weapons. 9** We had, during the war, approxi- 

 mately thirty thousand men engaged in the in- 

 numerable teams of scientists and engineers 

 who were working on new weapons and new 

 medicine. 99 But the U.S. developed weapons 

 and countermeasures. By the end of the war 

 the United States had superior aircraft, the 

 atomic bomb, rapid fire guns, versatile radar, 

 influence fuses, and accurate torpedoes. "... 

 It became clear beyond all doubt that scientific 

 research is absolutely essential to national secu- 

 rity."" kh) The realization was that an active re- 

 search program is fundamental to military pre- 

 paredness. ". . . If we are to be scientifically 

 prepared for war — preparations must take place 

 before, not after, the outbreak of hostilities."!'^' 



Other Aspects of Department of Defense 

 Research 



The Director of Defense Research and Engi- 

 neering (DDR&E) coordinates the research activi- 

 ties of all branches of DOD.102 The total FY 1977 

 basic research obligations for DOD are estimated 

 to be $274.7 million, of which $40.1 million is for 

 the Army, $115.8 million is for the Navy, $82.6 

 million is for the Air Force, and $36.1 million is 

 for the defense agencies. Most of this last $36.1 

 million is for the Defense Advanced Research 

 Projects Agency (DARPA),!""* an agency reporting 

 to the Secretary of Defense with staff supervision 

 and scientific and technical policy direction from 

 DDR&E. DARPA was originally created in 1958 

 as ARPA, an agency administratively under 

 DDR&E. it was changed to its current form in 

 1972. Originally, it was the military counterpart of 

 the National Aeronautics and Space Administra- 

 tion (NASA). ARPA was considered necessary to 

 respond to the threat of the USSR's large military 

 booster rockets. Later, the Saturn booster project 

 was transferred to NASA, and most of ARPA's 

 other space research was gradually transferred to 

 the Air Force. ARPA then developed some long- 

 range programs such as a series of interdisciplinary 

 materials laboratories, which are now the responsi- 

 bility of NSF. DARPA now primarily funds long- 

 range, high-military potential research, but oper- 

 ates no laboratories of its own. 



One in-house laboratory, the Armed Forces Ra- 

 diobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) in Bethes- 



'»Ibid.,p. 4. 



WBush II, p. 6. 



lOOBush I, p. 50. 



""Secretary of the Navy Forrestal in his report to the Presi- 

 dent for fiscal year 1944. 



'"^Borklund, Carl W., The Department of Defense (Praeger: 

 New York, 1968), pp. 5-39. 



'"'^Federal Funds. Vol. XXVI, NSF 77-317, Table C-3(). 



da, Md., is an activity of the Defense Nuclear 

 Agency (DNA), once known as the Armed Forces 

 Special Weapons Project. The DNA comes under 

 the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the military 

 component of DOD. DNA also supervises or oth- 

 erwise participates in a great deal of research 

 which comes under the budget of the Energy Re- 

 search and Development Administration (ERDA), 

 a means of giving the military a hand in nuclear 

 weapons development while leaving the fiscal con- 

 trol vested in a civilian agency. 'O'* DOD also spon- 

 sors one FFRDC, the Institute for Defense Analy- 

 ses. I05 



Department of Commerce 



The history of the Department of Commerce 

 goes back only to 1903, when the Department of 

 Commerce and Labor was created. Some of its 

 units currently involved in basic research are the 

 Bureau of the Census, Economic Development 

 Administration (EDA), Maritime Administration 

 (Mar Ad), National Bureau of Standards (NBS), 

 National Fire Prevention and Control Administra- 

 tion (NFPCA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

 Administration (NOAA), and the Office of Tele- 

 communications. Five components of Commerce 

 estimate more than $1 million each for basic re- 

 search in 1977— NOAA with $11.8 million, NBS 

 with $6.5 million, NFPCA with $3.1 million. FDA 

 with $1.7 million, and MarAd with $1.5 million. i^*' 

 The Patent Office, which does no basic research 

 today, was the first unit of the present Depart- 

 ment of Commerce which engaged in direct inter- 

 action between the Federal Government and sci- 

 ence. This occurred in the early days of this coun- 

 try when the Patent Office was the personal re- 

 sponsibility of the Secretary of State. Dupree in- 

 vited attention to the anomalous situation which 

 this caused: 



There is something sublime and pathetic in the 

 spectacle of the Secretary of State (Thomas 

 Jefferson) and a battery of professors from the 

 University of Pennsylvania gathered around a 

 distilling apparatus in the Secretary's Office to 

 test the efficiency of a mixture supposed to 

 make salt water fresh. 'O'^ 



In 1836, the Patent Office was placed under the 

 first commissioner of patents, Henry Ellsworth, 

 who was provided with a staff of scientifically 

 competent examiners. Patent work was not basic 

 research, but Commissioner Ellsworth also en- 

 couraged the collection of natural history speci- 



"" United States Government Manual /976/77 (GPO: Wash- 

 ington, D.C., 1976). p. 221. 



i'»Federa/ Funds. Vol. XXV. Appendix B, p. 61. 



'"^Federal Funds. Vol. XXVI. NSF77-317, Table C-.34. 

 ""Dupree. p. 12. 



COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND HISTORICAL TRENDS 335 



