196 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



sure the Scientific Officer of control over the scientific work and to assure 

 the Contracting Officer that the contract obligations, such as the patent 

 clause, were not evaded through the device of subcontracts. 



The requirement of the Contracting Officer's approval of stipulated types 

 of expenditure was a limitation on the general principle that the contractor 

 should be free to purchase such equipment as he needed for the conduct of 

 the contract work. Flexibility was essential in the interest of speed; and 

 approval was required only of certain types of expenditure which were of 

 an unusual nature and might absorb too high a proportion of contract funds. 



In the earlier forms of OSRD contract the Contracting Officer acted 

 through authorized representatives who were situated in different parts of 

 the country as required in the administration of the scientific program. 

 With the adoption of the Scientific Officer device the Contracting Officer 

 no longer acted through such representatives. His functions were such as 

 best could be handled through a central ofl&ce. To avoid the creation of 

 bottlenecks, the OSRD Fiscal Officer was made an Acting Contracting Offi- 

 cer with authority over most fiscal matters and the head of the property 

 control section an Acting Contracting Officer on property matters. Matters 

 of policy were reserved for action by the Contracting Officer. The Scientific 

 Officer, on the other hand, acted through scientific assistants, who were the 

 Section Chiefs or Technical Aides designated to follow particular contracts 

 in detail. The system worked well in practice. The term "scientific assistant" 

 was ill-chosen in view of the caliber of men supervising scientific work for 

 OSRD; "scientific deputy" would have been better. 



Article 2. In contrast with the first NDRC contract form, the later one was 

 quite specific as to the items which could be included as reimbursable costs. 

 Most of Chapter XIV on fiscal affairs is devoted to the provisions of Arti- 

 cle 2. One additional point which may be mentioned is the "cost escape" 

 clause. The subject work of OSRD contracts was stated in general terms, 

 but the maximum amount for which the Government was obligated was 

 definitely stated. By its very nature as an exploration of the unknown, there 

 can be no guaranty of successful results of research for a stated sum of money. 

 The contract recognized this by the provision that when the contractor 

 had spent or obligated the maximum amount specified in the contract, he 

 was not required to incur any further expense until the Government had 

 first agreed to reimburse the additional expenditure. 



Article 5. The provisions of this article constitute the basis for the discus- 

 sion of property matters in Chapter XVI. 



Article 4. The several clauses of Article 4 are discussed in the chapter on 

 fiscal affairs (Chapter XIV). 



Article 5. This article had two forms, the "long form" and the "short 

 form" patent clause; the reasons for the alternative provisions and the con- 



