30 



ued to conduct much of its research in-house, it also added a large 

 extramural research grant program that it adopted from the 

 OSRD. This grant system provided research support primarily to 

 the nation's medical schools. The support of medical research con- 

 tinued to be tremendously popular throughout the postwar era, 

 and Congressional appropriations for the NIH grew accordingly — 

 from under $3 million in 1945 to over $52 million in 1950. 15 



Veto of 1947 NSF Legislation 



After two years of heated debate, Congress passed a National Sci- 

 ence Foundation bill in 1947. The bill essentially followed Bush's 

 position. But despite President Truman's support for the creation 

 of a National Science Foundation, he vetoed the legislation on 6 

 August 1947 because of serious disagreements with several aspects 

 of the bill. Truman's principal concern was the organizational 

 issue. He feared the proposed legislation would place NSF in the 

 hands of private citizens unaccountable to the Federal Govern- 

 ment, thus producing an absence of administrative accountability. 

 Truman insisted that the director and the 24 members of the Na- 

 tional Science Board be appointed by the President. 



In announcing his veto, Truman remarked: 



Our national security and welfare require that we give 

 direct support to basic scientific research and take steps to 

 increase the number of trained scientists. I had hoped ear- 

 nestly that the Congress would enact a bill to establish a 

 suitable agency to stimulate and correlate the activities of 

 the Government directed toward these ends. 



However, this bill contains provisions which represent 

 such a marked departure from sound principles for the ad- 

 ministration of public affairs that I cannot give it my ap- 

 proval. It would, in effect, vest the determination of vital 

 national policies, the expenditure of large public funds, 

 and the administration of important governmental func- 

 tions in a group of individuals who would be essentially 

 private citizens. The proposed National Science Founda- 

 tion would be divorced from control by the people to an 

 extent that implies a distinct lack of faith in democratic 

 processes. l 6 



The veto resulted in a three-year delay in the passage of the NSF 

 legislation. This delay permitted the subsidy of basic research to be 

 assumed by the military (primarily through the Office of Naval Re- 

 search), the National Institutes of Health, and the Atomic Energy 

 Commission. 



The Steelman Report 



Although the terms of the postwar science policy debate were ef- 

 fectively established by Vannevar Bush's 1945 report, Science — The 



1 5 See Rufus E. Miles, Jr., The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (New York: 

 Praeger Publishers, 1974), pp. 189-190. 



16 "Memorandum of Disapproval of the National Science Foundation Bill," Public Papers of 

 the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 19^7 (Washington: GPO, 1963), pp. 368- 

 369. 



