The First Line of Defense: Higher Education in Wartime and the Development of National Defense Education, 1939-1959 Dana Adrienne Ponte a dissertation to be submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 2016 Reading Committee: Maresi Nerad, Chair Nancy Beadie Bill Zumeta Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Educational Leadership & Policy Studies ©Copyright 2016 Dana Adrienne Ponte Abstract This study posits that the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA) represented the culmination of nearly a century-long process through which education was linked to national defense in periods of wartime, and later retained a strategic utility for defense purposes in times of peace. That a defense rationale for federal support of public higher education achieved a staying power that outlasted moments of temporary strategic necessity is due in large part to the efforts of individuals in the education and policymaking communities who were able to envision and promote a lasting, expansive definition of education for national defense – one that would effectively marshal federal funding for decades to come. In the latter half of the 20th century, it was precisely this definition that provided the rationale for further federal forays into public education in the United States, accumulating into a level of involvement that now feels commonplace. Despite its present predominance, however, this relationship was by no means a foregone conclusion in the early decades of the 20th century. The United States has historically been defined by its constitutional separation of federal and state powers, notably made manifest in a traditional emphasis on state control over public education. Each crossing of this boundary is driven by a conceptual shift that makes such transcendence possible. When the relationship of higher education to the federal government is viewed in this context, a question naturally arises – that of how the federal government has come to be involved in higher education, and under what rationales. A longstanding tradition of large- scale federal education legislation arising in wartime, and accompanying surges of federal investment in higher education, suggests that concerns of national defense provide a compelling rationale for federal involvement in public education at all levels, despite historical and even Constitutional considerations that urge a state, rather than a federal, approach. The process by which education, and particularly higher education, was paired with national defense, on a conceptual and on the level of federal policy in the two decades prior to the passage of the NDEA is the focus of this study. As a window onto this process, this study has implications for our historical understanding of the experience of the higher education enterprise in wartime, and of the evolving relationship between the federal government and the nation’s colleges and universities in the interests of national defense and security. Table of Contents Introduction to the Study ....................................................................................................... 1 The Concept of National Defense Education as a Force Behind Wartime Federal Education Legislation: Scholarship and Historical Evolution ................................................................... 12 The Notion of Education for National Defense ................................................................................ 17 Legacy of the New Deal ..................................................................................................................... 17 Militarization of the American State ................................................................................................. 19 The National Security Ideology .......................................................................................................... 25 Research in the Public Interest .......................................................................................................... 34 Internationalization and the National Security Rationale ................................................................. 38 The National Security and Garrison State .......................................................................................... 41 A Chronology of National Defense Education ................................................................................. 46 World War I – Preparedness and Service .......................................................................................... 47 World War II: An Expanded National Role ......................................................................................... 55 A Second Chance for Defense Education – World War II and the Army/Navy Specialized Training Programs ........................................................................................................................................... 60 The Cold War and the Triumph of National Defense Education ........................................................ 67 In Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 69 The Concept of National Defense Education: Discourse and Policy Development, 1939-1959 78 The Ominous Legacy of World War I ............................................................................................... 82 Academic Freedom in Wartime ......................................................................................................... 84 ‘Preparedness Enthusiasm’ and the Students’ Army Training Corps ................................................. 86 A National Voice: The NEA, the ACE, and George F. Zook ................................................................ 87 The First Federal Mobilization of Education (1940-1943) ................................................................ 92 Vocational Education and the National Defense Training Program: 1940-1941 ............................... 92 Demobilization and an Expanded National Role: 1943-1950 ........................................................... 99 Atomic Energy and the Case for Federal Support ............................................................................ 100 Defense Education: Emergency Measure to Long-Term Policy ....................................................... 101 Education’s Second Federal Mobilization (1950-1951): The Korean Conflict .................................. 103 National Defense Education Enshrined in Federal Policy (1958): The NDEA .................................. 104 In Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 109 The American Council on Education in the War Years: Defining a Persistent Vision of National Defense Education in Action ................................................................................................ 116 Education and National Defense .................................................................................................. 118 The Army/Navy Specialized Training Programs: An Ambitious Role for Education ........................ 123 Higher Education and National Defense – the ACE’s Wartime Messenger ..................................... 126 Part I: 1940-1941 ............................................................................................................................. 126 Part II: 1942 – 1945 .......................................................................................................................... 132 Funding National Defense Education ............................................................................................ 134 The Emergence of Federal Student Loans ....................................................................................... 135 Push, Pull, and the ACE’s Influence on the Wane .......................................................................... 138 Seeds of the GI Bill ........................................................................................................................... 142 The Camel’s Nose in the Tent – National Defense Education as a Persistent Rationale for Federal Aid to Education ................................................................................................................................. 144 In Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 148 The Race for Knowledge: The Soviet and American Education Reforms of 1958 ................... 154 Khrushchev’s 1958 Reform: Strengthening the Relationship of School and Life ............................ 158 Vocational Education in the Soviet Experience ............................................................................. 161 Expansion of Educational Opportunity – Two Paths to a Shared Goal ........................................... 165 The ‘Soviet Dilemma’ and the American Response ....................................................................... 169 The Jackson and Derthick Exchanges: Unshaken Confidence ......................................................... 170 American Education Under Fire .................................................................................................... 173 ‘Fervent Approval’: The Izvestiia Discussion ................................................................................. 177 Five Years Later