X FOREWORD 



It was at the administrative center where all the widely ramified activities 

 and contacts of the scientific efifort could be seen from a somewhat detached 

 point of view that the process of adjustment and comprehension was most 

 sharply sensed. Hence it is that Dr. Stewart's account of the administrative 

 history of the OSRD is of the greatest value for the future and of the great- 

 est interest to those concerned with organization and the patterns of govern- 

 ment. It offers the data on which may be based sound appraisal of how 

 sincere and hard-working men of professions ordinarily widely separate can 

 set about and accomplish the development of unity. 



It was the function of the administrative office of OSRD to channelize 

 and focus an amazing array of variegated activities, to co-ordinate them 

 both with the military necessities which they were designed to help to meet 

 and with the requirements of the powerful industrial structure on which 

 their effective application relied. In the contracting system which it devel- 

 oped, in the methods for safeguarding the public interest through sound 

 patent policy which it created, in the means for effective and cordial liaison 

 with co-operating agencies which it effected, and in a dozen other ways, 

 the office brought to being a pattern of administration which apdy met a 

 new and unique need and which stands as a richly suggestive guide for 

 other undertakings. 



VANNEVAR BUSH 



Washington, D.C. 

 November 4, ig^O 



