Prior to fiscal year 1951 there was no provision at the Secretary of Defense level for funding departmental emergency research and development needs. In other words, we had no effective way to meet critical new requirements, take advantage of technical breakthroughs, or to take care of newly found operational deficiencies.
The Congress recognized this need and gave the Secretary of Defense an emergency fund for this purpose. Thus, from fiscal year 1951 through 1958 roughly $712 million has been allocated to the military departments from this fund in addition to the regular research and development appropriations.
In January 1955 we established for each military department a uniform appropriation structure within the single research and development appropriations and a uniform classification system for reporting obligations and expenditures under nine major classifications.
At the request of Congress, over the fiscal years 1955 and 1957 we transferred from other type appropriations certain other costs elements properly chargeable to the research and development appropriations.
That was ASD(R&E) Dr. Foote testifying to Congress, just before his position got raise to DDR&E. By the way, $712 million allocated to emergency R&D projects over 1951 to 1958 translates to about $89 million per year. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $684 million per year, or nearly one-quarter of a percent of total GDP at the time.
Taking 0.25% [update, 0.025%] of today’s GDP would be roughly $4.75 billion! Imagine if the DoD had that amount each year in a rapid innovation fund to scale new technologies that were not planned out from 3-5 years before. That would be a game changer.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (Part 2-Military Research Representatives), HEARINGS BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES EIGHTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION, JULY 14, 15, 17, AND 18, 1958
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