EDITORIAL
Chemistry Down Further in Defense Shift of one of the largest chemical research and development programs seems part of a trend
he Advanced Research Projects Agency's chemical propellant program set up in 1958 is on the way to being junked. In fiscal year 1965 ARPA will have less than half the current level of funds for this work and thereafter will have none (page 21). Responsibility for research and development in advanced propellant chemistry now wth ARPA will be shifted to military departments. There has been no public explanation of this move. The military is known to be clamoring for a bigger part in space plans, and the Defense Department's civilian management has been accused of downgrading the military potential in this area. Also, the acrobatics of apparent budget cutting in controversial areas may enter in. But it is an important fact that the $25-million-ayear ARPA program in propellants is the largest single strictly chemical program in the Department of Defense. It is designed to draw on the best available knowledge and research ability in industry, universities, and other research organizations. When Dr. James H. Gardner left the Department of Defense as Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering (Engineering and Chemistry ) to return to private industry, it appeared that chemistry might have a weaker voice at the higher levels of decision. Now, with the dissolution of ARPA's major chemical program, there is further évidence that chemical research and development will have a weaker position in our defense establishment. In addition, the transfer of ARPA's work to the military—like the departure of Dr. Gardner—can be expected to reduce further the Government's benefit from contact with the industrial perspective of economic limits and competition.
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ARPA's chemical propellant program was established as the result of a recommendation by a committee headed by Dr. George Kistiakowsky. It was designed to bring in the benefits of high quality scientific research and development, deemed to be too little in evidence in the Defense Department. It became a central focus of chemical research in ARPA. This most recent move is the more puzzling in the light of a statement by Dr. Chalmers Sherwin, former vice president of Aerospace Corp., who succeeded Dr. Gardner. In "Science, Scientists, and Politics," a recent publication of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Dr. Sherwin was highly critical of the ability of the military to manage scientific matters. "Unfortunately," he said, "the traditional military organizational structure tends to be inimical to the promotion of scientific progress. It was designed to produce specialists in violence. Now suddenly the most critical task is the selection of highly technical weapons systems—a function for which the military structure is not particularly suited." The United States has a very strong and productive chemical industry. The great rise of interest in and support of scientific research in the U.S. has helped give us an exceptional reservoir of knowledge and skill to which those charged with the development of our defense should have the best possible access. Inference from the action of ARPA creates doubt that the defense establishment is moving toward the best possible use of these resources.
OCT.
2 8, 1963
C&EN
7
