122 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



tractors on the program were channeled through the Planning Board. 



In June 1942 arrangements were made for a division of the work in the 

 field of atomic energy between the OSRD and the War Department. The 

 organization within OSRD was again modified. To handle the OSRD part 

 of the program, the Director appointed an Executive Committee of S-i 

 charged with the duty of recommending contracts and supervising opera- 

 tions under those contracts. The members of the Executive Committee were 

 Conant as Chairman, Briggs, E. O. Lawrence (physicist. University of Cali- 

 fornia), A. H. Compton (physicist. University of Chicago), H. C. Urey 

 (chemist, Columbia University) and Murphree. Compton, Lawrence and 

 Urey had been Program Chiefs under Section S-i, and Murphree had been 

 Chief of the Planning Board. Under the new arrangement the Planning 

 Board ceased to exist, but its former members were available for consulta- 

 tion by the War Department. The division of functions between the OSRD 

 and the War Department contemplated that for the immediate future 

 OSRD would continue with experimentation while all large-scale aspects of 

 the program would be placed directly under Army control. 



The Executive Committee held its first meeting on June 25, 1942. In that 

 and subsequent meetings it recommended contracts for research and devel- 

 opment in the field of atomic energy; beginning on July i, 1942, those 

 contracts were financed by funds transferred to OSRD from the War 

 Department. 



At its first meeting the Committee recommended the appointment of 

 Stewart as its Secretary and the appointment was approved by the Director 

 so that the administrative aspects of the Committee's operations could be 

 meshed in with the other administrative operations of OSRD. Upon the 

 Committee^ recommendation Section S-i of OSRD was abolished and 

 the members of that section (except for the members of the Executive 

 Committee of S-i) and the Consultants to it were appointed a panel of 

 Consultants to the Committee. Dr. Harry T. Wensel (physicist, National 

 Bureau of Standards) was appointed as Assistant to the Chairman of the 

 Committee and played a very useful role not only in that capacity but later 

 with the Corps of Engineers when the entire project was transferred to the 

 newly created Manhattan District of that Corps. 



In order to insure co-ordination of the work of the Executive Committee 

 with that being conducted by the Manhattan District, it was the practice 

 of the Executive Committee to hold executive sessions for the discussion of 

 its program and to follow them on the same day with other sessions with 

 officers of the Manhattan District. During these sessions, the officers had 

 ample opportunity to question the scientists and they in turn to present 

 problems on which the Manhattan District could be useful. These meetings 

 supplemented the close relations between Manhattan District officers and 

 scientists working on specific projects. 



