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OCR for page 475
2~ '[he Years
between
the Wars
ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (~947—i950)
After the dynamic wartime presidency of Frank B. Jewett, that of
Alfred Newton Richards was in the nature of an interregnum, low-
keyed and lasting just three years. Yet, during that brief period the
Academy and its President were involved in some of the most urgent
and intensive inquiries in its history.
Trained at the turn of the century in the new science of physiologi-
cal chemistry, Richards had been for almost forty years Professor of
Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania. His was a career with
few interruptions apart from a brief tour of duty in ~9 ~8 setting up a
field laboratory for the study of problems of chemical warfare at
Chaumont, France.
Behind Richards's deceptive gravity of mien lay a lively sense of
humor and a pungent wit. He delighted in teaching and frequently
declared it as important to him as his research. His classroom manner
and even his research papers were characterized by a lifelong habit of
475
OCR for page 476
476 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947—1950)
Alfred Newton Richards, Pres-
ident of the Academy, ~947-
~gbo (Photograph courtesy
Chase News).
self-deprecation. This, however, did not conceal the importance of
the discoveries he made in the physiology of the kidney and in the
chemistry of digestion, adrenal glycosuria, the action of cyanides, and
histamine. Among his most significant contributions were his classic
paper with Dale in ~9~8 on the effect of histamine on the circulation
of the blood, and his verification in ~923, by microexperimental
methods he devised, of Karl Ludvig's f~ltration-reabsorption theory
of urine formation proposed more than half a century before.2 He was
elected to the Academy in ~927.
Richards's term as Chairman of the Academy Section on Physiology
and Biochemistry, his first Academy office, was just ending when he
was called to Washington by Vannevar Bush in ~94~ to direct the
Committee on Medical Research (CMR) of the OSRD. In Bush's words:
It soon became evident that the one man for chairman was A. Newton
Richards. He had a distinguished record in medical research. But, more
' Car! F. Schmidt in HAS, Biographical Memoirs 42:271-318 (~97~). See also DetIev W.
Bronk's "Alfred Newton Richards ( ~ 876- ~ 966)," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
19:413~22 (Spring ~976).
2 Charles l. Singer and E. Ashworth Underwood, A Short History of Medicine (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2d ea., ~962), pp. 302, 559.
OCR for page 477
The Years between the Wars 1 477
important, he was a wise man, trusted by all who knew him. It was a fortunate
choice. Many years later, for he lived to be ninety, I concluded that, of all the
able men I have known, of all the men of science I have known, he was the
most fully respected, yes, the most beloved by his colleagues and by everyone
who knew him.,
As Chairman of the Committee on Medical Research, Richards pre-
sided over more than three hundred wartime projects in the medical
sciences, showing "great patience and skill in piloting the CMR in a
difficult role," guiding the huge research and development programs
in plasma, penicillin, and the new sulfa drugs; in infectious diseases;
in insecticides; and in aviation medicine. In these and other pro-
grams, CMR made effective use of two major operating agencies of the
National Research Council, the Division of Medical Sciences headed
by Lewis Weed and the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technol-
ogy headed by W. Mansfield Clark.4
When his duties as Chairman of CMR ended early in ~946, Newton
Richards returned on a full-time basis to the University of Pennsyl-
vania, where he resumed his duties as Vice-President in Charge of
Medical Affairs. A year later, at age seventy-one, he was elected
President of the National Academy.
He was reassured by Hewett that with the postwar confusion easing
and Academy affairs in good shape he would not find the presidency
"unduly onerous." Admitting some apprehension "The unknown is
full of terrors" Richards accepted Jewett's offer of help and his
assurance that the complicated process of selecting and sending to
Japan the group of scientists requested by Gen. Douglas MacArthur
to advise on the rehabilitation of Japanese science would be ac-
complished before Richards took over.5
Richards, like Hewett, was to spend just two or three days each week
in Washington, conducting much of the routine of the Academy
office, with the help of a part-time secretary, from his office in
Philadelphia. He felt a strong sense of personal responsibility for the
Academy, however, as well as increasing distress over the postwar
world. He was aware of the turmoil of reorganization and adjustment
in federal agencies, and in his first annual report he called attention to
~ Vannevar Bush, Pieces of the Action (New York: William Morrow & Co., ~970), p. 4.
4 Memorandum, Carroll L. Wilson to Vannevar Bush, May lo, ~943 (OSRD Box 39).
5 Frank B. Jewett to Alfred N. Richards, May 5, ~947, and replies on May 7 and May 9,
~947; Jewett to Richards, May 9, ~947 (NAS Archives: Jewett file solo).
OCR for page 478
478 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947—1950)
"the paucity of direct requests from departments of the Goverr~-
ment."6
During those years the involvement of leading Academy members
in the angry debates in and out of Congress over the organization of
the National Science Foundation and the Atomic Energy Commission
reflected for a time on the Academy's reputation for detachment.
The Loyalty Issue
The controversy over atomic legislation caused some Congressmen to
resent the scientists who had worked on the atomic bomb and who
had been active in seeking transfer of control of atomic energy
from the army to the civilian AEC. Rumors of foreign and domestic
Communist activities in connection with the development of the bomb
began to appear in the press. On July ~7, ~947, the press reported
that Representative l. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, Chairman of
the Subcommittee on National Security of the House Committee on
Un-American Activities, was investigating Edward U. Condon, atomic
physicist, member of the Academy, and recently appointed Director
of the National Bureau of Standards, concerning his acquaintance
with Russian scientists and with alleged Communist sympathizers in
this country.
Dr. Condon, at Los Alamos during the war, had been scientific
adviser to the McMahon committee that secured civilian control of
atomic energy. Congressman Thomas pointed out that Condon, as
the current head of the National Bureau of Standards, directed "one
of the most important national defense research organizations in the
United States, the target of espionage agents of numerous foreign
powers."7
Innuendo became allegation in March ~948, when Thomas handed
a report of his subcommittee to the newspapers, charging that "the
Soviet Union and her satellite nations have been desperately attempt-
ing ... to secure our complete atomic knowledge.... From the evi-
dence at hand, it appears that Dr. Condon is one of the weakest links
in our atomic security." He has, said Thomas, "knowingly or unknow-
ingly, entertained and associated with persons who are alleged Soviet
6 NAS, Annual Report for 1947~S, pp. i, 6; fewest to members of the Council of the
Academy, June lo, ~947 (NAS Archives: lewett file solo).
7 The quotations here and background of the episode are from Stephen K. Bailey and
Howard D. Samuel, Congress at Work (New York: Henry Holt & Co., ~952), pp.
32~-336, 487.
OCR for page 479
The Years between the Wars 1 479
espionage agents." As he had repeatedly since the previous July,
Condon again asked to be heard by the subcommittee. He was
ignored.
At the annual meeting of the Academy in April ~948, President
Richards reported on a statement approved earlier by a majority of
the Academy membership condemning the Thomas subcommittee's
refusal to hear Condon and pointing out that such treatment was
certain to deter scientists from entering government employment and
to diminish the respect of citizens for service in the government.
The statement, presented by Richards to Thomas at an interview on
April ~4, produced the promise of a hearing on April 23. When none
was held, Richards on May 3 gave a report on the Academy statement
to the press.8
Although he had long been cleared by the loyalty board of the
Department of Commerce, by the two Commerce Department Sec-
retaries under whom he had served, and most recently by the Atomic
Energy Commission, Condon continued to be the object of the
subcommittee's defamation by innuendo. One consequence was that
scientists in large numbers, particularly in the atomic field, left
government laboratories to return to their universities. In September
~95 I, convinced that he would not be heard and that the calumny had
destroyed his usefulness to the Bureau of Standards, Condon submit-
ted his resignation to President Truman.
The Condon episode coincided with a series of crises in this
country's relations with Russia, a period also marked by a temporary
stasis in the debate on science legislation in Congress. Using its veto in
the United Nations to sabotage every effort to restore the war-
wrecked economies of Europe or to come to any agreement on the
international control of atomic energy, Russia began moving into the
political vacuum, raising the spectre of a third world war.
When in ~946 Russia threatened to draw Greece and Turkey into
the Soviet orbit, the Truman Doctrine, announced in March ~947,
promised U.S. support to nations resisting Russian aggression. In
February ~948 Czechoslovakia fell to Communist domination, an
event followed by the attempted takeover of Finland, the blockade of
Berlin, and the threat of Communist Party domination of France and
Italy. The Marshall Plan, formulated by the United States in April
NAS, Annual Report for 1947~8, pp. 5-6.
For the Academy's Committee on Civil Liberties appointed in November ~ 948 under
James Conant, with members O. E. Buckley and J. Robert Oppenheimer, see Annual
Reportfor 1948-49, pp. 2, lO; NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Civil Liberties: Ad Hoc:
~948-~949
OCR for page 480
480 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947 - 1950)
~948, began the restoration of European economies. With the organi-
zation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in March
~949, Canada, the United States, and ten nations of Northern Europe
agreed to joint action in the event of attack by Russia. World fears
continued to grow when Chiang Kai-shek fled to Formosa in January
~949, and eight months later the Chinese mainland was taken over by
the Communist armies of Mao Tse-tung.
In the summer of ~gbo a new menace came from another quarter
when North Korean troops crossed the border into the two-year-old
Republic of South Korea. The United States dispatched American
forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and wartime controls were
. . ~ ~ . .
again in ettect in t AS country.
Establishment of the National Science Foundation
As the international situation deteriorated, the new research agencies
in the armed services urged prompt establishment of the National
Science Foundation in order to mobilize science planning in the event
of an emergency. When the Cold War threatened to become an active
war, Congress instead made sharp cuts in research appropriations,
diverting the funds to procurement. Fearful of the consequences to
their fundamental research programs, both the Research and De-
velopment Board of the Department of Defense and the Office of
Naval Research urged legislative action on the science foundation, as
a supporting agency for their endangered projects.9
In March ~949, almost twenty months after Truman's pocket veto
of S. 5~6, Representative }. Percy Priest's Subcommittee on Public
Health, Science, and Commerce in the House Committee on Inter-
state and Foreign Commerce convened hearings on new proposals for
the science foundation, all of them salvaged from the wreckage of the
earlier science bills.~°
An amendment to the most likely of the House bills, Priest's H.R.
4846, brought a sharp reaction from the National Academy of
Sciences. Just prior to its passage in the House on March I, Ago,
9 See Science 105:171-172 (February ~4, ~947) and John E. Pfeiffer, "The Office of
Naval Research," Scientific American 180:14 (February ~949).
to U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, National
Science Foundation. Hearings, on H.R. 12, S. 247, and H.R. 359, gist Cong., fist sees.,
March 3~, April I, 4, 5, 26, ~949. Page one of the Hearings noted eight new bills under
consideration. See also Science 109 :267 (March ~ I, ~ 949); Dael Wolfle, "A National
Science Foundation: ~gbo Prospects," Science 111:79-81 (January 27, two).
OCR for page 481
The Years between the Wars 1 48 ~
Representative Howard W. Smith of Virginia attached an amendment
to the bill that required FB! investigation and clearance of every
member of the foundation and of every individual awarded a fellow-
ship or scholarship. On March ~8, Senator Daniel l. Flood of Pennsyl-
vania added a similar amendment to his companion bill, S. ~4~.
The scientific community was aroused; the Council of the
Academy protested the amendments as unjustifiable and menacing to
the spirit of research, declaring the likelihood remote that any re-
search under a National Science Foundation scholarship would in-
volve national security. The stand had support in Congress, and an
oath of allegiance was substituted for the loyalty amendments.'
On April ~7, Ago, after five years of debate and last-minute
resolution of minor differences in the Priest and Flood bills, the
House passed its revised version, and a day later the bill passed in the
Senate. The act was signed into law by President Truman on May
lo. The long-debated National Science Foundation, as a new inde-
pendent agency in the Executive Branch, had come into being.
Established to "promote the progress of science; to advance the
""'Statement of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences," Science 111:315
(March 24, two); NAS, Annual Reportfor 1949-50, pp. 3-4, 39-4O.
This was the second protest by the Council of the Academy concerning unnecessary
security investigations (see U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Atomic
Energy Commission Fellowship Program, Hearings before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
8 ~ st Cong., ~ st sees., May ~ 949).
In August ~949 the Senate passed a rider to the ~gbo Independent Offices Appro-
priations Act, introduced by Senator Joseph C. O'Mahoney of Wyoming, requiring FB!
loyalty and security investigations of all AEC fellows, then numbering over four
hundred. When no modification for nonclassified projects could be effected, the
Academy, whose Research Council administered the AEC fellowship program under
contract, requested that the AEC take over the program. Pressed to continue, the
Academy negotiated a new and more limited agreement with the AEC, which made no
offer of predoctoral fellowships for two- ~ 95 ~ and provided Research Council admin-
istration of postdoctoral fellowships during that year only for fellows whose intended
research involved access to classified data. Thereafter the Research Council limited its
role to the evaluation of the scientific qualifications of candidates until the AEC
terminated the program in September ~ 953 [Committee of the Federation of American
Scientists, "Loyalty and Security Problems of Scientists: A Summary of Current Clear-
ance Procedures," Science 109:621-624 (rune 24, ~949); Science 110:103 (July 22, ~949);
"Statement of the National Academy . . . ," Science 110:64~651, 670 (December ~6,
~949); NAS, Annual Report for 1949-50, pp. ~-3, YO-YO; 1950-51, p. 36; Oak Ridge
Institute of Nuclear Studies, Final Report, Atomic Energy Commission Predoctoral and
Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Physical and Biological Sciences, May 1, 1948 to September 30,
1953 (Oak Ridge: n.d.), p. v].
See also the NAS position paper prepared by A. N. Richards (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS:
Council of the Academy: Meetings: January 22, HOBO).
~2 Science 111:396 (April ~4, Go); ibid., 506 (May 5, Mao); ibid., 558 (May 26, Mao).
OCR for page 482
482 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947—1950)
national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national de-
fense and for other purposes," the Foundation was empowered to
initiate and support by grant or contract basic research in the mathe-
matical, physical, biological, and engineering sciences, and, upon the
request of the Secretary of Defense, to contract for research relating
to national defense. Patent rights resulting from research initiated by
the Foundation were to be disposed of "in a manner calculated to
protect the public interest and the equities" of the researcher or
. .
researc ~ organization.
The Foundation would take over and maintain the National Roster
of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (accomplished in the National
Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel in ~953) and foster the
interchange of scientific information between scientists here and
abroad. It was also to evaluate the research programs of federal
agencies and to "develop and encourage the pursuit of a national
policy for the promotion of basic research and education in the
sciences."
From the point of view of the Academy, the legislation represented
an acceptable compromise of differences that had split its member-
ship. The Science Foundation was by no means the central scientific
agency originally conceived, but instead supplemented existing agen-
cies, acting to promote the advancement of science, to fill gaps in the
support of basic research, and to provide funds that were unavailable
from private organizations for the training of young scientists.
The Foundation got off to a slow start when the House failed to
appropriate the full half million dollars authorized for its organiza-
tional activities and diverted half that sum instead to current
emergency spending.~4 It was November Anglo, seven months later,
before President Truman appointed the twenty-four-member Na-
tional Science Board, which was to establish its general policies and
guide its operation. On the Board were Academy members Detlev W.
Bronk, Gerti T. Cori, Tames B. Conant, Lee A. DuBridge, Edwin B.
Fred, Robert F. Loeb, H. Marston Morse, and Elvin C. Stakman.~5
t5 National Science Foundation Act of 1950, P.~. 5O7 (64 Stat ~49-~57), Use Cong., 2d
sees., May lo, two; U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Science and Astronautics,
The National Science Foundation: A General Review of Its First 15 Years, 88th Cong., fist
sees., ~965, pp. 3 ff.
~4 Science 112 :288 (September ~5, Ago); The National Science Foundation: A General
Review of Its First 15 Years, p. 32.
]5 "The National Science Board," Science 112:607 (November ~7, two). For subsequent
notes on the operation of the National Science Board, see Science 155:1063-1066
(March 3, ~ 967); ibid., 156:474 177 (April 28, ~ 967).
OCR for page 483
The Years between the Wars / 483
Early the next year, on March 9, 1951, the President appointed as
Director of the Foundation Alan T. Waterman, Yale physicist and
wartime Deputy Chief of the Office of Field Service, OSRD, then in his
fifth year as Director of the Office of Naval Research.
A decade after its establishment, Alan Waterman reported on the
state of the Foundation. He saw it as initially overshadowed by the
array of new scientific organizations set up in the government after
the war and as only recently gaining its place among them and
completing the edifice based on the principles that Bush had pro-
jected in Science, the Endless Frontier. ~7
The responsibility of the Foundation for the development of a
national science policy proved "an extremely troublesome and dif-
ficult problem," and its evaluation and correlation functions proved
"unrealistic." Yet, in its principal objectives, the support of basic
research and education, it developed into the institution envisioned in
the Bush report, reflecting with new relevance Alexander D. Bache's
dictum of ~85~, that the utilization of science in the nation's welfare
was a fundamental responsibility of the federal government.
Despite the troubles and uncertainties that afflicted the country and
the Academy during the brief period between World War II and the
Korean conflict, Richards's short presidency was marked by many
positive accomplishments. These included the establishment of the
Pacific Science Board and the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission; a
fresh and greatly broadened approach to the field of oceanography;
and, finally, active support of the State Department's concentrated
effort to include science more significantly in the conduct of foreign
relations.
The Pacific Science Board
The Pacific Science Board grew out of a National Research Council
conference, held in ~946, the year prior to Dr. Richards's election, to
plan resumption of scientific research in the Pacific, particularly in
the vast island area of Micronesia, recently taken from the Japanese,
~6 Science 113 :340 (March 23, ~ 95 ~ ).
~7 Cf. Bronk in NAS, Annual Report for 1950-51, p. xi.
'8 Alan T. Waterman, in Science 131 :1342, 1344 (May 6, ~960); Waterman, "Introduc-
tion" to Science, the Endless Frontier, National Science Foundation reprint, July ~960, pp.
vii, xix, xx, xxii-xxiii, xxvii. See also The National Science Foundation: ~ General Review of
Its First 15 Years, passim.
OCR for page 484
484
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OCR for page 485
The Years between the Wars 1 485
who had totally excluded other nations from that region for more
than thirty years.
Micronesia, or Oceania, as it appeared on prewar maps, comprises
~,~4~ islands scattered over more than 3,ooo,ooo square miles in the
Pacific. Fewer than loo of those islands were inhabited when the
Japanese seized the area from the Germans at the beginning of World
War I. In the absence of other national interests, the Japanese had
been granted a mandate by the League of Nations in Ago. In ~947
the area was made the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, a United
Nations trusteeship administered by the United States. There the
Pacific Science Board undertook "the largest coordinated field pro-
gram ever attempted by anthropologists."~9
Academy interest in research in the Pacific was by no means new,
going back to the turn of the century when the United States made
Hawaii and Eastern Samoa territories and annexed the Philippines
after the Spanish-American War. But Academy plans proposed in
~ go3 for scientific explorations in the Philippines, and in ~ 9 ~ 5- ~ 9 ~ 6
for studies of the Coral Islands of the Pacific, failed to obtain financial
support.20
Somewhat better success attended a Research Council Committee
on Pacific Exploration, organized in ~ 9 ~ 9 under University of
California paleontologist John C. Merriam. Two years later it was
reconstituted as the Committee on Pacific Investigations, for the
promotion of research and exploration in the area. Its Chairman was
Herbert E. Gregory, physiographer and Director of the 13ernice P.
Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and the Vice-Chairman was Thomas
Wayland Vaughan of the U.S. Geological Survey. Prior to its dissolu-
tion in Ado, the Merriam committee organized the first Pan-Pacific
Scientific Conference (thereafter called Pacific Science Congress),
attended by scientists from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand,
England, China, Hawaii, the Philippines, and the United States. The
Congress became, with few exceptions, a continuing triennial event.
'9 NAs, Annual Report for 1946~ 7, p. 8 I; 1 947~S, p. 7.
20 NAS, Annual Report for 1904, pp. 2 I-33; 1916, p. 23. The Academy's new Proceedings
(I :14~157, ~9~ 5) included William Morris Davis's "The Origins of Coral Reefs" and a
year later (2:391-437, ~9~6) his Academy-sponsored symposium on the exploration of
the Pacific. Discussions at this symposium resulted in the appointment in ~9~6 of an
Academy Committee on Pacific Exploration with Davis as Chairman. This committee
was later absorbed by the Research Council's Committee on Pacific Exploration under
John C. Merriam.
2~ NAS, Annual Report for 1920, pp. 48, 52, 74; 1921, p. 22; "Minutes of the Committee
on Pacific Investigations, lone 9, 1921" (NAS Archives: PR: Com on Pacific Investiga-
OCR for page 506
506 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947 - 195O)
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1
"Ye Olde Committee on Oceanography." Detail from the frontispiece of The Light of
Navigation (~6~) by Willem Jantszoon Blaeu to which were added names of several
members of the Academy Committee on Oceanography (From the archives of the
Academy).
with the program set out in this study, the committee became one of
the most important and productive ever established by the National
Academy.
The operation of the committee led to an innovation in Academy-
government relations. The report had an unquestioned impact, owing
to the successful efforts of the committee chairman to gain the inter-
est of congressmen and of the Science Adviser to the President,
George Kistiakowsky, who saw in its comprehensive plan an oppor-
tunity to coordinate the research programs of a number of federal
agencies with oceanographic interests. The members of the commit-
tee, bridging a traditional gap, worked carefully and closely with
Congress and federal agencies, their efforts leading to the appoint-
American Geophysical Union 40 :323-330 (December ~ 959). See also "Ocean Frontier,"
Time 74:4~54 (July 6, ~959); George A. W. Boehm, "The Exploration of 'Inner
Space'," Fortune 60: 163-180 (November ~959); U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on
Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Marine Science. Hearings before the Committee on
Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 87th Cong., ~ st sees., March ~ 5- ~ 7, ~ 96 ~ .
The committee report may have inspired the parody by Academy member Warren
Weaver, then Vice-President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, in his "Report of the
Special Committee: A Suggestion for Simplifying a Procedure, Now Almost Traditional
by Which Various Agencies Reach Decisions," Science 130:139~1391 (November 20,
~959)
OCR for page 507
The Years between the Wars / 5°7
ment in February ~959 of a Special Subcommittee on Oceanography
in the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries.78
The Academy report thus provided the impetus for a federal
program supported by the Office of Naval Research, the National
Science Foundation, the Atomic Energy Commission, the U.S.
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, and other government agencies and
a federal budget for oceanography that rose in the next decade from
$z ~ million to $~? ~ million. The program witnessed the launching of
twenty new oceanographic vessels, construction of eight new labora-
tories, and the availability of courses in oceanography at fifty univer-
sities and colleges.79
An Academy Role in International Science Policy
In the spring of ~944, the Academy, working through the State
Department, began planning resumption of cooperative efforts in
international science and restoration of amenities between scientists
of the Allied nations and the Axis powers.~° A brief of the Academy
position and interest in international relations in science, prepared by
Walter B. Cannon, Harvard physiologist and wartime Chairman of
the Research Council Division of Foreign Relations, and Princeton
geologist Richard M. Field, urged an end to the long period of
scientific isolation and disruption of the work of the international
scientific unions.
The Cannon-Field report became highly relevant upon the estab-
78Manne Science, cited above, pp. 4~-45; Roger Revelle to Frederick Seitz, March lo,
~969 (NAS Archives: PUBS: NAS History); NAS, Annual Reportfor 1958—59, p. 44; Long,
Ocean Sciences (cited above), pp. ~ 79- ~ 80, ~ 87 ff.
79 Committee on Oceanography, Oceanography 1966: Achievements and Opportunities
(NAS—NRC Publication ~492, ~967), p. I.
See also U.S. Library of Congress, Legislative Reference Service, Abridged Chronology
of Events Related to Federal Legislation for Oceanography, 1956-1966, printed for House
Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 89th Cong., Ed sees., ~966.
8° A singular instance of cooperative international research unrelated to the war was
that of the Research Council committee appointed in ~944 to study, with Mexican
scientists, a rare phenomenon, the eruption of a new volcano named Paricutin. The
history of Paricutin, born on February no, ~943, and abruptly expiring on February e5,
~952, is reported in the Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, vols. 26-35
(~945-~954). See also NAS, Annual Reportfor 1944-45, pp. To-do et seq.
8~ Walter B. Cannon and Richard M. Field, "A Memorandum on . . . International
Scientific Organizations, ~ 9 ~ 9- ~ 944" (NAS Archives: FR: International Organizations:
Activities & Future Plans: ~9~9-~944: Cannon-Field Report: ~944); NAS, Annual Report
for 1944-45, p. 33.
OCR for page 508
~o8 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947—1950)
lishment of the United Nations in October 1945 and the initiation of
planning for its related but independent agency, the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (uNESCo).82 To act
until UNESCO was formed and prepare concrete proposals for the
American program in science and technology, the State Department
in April ~946 appointed a Science Advisory Committee, among its
members Bronk, Harlow Shapley, W. Albert Noyes, Jr., Merle Tuve,
and Howard Meyerhoff.~3
Three months later, on July So, an act of Congress authorized
participation by the United States in UNESCO and establishment of a
U.S. National Commission as this country's advisory and liaison
agency with UNESCO. Its members included Academy members
Bronk, Shapley, Arthur H. Compton, Ross G. Harrison, Tames B.
Conant, and Alexander Wetmore.84 UNESCO itself held the first session
of its General Conference in Paris, November ~9 to December lo,
1946.
UNESCO, which had no powers like those of the United Nations'
Security Council, had been created, as its preamble stated, "for the
purpose of advancing, through the educational and scientific and
cultural relations of the peoples of the world, the objectives of
international peace and of the common welfare of mankind for which
the United Nations Organization was established."85 It was to be a
world center for the exchange of ideas and mingling of cultures and
for the promotion of scientific research that could be most advan-
tageously undertaken on an international basis, as in meteorology,
oceanography, education, epidemic disease, and other international
health problems.86
82 For the decision to include the "s" in UNESCO, see Nature 156:553-561 (November lo,
~945); NAS Archives: Hewett file 50.7~6, UNESCO; Bart J. Bok, Science in UNESCO,
Scientific Monthly 63 :327 ( ~ 946).
83 Reports of its meetings from April ~ ~ to June 5 are in NAS Archives: IR: UN: UNESCO:
Preparatory Commission: us Science Advisory Committee; NAS, Annual Report for
1945~6, p. 32 et seq. For the Committee on Science in UNESCO, see 1950-51, p. 43 et seq.
84 U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. Report on the First Meeting, September 1946
(Washington: Department of State Publication ~7~6, 1947).
85 Quoted in Bart l. Bok, "Science and the Maintenance of Peace," Science 109: 131-137
(February ~ I, ~ 949).
As the constitution of' UNESCO said, its purpose was "to contribute to peace and
security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and
culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the
human rights and fundamental freedoms . . . affirmed . . . by the Charter of the
United Nations."
86 One of UNESCO'S first acts was to provide a continuing subvention for the Interna-
OCR for page 509
The Years between the Wars / 509
A principal function of UNESc~to aid in the reconstruction of
science in war-devastated countries and provide an agency through
which scientists might contribute to the promotion of peace was
supported by a number of National Research Council-committees,
particularly the Council's Committee on UNESCO, appointed in May
~947 for the purpose of enabling American scientists to give collective
informal advice concerning UNESCO'S scientific agencies and activities.
The Council committee Chairman, Bart I. Bok, Professor of As-
tronomy at Harvard, was one of the most ardent and articulate
publicists for UNESCO in its formative years.87
Yet overshadowing every consideration of commitment and coop-
eration in science of the new world organization was the cloud of the
atomic bomb and the growing threat of the cold war in Europe.
UNESCO faced a supranational dilemma with which it was powerless
to cope. The international character of science made such new
weapons as chemical and biological agents, guided missiles, and the
atomic bomb accessible to every nation with any industrial capacity.
Only the freest possible exchange of scientific and technological
information among nations appeared to offer any hope for the
futures
On this premise, in ~947 the Steelman report, Science and Public
Policy (see Chapter ~4, pp. 463-465), sought to remedy the fact that
"The United States has no unified or comprehensive policy on scien-
tific research or the support of science. Until World War II, we had
never consciously defined our objectives or organized our resources
tional Council of Scientific Unions (~csu) and to recognize that association of scientific
organizations as its coordinating and representative body ["Statement of December ~9,
~949..." by the NRC Committee on International Scientific Unions," reproduced in
International Science Policy Survey Group, Science ~ Foreign Relations (Washington:
Department of State Publication 3860, May Ago); copy in NAS Archives: AG&Depts:
State: International Science Policy Survey: Science & Foreign Relations: Report]. For
the December I, ~946, agreement between UNESCO and ~csu, see NAS Archives: FR:
International Unions: ~csu. Cf. Harrison Brown, NAS Foreign Secretary, to Alvin C.
Eurich, Chairman, U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, May ~ I, ~969 (NAS Archives:
GOVT: IR: UN: UNESCO: General).
87 NAS, Annual Report for 1946-47, p. 48; Bok, "UNESCO and the Physical Sciences,"
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 4:343-347 (November ~948); Bok, "UNESCO: A Work in
Progress," Physics Today 2: 17, 28-31 (July ~949).
For a ~949 compilation of uNEsco-related NAS and NRC activities see NAS Archives: IR:
UN: UNESCO: National Commission: National Organizations Represented on Commis-
sion: NAS—NRC Report.
88 See International Science Policy Survey Group, Science ~ Foreign Relations, pp. -,
76, 81.
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510 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947 - 1950)
for science."89 Furthermore, this country had nothing even resem-
bling an international science policy.
The policy emerged two years later in President Truman's inau-
gural speech in January 1949. To support the United Nations' pro-
grams for world economic recovery and strengthen friendly nations
against the dangers of aggression, he called for a four-po~nt program
of assistance by this country, Point IV of which declared that through
the United Nations
We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our
scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and
growth of underdeveloped areas.90
The Point IV program became the responsibility of the State Depart-
ment; and, after consultation and deliberation, Bok, as head of the
Research Council Committee on UNESCO, on June ~ 2, ~ 949, requested
the Research Council Chairman, Detlev Bronk, to suggest the ap-
pointment of a full-time special adviser in science to the State De-
partment and the assignment to our embassies abroad of foreign
officers with training in some branch of sciences
On October 4, ~949, the State Department appointed Academy
member Lloyd V. Berkner of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
Special Consultant to the Secretary of State, asking him to survey the
Department's responsibilities in international science as a conse-
quence of recent developments in science and technology.92
Berkner was then Chairman of the Section on Exploratory Physics
of the Atmosphere of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Ter-
restrial Magnetism. His special field of interest was the earth's outer
atmosphere and radiowave propagation. During World War II he
had organized the Radar Section and the Electronics Materiel Branch
of the U.S. Naval Bureau of Aeronautics. In ~945 he served as captain
aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise in the Okinawa campaign.
In ~946 Berkner was named by the Secretaries of War and Navy to
89 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 Of fire, ~ 947), p. 9.
90 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Harry S. Truman, 1949 (Washington:
Government Printing Of fire, ~ 964), pp. ~ ~4- ~ ~ 5.
9~ Bok to Bronk, June As, ~949 (NAS Archives: IR: Com on UNESCO: General); "The NRC
Committee on UNESCO," Science 110 :2~26 (July I, ~949).
92 The study originated in the recommendations of the report on foreign affairs in
February ~949 prepared by the Hoover Commission on Organization of the Executive
Branch of the Government (NAS, Annual Report for 1949-50, p. 4).
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The Years between the Wars / 51 1
the post of Executive Secretary of the Joint Research and Develop-
ment Board, of which Vannevar Bush was then Chairman. Returning
to the Carnegie Institution in ~947, he remained there until March
~949, and the billion-and-a-half-dollar assistance program proposed
pointment as Special Assistant to the Secretary of State to organize
the Military Assistance Program for the members of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization and Greece and Turkey.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), established for
joint action against Communist aggression, came into being in April
~949, and the billion-and-a-half dollar assistance program proposed
by Berkner to help arm the NATO countries was intended to mesh with
the U.S. national security program and the earlier Marshall Plan for
economic recovery abroad. The Military Assistance Program was
awaiting congressional action when the State Department requested
Berkner to review its role in international science.
Berkner was a dynamic and articulate leader. The pursuit of his
research had taken him all over the world, and he had had unusual
opportunities to observe the effectiveness of cooperation among
scientists of many nations. He was also a dedicated and very active
member of the Academy, who saw in science a time-tested means of
promoting international understanding and good will. When he was
asked to undertake the State Department study, he had at once
sought to involve the Academy by suggesting to James Webb, Under
Secretary of State, that the Department call upon the Academy, in its
role as adviser to the U.S. government, to make its advice and facilities
available for the survey of the role of science in international affairs.
The resulting study had three major organization units: Depart-
ment of State International Science Steering Committee, headed by
Berkner; Department of State International Science Policy Survey
Group, of which l. Wallace Joyce, on loan from the Navy Bureau of
Aeronautics, was Director; and the Advisory Committee on Interna-
tional Science Policy of the National Academy of Sciences, of which
Roger Adams was Chairman. Other members of the Academy's
committee were Vannevar Bush, I. I. Rabi, Alexander Wetmore,
Robert E. Wilson, and Alfred N. Richards and Detlev W. Bronk, ex
officio. 93
Other significant Academy inputs were the report, "National Re-
search Council Report on Studies for the International Science Policy
93 Richards to dames Webb, May I, Ago; Richards to Bronk, May 22, Ago; Minutes of
Meeting, Committee on International Science Policy, April 26, ~gbo (NAS Archives:
ORG: NAS: Com on ~ sP).
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512 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947 - 1950)
Survey Group of the Department of State," prepared by an NRC
committee under the chairmanship of Douglas Whitaker, Dean of
Graduate Studies, Stanford University, and "Statement of December
19, 1949, by the NRC Committee on International Scientific Unions,"
prepared under the direction of John A. Fleming, Chairman of the
committee.94
Academy members who made personal studies of various kinds
were: Karl T. Compton, James B. Conant, I. Robert Oppenheimer,
and Merle A. Tuve.
On April e6, Ago, Roger Adams informed President Richards that
his review committee had unanimously approved in principle the
report submitted to it by Dr. Berkner, Science and Foreign Relations;
and with this endorsement from the Academy, Berkner forwarded it
on April 28 to James E. Webb, Acting Secretary of State. A few days
later, President Richards sent Webb a brief report of the observations
of the Adams committee on the desired distribution of the Berkner
report and on the implementation of its recommendations.95
The premise of the Berkner report reflected the international
tensions of the times:
The international science policy of the United States must be directed to the
furtherance of understanding and cooperation among the nations of the
world, to the promotion of scientific progress and the benefits to be derived
therefrom, and to the maintenance of that measure of security of the free
peoples of the world required for the continuance of their intellectual,
material, and political freedom.96
Further supporting that shield of science, the report recommended
establishment of a science office in the State Department under a
highly qualified scientist who would maintain liaison between the
Department and scientific activities in this country and render scien-
tific and technological advice where appropriate in the formulation of
foreign policy.
The report urged establishment, with full diplomatic status, of
overseas science attaches in the major diplomatic missions abroad,
including those in occupied Germany and Japan. Their function
94 Whitaker, "NRC Report on Studies for the International Science Policy Survey Group
of the Department of State," January 7, ~gbo (NAS Archives: IR: ISP Survey for State
Department); correspondence in NAS Archives: AG&Depts: State: asp Survey; Science
Foreign Relations, p. viii.
95 Roger Adams to Richards, April 26, two; Lloyd Berkner to Webb, April 28, two;
and Richards to Webb, May I, Ago, in Science ~ Foreign Relations, pp. iii-V.
96 Science Of Foreign Relations, p. 2.
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The Years between the Wars / 513
would be similar to that of the science groups of the State Department
and Office of Naval Research already in London, that is, to speed the
flow of scientific information between nations and help as necessary
with current and future exchange and assistance programs.97
Accepting the counsel of Berkner's committee, the State Depart-
ment, upon the recommendation of the Academy, appointed Joseph
Koopfli, research associate in chemistry at CalTech, who had recently
served as Senior Science Officer in the American Embassy ire London,
to head the new Office of Science Adviser and maintain close relations
with the Academy and the National Science Foundation.98
The Berkner report recommended, as well, increased utilization of
the National Research Council's Division of International Relations
(prior to ~947, known as the Division of Foreign Relations). To this
end, Bronk reorganized the division, replacing its society representa-
tives and members-at-large with an eight-member Policy Committee
and a Committee on Science Policy, both chaired by Roger Adams,
Foreign Secretary of the Academy and, as such, Chairman of the
.. . .
olvlslon.
A full-time Executive Secretary for the division, Wallace W. At-
wood, Jr., former Professor of Physiography at Clark University and
then with the Research and Development Board, was brought in to
maintain continuing relations with the State Department, with the
national academies and research councils abroad, the international
scientific unions, and scientific representatives of other countries here
in the United States. Also assisting Adams was a twenty-six-member
board of consultants, comprising the heads of the major Research
Ibid.' pp. 2, 9-~4, 33-34, 65, 75; NAS, Annual Report for 1949-50, pp. 4-5, 29-30,
60~.
98 Succeeding Joseph Koepfli in the post were James Wallace Joyce, Navy Department
geophysicist, Acting Science Adviser (~953-~954); and, after an interim, Wallace R.
Brode, chemist and Associate Director of the National Bureau of Standards (~958-
~960); Walter G. Whitman, head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT
(~960-~962); and Ragnar Rollefson, Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin
(~962-~964)
In the period ~954-~958, stripped of funds and staff for reasons of economy, the
Office was ably served by Walter M. Rudolph, a career economist in the State De-
partment, who, preparatory to and during the International Geophysical Year, under-
took all Department arrangements made through the embassies and scientific attaches
abroad for the use of facilities and cooperation of foreign scientists.
See NAS, MS Annual Report for ~955-56, pp. 228-229; "What's Happened to Science
in State?" Chemical and Engineering News 34:112-115 (January 9, ~956); "Science and
International Relations," Science 123:1067 (June ~5, ~956); Daniel S. Greenberg, The
Politics of Pure Science (New York: New American Library, ~967), p. 275, note.
OCR for page 514
514 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947—1950)
Council units and representatives of governmental agencies and
nongovernmental organizations actively involved in international ac-
tivities.99 With increased funding from the Department of State,
on July 1, 195z, the Division of International Relations no longer
fitting the traditional divisional pattern became the NAS-NRC Office
of International Relations, with greatly broadened functions.~°°
Although the Office of Science Adviser in the State Department
never attained the high goals set for it in the Berkner report, Koepfli's
appointment was nevertheless a milestone in the long effort of the
Academy to make scientific counsel available on a continuing basis at
the highest levels of government.
The brief years of Dr. Richards's presidency were marked by
unprecedented changes in Academy affairs. At the outset govern-
ment departments, still adjusting to the peculiar peace, had made
"only two direct requests . . . to the Academy," as Richards observed
in his first annual Report, but three years later, with U.S. involvement
in the Korean War, the Academy was overwhelmed with requests.~°i
Once again, office space on Constitution Avenue became in-
adequate and committee staff were housed in rented quarters nearby.
The staff of the Academy, from the postwar low of slightly more than
two hundred, rose to almost five hundred. Already expending more
funds than it had at any time during World War II, Academy
disbursements for staff operations, for administration of government
contracts, and of funds from private resources more than doubled in
that period, from $2,73~,ooo to $s,'~g,ooo.~02 They would continue
upward.
Those years witnessed that significant function of the Academy-
Research Council to define and catalyze research. It was the unique
capability, stated four decades earlier in the order creating the Na-
tional Research Council:
To survey the larger possibilities of science, to formulate comprehensive
projects of research, and to develop effective means of utilizing the scientific
and technical resources of the country for dealing with these projects.~°3
99 Science ~ Foreign Relations, pp. ~ OC~ ~ O I; NAS, Annual Report for 1950-51, pp. x-xi,
4 ~-44
1o0 NAS Annual Reportfor 1951-52, pp. 50-53.
pi NAS, Annual Report for 1 94 7-48, p. i; 1 950-51 ; pp. iX, ~ 2.
02 NAS, Annual Report for 1945-46, p. 64; 1950-51, p. 82.
~05 "National Research Council Executive Order Issued by the President of the United
States, May At, ~9~8" (NAS, Annual Report for 1946-47, p. ~6~); reprinted here as
Appendix F.
OCR for page 515
The Years between the Wars I 5 ~ `5
A Break with Precedent
The "uncertain, unstable" times that held "little promise of peace"
nevertheless weighed on Dr. Richards. On January 7, Ago, he asked
the Academy to accept his resignation, a year before his term ended,
believing, as he ~aid, "that the increasing responsibilities of the
Academy and opportunities for usefulness require the energies of a
younger person."~04 He was nevertheless the longest lived of Academy
presidents up to that time. His retirement to his home in Bryn Mawr,
Pennsylvania, lasted sixteen years, quietly ending two days after his
ninetieth birthday.
At a meeting of the Council of the Academy with the Committee on
Nominations two weeks after giving notice of his resignation, Presi-
dent Richards called attention to a two-page list recently prepared in
his office on the duties of the President. To it Richards had added one
more, to have future consequences, that "he should assume the
privilege of initiating discussions with those in public office on matters
of science which affect the public welfare." The list had been com-
piled in response to a proposal on December e8, ~949, from Council
member Joel H. Hildebrand that would alter the nature of the
Academy presidency dramatically. In view of the accretion of presi-
dential obligations, Hildebrand proposed that the office carry a salary
of $~s,ooo annually. The duties of the office had become "so exten-
sive and onerous as to require practically full time," and the field of
choice for candidates was "now practically limited to the few men,
mainly emeriti," likely to be willing to undertake the job without
remuneration.
In the discussion it was agreed that the membership of the
Academy should be made aware that "the presidency is no longer
simply an honor but an important full-time working job," and the
potential nominees should be so informed. And in view of the coming
task of the Committee on Nominations, which as customary would
propose only one man for the office, the four-member Committee
was doubled in size.~05
At the annual meeting of the Academy in April two, the Nom-
inating Committee announced its selection of James B. Conant.
~04 NAS, Annual Report for 1949-50, p. 9. The quoted words in assessment of the times
were Dr. Bronk's, not Richards's, in 1948-49, p. 35, and 1949-50, p. 47.
~05 "Conference of the Council of the Academy with the Committee on Nominations,"
January As, ~gbo (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Committee on Nominations). Joel Hilde-
brand's and Richards's notes on the duties of the President are in NAS Archives: ORG:
NAS: Council of the Academy: Meeting: January 22, ~950.
OCR for page 516
516 / ALFRED NEWTON RICHARDS (1947-1950)
A brilliant organic chemist, Conant had been a member of the
Academy since 1929, when he was thirty-five, and President of
Harvard University since 1933. He had become Chairman of the
National Defense Research Committee when it was reorganized in the
Office of Scientific Research and Development under Vannevar Bush
in ~94~. With Bush and Karl Compton, Conant had been a key figure
in coordinating the development of the atomic bomb and establishing
the Manhattan Project. Affable and quietly self-confident, he was a
man reputed to have very emphatic ideas on administration at Har-
vard, but had seldom frequented the halls of the Academy.
Although nominated at the meeting in Ago, Conant, who had
absented himself on that occasion, was not elected. In an unprece-
dented event, initiated by members of the Chemistry Section of the
Academy, the membership was persuaded that the nominee had
shown little interest in Academy affairs, that the Academy must have
virtually a full-time President, and that as President of Harvard,
Conant would have little time to give to the Academy. On the initia-
tive of members of the Chemistry Section, the Chairman of the
National Research Council, Detlev W. Bronk, over his protests as a
friend of Conant, was nominated and formally elected the new
President. ~07
The essential facts of the election was later related by Joel
Hildebrand:
No one is in a position to assess the motives of the individuals who voted to
elect Bronk. There were undoubtedly some whose experiences with the
National Defense Research Committee had convinced them that its rather
authoritarian structure was inappropriate for peacetime operations, but
surely the number whit had any cause t`' seek "vengeance" were far too few to
account for the election of Bronk. Efforts to vitalize the Academy into the
effective organization that it has become under the leadership of Bronk and
Seitz began ~ years before the nomination of Conant, and had acquired
sufficient momentum by April ~gbo to override a nomination that to the
majority meant a return of the Academy to the functions of "electing
members and writing obituaries."'°8
·06 Henry F. Pringle, "Mr. President," The New Yorker (September ~ 2, ~ 936), pp. 20-24;
ibid. (September ~9, ~936), pp. 23-27; "Dr. Conant: In Science Pure, in Education
Controversial," Newsweek 40 :72-77 (September 22, ~ 952).
~07 "Minutes of the Business Session," April 25, taco (NAS Archives: Elections: Officers:
President: Bronk D W); D. S. Greenberg, "The National Academy of Sciences: Profile
of an Institution (II)," Science 156:36~361 (April 2~, Ago); Joel Hildebrand, letter,
Science 156:1177-1178 (June a, ~967).
~08 Hildebrand, ibid. See also James B. Conant, My Several Lives (New York: Harper &
Row Publishers, Ago), pp. 4g7-4gg.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
newton richards
