Hiroshima was obliterated on August 6, 1945; Nagasaki, on August 9. Unaware the United States did not have any more atomic bombs in its arsenal, Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 14 (V-J Day), signing the formal documents on September 2 aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay. World War II was over. The nation celebrated.

Nothing captured the country’s euphoric mood more than Alfred Eisenstaedt’s iconic Life magazine photograph above a V-J Day caption that read, “In the middle of New York’s Time Square, a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers.”¹ Two thousand miles away at Los Alamos, the initial joy of victory quickly turned sour. On V-J Day, the scientists and engineers danced and hooted. But as the horror of what they had unleashed began to sink in, their mood took a decidedly gloomy turn.

On October 16, the Army presented a commendation to the laboratory for its remarkable work. Accepting the award, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had led his scientific troops for 16 months at the isolated high-desert outpost, expressed the thoughts many of his team members were undoubtedly harboring: “If atomic bombs are to be added to the arsenals of a warring world or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima.”²

Vannevar Bush’s outlook was far rosier. In fact, it was positively upbeat. It’s possible he was just an optimist, or had a much broader perspective than Oppenheimer. It’s possible his distance from the Manhattan Project allowed him to be more positive. It’s also possible his monograph, Science: The Endless Frontier,³ did not reflect the dangers Oppenheimer saw on the horizon simply because his essay appeared after the war had ended in Europe, but still a month before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were decimated. We will never know, but Bush’s vision of a future filled with scientific largess struck a resonant chord with President Truman and a soon-to-be peacetime Congress.

For quite some time, Bush had been contemplating what science could do for America and what government needed to do to make it happen. The official record shows that Franklin Roosevelt, anticipating the end of the war, sent Bush a letter dated November 17, 1944, requesting his views on science policies for a nation at peace. Some historians have suggested that Bush, whose relationship with Roosevelt had grown quite close, planted the request in Roosevelt’s mind, or even suggested some of the language. You can judge for yourself after you have read Roosevelt’s letter.

                    THE WHITE HOUSE

                    WASHINGTON

                            November 17, 1944

Dear Dr. Bush:

The Office of Scientific Research and Development, of which you are the Director, represents a unique experiment of team-work and cooperation in coordinating scientific research and in applying existing scientific knowledge to the solution of the technical problems paramount in war. Its work has been conducted in the utmost secrecy and carried on without public recognition of any kind; but its tangible results can be found in the communiques coming in from the battlefronts all over the world. Someday the full story of its achievements can be told.

There is, however, no reason why the lessons to be found in this experiment cannot be profitably employed in times of peace. The information, the techniques, and the research experience developed by the Office of Scientific Research and Development and by the thousands of scientists in the universities and in private industry, should be used in the days of peace ahead for the improvement of the national health, the creation of new enterprises bringing new jobs, and the betterment of the national standard of living.

It is with that objective in mind that I would like to have your recommendations on the following four major points:

• First: What can be done, consistent with military security, and with the prior approval of the military authorities, to make known to the world as soon as possible the contributions which have been made during our war effort to scientific knowledge?

The diffusion of such knowledge should help us stimulate new enterprises, provide jobs for our returning servicemen and other workers, and make possible great strides for the improvement of the national well-being.

• Second: With particular reference to the war of science against disease, what can be done now to organize a program for continuing in the future the work which has been done in medicine and related sciences?

The fact that the annual deaths in this country from one or two diseases alone are far in excess of the total number of lives lost by us in battle during this war should make us conscious of the duty we owe future generations.

• Third: What can the Government do now and in the future to aid research activities by public and private organizations? The proper roles of public and of private research, and their interrelation, should be carefully considered.
• Fourth: Can an effective program be proposed for discovering and developing scientific talent in American youth so that the continuing future of scientific research in this country may be assured on a level comparable to what has been done during the war?

New frontiers of the mind are before us, and if they are pioneered with the same vision, boldness, and drive with which we have waged this war we can create a fuller and more fruitful employment and a fuller and more fruitful life.

I hope that, after such consultation as you may deem advisable with your associates and others, you can let me have your considered judgment on these matters as soon as convenient — reporting on each when you are ready, rather than waiting for completion of your studies in all.

                    Very sincerely yours,

                    /s/

                    Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Dr. Vannevar Bush

Office of Scientific Research and Development

Washington, D.C.

The letter, although brief, is extremely specific. Had Herbert Hoover been the writer, the detailed nature of the request would not raise any eyebrows. He had a background in geology, mining engineering, and civil engineering, and he was a student of science. But Roosevelt was not in Herbert Hoover’s league in that respect. The specificity of his questions lends credence to the possibility that Bush was the true author—either that or Roosevelt had someone else with science credentials upon whom he was relying. The speculation is moot, because by the time Bush completed his assignment, Roosevelt had died, and Truman was in the Oval Office.

After summarizing Roosevelt’s request, of which Truman probably was unaware, Bush, as OSRD director, continued with the following words in a letter dated July 5, 1945:

• It is clear from President Roosevelt's letter that in speaking of science he had in mind the natural sciences, including biology and medicine, and I have so interpreted his questions. Progress in other fields, such as the social sciences and the humanities, is likewise important; but the program for science presented in my report warrants immediate attention.
• In seeking answers to President Roosevelt's questions I have had the assistance of distinguished [OSRD] committees specially qualified to advise in respect to these subjects. The committees have given these matters the serious attention they deserve; indeed, they have regarded this as an opportunity to participate in shaping the policy of the country with reference to scientific research. They have had many meetings and have submitted formal reports. I have been in close touch with the work of the committees and with their members throughout. I have examined all of the data they assembled and the suggestions they submitted on the points raised in President Roosevelt's letter.
• Although the report which I submit herewith is my own, the facts, conclusions, and recommendations are based on the findings of the committee which have studied these questions. Since my report is necessarily brief, I am including as appendices the full reports of the committees.
• A single mechanism for implementing the recommendations of the several committees is essential. In proposing such a mechanism I have departed somewhat from the specific recommendations of the committees, but I have since been assured that the plan I am proposing is fully acceptable to the committee members.
• The pioneer spirit is still vigorous within this Nation. Science offers largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task. The rewards of such exploration both for the Nation and the individual are great. Scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to a higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress.

Respectfully yours,

/s/

V. Bush, Director

The President of the United States

The White House

Washington, D.C.

Bush opened his report with the attention-grabbing headline, “Scientific Progress is Essential,” followed by an exposition that reflected his keen understanding of how to spark a politician’s interest. Start with human health and the military, and then move on to jobs. It’s a prescription for success every science policy advocate should strive to emulate.

The introduction to the report and the chapters that follow reveal Bush’s keen understanding of the scope and organization of federal science programs and the rationale for the government’s role in science and technology. What he saw and what he proposed in 1945 remain the cornerstone of science and technology policy today. And for that reason, they bear close scrutiny. The following excerpts from his remarkable work highlight his discernment and enduring vision. Even if some of his ideas were flawed, is impossible to overstate the importance of the document in the annals of American science and technology policy.

                    SCIENCE

                    THE ENDLESS FRONTIER

                    A Report to the President

                    by

                    Vannevar Bush

                    Director of the

                    Office of Scientific Research and Development

Part One

                    INTRODUCTION

Scientific Progress Is Essential

We all know how much the new drug, penicillin, has meant to our grievously wounded men on the grim battlefronts of this war—the countless lives it has saved—the incalculable suffering its use has prevented. Science and the great practical genius of this Nation made this achievement possible.

Some of us know the vital role which radar has played in bringing the Allied Nations to victory over Nazi Germany and in driving the Japanese steadily back from their island bastions. Again it was painstaking scientific research over many years that made radar possible.

What we often forget are the millions of pay envelopes on a peacetime Saturday night which are filled because new products and new industries have provided jobs for countless Americans. Science made that possible, too…

Advances in science when put to practical use mean more jobs, higher wages, shorter hours, more abundant crops, more leisure for recreation, for study, for learning how to live without the deadening drudgery which has been the burden for the common man for ages past. Advances in science will also bring higher standards of living, will lead to the prevention or cure of diseases, will promote conservation of our limited natural resources, and will assure means of defense against aggression. But to achieve these objectives—to secure a high level of employment, to maintain a position of world leadership—the flow of new scientific knowledge must be both continuous and substantial…

Science Is a Proper Concern of Government

It has been basic United States policy that Government should foster the opening of new frontiers. It opened the seas to clipper ships and furnished land for pioneers. Although these frontiers have more or less disappeared, the frontier of science remains. It is in keeping with the American tradition—one that has made the United States great—that new frontiers shall be accessible for development by all American citizens…

Government Relations to Science—Past and Present

From the early days the Government has taken an active interest in scientific matters… Since 1900 a large number of scientific agencies have been established within the Federal Government, until in 1939 they numbered more than 40.

Much of the scientific research done by Government agencies is intermediate in character between two types of work commonly referred to as basic and applied research. Almost all Government scientific work has ultimate practical objectives but, in many fields of broad national concern, it commonly involves long-term investigations of a fundamental nature. Generally speaking, the scientific agencies of Government are not so concerned with immediate practical objectives as are the laboratories of industry nor, on the other hand, are they free to explore any natural phenomena without regard to possible applications as are the educational and private research institutions…

We have no national policy for science. The Government has only begun to utilize science in the Nation’s welfare. There is no body within the Government charged with formulating or executing a national science policy. There are no standing committees of the Congress devoted to this important subject. Science has been in the wings. It should be brought to the center of the stage—for in it lies much of our hope for the future.

There are areas of science in which the public interest is acute but which are likely to be cultivated inadequately if left without more support than will come from private sources… To date, with the exception of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, such support has been meager and intermittent.

For reasons presented in this report we are entering a period when science needs and deserves increased support from public funds.

Freedom of Inquiry Must Be Preserved

The publicly and privately supported colleges, universities, and research institutes are the centers of basic research. They are the wellsprings of knowledge and understanding. As long as they are vigorous and healthy and their scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems in Government, in industry, or elsewhere.

Many of the lessons learned in the war-time application of science under Government can be profitably applied in peace… But we must proceed with caution in carrying over the methods which work in wartime to the very different conditions of peace. We must remove the rigid controls we have had to impose, and recover freedom of inquiry and that healthy competitive scientific spirit so necessary for expansion of the frontiers of scientific knowledge…

Part Two

                    THE WAR AGAINST DISEASE

In War

The death rate for all diseases in the Army, including overseas forces, has been reduced from 14.1 per thousand in the last war to 0.6 per thousand in this war…

The striking advances in medicine during the war have been possible only because we had a large backlog of scientific data accumulated through basic research in many scientific fields in the years before the war.

In Peace

In the last 40 years life expectancy in the United States has increased from 49 to 65 years largely as a consequence of the reduction in the death rates of infants and children; in the last 20 years the death rate from the diseases of childhood has been reduced 87 percent…

These results have been achieved through a great amount of basic research in medicine and the preclinical sciences…

Progress in combating disease depends upon an expanding body of new scientific knowledge.

Unsolved Problems

As President Roosevelt observed, the annual deaths from one or two diseases are far in excess of the total number of American lives lost in battle during this war…

Notwithstanding great progress in prolonging the span of life and in relief of suffering, much illness remains for which adequate means of prevention and cure are not yet known. While additional physicians, hospitals, and health programs are needed, their full usefulness cannot be attained unless we enlarge our knowledge of the human organism and the nature of disease. Any extension of medical facilities must be accompanied by an expanded program of medical training and research.

Broad and Basic Studies Needed

…Progress in the war against disease results from discoveries in remote and unexpected fields of medicine and the underlying sciences.

Coordinated Attack on Special Problems

…Government initiative and support for the development of newly discovered therapeutic materials and methods can reduce the time required to bring the benefits to the public.

Action is Necessary

…It is clear that if we are to maintain the progress in medicine which has marked the last 25 years, the Government should extend financial support to basic medical research in the medical schools and in the universities, through grants both for research and for fellowships…

Part Three

                    SCIENCE AND THE PUBLIC WELFARE

Relation to National Security

In this war it has become clear beyond all doubt that scientific research is absolutely essential to national security. The bitter and dangerous battle against the U-boat was a battle of scientific techniques—and our margin of success was dangerously small. The new eyes which radar supplied to our fighting forces quickly evoked the development of scientific countermeasures which could often blind them…

The Secretaries of War and Navy recently stated in a joint letter to the National Academy of Sciences:

This war emphasizes three facts of supreme importance to national security: (1) Powerful new tactics of defense and offense are developed around new weapons created by science and engineering research; (2) the competitive time element in developing those weapons and tactics must be decisive; (3) war is increasingly total war, in which the armed services must be supplemented by active participation of every element of civilian population.

To insure continued preparedness along farsighted technical lines, the research scientists of the country must be called on to continue in peacetime some substantial portion of those types of contribution to national security which they have made so effectively during the stress of the present war…

Military preparedness requires a permanent independent civilian-controlled organization, having close liaison with the Army and Navy, but with funds directly from Congress and with clear power to initiate military research which will supplement and strengthen that carried on directly under the control of the Army and Navy.

Science and Jobs

One of the hopes is that after the war there will be full employment, and that the production of goods and services will serve to raise our standard of living. We do not know yet how we will reach that goal, but it is certain that if can be achieved only by releasing the full creative and productive energies of the American people…

More and better scientific research is essential to the achievement of our goal of full employment.

The Importance of Basic Research

Basic research is performed without thought of practical ends. It results in general knowledge and an understanding of nature and its laws. This general knowledge provides the means of answering a large number of important practical problems, though it may not give a complete specific answer to any one of them. The function of applied research is to provide such complete answers. The scientist doing basic research may not be at all interested in the practical applications of his work, yet the further progress of industrial development would eventually stagnate if basic scientific research were long neglected…

Today, it is truer than ever that basic research is the pacemaker of technological progress. In the nineteenth century, Yankee mechanical ingenuity, building largely upon the basic discoveries of European scientists, could greatly enhance the technical arts. Now the situation is different.

A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade, regardless of its mechanical skill.

Centers of Basic Research

Publicly and privately supported colleges and universities and the endorsed research institutes must furnish both the new scientific knowledge and the trained research workers. These institutions are uniquely qualified by tradition and by their special characteristics to carry on basic research… It is chiefly in these institutions that scientists may work in an atmosphere which is relatively free from the adverse pressure of convention, prejudice, or commercial necessity…

Industry is generally inhibited by preconceived goals, by its own clearly defined standards, and by the constant pressure of commercial necessity. Satisfactory progress in basic science seldom occurs under conditions prevailing in the normal industrial laboratory. There are some notable exceptions, it is true, but even in such cases it is rarely possible to match the universities in respect to the freedom which is so important to scientific discovery…

If the colleges, universities, and research institutes are to meet the rapidly increasing demands of industry and Government for new scientific knowledge, their basic research should be strengthened by use of public funds.

Research Within the Government

Although there are some notable exceptions, most research conducted within governmental laboratories is of an applied nature…

Research within the Government represents an important part of our total research activity and needs to be strengthened and expanded after the war. Such expansion should be directed to fields of inquiry and service which are of public importance and are not adequately carried on by private organizations…

In the Government the arrangement whereby the numerous scientific agencies form parts of large departments has both advantages and disadvantages. But the present pattern is firmly established and there is much to be said for it. There is, however, a very real need for some measure of coordination of the common scientific activities of these agencies, both as to policies and budgets, and at present no such means exist.

A permanent Science Advisory Board should be created to consult with these scientific bureaus and to advise the executive and legislative branches of Government as to the policies and budgets of Government agencies engaged in scientific research.

The board should be composed of disinterested scientists who have no connection with the affairs of any Government agency.

Industrial Research

The simplest and most effective way in which the Government can strengthen industrial research is to support basic research and to develop scientific talent…

One of the most important factors affecting the amount of industrial research is the income tax law. Government action in respect to this subject will affect the rate of technological progress in industry…

The Internal Revenue Code should be amended to remove present uncertainties in regard to the deductibility of research and development expenditures as current charges against net income.

Research is also affected by the patent laws. They stimulate new invention and they make it possible for new industries to be built around new devices and new processes…

Yet uncertainties in the operation of the patent laws have impaired the ability of small industries to translate new ideas into processes and products of value to the Nation. These uncertainties are, in part, attributable to the difficulties and expense incident to the operation of the patent system as it presently exists. The uncertainties are also attributable to the existence of certain abuses which have appeared in the use of patents. The abuses should be corrected…

International Exchange of Scientific Information

International exchange of scientific information is of growing importance. Increasing specialization of science will make it more important than ever that scientists in this country keep continually abreast of developments abroad. In addition, a flow of scientific information constitutes one facet of general international accord which should be cultivated…

The Government should take an active role in promoting the international flow of scientific information.

The Special Need for Federal Support

We can no longer count on ravaged Europe as a source of fundamental knowledge…

New impetus must be given to research in our country. Such new impetus can come promptly only from the Government…

In providing government support, however, we must endeavor to preserve as far as possible the private support of research both in industry and in the colleges, universities and research institutes.

Part Four

                    RENEWAL OF OUR SCIENTIFIC TALENT

Nature of the Problem

The responsibility for the creation of new scientific knowledge rests on that small body of men and women who understand the fundamental laws of nature and are skilled in the techniques of scientific research… I cannot improve on [Harvard] President Conant’s statement that:

…in every section of the entire area where the word science may properly be applied, the limiting factor is a human one. We shall have rapid or slow advance in this direction or in that depending on the number of really first-class men who are engaged in the work in question… So in the last analysis, the future of science in this country will be determined by our basic educational policy.

A Note of Warning

It would be folly to set up a program under which research in the natural sciences and medicine was expanded at the cost of the social sciences, humanities, and other studies so essential to national well-being…

The Wartime Deficit

…With mounting demands for scientists both for teaching and for research, we will enter the postwar period with a serious deficit in our trained scientific personnel.

Improve the Quality

Confronted with these deficits, we are compelled to look to the use of our basic human resources and formulate a program which will assure their conservation and effective development…

Remove the Barriers

Higher education in this country is largely for those who have the means…

If ability, and not the circumstances of family fortune, is made to determine who shall receive higher education in science, then we shall be assured of constantly improving quality at every level of scientific activity.

The Generation in Uniform Must Not Be Lost

…The Armed Services should comb their records for men who, prior to or during the war, have given evidence of talent for science, and make prompt arrangements, consistent with current discharge plans, for ordering those who remain in uniform as soon as militarily possible to duty at institutions here and overseas where they can continue their scientific education…

A Program

…To encourage and enable a larger number of young and women of ability to take up science as a career, and in order to reduce the deficit of trained scientific personnel, it is recommended that provision be made for a reasonable number of (a) undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships and (b) fellowships for advanced training and fundamental research. The details should be worked out with reference to the interests of the several States and of the universities and colleges; and care should be taken not to impair the freedom of the institutions and individuals concerned.

Part Five

                    A PROBLEM OF SCIENTIFIC RECONVERSION

Effect of Mobilization of Science for War

We have been living on our fat. For more than 5 years many of our scientists have been fighting the war in the laboratories, in the factories and shops, and at the front. We have been directing the energies of our scientists to the development of weapons and materials and methods on a large number of relatively narrow projects initiated and controlled by the Office of Scientific Research and Development and other Government agencies. Like troops, scientists have been mobilized and thrown into action to serve their country in time of emergency. But they have been diverted to a greater extent than is generally appreciated from the search for answers to the fundamental problems—from the search on which human welfare and progress depends…

Security Restrictions Should be Lifted Promptly

Our ability to overcome possible future enemies depends upon scientific advances which will proceed more rapidly with diffusion of knowledge than under a policy of continued restriction of knowledge now in our possession…

Part Six

                    THE MEANS TO THE END

New Responsibilities for Government

…The Federal Government should accept new responsibilities for promoting the creation of new scientific knowledge and the development of scientific talent in our youth…

In discharging these responsibilities Federal funds should be made available. We have given much thought to the question of how plans for the use of Federal funds may be arranged so that such funds will not drive out of the picture funds from local governments, foundations, and private donors. We believe that our proposals will minimize that effect…

It is also clear that the effective discharge if these responsibilities will require the full attention of some over-all agency devoted to that purpose… Such an agency should furnish the funds needed to support basic research in the colleges and universities, should coordinate where possible research programs on matters of utmost importance to the national welfare, should formulate a national policy for the Government toward science, should sponsor the interchange of scientific information among scientists and laboratories both in the country and abroad, and should ensure that all the incentives to research in industry and the universities are maintained.

The Mechanism

There are within Government departments many groups whose interests are primarily those of scientific research… But nowhere in the governmental structure receiving funds from Congress is there an agency adapted to supplementing the support of basic research in the universities, both in medicine and the natural sciences; adapted to supporting research on new weapons for both Services; or adapted to administering a program of science scholarships and fellowships.

A new agency should be established, therefore by the Congress for the purpose. Such an agency, moreover, should be independent agency devoted to the support of scientific research and advanced scientific education alone… Separation of the sciences in tight compartments, as would occur of more than one agency were involved, would retard and not advance scientific knowledge as a whole.

Five Fundamentals

There are certain basic principles which must underlie the program of Government support for scientific research and education… The principles are as follows:

1. (1) …there must be stability of funds over a period of years so that long-range programs may be undertaken.
2. (2) The agency to administer such funds should be composed of citizens selected only on the basis of their interest in and capacity to promote the work of the agency. They should be persons of broad interest in and understanding of the peculiarities of scientific research and education.
3. (3) The agency should promote research through contracts or grants to organizations outside the Federal Government. It should not operate any laboratories of its own.
4. (4) Support of basic research in the public and private colleges, universities, and research institutes must leave the internal control of policy, personnel, and the scope of the research to the institutions themselves.
5. (5) While assuring complete independence and freedom for the nature, scope, and methodology of research carried on in the institutions receiving public funds, and while retaining discretion in the allocation of funds among such institutions, the Foundation proposed herein must be responsible to the President and the Congress…

Basic research is a long-term process… Methods should therefore be found which will permit the agency to make commitments of funds from current appropriations for programs of 5 years duration or longer…

National Research Foundation

1. I. Purposes
   The National Research Foundation should develop and promote a national policy for scientific research and scientific education, should support basic research in nonprofit organizations, should develop scientific talent in American youth by means of scholarships and fellowships, and should by contract support long-range research on military matters.
2. II. Members
   1. Responsibility to the people, through the President and Congress, should be placed in the hands of…persons not otherwise connected to the Government and not representative of any special interest…
   3. The members shall serve without compensation…
   5. The chief executive officer of the Foundation should be a director appointed by the Members…
3. III. Organization

1. 1. In order to accomplish the purposes of the Foundation, the Members should establish several professional Divisions… At the outset these Divisions should be:

a. Division of Medical Research…

b. Division of Natural Sciences…

c. Division of National Defense…

d. Division of Scientific Personal and Education…

e. Division of Publications and Scientific Collaboration…

1. IV. Functions

1. 1. The Members of the Foundation should have the following functions, powers, and duties:
   1. a. To formulate overall policies for the Foundation…
   2. f. To review the financial requirements of the several Divisions and to propose to the President the annual estimates for the funds required by each Division. Appropriations should be earmarked for the purposes of specific Divisions, but the Foundation should be left discretion with respect to the expenditure of each Division’s funds.
   3. g. To make contracts or grants for the conduct of research by negotiation without advertising for bids…
   4. i. To enter into contracts with or make grants to educational and non-profit institutions for support of scientific research.
   5. j. To initiate and finance… research on problems related to national defense.
   6. k. To initiate and finance… research projects for which existing facilities are unavailable or inadequate.
   7. l. To establish scholarships and fellowships in the natural sciences and medicine.
   8. m. To promote the dissemination of scientific and technical information and to further its international exchange.
   9. n. To support international cooperation in science…

1. V. Patent Policy

…In making contracts with or grants to…organizations [outside the Government] the Foundation should protect the public interest adequately and at the same time leave the cooperating organizations with adequate freedom and incentive to conduct scientific research. The public interest will normally be adequately protected if the Government receives royalty-free license for governmental purposes under any patents resulting from the work financed by the Foundation… There should certainly not be any absolute requirement that all rights in such discoveries be assigned to the Government, but it should be left to the discretion of the Director and the interested Division whether in special cases the public interest requires such an assignment…

Action by Congress

The National Research Foundation herein proposed meets the urgent needs of the days ahead…

Legislation is necessary. It should be drafted with great care. Early action is imperative, however, if this Nation is to meet the challenge of science and fully utilize the potentialities of science. On the wisdom with which we bring science to bear against the problems of the coming years depends on huge measure our future as a Nation.

Vannevar Bush saw America’s future intertwined with science, and he was forceful in expressing his conviction. He was also forceful in proposing a blueprint for organizing America’s post-war research activities. Despite its defects, Science: The Endless Frontier is a remarkable treatise. It provides compelling rationales for basic research, the benefits of science and technology in American life, and the importance of federal support of the science and technology enterprise. It is remarkable for its clarity and vision.

But it is also remarkable for its lack of any significant historical context, except for the backdrop World War II provided. It is difficult to know whether Bush was not a student of history or whether he simply saw the often un-choreographed and ineffective policy gambits of the past as irrelevant distractions to his visionary proposals for the future. Perhaps, if Roosevelt hadn’t died, the omission would have been immaterial, because the 32nd president had a close and trusted relationship with Bush, and it’s reasonable to assume that the two had spoken about the importance of science in an America at peace.

But Science: The Endless Frontier landed on Harry S. Truman’s desk after he had been in office for a scant 84 days. And as David McCullough recounts in his noted biography, Truman,⁵ the 33rd president assumed his office “unprepared, bewildered. And frightened.” And for good reason as Truman later revealed. McCullough quotes him telling in his wife, Margaret, privately that Roosevelt “never did talk to me confidentially about the war, or about foreign affairs, or what he had in mind for peace after the war.” The only science policy perspective Truman probably had would have come from his brief but highly visible tenure as chairman of a special Senate committee on U.S. war production and from the cover letter Bush provided with his monograph. And in a world of complexity, both were scant.

Science policy could not have been terribly high on Truman’s “to do” list. He had monumental decisions to make with little time to make them, and little preparation for the task—how to prosecute the final days of the war in the Pacific theater, whether to drop nuclear bombs on Japan, how to work with Churchill and the Allies on rebuilding Europe, how to contain Stalin and the Soviet Union’s expansionist objectives, whether to treat Communism as a domestic threat, how to place a wartime economy on a peacetime footing, and how to transition returning warfighters to a civilian workforce. Taking Vannevar Bush’s vision for American science and technology in the post-war period and turning it into an immediate reality simply could not compete with the other challenges Truman faced, especially because he was largely ignorant of many science policy essentials when he entered the Oval Office. He would prove to be a quick study, but his late entry into the science policy arena couldn’t prepare him for the battles that would soon erupt over competing ideas for the new era of American science.

Science and technology policy is never clear-cut, rational, or scientific, as many modern-day authorities would have you believe. It would be nice if it were, but it isn’t. It has always been thick with politics, intrigue, and petty grievances, often driven by special interests and the well-connected and not infrequently purely by serendipity in its outcomes. Vannevar Bush might have thought his professional bona fides, intellect, administrative stature, and grasp of science and technology issues would carry the day, but he didn’t fully account for one uninvited guest at his policy table. And the protracted and grueling birth of the National Science Foundation (National Research Foundation, in Bush’s language) would reflect his misfortune, as well as his gross miscalculation. It’s one of the most illuminating stories in the chronicles of science policy and certainly worth recounting.

With Roosevelt’s death, Bush’s path to implementing his postwar science policy agenda was no longer smooth. But his troubles actually began 5 years earlier, when Harley Kilgore won election to the United States Senate.

Kilgore was a liberal Democrat from West Virginia, a staunch Roosevelt adherent who drew strong support from organized labor. In 1940, he challenged the incumbent, Rush Holt, Sr., who had run as a New Deal Democrat in 1934, but had turned conservative and isolationist, on one occasion even associating himself with the America First Committee,⁵ known for its anti-Semitic, pro-fascist propaganda. Holt found himself out of step with his West Virginian base, especially with John L. Lewis, president of the United Mineworkers Union. Kilgore swept through the open door, defeating Holt in a primary and winning the general election handily.

Kilgore took his seat in the Senate chamber in 1941 and accepted an appointment to the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. Charged with investigating waste and corruption in war production, the eponymous committee was chaired by Harry Truman. The committee’s success in rooting out war profiteering proved to be decisive in Roosevelt’s decision to name Truman his vice-presidential running mate in 1944. It also provided Kilgore with an entree to Truman’s inner circle and, just as significantly, led to his appointment in 1942 as chairman of the Military Affairs Subcommittee on War Mobilization.

Thrust into a leadership position, Kilgore promptly began to use his power to probe whether the nation was using its scientific and technical capabilities most effectively in prosecuting the war.⁶ And at the prompting of Herbert Schimmel,⁷ a physicist and congressional staffer, Kilgore took dead aim at Bush’s stewardship of OSRD. As Kilgore saw it, Bush was focusing too much on the scientific and industrial elites and ignoring the potential contributions of many others outside the select circle.

Several scientists and engineers who had not made Bush’s cut testified before the Kilgore Committee in its early days, feeding the chairman’s narrative and tacitly endorsing his draft legislation⁸ that would establish a centralized Office of Technological Mobilization and broaden the participation of the scientific community in the war effort. Kilgore also drew support from the American Association of Scientific Workers, which argued that chemists, biologists, clinical doctors and earth scientists had been shunted aside by OSRD.⁹ Regardless of its merits, in the politics of science and technology policy, the bill, S. 2721, has to be seen as a direct assault on OSRD and its director.

Like Bush, Kilgore recognized the importance of science, but as a non-scientist, he saw the enterprise though a dramatically different lens. In Science: The Endless Frontier, Bush gave strong voice to the importance of scientific research for knowledge’s sake—basic research as policy wonks call it—trusting that scientific discovery emanating from it would eventually lead to technological advances, a strong military, and improvement in the human condition. And he believed that scientists would be faithful stewards of their mission if given sufficient latitude. After all, he considered himself one of them.

Kilgore had a more transactional view, as the purpose of “The Technology Mobilization Act” of 1942 revealed: “To regain, maintain, and surpass our previous technical preeminence and attainments; and to make forever secure America’s world leadership in the practical application of scientific discoveries…”¹⁰ Basic research that did not have a specific connection to utility was not a priority for Kilgore, at least not in 1942. Foreshadowing legislation he would submit 3 years later, the Technology Mobilization Act also hinted at Kilgore’s lack of trust in scientists to manage their own affairs—at least where federal funds were involved—and his conviction that greater central planning at the federal level was needed. In the bill’s language, “The Office of Technological Mobilization is authorized and directed to review all projects for research and development, including practical development of inventions which may be brought to its attention; and it shall promote such projects as it deems appropriate…”¹¹

As Kilgore saw it, scientists were actors rather than directors on the research stage. And the federal government, as the producer of the science theater, needed to have full control of the show.

Not surprisingly, Bush, with the scientific and industrial elites’ backing, parried Kilgore’s thrust, and after extensive hearings, Kilgore agreed to modify the legislation. His new bill, “The Science Mobilization Act,” introduced in the Senate as S. 702 in February 1943 and accompanied in the House of Representatives by Wright Patman’s bill, H.R. 2100,¹² provided a grander vision for a postwar scientific enterprise and, as a concession to his critics, modestly reduced the degree of centralized planning and control. But it retained the emphasis on utility and societal benefits of science, creating an Office of Scientific and Technical Mobilization and specifically authorizing it to “develop comprehensive programs for the maximum use of science and technology in the national interest in periods of peace and war;…to promote the full and speedy introduction of the most advanced and effective techniques—for the benefit of agriculture, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, communication, and other phases of productive activity;…to promote full employment and higher standards of living after the war…”¹³

The Kilgore-Patman legislation did little to mollify critics of the earlier version. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), for example, asserted the new bill was not mobilizing science as much as regimenting it.^14,15 In 1943, Bush still had the upper hand, and, of course, Roosevelt had his back. But Kilgore was not done. In late 1944, he made another run at the issue, this time focusing on science in an America once again at peace. In an early 1945 report, he elaborated on his proposal for establishing a National Science Foundation as an independent federal agency. It was to have a director chosen by the president subject to advice and consent by the Senate, but to keep the reins of government tight and scientists in check, it was to adhere to the following directives:¹⁶

• In exercising his authority and duties, the Director should consult with a National Science Board on all matters of major policy or program. The Board should consist of the Director, acting as Chairman, the Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, the Attorney General, and the head of the Federal Security Agency, or their representatives, and eight members at large appointed by the President.
• In general the administrative powers should be vested in the Director, but the allocation of funds to specific fields of research and development, the appointment of members to special advisory research committees, and similar duties or authority of primary importance should depend upon the approval of the Board. Thus, by providing guidance and acting as a check, the Board would share responsibility with the Director for the efficient operation of the Foundation.
• The Foundation should not itself, as a general rule, perform any research or development work. Instead, it should make funds for this purpose available to other organizations, public or private, who are already staffed or equipped to do so. Wherever possible, these other organizations, including private individuals, should be encouraged to participate jointly in formulating, promoting, and carrying through the programs and projects which are deemed desirable in the public interest.
• The National Science Board should be responsible for determining the allocation of research and development funds within the limits appropriated annually by Congress. As a guide, the proposed bill requires particular attention to be given to these categories of research and development: National defense; health and medical care; basic sciences; natural resources; methods, products, and processes which may be valuable for small business enterprises; and peacetime uses for wartime research and wartime facilities…
• To protect the taxpayer’s interest, all research and development projects financed in whole or in part by the Federal Government should be undertaken only upon the condition that any invention or discovery resulting therefrom would become the property of the United States.

Although much of the report was administratively prescriptive and clearly intended to constrain the autonomy of the nation’s elite scientists and the academic institutions they inhabited—mostly in California and the Northeast—it did include protections for the research community. Individual scientists and technologists, the report stated, “should be encouraged to exercise their creative talents and to develop promising new ideas, and, moreover, … they should not be prevented in any way from expressing their personal beliefs on scientific and technical matters (except when in violation of national security).” And it had something to say about the future workforce, directing the Foundation “to discover and develop scientific talent, particularly in American youth. To this end it should be empowered to grant fellowships and scholarships in various fields of science.”

It’s worth a moment’s pause to summarize the science policy debate that Truman encountered when he took office. Both Bush and Kilgore agreed that American science needed to thrive in the post-war era, and both saw the need for a new science agency to achieve that outcome. But their visions for a new structure diverged in highly significant ways.

Bush wanted scientists to control the new agency. They would populate the agency’s board and select the agency’s director. Kilgore wanted a director chosen by the president, along with a collaborative board, populated half by Cabinet officials (or their designees) and half by presidential appointees.

Bush wanted the eminent research institutions to retain their leadership in research. Kilgore labeled Bush’s approach undemocratic, inconsistent with the New Deal agenda on which he, Kilgore, had run for office. He wanted to open up the research enterprise to the have-nots, not only as a matter of democratic practice, but as a means of achieving greater economic parity throughout the country.

Bush wanted the new agency to be restricted to the natural sciences. As a true New Dealer in the tradition of Henry A. Wallace, Kilgore insisted that the social sciences be included.

Bush wanted researchers and their institutions to retain the rights to any patents emanating from government-sponsored research, allowing the federal government to have a royalty-free license for government use. Kilgore, again fearful of the concentration of power among the elites, wanted the patents to become the property of the government to maximize their utility throughout the country.

Bush drew his support from the bastions of research and development: the premier academic institutions, such as MIT, Berkeley, and Columbia, and the major industrial laboratories, such as Westinghouse, General Electric, and Bell. He also had an ally in Warren Magnuson, who had been elected to the Senate from Washington in 1944. A first-termer seeking recognition, Magnuson submitted legislation on July 19, 1945, two weeks after Science: The Endless Frontier appeared. The Magnuson bill specifically called for establishing a National Research Foundation, closely following the model Bush had proposed. It garnered little enthusiasm from other senators, and Magnuson let it die.

Kilgore’s support came from a more diverse group of scientists and businesses, with whom he had a greater affinity, but few of them had the credentials of Bush’s adherents, at least at the outset. Nonetheless, Kilgore was a savvier politician than Bush, and he knew that an agency not subject to customary federal budgetary and administrative protocols was likely to run into severe headwinds. He probably also knew Truman well enough to surmise that the president would share his views.

Truman, who had little time to get up to speed following Roosevelt’s death, showed how much he had synthesized in just five months, when he presented a “21-Point Program for the Reconversion Period” in a Sept. 6, 1945 Special Message to Congress¹⁷ four days after Japan had surrendered. Science was prominently on the list, and the words are worth reading.

12. RESEARCH

Progress in scientific research and development is an indispensable condition to the future welfare and security of the Nation. The events of the past few years are both proof and prophecy of what science can do.

Science in this war has worked through thousands of men and women who labored selflessly and, for the most part, anonymously in the laboratories, pilot plants, and proving grounds of the Nation.

Through them, science, always pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge, forged the new weapons that shortened the war.

Progress in science cannot depend alone upon brilliant inspiration or sudden flights of genius. We have recently had a dramatic demonstration of this truth. In peace and in war, progress comes slowly in small new bits, from the unremitting day-by-day labors of thousands of men and women.

No nation can maintain a position of leadership in the world of today unless it develops to the full its scientific and technological resources. No government adequately meets its responsibilities unless it generously and intelligently supports and encourages the work of science in university, industry, and in its own laboratories.

During the war we have learned much about the methods of organizing science, and about the ways of encouraging and supporting its activities.

The development of atomic energy is a clear-cut indication of what can be accomplished by our universities, industry, and Government working together. Vast scientific fields remain to be conquered in the same way.

In order to derive the full profit in the future from what we have learned, I urge upon the Congress the early adoption of legislation for the establishment of a single Federal research agency which would discharge the following functions:

1. 1. Promote and support fundamental research and development projects in all matters pertaining to the defense and security of the Nation.
2. 2. Promote and support research in the basic sciences and in the social sciences.
3. 3. Promote and support research in medicine, public health, and allied fields.
4. 4. Provide financial assistance in the form of scholarships and grants for young men and women of proved scientific ability.
5. 5. Coordinate and control diverse scientific activities now conducted by the several departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
6. 6. Make fully, freely, and publicly available to commerce, industry, agriculture, and academic institutions, the fruits of research financed by Federal funds.

Scientific knowledge and scientific research are a complex and interrelated structure. Technological advances in one field may have great significance for another apparently unrelated. Accordingly, I urge upon the Congress the desirability of centralizing these functions in a single agency.

Although science can be coordinated and encouraged, it cannot be dictated to or regimented. Science cannot progress unless rounded on the free intelligence of the scientist. I stress the fact that the Federal research agency here proposed should in no way impair that freedom.

Even if the Congress promptly adopts the legislation I have recommended, some months must elapse before the newly established agency could commence its operations. To fill what I hope will be only a temporary gap, I have asked the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the Research Board for National Security to continue their work.

Our economic and industrial strength, the physical well-being of our people, the achievement of full employment and full production, the future of our security, and the preservation of our principles will be determined by the extent to which we give full and sincere support to the works of science.

It is with these works that we can build the highroads to the future.

It’s clear from the message that Truman was enthusiastically on board with the importance of science in the nation’s future and with the need for a federal research agency. But other than his reference to the social sciences (cited in Function 2) and to the importance of sharing the fruits of research widely (emphasized in Function 6), he didn’t signal whether he was leaning toward Bush or Kilgore, especially on the matter of the proposed agency’s operational independence. Given all that was on his plate, it’s quite likely he hadn’t had time to focus on it.

Truman wanted Congress to act, that much is certain, but absent clear White House guidance, it was almost inevitable that the Bush-Kilgore dispute was likely to fester. And that it did. The bickering extended well beyond Capitol Hill and well beyond Washington: the nation’s science community, itself, was sparring.¹⁸

Magnuson, who had been carrying Bush’s water in the Senate, began to collaborate with Kilgore, and the two finally came to an agreement in the summer of 1946, co-sponsoring a bill, S. 1850, that would establish a National Science Foundation mostly along the lines Kilgore had proposed. On July 3, the Senate, by a vote of 48 to 18, passed the compromise legislation, which specified Kilgore’s administrative structure—a director appointed by the president and a collaborative board—but it rejected, by a vote of 46 to 26, an amendment that would have included the social sciences.¹⁹

During the debate, Magnuson refuted an accusation that the legislation was not what the science community wanted, declaring,²⁰ “Certainly there are portions of the bill with which some one scientist does not agree; there are other portions of the bill to which another group does not agree; but by and large, they all agree to this bill.” He then introduced into the record a joint statement of support from 11 prominent scientists, whom he asserted were representative of “the cream and the bulk – at least 98 percent – of the educators and scientists of this country.” Leading the list were James B. Conant, president of the AAAS and president of Harvard University; George F. Zook, president of the Council on Education; Morris Fishbein, representing the American Medical Association; Thomas P. Cooper, president of the Association of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities; and, most significantly, Isaiah Bowman, chairman of the committee supporting the Bush report and president of Johns Hopkins University.

Within short order, it became clear that Magnuson had overstated his case significantly. The 11 signatories were among the “cream” of the American science community, but they fell far short of living up to the senator’s claim that they represented at least 98 percent of the educators and scientists. No sooner had the Senate passed the bill than scientists of every ilk began to attack the legislation. Many, standing up for Bush’s plan, wanted less government control over the Foundation. Others, such as Frank Jewett, who was president of the National Academy of Sciences and president of Bell Labs, and Robert Millikan, who had just stepped down as president of Cal Tech, opposed the concept of the Foundation, period. They saw major federal funding of science as a threat to the autonomy of the enterprise and an excuse for universities, philanthropies, and industries to step back from their support of research.

The splintering of the science community torpedoed the bill when it reached the House of Representatives a few weeks later. John Heselton, a representative from Massachusetts, put it this way: “…the feeling in the House was that until the scientists themselves got together on the kind of organization they wanted, the members of Congress should do nothing.”²¹ And nothing is what they did. The bill’s demise exasperated Truman, who, by that time, had become a staunch supporter of Kilgore’s model for the Foundation. No doubt his relationship with Kilgore from his Senate days predisposed him to that view, but now having had a taste of presidential power, he unquestionably also believed in greater White House control over the Foundation’s operations. Truman truly wanted to see science elevated on the national stage, but he needed to find an acceptable path forward.

At the suggestion of several members of his staff, who worried that Congress would now simply adopt Bush’s model, Truman turned to John Steelman to help resolve the issue. An economist and sociologist by training, Steelman enjoyed Truman’s total trust, so much so that by the time his new committee, officially known as the President’s Scientific Research Board, had completed its work in August of 1947, Steelman would have the title, Assistant to the President, in effect White House Chief of Staff.

The Steelman Committee was a who’s who of the upper echelons of the federal government. Its members ranged from officials in Truman’s Cabinet to heads of agencies that had any whiff of science and technology in their portfolios: The Departments of War, Navy, Commerce, Interior, and Agriculture; the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Works Agency, and the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics; and more. The Steelman Committee was about as inclusive as any federal committee could get. That it would be able to generate a comprehensive report in less than a year, as Truman desired, was a reach, especially by today’s standards.

It was now October 1946. More than a year had passed since World War II officially ended, and Congress had moved swiftly to transition America’s wartime research and development programs to a peacetime footing. On August 1, 1946, it had established both the Office of Naval Research²² and the Atomic Energy Commission.²³ It had added new institutes at the National Institutes of Health²⁴ and was expanding activities at the National Bureau of Standards (later known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology). But a new national science agency, the jewel of Vannevar Bush’s policy case, was still a diamond in the rough.²⁵

The waters had become muddier since Bush submitted his report to Truman in July of 1945. Up to that point—as our historical journey through American science and technology policy has amply demonstrated—the federal government’s interest in research was far from passionate. Except during health crises or times of war, it was politically more a dalliance than an imperative. But America’s postwar domestic prosperity and global leadership, Bush argued, would require stronger ties between the federal government and the nation’s burgeoning research enterprise. It would require spending more federal money on science and creating new administrative structures. His proposed new science agency would be a guiding light.

But now that Congress had expanded research activities throughout the federal government, it was far from clear that Bush’s new agency was really needed. It still had support on Capitol Hill, but Truman believed Steelman’s committee needed to reexamine its rationale before tackling the question of how it should be organized and run. Truman also saw a glaring omission in Bush’s report: It had failed to frame science and technology policies in political terms. Truman’s astute observation carries a message for anyone wanting to wrestle in the policy arena. Ignore politics at your peril.

The results of the 1946 election would further complicate Steelman’s work. Truman’s popularity had been sinking almost from the day he took office, and in the months following the war’s end, his handling of a rash of labor strikes tanked his approval ratings. Steel workers, coal miners, auto workers, meatpackers, railroad engineers, and electrical workers all walked off their jobs. At one point in 1946, more than a million workers were out on strike at the same time.²⁶ The public rendered its judgment on Truman’s performance by turning over control of both houses of Congress to the Republicans.

The Republican takeover did not mean that Congress would sideline science on its policy agenda. Quite the contrary, the imperative for action was strong on both sides of the aisle—science would not become a partisan punching bag until Donald Trump became president in 2017—but a different cast of players would command the spotlight. A flurry of bills emerged. In early 1947, H. Alexander Smith, a New Jersey Republican with Ivy League credentials, introduced a carbon copy of Magnuson’s bill in the Senate (S. 526) that adhered to Bush’s prescription. Elbert D. Thomas, a Democrat from Utah, sponsored (S. 525) a reprise of the Kilgore-Magnuson compromise.^27,28

Four separate bills quickly emerged in the House, all echoing Smith’s Senate version. Thus began what Milton Lomask has called “the follies of 1947.”²⁹ Mindful of the 1946 debacle, the American Association for the Advancement of Science convened a meeting of an Inter-Society Committee on Science Foundation Legislation on February 23, hoping to arrive at a consensus.³⁰ Within a month, the group reported that of 140 or so committee members, 63 percent opted for the Kilgore-Magnuson compromise, now Thomas’s bill S. 525 and its House counterpart, H.R. 1850, sponsored by Arkansas Representative Wilbur Mills. The remaining 37 percent were evenly split between Bush’s plan and one modeled on the newly established Atomic Energy Commission, which had a presidentially appointed director and a small, nine-member presidentially appointed board.³¹

Had the nation’s scientists all lined up behind the Inter-Society majority, the National Science Foundation might have been two votes and a presidential signature away from becoming a reality. But they didn’t. A vocal minority seemed bent on supporting Bush’s plan, regardless of the efficacy. As the science community had proved many times before and would continue to prove many times over, it falls far short on political acumen. Science and technology policy might be part science, but it is also art, artfulness, and politics. Science, scientists understand viscerally; but art, artfulness, and politics are largely alien instincts.

The legislation that emerged from the House-Senate conference was essentially the Smith bill, which Truman had already indicated he would not sign. Why Congress went ahead and sent him a bill he opposed is not certain, but it might have reflected a desire to be done with the issue and send scientists packing. Let Truman deal with the irascible bunch, might have been the thinking on Capitol Hill. If he ultimately agreed to sign it, that would be fine, and if he didn’t, the disgruntled brainiacs would be his problem.

What ensued lends credence to that supposition. Congress sent the legislation to the president on July 27, and in accordance with the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, adjourned the same day. If Truman failed to sign the bill within 10 days, it would fail to become law by virtue of a “pocket veto.”³² And that’s exactly what happened. Two years of thrashing about had ended without any fanfare and without any indication whether there would ever be a National Science Foundation, although Truman encouraged Congress to return to the matter in the future.

Despite his encouragement, Truman was unequivocal in his rejection of the 1947 bill. His criticism was scathing. He concluded his veto justification with these words:

But he ended on a positive and very encouraging note:

Congress would reconsider the question, but a positive outcome would require another two-and-a-half years of deliberation.

Three weeks after Truman used his pocket veto on August 6, 1947, the Steelman Committee issued its report.³³ Although often overlooked, it is an important document in the annals of American science and technology policy. It is a more focused report than Science: The Endless Frontier, and more in tune with the way politicians look at policy matters, especially with regard to the administrative mechanisms. Its major recommendations are worth reading.

In the light of the world situation and of the position of science in this country, this report will urge:

1. 1. That, as a Nation, we increase our annual expenditures for research and development as rapidly as we can expand facilities and increase trained manpower. By 1957 we should be devoting at least one percent of our national income to research and development in the universities, industry, and the Government.
2. 2. That heavier emphasis be placed upon basic research and upon medical research in our national research and development budget. Expenditures for basic research should be quadrupled and those for health and medical research tripled over the next decade, while total research and development expenditures should be doubled.
3. 3. That the Federal Government support basic research in the universities and nonprofit institutions at a progressively increasing rate…
4. 4. That a National Science Foundation be established to make grants in support of basic research, with a Director appointed by and responsible to the President. The Director should be advised by a part-time board of eminent scientists and educators, half to be drawn from outside the Federal Government and half from within it.
5. 5. That a Federal program of assistance to undergraduate and graduate students in the sciences be developed…
6. 6. That a program of Federal assistance to universities and colleges be developed in the matters of laboratory facilities and scientific equipment as an integral part of a general program of aid to education.
7. 7. That a Federal Committee be established, composed of the directors of the principle Federal research establishments, to assist in the coordination and development of the Government’s own research and development programs.
8. 8. That every effort be made to assist in the reconstruction of European laboratories as a part of our program of aid to peace-loving countries. Such aid should be given on terms which require the maximum contributions toward the restoration of conditions of free international exchange of scientific knowledge…

The task of policy formulation for the Federal research and development program requires establishment of a number of coordinating centers within the executive branch of the Government. These would be called upon to make determinations upon a number of interrelated problems, of which the most important are:

1. 1. An over-all picture of the allocations of research and development functions among the Federal agencies, and the relative emphasis placed upon the fields of research and development within the Federal Government must be available.
2. 2. A central point of liaison among the major research agencies to secure the maximum interchange of information with respect to the content of research and development programs and with respect to administrative techniques must be provided.
3. 3. There must be a single point close to the President at which the most significant problems created in the research and development program of the Nation as a whole can be brought into top policy discussions.

Setting up an organization to handle these diverse functions is not a simple task that can be solved, for example, by establishment of a Department of Science. Such an approach was considered in the course of these studies, and, after consultation with scientists and administrators, was rejected…

The three existing mechanisms in the Executive Branch for policy formulation with respect to research and development are inadequate when measured against the policy problems that must be more effectively dealt with.

The following steps should be taken:

1. 1. An Interdepartmental Committee for Scientific Research should be created.
2. 2. The Bureau of the Budget [now called the Office of Management and Budget] should set up a unit for reviewing Federal scientific research and development programs.
3. 3. The President should designate a member of the White House staff for scientific liaison.

Aside from Steelman’s recommendations for the National Science Foundation’s structure, five items deserve special attention. First, reprising Science: The Endless Frontier, Steelman’s report emphasized the importance of basic research and recognized the global nature of science. It also highlighted the linkage between research and education. Finally, it called for coordination of research and development across federal agencies, as Bush recommended, but it went one step further. It stressed the need for a single point of contact within the White House for science and technology policymaking.

Vannevar Bush had been that White House point person for six and a half years, serving Roosevelt and Truman as chairman of OSRD from June 21, 1941, when the wartime office was established, until December 31, 1947, when it was disbanded. In 1951, Truman created the Science Advisory Committee (SAC), naming Oliver Buckley, an electrical engineer, as its chairman. But neither Buckley, nor his successors, Lee DuBridge and Isadore Rabi, both physicists, were full-time White House employees. Only after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, and at Rabi’s suggestion, did Steelman’s implicit recommendation for a staff-level presidential science advisor become a reality.

In November that year, President Dwight Eisenhower, a strong but generally underappreciated promoter of scientific research, upgraded the SAC to the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), naming MIT’s president James R. Killian as its full-time director and assigning him an office in the White House. Killian also wore the hat of Special Assistant to the President, becoming the first official Presidential Science Advisor. It had taken a decade for Steelman’s recommendation to be realized. Once again, it was a military threat—this time from space—that proved essential to overcoming the bureaucratic inertia.

By the time Eisenhower won election to his first term in 1952, the National Science Foundation had become a reality. It was hardly a sprint to the finish: it had taken three more years following Truman’s 1947 veto for the new agency to obtain a congressional authorization and a White House sign-off. A split in the science community had no longer been the issue. Truman had made it clear in his veto message that he wanted Congress to try again, but 1948 was a presidential election year, not an easy time to get significant legislation passed. It was especially true that year because Truman was widely expected to lose in November.

Bills were written, and committees considered them. But most, even if they passed committee muster, never made it to the floor, in at least one of the chambers. National Science Foundation legislation fell victim to such inaction, in spite of Truman’s support for the compromise that had been worked out.³⁴ There wasn’t much he could do. His political capital, at that point, was very limited, even among some Democrats.

Roosevelt New Dealers had never felt comfortable with Truman, and early in the nominating process, they tried to recruit Dwight Eisenhower to lead the ticket, believing his popularity as the victorious commander of the Allies could unite the party. Eisenhower declined, and following a contentious convention in Philadelphia, the party split three ways: Strom Thurmond, a conservative Dixiecrat, ran from the right; Henry A. Wallace, the New Deal progressive, ran from the left; and Truman competed from the center. Republicans had come out of their convention united, nominating New York Governor Thomas Dewey for president and California Governor Earl Warren as his vice-presidential running mate. They seemed unbeatable, right up to the close of the last polling booths on Election Day.

Reading the tea leaves well in advance of the nominating conventions, Republicans, who controlled both houses of Congress, had no incentive to move any legislation, especially anything Truman might have wanted. Even had they desired to do so, they would have found the road to passage of bills virtually impassable. True, the Democrats were split. But so, too, were the Republicans. A sizable fraction—those who lined up behind Dewey and Warren—was comfortable with many of Roosevelt’s programs. But a large contingent found most, if not all, of the New Deal programs abhorrent. The result was gridlock. And Truman made the most of it, first calling Congress back into a special session following the conventions, and then on the campaign trail labeling Capitol Hill Republicans as “The Do-Nothing Congress.”³⁵

Truman won with 303 electoral votes to Dewey’s 189, capturing 24.1 million popular votes to Dewey’s 22.0 million. He had defied the odds, the pundits, the pollsters and, most notably, the Chicago Daily Tribune, which just as the polls were closing, ran the infamous banner headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate, setting the stage for a productive legislative session. Civil rights, labor laws, price controls, housing, education, medical care, farming, and recognition of the new state of Israel were campaign issues.³⁶ If science was ever mentioned, there is no record of it. It was, and, with rare exceptions, almost always is a non-starter during any political campaign.

Science generally generates few votes among the lay public, and scientists are rarely single-issue voters. Those realities pose significant challenges for anyone involved in science advocacy, or more generally, science and technology policy. Even the 2017 “March for Science,” which attracted tens of thousands of participants in Washington and other major cities and garnered significant media coverage, seems to have had little enduring impact on the general public.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) legislative log jam broke early in the 81st Congress. The Senate easily passed S. 247, a compromise bill, once again introduced by Democratic Sen. Elbert Thomas from Utah. The companion House legislation (H.R. 4846), sponsored by J. Percy Priest, a Tennessee Democrat, was not a mirror image: it granted dual authority to a presidentially appointed NSF director and a 24-member volunteer National Science Board with representatives from the private sector, also presidentially appointed. The White House signed off on it. The Senate concurred. And Vannevar Bush gave it his blessing, remarking, according to Edmund Day, chairman of the Inter-Society Committee, “…we will get a distinguished and well known scientist, such as Dr. Conant [James B. Conant, a chemist and president of Harvard University], to serve as chairman of the board and someone like Alan Waterman [a Yale University physicist, named chief scientist of the Office of Naval Research in 1946] to serve as director…”³⁷

All the lights were green, or so it seemed. The science community had ceased its troublesome bickering; the 1948 election had removed partisan obstacles; Truman and Bush were on the same page. And then a new wrinkle appeared. A number of Republicans had gotten religion on budgetary matters. Led by James Wadsworth of New York, they bottled up the legislation in the House Rules Committee, and there it sat. Bush proposed a way out: language should be added, stating that the legislation would not increase the total of federal dollars spent on scientific research. (In today’s budgetary parlance, such language is known as an “offset.”) But the White House, through the budget director’s office, nixed the idea. Funding basic research at the expense of applied research and development was not in Truman’s DNA. The first session of the 81st Congress ended as the three previous ones had, with no NSF resolution in sight.

Shortly after the second session began on January 3, 1950, Priest and his allies exploited a loophole in the House rules, which allowed the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction to bring the bill out of the Rules Committee and onto the House floor 21 days after having requested action. Robert Crosser, the Ohio Democrat who chaired the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to which Priest’s bill had been referred, agreed to use the parliamentary procedure, and on April 27, 1950, the House passed the legislation. The Senate followed suit the day after, and Truman signed it into law on May 10.³⁸

The National Science Foundation torture was finally over. Almost most 5 years had passed since Bush had sent Science: The Endless Frontier to Truman. And following Bush’s prescient rumination, Truman named James B. Conant in 1950 to chair the National Science Board, and in 1951, Alan T. Waterman to be the NSF director.

There is no better illustration of the essentials of science and technology policy than the saga of the National Science Foundation’s birth. Major policy changes are difficult to accomplish, especially if there is no national security concern or health crisis. They require commitment, patience, fortitude, and a keen appreciation for the political landscape. They require getting different voices to harmonize. They require understanding that overcoming one barrier doesn’t mean there won’t be another one around the next bend in the road.

The saga also reveals several striking truths about the policy landscape: Science constituencies are fickle; egos are large. The same is true for politicians. For both, compromise often does not come easily.

And in the end, serendipity may be more important than the best laid plans and their most painstaking execution.

The speed with which Congress and the president came to agreement on establishing the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) offers a striking contrast to the NSF’s exceptional labor pains. To be sure, it was not without controversy, but from start to finish, the AEC’s gestation period was nine months, very much on a human scale.

The Enola Gay had dropped the first atomic bomb, a uranium device known as Little Boy, on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and Bockscar had followed up on Aug. 9, releasing a plutonium bomb, known as Fat Man, above Nagasaki. World War II was effectively over, but the atomic age was just beginning. Less than two months later, on Oct. 3, President Truman sent a message to Congress on atomic energy, urging the creation of an Atomic Energy Commission. He began his message with the following words:

To the Congress of the United States:

He continued with a call for the new agency:

And he concluded his message with recommendations to control proliferation of atomic weapons and advance the peaceful use of atomic energy:

Congress had already been working with the White House on draft legislation. And the same day Truman delivered his message, a pair of Democrats, Andrew May from Kentucky, who chaired the House Military Affairs Committee, and Edwin Johnson from Colorado, who occupied the number two slot on the Senate Military Affairs Committee, introduced legislation establishing an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which largely followed the wording proposed by the War Department.⁴⁰

May, by that time, was embroiled in several high-profile controversies, including a bribery charge that ultimately led to his re-election defeat in 1946 and an ignominious hitch in federal prison. But it wasn’t May’s notoriety that caused the May-Johnson bill to run into trouble. Even though Manhattan Project heavyweights J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Enrico Fermi came out in support of the legislation, other scientists were far more critical. Like the National Science Foundation, the AEC was to have a presidentially appointed administrator and a presidentially appointed board—in this case a commission with a revolving part-time membership of nine “distinguished citizens.”

Taken at face value, the structure seemed to accomplish two of Truman’s goals: placing atomic weapons and all atomic energy activities under civilian control, and insulating the AEC as much as possible from political meddling. But for a growing number of scientists and members of Congress, the bill did not go far enough in keeping the Army from exerting undue influence over the atomic programs, because it allowed members of the military to serve on the commission. Nor, in the eyes of its critics, did it give sufficient weight to the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Opposition from the science community coalesced around former Manhattan Project bomb builders Leo Szilard, Harold Urey, and Edward Condon and the newly formed Federation of Atomic Scientists.⁴¹ In Congress, Arthur Vandenberg, a Republican internationalist, who was the minority leader on the Senate Military Affairs Committee, successfully blocked the headlong pace of the legislation. And within months, in the face of the growing resistance on and off Capitol Hill, Truman quietly withdrew his support of the May-Johnson bill. That opened the door for first-term Connecticut Senator, Brien McMahon, who had developed an abiding interest in atomic energy.

McMahon successfully lobbied his Senate colleagues to set up a Special Committee on Atomic Energy, and from his perch as its chairman, he crafted a legislative substitute for the May-Johnson bill. McMahon’s replacement contained two key provisions that strengthened civilian control: It prohibited members of the military from serving on the commission, and it converted part-time service on the commission to full-time status. Not unexpectedly, it ran into flak from the Army and the Navy’s big guns. But it successfully assuaged the concerns of both the science community and the congressional critics of the May-Johnson bill.

Unlike the protracted debate and numerous false starts that characterized the creation of the National Science Foundation, McMahon’s bill quickly made it to the Senate floor on June 1, 1946. By that time, military critics had seen the handwriting on the wall and throttled back their assault on the new legislation in the Senate. After a mere three hours of debate and with a few minor changes, McMahon’s bill won approval without a single dissenting vote. Within two weeks, the House began its work and, after several rounds of political jousting, passed its amended version by an overwhelming margin of 265 to 79 on July 20.

A House-Senate conference committee quickly sorted out the differences, largely adhering to McMahon’s original version, and the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 received a thumbs-up from both chambers on July 26. President Truman signed it into law⁴² six days later on Aug.1, 302 days a after he had sent his original message to Congress.

The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and National Science Foundation (NSF) stories are studies in contrast. On a grand scale, the stakes were much higher in the case of the AEC. Getting policies wrong on atomic weapons and atomic energy carried far greater risks than fumbling the outcome on basic research. Dithering might have been fine in the case of the NSF, but it was unacceptable in the case of the AEC. That is not to say that science was unimportant to the future of the nation in 1945. It certainly was: for the economy, health, environment, agriculture, transportation, and the military. But policymakers knew that that delaying science decisions for several years would not do irreparable harm.

Not so for atomic weapons. Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed how much danger such weapons posed, and both the White House and Capitol Hill understood that legislative action couldn’t be put on hold. Scientists, as well, knew that developing a consensus quickly was essential. The impetus was unmistakable, and science, technology, policy, and politics converged with appropriate alacrity. The outcome created an enduring legacy, which would keep the nation safe, provide a global approach to nuclear nonproliferation, promote peaceful uses of atomic energy, and withstand the challenges of the Cold War.

“Give ‘em Hell, Harry!” That was the title of the biographical play and later the 1975 movie starring James Whitmore in a one-man show about Harry Truman. The playwright, Samuel Gallu, chose it for good reason. As the stories about the National Science Foundation and Atomic Energy Commission demonstrate, Truman wasn’t shy about staking out positions. As the sign on his desk loudly proclaimed, “The Buck Stops Here.”

Truman’s science and technology legacy extended well beyond the creation of two agencies. Perhaps he was only in the right place at the right time. But his willingness to back the policies war-time scientists and their government counterparts proposed to establish strong postwar American global leadership in science and technology was his choice. He was not the originator of the idea, but he seized the day and gave his full-throated support for the proposition.

Well in advance of the Allies’ victories in Europe and the Pacific, a group of young Navy officers and reservists, known as the “Bird Dogs,” had been exploring how the Navy could advance its scientific needs once hostilities had ceased.⁴³ Their genesis traces to an overreach by Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen in 1941, who was then the director of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Bowen attempted to gain control of all naval research under the auspices of NRL, but his consolidation plan quickly ran into opposition, ultimately leading Navy Secretary Frank Knox to establish a coordinator for research and development within his own office. Knox tapped Jerome Clarke Hunsaker, the chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and a graduate of the Naval Academy, for the advisory position, and Hunsaker recruited the Bird Dogs. Three years later a post-war plan for an Office of Naval Research (ONR) emerged that had the backing of the Navy higher-ups, as well as Vannevar Bush.

By September 1945, the Bird Dogs draft bill was ready to roll. It would place the Naval Research Laboratory under the control of ONR, and more importantly, provide the new office with the authority to fund basic research in the nation’s universities. The White House was on board, as was an overwhelming majority of Congress. All that remained was selling university scientists on the proposition that they should be open to accepting basic research contracts from the military in a peacetime environment. In the 21st century, the idea that academic researchers would turn their backs on unrestricted federal funding seems preposterous. But at the time, there was no precedent for military support of university research outside of direct wartime needs, and it wasn’t clear how scientists might react.

It took Robert D. Conrad, a navy Commander and a gifted speaker, several months of marketing to close the deal with university scientists. On August 1, 1946, by an overwhelming margin Congress passed H.R. 5911, known as the Vinson Bill. The Office of Naval Research was a reality. During the next few years, as bickering over the National Science Foundation persisted, ONR stepped in to fill the void, providing essential support for university research and allowing scientists who had returned from their wartime duties to pursue their professional goals. It was a sweet success, and illustrates once again how military demands can generate a political consensus and produce policies on a time scale that is relevant to the nation’s needs.

The Navy was first out of the box. But the Air Force, which was established as a separate service on Sept. 18, 1947, moved ahead with its own research office almost immediately. Again aiming to capitalize on technical talent in the universities, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) opened its doors in February 1948, and within a few years, was providing significant support for laboratories on campuses around the country. Paradoxically, the Army, which historically had led the way on military science and technology, didn’t get its act together until almost a decade later.

It didn’t take long for university scientists to cozy up to their military benefactors. In fact, many of the federal bureaucrats administering the ONR and AFOSR programs had been war-time colleagues of the academic scientists whom they were funding. It was, in many ways, the essence of a classic “old-boy-network.” By funneling money to the scientists they knew best, the administrators might have a constricted pipeline of future researchers. But with the return of so many scientists to peacetime activities, there was no shortage of talent within the existing pool.

The hand-in-glove relationship between government program managers and academic scientists without a doubt benefitted university research programs. But the trusted connection also provided a mechanism for scientists outside government to help shape federal science and technology policies. The symbiotic link between the two communities remained largely intact well into the 1970s, when retirements and deaths began to reduce the ranks in both.

Earlier wars had highlighted the need for medical research. World War II was no exception. To address battlefield injuries and diseases endemic to far-flung theaters of combat, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) under Vannevar Bush established a Committee on Medical Research, drawing on the expertise of civilian scientists and medical practitioners. The committee’s charge was broad, but as might be expected, it placed great emphasis on the most pressing military concerns: surgery, convalescence, rehabilitation, pathology, neuropsychology, and the like.

Just as the War Department’s needs for advanced military technologies required physicists, chemists, and engineers to put their fundamental research programs on hold, its specific health needs thinned the ranks of biomedical research generalists in universities and hospitals. The war pumped large amounts of money into health research, but the dollars carried with them an obligation to serve the needs of the military. From his perch atop OSRD, Vannevar Bush was in an ideal position to see how rapidly medical research was advancing and how many opportunities would exist for broader progress once the war ended.

He stated his proposition for peacetime medical research in Science: The Endless Frontier,⁴⁵ writing, “Notwithstanding great progress in prolonging the span of life and in relief of suffering, much illness remains for which adequate means of prevention and cure are not yet known. While additional physicians, hospitals, and health programs are needed, their full usefulness cannot be attained unless we enlarge our knowledge of the human organism and the nature of disease. Any extension of medical facilities must be accompanied by an expanded program of medical training and research.” Adding further, “Progress in the war against disease results from discoveries in remote and unexpected fields of medicine and the underlying sciences.” And concluding, “It is clear that if we are to maintain the progress in medicine which has marked the last 25 years, the Government should extend financial support to basic medical research in the medical schools and in the universities, through grants both for research and for fellowships.”

Bush saw basic medical research as part of a grand scientific continuum, or as Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health would write decades later, the sciences are “interdependent.” To illustrate his point, in 2000 Varmus wrote the following in a Washington Post op-ed:⁴⁶ “Medical advances may seem like wizardry. But pull back the curtain, and sitting at the lever is a high-energy physicist, a combinational chemist or an engineer… Scientists can wage an effective war on disease only if we—as a nation and as a scientific community—harness the energies of many disciplines, not just biology and medicine. The allies must include mathematicians, physicists, engineers and computer and behavioral scientists.”

That world scientific view motivated Bush to include medical research as a program within his proposed new science agency, the National Research Foundation, as he called it at the time. Had the saga of the National Science Foundation (NSF) not dragged on for half a decade, Bush’s vision might have become a reality. But in the unfortunate interregnum, momentum steadily built for supporting medical research within existing government constructs. The National Institute of Health (NIH) was an obvious choice. By the time NSF opened its doors for business in 1951, NIH had become such a dominant player in medical research,⁴⁷ there was no longer a compelling rationale for Bush’s proposition.

Under NIH’s rubric, the federal budget for health research grew, but so too did the scope of the agency’s programs. In 1948, Congress established the National Heart Institute, the National Institute of Dental Research, the National Microbiological Institute, and the National Medicine Institute—all of them within the jurisdiction of NIH. Its old name did not reflect its new expanded mandate. On June 16, 1948, recognizing the multiplicity of institutes under its roof, Congress officially changed NIH’s name to the National Institutes of Health. (Note the plural in “Institutes.”)

On August 15, 1950, President Truman signed the Omnibus Medical Research Act,⁴⁸ authorizing the creation of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness and the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, and granting the Surgeon General the power to establish additional institutes. By 2018, NIH would comprise 21 Institutes and 6 Centers, occupying 75 buildings on a 300-acre campus in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. and employing more than 20,000 workers.⁴⁹ It would become the largest federal research agency, dwarfing the size of the National Science Foundation by five times, and accounting for almost 50 percent of the government’s research spending. The scope and prominence of the NIH reflects the attention health issues command on the political stage and the resonance they have with the general public. In the science and technology policy arena, only military affairs rise to a commensurate level.

Among Oval Office occupants of the modern era, Harry Truman’s name is rarely cited as an example of a “science president.” John F. Kennedy, by virtue of his commitment to the Space Program, and Barack Obama, by virtue of his engagement on climate change and his joy in hosting White House events for young scientists and innovators, are the most frequently associated with that distinction. But on the scale of accomplishments that altered the arc of science and technology policy, Truman deserves to be on the highest level of the awards podium.

Most of today’s federal constructs, from agencies, bureaus, and offices within the Executive Branch, to the instruments of government that foster science research and education outside government, trace their lineage to the Truman era. The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation elicit the strongest resonance with Congress and the public. Often unnoticed are the national laboratories that are extraordinary gems in the nation’s science and technology enterprise. Vannevar Bush and John Steelman focused principally on the science and technology talent that could be unleashed to the nation’s benefit in an America at peace. But the wartime infrastructure was just as much of a national treasure. And the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) moved swiftly to capitalize on it.

The AEC lifted the shroud that had kept the site of the atomic bomb building facility⁵⁰ in New Mexico secret until World War II ended. The laboratory complex on a high mesa 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe quickly become synonymous with America’s nuclear weapons program. Over the course of the next 70 years, Los Alamos National Laboratory grew in size and scope, expanding its activities from purely military research into basic science. By 2018, it was hosting a thousand students and employing more than 10,000 scientists, engineers, and supporting staff. It saw its annual operating budget rise to more than $2 billion.

Berkeley’s Radiation Laboratory might have played second fiddle to Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, but its role was significant nonetheless. That was true especially because it was Ernest O. Lawrence’s home turf throughout the war, and the Berkeley physics department with which it was associated had been J. Robert Oppenheimer’s employer⁵¹ until he became director of Los Alamos in 1943.

Lawrence, who had left Yale University for Berkeley in 1928 after Yale turned down his promotion request,⁵² established the “Rad Lab” in 1931 to house his new invention, a particle accelerator that became known as the cyclotron. Adapting his concepts to heavy ions, Lawrence proposed an electromagnetic method for enriching natural uranium to bomb-grade quality. Even though the technological challenges were immense, Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, authorized it as one of several approaches to uranium isotope separation. Racing against German scientists,⁵³ Groves felt compelled to pursue as many promising methods as necessary, regardless of cost.

Oak Ridge, Tennessee was the site of the Manhattan Project’s isotope separation plant, and Lawrence would soon find himself commuting between the Golden State and the Volunteer State. In the end, Lawrence’s concept lost out to a competing approach based on gaseous diffusion, which was more effective, cheaper, and less technologically challenging.

While Lawrence was occupied by the Oak Ridge uranium project, Edwin McMillan and Glenn Seaborg were hard at work trying to find a different path to a fission bomb. Poring over several years’ worth of data from the Berkeley cyclotron, they identified a new element (94th on the periodic table) that might meet the specifications. After McMillan had departed to join the radar effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Seaborg and his colleagues who remained at Berkeley discovered that the new element they called plutonium was, indeed, fissionable. In all likelihood, it would sustain the kind of “chain reaction” a bomb required.

Plutonium was detected using the cyclotron, but its large-scale production would necessitate using reactors, similar to the one Enrico Fermi had employed when he demonstrated the first sustained chain reaction at the University of Chicago in 1942. Hanford, Washington became the site for the plutonium production plant that provided the material used in the July 16, 1945 Trinity Test of “Fat Boy” in Alamogordo, New Mexico and the bombing of Nagasaki less than two months later.

The nation had invested heavily in Los Alamos, Berkeley, Oak Ridge, and a number of other laboratories around the country. To allow them to lie fallow would have been an immense waste of resources. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was well aware of the nation’s infrastructure treasure the war had left behind, and by the time Truman left office in 1952, twelve laboratories were operating under its auspices. Los Alamos and Sandia, both in New Mexico, continued the work of the Manhattan Project, but Berkeley returned to its prewar focus on basic research. In 1952, acceding to Edward Teller’s persistent pressure for a new facility devoted to the hydrogen bomb,⁵⁴ the AEC opened Livermore Laboratory in northern California, about 30 miles southeast of Berkeley. Since then, Los Alamos, Sandia, and Livermore have been known simply as “The Weapons Labs.”

Argonne in northern Illinois and Brookhaven on eastern Long Island—both part of the war effort—have long vied for bragging rights as the first “national” laboratory. Argonne, which focused on reactor development during World War II, redirected its mission to nondefense research after the war ended, much the way Berkeley did. Brookhaven’s story is quite different, and it reveals how effective advocacy can be in achieving a science and technology policy outcome when scientists are on the same page.

Isadore Rabi and Norman Ramsey had returned from their wartime efforts to physics faculty positions at Columbia University ready to resume their basic research investigations. They were well aware of the new research tools the war effort had produced, among them, nuclear reactors. They had proven vital for producing Fat Boy’s plutonium, but, as Enrico Fermi had shown, they were invaluable for studying the properties of nuclei, the core of every atom. Midwestern scientists had relatively easy access to Argonne’s facilities, but scientists at Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other Northeastern academic research centers would be forced to travel long distances, putting them at a great competitive disadvantage.

In March 1946, nine universities banded together to jointly make their case for a new laboratory to the nascent Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). For its site, they settled on Camp Upton, an Army installation that had served as an internment camp for a thousand Japanese Americans following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The AEC accepted their proposal, and on March 21, 1947, the War Department transferred the 5300 underutilized acres to the new agency.

Camp Upton’s name had been sullied by its use at the outset of the war, and physicists, many of whom already were questioning Truman’s use of the atomic bomb, looked for an alternative. Norman Ramsey’s wife, Elinor, suggested “Brookhaven,”⁵⁵ the township in which the new laboratory was to be located. And the name stuck. By the time work began on its first reactor toward the end of 1947, the AEC had officially recognized its new facility as Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Although written records are sparse, it is more than likely that Brookhaven’s skids were greased by the old-boy-network, stemming from the wartime relationship Rabi, Ramsey, and others had with the post-war federal bureaucrats who had begun to populate the new science agencies. Brookhaven dabbled in some defense work over the ensuing decades, but most of its activities centered around fundamental science, dominated much of the time by nuclear and high-energy (particle) physics.

The national laboratory system continued to grow after Truman left office. Between 1962 and 1984, five more sites were added, bringing the total to today’s count of 17.⁵⁶ With only one exception, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, they all function under a “GOCO” arrangement. The Government Owns them, but non-governmental Contractors Operate them. From time to time, review commissions^57,58 and select committees⁵⁹ have taken deep dives into the laboratory system, questioning whether it suffers from excessive redundancy, whether the GOCO model realizes optimal efficiencies and—especially in the aftermath of Los Alamos’s Wen Ho Lee affair⁶⁰—whether laboratory operations and practices safeguard classified research adequately. Recommendations have varied, but in the end, the national laboratory system has managed to survive for more than 70 years with only a small number of truly significant change.