N. Richards, Homer W. Smith, Warren Weaver, Lewis H. Weed, and some thirty other members of the scientific community, formed a Committee Support- ing the Bush Report. The committee's adherence to the Magnuson bill and opposition to legislation putting science under a Presidentially appointed director antagonized Truman, and he made it clear to the committee that his will must prevail.72 648; Lilienthal, "First Report on the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission," Science 105: 19~204 (February 2~, ~947). 7~ Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, p. 64~; NAS, Annual Report for 1947~8, pp. 44-45 The Research Council's Committee on Standards of Radioactivity, set up in ~938 to provide basic data for the work of the Council's Committee on the Measurement of Geological Time, expanded its activities shortly after the war and, following the establishment of the AEC in ~946, was renamed the Committee on Nuclear Science. A large-scale activity under Leon F. Curtiss, National Bureau of Standards physicist, the work of its twelve subcommittees, changing with the needs in the field, ranged from beta and gamma ray measurements, nuclear constants, transportation of radioactive substances, and radio chemistry to geophysical radioactivity, radiobiology, particle energy control techniques, and studies of small nuclear research reactors (NAS, Annual Report for 194647, pp. 5~-52 et seq.; NAS Archives: NAS-NRC Governing Board, "Minutes," 6. ~ . I, June 4, ~ 972). 72 For the organization of the Bowman committee, see OSRD Box 2~; reprint of Bowman committee letter to Truman, November 24, ~945, in Hearings on Science Legislation (S. 1297 and Related Bills), pp. ~ ~ 26-~ ~29; "Pending Legislation for Federal Aid to Science," Science 102:545-548 (November So, ~945); Truman to Bowman, in

458 / The Postwar Organization of Science In a plea for his legislation, Kilgore offered to soften some of its strictures in order to hasten establishment of the foundation. Science had become an integral and indispensable part of government, and, he agreed, must be administered by scientists. But they must be responsible to the President. On December ~ I, Kilgore introduced a redrawn bill, S. ~ 7eo, which, still adamant on the point of responsibil- ity, 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. ~850, was ready in February ~946. Under it, OSRD and its constituent committees, as well as the wartime Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel, were to be transferred to the foundation under an administrator responsible to the President and a governing board of scientists appointed by the President who would advise the President and the chairman. The foundation would be empowered to finance research programs either in other government agencies or in private organizations and to award fellowships and scholarships. An interdepartmental committee on science, chaired by the administrator, would conduct periodic reviews of the federal government's research and development ef- forts and, where it was found ineffective, recommend corrective measures to the President. Carefully spelled-out exceptions softened Kilgore's patent clause, and support for the social sciences was made contingent upon a survey of their function in the foundation. Kil- gore's allocation of research funds to land-grant colleges and other tax-supported universities in order to create more university research centers in the nation was retained despite protests.75 Dr. Jewett pronounced the compromise in reality "Kilgore raised to Meverhoff's "Science Legislation and the Holidav Recess*" Science 103:10 (January 4, ~ — — — — ~ ' ~946) 73 Kilgore, "Science and the Government," Science 102:630-638 (December at, ~945); "S. ~ 72O," Science 103 :39 14 (January ~ I, ~ 946). 74"The Committee for a National Science Foundation," Science 103:11 (January 4, i946) 7S Meyerhoff, "Compromise Bill for a National Science Foundation," Science 103:192 (February ~5, ~946), with text and final form in Science 103:225-230, 271-272 (March I, 8, ~946).

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 459 the nth power," and wondered at its support by Conant and Bowman. Although the bill had been reported out by the Committee on Military Affairs on March ~9, and was strongly supported by most of the Senate, by the Urey-Shapley committee, the Bowman committee, and an AAAS committee under Conant, two months later the bill had yet to be considered by the Senate.76 Suddenly, passage of the compromise bill was jeopardized, when on May ~ 5 Representative Wilbur D. Mills of Arkansas introduced H.R. 6448, a slight variant of the original Magnuson bill. At hearings two weeks later, Bush resurrected opposition to the Kilgore approach by declaring the new bill "better than any other piece of legislation I have seen for the purpose."77 The Kilgore-Magnuson bill, with its social science provision stricken at the last minute, passed the Senate early in July and was referred to the lower house. On July ~9, ~946, it died in the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, as did Mills's H.R. 6448. The wartime unity of scientists seemed impossible in peacetime, and passage of any science legislation appeared out of the question. 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. Dodds, President, Princeton University, March ~ I, ~946 (NAS Archives: CONG: Bills: National Science Foundation); Bowman committee, "Statement Concerning S. INTO," Science 103:558 (May 3, ~946); Meyerhoff, "The Senate and S. INTO," Science 103:58~590 (May lo, ~946). 77 Watson Davis, "Scientists Divided," Science 103:688 (June 7, ~946). 78 Meyerhoff, "H.R. 6448," and Watson Davis, "Scientists Divided," Science 103 :687-688 (June 7, ~946); Science 103 :724-726 (June 2 I, ~qa6); MeYerhoff. "Obituary: NSF. ~ DAB " Science I 04: 97-98 (August 2, ~ 946). 79 Karl T. Compton, "Science and National Policy," Scientific Monthly 63:12~128 (August ~946); Talcott Parsons, "National Science Legislation, Part I, An Historical Review," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 2:7-9 (November I, ~946); Philip N. Powers, "A National Science Foundation?" Science 104:610619 (December 27, ~946). ~ ~ - 7 — i/=— 7

460 I The Postwar Organization of Science support of science, the President and the armed forces could no longer wait for the organization and initiation of much needed postwar research.~° The dispersion of OSRD functions began. To assure continuance of long-range medical research begun during the war, Bush, on January I, ~946, transferred twenty-three of the CMR contracts to the Surgeon General of the Army and forty-two other medical contracts to the Public Health Service under Rolla Dyer, Director of the National Institute of Health. 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. A third contract with the Navy Air Surgeon and the Navy SO For an excellent account of federal assumption of new responsibilities for scientific research, see Albert C. Lazure and Andrew P. Murphy, Jr. (eds.), Research and Development Procurement Law (Washington: Federal Bar Journal, ~957). 8~ Irvin Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for War: The Administrative History of the Office of Scientific Research and Development [OSRD, SCIENCE IN WORLD WAR II] (Boston: Little Brown & Co., ~948), pp. 3~3-3~7, 3~9; C. J. Van Slyke, "New Horizons in Medical Research," Science 104 :55~567 (December ~ 3, ~ 946); George Rosen, "Pattern of Health Research in the United States, ~goo-~g60," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 39:220 (May- June ~ 965). R2 NAS, Annual Report for 194445, pp. 25-26. In July ~946, in order to make widely available its amassed data on chemical compounds with biological significance' the committee was reorganized as the Chemical-Biological Coordination Center [NAS, Annual Reportfor 194647, pp. 3~40 et seq.; NAS Archives: EX Bd: Chemical-Biological Coordination Center; E. C. Andrus, et al. (eds.), Advance.; in Military Medicine [OSRD, SCIENCE IN WORLD WAR II ] (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., ~948), Vol. II, pp. 542-545, 62~-645; NAS-NRC, News Report 2 :67-69 (September-October ~ 952)]. R3 NAS, Annual Reportfor 194647, pp. 37, 43 et seq. NAS Archives: EX Bd: Committee on Undersea Warfare. See also NAS-NRC Governing Board, `'Minutes," 7.4.~-7.4.2 (Sep- tember 20, ~969).

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 46 ~ Bureau of Medicine and Surgery continued the wartime research in aviation medicine.84 Early in ~946, the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave consideration to the establishment of a Joint Research and Development Board that would provide coordination of research and development of the two Services on a continuing peacetime basis. The new committee would, in effect, carry on the work of the Joint Committee on New Weapons and Equipment ~NW) that the joint Chiefs of Staff had set up under charter in May ~94~. It consisted of Bush as Chairman and one general of firer of the Army and one flag officer of the Navy. The JNW had operated so effectively during the war that the Joint Chiefs wanted a similar organization in the postwar period, again to be headed by Bush. Bush, however, felt that any new committee should have a clear delegation of authority that would enable it to resolve differences other than by reference to a superior body, in this case the Joint Chiefs. After several months of discussion, the matter was finally resolved when Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal decided that the new committee should be a committee of the two departments rather than of the joint Chiefs of Staff. The two Secretaries in a letter of June I, ~ 946, signed jointly, asked Dr. Bush to serve as Chairman. After some further discussion Bush accepted and the Joint Research and Development Board jRDB) was created by charter of June 6, ~946.85 The unification acts creating the National Military Establishment in ~947 and its successor, the Department of Defense in ~949, contained provision for a Research and Development Board to replace the JRDs. 84 NAS, Annual Report for 194546, pp. ~2-53 et seq., and NAS Archives files of the committees. For the organization of an NA - NRC medical advisory council to the Medical Departments of the Army and Navy and to the Veterans Administration, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1946~7, p. 69; NAS Archives: Jewett file so.72s. Of thirty-six Academy-Research Council committees acting for the Department of Defense and the AEC in ~954, almost half had their source in the divisions of OSRD. See report, "Summary of Activities of the Academy-Research Council Supported Wholly or in Part by Department of Defense or Atomic Energy Commission" (NAS Archives: ORG: Activities: Summary of Activities . . .: ~ 954). 85 Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for War, pp. 47, so. On the Joint Research and Development Board, Conant headed the Committee on Atomic Energy; Hartley Rowe, the Aeronautics Committee; Karl Compton, the Com- mittee on Guided Missiles; Julius A. Stratton, Professor of Physics at MIT, the Commit- tee on Electronics; Roland F. Beers, geophysicist at MIT, the Committee on Geophysical Sciences; and Charles H. Behre, fir., Columbia geologist, the Committee on Geo- graphical Exploration [Science 105:89-gl (January 24, 1947)].

462 I The Postwar Organization of Science The new Board, comprising two representatives each from the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, operated under the successive chairman- ships of Bush, Karl Compton, William Webster, and Walter G. Whit- man. 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 estab- lishment of the Academy's Research Board for National Security (RBNS). A group of young scientists in the Navy's Office of the Coordinator of Research and Development, with the counsel of Jerome Hunsaker and Rear Adm. Julius A. Furer and the support of Vannevar Bush, began planning an "Office of Naval Research" to function with RBNS and, eventually, with the projected federal science agency. In September ~945, a month before the brief reactivation of RBNS by the Army and Navy Secretaries, the Navy group drafted a bill, subsequently sponsored as H.R. 59~ ~ by Representative Carl Vinson of Georgia, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, for the establishment of an Office of Naval Research. Its "main features and philosophy were to embody many of the recommendations of the Bush report," a Navy spokesman reported, its "primary mission . . . in principle the same as that envisaged by the Wilson Committee for the RBNS, namely, to retain the collaboration of top level civilian scientists in all fields of research having a bearing on national security." The Navy worked out a contract arrangement acceptable to the universities that were to undertake the research. The agreements specifically assured to the scientists involved a maximum of freedom and permitted them to initiate projects "in fundamental research without restrictions" in nuclear physics, medicine, physics, chemistry, mathematics, electronics, mechanics, and meteorology; to explore new avenues; to publish their findings; and to continue their teaching.89 S6 U.S, Congress, House, Committee on Government Operations, Organization and Administration of the Military Research and Development Programs. Hearings before a Subcom- mittee of the House Committee on Government Operations, 83d Cong., ad sees., June ~954; Don K. Price, Government and Science: Their Dynamic Relation in American Democracy (New York: New York University Press, ~954), pp. ~44, ~5~-~5~. 87 Public Law 588, 78th Cong., 60 stat., 779; to U.S.C., 5~50-5~53. 88 John E. Pfeiffer, "The Office of Naval Research," Scientific American 180:11-15 (February ~949). 89 Ibid.

The Postwar Organization of Science / 463 The Naval Research Advisory Committee of ONR was formalized by charter all January ~4, ~947; its members, under Chairman Warren Weaver, included Detlev Bronk, Arthur Compton, Karl Compton, Richard I. Dearborn, Luis De Florez, Lee A. DuBridge, William S. McCann, Philip M. Morse, and Lewis A. Strauss. Two months later, ONR, under Adm. Harold G. Bowen and his civilian deputy, Yale physicist Alan T. Waterman, "found itself the sole government agency with the power to move into the void created by the phasing out of the OSRD.... 90 The War Department counterpart of ONR was the Research and Development Division, established in the spring of ~ 946. With a panel of consultants drawn from science, education, and industry, it was to direct research in War Department laboratories and coordinate it with programs in other military laboratories and in private institutions.9~ The dispersion of OSRD activities continued through ~94~. The Applied Physics Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University, which had produced the proximity fuze, continued to operate under con- tract with the Navy. Operations analysis functions that OSRD had initiated were carried on in the Operations Research Office (ORO) set up under Army contract with the Johns Hopkins University; in the Operations Evaluation Group under Navy contract with MIT; and in the RAND Corporation under Air Force sponsorship at Santa Monica, California.92 Little seemed to remain for a science foundation except some residual basic research and a scholarship program. The Steelman Report Truman was irritated at the impasse over science legislation in Con- gress, and on October ~7, ~946, he appointed the President's Scien- 90 The Bird Dogs (Bruce S. Old et al.), "The Evolution of the Office of Naval Research," Physics Today 14:35 (August ~96~); Purer, Administration of ldhe Navy Department in World WarII, p. 805; NAS Archives: AG&Depts: Navy: ONR: Naval Research Advisory Commit- tee: ~ 946. For the Research Council's ONR advisory committees in mathematics, geophysics, and astronomy, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 194748, p. 55. 9~ Dwight D. 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). 92 The promise of operations analysis and the concept of the "think tank" as a new applied science useful to the military led the Research Council in the spring of ~ 95 ~ to appoint a Committee on Operations Research under Horace C. Levinson, Chairman of

464 I The Postwar Organization of Science tific Research Board to be headed by the Assistant to the President, John R. Steelman, Director of the Office of war Mobilization and Reconversion. The members of the Board were: Robert P. Patterson, Secretary of War; James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy; Julius A. Krug, Secretary of the Interior; Clinton P. Anderson, Secretary of Agriculture; W. Averell Harriman, Secretary of Commerce; John D. Goodloe, Administrator, Federal Loan Agency; Watson B. Miller, Administrator, Federal Security Agency; Maj. Gen. Philip B. Fleming, Administrator, Federal Works Agency; Charles R. Denny, Jr., Chair- man, Federal Communications Commission; Jerome C. Hunsaker, Chairman, National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics; Vannevar Bush, Director, Office of Scientific Research and Development; David Lilienthal, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission; Gordon R. Clapp, Chairman, Tennessee Valley Authority; Gen. Omar N. Bradley, Ad- ministrator, Veterans Administration; and I. Donald Kingsley, who was named Executive Secretary. The Board was to report on the research programs of federal scientific agencies, the nature of non- federal research and development in the nation, and the interrelation of federal and nonfederal research.93 It seemed possible that with the current large-scale federal support of basic research projected for ONR, the Army's research division, and the National Institute of Health, and in view of the increased support of scientific research voted by Congress to some fifty other federal agencies, the immediacy of the need for a national science foundation had passed. Steelman reported otherwise: "The drying up of European scien- tific resources, the disruption of normal international exchange of scientific knowledge, and the virtual exhaustion of our stockpile of basic knowledge" made a national science foundation imperative. Federal support of research and development, particularly of basic research and health and medical research in the universities, industry, and government, must be accelerated as rapidly as possible, so that before the end of a decade expenditures for these purposes would be the Board of Tele-Rama, Inc., to study its application to industry, business, and government, and to offer the committee's services as a clearinghouse for its promotion and organized support. During the Korean War, operations research became of special concern to the Science Advisory Committee (SAC) in the Office of Defense Mobilization. See NRC report "Operations Research with Special Reference to Non-Military Applica- tions," April ~95~, and "Scientists and Mobilization: Some Views of the Science Advisory Committee on the Role of Academic Scientists," September ~ I, 1951 (NAS Archives: EXEC: ODM: SAC); Don K. Price, Government and Science, pp. 12~128. 93 Copy of Executive Order 979~, October ~7, ~946, in OSRD Box 32; NAS Archives: EXEC: President's Scientific Research Board: ~947.

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 465 at least 1 percent of the national income. The foundation, under a director appointed by the President and a part-time advisory board of eminent scientists and educators equally divided between government and nongovernment representatives, should support basic research and medical research outside the purview of other agencies and institutions, develop a long-range federal program of science scholarships and fellowships, and assist the universities in expanding their laboratory facilities and acquiring research equipment.94 Word of the preparation of the Steelman report brought on a rash of bills to create the science foundation. One, introduced by Senator Elbert D. Thomas (S. 5~5), was identical to the Kilgore-Magnuson bill (S. 1850) that had passed the Senate the previous session. Another, introduced by Senator H. Alexander Smith (S. 526), was a return to the original Magnuson bill. Four bills identical to Smith's S. 526 were also introduced in the House, among them Representative Wilbur D. Mills's H.R. 1830.95 Challenged by the new legislative activity, a coalition of the scientific community, under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, resolved to present a united front before Congress. Its moving spirits saw with concern the extent to which federal research was becoming firmly established in military hands and that the repeated failure of the scientists to come to any agree- ment among themselves had prevented Congress from creating the foundation. On February 23, ~947, representatives of almost seventy scientific societies, the members of the disbanded Bowman committee, and those of the still-active Committee for a National Science Foundation came together in the Inter-Society Committee on Science Foundation Legislation. The group included Chairman Edmund E. Day, Presi- dent of Cornell; Vice-Chairman Harlow Shapley, President of AAAS; an Inter-Society Executive Committee, including Dael Wolfle, Isaiah Bowman, Ralph W. Gerard, Henry Allen Moe, and W. Albert Noyes, fir.; and invited representatives of the Joint Research and Develop- ment Board, the President's Scientific Research Board, the U.S. Public Health Service, and the Office of Naval Research. They met to consider the chief point of contention in science legislation, the administration of the proposed foundation. By vote, 63 percent of the 94 The President's Scientific Research Board, Science and Public Policy. A Report to the President by John R. Steelman, vol. I, A Program for the Nation (Washington: Government Printing Office, ~947), pp. 3-7, 6~7~. 95 Science 105:171 (February ~4, ~947); NAS Archives: CONG: Bills: NSF: ~947. S. 525 and S. 526 were compared in Science 105:253-254 (March 7, ~947).

466 / The Postwar Organization of Science members of the Inter-Society Committee supported a Presidentially appointed director; 18 percent a large Presidentially appointed (forty-eight-member) board that would select the director; and 18 percent a small AEc-type board. Chairman Edmund Day reported the results of the poll to Repre- sentative 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. ~830, Dr. Bronk's strong support of research in the social sciences, and Dr. Jewett's continued resistance to any science foundation. Jewett felt that for fundamental research and education in science to be left to the foundation as a federal agency would be to make them completely vulnerable to all kinds of social and political pressures. He saw the foundation as duplicating Academy functions, since both basic research and education were already well provided for in the Academy's National Science Fund and its National Research Fellowships program, which wanted only augmentation, preferably through changes in the tax statutes to increase the attractiveness of voluntary personal contributions.97 In time, however, Jewett came to see that supervision of a national program of either basic research or science education was not within the scope of the Academy, and that the very proliferation of new science agencies, the acceleration of federal support of science, and the consequent extension of the frontiers of science would stretch the capabilities of the Academy to their utmost. Of the plethora of bills then before Congress, Senator Smith's S. 5~6, after some tinkering, was to raise the greatest hopes for a science foundation that would be satisfactory to the Administration. In its original form, the bill provided for a governing board of twenty-four Presidentially appointed members from science, en- g~neering, education, and public affairs, and an executive committee 96 Science 105:227 (February 28, ~947); U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, National Science Foundation. Hearings before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, on H.R. 942, H.R. 1815, H.R. 1830, H.R. 1834, and H.R. 2027, 80th Cong., fist sees., March ~7, ~947, pp. 63~4. 97,Jewett's extended views appeared in National Science Four~ian. Hearings, March 6, ~947, pp. 73-76, ps~-~°, and in a fifty-eight-page privately printed pamphlet, "The Case for Continuing Private Support of Fundamental Science," March ~8, ~947 (NAS Archives: CONG: Bills: National Science Foundation). Dr. Jewett in his late sixties had his share of "fixed ideas" and sometimes found it difficult "to accommodate himself to developments in the present very rapidly shifting scene in which science and engineering fmd themselves" [Merriam H. Trytten, Di- rector, NRC Office of Scientific Personnel, to Bronk, July ~7, ~947 (NAS Archives: ibid.)].

The Postwar Organization of Science / 467 of nine, elected by the board, which would appoint the director. The National Academy and leading education associations were to rec- ommend nominations for board members to the President, and the bill included a provision that the unexpended funds and the remain- ing contracts of OSRD were to be transferred to this "successor agen- cy," enabling it to begin operations shortly after its establishment. On May I, Edmund Day wrote Senator Smith and Representative Wolverton offering the Inter-Society Committee's endorsement of S. 5~6, with amendments reducing the size of the board from twenty- four to nine members and calling for Presidential appointment of the director after consultation with the board. The second of these amendments, that calling for Presidential appointment of the di- rector, was adopted by the Senate, as was one providing for distribu- tion of part of the funds on a geographic basis. The bill passed the Senate late in May, and the Academy, assured of the President's interest in establishing a foundation without delay and certain that the bill represented an acceptable compromise, canvassed its membership for nominations for the twenty-four members of the foundation, as called for by the bill.98 On July ~5, ~947, a House version of S. 526 was passed and in conference the two amendments were struck from the Senate's bill. It was the original S. 5~6 that both houses passed that summer and sent to the White House. The President, deeming it basically the same as the Magnuson bill, which had the director responsible to a part-time board rather than to the President, withheld his approval. It died by pocket veto on August 6.99 The veto shocked many of the leaders of science into accepting the fact that the nation's scientific enterprise, with a current budget of more than one billion dollars and the Steelman projection of twice that sum within the next decade, could no longer be considered apart from national policy and politics. Science was not merely auxiliary to the development of industry, medicine, and national defense, free to operate under the direction of existing organizations with a minimum of control by Congress and the President. It had become a national resource, subject to national planning, and responsible to the Presi- dent. 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). 99 Truman report on S. 526, August 6, ~947 (NAS Archives: CONG: Bills: National Science Foundation: ~947); Meyerhoff, "The Truman Veto," Science 106:23~237 (September ~ 2, ~947); Dael Wolile, "The Inter-Society Committee for a NSF: Report for ~947," Science 106:529-533 (December 5, ~947).

468 I The Postwar Organization of Science control of federal funds for research grants in the hands of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.~°° In November ~947, Harlow Shapley organized a committee that included Academy members Conant, K. T. Compton, Arthur L. 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. 526.~°2 The brief hearings that June on identical bills, S. 2385 (Smith) and H.R. 6007 (Wolverton), were chiefly remarkable for the almost total absence of representatives of the scientific community and for Dr. Jewett's objections submitted to the legislators, which included a reprint of Samuel Johnson's Rambler No. 91 ~ ~ 75 it, on the hazards to scientific research of dependence upon government support: The Sciences, after a thousand indignities, retired from the palace of Patron- age, and having long wandered over the world in grief and distress, were led at last to the cottage of Independence, the daughter of Fortitude; where they were taught by Prudence and Parsimony to support themselves in dignity and quiet. ~03 The hearings came at a bad time. Congress was fighting a rising tide of inflation and developing legislation for Truman's European Re- covery Program. In the further distraction of a Presidential election year, neither science bill was acted on. A Restatement of Academy Policy The ultimate creation of a national science foundation, Dr. Jewett felt, would enhance rather than diminish the need for the National 'A Science and Public Policy, Vol. I, pp. 12, ~3; Science 106:141 (August ~5, ~947); Washington Association of Scientists, "Towards a National Science Policy?", Science 106:385-387 (October 24, ~947). 'a' Shapley to Bronk, November 5, ~947 (NAS Archives: CONG: Bills: National Science Foundation: ~ 947). ~02 WolRe, "Inter-Society Committee for a NSF," Science 107:235 (March 5, ~948). t03 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, National Science Foundation. Hearings before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, on H.R. 6007 and S. 2385, Both Cong., ad sees., June I, ~948, pp. ~ ~8-~23.

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 469 Academy of Sciences. "It is clear," he wrote, "that the Academy and Research Council should be kept in a virile state."~04 The Academy's limited endowment, however, did not provide funds sufficient to support an expansion of the Research Council's activities. Jewett knew that the increased importance of science and technology to the nation would mean a growing need for the services of the Research Council. Additional income and office space would be necessary. Preliminary discussions with foundation trustees were en- couraging, 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 Coun- cil had served fairly well during the war, but had proved cumbersome at times and not sufficiently specific with respect to authority and responsibility. This had been particularly evident in the many ac- tivities in the Academy and Research Council in which both had interests, and whose smooth operation, as Dr. Jewett said, had de- pended upon the good personal relationship of the President of the Academy and the Chairman of the Research Council. In December ~ 945, at Dr. Jewett's request, Ross G. Harrison, Chairman of the Research Council, appointed a committee to survey the functions of the Research Council, its future activities, and its relationships. The members were: Lewis H. Weed (Chairman), Chairman of the NRC Division of Medical Sciences; Luther P. Eisenhart, Vice-President of the Academy and Chairman of the NRC Division of Physical Sciences; and William W. Rubey, Chairman of the NRC Division of Geology and Geography. The Weed report a month later called for a maximum of autonomy in Research Council operations, closer personal contact with federal officials, and appointment of a full-time Chairman of the Council.~07 In May, Jewett turned these recommendations over to a special i04 NAS, Annual Report for 194546, pp. 6-7 i05 jewett to Ross G. Harrison, May 28, 1945 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS—NRC: Reorganiza- tion). i06 Jewett to members of the Council of the NAS, April ~9, ~946 (ibid.). ~07 [Weed report], "Report of Committee to Survey Functions of Research Council," February 28, ~946 (ibid.). As Dr. Jewett said, "The National Academy of Sciences had been negligent in this obligation [to implement the Executive Order establishing the Research Council] and should be more active in the National Research Council" (NAS, Annual Report for 194647, p. ~6).

470 I The Postwar Organization of Science Ross Granville Harrison, Chairman of the National Re- search Council, 1938-1946 (Photograph courtesy Sterling Memorial Library, Yale Univer- sity). committee under Isaiah Bowman. The principles for the reorganiza- tion of the Research Council, "to strengthen fit] as the chief operating agency of the Academy," were approved by the Council of the Academy a month later. 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. Bronk had recently left his post as Coordinator of Research in the Office of the Army Air Surgeon to return to the University of Pennsylvania as head of its Johnson Research Foundation. Bronk felt ~°8 Jewett to Bowman, Bush, Adams, Weed, May 17, 1946, and "Comments from Members of Informal Committee. . ." (NAS Archives: Hewett file 50.71); NAS, Annual Report for 194546, pp. 3-4, 12; 194647, pp. 161-165. For the revision, see 194849, pp. 11, 17-19, 121-135.

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 47 ~ that he must reserve some time for the Foundation and for his own research, but he agreed to accept the appointment, effective July I, 6.~°9 Jewett's presidency, Bush wrote to him that spring, had been a notable one, for the pages he had written in the war record of the Academy, for his "remarkable" success in putting Academy finances in order, and for the order he had brought into the Academy- Research Council structure and relationship.~° The last months of ~946 and the following spring were a time of reappraisal and restoration, as the new Academy-Research Council administration took stock of its mission and attempted to restore its premises, both literally and figuratively, from the neglect of the war years. The whole of the interior of the building was then undergoing repair and repainting, and extensive landscaping was being done. Except for the Committee on Medical Research, which remained until January ~94;, the offices of OSRD and other wartime agencies had departed; but their places were immediately taken by the expanding activities of the Research Council and its new committees. Indeed, one committee had to be housed in the Munitions Building across the street, and the temporary partitions in the exhibit rooms, the audi- torium balconies, and the library had to remain in place. Reappraisal of the Research Council mission appeared in Bronk's first report and a similar reassessment of the Academy in ~ewett's farewell address to the membership at the autumn meeting in ~947. Dr. Bronk, who was to give something more than half his time to the chairmanship, was not to make the Research Council "the most powerful centralized scientific institution in the Nation," as Jewett had said a full-time chairmanship promised. But he did set the Re- search 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~); Bronk to Jewett, June lo and 26, ~946 (NAS Archives: ORG: Appointments: Chairman NRC). I Bush to Jewett, April 26, ~946 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.7~, Reorganization of NRC). ~ ~~ NAS, Annual Report for 194546, pp. ~20; 194647, p. 24. 'l2 Jewett to Bronk, March 28, ~946 (NAS Archives: Jewett file 50.7~).

472 I The Postwar Organization of Science security and general welfare, but more important, "a powerful agent for the furtherance of scientific research, for the development of national research, and for the translation of scientific knowledge into socially useful achievements."~3 At the same time that Bronk was resetting the course of the Research Council, Dr. Jewett, reflecting on his eight years as Presi- dent of the Academy, worked on his last address to the membership, a position paper on the role of the Academy in its relation to the federal government. ~ 14 Before a full meeting of the Academy members in closed session that November, he called on them to look again at the Act of Incorporation. No other legislative directive in the history of the federal government, he said, compared in brevity, simplicity, sweep- ing powers, and consummate flexibility with that "astounding docu- ment." Equally remarkable, nothing in its wording contained the slightest attempt to shackle the Academy to the problems or to the philosophy of ~863. It was extremely doubtful whether anything like it could have succeeded in the halls of Congress at any time in the years since. In less than forty words the Act of Incorporation in effect created in the whole domain of science a supreme court of final advice beyond which there was no higher authority in the Nation and ensured that so far as was humanly possible its findings would be wholly in the public interest uninfluenced by any elements of personal, economic, or political force.~5 ' NAS, Annual Report for 1946-47, pp. 3 ~-33, 38. For example, the Committee on Growth of the Division of Medical Sciences had recently accepted responsibility for dispersing funds of the American Cancer Society for cancer research and training. In the next eleven years a total of $25 million was disbursed on the recommendation of the committee [NAS, Annual Report for 194546, p. 46 et seq.; R. Keith Cannan, "Cancer Research and the Committee on Growth, ~945—~956, NAS—NRC, News Report 6:53—57 (July—August ~956)]. 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. NAS, Annual Report for 194647, pp. 34-38. ti4 Foreshadowed in the Academy's report for ~946-47 (pp. I, ~6), jewett's paper, "The Academy Its Charter, Its Functions and Relations to Government," was read at the November ~7, ~947, business session of the Academy. It was subsequently pub- lished in NAS, Proceedings 48 :481-490 (April ~ 5, ~ 962). ~ ~ 5 Proceedings, ibid ., p. 482 .

The Postwar Organization of Science 1 473 If the federal government in the past had not made full use of the Academy it created, the Academy had also failed to promote its availability. The mobilization of science in the war just ended had demonstrated as never before the enormous range and effectiveness of the Academy and the Research Council when responding to its obligations to the government. 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] on the Research Council the maximum of autonomy compatible with the fact that it is a Committee of the Academy; that its power to serve effectively stems from the authority of the Academy Charter; and that in the last analysis the Academy is responsible for its acts. Jewett also banished the long-held notion that the Academy could act for the government only when called upon and had no power of initiative or privilege of providing advice. The "whenever called upon" provision in the Charter related only, he said, to the obligation of the government to reimburse the Academy for expenses incurred in government service, and neither in theory nor in practice, except as the Academy so elected, had ever possessed any validity.~7 The Charter of the Academy was still, after eighty-four years, the source of its opportunity for service, and only as its Constitution and Bylaws acted in any way to modify the intent and operation of its Charter was there any limit on the future activities of the Academy. is Proceedings, ibid., pp. 483, 487. 7 Proceedings, ibid ., p. 488. Dr. Bronk, in his Annual Report for 194647 (pp. 3~-32), agreed that a time of revolutionary changes confronted the nation and that the Research Council was beginning a new period in its history. Henceforth it would be "more than a waiting agency through which governmental and private organizations [might] seek assistance from the scientists of the country." The Council intended to be "adventurous in seeking opportunities for leadership and useful action in all fields." t~8 Knowing that Dr. Hewett was to discuss Academy policy that day, Joe H. Hilde- brand, head of the University of California department of chemistry, concluded the day's meeting with some remarks that he hoped would pave the way for a change in the concept of the office of the President. Although Jewett had already raised and answered many of his questions, why, Hildebrand asked, had the Academy given way to another agency in time of war? Why did its opinions seem to be expressed only when the government thinks to ask for them? It was the business of the officers of the Academy to execute policy, but why should not Academy policies be more imaginative and aggressive? Why, above all, had Academy members no opportunity to discuss questions of science and public policy? (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Meetings: Autumn: ~ 947).

474 / The Postwar Organization of Science Dr. ~ewett's restatement of the Academy mission was unequivocal. But he was still not certain that in the recent reorganization of the Research Council he had found the best solution to the "multiple Academy-Research Council dilemma," namely, the relationship be- tween the President of the Academy and the Chairman of the Re- search Council. Would it ensure greater Academy effectiveness to make the Research Council chairmanship a career job and the presi- dency an honorary position, or perhaps to provide two Vice- Presidents of the Academy, one to succeed the President and the other to preside over the Research Council? Or should the direction of the Academy and the Research Council be combined under a single head? Should the head of the Research Council be required to be a member of the Academy? I know there are two schools of thought in the Academy and I sympathize with both. My eight years as President has taught me, however, that some of the things the ivory tower boys would like are impossible as things are now set up. Possibly Richards [the new Academy President] or his successor can find an answer which will satisfy all the members and all the conditions but I doubt it.~9 Dr. Jewett's personal conviction that the Chairman of the Research Council ought also to be a member of the Academy and so automati- cally 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 ~ ).