126 Research and National Purpose 



triguing and practical problems of calibrating compasses aboard 

 ships equipped with iron smokestacks. Since then, the technical 

 problems have become more complicated, and so have the rela- 

 tions between government and science. 



World War I led to the formation of the National Research 

 Council to enable the Academy more effectively to make 

 the contributions which a considerably matured structure 

 of science could offer to a new set of wartime needs. World 

 War II, in turn, generated additional organizations, such as the 

 National Defense Research Council and the Office of Scientific 

 Research and Development as part of the Executive Branch of 

 the Government itself. In the course of those years, the basic 

 sciences and the universities were mobilized in strikingly effec- 

 tive ways to support the wartime objectives. Radar and the de- 

 velopment of atomic energy are but two of the better known 

 products. The methods by which these scientific resources were 

 actually put to work Avere, for the most part, ad hoc, informal, 

 not to say improvised, and were motivated by a common de- 

 sire and urgency to get the job done. The closest of working 

 relations, in addition to shared personnel between the National 

 Research Council and the Office of Scientfic Research and 

 Development, assured a most effective employment of the 

 resources of both. 



By the end of the War, there were quite a number of respon- 

 sible people who understood the essential national need of a 

 continuing connection between the government and basic re- 

 search. The problem was to translate this improvised emer- 

 gency dependence into a peacetime relationship of equitable, 

 continuing character which would be consistent with the insti- 

 tutional objectives and limitations of both interests. 



The blueprint was provided by Vannevar Bush's report "Sci- 

 ence, the Endless Frontier," of July 1945. This report con- 

 tained the principal features of the pattern which was seen to 

 emerge and whose validity has been fully endorsed by the pas- 

 sage of time. The fundamental premise was that only the sys- 

 tematic pursuit of scientific research on a broad front, with the 



