Calling All Crackpots

Anybody have any ideas about how to defend the U.S. against rockets? Guided missiles? Atomic bombs? Free-lance inventors are frequently regarded as crackpots--but not in Washington, these days. Last week the National Inventors Council called on scientists, engineers and amateur inventors to submit schemes for atomic-age warfare. Practically any approach to the problem will be carefully considered: how to disperse a population, how to guard against radioactivity, specially designed buildings, interception gadgets, warning devices.

Charles F. Kettering, the Council's chairman (and head of research at General Motors), has considerable faith in freelance gadgeteers. During World War II, the Kettering theory paid off handsomely. The Council received more than 200,000 notions. Most came from impractical dreamers, screwballs and ignorant well-wishers. But some 5,000 ideas were promising enough to be turned over to the armed services or the OSS. About 150 of these went into actual production; some 600 more are still in the testing stage. Some of the most successful: P:The Army's portable mine detector, invented by a Miami electrician to help a neighbor find buried pirate gold. P:A tank-driven mine detonator. P: A long-lasting walkie-talkie battery for use in the tropics.

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