OFFICE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 49 



was quite different from that performed by the NDRC and the CMR, its 

 existence helped materially in smoothing the way for the operation of those 

 committees. 



Related Assignments of the Director 



The effectiveness of the Office of Scientific Research and Development 

 was materially strengthened by other activities of its Director. In addition 

 to a number of temporary assignments during the period of OSRD opera- 

 tions, he had four wartime assignments and one postwar one which bore 

 directly upon the work of the OSRD. Prior to the creation of the National 

 Defense Research Committee, Bush had been Chairman of the National 

 Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and he continued as a member of 

 that body. In consequence he was well acquainted with its personnel, scope 

 of activities and methods of procedure. The contacts which he had made 

 with the military departments as a member of NACA for some years prior 

 to the establishment of NDRC stood him in good stead in his new position. 

 Furthermore, his knowledge of the NACA program and operations aided 

 the NDRC in avoiding conflicts of jurisdiction with the Nx\CA. 



The establishment of the Joint Committee on New Weapons and Equip- 

 ment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JNW) has already been mentioned. Bush's 

 chairmanship of that committee meant that the scientific point of view 

 could be introduced fairly close to the top levels of military strategy. JNW 

 was an appropriate supplement to the activities of OSRD, making it possi- 

 ble during the war to get strategic consideration of OSRD-developed equip- 

 ment in a way which otherwise might have been impossible. 



The third principal assignment of the Director of OSRD during the 

 war was that of scientific adviser to the Manhattan District. The uranium 

 program was put under the NDRC at the time of the Committee's creation 

 in June 1940. When OSRD was established, the subject was left with NDRC 

 for a while and then transferred to a group outside NDRC reporting to the 

 Director of OSRD. When the results of research under OSRD auspices had 

 shown the possibility of the production of an atomic bomb and had indi- 

 cated to some degree the magnitude of operations which would be neces- 

 sary to produce the bomb, the project was transferred from OSRD to the 

 newly created Manhattan District of the Corps of Engineers of the Army. 

 Bush, Conant and Tolman were extremely active as advisers to the Man- 

 hattan District from the time of its origin. Bush served as a member of 

 the Scientific Advisory Committee to Major General Leslie R. Groves, the 

 Director of the Manhattan District, and also as a member of the Military 

 Policy Committee of the Manhattan project. 



The fourth of the principal assignments was a series of four questions 

 asked Bush by President Roosevelt in a letter of November 17, 1944, with 



