20 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



letters of intent issued by the Committee and expended their own funds 

 without reimbursement for several months while a mutually acceptable 

 patent clause was being whipped into shape. 



Another element causing delay in the writing of contracts initially was 

 the desire on the part of each prospective contractor to crystallize his own 

 thinking as to the type of obligations he was prepared to assume. On its 

 part, NDRC was discovering on the basis of its limited experience addi- 

 tional clauses which it desired to have inserted in the simple form of con- 

 tract originally adopted. It was quite possible, therefore, for NDRC to send 

 out a draft contract for signature, have that draft considered by the con- 

 tractor and returned with the request for amendment, and send it again to 

 the contractor with still further changes which the NDRC itself desired to 

 propose. Each contractor had changes to propose in the standard form 

 which differed from the changes proposed by other contractors. The NDRC 

 staff drafting contracts was small while the number of new contracts and 

 new contractors proposed by NDRC steadily increased as did the variety of 

 changes requested by contractors. The result was a succession of hectic days 

 until it became possible to reduce the problems to a limited number of 

 categories which could be dealt with as such rather than as a constant suc- 

 cession of individual variations. The attempt originally was to draft con- 

 tracts in the order in which they were proposed by the Committee. This 

 had to be abandoned in favor of a plan for a limited type of mass produc- 

 tion of those contracts which could follow the standard form as drafted 

 or with very slight variations. Those contracts, of which there was a sub- 

 stantial number, which required prolonged negotiation because of rather 

 decided differences of opinion between the Committee and the proposed 

 contractors, were pulled out in a separate operation which did not interfere 

 with the simpler contracts. One by one the more difficult contracts were 

 disposed of, but there were many cases where the contractor worked for a 

 number of months before receiving a signed contract upon which he could 

 obtain reimbursement. As an indication of the time lag in the early days, 

 it may be mentioned that as of January 17, 1941, the NDRC had recom- 

 mended 184 contracts while only 50 had been signed. 



Selection of Contractors 



At the outset the Committee faced squarely the problem of the best way 

 to utilize the scientific personnel of the country. Many leading scientists had 

 become seriously concerned over the progress of events in Europe and were 

 keenly desirous of engaging in scientific work which might better prepare 

 the United States for any eventuality. There was a concurrent desire on the 

 part of some key individuals in the military services to avail themselves of 

 the ability and the eagerness of the scientists. In trying to bring the two 



