We interrupt your regularly scheduled
programming for announcement live from
the Oval Office, from President Roosevelt
himself.
"There is danger ahead.
Danger against which we must prepare.
There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb.
We know now that a nation can have peace with the Nazis
only at the price of total surrender."
Hello History Hatters!
While today the
Carnegie Institution of Washington hosts
lectures special events and even
services a terrific wedding venue,
In 1940 when the world was in turmoil and America stood on the brink of war,
the Carnegie Institution leased it's space to the Office of Scientific Research and Development
chaired by the Carnegie
Institution's president
shortly after Germany invaded France in
May 1940 Bush recognized America
and its allies faced a technologically superior opponent
On his own, Bush lobbied President Roosevelt
with a one-page plan
to form a committee to research topics
of warfare neglected by the military.
The Carnegie Institution served as the
committee's base of operations, even
poaching some of the Institution's existing staff.
Bush abandoned the
president's office upstairs and relocated to a more imposing space.
Imagine entering the rotunda as a new hire.
We would head towards a side room
where Bush's personal secretary
controlled traffic. If cleared for entry,
we would enter through this door.
Now we find ourselves inside an immense oak-paneled boardroom.
All the way across the room, we discover
America's first wartime science advisor seated at his desk.
Bush challenged newcomers with a bit of
roleplay
You are about to land at dead of night,
in a rubber raft, on a German-held coast.
Your mission is to destroy a
vital enemy wireless installation that
is defended by armed guards, dogs, and searchlights.
You can have with you any one weapon you can imagine.
Describe that weapon.
Bush sought to imbued newly
recruited scientists with a realistic
sense of how their research would
support vital wartime efforts.
Just six days after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, on June 28th, 1941,
Bush again successfully lobbied the President to establish the Office of Scientific Research and Development
The OSRD, which Bush again chaired,
enjoyed greater autonomy than his prior committee
and received direct funding from Congress
to develop prototype devices without the
consent of the military.
From the Institution's Boardroom, Bush oversaw 30,000 workers across the country
who developed anti-submarine inventions, fire control devices,
a variety of vehicles, an
improved bomb detonator called the proximity fuse,
vast advancements in
radar,
and the most revolutionary, destructive, and horrific weapon ever devised,
the atomic bomb.
In documents obtained from the
Institution, the United States government
established the OSRD headquarters out of
the Institution's Administration Building
under a license arrangement. The
Institution donated all of its space
without cost to the government. To make
full use of the location.
OSRD sought to convert the Institution's auditorium into temporary office spaces.
Although OSRD initially weighed housing workers within the rotunda as well,
there is no documentation this was ever done.
They even hired the same construction superintendent,
Mr. Edward Burnnap, who
oversaw the institution's 1938 renovations
designed by the architectural firm Delano and Aldrich.
It's difficult to imagine this beaux-arts marvel repurposed to develop
transformative tools of war, so I asked
the institution's help in locating any
photographs of these converted spaces in this episode,
but they confirmed none exist.
This makes sense given the nature of their classified work.
However, the Institution was able to share that the Secret Service mandated
the first-floor windows be covered with grilles,
the building be guarded at all times,
and the bronze portico off 16th Street be closed to visitors.
People passed by the Carnegie Institution every day without any sense of the critical role
it played in fulfilling President
Roosevelt's ambition:
"We must be the great arsenal of democracy."
I would like
to thank the Carnegie Institution of Washington
and its staff for extending the
many courtesies to make
this episode of the History Hat possible.
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