In character with President Clinton’s emphasis on economic growth, the Department of Defense restored DARPA’s original name, ARPA, to, in the words of a letter distributed by William Perry, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, “to expand the agency’s mission to pursue imaginative and innovative research and development projects having a significant potential for both military and commercial (dual-use) applications.”
In 1996, the Agency again would pick up that D, for Defense, and become known once again as DARPA.
