32 



and popular document. Steelman's five-volume report examined 

 the nation's science policy in a meticulous, integrated, and compre- 

 hensive manner — a task that has since been unrepeated in its 

 scope, save perhaps by the 1964 studies produced by the House 

 Select ("Elliott") Committee on Government Research. 21 As a 

 result of this difference, the Steelman Report offered far more spe- 

 cific recommendations than did the Bush Report. For example, in 

 its call for a high and sustained level of funding for research and 

 development, the Steelman Report recommended the establishment 

 of a minimum spending level equal to one percent of the gross na- 

 tional product. 



Many of the differences between the Steelman and Bush reports 

 mirrored the differences between Kilgore and Bush, with the Steel- 

 man Report coinciding with the positions previously taken by Sena- 

 tor Kilgore. The debate was over how the Government should sup- 

 port science, not whether it should provide such support. The spe- 

 cific areas of disagreement included: the ownership of patents re- 

 sulting from Government-sponsored research, geographical distri- 

 bution of research funds, the inclusion of the social sciences, and 

 political control of the National Science Foundation. 



The Steelman Report made several recommendations that would 

 bring science policymaking back into the White House — a situation 

 that briefly existed during the Great Depression, and that flour- 

 ished during World War II with the OSRD. The elimination of the 

 OSRD meant that coordination of Federal research and develop- 

 ment passed from the White House to the various agencies. The 

 only remaining mechanism of control by the President was the 

 Bureau of the Budget, but this was restricted to fiscal matters. 

 Steelman recommended that an Interdepartmental Committee on 

 Scientific Research and Development be created, and that a White 

 House science adviser be appointed. 22 President Truman followed 

 the first recommendation, creating the Interdepartmental Commit- 

 tee in 1947 composed of bureau chiefs responsible for scientific re- 

 search and development. Truman did not, however, establish the 

 post of Presidential science adviser. Instead, the National Science 

 Foundation was assigned the role of coordinating research and ad- 

 vising the President. 23 Moreover, the President was also given 

 access to the Science Advisory Committee established within the 

 Office of Defense Mobilization in 1951. 24 



Military Support of Basic Research 



President Truman terminated the OSRD on 26 December 1947. 25 

 Anticipating its disappearance, the Secretaries of War and Navy 

 established the Joint Research and Development Board in June 

 1946. The Board was composed of two representatives from each 



2 ' See U.S. Congress, Select Committee on Government Research of the House of Representa- 

 tives, Federal Research and Development Programs (88th Congress, 2nd session. Washington: 

 GPO, 1964). 



22 See Steelman, Science and Public Policy, vol. I, p.65 



23 See J. Stefan Dupre and Sanford A. Lakoff, Science and the Nation: Policy and Politics (En- 

 glewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962), pp. 65-67. 



24 See Detlev W. Bronk, "Science Advice in the White House: The Genesis of the President's 

 Science Advisers and the National Science Foundation," Science, 186 (October 11, 1974), 116-121. 



25 Executive Order No. 9913, 26 December 1947. 



