Inventing US Science Policy

FEB 01, 1998

After President Truman rejected Vannevar Bush’s proposal for a practical transition from wartime research to peacetime science, the President turned to a trusted aide to design science policy as we now know it.

DOI: 10.1063/1.882140

William A. Blanpied

Throughout 1995, speeches, articles and symposiums celebrated the 50th anniversary of Science—The Endless Frontier, known more familiarly as the Bush Report, in honor of Vannevar Bush, its principal author. While all the commentators recognized the report as the centerpiece of post‐World War II’s science policy, some went on to express regret about its legacy for our present time: Bush’s strategy was mapped in the heat of war and served as a battle‐cry during the cold war, but it is likely to be inadequate as a vigorous defense of scientific research in the 21st century.

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References

1. V. Bush, Science—The Endless Frontier: A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research, July 1945. Reprinted by NSF. Washington, DC, 1990.
2. J. R. Steelman, Science and Public Policy, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. August 1947. Reprinted by Arno Press. New York, NY. 1980.
3. Time, 3 April 1944.
4. J. M. England, A Patron for Pure Science: The National Scienc Foundation’s Formative Years. Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 1982, p. 30.
Part I, entitled “The Long Debate, 1945–50 (pp. 9–112), is a detailed treatment of NSF’s legislative history.
5. C. V. Kidd, interview with the author, 13 May 1997.
6. J. R. Steelman,”A Program for the Nation,” Vol. I of Science and Public Policy (ref. 2), pp. 70–71.
7. W. D. Carey, “Science and Public Policy,” in Science, Technology and Human Values, Vol. 10, Winter 1985, pp. 7–16.
8. On 17 March 1954, President Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10521 “Concerning Government Scientific Research,” drafted by Carey, which included provisions designed to compel NSF to carry out advisory functions mandated by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950. NSF Director Alan T. Waterman largely ignored the provisions.
9. W. D. Carey, interview with the author, 19 November 1986.

More about the Authors

William A. Blanpied. Yale, Case Western Reserve and Harvard Universities.