Taming the Endless Frontier

The partnering of scientists and engineers with the military had resulted in the weapons that would effectively win World War II. The extraordinary accomplishments of the Manhattan Project and the MIT Radiation Laboratory concurrent with the war were persuasive to the leaders of the nation of the critical significance of basic research and the indispensable revelations to which research can lead.

In 1945, the American engineer and inventor Vannevar Bush—who was, at the time, the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development—wrote an influential report entitled Science: The Endless Frontier. In the report, Bush argues that the close collaboration between science and the military must be continued; that a war-ravaged Europe could no longer produce the requisite knowledge upon which the winning of the war had been predicated; and that it is necessary for the federal government to take an active role in the funding and promotion of basic research in civilian laboratories, lest the nation grow to be handicapped militarily and economically. “Progress,” Bush states, “depends upon a flow of new scientific knowledge. New products, new industries, and more jobs require continuous additions to knowledge of the laws of nature, and the application of that knowledge to practical purposes.”¹

Despite the expectation that new discoveries would persistently benefit both national security and consumers, the government required coercion in order to actively promote science. Prior to the war, businesses and humanitarians in hopes of new patents and cures were the primary sources of funding for basic research; Bush argues that this role should now be undertaken by the federal government. The mutual necessity of physics and government had become clear; but in the years following the war, the relationship would require redefinition. Bush’s report is best known for its main proposal: the establishment of a new federal agency to replace the Office of Scientific Research and Development. This organization—the National Research Foundation—would provide funding to universities and other nonprofit laboratories to support comprehensive research on military matters, and the nation would receive the benefits of said research. Alternately, in 1945, West Virginia Senator Harley M. Kilgore submitted a bill for the formation of the National Science Foundation as a replacement for the OSRD, which would fund research and education in all fields of science and medicine. After several iterations, a compromise bill representing a good portion of Bush’s vision—save for civilian military research—passed Congress. In 1950, Truman signed the bill into law, and over the next decade the NSF would set the bar for physics higher than ever, resulting in what many regarded as the “American century”.²

Self-assured, the United States proceeded to advance its foreign policy investments with little trepidation, including confiscating any German patents and scientists deemed to be of use. Once European misgivings regarding American motives had been alleviated, the way was paved for CERN—a European research organization established in 1954, operating the largest particle physics laboratory in the world—and in 1957 the IAEA—an international organization promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy. This long and crucial lineage of events has whittled down the wild, endless frontier of science to a more restrained and manageable size, focused on more peaceful pursuits.