Throughout World War II the United States did not possess a centralized propaganda agency to dictate feature film content. However, on June 13, 1942, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Oeeice of War Ineormation (OWI) to oversee and coordinate domestic and foreign propaganda relating to the war effort. Among its various subdivisions was the Bureau of Motion Pictures (BMP) under White House assistant Lowell Mellett, with offices in New York; Washington, D. C.; and Hollywood, California. The New York office under playwright Sam Spewack became responsible for government information films produced at the OWI’s behest. The 26 titles, known collectively as “Victory Films,” were documentary in nature and portrayed various facets of the government war effort in a favorable light. BMP also oversaw an additional 52 short films entitled “America Speaks.” They were aimed directly at public audiences and intended to be screened in tandem with regular motion pictures at theaters, although smaller 16mm prints were released for schools, churches, and community centers. Given this mass distribution, an estimated 4.7 million people had seen at least one title by 1943.
BMP’s Hollywood office was headed up by Nelson Poynter, who enjoyed close professional contacts with the film community and was charged with providing them with guidelines for assisting the war effort. His office wrote and distributed a pamphlet entitled The Govern'ment hrfor-mation Manual for the Motion Picture, which contained voluntary guidelines. BMP agents were allowed to review scripts and make suggestions as to how best to portray America at war. Some changes in dialogue or emphasis could be requested and were usually made, although in some instances the bureau did ask that certain movies not be filmed or distributed until after the war. Moreover, the agency wished that the military always be shown in a positive light, never surrendering, and invariably fighting to the end. Ultimately, the BMP reviewed 1,650 scripts and compliance for suggested changes remained completely voluntary. However, BMP’s influence ended abruptly in May 1943 when Republicans in Congress, fearful that the agency was promoting “Democratic” values for political ends, sharply reduced its funding.
Further reading: Clayton R. Koppes, Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies (New York: Free Press, 1987); James M. Myers, The Bureau of Motion Pictures and Its Influence on Film Content during World War II (Lewiston, N. Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993).
—John C. Fredriksen
Bush, Vannevar (1890-1974) electrical engineer, science administrator
Vannevar Bush, born in Everett, Massachusetts, the son of a Universalist minister, is best known for directing the massive effort to mobilize American science and technology for World War II. His classic manifesto, Science: The Endless Frontier, written at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a proposal for continuing this mobilization during peacetime, inspired the creation of the National Science Foundation and other government funding organizations of the cold war.
During undergraduate work at Tufts College, doctoral studies in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and various work with industry and the military, Bush developed an early faith in technology and its potential for public good. He held strong beliefs on ethics and public responsibility for engineers. As a professor in electrical engineering and later dean of engineering at MIT (1919-39), he was at the center of curricular reforms in this fast-developing field so closely connected with industry. Known for his administrative acumen, he also won respect as an able and innovative researcher in engineering science for his work in solving difficult quantitative engineering problems using graphical methods and analog computers.
In 1939, Bush became president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and also served as chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. Soon after arriving in Washington, he was at the center of mobilizing science and technology for the war effort. He instigated and chaired the National Defense Research Committee, which was quickly succeeded in 1941 by the Oeeice oe Scientieic Research and Development (OSRD) as the war mobilization effort expanded. Enjoying a close and trusted relationship with President Roosevelt, personal acquaintance with numerous industry leaders, familiarity with and respect in the university world, and knowledge
Vannevar Bush (Library of Congress)
Of the military establishment, Bush masterfully led and defended OSRD during challenging and often chaotic times. The impressive number of major wartime inventions (radar, radio-inertial navigation, amphibious vehicles, the proximity fuse, penicillin, and of course the atomic bomb, to cite just a few) that issued from OSRD-sponsored research crowned Bush’s already substantial reputation.
Bush’s July 1945 report, Science: The Endless Frontier, became the blueprint for instituting what some scholars have called the “permanent mobilization” of science and technology for the cold war, and has been reprinted and studied continuously since, often forming the starting point for periodic review of the subject by government. Bush also arranged for an extensive history of OSRD to be written and published in a series of popular books—and proved to be as masterful in crafting and controlling the remembrance of OSRD as he was in building and operating it in the first place.
Bush believed that it was the peculiarly American democratic character and institutions that made science and technology successful in the United States and correspondingly hindered it in totalitarian states. He therefore wished to dismantle the OSRD as quickly as possible, viewing it as an effective but undemocratic emergency measure for the war effort. In its place he envisioned a National Research Foundation that would support science and technology with public money, but place funding decisions and accountability in the meritocracy of science and technology leadership rather than in a government body. The National Science Foundation was established by President Harry S. Truman in 1950, one of a number of postwar government agencies with responsibilities for science and technology.
Further reading: Daniel J. Kevles, “The National Science Foundation and the Debate over Postwar Research Policy, 1942-1945: A Political Interpretation of Science—The Endless Frontier,” Isis 68 (1977): 5-26; G. Pascal Zachary, Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century (New York: Free Press, 1997).
—Joseph N. Tatarewicz
World History
