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ReseaRch a n d developmenT In T h e aR m y 17
directly with scientists working in civilian research institutions. Predictably, the
Ordnance Department endorsed the committee’s recommendations. 17
The growth and diversification of the postwar federal research establishment
intensified the debates among senior Army officials and civilian experts about
the relationship between R&D and weapons production. When OSRD and
other temporary wartime agencies closed after 1945, the military services
quickly filled the void by establishing new organizations to fund scientific
research in universities and other private-sector institutions. The wartime
success of OSRD and the likelihood of a larger postwar military establishment
made the outsourcing of R&D especially appealing to key leaders in the
military services. To be sure, the military leadership had already witnessed
firsthand how effectively civilian science had been mobilized to develop the
atomic bomb, microwave radar, the proximity fuse, and other critical wartime
weapons. The establishment of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 1946,
and the founding of similar extramural funding organizations in the Army
and the Air Force shortly thereafter, likely exerted greater influence on the
long-term viability of R&D in the arsenal system than did the debates about
its internal structure and organization immediately after the war. 18 In 1946,
for example, the Ordnance Department expected to allocate only one-third of
the funds for research and development requested annually from Congress to
the Army’s arsenals and proving grounds; the remaining two-thirds were to be
used “in placing contracts with research institutions and with manufacturers
having strong scientific and engineering research organizations and the facilities
suitable for the development of new weapons.” Commenting specifically on the
significance of this institutional division of labor, the Ordnance Department’s
director of R&D, Maj. Gen. Gladeon Barnes wrote, “Our war experience has
taught us that this is the best possible way in which to conduct research and
development in ordnance for the War Department.” 19
Back in the spring of 1946, General Eisenhower, who then served as Army
chief of staff, announced the establishment of a new Research and Development
Division assigned to the War Department General Staff. The purpose of this
high-level staff organization was to coordinate the R&D operations of the Army
and the Navy (an independent Air Force would not be established until 1947)
with those of the civilian scientific and engineering communities. 20 The Army
alone maintained a research budget of $280 million that year, one quarter of
which was earmarked for fundamental studies in colleges and universities. 21 The
17 James E. Hewes, From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and Administration, 1900–1963
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1975), 227.
18 See Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), chap. 22; Harvey M. Sapolsky, Science and the Navy:
The History of the Office of Naval Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); and Nick A.
Komons, Science and the Air Force: A History of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Arlington, Va.:
Historical Division, Office of Information, Office of Aerospace Research, 1966).
19 G. M. Barnes, “Research Needs for Weapons,” Mechanical Engineering 68 (March 1946): 197.
20 “War Department Research and Development Division,” Science 104 (18 October 1946): 369;
“Army Puts Research, Development on Top General Staff Level,” Iron Age 158 (3 October 1946): 95.
21 “Science Dons a Uniform,” Business Week (14 September 1946): 22. In 1947, the Army distributed