From Sputnik to NDEA:

            In his 1953 “Chance for Peace” speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made one of the most famous statements of his presidency: “Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”[2]  That the Cold War tragically emphasized military competition at humanity’s expense is a compelling idea.  For years, economists have emphasized the tradeoff societies make between military expenditures and civilian benefits—often referred to as “Guns vs. Butter.”  In a recent book, Michael Hogan applies such thinking to the early years of the Cold War. Hogan argues that during the Truman administration, social needs were “sacrificed on a cross of iron” in the name of military and scientific spending.[3]  But despite its appeal, the logic of Guns vs. Butter is an oversimplification when applied to the Cold War.  In some cases, Cold War expenditures on “Guns” ended up providing “Butter” as well.  Thus, the Cold War was simultaneously both a creative force and a destructive one.

            One area in which the Cold War had a powerful constructive impact was American science.  My father, a physicist, became exited towards his field by the Cold War-inspired space race.  His graduate studies, the institutions he studied at and the professors he studied under were all federally supported under the pro-science philosophy of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), passed in 1958 in the wake of Sputnik.  After graduating, he found employment doing research for the Department of Defense.  His career as a scientist was profoundly shaped by the Cold War context.[4]  And his story is not an uncommon one—an entire generation of scientists had similar experiences.  Throughout the Cold War, American self-confidence as a scientific superpower was a crucial issue.  The turning point in American attitudes towards science during the Cold War was the launch of Sputnik in 1957.  As a result, massive federal support poured into the science effort, and spending on science education and research increased dramatically. Although some have lamented the increased ties between politics and research science which developed, this relationship—accelerated by events of the late fifties—facilitated the rapid development of American science into its modern state and helped change the national attitude towards science. Furthermore, the idea that tripling federal spending on science was reasonable simply because abstract science is likely to lead to material improvements was a revolutionary one.

            Before examining the Sputnik-inspired shift, it is important to understand the historical context in which it happened.  The exceptional challenge of World War II certainly initiated many advances in science—the immense Manhattan Project, for instance, was of far greater scope than any previous scientific project—but by 1950 the public in the United States regarded science with a great deal of complacency.  In some case, attitudes towards scientists reached the negative.  The journal The Scientific Worker complained that the popular media portrayed scientists as “Mephistopheles-type figures, tempting politicians with the secret of great power, indifferent to human suffering.”[5] America’s negative perception of scientists reached new heights when physicist Robert J. Oppenheimer lost his atomic security clearance in 1954.[6]  A leading architect of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer lost his clearance after coming under McCarthyite suspicion.  These events suggest that, at least to some extent, something of a negative attitude towards science existed in the 1950s.  Although it was certainly not true that everyone shared this suspicion, that journals complained about the perception of scientists at the same time as the hero of the Manhattan Project was persecuted suggests that there was an element of suspicion in the public’s view of science.

            While suspicion of science existed in the pre-Sputnik period, complacency constituted a far greater part of the public’s attitude towards scientific endeavor.  With memories of World War II scientific glories still fresh, few Americans doubted their nation’s scientific superiority—and thus, few worried about it.  America’s sense of superiority in science over their Soviet foe reinforced this postwar complacency. This confidence was not completely unfounded, either.  Not only had the United States proved its ability to successfully organize massive science efforts in the wartime Manhattan Project, a development in the Soviet Union during 1948 bolstered the notion that Soviet totalitarianism was at odds with productive scientific work.  This development was the Soviet acceptance of a Lysenkoist idea of genetics.  Lysenko, a botanist, challenged the traditional Mendelian account of genetics based on heredity by arguing that environment determined plant characteristics.  Claiming that Mendel’s work was “undialectical”, Lysenko’s August 1948 address at the Soviet Academy of Natural Sciences resulted in the decreed acceptance of Lysenkoist principals by all Soviet researchers and the dismissal of those who refused to drop Mendelian genetics.  In the west, botanists and agronomists sneered at this development, knowing the empirical superiority of the Mendelian theory.  After seeing the impact of communist dogma on the way science was practiced in the Soviet Union, the highly autonomous American scientific community felt it had little to fear from Soviet science.[7]  This scientific self-assuredness rubbed off on the public.

            On October 4, 1957, this confidence was shattered when Soviet scientists managed to put the first satellite in orbit: Sputnik.  Only slightly larger than a basketball and emitting beeps as it circled the earth, Sputnik was nonetheless a terrifying symbol of Soviet technological prowess.  In a Foreign Affairs article published soon after Sputnik, physicist Lloyd Berkner noted how startling it was for Americans to suddenly find themselves in a “race for intellectual leadership” with the Soviets.  Berkner went on to lament the attitudes towards science of the early 1950s.  “In the complacency of our assumed technological lead, we have confused our high standards of living and material prosperity with intellectual status.  It is an extravagant and dangerous mistake.”[8]  American ambassador to Italy Clare Booth Luce echoed such sentiments, taking them to a poetic extreme as she called Sputnik “an intercontinental outer-space raspberry to a decade of American pretensions that the American way of life was a gilt-edged guarantee of our material superiority.”[9]  Clearly Sputnik had put an abrupt end to America’s post-Manhattan Project confidence about it’s scientific dominance.

            Along with being a dramatically thrown down intellectual gauntlet, Sputnik also symbolized a profound military threat.  While a loss of “intellectual prominence” was bemoaned in Foreign Affairs, more widely circulated magazines such as Time emphasized a much more tangible issue: Sputnik was a symbol of a new and unprecedented military threat to the United States.  In its first major article dealing with Sputnik, Time was quick to point out that if the Soviets had rockets powerful enough to launch a 184.3 pound satellite into orbit, they also had rockets powerful enough to deliver nuclear warheads of comparable weight at intercontinental distances.  Furthermore, Time blamed the American failure to beat the Soviets into space on the fiscal conservatism of the Eisenhower administration.[10]  Such articles in the popular press built public support for challenging the Soviets in space-related science.

The New York Times expressed their faith in the deep significance of Sputnik with a series of articles concerning the strength of the Soviet educational system, with correspondent Benjamin Fine reporting that “the Soviet Union is far outstripping the United States in its emphasis on technical and scientific education.”[11]  As the above sample of press reactions reveals, Sputnik was shocking in more ways than one.  Intellectually, militarily and educationally, Americans regarded Sputnik as the scientific equivalent of slap in the face.

The press was not the only group stunned by Sputnik.  The development also caught American politicians off guard.  Senator Lister Hill of Alabama was so shocked by the enormity of the loss represented by Sputnik that he described the event in epic terms: “A severe blow—some would say a disastrous blow—has been struck at America’ self-confidence and at her prestige in the world.  Rarely have American’s questioned one another so intensely about our military position, our scientific stature, or our educational systems.”[12]  American scientists too, were shocked.  Wernher von Braun, a German rocket expert during World War II who had become the leading rocket scientist in the United States, had perhaps the most telling response to Sputnik.  For years, he had been considered so important to American weapons technology that a guard followed him around at all times.  After hearing of the launch of Sputnik, von Braun felt that he had failed the American military effort.  Declaring that that the Russians now knew more than he did, von Braun dismissed his bodyguard.[13]  Despite such displays of emotion, scientists and politicians both labored to quickly reassert American dominance.  A semblance of American scientific credibility was restored with the launching of Explorer I in January of 1958.

            American public opinion, however, was not satisfied with simply playing “catch up” to the Soviets.  Instead, something more was needed to reassert American scientific superiority.  Throughout 1958, Congress held numerous hearings on questions of science and education. In a hearing before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor, representatives questioned Director of Development for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency von Braun on his recommendations for improving America’s scientific force. Von Braun emphasized the need for further development of human resources in the sciences:

Modern defense programs…are the most complex and costly, I suppose, in the history of man.  Their development involves all the physical sciences, the most advanced technology, abstruse mathematics and new levels of industrial engineering and production.

This…require[s] a new kind of soldier, who may one day be memorialized as the man with the slide rule…It is vital to the national interest that we increase the output of scientific and technical personnel.[14]

            Science, which had less than a decade before reached a low in public perception, now had taken center stage.  For von Braun, the previously ill-regarded scientist was now the savior of the West.  Von Braun’s position was not a marginal one either—his testimony before the committee was heartily applauded by most members.  Though a few critics, such as Representative Nicholson, doubted that the Soviets could ever compare to America “or any other Anglo-Saxon country,”[15] criticism of von Braun’s statement was scant.  Most committee members agreed with South Dakota Representative George McGovern’s approval.  Following von Braun’s testimony, McGovern said, “I want to join with my colleagues…in commending you on the excellent statement that you offer today.” McGovern was particularly impressed with von Braun’s vision of the Soviet threat as a “total challenge,” in which scientific competition was as important as weaponry.[16]  To Americans, science was becoming a key issue in the Cold War.

            While von Braun’s call for a program to “increase the output of scientific and technical personnel” was clear, it was not at all clear how this goal was to be implemented.  The most obvious way to compete with the Soviets was to mimic their techniques. However, Von Braun himself warned against simply aping the Soviet system for two reasons.  First, Soviet education disregarded the “personal inclination of the individual” in a way von Braun felt was unacceptable under American democracy.[17]  Second, the population in the Communist World so outnumbered the population in the United States than von Braun felt the American scientific emphasis was more appropriately placed on quality of research and personnel than on volume.[18] 

            Von Braun had seized upon a moment of self-doubt and laid down a challenge to the subcommittee—improve the scientific resources of the United States as rapidly as possible.  It was perhaps less bold than future challenges, such as Kennedy’s call for putting a man on the moon, but it was the first such challenge regarding American science during the Cold War that struck such a major chord with public opinion.  Now only the issue of how to achieve von Braun’s goal of increased scientific output remained.

            In a Senate hearing before the Committee on Labor Relations and Public Welfare, chairman of the National Science Board[19] Detlev Bronk outlined a possible solution to the science problem that would be acceptable to Americans: provide more federal support for research and education in the sciences, increase the study of “hard” sciences in elementary and secondary schools, and change the educational system’s emphasis from rote memorization to creative thinking.[20]  The only member of the committee which opposed a Federal program to implement Bronk’s suggestions was Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who cited fiscal and constitutional grounds for his disapproval.[21]  The rest of the committee, including powerful rising political stars such as Senators John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Barry Goldwater of Arizona, agreed with New York Senator Irving Ives’ statement that Bronk’s “masterful, remarkable presentation…ought to be published.”[22]

            The ultimate result of the above House and Senate hearings was the passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), a fairly bipartisan bill, in 1958.  NDEA appropriated $47.5 million in student loans for 1958, with expenditures on loans budgeted to exceed $100 million by 1962.[23]  Preference in loans would be given to those studying science, engineering, or foreign languages.  Also, over 4 years nearly $300 million dollars went to fund the purchase of scientific equipment[24] and the establishment of National Defense Fellowships for graduate students.[25]  Finally, individuals receiving NDEA funds were required to sign an affidavit stating that they were not affiliated with any organizations that advocated the overthrow of the United States.[26]  Considering several other provisions, NDEA allocated approximately  $1 billion in funds to supporting research and education in the sciences over four years. As a result of NDEA, federal support for science-related research and education increased between 21 and 33 percent per year through 1964. This represented a tripling of science research and education expenditures over five years.[27] Furthermore, the passage of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958—which established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)—was a highly specialized step in promoting specific scientific efforts during the Cold War.

            But unlike the reasoning behind NASA, the philosophy of NDEA was very vague.  The establishment of NASA was a direct response to the Sputnik crisis, just as the Manhattan project had a specific wartime goal of creating an atomic bomb. NDEA, on the other hand, was something new, promising little tangible result other than a large price tag.  The rationale behind NDEA was simply that supporting science, no matter how abstract, would be beneficial to the United States in ways that were impossible to foresee.  According to Berkner, Federal spending on basic research was “regenerative in character…it can, in the long pull, bring only benefit to man.”[28]  Bronk expressed a similarly optimistic sentiment during his testimony when he said, “We shall never have too many scientists.”[29]  Bronk gave no justification for this; he just assumed that more science was inherently more beneficial.  It is not amazing that scientists such as Berkner and Bronk would hold such opinions.  What was amazing was that politicians and the public agreed.  The idea that tripling federal spending on science was reasonable simply because abstract science eventually leads to improvements was a revolutionary one.  However, by 1958 Sputnik had prepared the way for the acceptance of this idea.  There would be no turning back.

            The legacy of Sputnik and the NDEA are still with us today.  Yet, even now, it remains reasonable to ask: was this revolution in thinking about science spending a good thing?  One of the most vocal critics of this spending revolution is Joseph Martino, who holds that dramatically increased funds have undermined the culture of scientists as idealistic intellectuals pursuing knowledge.  He writes that the effect of increased science funding “was to destroy science as it had existed before…and to turn scientists into entrepreneurs first and researchers second.”[30]  Martino’s criticism, though likely true to an extent, is not by itself reason enough for rejecting the science spending revolution.  If Martino’s criticism is to have substantial power, the NDEA-inspired philosophy towards science must be incorrect in assuming that investing public funds in abstract research yields tangible, worthwhile results.  However, if turning scientists into entrepreneurs has the effect of improving the rate of scientific progress and improving the material world, Martino’s criticism is valid only from a nostalgic perspective.

            An examination of the decades after Sputnik and NDEA shows that investment in abstract science did yield tangible, worthwhile results.  One area in which this occurred was in the hunt for elementary particles by physicists.  Few things could be more abstract than searching for neutrinos and muons.  Nonetheless, technology developed in relation to this endeavor has already yielded practical benefits.  For instance, techniques originally designed to detect elementary particles have been applied to the collection of solar energy, resulting in a system much more efficient than previous designs.  In another instance, work begun at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has been appropriated by the medical industry in developing “neutron therapy” for cancer patients.[31]  These are just a few cases, but it is clear that abstract science can have worthwhile applications in a short period of time.

Furthermore, other benefits of science are just now being realized.  Even more valuable improvements resulting from theoretical scientific work of the NDEA funding revolution are likely to be around the corner. Continuing with the example of elementary particle physics, scientists are now considering the possibility of using the attenuation of beams of neutrinos—particles discovered under the NDEA spending philosophy—as the basis for a technology which could provide images of the earth’s interior equivalent to what a CAT scan does for the human brain.  The value of this for humanity is obvious when one considers the difficulty we currently have locating natural resources and mineral deposits in the earth’s crust.[32] 

A final way in which the NDEA-inspired philosophy towards science funding has a left a tangible mark is in the training of capable scientists, engineers, technicians and computer programmers.  Many began in abstract science, but eventually defected to applied research or industry at a rate of over 60%.  The result is that the pool of highly trained scientists and technical specialists available to work on applied problems is much larger than it would be otherwise.[33]  Yet, despite all of these benefits for society which abstract research has produced, it is unlikely that any industrial sponsors would have themselves sponsored it. This is because the benefits were often too widespread or unpredictable for a company to be assured that it—rather than society as a whole—would receive most of the benefits of its investment.  Thus, the task of funding abstract research, if it is to be done on a large scale, must be left to government.  As the above examples show, there is reason to believe that government science funding—even considering Martino’s criticism—is justified by both real and potential benefits.

With the Berlin Wall down and anti-communism a historical footnote, it is in science that some of the most lasting legacies of the Cold War persist.  These legacies include a larger community of scientists, altered attitudes towards the relationship of science and the federal government, and new technologies now coming into their own. As seen in the revolution in thinking about federal funding begun under NDEA in 1958, the Cold War had a profound molding effect on American science.  A dramatic increase in federal funding for vaguely defined science programs showed that science had evolved from a tool into a national obsession.  A crucial turning point in the relationship between politics and science was in 1957, when the launch of Sputnik suddenly crystallized the importance of scientific endeavor for many Americans and set the groundwork for the growth of the scientific industry into something resembling its present state.  It is well-known that the Cold War changed the world in many ways.  The above account has attempted to show that these changes weren’t always for the worse.