Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush was the coordinator of the scientific community for defense efforts during and after World War II when he served as chairman of the National Defense Research Committee and director of its successor, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, where he supervised the Manhattan Project and other programs. His first national appointment was to the chairmanship of the National Defense Research Committee, an embryonic agency for weapons development which Bush proposed and which President Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated in 1940. One year later Bush assumed the directorship of a greatly expanded successor organization, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), where he supervised the Manhattan Project and a number of other programs. He was a teacher and dean at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1930s. He had numerous corporate and academic affiliations, including his service on the board of directors of American Telephone and Telegraph Company,1947-1962; as chairman of the board of Merck and Company, 1957-1962; as corporate chairman of MIT, 1959-1966; and as a trustee of Tufts College and Johns Hopkins University.