The Decision to Support Basic Research by the U.S. Military Services after the Second World War : The Research and Development Board and Vannevar Bush

Abstract

After the end of the Second World War, the U.S. military services began to support basic research in ivilian institutions. They officially stated that they would transfer their basic research programs to the National Science Foundation (NSF), once it was established. But in fact they did not. This paper has analyzed the institutional processes in which the U.S. military services continued to support basic research after the establishment of the NSF. In July 1946, the US Army and Navy jointly established the Research and Development Board (RDB) to coordinate Their R & D activities. They appointed Vannevar Bush, a famous civilian scientific administrator and the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during the war, as Chairman of the RDB. Bush and some military officials attempted to set up a defense research division in the NSF, but they did not succeeded because President Truman vetoed in August 1947 the bill that they had proposed. As a result, the NSF was established without any military research divisions. Following the veto, debates continued among the military officials whether they should continue to support basic research programs in civilian institutions or transfer such support entirely to the NSF. During meetings of the RDB between 1948 and 1951, the decision was made that the military services would continue to support basic research even after the establishment of the NSF.