1381 



personnel, and the emergence of multinational corporations and 

 foreign affiliates serving their various purposes in the exchange of 

 scientific information and transfer of technology. With the outbreak 

 of World War II, and even before, the influx of refugee scientists to 

 tlie United States provided abundant if unsystematic information 

 about the status of research and development abroad. There did not 

 occur, however, any strong movement toward establishment of the 

 kind of sj^stem of scientific attaches envisioned in the National 

 Research Council report following World War I. 



Developments After World War II 



Creation of a system of science officers abroad was proposed in the 

 report Science, The Endless Frontier, prepared at the request of Pres- 

 ident Franklin Roosevelt by a team of scientists in the Office of 

 Scientific Research and Development, and submitted in 1945 to 

 President Truman. It suggested that, as an experiment, scientific at- 

 taches be assigned to serve at selected U.S. Embassies." The first 

 experiment of this kind was undertaken 2 years later at the U.S. 

 Embassy in London, where Dr. Earl A. Evans, Jr. assumed charge of 

 a science office in 1947.^^ During this same year, a report (Science and 

 Public Policy) by the President's Scientific Research Board, chaired 

 by Dr. John R. Steelman, recommended that "appropriate develop- 

 ment of . . . scientific foreign service be considered an essential part 

 of the national science progiam." ^^ 



An explicit statement calling for establishment of this kind of system 

 had been made in one of Evans' reports from London in 1948. Specifi- 

 cally, he had recommended: 



The experiment that has been started in Great Britain should obviously be 

 extended to other European countries. It would be unnece.ssary, however, to set 

 up scientific offices in every one of the European countries. It would be more 

 economical and convenient if officers wei'e assigned from London to a nun^bcr of 

 other European areas: one man assigned to the Scandinavian countries, a second 

 to Paris, Italy and German}^, and a third to Switzerland would, at present, give 

 an adequate survey of the scientific and technological activities in these area^. In 

 each instance an officer would have assigned to him, for the necessary period, 

 specialists in any particular scientific area that was of especial or immediate 

 significance. ^° 



The Berkner Report (see pp. 17-22) gave considerable attention to 

 the role of scientific attaches in U.S. Embassies as the principal means 

 of effecting the collection and exchange of scientific information that 

 was the primar}' preoccupation of the report. It called for a mixed 

 strategy of large, regional science offices, at principal embassies, indi- 

 vidual science attaches with small staffs at other embassies, and 

 scientifically literate individuals (with science doctorates) to serve as 

 points of contact in a third set of embassies of smaller countries. The 

 implementation of the Berkner plan in 1951 began with the appoint- 

 ment of Dr. Joseph B. Koepfli, who had served in London under 

 Evans, to head up the home office in the Department of State. He 



*' U.S. Offiw of Scientific Research and Development, "Report of the Committee en Science and th« 

 Piiblic Welfare," appendix 3 to Science: T.te Eitdless Frontier, a report to the President on a prog:rain for 

 postwar scientilic research, by N'aniievar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Develop- 

 ment (Washington, D.C.: U.S Government Printiiig Office, 'uly 191.5'), p. 108. 



** See pp. 13-17 for an account of the evolution of the experimental London office and preceding activity 

 under the direction of Tohn C. Green of the Depaitment of Commerce. 



*9 U.S. President's Scientific Research Board, "A Program for the Nation," V^ol. 1 of Science aui PubUe 

 PoVcv, a report to the President by John R. Steelman, Chairman (VVaihington, D.C.: U.S. GovwnmeHt 

 Printine Office. August 1917), p. 40. 



«> Earl A. Evans, Jr., Firxt Annual Report of the Chief of the S:ie^tijic Section, Embassy of the United States 

 of America, London, England (1948), transmittal memo no. 2220, p. 5. 



