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Transnational scientific advising: occupied Japan, the United States National Academy of Sciences and the establishment of the Science Council of Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2023

Kenji Ito
Kenji Ito*
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Japan
*
Corresponding author: Kenji Ito, Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Given that the practices and institutions of knowledge production commonly referred to as ‘science’ are believed to have ‘Western’ origins, their apparent proliferation entails negotiations and power dynamics that shape both science and diplomacy in specific locales. This paper investigates a facet of this co-production of science and diplomacy in the emergence of knowledge infrastructure in Japan during the Allied Occupation. It focuses on the 1947 delegation from the United States National Academy of Sciences to Japan and its role in creating the Science Council of Japan (SCJ). While historians view this mission as having been dispatched to provide advice on the foundation of the SCJ, it was in fact an unintentional outcome. The original plan was to recruit long-term scientific advisers on science policy to Douglas MacArthur's headquarters. The creation of the SCJ was not the brainchild of any individual but the result of an unforeseen alteration of the original idea through negotiations among various actors. By examining the transnational aspects of this process and the complex social process underlying it, and drawing on Manuel DeLanda's assemblage theory, this paper proposes the concept of ‘techno-diplomatic assemblage’ for understanding the transnational construction of knowledge infrastructure such as the emergence of the SCJ.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 57 , Special Issue 2: Decentring histories of science diplomacy: cases from Asia , June 2024 , pp. 257 - 271
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of British Society for the History of Science

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References

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10 On material aspects of science diplomacy closely related to the case in this paper see Ito, Kenji, ‘The scientific object and material diplomacy: the shipment of radioisotopes from the United States to Japan in 1950’, Centaurus (2021) 63(2), pp. 296–319CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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16 Shigeru Nakayama, ‘The American occupation and the Science Council of Japan’, in Nakayama, Collected Papers of Shigeru Nakayama: The Orientation of Science and Technology: A Japanese View, Kent: Global Oriental, 2009, pp. 222–37; Nakayama, ‘The reorganization of research structure’, in Nakayama (ed.), A Social History of Science and Technology in Contemporary Japan, Melbourne: Transpacific Press, 2001, pp. 193–205.

17 広重 (Hirosige), 科学の社会史 (Social History of Science), op. cit. (15).

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19 For a case in science see Ito, op. cit. (10).

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22 Regarding Kelly see Hideo Yoshioka and Kauffman, Joanne, Science Has No National Borders: Harry C. Kelly and the Reconstruction of Science in Postwar Japan, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994Google Scholar.

23 Shigeru Nakayama, ‘The role of advisory missions’, in Nakayama, A Social History of Science and Technology in Contemporary Japan, op. cit. (16), pp. 179–92, 181. Low, Morris F. Low follows Nakayama in describing this mission. See Morris F., Science and the Building of a New Japan, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Eiji Takemae, Inside GHQ, New York: Continuum, 2002.

25 Yoshioka and Kauffman, op. cit. (22). On Sagane see, for example, Low, op. cit. (23).

26 On this point see, for example, Grunden, Walter E., ‘Physicists and “fellow travelers”: nuclear fear, the Red Scare, and science policy in Occupied Japan’, Journal of American–East Asian Relations (2018) 25(4), pp. 337–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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28 Harry C. Kelly, ‘United States–Japan scientific cooperation’, in Arthur H. Livermore (ed.), Science in Japan, Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1965, pp. 461–69, on p. 461.

29 Harry C. Kelly to Karl T. Compton, 5 July 1946, folder ‘13 Kellet – Kelly’, Box 127, AC4, MIT, Office of the President, Records of Karl Taylor Compton and James Rhyne Killian, MIT Archives.

30 Dees, op. cit. (14).

31 Harry C. Kelly to Irene Kelly, 29 January 1946, Kelly Papers, North Caroline State University Archives. See also Coleman, Samuel K., ‘Riken from 1945 to 1948: the reorganization of Japan's physical and chemical research institute under the American occupation’, Technology and Culture (1990) 31(2), pp. 228–50, 239Google Scholar.

32 Harry Charles Kelly, transcript of a tape-recorded interview by Charles Weiner, 27 October 1975, American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics, p. 46.

33 Nishina's view on this aspect of scientific reform was expressed on various occasions. For example, 仁科芳雄 (Yoshio Nishina), ‘日本再建と科学’ (Reconstruction of Japan and science), 自然 (Shizen) (1946) 1(1), pp. 17–20.

34 Nakayama, ‘The American occupation’, op. cit. (16); Nakayama, ‘The reorganization of research structure’, op. cit. (16).

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38 Kelly to Compton, op. cit. (29).

39 Harry C. Kelly to Ross G. Harrison, 5 July 1946, folder ‘Organization 1946 NAS: Nominations of Scientists for Duty in Germany & Japan’, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (subsequently NAS1946). For Operation Crossroads see Jonathan Weisgall, Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994.

40 Oliver E. Buckley, ‘Frank Baldwin Jewett, 1879–1949’, Biographical Memoir of the National Academy of Sciences, at www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/jewett-frank.pdf (accessed 12 November 2021), pp. 239–64, 256.

41 Frank B. Jewett to Detlev W. Bronk, 25 July 1946, NAS1946.

42 Frank B. Jewett to R.M. Kimball, 25 July 25, 1946, NAS1946.

43 Frank B. Jewett to Detlev W. Bronk, 31 July 1946, NAS1946.

44 Frank B. Jewett to an illegible addressee, 14 August 1946, NAS1946.

45 Harry C. Kelly to Frank B. Jewett, 11 September 1946, NAS1946; Harry C. Kelly to Frank B. Jewett, 26 September 1946, NAS1946.

46 Kelly, op. cit. (32), p. 75.

47 Roger Adams to Frank B. Jewett, 2 September 1946, NAS1946.

48 W.F. Marquat to Frank B. Jewett, 4 November 1946, NAS1946.

49 Frank B. Jewett to Roger Adams, 23 December 1946, NAS1946.

50 Paul Henshaw to Frank Jewett, 21 January 1947, folder ‘Organization 1947 NAS: Nomination of Scientists for Duty in Germany and Japan, 1947, Jan.’, National Academy of Sciences Archives, Washington, DC (subsequently NAS1947a). On Henshaw see Dees, op. cit. (14). On Henshaw and the creation of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission see Lindee, Suffering Made Real, op. cit. (13).

51 Frank B. Jewett to Paul S. Henshaw, 5 March 1947, NAS1947a; Frank B. Jewett to Warren Weaver, 20 March 1947, NAS1947a.

52 Frank B. Jewett to Harry C. Kelly, 25 March 1947, folder ‘Organization 1947 NAS: Nomination of Scientists for Duty in Germany and Japan, 1947, Jan.’, National Academy of Sciences Archives, Washington, DC.

53 GHQ Tokyo to War Department, telegram, 28 April 1947, NAS1947a.

54 GHQ Tokyo to War Department, op. cit. (53).

55 ‘Reorganization of Science and Technology in Japan: Report of the Scientific Advisory Group of the National Academy of Sciences, United States of America’, Tokyo, Japan, 28 August 1947, folder ‘Organization 1947 NAS: Sc Adv Group on Sc in Japan: First Reorganization of Sc & Tech in Japan Report’, National Academy of Sciences Archives, Washington, DC, pp. vi–vii.

56 ‘Reorganization of Science and Technology in Japan’, op. cit. (55), pp. vi–vii; ‘National Academy of Sciences Advisory Group Itinerary’, 25 July 1947, folder ‘Scientific Advisory Group (Japan), 1945–1947’, William J. Robbins Papers, Series I, American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. Regarding the cancellation of their planned visit to Korea see ‘美國科學者一行日本만단여歸國’ (The US scientist group came back to the USA only after visiting Japan), 朝鮮日報 (Chosun Ilbo), 14 August 1947, p. 2. I thank Jaehwan Hyun for providing this information.

57 ‘Reorganization of Science and Technology in Japan’, op. cit. (55), pp. vi–vii.

58 広重 (Hirosige), ‘学術体制刷新’ (Reform of the scientific organization), op. cit. (15).

59 金関 (Kaneseki), ‘日本学術会議 (2)’ (Science Council of Japan (2)), op. cit. (14), 18.

60 金関 (Kaneseki), ‘日本学術会議法案の成立’ (The enactment of the Science Council of Japan bill), op. cit. (14).

61 広重 (Hirosige), 科学の社会史 (Social History of Science), op. cit. (15), pp. 252–76.

62 David Kaiser, ‘The postwar suburbanization of American physics’, American Quarterly (December 2004) 56, pp. 851–88, 852.

63 仁科芳雄 (Yoshio Nishina), ‘国際学術会議への旅’ (Travel to the International Council of Scientific Unions meeting), 自然 (Shizen) (1950) 5(2), pp. 2–5; 仁科芳雄 (Yoshio Nishina), ‘原子力・ユネスコ・平和: 国際学術会議に出席して’ (Atomic power, UNESCO, and peace: attending the International Council of Scientific Unions), 読売評論 (Yomiuri hyōron) (December 1949) 1(3), pp. 12–9.

64 ‘Check Sheet, Travel of Dr. Yoshio Nishina to Copenhagen’, 29 August 1949, Folder IM60, 10-62A: Yoshio Nishina, Box 6544, GHQ/SCAP Records, RG 331, NARA (National Diet Library, GHQ/SCAP Records, 775018); ‘Request for Funds to Send Representative to General Assembly of International Council of Scientific Unions’, 3 September 1949, Folder IM60, 10-62A: Yoshio Nishina, Box 6544, GHQ/SCAP Records, RG 331, NARA (National Diet Library, GHQ/SCAP Records, 775018); ‘Travel Authorization’, 6 September 1949, Folder IM60, 10-62A: Yoshio Nishina, Box 6544, GHQ/SCAP Records, RG 331, NARA (National Diet Library, GHQ/SCAP Records, 775018).

65 広重 (Hirosige), 科学の社会史 (Social History of Science), op. cit. (15), pp. 252–76.

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