SCIENTIFIC MANPOWER 275 



much for President Compton of M.I.T., who sent a letter to Mr. Patterson 

 on May ii, 1944, which read in part as follows: 



. . . they [scientists] have had to struggle for months to prevent a very sub- 

 stantial throttling of their efforts by the regulations imposed or permitted largely 

 by the War Department. ... the draft policies of recent months have driven 

 our scientists from pillar to post in search of some way to carry on. I think it 

 no exaggeration to say that half the time and nine tenths of the worries of my 

 most effective colleagues have been spent on this subject in the past two months. 

 It is also no exaggeration to say that our morale is therefore at an all-time low, 

 and that nothing but sense of duty keeps very many men on the job. 



I know that the scientific-military co-operation was proceeding smoothly until 

 the War Department announced its policy of recruiting young men at all costs. 

 The supplementary explanations or special adjustments that have since been 

 devised to avoid the disastrous effects of such an undiscriminating policy have 

 produced great confusion and have partially averted the threatened damage. But 

 the general performance of draft officials and related agencies now rests on the 

 assumption that the War Department insists on securing all possible young 

 men, let the chips fall where they may. It is as if the general policy of the War 

 Department were designed to make it as difficult as possible for the scientists to 

 perform the tasks that the operating men witiiin the Army are pressing for com- 

 pletion, and which no other group or agency can possibly carry through. 



As a result of urgent requests by Bush and Compton, Secretary Patter- 

 son assured the retention of the particular fifty men by the Radiation Lab- 

 oratory. The incident is worth mentioning primarily as an illustration of 

 the extent of disruption of normal operations incident to retaining scien- 

 tific personnel. While the final result was the deferment of a group of 

 essential scientists, the incident, and others like it, was extremely depress- 

 ing to the morale of the younger scientists. 



With the end of the war and the consequent cessation of most OSRD 

 work the basis for the continued deferment from calls under the Selective 

 Service Act of most men who had been deferred on the recommendation 

 of OSRD disappeared. After some discussions, National Headquarters of 

 the Selective Service System recognized that the long-range national in- 

 terest required the resumption of advanced studies for men having high 

 technical and scientific qualifications where those studies had been inter- 

 rupted. At the request of the Director of War Mobilization and Recon- 

 version, Selective Service established the Reconversion Working Committee 

 on Deferment and Selective Release consisting of ten Government agencies 

 including the OSRD. The committee was directed to (i) indicate to OSRD 

 the specific occupations in which shortages of personnel threatened to in- 

 terfere with the national health, safety or interest; (2) formulate the specific 

 standards indicating that a man is qualified to engage in a selected occu- 

 pation; (3) certify to the Director of the Selective Service System those 

 individuals meeting the standards established by the committee, and (4) in- 



