Part Four: Demobilization 



CHAPTER XXI 



DEMOBILIZATION OF OSRD 



F, 



ROM THE OUTSET Bush had clearly in mind that NDRC 

 (and later OSRD) would be a temporary agency and would go out of 

 existence with the termination of the emergency which called it forth. The 

 scientific personnel of OSRD had been recruited on the definite under- 

 standing that they would be released as soon as the emergency was over. 

 The program of OSRD had grown so far beyond the original conception 

 of NDRC that a substantial portion of the top scientific talent of the country 

 had been drawn into the endeavor, and it was quite apparent that the recon- 

 version effort following the end of hostilities would need much of the 

 scientific talent embraced within OSRD. 



Conant suggested to Bush on July 27, 1944, a plan for handling NDRC 

 contracts essential to the war against Japan after the termination of Euro- 

 pean hostilities which then seemed to be approaching. He foresaw great 

 difficulty in staffing the NDRC organization after the end of the war with 

 Germany and an almost insurmountable staff problem during the period 

 of liquidation following the end of hostilities with Japan. In his opinion, 

 contracts after the close of the European war would, to a large extent, be 

 concerned with procurement and manufacture of special equipment for the 

 Army and the Navy and the servicing of this equipment and would involve 

 almost no research and very little development work. Accordingly, he sug- 

 gested that a new executive order be issued establishing a Joint Army-Navy 

 Development Committee with power to take over and administer those 

 OSRD contracts which in its judgment were essential for the further pros- 

 ecution of the war, with OSRD liquidating all its contracts except those 

 taken over by the new committee. 



The Conant memorandum was circulated by Bush to the members of 

 the Advisory Council on July 28, 1944, together with one of his own, putting 

 the members on notice that at its next meeting the Council would approach 

 the difficult problem of the matter and timing of OSRD's liquidation and the 

 transfer of such of its functions as would continue into the peace. The Conant 

 plan and a quite different one by Bush were discussed at considerable length 

 by the Council at its meeting August 4, 1944. The members of the Council 



