190 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



The onslaught of World War II, with its urgent demands for an 

 all-out mobilization, presented another severe challenge to the universi- 

 ties. The design of the vreapons and equipment needed to support our 

 Armed Forces had not kept pace w^ith advancing technology. To 

 meet the emergency the best scientific and engineering minds of the 

 country were requisitioned to set up and conduct research, development, 

 and engineering programs aimed at the solution of urgent military 

 problems. Not only were the faculties and graduate students of our 

 universities drawn into this effort on a large scale, but the universities 

 themselves undertook the sponsorship of development and engineering 

 projects of unprecedented magnitude. The success of these enter- 

 prises in providing our troops with superior weapons and equipment, 

 such as radar, proximity fuzes, and rockets, is a matter of history. 



At the close of hostilities the relationship between the armed serv- 

 ices and the universities had undergone a profound change — a new 

 mutual respect had developed. On the one hand, the armed services 

 recognized our universities and technical schools to be highly signifi- 

 cant assets in the preservation of national security not only for their 

 capacity to train leaders in science, engineering, medicine, and other 

 walks of life, but also for their capacity to bring to bear a powerful 

 combination of science and art to develop imaginative and effective 

 solutions of complex military problems. The Armed Forces have 

 learned to rely more and more on universities and other nonprofit 

 research institutions to operate teams of creative workers in science 

 and engineering to provide the weapons and equipment that can make 

 the American fighting man superior to four or five of his adversaries. 

 In this effort, a working concept of the unity of technology, as shown 

 in figure 2, and unimpeded flow in the "green" and "blue" circuits, were 

 found to be of paramount importance. The long-range implications 

 of pure scientific research acquired new respect in the minds of those 

 concerned with national security, a respect that has been demon- 

 strated in a very substantial and intelligent way during the last seven 

 years, particularly by the Office of Naval Research and by other 

 agencies charged with the supply of weapons and equipment to the 

 Armed Forces. Of the latter, an outstanding example is the Bureau 

 of Ordnance of the Department of the Navy. 



Secondly, a very large number of research scientists, many of them 

 steeped in the true academic tradition, learned for the first time that 

 the tactical and technical problems encountered by the armed services 

 can present the scientist or engineer with research problems that are 

 as challenging and stimulating as those encountered in teaching or in 

 industry. The degree of this challenge is understandable when one 

 remembers that the technological ascendancy needed to maintain 



