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The Kelly Committee Report… a summary

DEC 01, 1953
The release of this favorable report on the National Bureau of Standards, shortly and fortuitously preceded by the official reinstatement of Dr. Astin as NBS Director, mercifully rings down the curtain on a show that should never have opened. It also provides a crisp analysis of the problems confronting a Federal agency that does not receive adequate funds for support of its authorized programs.
Mervin J. Kelly
John C. Green
Lee A. DuBridge
William L. Everitt
James W. Parker
Kenneth S. Pitzer
J. Barkley Rosser
Guy Suits
Clyde Williams
Abel Wolman

On October 15th, six months after the Secretary of Commerce called for the formation of the ad hoc Committee for “the evaluation of the functions and operations of the National Bureau of Standards in relation to the national needs”, the Committee submitted a comprehensive 109‐page report which should stand as a positive and convincing answer to the Bureau’s critics. The report makes some important points clear at the outset: in the first place, the Bureau’s staff is competent and its work is not only of high caliber but is essential to the nation, thus meriting the fullest support of the Federal Government; secondly, the Bureau, severely handicapped by obsolete and inadequate space and facilities, has not been able to keep pace with the expanding needs of the nation’s technology and its basic programs of testing and research are in urgent need of being strengthened; thirdly, in spite of the high standing of the present personnel of the Bureau in the scientific world, the Committee is concerned that NBS is not attracting its proper share of the talented young scientists.

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More about the authors

Mervin J. Kelly, (Bell Telephone Laboratories).

John C. Green, (Department of Commerce).

Lee A. DuBridge, (California Institute of Technology).

William L. Everitt, (University of Illinois).

James W. Parker, (Detroit Edison Company).

Kenneth S. Pitzer, (University of California).

J. Barkley Rosser, (Cornell University).

Guy Suits, (General Electric Company).

Clyde Williams, (Battelle Memorial Institute).

Abel Wolman, (Johns Hopkins University).

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 6, Number 12

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