288 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



put on the same problem. Collaborative reporting would not always be 

 possible. Under these circumstances, it was important that publication be 

 fair and that the race for first publication and its attendant scientific prestige 

 should not go by default to those swiftest with the pen. 



6. OSRD had an obligation to protect Government interest in patentable 

 subject matter, and no publication program could ignore the responsi- 

 bility. 



These then were the problems of policy with respect to technical articles. 

 It was essential for the national welfare that accurate scientific literature be 

 available to the general scientific public at the earliest possible date, and 

 equally essential that this be consistent with a sound security policy, a sound 

 policy of adequate credit to contributors, a sound policy of preservation of 

 the national property rights. Important though these questions were for 

 OSRD they went beyond OSRD. The first attempt to meet them was on 

 a broad plane. 



Publication Board 



Recognizing the desirability of making as much scientific information 

 as possible available as early as possible, Bush took steps in the summer of 

 1944 to stimulate the establishment of machinery for declassification. After 

 consultation with, and with the concurrence of, the Army and the Navy, 

 he proposed the establishment within the National Academy of Sciences of 

 a board to control the release and promote publication of scientific informa- 

 tion. The principal functions of the proposed board would be ( i ) to review, 

 for the purpose of determining what portions thereof should be released for 

 publication or other public use, all scientific and technical information 

 which might be legally released for publication and which (a) had been, 

 or might thereafter be developed by, or for, or with funds of any depart- 

 ment or agency of the Government, and (b) was, or might thereafter be 

 classified (by the War Department, the Navy Department, OSRD or 

 NACA) as secret, confidential, restricted, or by other comparable designa- 

 tion, or otherwise withheld from the public for purposes of the national 

 military security; and (2) to make recommendations to the War and Navy 

 Departments concerning the release of scientific information for publication 

 or other public use and to take such measures as might be appropriate and 

 in the public interest to effectuate the release of such scientific information 

 for publication or other public use after release had been approved by the 

 War and Navy Departments. Provision was made for the co-ordination of 

 the policy of the proposed board with that of countries with which infor- 

 mation had been exchanged. 



A draft executive order to establish the proposed board was sent to the 

 Bureau of the Budget in September 1944, but the Bureau declined to pre- 



