Rebuilding IUPAC after WWII

From London (1946) to Amsterdam (1949), from the “Reprise de contact” to new Statutes

At the ICSU meeting in London in 1946, the Unions presented their activities during the war. As for the International Union of Chemistry (its name was Union internationale de chimie, UIC, since 1930), Marsten T. Bogert (USA, 1868-1954), who had been elected president back in 1938, had written in 1940 to all members urging them to keep the Union going as much as possible, and encouraging the chemical societies of nations at war to remain active [2]. As a result, in 1946, the UIC was able to announce that the Annual Tables of Physical Constants had been published for the period 1931-36 and that a US group at Princeton, under the direction of Hugh S. Taylor (1890-1974), had prepared the table for 1941-1942, with the support of Jean Timmermans (1882-1971), director of the Institut international des étalons physico-chimiques in Brussels, who had taken refuge in London [3]. The Commission on New Analytical Reactions and Reagents (CNARR) had also kept close contact with its members located in Delft, Ghent, and Geneva, and published its works in Basel, situated in neutral Switzerland, in 1945.

Marsten T. Bogert, USA, elected President in 1938 (Portrait collection, Science History Institute, Philadelphia; https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/z029p478k)

A delicate matter was preoccupying the Council though. Jean Gérard (1890-1956), who had served as a most efficient secretary general since 1919, was accused of collaboration with the German occupying authority that had been hosted at the Maison de la Chimie (Paris), the Union headquarters. Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1900-1958), director of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and a figure of the Resistance, had already demanded his exclusion in 1944. In 1945, Bogert received Gérard’s resignation and designated Raymond Delaby (France, 1891-1958), as provisional secretary general, on the recommendation of Joseph Bougault (France, 1870-1955), vice-chair of the Union. Delaby was member of the CNARR that had so diligently worked during wartime.

At the “Reprise de contact” [4] meeting in London, in July 1946 the new secretary general listed all the ongoing projects since the last conference in Rome, in 1938. The first step was to resume contacts with all the adhering bodies of the Union and suggest new commissions (macromolecular chemistry, glassware standardization, purity of chemical substances, and traces of toxic substances in the atmosphere). Also, the cooperation with UNESCO presented itself well, since the headquarter would also be located in Paris.

During the summer of 1947, three events occurred in London. Between 14-17 July, the Chemical Society (London) celebrated its centennial with more luster than it had in 1941. This was immediately followed by the XI^th International Congress of Chemistry (17-24 July), simultaneously with the 14^th International Conference of Chemistry.

The Dutch Hugo Kruyt (1882-1959), who had just finished his term as chair of ICSU, succeeded Bogert as the UIC chair. Delaby was confirmed in his role as secretary general, and the Union headquarters remained at the Maison de la Chimie, in Paris. French persisted as the official language of the Union for the time being. A financial agreement was met between ICSU and UNESCO to support most of the travel expenses for the Bureau and commission members. The Union for chemistry was counting 24 national adhering organizations, and many other countries were aspiring to adhere.

“O people of the world,Ye are all branches of one tree,The leaves of one branch,The drops of one sea.”

-Baha U’llah

Quote reprinted on Bogert's address of 24 July 1946 [4, p.15].

From Amsterdam (1949) to Paris (1957): Restructuration

All the while, the issue of new specialized unions was corroborated by the facts. A new International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), presided by Sir Lawrence Bragg (1890-1971), had just been accepted by ICSU in 1947, followed by an International Union for History of Science in 1948. Also, the analytical chemists were organizing an international conference apart from the International Congress. Not to mention the coming creation of an International Union of Biochemistry that will be dealt with in the next section.

To avoid a dismantling of the Union, Delaby suggested a structure based on autonomous disciplinary sections that would oversee the related commissions. The new statutes discussed in 1947 were submitted and approved at the Amsterdam Conference in 1949 [6, p. 47]. A resolution, adopted by the Council, instituted six sections (Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Biological Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, and Applied Chemistry) whose presidents would de facto become members of the Bureau. The Union president was now elected for four years, the 16 members of the Bureau delegated the ordinary administrative management of the Union between two conferences to an Executive Committee (EC) of five members, and a Circulaire d’information, initiated by Delaby in 1947 kept everyone informed. At the same time, the Union was going back to its initial name of pure and applied chemistry, insisting on the fact that the chemical industry could no longer be ignored [6].

The 16^th Conference in Washington DC – New York City in 1951 took place during the XII^th Congress of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The 75^th anniversary of the American Chemical Society (ACS, founded in 1876) was also celebrated, as well as the 50^th anniversary of the National Bureau of Standards. Among the members of the Bureau (1951-1955), under the presidency of Arne Tiselius (Sweden, 1902-1971, Nobel Prize in 1948), many new faces, who would become chairs of the Union later, are to be spotted: Arthur Stoll (Switzerland, 1887-1971), William A. Noyes Jr. (USA, 1898-1980), Jacques Bénard (France, 1912-1987), and Alexander R. Todd (UK, 1907-1997). A new generation is in place, one that will get deeply acquainted with the life of the Union before taking its reins [7].

The meeting in Stockholm (17^th ICC, 1953) unfolded very much in the same manner as it was conceived in 1919, with the many traditional meetings of sections. The sections established internal rules, in line with the Union statutes, consolidating both their relationship with the Union and their qualified autonomy. In his report on the state of the Union, Tiselius praised the new structure and its workings, underlining how much “our new method of approach seems perfectly adapted to the incessant developments within our vast field” [8, p. 39].

Some tensions clearly persisted: the National Research Council (NRC, USA, Division of chemistry and chemical technology) insisted on the creation of specialized unions; the Union denied the creation of a division for chemical engineering. In general, the Union did not contemplate the creation of commissions on new topics that were already the concern of other organizations, in which case the creation of a temporary ad hoc commission was usually preferred [8, p. 44].

Conference of the International Union of Chemists in Amsterdam in September 1949 (photo on the front steps of the Indisch Museum). First raw in the middle with a black suit is IUPAC President (1947-51) Hugo R. Kruyt (Netherlands); Also, Secretary General Delaby stands on the 3rd step on the far right.

Tiselius concluded his president report with a clear request to the sections: They should publish their results swiftly, before others would do it outside of the Union. The reports should be published as textbooks or monographs; that is to say in a more accessible format that would allow for more details [8, pp. 44-45].

The 18^th conference in Zurich in 1955 was the last one in which Delaby participated as secretary general. Since 1951, the management of the new structure, though efficient, had created more work. One has to remember that Delaby was carrying the duty alone, assisted by one secretary and…an old type machine, relying on the section secretaries. His request for additional assistance was denied. The task had become much too absorbing, and he wanted to devote himself solely to the organization of the Paris congress in 1957, hosted by the Société chimique de France of which he became president for the second time. The SCF was to celebrate its centennial in 1957. In Zürich, Delaby concluded his last address as secretary general underlining the crucial role of the many meetings triggered by the Union in promoting and keeping the peace every man aspires to [9, p. 6].

Delaby, who had volunteered for service in WWI in 1914, suffered all his life from the after effects of gas attacks and understood what he was talking about in his flesh. As a pharmacist and professor of chemical pharmacy, he had lived through two world wars, and experienced the geopolitical tensions firsthand while managing the Union. There were the diplomatic difficulties of gathering scientists from different geopolitical blocks, and the endless paperwork required to get them to work together and share their knowledge. Indeed, the Soviet Union was a member since 1931 and former foes, Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany, joined the Union in 1951.

Structure versus interdisciplinarity: the issues of Biochemistry and Radioactivity

Among the unresolved affairs Delaby left behind, was the question of biochemistry. A successful meeting of biochemistry in Cambridge in 1949 brought to light the intent of creating an International Union of Biochemistry. And since a similar meeting in Copenhagen in 1950, an international committee for biochemistry was knocking at ICSU’s doors. The Union of chemistry opposed the project, arguing it was contrary to the ICSU statutes and would diffuse the resources.

The delegates of International Committee of Biochemistry and the IUPAC section Committee met twice, in 1951 and 1953, without finding an agreement. The most pressing impediment related to the mode of representation: The International Committee of Biochemistry preferred representation through learned societies, in the manner of the International Association of Chemical Societies (IACS) in 1911; they argued that in some countries the national representation would not make the effort to reallocate space enough for the biochemists. This demand was contrary to the statutes of the Union, thus problematic.

But in 1955, the International Union of Biochemistry (IUB) was admitted to ICSU. Sir Edward Ch. Dodds (1899-1973), who as Union Section chair for biological chemistry had been in charge of the relationships with the Biochemists, was at the end of his mandate. He reiterated that he had accepted his chairmanship in New York in 1951 “provided that it was clearly understood that he supported the idea of an independent International Union of Biochemistry working alongside this section” [9, p. 74]. The Section had supported this opinion for four years, and created a coordination committee with the UIB to avoid overlap. Obviously, the Section had not followed the Bureau, and in particular the Executive Committee, who opposed the establishment of the UIB.

Since the end of the war, the Union comprised inter-union, mixed commission, as a “mother union,” directly under the supervision of ICSU. Transdisciplinary work had indeed become necessary, inevitable, and more with IUPAP in matters of radioactivity or with the Commission mixte des données et des étalons physico-chimiques. The Union also worked with IUPAP, IUBS, and IUCr on macromolecular chemistry within the ICSU mixed commission on rheology [6, p. 15; 7, p. 11]. To be in line with the ICSU statutes however, mixed commissions were approved for a limited time of three years, renewable once with the adjunction of new members, which gave rise to heated debates. For instance, the sudden termination of the Joint Commission on radioactivity by ICSU, in 1955, followed the assessment of its lack of progress since 1946, (due to the tensions between old and new members on the question of the radium standard.) As a consequence, none of its members were kept for the newly established Joint Commission on Applied Radioactivity (founded in 1955, effective in 1957).

Conclusion

The eight years period that stretches from the Amsterdam Conference (1949) to the Paris Conference (1957) witnesses the establishment of a structure, the skeleton of which would be basically kept until the end of the 20^th century. There would be some adjustments. The exponential evolution of chemistry in its theoretical aspects as well as in its industrial, social and legal applications, continued in a world undergoing geopolitical tensions (Cold War, strategic use of nuclear power and colonial wars). Other developments would be necessary, in particular with regard to publications. A new generation was taking charge, and the next ten years would witness great changes inside the Union. The UNESCO subsidy was declining year after year, as a consequence of the growing number of organizations to be supported. The Union had to find other sources of funding that only the industry would be able to provide.