| This dissertation examines the wartime origins of the movement for a National Science Foundation, the major proposals and their proponents, the debates that preceded the enactment of the NSF Act, and the early years of the NSF's operations. It addresses important questions about the perceived role of science in the postwar period and the relationship between public and private power in the formation of science policy and the administration of scientific research.;These two positions combined with the interests of various groups to define the long NSF debate. The attitudes of the Truman administration, the military services, corporate and industrial research interests, university officials, and opposing factions within the scientific community influenced the final result. So did congressional conservatism, the Cold War impetus to military research, and bureaucratic rivalries within the government. In the end, the expansion narrowed the agency's mission. It neither coordinated other government research, as Bureau of Budget officials wanted, nor pursued the reformist goals of the Kilgore plan. Instead, it largely fulfilled the hopes of the Bush plan's advocates by subsidizing basic research and scientific training within a framework of public-private cooperation that allowed considerable private influence and did not challenge the established research structure.;General agreement existed on the need for a federal scientific research agency that would support basic research, strengthen the national defense, stimulate economic growth, and provide aid for higher education. Supporters also agreed that the agency should be administered through some form of public-private cooperation. But differences arose over the precise nature of this public-private cooperation and the NSF's scope and purpose. One approach, associated with Senator Harley Kilgore, stressed public control in the pursuit of a "democratic science" which would combine scientific research with economic reform. Another plan, identified with Vannevar Bush, a leading wartime administrator of research, called for little government involvement, emphasized the "best science," and favored control by the established research structure. |
