Basic Science and Agency Mission 



by 

 Dr. Harvey Brooks 



Harvard University 



Today we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of a decision 

 historic in the annals of U. S. science, the decision of the Navy 

 to assume the leadership in the stimulation and support of 

 basic and applied science in the United States. I don't know 

 how much the original participants in this decision foresaw 

 the significance of what they were doing, or what great con- 

 sequence it would have for U. S. leadership in world science 

 and technology. I rather think they did appreciate their role. 

 One senses in talking to these early participants in ONR a little 

 of the atmosphere of early Christians, spreading a new gospel 

 of the partnership of science and government. 



As with all evangelical movements, however, the very suc- 

 cess of this one has brought its own problems. We find our- 

 selves today in a period of stock-taking, a time of pause and a 

 time of soul searching. Perhaps, for the first time since the war, 

 the assumptions on which our science policy for the past 

 twenty years have been based are being seriously questioned 

 and even challenged. There have been several such pauses in 

 the past, but in none of them have the fundamentals of our 

 policy been as profoundly questioned as today. 



In some ways this questioning is natural and healthy. After 

 all, the original circumstances and environment in which ONR 

 began have been deeply altered by the very successes and im- 

 itations which it generated. Today we have at least eight 

 separate federal agencies which are deeply involved in the 

 support of academic research, and many others involved at 

 least peripherally. When it began, ONR was almost single- 



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