146 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



time available between establishment of contact with the individual and 

 his departure for an assignment was so variable that no systematic program 

 of orientation could be devised. Under the guidance of the OFS central 

 staff each man had to acquire as much information as the time schedule 

 and his preoccupation with the many other details of preparing for as- 

 signment would permit. Fortunately, as the tempo of the war increased, 

 the number of field service consultants who came to their assignments from 

 a long background in OSRD increased, so that systematic orientation be- 

 came less important. 



OFS was not equipped to provide indoctrination in military protocol and 

 etiquette. It had to depend for this on its liaison with the Services. Ordi- 

 narily, the Navy undertook its own indoctrination. The Army appeared to 

 attach less importance to the subject and left it largely to the common sense 

 of the individual to acquire what he could in his contacts while still under- 

 going processing or later while on his field assignment. Moreover, the 

 time interval in which a man had to be fully prepared for departure was 

 generally insufficient to permit more than a perfunctory attempt at for- 

 malized indoctrination. Fortunately, the majority of OFS men going out 

 either had acquired a "know-how" in dealings with the military from ear- 

 lier experience in OSRD, or they were being sent to report in the theater 

 through one of the OFS offices there. Here they found colleagues, familiar 

 with the procedures, who took appropriate steps to guide them. 



Processing for Assignment 



In addition to procedural formalities involved in his employment or ap- 

 pointment by the Government, each individual who accepted an affilia- 

 tion with OFS for field service had to undergo an involved series of steps 

 to prepare him for the assignment. These came to be known as "process- 

 ing." For those who were going overseas this was doubly complicated be- 

 cause it involved procurement of military as well as civilian credentials and 

 the purchase of uniforms. 



Processing consisted of two major sequences. One involved the things 

 which any civilian would need to do to go abroad in peacetime — immuniza- 

 tions, obtaining a passport, arranging for the handling of fiscal matters, 

 and the preparation of civilian credentials. The other involved special steps 

 necessary because of the war and because the individual was proceeding to a 

 military combat area. These additional items included: security clearance 

 for the handling of classified information; permission from the local Selec- 

 tive Service Board to leave the country (applicable only to men in certain 

 age groups); a military permit to be attached to the passport and author- 

 izing entrance to the war theater (issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 

 Washington only upon receipt of a request for the individual by name 



