Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

EDWARD UHLER CONDON 443
prehended better than the new Director the implications of nuclear technology,
just emerging from its pioneer state, or the need for new instruments, ma-
terials, and processes spawned by that technology. More than administration
and organization, the thought at the Bureau needed redirection, and as the
cold war and then the Korean war came and research for defense intensified,
Condon's redirection paid off in the years that followed.
New direction required new men, and Dr. Condon's arrival happened
to coincide with an almost complete turnover of the top echelon. Age had
begun to make its claims and many, like Dr. Briggs, past the retirement
age, had waited only for the war to end. The five division chiefs who
retired in 194.5 had been with the Bureau since World War I or earlier.35
Submitting requests for retirement with them were two section chiefs and a
number of nonadministrative scientists and technicians with long years of
service.36 Still other division chiefs and 14 additional section chiefs reached
retirement age over the next 4 years.37 By 1950 the top echelons of the
working force was essentially new, and the average agejevel at the Bureau
had plummeted by some 20 years.38
In most instances division chief replacements were found among
senior heads of sections. Continuity was further maintained by appointing
Bureau-bred members to top administrative positions. The redirection of
the Bureau was carried out principally through changes in organization,
through new men that came in to head new fields of research, and the special
assistants that Dr. Condon brought in from outside.39
Appointed Associate Directors early in 1946 were Dr. Crittenden and
Dr. Dryden, the latter, upon going to NACA as director of research in 1947,
replaced by Dr. Wallace R. Brode, organic chemist and spectroscopist from
Ohio State. From the Navy Bureau of Ships that spring came Dr. John
H. Curtiss as assistant to the Director, to take charge of mathematical and
statistical research and analysis. From Westinghouse came two other assist-
ants, Dmitri I. Vinogradoff, as liaison between the Bureau and foreign
scientific and engineering laboratories, and Hugh Odishaw, to oversee sci-
They were Bearce of weights and measures, Dickinson of heat and power, Rawdon
of metallurgy, P. H. Bates of silicate products, and Fairchild of trade standards.
The section chiefs were Acree in chemistry and Stutz in mechanics.
Retiring section chiefs were Curtis and Dellinger in electricity, Miss Bussey, Wensel,
Van Dusen, and Ingberg in heat and power, Bridgeman, Brooks, and Peters in optids,
Smither in chemistry, Tuckerman and Whittemore in mechanics, Wormeley in organic
materials, and McAdam in metallurgy.
Dr. McPherson of organic materials was to say that in 1943 he was the youngest
division chief in point of service; by 1950 he was the oldest. Interview, Dec. 5, 1961.
In a few instances, senior section chiefs were made assistant division chiefs as areas of
the Bureau research were phased out or several sections were combined.