Defense Department Research

EXPANDED effort and increased expenditures of federal funds for scientific research in the Department of Defense have been recommended by a special subcommittee of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (the “Hoover Commission”). In its 91‐page report to the Commission, the subcommittee urged in particular that the level of basic research in the Defense Department be “significantly increased” above its present $20 million level of annual expenditure—an amount described as being “indeed modest” in terms of the Department’s present total expenditure of some $1.4 billion annually for research and development. “The level of support of basic research by the Atomic Energy Commission [about $40 million] is in better balance with its level of applied research and development than is that of the Department of Defense,” the report stated.