Een vinger in de Amerikaanse pap: Fundamenteel fysisch en defensieonderzoek in Nederland tijdens de vroege Koude Oorlog

Soon after the end of the Second World War, Dutch science was reconstituted by novel funding agencies with well-filled coffers. In this book, the two largest and most influential institutions in physical research are the main focus of attention. The first one, the Foundation for Fundamental Research of Matter (FOM), which was to coordinate nuclear research, was founded in 1946. As in many other countries, a serious effort in fundamental physics was deemed necessary as a precondition for technological development. In the same year, and with almost the same enthusiastic support from political circles, the second institution, the National Defense Organisation (RVO) was established. Its task was to set up a serious program for defence research in the Netherlands. As in the field of fundamental physics, the Dutch wanted very much to remain within the purview of the new hegemon in defense research, the United States. Most leading Dutch physicists were involved in these new organizations. What were the goals they aimed for? Did the context of the early Cold War play an important role in their motivations and scientific accomplishments? In the current historiography about Dutch post-war science three themes can be identified. The first is stressing the ideological continuity with the 1930s: the new institutions were created on the basis of technocratic ideals dating back to the interwar years. Secondly, in most existing historiography Dutch post-war science is presented as idealistic, internationalist and anti-militaristic. This is, to a certain degree, in line with the perceived continuity with the interwar years. And it aligns perfectly with the critical attitude that prevailed among many scientists in relation to the military applications of nuclear science right after the summer of 1945. Finally, Dutch nuclear science is supposed to have been developed in the first post-war decade in an almost autonomous manner. This 'Alleingang', as it has been called, was mainly due to the secrecy that characterized the American and British scientific programs. In this book a new perspective on post-war Dutch physics is developed, in which these three historiographical tenets are challenged. Both FOM and RVO were created with the desire to recover lost ground in physical sciences. Particularly the sciences in the United Kingdom and in the United States seemed to have made great strides forward during the Second World War - which was called the physicists’ war for a reason. The leading Dutch scientists knew that the highly desired partnerships could only be established with new, substantial investments at home. FOM rapidly took steps towards the building of a working cyclotron and a nuclear pile. It effectively mobilized the available human and material resources and, in its capacity as a funding agency, took a coordinating role. In 1949, for a very short time, the Dutch scientists had the most powerful cyclotron in Western Europe. And the joined nuclear effort with Norway resulted in a nuclear reactor reaching criticality in 1951, just behind the big players the United States, Canada, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France. The more autonomous program led by the physicist Kistemaker on isotope separation was quite successful as well. It may even have been one of the key reasons for the US to change their strategy of nuclear proliferation in 1953, as worked out in the 'Atoms for Peace' program. Dutch defense research, whose initial outlines were already developed by Dutch scientists in wartime London, was strengthened after 1945 and kept searching for attractive collaborative partnerships, particularly, again, with the United Kingdom and the United States. In the laboratories coordinated by the RVO a wide variety of research subjects was initiated. Apart from typical defense research projects such as fire-control systems and detection of and protection against chemical nerve agents, the RVO investments encompassed new fields such as operational research and fundamental medical-biological research. Applied technologies were developed, such as the radar image technology project called Teleplot, which persuaded the United States to fund an entirely new research facility specialized in air defense in the Netherlands. Besides launching new research programs, both FOM and RVO started a rather intense collaboration with the industrial giant Philips. Contacts with various intelligence services were established by Dutch physicists, up to the point where one of them founded an intel-organization dedicated solely to supplying Dutch science and industry with information about foreign R&D. So how does the current image of Dutch post-war physics as based on pre-war ideas, and as mainly pacifistic and relatively autonomous – hold up to these findings? The idea of continuity is of little help in understanding the post-war reorganization of the Dutch sciences. FOM’s history clearly challenges accounts that emphasize pre-war technocratic ideals. Regarding the image of a non-militaristic science, things are slightly more complicated. Obviously, many Dutch physicists wanted science to be a transparent and peaceful endeavor. Their pleas for open, non-military research received much attention, both in the public sphere and, later, from historians. However, the large scale of Dutch defense research, in which secrecy permeated most programs, is evidently at odds with this image. The entanglement between the RVO and academic and industrial circles, challenges this view even more. RVO chairman Sizoo, who was deeply involved in FOM’s early history as a prominent nuclear scientist, embodies the overlap between RVO and other realms of Dutch science – and he was by no means the only one. The third issue, the idea that Dutch (nuclear) science took a relatively autonomous path after 1945, is perhaps the most important one. Both RVO and FOM used their position in between the universities, industrial companies with large R&D capacities such as Philips and the Dutch state with its diplomatic power, to the full benefit of the successful execution of their tasks. By the end of the 1940s, the investments of FOM and RVO facilitated the Dutch entry into the US-led arsenal of knowledge. In doing so, the expanding Dutch physics not only contributed to the co-construction of US hegemony in Europe, as John Krige has shown in his study American Hegemony, but it also proved that actively anticipating on a future exchange of scientific information paid out very well. By the mid-1950s, the Dutch had achieved some impressive results in diverse fields such as digital fire-control, isotope separation and fundamental biological research. Due to American assistance, the early setup of a Dutch nuclear industry was well on its way. In fact, thanks to FOM, the Dutch were ahead of most other small European countries in this area. The establishment of the large laboratory SHAPE TC, fully paid by the United States, can be seen as a reward for the efforts the RVO had undertaken. Clearly, the desire to establish strong Western partnerships in knowledge production was particularly essential to the expansion of Dutch physical science after the watershed moment in 1945. Geopolitical motivations were strongly represented in the Cold War development and growth of the Dutch research infrastructure. Eventually, the scientific and technological knowledge created at RVO and FOM proved to be instrumental in securing actual collaboration and exchanges with the UK and the US in the 1950s. So the growth in scale and the internationalization of Dutch physics, as well as the motives behind the setting up of the particular research programs, become more understandable by looking at the way scientists anticipated on the exchange of knowledge and equipment with possible partners.

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