Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-08-19
Science Will Decide
Wars of the Future
Funds for Research Essential
To Security of This Country
BIZ John II. Cline.

A recent report entitled "Science-The
Endless Frontier" contained this state
ment: I'm this war it has become clear
beyond all doubt that scientific research
is absolutely essential to national Sc
curity" 1t is to be hoped that this
literally has become clear and that it
will continue tooe clear. But the mat
ter is not free of doubt.
In January, 1912, a prominent and
respected member of the Senate charged
that the United States had failed to
keep abreast of world progress in COM
bat aircraft development, and that this
was due to blindness" on the part of
military and naval men. The first part
of this accusation was regrettably and
dangerously true The second was not
true at all, for 1t was not the blindness
of military men, but the blindness OF
Congress and of the people OF the
United States which was responsible
for our backWardness in development
of the military airplane.
The facts are that despite urgent APP
peals from the armed services to Con-
gress for more funds for aeronautical
research, the Governments total in
vestment in that vital field of aviation
development was less than $l0000,000
during the two decades that elapsed
during the close of the First World War
and the beginning of the second. When
the Germans marched into Poland on
September l., 1899, the United States
had but one basic air research labora-
tory, as compared with eight in Britain
and many more in both Germany and
Italy Three weeks before the out
break of the war in Europe, Congress,
prodded by the urgent, almost frantic,
appeals of the Army and Navy, reluc-
family granted $l0,000000 for second
research laboratory. having previously
refused on two occasions to make this
appropriation. And finally, after France
had fallen, the services were at last
able to get an appropriation for an
engine research laboratory.
The facts of this unenviable record
are not recited now to criticize for the
sake of criticism. But the record Is
important, If for no other reason than
that it is apt to be forgotten in the
flush of victory. Our danger lies in the
ease with which Americans, when there
is peace in the world, have always for
gotten or refused to recognize the real
tiles of war. And this is failing for
which Congress can by no means be
held exclusively responsible. 1t is a
national failing, trait which is ira
ditionally American; but it is also a
greater degree than in the past, canno-
be tolerated unless we intend to trife
with our national destiny.
We have won this war despite our
blindness. But we have won it by the
narrowest of margins. and only then
because indomitable allies, at the cost
of millions of lives, held off the enemy
for years while we redeemed our earlier
failures. If there is to be another war
common sense and the experience of
this one tell us that 1t will begin with
a supreme effort to destroy the United
States. There will be no period Of years
in which we can prepare ourselves after
hostilities begin. We will be ready on
the first day of future war, or that
war will end for us in ruinous defeat.
1t would be presumptuous for any
layman to undertake a definition of
the character of future war. But If
there is another conflict between great
powers-and the progress which we
have made at this time toward collec-
tive security falls far short of guar
anteeing that there will not be another
such struggle-the extraordinary de-
velopments of the war which has just
ended justify certain broad conclu-
sions
The most spectacular development,
and the most significant. has been the
use of the atomic bomb We know to-
day that one of these bombs can devas-
tate city And we have been assured
on the highest authority that this Is
only beginning, that the atomic bomb
of tomorrow will be a thing of vastly
greater destructive power. Then there
is radar, the magical weapon which
gave us dangerously small margin
of victory over the U-boat. And there
is the shakespeare rocket. which the
Germans developed in the closing
stages of the war, and against which
we had no defense except to capture
its launching sites. That there were
other new and deadly weapons in the
laboratories which were never used In
this war, and that still others, newer
and more deadly, will be developed for
the next, cannot be doubted by any
sensible person. For the moment, how
ever, it is enough to visualize a giant
rocket, with an atomic warhead, capable
of being guided to its target across an
ocean by radar. This is not fantasy,
but thing which the scientists know
to be possible, and if it is not feasible
today it will be feasible in a few more
years. When that time comes there will
be no hope for the nation that has
Jagged behind.
1t is obvious that the developments
of science are going to compel the most
drastic revision of all traditional con-
cepts of national defense Again, the
layman should not presume too much.
But we ought to be asking ourselves
whether, in another war, there will be
more than minor role for navies and
armies and air forces as we know them
today. The evidence. or such of it as
has become public property, is not yet
| ,>zI., NIL
known point to the conclusion that the