NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH COMMITTEE I3 



agencies only when it could find no existing agency competent to handle a 

 particular problem or when the exigencies of the situation made such direct 

 action desirable. 



The quorum for the Committee was set at five members. 



Arrangements were made through the Advisory Commission to the 

 Council of National Defense for the Committee to obtain the advice of the 

 Legal Division of the Treasury Department. The individual assigned by the 

 Treasury Department to this task was Oscar S. Cox, assistant to the general 

 counsel of the department. Cox appreciated the importance of the task 

 assigned to the Committee and his advice and counsel throughout the 

 formative days of the Committee as well as during some of its more active 

 operations were invaluable. When he moved from the Treasury Depart- 

 ment to the Office for Emergency Management and to the Department of 

 Justice, the Committee continued to benefit by his advice. In particular he 

 deserves a great deal of credit for the form of contract adopted by the 

 Committee which proved a very successful vehicle for the conduct of re- 

 search on military devices in a period of great stress. 



The Committee met at intervals of approximately one month. At first it 

 considered proposals laid before it by members at any meeting without a 

 requirement of advance circulation. At the meeting on March 7, 1941, 

 however, it was agreed in principle that proposals would be circulated to 

 members sufficiendy in advance of the meeting at which they were to be 

 considered to permit the Army and Navy members to compare the pro- 

 posals with research already under way in the Services in order that they 

 might be prepared to advise the Committee on the relation of the proposals 

 to such research. It was recognized, nevertheless, that at times it might be 

 necessary to dispense with such advance circulation in the case of urgent 

 projects. This procedure became standard practice; it gready aided in speed- 

 ing up the deliberations of the Committee by permitting the members to 

 focus their discussion on those points about which they were not satisfied 

 by the presentation in the proposal itself. 



The action of the Committee in adopting a proposal consdtuted an 

 authorization to the Chairman to negotiate a contract. The Chairman in 

 turn delegated to the Secretary the responsibility for reaching an agreement 

 with the proposed contractor and preparing the contract for signature. In 

 most cases, preliminary discussions had already been held between the sci- 

 entific personnel of NDRC and members of the scientific staff of the 

 proposed contractor. Those conversations had established the fact that the 

 scientific stafE at the designated institution felt that it had the facilities and 

 the manpower to undertake the proposed research and that the NDRC 

 scientists believed that the work would be well done at the institution. The 

 general outline of the scientific work had been agreed upon and the maxi- 

 mum amount of money to be expended was that which had been recom- 



