COMMITTEE ON MEDICAL RESEARCH III 



half of each week in Washington concerned with its affairs. Until the 

 reorganization of the Committee in June 1944, its full-time staff was ex- 

 ceedingly small. 



In September 194 1 Dr. A. M. Walker was appointed Assistant to the 

 Chairman. Technical Aides were provided for the two most active fields 

 in December 194 1. In June 1942, when Walker entered the Army he was 

 succeeded by Dr. E. Cowles Andrus as Assistant to the Chairman, respon- 

 sible for administration of CMR affairs. 



Initially, the Committee had felt the unwisdom of organizing itself into 

 divisions and sections as the NDRC had done. Committees on the very 

 subjects which such divisions and sections would embrace already existed 

 within NRC and there seemed danger in erecting an overlapping and, in 

 a sense, a competing organization. 



On these several counts the Committee was content for over two years 

 to maintain but a small staff. Its purely administrative functions, designed 

 to facilitate the work of the investigator, were handled adequately in the 

 Washington office by the one or two Technical Aides. Such tasks as clear- 

 ance and deferment of personnel, priorities for material, circulation of 

 reports, inquiries of a thousand sorts, were handled in this fashion. For 

 its more important supervisory function, the Committee depended during 

 these years upon its own members, upon the NRC committees and upon 

 special consultants. A variety of means were employed toward this end. 



Although the Chairman and Vice-Chairman were confined to Wash- 

 ington by their respective duties with CMR and NRC, the other two 

 civilian members made occasional trips to survey the progress of contracts. 

 In February 1942, the Chairman of CMR directed a letter to the Chair- 

 man of the Division of Medical Sciences of NRC, asking that the NRC 

 committees undertake to supervise and correlate the projects which they 

 had recommended to CMR and which were already under way. He sug- 

 gested that meetings of investigators would be a useful means of effecting 

 co-operation. In the fall of 1942, again utilizing the services of the NRC 

 committee chairmen, CMR asked for a critical evaluation of its OSRD 

 contracts with the purpose of identifying those which should be prosecuted 

 with vigor and those which should be terminated or not recommended for 

 renewal. Seventeen chairmen made these surveys in their fields of special 

 interest and reported their conclusions in meetings with CMR during 

 December of that year. 



Utilizing another method, CMR appointed Special Advisers and Con- 

 sultants to inspect and report upon certain aspects of the research program. 

 A further attempt to establish co-ordination was made through the medium 

 of the progress reports which each investigator was required to submit 

 to CMR. These reports were duplicated in the Washington office and 

 distributed to responsible investigators in the same field, to members of 



