U.S. Research Board for National Security

Abstract

ESTABLISHMENT of the Research Board for National Security by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences was announced on February 11 by Mr. Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War, Mr. James Forrestal, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Dr. Frank B. Jewett, president of the National Academy of Sciences. The Executive Committee of the new Board will be headed by Dr. Karl T. Compton, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Board will consist of seventeen civilian men of science and nine representatives each from the army and navy, including Major-General Norman T. Kirk, Army Surgeon-General, and Vice-Admiral Ross T. Mclntire, chief of the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Civilian members include Mr. Herbert S. Gasser, director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Prof. E. O. Lawrence, professor of physics at the University of California in Berkeley, and Prof. Isador I. Rabi, professor, of physics at Columbia University. The Secretaries of War and Navy requested the president of the National Academy of Sciences under its congressional charter to establish the Board "to assist in providing for continued civilian participation in the longer-term scientific problems of national security when the Office of Scientific Research and Development proceeds to liquidate its activities as a temporary wartime agency.... The objective of the Board will be to continue, pending final consideration by Congress on creation of an independent agency, the close co-operation between civilian scientists and the armed services which has proven to be such a vital element in the prosecution of the war. Composed of high-ranking officers responsible for the needs and plans of the Army and Navy with an equal number of distinguished representatives of science, engineering, medicine and industry, this Board includes many of the features of the Office of Scientific Research and Development which has proven so successful as a war-time agency in mobilising civilian scientists and coordinating their work with the requirements and operations of the armed services...." The announcement pointed out that "science is here broadly interpreted to include the employment of scientific method of analysis, experiments and tests in any branch of science or technology including engineering, medicine, psychology and biology."