19 



the OSRD did provide profound and far-reaching precedents for the 

 future organization of science in the United States. The contract 

 system was so successful during the war that it set a pattern for 

 postwar American science policy which remains to this day. 9 



The Manhattan Project 



The development of the atomic bomb under the aegis of the Man- 

 hattan Project was the most touted accomplishment of the scien- 

 tists and engineers working during the war, and it too had a pro- 

 found impact on later developments in science policy and the over- 

 all relationship between science and Government in the United 

 States. The wartime atomic energy research program began in 1939 

 with Roosevelt's creation of the ad hoc Uranium Committee. This 

 Committee, along with the NDRC, was absorbed in 1941 to create 

 the OSRD. Due to stringent security requirements and the realiza- 

 tion that this was a large-scale operation beyond the bounds of the 

 OSRD, Bush transferred the OSRD atomic weapons program to the 

 Army's Manhattan Project in 1943. After the war, nuclear research 

 remained an issue separate from the rest of the nation's science 

 policy — largely because of its overwhelming military implica- 

 tions. 10 



Funding Mechanisms and the Legacy of World War II 



Besides the permanent rise in Federal expenditures for research 

 and the strengthened ties between Government and the nation's 

 leading research universities, World War II ushered in another 

 fundamental change for American science policy — the installation 

 of two types of research funding mechanisms, contracts and grants. 

 Vannevar Bush preferred the research contract as the predomi- 

 nant method of funding science. First developed by NACA, and 

 then elaborated on by OSRD, the contract system became impor- 

 tant for postwar funding when it was adopted by the Office of 

 Naval Research, one of the largest supporters of basic research 

 during the five years after the war. 



The research grant, the other major funding mechanism used 

 during World War II, was the system favored by the universities 

 and perhaps by the majority of principal investigators. It tended to 

 provide greater freedom and latitude. After the war, the National 

 Institutes of Health utilized the grant system extensively. Indeed, 

 until specific legislation was passed to help higher education after 

 Sputnik, the grant system served as a type of covert aid to higher 



9 For a complete account of the accomplishments of the OSRD, see the nine volumes of the 

 official "Science in World II Series": Baxter, Scientists Against Time; Stewart, Organizing Scien- 

 tific Research for War; John E. Burchard (ed.), Rockets, Guns and Targets (Boston: Little, Brown, 

 1948); Joseph C Boyce (ed.), New Weapons for Air Warfare (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947); William 

 A. Noyes, Jr. (ed.), Chemistry: A History of the Chemistry Components of the N.D.R.C, 1940-1946 

 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948); Chauncy G. Suits, Louis Jordan, and George R. Harrison (eds.), 

 Applied Physics: Electronics, Optics, Metallurgy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948); Lincoln R. Thies- 

 meyer and John E. Burchard, Combat Scientists (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947); E. C. Andrus, 

 Detlev W. Bronk, et al., Advances in Military Medicine, 2 volumes (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948); 

 and Charles W. Bray, Psychology and Military Proficiency: A History of the Applied Psychology 

 Panel of the N.D.R.C. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948). 



10 See Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World, 1939-1946: Volume I, 

 A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (University Park: Pennsylvania State 

 University Press, 1962). 



