Conversations: 1950

October 24, 1950

MEMORANDUM FOR THE FILE

SUBJECT: Conversation with Dr. Vannevar Bush

I had a stimulating conversation of more than two hours this morning with Dr. Bush who was in good form and most cordial. He expressed approval of this project saying that he thought it a good idea to have a look around. He touched briefly on Mr. Hines' memorandum for Congressman McCormack which had gone to President Truman and stimulated his concern. We covered all the major elements of my undertaking and rambled back and forth over many relevant matters, Dr. Bush doing the greatest part of the talking, of course. I shall not try to summarize here in detail the many matters covered nor the many examples and reflections expressed by Dr. Bush except as to certain major points. At the end of our conversation Dr. Bush invited me to return and to call on him whenever I so desired.

Dr. Bush is now on the outside so far as Government scientific matters are concerned, a position of which he is very conscious and to which he referred time and time again. Thought President Truman is very cordial to him, he does not call upon him for advice, though Dr. Bush has pointed this out to him on several occasions. He feels that this is not because of any-personal dislike but rather because President Truman just doesn't operate in this way - the contrast between President Truman and President Roosevelt is very strong in this respect. It is evident that Dr. Bush, who had a very close working relationship with President Roosevelt, does not approve of the present state of affairs. He mentioned,. for example, that when President Truman set up the President's Scientific Research Board - the so called Steelman Board - which prepared the Steelman report in 1947, he did not consult Dr. Bush either before naming the Board or in any in its deliberations. Dr. Bush was on the Board along with a considerable number of other big names but he stated that he had played no part whatsoever in the Board's work, that in fact he did not see the report until it was in print. He certainly did not approve of the President's turning to John Steelman who, he said, knew nothing whatever of to subject matter, to prepare this report, when he, Dr. Bush and other qualified individuals were available. In this connection, Mr. Kidd's comment to me the other day (Kidd worked on the staff that prepared the report) that John Steelman had played virtually no part whatever in the preparation of the report is interesting. Kidd said that he thought that Steelman had probably read the report after it was completed, but that was about all.

As to the Stewart Committee's report on, "Plans for Mobilizing Science" which report was prepared in response to a request from Dr. Bush two years ago, although the report itself has but recently been put before the President, Dr. Bush said that he hoped that no action would be taken. He feels that it would be a mistake to set up a science mobilization organization at this time, that is, anything to fulfill the functions of the OSRD in the last war or the residual functions, rather, for he feels that there will be nothing for such an organization to do now and it will grow rusty and stale. He feels that such an organization should be set up only when the crises arrives and that it will then be set up spontaneously and can function better in such manner. He pointed out that in 1940 or thereabouts he and Conant and a few others picked up the ball and carried it because the need was there and they were alert and energetic and he points out there will always be such individuals ready to arise from the scientific body of the Nation, hence he regards it as academic as to whether the Scientific Advisor for S&A should report to the Secretary of Defense or to the President; he feels that this depends upon the personalities at the time. If we were to have a President like Winston Churchill who is going to be his own Secretary of Defense and run the war, then it would be important for the Scientific Advisor to report to the President. I asked him how he would feel if a man like Stimson were Secretary of Defense, for he had great respect for Stimson, and he thought a bit and it became evident that almost under any circumstances he would feel that the Scientific Adviser - the Bush of the next war - should be able to, in fact, should report to the President - unless, that is the President were very weak or delegated completely his responsibilities in this direction to the Secretary of Defense who would then have to be both strong and respected. Even if a Scientific Advisor were appointed he does not think that Irvin Stewart is the man. Stewart was recommended by Secretary Johnson in his letter of transmittal of the Stewart report to the President.

I suggested to Dr. Bush that perhaps the thing to do was to create the position of Scientific Adviser, or some such title, to the President to be filled by a man of outstanding respect in the Scientific community and possessed of great energy and enterprise - a Vannevar Bush type, that is, a man having the characteristics which Bush demonstrated he had in the period beginning 1940. This man need not have any authority but would have influence on the President and be respected by him and be called on by him and, more important, the President would be susceptible of being called on by the Scientific Adviser whenever the latter felt action was needed. The Scientific Adviser should be a man who would spend only part time on the job and who would be fully occupied in the normal course in matters more or less related to scientific development. It would be important that he be actively engaged in some other fulltime pursuit so that he would naturally be currently posted on goings on in the scientific world and in fact, be a part of them. This would make it easy for him to keep posted in part time on the developments of a scientific character within the Department of Defense, the AEC, the NACA, etc. He would not be concerned with details and by reason of being free of them would be able to have a broad comprehension of the military research programs and an awareness and basis for opinion of defects and inadequacies. Thus, if a war should come or appear imminent he would in an excellent position to determine whether on OSRD-type organization should be set up or whether the regular operating agencies were now fully covering the field. In the former case, he would be the man logically to organize such an OSRD which of course would be a much more limited enterprise in view of the present state of affairs than was necessary in 1940 and thereafter. He smiled, and agreed that this was a good idea, though not a novel one, and that there were real functions for such a person to fill but that President Truman just did not work that way, that he would not call on such a person. This latter may be so or it may not. I am not convinced and feel that the idea should be kept in mind. It is hard to tell whether someone other than Dr. Bush, but of equally outstanding reputation and competence could not attain the kind of relationship to President Truman of mutual respect that, say, obtains in the Truman-Marshall relationship. Bush did say that he thought that Karl Compton had better relations with President Truman during his period of active duty as RDB Chairman than he, Dr. Bush, had had but he said that he thought that this was because of the work that Compton had done on universal military training for President Truman.

In general, Dr. Bush thought that scientific research and development was in a pretty good state in the military and quasi-military organizations, at any rate, in a very much better state than it had been in 1940 and in general, he thought that the situation was not at all bad. He has great respect for the Joint Chiefs of Staff but is rather scornful of its underlying committees in which he said most of the real work is done. He described the members of these committees as special pleaders for their services and he regards this system as deadly. As to the Joint Staff, he thinks the officers there have been selected for merit and are of excellent quality. He thinks that the present Director is a competent man. He has a very high regard for his predecessor, General Gruenther. He referred several times to the fact that the present top echelons in the military are composed of people who are too old, in that their experience dates from the First World War, very largely. But soon they will be displaced by younger officers who first came into the military after the First World War. He spoke very highly of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, in whose creation he evidently played a significant part and said that it is staffed with officers of very high caliber, in fact, he had pointed out some time ago that the officers on the WSEG staff were of higher caliber than the civilian scientific personnel and that "we scientists ought to do something about it". He thought that much of its success was due to the fact that it was not under the control of the JCS. It reports jointly to the JCS and to the Chairman of the R&DB, although eventually it is scheduled to be turned over to the Joint Chiefs. He spoke highly of General Hull, the head of the WSEG and said that he was an excellent man for the job, open-minded and nonobstructionist. He said that he thought that Admiral Parsons may become the successor to General Hull, who is scheduled to leave soon and this he thinks would be good also. He also esteems Dr. Robertson, the Scientific Director. He was very enthusiastic in his esteem for General Eisenhower.

He thinks very highly of Bill Webster and thinks he is doing a good job in RDB, in fact that a great deal of progress has been made since he and Dr. Compton left its Chairmanship, partly, he says this is evolution and partly because Webster handles himself well. He approves of the authority given to RDB to control research funds. He thinks the job of cataloging and organizing in intelligible form the numerous research projects has been pretty well accomplished. He thinks Webster has made progress in getting good men on his staff but still has a way to go. He spoke of the Bob Wilson (the R. E. Wilson, Chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana) study of RDB organization which he thinks has been about completed though it is his impression that the report itself is perhaps still in the course of preparation - this is the report that Carroll Wilson mentioned to me.

I asked about whether there should not be some more formal coordination of the work of the RDB, the AEC and the NACA, to mention the major Government agencies engaged in scientific research and development. He said, in effect, if Roosevelt were President or somebody who functioned like him, but under Truman it was not possible, and he felt that things were getting along pretty well, with relatively little overlap. He also said that he did not think that any major areas of scientific research were being overlooked, nor were they likely to be. Therefore, for the present at any rate, he did not feel that a scientific adviser to the President would have a great deal to do.

In general, he feels that, surprisingly enough, the military are giving greater and better attention to longer range matters of research and development than to the immediate. Upon my asking him to be more specific he narrowed this down to saying that there is a big gap, in which the military tend to be inert between the development of a new weapon and its transmittal to and employment in the field. He gave several examples of matters relating to the recent Korean war. He said they needed great prodding in this direction, that is in the area between development and logistics. . . He said that although much development work had been done toward the end of the last war on anti-tank mines, the whole field had been left to lie fallow after World War II, despite the obvious and well-known fact that the Russians had many tanks of excellent quality. Instead, he says, the Navy goes on developing a giant cruiser with all sorts of equipment aboard, and against whom is it to be used? He pointed out that with the Russians obviously developing and building up a tank force for rolling across the plains of Germany and Western Europe, an urgent need ever since the end of the last war and continuing was the development of antitank weapons such as mines, but the military were inert.

As to the enormous sums of money planned to go into research and development of a military nature and my question as to whether there would be enough scientists and technicians to expend this money usefully he said that he thought that a very large part of the money would be going into construction of one sort or another, that is, the big cruiser, experimental airplanes and the like and that this sort of expenditure of funds required mechanics and production personnel rather than scientists or engineers. Hence, the expansion in manpower need would not be as great as might at first appear. For information on manpower quantities and the like he said that Trytten at the National Research Council would be well informed - he is a work horse.

As to the National Science Foundation he said that he had written to President Truman asking that his name not be considered for the slate of members of the board. He volunteered his assistance in the selection of a slate but he has not been called on at all. He said that the Bureau of the Budget had consulted him however and he apparently values his cordial relations with them. He also mentioned his close and favorable working relations with Mr. Webb when he was Director and he esteems the latter. He thought it would take at least a year for the National Science Foundation to get underway but he did not regard this as an evil. . . He thought that Alan Waterman of the Naval Research Lab would be an excellent man for Director of the NSF - he volunteered this. He regards the function of the NSF as the development of scientific talent through scholarships and fellowships and thinks it a good thing that the award of such grants by the Government should be centralized in one place so that there will be a uniform policy. Its second function - that of promoting and supporting basic scientific research - is also desirable to have concentrated. He feels that the Defense Establishment and other operating agencies, even including the Public Health Service which is reluctant in this regard, will gradually turn over most of their basic scientific research work to the NSF. He said that the Navy is eager to do so. The Services will, however, wish to retain some small amount of basic research in which for one reason or another they will have a special interest and he thinks this is not at all undesirable.

As suggested above, he thinks that civilian scientists and the military are working together reasonably well, far better than they did in 1940. In fact conditions are altogether different and he thinks that this mutual understanding of problems is likely to continue for a number of years - indefinitely unless we lapse into an unawareness of the threat of Russia.

He thinks it very important that the Chairman of RDB sit in with the JCS on all sessions relevant to scientific research and development for two-way flow of information. This has been resisted all along (they would not have him) but he thinks it will come to pass during Webster's regime on RDB.

He strongly believes in "people" rather than "organization charts."

He spoke of the guided missiles turmoil in the Defense Department and indicated approval for the recent trend of increased awareness, though he did not underwrite the proposed organizational change growing out of the Keller study.

He spoke favorably of Dr. Keith Glennan, the new Commissioner on the AEC, as having a good practical political sense and being a very useful addition.

William T. Golden