On the 50th Anniversary Commemoration of Vannevar Bush’s Passing
A letter to the editor about former MIT Chairman and Dean of Engineering Dr. Vannevar Bush.
An approaching anniversary date of former MIT Chairman and Dean of Engineering Dr. Vannevar Bush prompts me to write today. As his sole biographer has just highlighted in IEEE Spectrum, this Friday will mark 50 years since the Jun. 28, 1974 passing of this individual whose footprint looms large on global history [1].
Two decades into a business-technical career since graduating provide me the perspective to take stock of the engineering institution I trained in, leading inevitably to studying Vannevar Bush's undeniable influence on that institution. The recent Oppenheimer film, which featured Bush in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos, also piqued interest. What I learned about the man at once impressed, intrigued, but also dismayed me for reasons that will become clear below.
It seems most Institute stakeholders (going by the responses of fellow alums I have spoken with on it) know as little about who Vannevar Bush was as I did at the outset of my studying. Nor are they aware of the enormous impact he has had on society and on the Institute—at the curriculum level and also at the research organization level (both directly and via Institute Presidents Compton and Killian he engaged with). In 1999–2003, most of what we saw of the man’s legacy as students was a large picture in an Infinite Corridor display case highlighting his association with the Rad Lab (i.e. radar, rather than the even more impactful Manhattan Project that he uniquely enabled), a room named after him next to Lobby 10, and a wall engraving in Lobby 13 (of the building named after him).
I feel the reason for this lack of familiarity is that the Institute hasn't collectively introspected during the intervening decades over what it means to be so closely associated with this pivotal individual, even while it was irrevocably transformed by him in practice. Why might the story of Vannevar Bush fail to be propagated from class year to class year? To put it simply, his accomplishments and legacy may be seen as controversial in many circles. While he built the Allies’ much-needed military-industrial weapons innovation complex brick by brick during WWII, that same complex would grow into a source of foreboding from Eisenhower just 16 years later. The counterfactual analysis of whether the Manhattan Project should have ever been initiated, based on the fission chain reaction feasibility studies Bush commissioned, remains the source of much hand-wringing today. He certainly led impressive accomplishments, like radar, but only thrived in attaining them by operating in the secrecy context that wartime imperatives afforded. He formed part of the nascent superstructure of cold war hysteria, generally accommodating HUAC/red-scare activity until it finally reached home with his colleague J Robert Oppenheimer as depicted in last year’s blockbuster film. The work of NSA academic historian Colin Burke portends a still-classified legacy of the man, stories that remain to be told. As his staunch 1945 advocacy of abortive Atomic Energy Commission legislation demonstrated, an unchecked committee of technocratic experts appeared to be his preferred agency governance form.
On the positive side, we have his proposal of the Memex which inspired the first recognizably modern graphical user interface from SRI's Doug Engelbart. Bush made federal funding of peacetime science a reality, something that was barely a pipedream pre-war. However much we might see the edifice of centralized research funding creaking today, we do so from a much more scientifically advanced place today than if there had been no such funding.
Reading his works and the examples he set, I find myself positively guided by his:
- empathy to teach
- desire to ensure that others can inform themselves through openly accessible science, so that
- they are poised to collectively unlock achieving complex technical goals in the face of uncertain prospects for success.
We can readily see, with some good and some not-so-good (in full awareness of judging from hindsight, benefiting from lessons learned that Bush and his contemporaries could have only set the stage for), it seems we're looking at a mixed-bag legacy here.
Bringing focus back to Cambridge, it's simply a matter of history that Vannevar Bush fostered collaboration between the defense complex and the 'tute to unprecedented degrees in WWII and post-WWII. Fast-forward nearly 60 years, and the Institute that I graduated from, and probably through today, seemed to struggle with ambivalence over its relationship with defense funding of research, while maintaining a keenness for defense employment prospects for graduating students. This amid our laudable context of being open to students from all over the world (one of the qualitative features of the school of which I'm most proud).
Upon studying the man’s legacy, I marvel that Vannevar Bush's name, whether spoken in warm or in despondent tones, isn't a household one at the same level as Edison or Musk. I think that should be otherwise, if for no other reason than for people to start the conversation on just where they should be placing this unique man within their pantheon of history. A good place to start would be the Institute's coming to articulate how its identity has been shaped by this unique individual. Friday’s commemoration of 50 years since a world with Vannevar Bush’s presence in it should serve as an opportune moment to reflect.
Monumentally impactful yet controversial, Vannevar Bush's legacy continues to shape the landscape of scientific research and national policy. Juxtaposing his undeniable contributions to technological advancement with the ethical questions raised by his work presents a complex portrait of a pivotal figure in American history. One or two generations from now, historians and ethicists may still grapple with the far-reaching consequences of Bush's legacy, as we continue to navigate the intricate relationship between science, government, military, and society.
Rick Sheridan '03 B.S. XVI-2.
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[1] Zachary, G. P. (2024, June 18). How Vannevar Bush engineered the 20th century. IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/vannevar-bush