Series V. Economic Conversion, 1969-1978

Towards the end of the Vietnam War, many technology and engineering firms that had been dependent upon Defense Department contracts experienced a crisis, resulting in widespread lay-offs of skilled personnel and a belated recognition by the government at both the state and national levels that action needed to be taken to alleviate this situation. The term “economic conversion” was used to allude to the problem of redirecting the emphasis of these businesses. This material deals with the conversion problem as it affected the State of Massachusetts.

This series contains the Economic Conversion files of the Small Business Innovation Research Program Records. Arranged in its original order, this series consists of thirty-one files in Box 5. These files contain the following materials about economic conversion policies and legislation: responses to a questionnaire submitted by the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization and Government Research to the Committee on Government Operations, newsletters and published articles about conversion hardships, articles about mandatory cost-sharing; correspondence, meeting minutes, and program materials of the National Science Foundation Advisory Panel to Experimental R and D Incentives Program (ERDIP); correspondence, news clippings, and Arthur S. Obermayer’s notes about congressional hearings on economic conversion before the U.S. Senate Labor and Welfare Committee; correspondence, news clippings, official press releases, and Obermayer’s notes about the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors; correspondence and testimony about the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Small Business; and correspondence, copies of U.S. Senate bills and House Resolution bills, and testimonies from U.S. congressmen, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy (Democrat-Massachusetts), Senator George McGovern (Democrat-South Dakota), Congressman Robert F. Drinan (Democrat-Massachusetts), and Congressman F. Bradford Morse (Republican-Massachusetts).