NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH COMMITTEE 22 



speed meant that problems should be assigned to those institutions with the 

 facilities and the manpower which promised the best results in the shortest 

 possible time. 



Where problems which might properly be handled by the Committee 

 had a lower order of urgency, a wider distribution of contracts was possible. 

 This was also the case where problems were of such a nature as to permit 

 their division into a number of unrelated parts upon each of which a few 

 men at a number of different institutions might be engaged. In the field 

 of chemical warfare, for instance, there were cases where a competent 

 chemist with a small number of assistants could attack a discrete problem. 

 On the other hand, concentration was demanded by many problems in the 

 field of physics where each part had an intimate connection with all other 

 parts of an over-all system. 



In the beginning the Committee attempted to place contracts with aca- 

 demic institutions in a manner which would cause the least disturbance to 

 educational programs. If the contingency against which the Committee was 

 created should occur, there would be need for all the scientists whom the 

 academic institutions could train. Any unnecessary disruption of the train- 

 ing program in science was obviously to be avoided. As far as possible, 

 contracts were placed in such a manner as to permit the key scientist to 

 remain in his own laboratory available for consultation with advanced 

 students. 



In certain areas, disruption of educational programs could not be avoided. 

 Thus, while the attention of the country was drawn to the losses incident 

 to modern submarine warfare, there was no great center of information 

 and activity with reference to underwater phenomena which could serve 

 as the focal point of a big program of antisubmarine warfare. Two such 

 centers were established by the Committee at an early date — one under a 

 contract with Columbia University at New London, Connecticut; the other 

 under a contract with the University of California at San Diego, California. 

 A similar situation existed in the field of radar. While some work in long- 

 wave radar had been done in this country, the field of microwave radar 

 was unexplored. Any comprehensive program in this field would have to 

 start from scratch. After considerable search for an appropriate contractor, 

 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was selected as being both quali- 

 fied from the standpoint of men and facilities to initiate a microwave radar 

 research program and willing to undertake the substantial responsibilities 

 attached to such an undertaking. Rocket development was another back- 

 ward area in which need for concentration was apparent, and there was no 

 staff at any institution with closely related peacetime activities. The Cali- 

 fornia Institute of Technology and George Washington University, sep- 

 arated by a continent from each other, were pressed into service on two 

 distinct phases of rocket activity. 



