Oral history interview with Vannevar Bush, 1964.

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Oral history interview with Vannevar Bush, 1964.

Interview deals at length with Bush's career and life, with particular emphasis on government work during World War II: the proximity fuze (Winston Churchill, Merle Tuve); cryptanalysis; development of the DUKW; beginning of the National Defense Research Committee (James Conant); Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD); organization of the Manhattan District project (J. R. Oppenheimer, Leslie Groves); A-bomb development (Franklin D. Roosevelt), Alamagordo test; German A-bomb program (Samuel Goudsmit); the V-1 rocket threat (Dwight D. Eisenhower); cooperation between military and civilian researchers; organization of British scientific research (Sir Henry T. Tizard, Lord Frederick Cherwell, Churchill); history and development of the differential analyzer (Charles Babbage). Postwar scientific research; development of National Science Foundation (Harry S. Truman); supremacy of U.S. science; Anglo-American atomic information exchange, U.S. educational system; Committee on Medical Research; patent system; guidance systems; relations between scientists and the military. Also prominently mentioned are: Niels Bohr, Karl T. Compton, Lee DuBridge, Werner Heisenberg, Alfred Loomis, Harlow Shapley, Harold Urey; Atomic Energy Commission, Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory, National Academy of Sciences, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institutes of Health, National Research Council, and United States Department of the Navy.

.7 cu. ft.

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8216745

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