CHAPTER II 



NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH COMMITTEE 



June 27, 1940, to June 28, 1941 



X 



HE Council of National Defense had been created in 1916 

 "for the co-ordination of industries and resources for the national security 

 and welfare"; it consisted of the Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agri- 

 culture, Commerce and Labor. (U. S. Code, Title 50, section i.) The Coun- 

 cil was authorized to organize subordinate bodies for its assistance in special 

 investigations, including the creation of committees of specially qualified 

 persons. 



The order of the Council which created the National Defense Research 

 Committee (NDRC) was issued with the approval of the President on 

 June 27, 1940. Of the eight members of the Committee, two were desig- 

 nated by virtue of their positions as President of the National Academy of 

 Sciences and Commissioner of Patents respectively, four were appointed 

 without reference to other ofi&ces, and two were selected by the Secretary 

 of War and the Secretary of the Navy respectively. Members of the Com- 

 mittee served as such without compensation. The original members of the 

 Committee were: Vannevar Bush, President of the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, electrical engineer, Chairman; Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen; 

 Conway Peyton Coe, Commissioner of Patents, attorney; Karl Taylor Comp- 

 ton, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, physicist; James 

 Bryant Conant, President of Harvard University, chemist; Frank Baldwin 

 Jewett, President of the National Academy of Sciences and President of the 

 Bell Telephone Laboratories, electrical engineer; Brigadier General George 

 V. Strong; Richard Chace Tolman, Professor of Physical Chemistry and 

 Mathematical Physics, California Institute of Technology, physicist. 



Brigadier General R. C. Moore succeeded General Strong as Army 

 member of the Committee on January 17, 1941; otherwise the member- 

 ship was unchanged during the one year and one day the Committee func- 

 tioned under the Council of National Defense. 



One of the most significant facts about this group was the sense of urgency 

 with which it was imbued; the need for speed in developing new and im- 

 proved weapons was the central core of all its operations. The fact that the 

 civihan members were well known to each other, both personally and pro- 

 fessionally, made it easy for them to work together effectively with a mini- 

 mum loss of time. 



