The tremendous surge of investment capital and research development enjoyed by television under the strong incentives provided by World War II probably resulted in the development of a commercially exploitable television system much earlier than would have been possible otherwise. Cooperation between government and industry in this research and development effort during the war was the context for television's rapid diffusion to the American public in the years after the war's close, and the industry as a whole reaped the benefits of the war innovations. Television receivers for American homes became widely available in the 1950s following a wartime freeze on commercial exploitation, with the five-year period after V-J Day producing the largest financial returns to manufacturers in the history of the industry. The war experience provided two significant directions to the United States and international television history, i.e., the impact of military interest in television for design, research and development, and the informing influence of corporate/government cooperation in shaping both non-military domestic commercial broadcasting and commercial television. Cultivated in the context of commercial sales and military control, the essence of televisual design in the United States is its one-way-ness and its capacity for remote control both in terms of sales persuasion and control in non-peer power relations. (28 footnotes) (CGD)