Conversations: 1951

March 22, 1951

MEMORANDUM FOR THE FILE

SUBJECT: Telephone conversation with Dr. Oliver E. Buckley

Dr. Buckley called me on the telephone this noontime to say that he was actively considering the question of whether he should undertake the chairmanship of the Advisory Committee on Defense Scientific Research and that he was having lunch with Bill Webster today in New York. I told him that I knew the latter, that Bill had mentioned it to me, and that I had driven out to the airport at Bolling Field this morning with Bill, who was on his way to New York.

Buckley said that in his mind the basic question was: is there really a job here to be done? This he subdivided into what would the Chairman do in his capacity as full-time advisor to Wilson and Clay etc. and what does the Committee do? He said he was asking several people about this and was thinking it over hard. He said he wanted to talk with me about it either in New York, if I would be there over the week end, or in Washington. He said he plans to come to Washington around mid day on this coming Tuesday [March 27] and stay here for a day or two.

He said that he called General Clay earlier this morning to let him know that he was actively considering it and to tell him that it might take him as much as two weeks to make up his mind.

He said that he was going to talk with a number of people; did I see any objection to that? And I said certainly not, that was the thing to do. Among the people he volunteered, or I suggested that he talk to, were Dr. Kelly, Bill Webster, Robert Oppenheimer, Dr. Bush, whom he saw when he was here last, Dr. Conant, Lee DuBridge and Dr. Albert Noyes [University of Rochester], who is a fellow graduate of Grinell and whom I urged him to talk with in view particularly of Dr. Noyes' letter of some months ago to Dr. Steelman. He also said that he wanted to talk this over thoroughly with Dr. Bronk.

William T. Golden