PUBLICITY, PUBLIC RELATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS 29I 



medical material was held to a minimum, confined largely to limited sub- 

 jects of immediate battlefront importance and to information which might 

 be related to strategy. 



In the course of a trip to Europe in the summer of 1945, Burchard talked 

 with the persons responsible for the British publications program and laid 

 the basis for a mutually satisfactory procedure designed to avoid misunder- 

 standings in connection with publication. 



The work of the Committee on Publications can best be followed by 

 considering each element in the OSRD publication program as it finally 

 took shape. These were: (i) Summary technical reports to the Services; 

 (2) Articles in periodicals, both technical and popular; (3) Monographs for 

 public distribution; (4) History; (5) Official governmental popular scien- 

 tific releases (not a responsibility of the Committee on Publications); 

 (6) Contractors' reports. 



I. Summary Technical Reports. Summary technical reports (STR) con- 

 stituted the largest and most important part of the OSRD publication 

 program. Rendered by every division and panel except in the medical field, 

 they included a solid summary of technical achievement, an analysis of 

 operational use, and a suggestion for lines of future research, field by field. 

 Because of the breadth of coverage, it was inevitable that security classifica- 

 tion would be required at the outset for all STR, and would remain for a 

 long time on many, and perhaps indefinitely on some. Under these circum- 

 stances, no general public distribution was conceivable and the issue was, 

 therefore, restricted to 250, most of which are to be deposited with the 

 Army and the Navy, with a limited quantity deposited on an archival basis, 

 so that if declassification should ensue and duplication were then desirable 

 (the contents are likely to be obsolete before declassification), this would 

 then be readily possible. 



Responsibility for the content, publication and distribution of STR was 

 delegated to the Chairman of NDRC. These reports were prepared by the 

 divisions and panels under the general direction of H. M. Chadwell, 

 Deputy Executive OflScer of NDRC. 



The Committee on Publications had one further responsibility in this 

 matter. Under normal governmental procedure, such publications would 

 be printed by the Government Printing Office. These particular volumes 

 were very difficult copy technically and speed of production was important. 

 The Government Printing Office was heavily overloaded. Conferences were, 

 therefore, held with representatives of the GPO and the Procurement Divi- 

 sion of the Treasury Department, and, in accordance with a standard gov- 

 ernmental procedure, a waiver was procured from the GPO, and a contract 

 entered into with Columbia University for the editing and printing of the 

 summary technical reports under a special reports group, directed by Wal- 

 lace Waterfall. Chadwell was appointed Scientific Officer of the contract, 



