14 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



mended to and approved by the Committee. The Secretary's staff put the 

 information submitted by the division into the standard form contract 

 v^^hich was then submitted to the division for checking to be sure that the 

 contract adequately reflected the desires of the division. If approved by the 

 division, the contract was then sent to the contractor for signature. After 

 signature by the contractor, the contract was signed on behalf of the Gov- 

 ernment by the Chairman, or in his absence by the Vice-Chairman, pursuant 

 to authorization of the Committee. 



In the early days of NDRC, the arrival of a contract on the campus was 

 apparently the first intimation the administrative authorities of some aca- 

 demic institutions had that they were under discussion. The first contract 

 submitted to an institution was frequendy followed by a substantial amount 

 of correspondence before the institution was prepared to sign. Later con- 

 tracts with the same institution usually went through more rapidly as the 

 administrative authorities apparently needed merely to check with the 

 scientific staff to be sure that the work called for by the contract was con- 

 sidered to be within the capabilities of the staff. 



Relations with the National Academy of Sciences and the 



National Research Council 



The relation of these two bodies to the newly created NDRC was set out 

 m a memorandum sent by Jewett, as President of the Academy, to some 

 700 academic institutions on June 26, 1940. The description of the Academy 

 and Council given in the preceding chapter was taken largely from that 

 memorandum. 



That the NDRC would have special relationships with the Academy and 

 the Council was foreseen in the order establishing NDRC which specifi- 

 cally mentioned the Academy and the Council as institutions with which 

 the NDRC might enter into contracts. Moreover, the President's letter of 

 June 15, 1940, appointing Bush as Chairman of the Committee expressed 

 his confidence that the Academy and the Council would respond cordially 

 to requests from the Committee for advice on such broad scientific problems 

 as might arise. 



At its first meeting, the Committee passed a resolution requesting the co- 

 of)eration of the Academy and the Council, especially through the Council 

 sections of physics, chemistry, and engineering and through the special 

 committees on problems relating to national defense. A memorandum 

 attached to the resolution stated as an example that the sections of physics, 

 chemistry and engineering from time to time would be requested to take 

 over certain types of problems and arrange for their allocation to various 

 members of the academic profession working in their own laboratories on 

 a volunteer basis. The problems would, for the most part, be basic problems 



