World War II changed the relationship between science and government
Scientists involved in the war wanted several things after the war:  Continued military funding, a Civilian Atomic Energy agency, and civilian funding source for basic scientific research
 

Lessons Learned from WWII

• Basic science=power
• we can develop new technologies quickly to do whatever we want
• technology gives us dangerous power
• some policy issues require technical knowledge in order to understand the issue

• Department of Defense was convinced that research was essential; leftover wartime money poured into basic research, eg. at the new Office of Naval Research
• Office of Naval Research in 1948 supported 700 projects in 150 universities and nonprofit labs involving 2000 scientists at a cost of about $20 million a year
• this was basic research, not specific military projects.  The Navy actually worried about whether universities would accept military funding, but these grants were unclassified and had no controls on publication.  Scientists had few qualms
• other military services started similar programs

• Some fields of science got a lot more funding than others (eg. chemistry suffered relative to physics
• universities became big businesses
• “big science”: big projects run by teams of scientists instead of individual scientists designing their own work

National Science Foundation

• Scientists wanted the continuation of federal research funding, from a civilian agency.  Vannevar Bush wrote a report calling for this called: Science: The Endless Frontier
• Senato Harry M. Kilgore (D. West Virginia) proposed a bill in 1944 emphasizing R&D for small business.  Patents were to be owned by the federal government
• Senator Magnuson proposed a bill along the lines the scientists wanted--scientists would decide how to spend the money
• mid 1946 compromise leaning towards Kilgore failed to pass, 1947 compromise leaning towards Magnuson passed but was vetoed by Truman on grounds of lack of accountability
• compromise finally passed in 1950, but only got $225,000 total the first year

Atomic Energy Commission

• After the end of WWII many physicists felt personally responsible for Hiroshima.  This motivated them to get involved in politics with three goals
• civilian control of nuclear weapons and energy in the U.S.
• international agreements banning or limiting nuclear weapons
• peaceful uses of atomic energy
• the political fight began when Congressman Andrew May (Kentucky) and Senator Edwin C. Johnson (Colorado) proposed a bill, framed by the war department, for the control of atomic energy with an emphasis on military uses
• it almost went through under a cloak of secrecy, but when the scientist learned of the contents they forced a debate
• in the fall of 1945 the younger scientists formed a lobbying group called the Federation of Atomic Scientists (sometimes called the league of frightened men), now the Federation of American Scientists (puts out The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).  They were disturbed by the public attention they were getting, but they also saw the possibility of using it for what they saw as political good
• they succeeded in getting passed a substitute to the May-Johnson bill, called the McMahon bill (Senator Brien McMahon, Connecticut), which handed over control of atomic research and development in the United States to a civilian commission
• the AEC was run by a Commission whose members were appointed by the president, which would have complete control over the production, ownership, and use of fissionable materials, but would encourage civilian research and maintain a minimum of secrecy.  The first chairman was David Lilienthal, former head of TVA
• the scientists protests against atomic testing and their fight for arms control had much less immediate effect--a test ban treaty was not signed until 1963 and they did not succeed in putting the geni back in the bottle and preventing an arms race
• the scientists wanted the secret to be shared, but there was little hope of that because the U.S. gov't believed that they could maintain a monopoly
• the monopoly was a false hope--the Soviet Union exploded their first nuclear device in August 1949
• instead, nuclear weapons became more and more the center of our military strategy (in the Eisenhower years to save money)

 First Soviet Nuclear Test