Fair Prospect

The worst bogey haunting U.S. laboratories is the fear of narrow-minded military domination. The next worst is the fear that government funds will be granted chiefly to shortrange, "practical" projects.

Last week U.S. scientists felt better when they read a report by Dr. Vannevar Bush, wartime head of the OSRD (Office of Scientific Research and Development) and president of the Carnegie Institution. Said Bush: "It is now recognized all over the world that the application of science is central in national security." But he warned that basic, not-yet-applied sciences should not be neglected. "As a people we are strongly philotechnical [gadget-loving] ; we have always excelled in the applied. We have not turned with the same success to more philosophical matters. In many branches of science, we have . . . lagged behind Europe."

That took care of the "applied v. basic" question. In regard to the military, Dr. Bush was no less reassuring: "A [much discussed] danger [is] that there will be overemphasis on military aspects of science . . . since federal funds are flowing from the military services into basic research. This system, however, is undoubtedly a temporary one. . . ."

Many scientists must have cheered when they read this prediction. Most of them recognize that government funds are essential for expensive modern research.

But they plead that funds should flow through civil, not military channels. Apparently Bush stands with them.

Department of Science. At present Vannevar Bush is the nearest thing to a U.S. Secretary of Science. He is chairman of the JRDB (Joint Research and Development Board), which has power over the billion dollars or so a year which the armed services are spending on research. This enormous sum has already become the dominant factor in U.S. science.

Primary job of the JRDB is to eliminate unhealthy research competition among the services, avoid waste effort. But it can also discourage "weaponeering" in favor of basic work which may prove valuable in peace as well as in war. Scientists could hope that the Board, with Bush at its head, would not drown in military money the free spirit of U.S. science.

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