NDRC: THE DIVISIONS, PANELS AND COMMITTEES 83 



Division Chief and others, served to keep the division apprised of the prog- 

 ress being made by the contractor. 



While the NDRC retained the exclusive right to make recommendations 

 to the Director with reference to NDRC activities, it respected the autonomy 

 of the divisions. No attempt was made to force a program upon a division 

 contrary to its best judgment, though upon occasion the Committee would 

 suggest lines of approach which were adopted by a division when it 

 was impressed with the reasoning behind the suggestions. At varying inter- 

 vals Division Chiefs appeared before reviewing subcommittees of the NDRC 

 and before the Committee itself to present their programs in their entirety, 

 reciting accompHshments to date and oudining plans for the future. Upon 

 occasion, the Committee withheld its approval from particular lines of action 

 or from particular contracts, but in the main the divisions could be fairly 

 confident that the programs which they recommended would be approved 

 by the NDRC. This was in part a reflection of the care with which the 

 Division Chiefs and members were originally selected. 



For several months prior to the end of hostilities the civilian members 

 of NDRC were impressed with the need for making plans for the eventual 

 demobilization of the Committee and they reviewed each proposal from a 

 division from the standpoint of its probable eventuation in a form which 

 would be useful in the war against Japan. This, of course, involved an 

 assumption as to the date upon which the war with Japan would end and 

 upon that the Committee never definitely committed itself. However, the 

 fact that the Committee took this point of view undoubtedly influenced the 

 proposals presented by the divisions as it was quite apparent that the Com- 

 mittee was more receptive to programs which would be completed in a 

 relatively short time than it would be toward longer range programs. 



This attitude of the Committee, however, was not a completely new one 

 to the divisions inasmuch as for some months previously, the problem of 

 scientific manpower had become so acute that the Committee was insisting 

 upon the concentration of effort in areas which promised results in time to 

 be useful against Japan. Exceptions were made in a few cases for projects 

 of fundamental importance where the Committee was persuaded that the 

 project possessed a long range importance which justified the diversion of 

 scientific manpower from projects promising more immediate results. 



The great autonomy allowed divisions was designed to permit the freest 

 possible play of the scientific imagination of competent scientists upon prob- 

 lems of military research. Review by the NDRC and the Director acted as 

 a curb upon the excessive zeal of the protagonist, by requiring the program 

 to pass the scrutiny of equally competent scientists with a better view of the 

 over-all defense picture. The problem of the administrative side of OSRD 

 was to fit all this within the long established framework for the expenditure 

 of public funds. 



