ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



coupled with his great native ability pecuHarly fitted him to appreciate the 

 requirements which modern war would make upon scientific and industrial 

 establishments. However, what was needed was an organization which 

 could make its own assessment of what the armed services needed and 

 which could then, preferably with the assistance of the Services but over 

 their opposition if necessary, go about the business of getting the necessary 

 weapons developed. 



Previous efforts to bring civilian science into the program of weapon 

 development were based on the theory that the Services would know what 

 they needed and would ask the scientists to aid in its development. Modern 

 science has progressed to the point where the military chieftains were not 

 sufficiently acquainted with its possibilities to know for what they might 

 ask with a reasonable expectation that it could be developed. The times 

 called for a reversal of the situation, namely letting men who knew the 

 latest advances in science become more familiar with the needs of the mili- 

 tary in order that they might tell the military what was possible in science 

 so that together they might assess what should be done. It was this con- 

 ception which Bush and his colleagues sold to President Roosevelt and 

 to which General Marshall and Admiral Stark gave their blessing prior to 

 the issuance of the order of the Council of National Defense, which on 

 June 27, 1940, established the National Defense Research Committee of the 

 Council of National Defense. 



