The Essential Writings Of Vannevar Bush

388 Pages·2022·1.814 MB·English

by  G. Pascal Zachary

THE ESSENTIAL

WRITINGS OF
VANNEVAR BUSH
Edited by
G. PASCAL ZACHARY
THE ESSENTIAL WRITINGS OF
VANNEVAR BUSH
Praise for The Essential Writings of Vannevar Bush
“Vannevar Bush not only had his hand on the pulse of early computing, he was the one making
the heartbeat. With G. Pascal Zachary’s Essential Writings of Vannevar Bush, there is a full
resource for historians to fill this gap in early computing history.”
—Robin Boast, University of Amsterdam
“Zachary’s selection of Bush’s writings, and his insightful comments on them, are especially
welcome today as a nation yearns for leadership in science and technology.”
—Paul E. Ceruzzi, author of Computing: A Concise History
“Zachary has brought Bush’s oeuvre back to life in this valuable volume, at a time when the post-
pandemic world may be as open to new frameworks for science policy as it was seventy-five years
ago as World War II was about to end.”
—Robert M. Cook-Deegan, author of The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome
“This book is a remarkable journey back in time to the moment after World War II when
government-sponsored research was starting to gain ground. Bush’s leadership, advice, and
direction to governments and agencies, university and industry leaders, were foundational and
have stood the test of time.”
—France A. Córdova, director of the National Science Foundation
“These expertly selected writings by Vannevar Bush present the key ideas of America’s most
influential public intellectual from the 1930s to the 1950s. They reveal engagement with a host of
issues, ranging from the importance of funding basic science to the future of computing. Many of
Bush’s ideas have a timeless quality and remain policy-relevant in our postindustrial society.”
—David Emanuel Andersson, coauthor of Time, Space, and Capital
“In the aftermath of World War II, it was not at all certain whether the United States would sag
back into the Great Depression. Fortunately, the nation had sound leadership, and one of those
distinguished leaders was Vannevar Bush, who charted a new future for the country in science
and engineering. Today, from the vantage point of the digital revolution, we need to honor
leaders like Bush, as has G. Pascal Zachary by editing these significant essays. Bush’s thoughtful
writings deserve the careful attention of every citizen who seeks to understand how America was
transformed in the years since 1945.”
—Louis Galambos, research professor and editor, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower,
Johns Hopkins University
“Zachary’s excellent selection and annotation of forty years of the foundational writings of
Vannevar Bush let us understand, from the pen of one of its architects, how the modern
technological world came to be.”
—Rush Holt, Director’s Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University,
and former U.S. congressman
“Zachary has brought into sharp focus the life and works of one of the great visionaries of the
digital age. For those who understand that past is prologue, The Essential Writings of Vannevar
Bush may just be the key that unlocks a brighter future.”
—Jerry Kaplan, author of Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know
“If Vannevar Bush hadn’t existed, the United States might not have become the unquestioned
leader of a globally-technological civilization. Bush’s indispensable insights and counsel to
presidents, and especially his groundbreaking writings and speeches, prodded and motivated
America’s intellectual class. Zachary is our preeminent expert on Bush, and we needed him to
compile this compendium of Bush’s mind-bendingly original ideas.”
—David Kirkpatrick, founder of Techonomy Media and author of The Facebook Effect:
The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
“This is a remarkable book about a remarkable man—and a must-read for anyone who wants to
understand twentieth-century American history. Historians know Vannevar Bush as a brilliant
scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, organizational leader, and powerful Cold Warrior. In this book,
G. Pascal Zachary, Bush’s biographer, carefully selects and wisely edits some of Bush’s essays,
correspondence, and speeches in order to reveal the aspects of Bush’s intellect and character
that underlay his extraordinary career: his deep personal integrity; his passionate convictions
about democracy and science; a contemplative and subtle faith in a better future; his profound
insights, based on years of experience, into the politics of his own times; and, finally, a prescient
understanding of the complex relationship between technology and society.”
—Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Janice and Julian Bers Professor Emerita, History
and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
THE ESSENTIAL
WRITINGS OF
VANNEVAR BUSH
SELECTED, EDITED, AND INTRODUCED BY
G. PASCAL ZACHARY
Columbia University Press
New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2022 G. Pascal Zachary
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bush, Vannevar, 1890–1974 author. | Zachary, G. Pascal, editor.
Title: The essential writings of Vannevar Bush / selected, edited, and introduced by
G. Pascal Zachary.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2021] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021033291 (print) | LCCN 2021033292 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231116428 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231116435 (trade paperback) |
ISBN 9780231552479 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Technology and state–United States. | Science and state–United
States. | Research.
Classification: LCC T21 .B872 2021 (print) | LCC T21 (ebook) | DDC 609—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033291
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033292
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design: Chang Jae Lee
Cover image: Photo courtesy of the MIT Museum
TO JOHN MARKOFF,
JOURNALIST, HISTORIAN, TECHNOLOGICAL
SEER, AND FRIEND—A FELLOW TRAVELER TO
THE FUTURE WHO CARRIES THE PAST INTO
THE PRESENT.

“A CAPE COD YANKEE”
I’m certainly a Cape Cod Yankee. As a matter of fact, my family goes back
for seven or eight generations on the Cape, and so does Mrs. Bush’s. Very
naturally most of the crowd was a seagoing outfit. Our grandfather took
a ship to the coast of Africa as captain when he was 21. The other, I have
heard, was captain of one of the three ships that first traded up the Ama-
zon. My grandmother sailed with this latter. As near as I can make out he
ran the ship and she ran the business, trading with the West Indies. She
was a grand person. She lived with us until I went to college, went blind,
nevertheless would not quit, and finally got killed. It might possibly be that
inheritance has something to do with one’s characteristics, for all of the
recent ancestors were sea captains, and they have a way of running things
without any doubt. So it may have been partly that, and partly my associ-
ation with my grandfather, who was a whaling skipper. That left me with
some inclination to run a show, once I was in it. I was not a particularly
husky youngster and I had a series of difficulties: rheumatic fever, which
was supposed to leave me with a bad heart but which didn’t, although it
left me with rheumatism which cursed me for years, so that occasionally I
had to drag a leg behind me; typhoid fever, ruptured appendix, and what
have you, in addition to the usual children’s affairs. This had the result,
for one thing, that I lost a year out of high school, and I lost a half year
out of college. . . . Now of course I’m essentially a mild chap, but I’m occa-
sionally charged with being belligerent. If there’s anything in the rumor I
VIII(cid:2)“A CAPE COD YANKEE”
suppose the psychologists would ascribe it to the fact that I was ill a good
deal of time as a youngster. I personally would be much more inclined to
attribute it (if it’s true) to the fact that my great-great-grandmother came
from County Kerry.
—VANNEVAR BUSH
Vannevar Bush’s oral memoir, pages 1–1a, dated 1964–1965, held in the archives of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Neal Lane xv
Introduction by G. Pascal Zachary xix
Editor’s Note xxxvii
1. PREFACE TO OPERATIONAL CIRCUIT
ANALYSIS (1929)(cid:2)1
2. THE KEY TO ACCOMPLISHMENT (1932)(cid:2)4
3. THE INSCRUTABLE PAST (1933)(cid:2)11
4. THE WARREN WEAVER LETTERS ON THE FUTURE OF
COMPUTING MACHINERY (1933)(cid:2)15
5. THE PERSISTENT FALLACY OF THE ABSENT-MINDED
PROFESSOR (1933)(cid:2)21
6. STIMULATION OF NEW PRODUCTS AND NEW
INDUSTRIES BY THE DEPRESSION (1934)(cid:2)24
7. THE BUSINESSMAN IN THIS SITUATION (1934)(cid:2)29