17 



in 1938 to accept the presidency of the Carnegie Institution in 

 Washington, D.C. Because the Carnegie was at that time the na- 

 tion's largest private research organization outside the universities, 

 the appointment gave Bush entree into the highest levels of nation- 

 al scientific research and development policy. He learned how the 

 system worked and who the major players were. He also was made 

 a member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 

 (NACA), and in the following year was appointed its chairman. 

 That post enhanced Bush's skills as a high-level science administra- 

 tor, especially his ability to develop and maintain good relations 

 with various governmental agencies and Congress. As the historian 

 Sam Bass Warner explained: 



Bush regarded this panel [NACA] as a model institution. It 

 had power and funds because it reported directly to the 

 president of the United States; it was not merely an advi- 

 sory committee outside the federal budget and bureaucra- 

 cy, as many of the technological committees had been 

 during World War I. 4 



Bush used these positions in Washington to propel himself into 

 wartime planning, appealing at an early stage to mobilize civilian 

 scientists and engineers for the development of new weapons for 

 the war. With NACA as his organizational model, Bush pushed for 

 a centralized research effort headed by civilian scientists and engi- 

 neers not military officers. He was assisted in this effort by three 

 leaders within the scientific community: Harvard president James 

 B. Conant; National Academy of Sciences president and Bell Tele- 

 phone Laboratories director Frank B. Jewett; and M.I.T. president 

 Karl T. Compton. Besides being eminent spokesmen, these men 

 represented the main sectors of U.S. scientific activity. 



The politically conservative Bush had not supported the New 

 Deal, preferring instead the approach of his fellow engineer, Her- 

 bert Hoover. Consistent with this political approach, therefore, he 

 disapproved of Government restraints on business, a bias that was 

 later to influence his conception of postwar science policy. 5 



As chairman of NDRC, Bush served as the liaison person be- 

 tween science and the White House, Congress, and the armed serv- 

 ices. He organized the Committee into five divisions, each chaired 

 by a civilian member. These divisions corresponded to broad, gener- 

 al-purpose research areas: ordnance, chemistry and explosives, 

 communications and transportation, instruments and controls, and 

 patents and inventions. Each division could create as many sec- 

 tions as it deemed necessary to address specific research problems. 

 The NDRC also incorporated the Advisory Committee on Uranium, 

 which had been established by President Roosevelt in 1939. 



4 Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Province of Reason (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University 

 Press, 1984), pp. 196-197. See also, Alex Roland, Model Research: The National Advisory Com- 

 mittee for Aeronautics, 1915-1958, 2 volumes (Washington: National Aeronautics and Space Ad- 

 ministration, 1985). 



5 For comments on Bush's political conservatism, see Nathan Reingold, "Vannevar Bush's 

 New Deal for Science, or the Counter-Revolution of the Old Order," unpublished manuscript in 

 author's possession; and Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community 

 in Modern America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), p. 295. 



