0.6 The science-government compact: 1945-1950  (Page 6/16)

Academia, according to Bush and his colleagues, was therefore the sole non-defense sector where federal researchsupport could legitimately be contemplated. Yet any arrangement that made federal support for university research contingent upon proof of relevance tosocial or economic objectives was anathema. Moreover, government support carried the risk of federal intrusion on traditional scientific norms, the most criticalbeing university autonomy. In the words of the report to Bush by the Committee on Science and the Public Welfare chaired by President Isaiah Bowman of JohnsHopkins University, “We do not believe that any program [of government support]is better than no program—that an ill-advised distribution of funds will aid thegrowth of science.” In order to be fruitful, “scientific research must be free— free from the influence of pressure groups, free from the necessity of producingimmediate practical results, free from the dictation of any central board.” Ibid., 80

At least since the time of Francis Bacon in the sixteenth century, it has been an article of faith that the advancement ofscience depends upon self-governance by peer communities. The 1935 proposal of Karl Compton’s Science Advisory Board had foundered in part because it sought toinsulate government support for university research from government control by channeling funds through the privately controlled National Research Council. Themore politically astute Bush embedded the Baconian norm into the charter of a government agency that would be virtually free from government control. Fiscaland administrative authority was to be vested in a part-time, presidentially appointed group of approximately nine private citizens. In the 1950 legislation,the size of this group was increased to twenty-four and designated as the National Science Board, to be composed primarily of eminent scientists and otherindividuals with “distinguished records of public service.” National Science Foundation Act of 1950 , Public Law 81-507 (64 Stat 149), Section 4c. According to the original Bush formulation, this part-time board was to have hadcomplete authority to appoint and discharge the director of the foundation and the heads of its operating divisions. The principal responsibility of thosedivisions, also to be comprised of eminent scientists, was to be dispersal of research funds according to their own (and the board’s) interpretation ofscientific merit. The board itself was to have additional responsibilities for coordination and oversight of the entire federal research establishment so thatthe foundation would serve as the “focal point within the Government for a concerted program of assisting scientific research conducted outside ofgovernment.”

The national science foundation

Congressional debates

On July 19, 1945, two weeks after Science—the Endless Frontier had been transmitted to Truman and the same day it was released to the public, Senator Warren Magnuson(D-WA), by prior arrangement with Bush, introduced legislation to create a National Research Foundation essentially along the lines envisioned by the Bushreport. This summary of the legislative history of the National Science Foundation Act is drawn primarily from J. MertonEngland, A Patron for Pure Science: The National Science Foundation’s Formative Years, 1945-57 (Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 1983), 25-106. Wilbur Mills (D-AK) introduced simultaneous legislation into the House of Representatives. Four dayslater, Harley Kilgore, angry that he had not been privy either to the centerpiece recommendation of Science—the Endless Frontier or to Bush’s arrangement with Magnuson, reintroduced into the Senate his legislation creating a National Science Foundation. To aremarkable extent, the National Science Foundation Act that President Truman signed into law on May 10, 1950, accepted the original concept in Science—the Endless Frontier of an independent, self-governing agency with the authority to allocate public funds for researchpriorities and directions determined by the governors themselves. But two provisions of the act departed significantly from Bush’s original formulation.First, an amendment introduced by Congressman Oren Harris (D-AK) limited annual appropriations for the National Science Foundation to $500,000 during the firstyear and $15 million thereafter. The $15 million limitation was removed in 1953. Second, the act specified that the president, rather than a presidentially appointed National Science Board, wouldappoint (and therefore have the authority to discharge) the foundation’s director. A proposed amendment to protect the prerogative of the NationalInstitutes of Health to support all biomedical research in the United States by prohibiting the newly created NSF from doing so failed to pass the Senate.However, the legislative history of the act would be interpreted so as to preclude the NSF from supporting biomedical research.