NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH COMMITTEE 21 



together, the Committee faced the necessity of making certain decisions. 

 What scientists should be put to work on miUtary problems and on what 

 specific problems? Should scientists be left to work in their own labora- 

 tories or be brought together in other laboratories already existing or 

 to be created? What steps should be taken to insure that laboratory work 

 would be carried on under conditions compatible with military security? 



An obvious first step was to find out what existing facilities were avail- 

 able for the work of the Committee, for the Committee early decided that 

 existing agencies should be used wherever possible. A companion decision 

 was that before any action would be taken requiring the withdrawal of a 

 key individual from an institution for work elsewhere, the effect of the 

 withdrawal upon the research work of the institution should be considered. 



At the first preliminary meeting of the Committee on June i8, 1940, 

 Conant was given the job of accumulating information about the research 

 facilities and personnel of a group of leading educational institutions. Jewett, 

 as President of the Academy, agreed to assemble similar information from 

 a much larger group of educational institutions, while, as a member of 

 NDRC, he investigated the available research facilities of a number of in- 

 dustrial organizations. At the same time Compton was to ascertain (i) mili- 

 tary developments under way in Government laboratories with special 

 attention to programs likely to be slowed down in the interest of imme- 

 diate production, (2) developments considered desirable by the armed 

 services but not under way, and (3) military research programs which it 

 would be desirable to supplement. 



Conant sent a letter to fifty of the leading educational research centers 

 on June 28, 1940, pointing out that the NDRC would not replace any of 

 the research work being carried on by the armed services and the NACA 

 either in their own laboratories or through co-operation with civilian insti- 

 tutions, but would supplement those activities "by extending the research 

 base and enlisting the co-operation of institutions and scientists who can 

 effectively contribute to the more rapid development of important instru- 

 mentahties of warfare." The institutions were requested to supply an out- 

 line of their special faciUties and personnel for research in indicated fields 

 and also to include a description of specific research projects on which the 

 staff were presently engaged and which might have an application in devices 

 or mechanisms of warfare. The fields mentioned in the letter were physical 

 chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, optics, electricity, acoustics, me- 

 chanics, physical metallurgy, and civil, mechanical, electrical and chemical 

 engineering. The letter also requested the names of the leading staff mem- 

 bers who might be prepared to conduct research on special problems in 

 the fields in which the institution was exceptionally qualified for research 

 as well as a notation on the special equipment for research in any of those 

 fields. 



