Conversations: 1951

March 24, 1951

MEMORANDUM FOR THE FILE

SUBJECT: Telephone conversation with Dr. James R. Killian

I told him about the status of the offer of the chairmanship of the RDB to Keith Glennan and told him that unless Glennan were pushed the path of least resistance seemed to be for him to reject the appointment.[1] It also seemed to me that the best appeal would come through the Trustees of Case. Killian was eager for Glennan to take the job and said he would phone him immediately -- which I later understood from Glennan that he did.

I told him about the offer of the chairmanship of the Advisory Committee on Defense Scientific Research to Oliver Buckley, or rather referred to it since he already knew of it, and said that it was my feeling that Dr. Buckley would be considering the matter carefully before deciding and that he would be strongly influenced by the judgment and recommendations of those those opinions in such matters he respected. Specifically, therefore, the question was that if Killian and others were eager to have Buckley take the job rather than have the whole matter wide open again with a big question as to whom it was to be offered to or whether it would be offered at all and in what form--those then who wanted Dr. Buckley to take it had better get behind it and push, giving him logical reasons why there is a job to be done and why he should do it. Killian stated unequivocally that he would be eager to have Buckley take the job and that he thought that it would be very bad if Buckley did not take it and the matter were wide open. His comments were essentially the same as those of Robert Oppenheimer and Bill Webster in urging that Buckley take the chairmanship.

I asked Killian’s permission to show Buckley Killian’s tentative memorandum of the findings and opinions of the Killian RDB ad hoc group at its meeting in December on the matter of a Scientific Adviser to the President, which he had sent me with his letter of January 3, or thereabouts. Killian said I certainly could show it to Buckley; he would be glad to have him see it.

William T. Golden

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1. T. Keith Glennan, with whom Golden recounts four conversations between February 27 and April 16, 1951, was an Atomic Energy Commissioner on leave of absence from the presidency of Case Institute of Technology. Glennan declined to accept the RDB chairmanship and in 1952 returned to Case. In 1958 he became the first administrator of NASA. (ed.)