40 



ed research was both contracted to civilian scientists working out- 

 side the military and conducted within the armed services' own sci- 

 ence offices. Medical and health-related research was in the pur- 

 view of the National Institutes of Health, while nuclear research 

 was carried out by the Atomic Energy Commission. Smaller mis- 

 sion-oriented research projects were undertaken by various other 

 agencies and departments. The National Science Foundation, origi- 

 nally conceived as a central coordinating body, was left with a re- 

 stricted jurisdiction over unclassified, basic research. In describing 

 the workings of this system, A. Hunter Dupree said: "A plural set 

 of government agencies went to a plural set of Congressional com- 

 mittees to ask for appropriations, which were then distributed by 

 grant and contract to investigators in a plural set of universi- 

 ties." 13 It was this system that faced the demands for drastic ex- 

 pansion that followed in the wake of the Soviet technological 

 breakthrough embodied in the Sputnik earth satellite. 



13 A. Hunter Dupree, "Science and Technology Policy since World War II," unpublished paper 

 presented at Southern Oregon State College, 24 February 1983. 



