Part Three 



SCIENCE AND THE PUBLIC WELFARE 



Relation to National Security 



In this war it has become clear beyond all doubt that scientific research is 

 absolutely essential to national security. The bitter and dangerous battle 

 against the U-boat was a battle of scientific techniques — and our margin of 

 success was dangerously small. The new eves which radar supplied to our 

 fighting forces quickly evoked the development of scientific countermeasures 

 which could often blind them. This again represents the ever continuing 

 battle of techniques. The V— 1 attack on London was finally defeated by 

 three devices developed during this war and used superbly in the field. V— 2 

 was countered only by capture of the launching sites. 



The Secretaries of War and Navy recently stated in a joint letter to the 

 National Academy of Sciences: 



This war emphasizes three facts of supreme importance to national security: (1) 

 Powerful new tactics of defense and offense are developed around new weapons created 

 by scientific and engineering research; (2) the competitive time element in developing 

 those weapons and tactics may be decisive; (3) war is increasingly total war, in which 

 the armed services must be supplemented by active participation of every element of 

 civilian population. 



To insure continued preparedness along farsighted technical lines, the research scien- 

 tists of the country must be called upon to continue in peacetime some substantial 

 portion of those types of contribution to national security which they have made so 

 effectively during the stress of the present war * * *. 



There must be more — and more adequate — military research during peace- 

 time. We cannot again rely on our allies to hold off the enemy while we 

 struggle to catch up. Further, it is clear that only the Government can under- 

 take military research; for it must be carried on in secret, much of it has no 

 commercial value, and it is expensive. The obligation of Government to 

 support research on military problems is inescapable. 



iModern war requires the use of the most advanced scientific techniques. 

 Many of the leaders in the development of radar are scientists who before 

 the war had been exploring the nucleus of the atom. While there must be 

 increased emphasis on science in the future training of officer^s lor both the 

 Army and Navy, such men cannot be expected to be specialists in scientific 



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