1337 



research and justified future public support for this activit}" on the 

 grounds of their past technological successes and expectation of future 

 technological development from future basic research. 



LONDON SCIENCE OFFICE 



Particular emphasis in both the Bush and Steelman reports had been 

 placed on the importance of restoring the international flow of scientific 

 information and contacts that the war hatl interrupted. One channel 

 for this flow was the London office of ONR. This office, still in active 

 operation in 1975, had been established in 1941 to maintain scientific 

 liaison with the British mifitar}^ research installations. By 1947 its 

 scope was still largely in "classified" subjects. To develop a flow of 

 scientific and technological information for industrial use, the Depart- 

 ment of Commerce sent John C. Green with a substantial technical 

 team to gather up as much information as possible from captured 

 German files, photo-reproduced materials collected by the British 

 Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee, and British scientific papers 

 then being declassified. Green's time was divided between service in 

 London and with Gen. Lucius Clay, head of the U.S. occupation 

 force in Germany in an organization under the acronym of "FIAT." 

 Here, 600 subject area specialists, supported by German scientists, 

 were gathering information on German industrial technology. A 

 separate team, Project ALSOS, was sent by the Manhattan District 

 to assess the state of German progress in nuclear energy development 

 and other matters of technological interest. 



WARTIME PROBLEMS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE 



During the war the Department of State had experienced con- 

 siderable difficulty in finding an appropriate role for its staff in the 

 face of all the "emergency" agencies operating abroad. A critical assess- 

 ment of State's problem was offered in a histor}- of war agency ad- 

 ministration prepared in 1964 by the Bureau of the Budget: 



The inabilitj' of the Department of State to deal \Tgorousl}^ and aggressive! j' 

 with the economic and cultural problems of foreign affairs in total war contributed 

 to the creation of special emergency agencies to deal w-ith some aspects of foreign 

 relations. This inability of the Department was due largely to the dominance of 

 the foreign-service tradition, procedure, and tempo. The Department was not 

 equipped with the technical personnel, or with the experience necessary for the 

 day-by-day activities in such fields as export control, preclusive buying, the busi- 

 ness details of lend-lease, and the conduct of psychological warfare. For these 

 and other reasons, the emergency agencies sought to operate directly with only 

 the unavoidable minimum of control by the Department of State. 



A prime difficulty was in distinguishing between policy and operations, 

 and "it seems from the evidence available that the Department never 

 clearly understood its role as coordinator and policy guide." ^^ 



Experiment oj the Department oj State in the Diplomacy of Science 



A first effort by the Department of State to become involved in the 

 emerging field of "Government science" began to take shape in 1947. 

 Apparently with the encouragement of President Truman, the 

 Department proposed to set up at the U.S. Embassy in London an 



•2 U.S. Bureau of the Budget, War Records Section, The United States at War; Development and Admin- 

 istration of the War Prooram by the Federal Government, prepared under the auspices of the Committee of 

 Records of War Administration (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 19, 1946). 

 pp. 407-408. 



97-400 O - 77 - 47 



