To Relate Knowledge and Action

INDERJEET PARMAR
TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION1: THE IMPACT OF THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION ON FOREIGN POLICY THINKING DURING AMERICAS RISE TO GLOBALISM 19391945
ABSTRACT. The Rockefeller Foundation played a key role in the shift from isolationism to globalism in US foreign policy between 1939 and 1945. The Foundation utilised its considerable nancial resources in a conscious and systematic attempt to assist ofcial policymakers and academics to build a new globalist consensus within the state and public opinion. The article tests four theoretical models that have been used to describe Rockefeller initiatives. It concludes that a Gramscian analysis provides the most helpful way of understanding the Foundations role in American foreign affairs.
I NTRODUCTION Between 19391945, the Rockefeller Foundation played a key role in the shift from isolationism to globalism in US foreign policy. Indeed, the Foundation used its considerable nancial resources in a conscious and systematic attempt to assist policymakers and academics to build a new globalist consensus.2 Moreover, the Foundation directly participated in US foreign relations through numerous initiatives notably in the elds of education and healthcare. These have been interpreted as forms of cultural
1 Rockefeller Foundation Archives (Tarrytown, New York), (hereafter, RFA), RG 1
Projects Series 100 International, Box 99, Folder 100S, CFR War Problems, 19391940. Tracy B. Kittredge to Joseph H. Willitts, 12 November 1940. 2 For details of a complementary role played by Carnegie philanthropy, see Inderjeet Parmar, The Carnegie Corporation and the Mobilisation of Opinion During the United States Rise to Globalism, 19391945, Minerva, 37 (4), (1999), 355378; and Engineering Consent: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Mobilisation of American Public Opinion, 19391945, Review of International Studies, 26 (1), (2000), 3548. For further details of the ideas, leaders and organizations of the isolationist movement, see Daniela Rossini (ed.), From Theodore Roosevelt to FDR: Internationalism and Isolationism in American Foreign Policy (Keele: Ryburn, 1995); Wayne S. Cole, America First: The Battle Against Intervention 19401941 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1953); and Leroy N. Rieselbach, The Roots of Isolationism: Congressional Voting and Presidential Leadership in Foreign Policy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966). Minerva 40: 235263, 2002. 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
236
INDERJEET PARMAR
imperialism.3 Little attention has been paid, however, to the Foundations political-intellectual role in the foreign policy process within the United States, especially during the Second World War. Shoup and Minters Imperial Brain Trust, which includes a brief mention of the Foundation, is devoted to the impact of the Council on Foreign Relations in the State Department.4 Edward Bermans study focuses upon the Foundation, but restricts itself to the period after the war. However, the rise of wartime university area studies programmes, the training of future leaders, and the development of research expertise upon which US foreign policy would in part depend, proved critical to the Cold War era.5 To understand better the role of the Foundation, it is useful to consider its development from a political science perspective. This article therefore explores the applicability of four explanatory models, which I believe help to varying degrees in coming to terms with the Foundation and its place in American foreign policy.
T HE ROCKEFELLER F OUNDATION AND ITS P ROGRAMME Founded in 1913, the Rockefeller Foundation set itself the task of promoting the welfare of all mankind. It claimed to confront scientically (and, if possible, solve) the problems of modern industrial society.6 Its creation was symptomatic of a broader tendency in the United States at the turn of the century, of which the Carnegie and other philanthropies were examples.7 Within the Progressivist movement, a variety of educational, professional, scientic and social reform organizations were dedicated to
3 Robert F. Arnove (ed.), Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism. The Foundations at
Home and Abroad (Boston: GK Hall and Co., 1980). Most studies of philanthropy and public policy, however, focus entirely on domestic affairs; this has been most recently demonstrated by Judith Sealander, Private Wealth and Public Life: Foundation Philanthropy and the Reshaping of Social Policy from the Progressive Era to the New Deal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 4 Lawrence Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust. The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977). 5 Arnove (ed.), op. cit. note 3; Edward H. Berman, The Inuence of the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy: The Ideology of Philanthropy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983). Stephen Gill, American Hegemony and Trilateralism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), highlights the importance of Rockefeller interests in promoting transnationalism during the 1970s and 1980s. 6 Barbara Howe, The Emergence of Scientic Philanthropy, 19001920: Origins, Issues, Outcomes, in Arnove (ed.), op. cit. note 3, 34 (2554). 7 Arnove (ed.), op. cit. note 3.
TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION
237
public service and the national interest. According to Eldon Eisenach, such organizations became para-states private institutions that were at the same time state-oriented. Some sought to mobilise public opinion behind an agenda that bypassed electoral processes, political parties, and legislatures (which were considered corrupt and parochial). Some built alliances with the Federal executive. As one put it, The state must be no external authority which restrains and regulates me, but it must be myself acting as the state in every smallest detail of life.8 In the sphere of foreign policy, Progressives were internationalist and bipartisan in their approach, thereby undermining the most tangible expressions of the status quo: isolationism and the party machine. In foreign, as in domestic affairs, Progressives sought to mobilise public opinion to strengthen the Federal executive and to enhance its ability to extend Americas power on the world stage ultimately, to full her destiny.9 Today, the role of philanthropic foundations in America is debated principally by Gramscians, who emphasise the degree to which such institutions maintain or reproduce the dominant ideas of the age. Gramscians contend that the principal means of maintaining power in liberal democracies lies through hegemony i.e., through intellectual and moral leadership rather than through coercion.10 The dominant class constructs hegemony through ideological and political struggle, and builds coalitions around an advanced political and economic programme that is perceived to provide the best solution to problems in the social order. As Stuart Hall argues, an organic ideology is forged in the heat of political struggle, melding together different subjects, different identities, different projects,
8 Eldon J. Eisenach, The Lost Promise of Progressivism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 131. 9 Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream. American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 18901945 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982); William E. Leuchtenberg, Progressivism and Imperialism: The Progressive Movement and American Foreign Policy, 18981916, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 39 (3), (19521953), 483504. 10 Gramsci cited by Enrico Augelli and Craig N. Murphy, Gramsci and International Relations, in S. Gill (ed.), Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 128. See also, Gwyn A. Williams, The Concept of Egemonia in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci, Journal of the History of Ideas, 21 (4), (1960), 586599. This article uses rival theories as an aid to understanding the historical material. It is clear that objective observation and analysis is problematic, especially in the social sciences. Facts do not speak for themselves. Testing rival theories against historical evidence, therefore, allows us to ask searching questions from a range of perspectives, permitting a wider range of factors to be taken into account before reaching conclusions.
238
INDERJEET PARMAR
different aspirations.11 Philanthropy, it is claimed, with its huge nancial resources, is able to play a decisive role in the battle of ideas, especially during times of crisis when accepted norms seem incapable of resolving systemic problems.12 Organized philanthropy also plays a key role as a gatekeeper of ideas,13 mobilising intellectuals to conduct certain lines of inquiry, at the expense of others, through a highly discriminating process of vetting. The aim is, of course, to promote ideas and theories that, it is believed, will either maintain the status quo, or successfully manage change, without seriously disrupting existing patterns of power. In foreign affairs, Gramscians perceive the Rockefeller Foundation to have been imbued with state spirit that is, a conviction that it bears a responsibility to promote historical development through positive political and intellectual activity.14 This responsibility is to be served (or best served) by acting in cooperation with the state, and, in particular, to generate an internationalist consensus. Gramscians also argue that Rockefeller money has been used to mobilise bias in favour of certain lines of inquiry. The aim, and eventual outcome, Gramscians have contended, is the legitimization of an intellectual community part of an emerging foreign policy establishment that has championed the cause of liberal internationalism and helped undermine and almost eliminate its principal enemy, isolationism.15 The state, Gramsci contends, is a key force for educating the public, especially when it collaborates with private organizations which form, Gramsci argues, the apparatus of the political and cultural hegemony of the ruling classes. Because liberal democracies rule with the consent of the governed, such consent has to be organized. The state . . . educates this consent, by means of the political and syndical associations; these, however, are private organisms, left to the private initiative of the ruling class.16 Public opinion and ideas, therefore, are not spontaneously born in each individual brain. According to Gramsci, they have
11 Stuart Hall (ed.), The Hard Road to Renewal (London: Verso, 1988), 166. 12 Arnove (ed.), op. cit. note 3; Berman, op. cit. note 5. 13 Lewis A. Coser, Men of Ideas. A Sociologists View (New York: Free Press, 1965). 14 Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (eds.), Selections from the Prison Note-
books of Antonio Gramsci (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), 146. 15 Arnove (ed.), op. cit. note 3; Berman, op. cit. note 5; Thomas R. Bates, Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony, Journal of the History of Ideas, 36 (2), (1975), 351366. For fuller discussion of the concept of state spirit, see Hoare and Nowell-Smith (eds.), op. cit. note 14. For the historic role of the foreign policy establishment, see Joseph Kraft, Proles in Power. A Washington Insight (New York: New American Library, 1966); and Godfrey Hodgson, The Establishment, in America in Our Time (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 111133. 16 Hoare and Nowell-Smith (eds.), op. cit. note 14, 258259.
239
had a centre of formation, of irradiation, of dissemination, of persuasion a group of men . . . has developed them in the political form of current reality.17 Gramscians would expect to nd strong evidence of proactive state agencies and private ruling class organizations among those generating a major reorientation of American foreign policy, which act by forging a new political and ideological consensus, with the capacity to attack, undermine and marginalise, if not eliminate, the forces of isolationism. An alternative perspective has been advanced by Karl and Katz, who acknowledge but question the Gramscian approach.18 First, they argue that foundation trustees did not seek to interfere with university research and teaching. This is because, they suggest, they were long predated by American professional associations which, by the time the foundations were established, had developed an intellectual autonomy that could not be, and was not, diminished by the expansion of philanthropy. Besides, they stress, by the 1920s, foundation trustees were committed to academic freedom. Next, Karl and Katz argue that the situation was, in fact, the exact opposite to that claimed by Gramscians i.e., the foundations, not the professional associations, were the intellectually dependent class. Finally, they argue that Gramscian theory is inapplicable to America, owing to critical differences between American and European culture. In Europe, they argue, intellectuals were mobilised by political parties. In the United States, intellectuals shunned politics. Indeed, both philanthropy and academia in their view steered clear of both politics and government, remaining above partisanship, patronage and parochialism. Consequently, Karl and Katz would expect to nd that the foundations were both disinterested in research and politics, and dependent upon academics. An adequate understanding of the rise of state-philanthropic collaboration in foreign affairs also benets from the insights of the so-called
17 Gramsci, quoted in S. Gill, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 122. 18 Barry D. Karl and Stanley N. Katz, Foundations and Ruling Class Elites, Daedalus, 116 (1), (1987), 140. Karl and Katzs views have become inuential in the study of foundations, as shown by the special edition of Daedalus in which their views appeared in the late 1980s; by their acknowledged inuence on Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, The Politics of Knowledge. The Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy, and Public Policy (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1989), and by a special issue of Minerva, 35 (3), (1997). Their arguments may be considered to be a form of sophisticated conservatism, or critical insider-ism; they echo the managerial thesis of several decades ago, suggesting that the separation of ownership and control of foundations profoundly altered their raison detre and activities.
240
INDERJEET PARMAR
corporatist school of foreign relations.19 Corporatists posit that the early 20th century featured the rise of large-scale bodies private companies, big government and other functional blocs which became increasingly intertwined. Such was the level of interpenetration, that their synthesis brought about a qualitative change in the manner of confronting social, economic and other issues. This came about with the emergence of an organizational sector, which placed itself above political party and market competition, and sought to solve social problems without overt reference to class or sectional interests. Thereafter, the relationship of private forces to the state profoundly altered. Unfortunately, corporatists have failed to analyse the role of the foundations, or of think tanks, such as the Council on Foreign Relations.20 Yet, if such organized intellect is seen as operating through research institutes and universities, it could be considered a component of the organizational sector non-partisan, disinterested and dedicated to public service. Such a modied corporatist model would expect to nd strong evidence of intellectual mobilization around a programme dened as serving the national interest, carried out largely by private forces which, despite close collaboration with the state, retain their independence. The outcome of this largely academic discussion turns to a large degree upon the received understanding of the nature of the American state. The so-called statist school, associated with Theda Skocpol, Stephen Krasner and Michael Mann,21 focuses upon the autonomy of the state, occasioned by its special position at the interface of the domestic and international spheres, and on its territorial imperative in a world of military and economic competition. The states role is to prepare domestic society to face the challenges of global change and competition. Statists suggest that private groups are far less powerful than the state. Therefore, they expect to nd evidence of a state capable of dominating private inuences, including the foundations.
19 Michael Hogan, Corporatism, Journal of American History, 77 (1), (1990), 153 160; see also, Hogan, The Marshall Plan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Ellis W. Hawley, The Discovery and Study of a Corporate Liberalism Business History Review, 12 (3), (1978), 309320; and Thomas J. McCormick, Drift or Mastery? A Corporatist Synthesis for American Diplomatic History, Reviews in American History, 10 (4), (1982), 318330. 20 Michael Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 19451954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 21 T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); see also, P. Evans, T. Skocpol et al. (eds.), Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); S. Krasner, Defending the National Interest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); and M. Mann, States, War and Capitalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988).
241
To assess the relevance of each of these positions, this essay examines six initiatives of the Rockefeller Foundation ve major, and one minor in two broad areas.22 First, it considers private policy research and propaganda institutions, including the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Foreign Policy Association (FPA), and the Institute of Pacic Relations (IPR). Second, it analyses major research initiatives in two Ivy League universities, Yale and Princeton, and a minor one at Harvard, together with one case of a rejected application.
1. T HE F OUNDATION S ROLE AMONG P OLICY R ESEARCH AND
P ROPAGANDA O RGANIZATIONS Policy Research: Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has long been at the heart of the American foreign policy establishment.23 Established in 1921 as an independent, expert internationalist organization, by the Second World War the CFR had become the most authoritative American institution in its eld, and issued many publications, including the journal, Foreign Affairs.24 Between 1927 and 1945, the Rockefeller Foundation gave over $443,000 to the CFR for research that used the study group method whereby group-based study by experts and practitioners resulted in authoritative publications. This method produced numerous books, including Allen W. Dulles and H.F. Armstrongs Can We Be Neutral? (1936).25 The Councils War-Peace Studies Project was funded from beginning (1939) to
22 These initiatives have been selected because they represent the best-funded. In fact, the initiatives featured almost exhaust the number carried out by the RF. The only programme not reviewed here has been analysed in Parmar, The Carnegie Corporation and the Mobilisation of Opinion, 19391945, op. cit. note 2. 23 Shoup and Minter, op. cit. note 4; Kraft, op. cit. note 15; Hodgson, The Establishment, op. cit. note 15; Max Holland, Citizen McCloy, The Wilson Quarterly, 15 (3), (1991), 2242. 24 Carnegie Corporation, New York (hereafter CC), Grant Files, Box 187: International Relations; Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University; N. Peffer, Memorandum on Carnegie Grants in the Field of International Relations, 17 April 1942. By 1939, the journal, Foreign Affairs, had 15,000 subscribers. 25 RFA, RG1 Projects Series 100 International; Box 97, Folder 100S, CFR 19361937; W.H. Mallory (CFR) to E.E. Day (RF), 11 January 1936. By 1945, there were several groups approaching completion of their deliberations, including the Group on Legal Problems of Reconstruction, and the Cartel Group. Other groups included US-Soviet Relations, The Export of Technology, and Compulsory Military Training. See RG1 Projects Series 100 International, Box 97, Folder 100S, CFR, 1945, Application for funds, W.H. Mallory (CFR) to J.H. Willits (RF), 15 January 1945.
242
INDERJEET PARMAR
end (1945) by the Rockefeller Foundation, constituting a massive research effort that involved almost 100 leading academics.26 These were connected with ve cabinet-level departments and other ofcial agencies. They held 362 meetings and issued almost 700 separate papers for the President and the State Department.27 Given the scale of funding $300,000 between 1939 and 1945 the Foundation kept a very close eye on the CFRs value to foreign policy. Although the CFR easily rejected its most extravagant critics including those who claimed that the Council constituted the ruling class of America even a cautious assessment must recognise its extraordinary closeness with the State Department.28 According to William P. Bundy, a CFRinsider since the 1950s, the relationship between the Council and the government during the war was the closest any private organization [has enjoyed] at any time in American history.29 If its precise inuence is difcult to determine, it is clear that the CFRs Economic and Financial Group developed the imperialistic Grand Area concept that effectively declared the whole world an American national interest, a characterization shared by the State Department. In addition, it was the Territorial Group that made the decisive recommendation to FDR that declared Greenland a part of the Americas, and therefore under the protection of the Monroe Doctrine. Finally, the CFRs groups were instrumental in drawing up memoranda which constituted, in signicant measure, the Moscow Agreement of 1943.30 Isaiah Bowman (an external referee, President of Johns Hopkins University, and a veteran
26 The group included economists Alvin Hansen and Jacob Viner, historians W.L.
Langer and James Shotwell, and lawyers and businessmen, John Foster Dulles and Norman Davis. 27 Shoup and Minter, op. cit. note 4, 120122. The War-Peace Studies project was divided into ve study groups: Economic and Financial; Political; Armaments; Territorial; and Peace Aims. Each group had a designated leader and a research secretary, with an overall steering committee allocating topics to each group, a member of which produced an initial statement of the problem which, after protracted discussion, was written up and forwarded to the President and the State Department. 28 Shoup and Minter, op. cit. note 4. 29 William P. Bundy, The Council on Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs. Notes for a History (New York: CFR, 1994), 22. 30 Shoup and Minter, op. cit. note 4; G. William Domhoff, The Power Elite and the State (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1990); I. Parmar, The Issue of State Power: A Case Study of the Council on Foreign Relations, Journal of American Studies, 29 (1), (1995), 7395. The Moscow Agreement of October 1943 was the rst meeting of the three big powers United States, Russia and Britain during the Second World War. It set up the European Advisory Commission that worked out the basic principles for the treatment of post-war Germany: the destruction of German military power and of the Nazi party, the punishment of war criminals, the zones of control, and the arrangements for reparations payments.
243
of the Paris Peace Conference) argued that the CFRs work had lled vital gaps in research and thinking with regard to the Moscow Agreement. Council memoranda, he wrote, had a blend of philosophy and action that were most useful, without which the State Department would have been greatly impoverished during its preparations for Moscow.31 Another referee endorsed this appreciation of the CFR. CFR groups, he suggested, had originated the Agreement, and had made it possible for intellectual breezes from outside to blow through the State Department.32 Finally, from within the State Department, Leo Pasvolsky (Special Assistant to Cordell Hull, Secretary of State) said that the CFR had not only initiated the Moscow process, but had also played a vital role in training and conditioning people for ofcial service more generally.33 The inuence of the CFRs War-Peace Project was at work when the State Department established parallel committees next to ones set up by the Council, and then gradually absorbed them. Reports on the role of the CFRs groups were uniformly upbeat.34 State Department ofcials believed that the CFR men were to be trusted as expert, responsible and discreet, and the experience of the Project did nothing to alter that view. It was on the basis of such reports that the Foundations President, Raymond Fosdick, wrote to the CFR that, The Rockefeller Foundation is very proud to have had a part in this signicant project.35 In this way, the Rockefeller Foundation funded research that had farreaching consequences for the United States. CFR men entered the State Department, helped dene Americas national interest, wrote memoranda, and exercised considerable inuence, notably in the realm of contingency planning.36 The Foundation continued funding CFR because the State
31 RFA, RG1 Projects Series 100 International, Box 99, Folder 897; Bowman to Willits,
23 November 1943. The CFR memoranda had dealt with reparations (which the State Department had nothing on at all), forms of post-war aid to Russia; and on confederation in Russia. 32 Kirk was member of the Yale Institute of International Studies, a War-Peace Studies project research secretary and independent consultant to the State Department. RFA, Memorandum of conversation, Kirk and Willits, 22 November 1943, in same le as Bowmans letter, op. cit. note 31. 33 RFA, Interview, Pasvolsky and Willits; 3 December 1943, in same le as Bowman letter, op. cit. note 31. 34 Shoup and Minter, op. cit. note 4; RFA, Edward Stettinius (Under-Secretary of State) to J.H. Willits (RF), 24 November 1943, in same le as Bowman to Willits, 23 November 1943, op. cit. note 31. 35 RFA, Fosdick to Mallory, 8 October 1946, as for Bowman, op. cit. note 31, but Folder 898. 36 William P. Bundy, The Council on Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs (New York: CFR, 1994), 22.
244
INDERJEET PARMAR
Department had neither money nor machinery for long-term planning of its own. In so doing, The Rockefeller Foundation violated one of its selfdeclared objects: to steer clear of policymaking, and politics in general, but the War and the War-Peace Project was welcomed as a great experiment, an exceptional opportunity to relate knowledge and action, according to one Foundation ofcial.37 From a Gramscian point of view, this programme is signicant because it played an important role in shifting American foreign policy away from isolationism and towards globalism. Small, politically unaccountable East-Coast elites gained privileged access to power, and secretly planned the basis for a radical overhaul of Americas relationship to the worlds political economy. This was all done with the active cooperation of State department ofcials, whose social backgrounds and world-views differed little from those of the CFR and the Foundation, and who preferred secrecy because they feared political opposition.38 At the same time, government (with full CFR and Rockefeller cooperation) did want the research to become known and were happy to see the wide dissemination of globalist ideas.39 This reading of historical relationships serves to question Karl and Katzs view that American foundations were above politics. It is also clear that the RF and CFR interpenetrated American government. What may be asked is whether the RF and CFR were able to maintain a degree of independence, as there is compelling evidence of agenda-setting by the State Department.40 Inuence is difcult to measure. But the relationship between like-minded elites was mutually benecial. Accordingly, the statist claims must be qualied. The government was proactive; but it was also dependent upon private agencies to carry out its own (secret) research programmes, often without Congressional scrutiny. In this case, Gramscian and modied corporatist perspectives seem to have more explanatory value.
37 RFA, RG1 Projects Series 100 International, Box 99, Folder 100S; CFR War
Problems, 19391940, Tracy B. Kittredge to Joseph H. Willitts, 12 November 1940. 38 Peter Grose, Continuing the Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996 (New York: CFR, 1996), 2326. 39 Shoup and Minter, op. cit. note 4; Parmar, op. cit. note 2. One of the most signicant ways in which ofcials encouraged the wide dissemination of policy ideas was through the Carnegie Corporation-nanced CFR programme of regional committees, ofcially known as the Committees on Foreign Relations. 40 For further elucidation of this theme, see Parmar, op. cit. note 30.
245
Propaganda Organizations: The Foreign Policy Association (FPA) and the Institute of Pacic Relations (IPR) By contrast with the Council on Foreign Relations, the FPA and IPR were popular liberal-internationalist organizations, focusing upon the education of public opinion. They worked through their own publications, the newspapers and radio, with school and college students and teachers, trade unions, businessmens and womens clubs and societies. With its Washington bureau, weekly luncheon meetings, a membership in excess of 10,000, and books that sold in tens of thousands, the FPA was an inuential organization, useful to government.41 The American Council of the IPR (AIPR) was also highly active, especially on the West Coast, organizing exhibitions and conferences, publishing detailed surveys of Far Eastern affairs, and encouraging universities to establish Pacic Studies as an academic discipline.42 The FPA and IPR also maintained small research teams of their own, some of which eventually became associated with ofcial foreign policymaking during the Second World War, as did their leading gures.43 Both also focused upon the education of public opinion and were often praised by State Department ofcials. An enlightened and supportive public opinion, was, of course, strongly desired by the State Department, as Rockefeller Foundation ofcials were aware.44 Although the FPA and IPR received generous grants from the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation was far more signicant nancially. The Foundation gave the FPA $442,000 between 1929 and 1941, and a further $410,000 between 1942 and 1950. The Foundations support for the Institute of Pacic Relations was even more generous almost $950,000 passed from the Foundation to the IPR between 1929 and 1941.45 The funding of the CFR, FPA and IPR were all of a piece. The three organ41 See FPA data in RFA les, RG1.1 Series 200; and in RG III 2 Q, Box 1; RG III Series 910, Box 7. 42 See IPR data in RFA les, RG1.1 Series 200 US (IPR), Boxes 350351. See also, Paul F. Hooper, The Institute of Pacic Relations and the Origins of Asian and Pacic Studies, Pacic Affairs, 61 (1), (1988), 98121. 43 Owen Lattimore of the IPR, for example, joined the CFRs War-Peace Studies Project in the State Department, headed the US Ofce of War Informations San Francisco ofce, and served as political adviser to Chiang Kai-shek. General Frank L. McCoy, President of the FPA, also served in the War-Peace Project and in the US Ofce of War Information. 44 RFA, RG1.1 Series 200, Box 334, Folder 3975 for citations of comments by Nelson Rockefeller, Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs in the Executive Ofce of the President, and by Dean Acheson, Assistant Secretary of State; memorandum, TB Kittredge, Program of the Foreign Policy Association, 29 October 1941. 45 Figures compiled from Annual Reports of the Foundation.
246
INDERJEET PARMAR
izations undertook a range of activities, from policymaking to mobilising public opinion. The overriding aim was to support a foreign policy within a new world order that was to feature the United States as the leading power a programme dened by the Rockefeller Foundation as disinterested, objective and even non-political.46 Yet, the political sensitivity of the subject was clear, particularly in relation to the CFRs War-Peace Studies Project, in which FPA and IPR members were actively involved.47 The Foundation backed a variety of intellectuals, and not just academics, as Karl and Katz suggest. Indeed, the Foundation understood how intellectuals could have a major effect on public thinking and policymaking, and therefore supported public intellectuals who reected on the nature of the world and Americas place within it. Had funding been withdrawn, it would have made a big difference to the character of debate, opening the possibility of a different outcome. A good example came in 1943 when a proposal to terminate FPA grants was blocked by the Foundations President, Raymond Fosdick, because, he argued, the FPA made a difference: it was the nerve centre of a huge information, literature and speaker network, linked with hundreds of local groups and committees across the country.48 The political impact of Rockefeller was well understood by Fosdick and his colleagues. The construction of a new internationalist consensus required the conscious, targeted funding of individuals and organizations who questioned and undermined the supporters of the old order while simultaneously promoting the new. As this was largely carried out with the approval of government, the Gramscian and modied corporatist interpretations (and to an extent, the statist school) are correct. The vertically-integrated character of the RFs funding provides a useful verication of Gramscian engineering of consent within a liberal capitalist democracy.
46 George M. Beckmann, The Role of the Foundations, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 356 (November 1964), 1222. 47 As Nadel and Rourke argue, the political sensitivity of an issue is a key determinant of the State Departments historical role in organizing private campaigns, thereby concealing the Departments responsibility for various initiatives. See, Mark V. Nadel and Francis E. Rourke, Bureaucracies, in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (eds.), Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 5, Governmental Institutions and Processes (London: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1975), 373440. 48 RFA, Internal correspondence and memoranda, particularly FPA request for renewal, by R.B. Fosdick, 6 August 1943.
247
2. T HE ROCKEFELLER F OUNDATION AND THE YALE I NSTITUTE OF
I NTERNATIONAL S TUDIES From the 1930s, the Rockefeller Foundation played a leading role in nancing university programmes of research in international affairs and in non-Western studies. Foundation ofcials were early to recognise the changing position of the United States in world affairs. This required, they believed, a new foreign policy. This in turn required trained experts and ofcers who spoke foreign languages and knew the history, politics and culture of societies that would enter the orbit of Americas national interest. University courses in international relations were important for educating these and other future leaders of community opinion lawyers, bankers and teachers who could be expected to win general acceptance of the United States in world affairs. According to Olson and Groom, without the intervention of Rockefeller and Carnegie, the eld of [international relations] could hardly have progressed as it did in its formative years. The foundations, they suggest, alongside the Council on Foreign Relations, constituted a critical institutional base affecting the way in which IR developed.49 As Olson and Groom acknowledge, the Foundation was ahead of its time in assisting the development of international relations as a discipline in the United States. The Yale Institute of International Studies (YIIS) represents an excellent example of early Foundation intervention. The Yale Institute was created in 1935 with a Rockefeller grant of $100,000, which was to be spent over ve years.50 From its inception, the Institute aimed to clarify American foreign policy by focusing upon the subject of power in international relations an area neglected by American scholars.51 The Institute aimed to take a realistic view of world affairs; to be useful to foreign policymakers; to produce scholarly but accessible publications; and to train academics for governmental service.52 That it was later nicknamed The Power School by IR insiders is adequate testimony to Yales successful
49 William C. Olson and A.J.R. Groom, International Relations Then and Now (London: Routledge, 1991), 7576. 50 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Yale University International Relations, Box 416 Folder 4941; funding notes, 17 May 1935 and 16 May 1941. 51 See Yale Institute Annual Report, 1942 in RFA, Box 417, Folder 4957, in same series as note 50. 52 RFA; see Inter-Ofce memo by J.H. Willits, 29 February 1940; Frederick S. Dunn (Director of YIIS) to Willits, 2 June 1941; Dunn to Willits, 11 August 1944; and YIIS Annual Report, 19381939, p. 3; all in Boxes 416 and 417, Folders 4944, 4947 and 4955. See also, William T.R. Fox, The American Study of International Relations (Columbia:
248
INDERJEET PARMAR
institutionalization of realpolitik.53 What decided the question within the Foundation was the fact that Yale had such senior academics as Frederick Dunn, Arnold Wolfers and Samuel F. Bemis.54 In addition to an initial $100,000 in 1935, the Foundation provided a further $51,500 in 1941 (to run over three years) and $125,000 in 1944 (to run over the following ve years), a total of $276,500.55 The realpolitik approaches of those who directed the YIIS (Nicholas Spykman 19351940; and Frederick Dunn, from 1940 until after the war) were a source of obvious satisfaction to Rockefeller ofcials.56 Consequently, the drafting of abstract schemes of a new world order and ivory tower speculation the YIISs Annual Report for 1942 stressed were not on the agenda. Instead, the Institute focused upon basic research to ll conceptual gaps in current thinking and knowledge of international relations.57 By 1944, the Institute was focusing even more upon those questions which are likely to cause the most trouble, e.g. AngloAmerican and Western-Soviet relations for American foreign-policy.58 The memoranda and records of the Yale Institute bear out its realism. One document, for example, reports the outcome of a weekend conference held in March 1945, at which it was argued that the United States could no longer take a free ride in the conduct of European affairs. While Britains international hegemony had effectively ended, Britain still constituted a key bridgehead to Western Europe. Consequently, Britains continued survival was in Americas national interest, to the point of war if necessary. Europe, the conference noted, had to be kept in balance, and a new Napoleon or Hitler had to be prevented. America had to engage in the dirty game of power politics, if she were not to be dragged into another foreign war. The conference recognised the dangers of Soviet expansionism, while acknowledging the USSRs legitimate security concerns.
University of South Carolina Press, 1966) for the policy-oriented character of YIIS, of which Fox was a member. 53 Olson and Groom, op. cit. note 49, 99. 54 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 416, Folder 4944, Memorandum, Yale University Research in International Relations, 6 March 1940. 55 Figures compiled from annual reports and other internal RF sources. 56 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 416, Folder 4944, Memorandum, 29 February 1940. According to Fox, Dunns motive, to advance practical knowledge to enhance US national security, ensured foundation support. The RFs Director of the Division of Social Sciences, Joseph H. Willits, wrote that Spykmans ideas showed wisdom, maturity, hard-headedness, realism and scholarly standards; op. cit. note 49, 5051. 57 YIIS Annual Report, 34, 1942. 58 YIIS Annual Report, 14, 1942 (authors emphasis).
249
While the Soviets ought to be decisively checked territorially, it would be a mistake, the memorandum warned, to oppose them by countering every movement for social reform. That would only convince Western liberals and radicals of the reactionary character of Anglo-American policy, and drive [them] . . . into the arms of the doctrinaire Bolsheviks. Finally, the memorandum argued that the American economy had become the major factor in global prosperity. Not only must future US economic policies assist the regeneration of Europe (and so keep Britain and France going concerns), but also they must run the American economy responsibly. American domestic prosperity would create a stable market for the worlds products and thereby add to global security.59 This imperialistic posture was endorsed by an internal Foundation review of key books from the YIIS during the war.60 Despite accepting in principle the need for US global leadership, and despite its desire to be useful to government, the Yale Institute tried to make a virtue of its private character. The Place of University Research Agencies in International Relations, a 1943 memorandum written by Frederick Dunn for the Foundations ofcers, argued that private status gave more exibility in research and an opportunity to provide intellectual leadership. The Institute could, for example, take up subjects of concern to the State Department that were also politically sensitive. This argument is curious, given the desire to profess independence; but characteristic of the dilemma confronting intellectuals who want to be both independent and yet taken seriously. Dunn argued that it was dangerous for a democracy if all its researchers were drawn into government service, as this tended to silence able personnel and diminish public discussion of key issues. Dunn argued that no one group of researchers, however omniscient and benevolently inclined could possibly approach issues from a variety of angles using different techniques and assumptions.61
59 RFA, Memorandum, A Security Policy for Postwar America, 8 March 1945, in RFA RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 417, Folder 4948. 60 See review, The Gyroscope of Pan-Americanism, November 1943, in RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 416, Folder 4946. Written by the historian Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Latin American Policy of the United States, published in 1943, was described by a Foundation reviewer as readable and provocative. Bemis claimed that US policy towards Latin America was a benevolent, or protective imperialism, designed to protect, rst the security of the Continental Republic . . . and the security of the entire New World, against intervention by the imperialistic powers of the Old World. It was, he continued, an imperialism against imperialism. It did not last long and it was not really bad. 61 This was a veiled reference to the condential work of the Council on Foreign Relations for the State Department. See RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 417, Folder 4947; see Dunns covering letter to Willits, 23 December 1943, which accompanied his
250
INDERJEET PARMAR
However much the Yale Institute cherished its independence, usefulness to government was its rst priority. In August 1944, Dunn told Willits that the YIIS had set up a committee (with State Department representation) to consider how universities might produce good decisionmakers.62 Two years earlier, the YIISs Annual Report noted the rst of several meetings with US War Department ofcials concerning Near Eastern policy. It was intended, the report stressed, as a test of the possibility of quick mobilization of academic knowledge and its application to practical questions of policy. The 19411942 report further noted that numerous foreign area courses had been established at Yale to increase the awareness of foreign societies; that the Institute was sending information to the US government on demand; and that YIIS graduates were performing valuable roles within several government departments, notably the State and War departments, the Board of Economic Warfare, and the Ofce of the Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs led by Nelson Rockefeller.63 The War Department asked the Yale Institute to establish a School of Asiatic Studies for army staff ofcers, which it duly did in the summer of 1945. Meanwhile, the State Department and YIIS established a joint committee, with Dunn as chairman, to improve the training of Foreign Service ofcers. The impact of such government connections was accepted within the broader political science community, by the formation of a politico-military relations panel by the American Political Science Association, under the chairmanship of Bernard Brodie (a YIIS member).64 Even when the Institute was, apparently, not being useful to government, and therefore demonstrating its independence, it seemed to approach problems from a perspective not dissimilar to that of the State Department. One of the most telling examples appeared in its 1943 Annual Report, in a discussion of the importance of the Middle East to the United States. Security, the report noted, was not merely a military question: it also required a watchful eye on the peoples and resources that bordered strategic sea routes and military bases. The Yale Institute proposed an investigation of industrial development, the rise of nationalism, and Race and population pressures as they affect the stability of these regions, with a view to early remedial action by the United States.65 This was an
memorandum, in which he tries to show what a university institute can achieve in spite of Leo Pasvolskys one hundred and one experts. 62 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 417, Folder 4947. 63 RFA, see Annual Report for 19411942, 1819; 25. 64 RFA, see YIIS Annual Report 19451946. 65 RFA, Annual Report, 1415, 1943.
251
early indication of the importance of national security-oriented area studies programmes.66 The Institute produced many books on the Far East, Anglo-American relations, and the place of Africa in American security policy. Over a halfcentury later, two stand out: William T.R. Fox, The Superpowers: The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union Their Responsibility for Peace (1944), which introduced the term superpower into the language; and Nicholas J. Spykman, Americas Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power (1942).67 According to historian John Thompson, Spykmans study was the most thorough analysis of Americas strategic position made in these [war] years, the thrust of which was that American interests demanded intervention in the war to restore the balance of power in Eurasia. (It was written before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.)68 Both books received considerable praise and sold well. According to its publisher, Harcourt Brace, Spykmans book sold almost 10,000 copies within three months. In a letter to the Rockefeller Foundation, the publisher argued that even these gures failed to give an adequate idea of the books importance. The letters he received suggested an inuence quite disproportionate to the numbers sold. Indeed, Spykmans book, the publisher argued, may be considered one of the really inuential books of our decade.69 Isaiah Bowman, a respected Foundation advisor, commented that Spykmans book ought to be read in a million American homes and at least annually by ofcial foreign policymakers. A Foundation reviewer suggested that it sold well in Washington, DC,70 while the Foundations Social Sciences Director wrote that it was a great book that deserved prayerful study. Olson and Groom argue that Spykmans book continued
66 Louis Morton, National Security and Area Studies. The Intellectual Response to the Cold War, Journal of Higher Education, 34 (2), (1963), 142147. 67 See David Reynolds, Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century (London: Longman, 1991), 173; and Olson and Groom, op. cit. note 49, 100. See also William T.R. Fox, The Superpowers: The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union Their Responsibilities for Peace (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1944) and Nicholas J. Spykman, Americas Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1942). 68 John A. Thompson, Another Look at the Downfall of Fortress America , Journal of American Studies, 26 (3), (1992), 393408, at 401. 69 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 416, Folder 4945; Lambert Davis (Harcourt, Brace) to George W. Gray (RF). So inuential, that it was also produced in Braille. 70 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 416, Folder 4945.
252
INDERJEET PARMAR
to be inuential because it held great appeal for Pentagon post-war planners.71 That the inuence of YIIS reached much farther than the academic world was important to its Foundation sponsors. Its work was respected by other foreign policy inuentials and by policymakers. The State Department showed by their regular liaisons how important they believed its work to be. External advisers, such as Jacob Viner and Isaiah Bowman, continued to enthuse about the Institute whenever the Foundation asked for an assessment. Its research centre and seminars attracted well-known academics, such as the political scientist Harold Lasswell; journalists, such as Hanson Baldwin of The New York Times; and State Departmentconnected men, such as Grayson Kirk, a member of the War-Peace Studies Project. By 1945, the Institute was broadcasting on radio (American Broadcasting Systems Blue Network) on the problems of peace prior to the San Francisco Conference, with the former Under-Secretary of State, Summer Welles, presiding.72 With area studies funding from the Rockefeller, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation, the YIIS contributed signicantly to the diffusion of the realist paradigm in America and Europe, and helped to generate what Olson and Groom call a new consensus of power in the discipline of international relations.73 The Institutes independent status also helped legitimise its views. Specically, there was little public acknowledgement of its continuous connections with either the Foundation or with the government. The Institute trained hundreds of undergraduates and dozens of graduate students for government service or academia furthering the inuence of its realistic approach. In 1940, a Foundation ofcial wrote that Yale seems to be our greatest hope for an integrated research programme in internatl (sic) [relations] at our Amer. (sic) Univs. (sic). By the end of the war, such hopes had been realised. By 1948, YIIS began a journal, World Politics, and ran one of the most prestigious programmes of postgraduate research and training in America.74 Another pioneering effort by the Foundation with long-term consequences was its support for public opinion studies. Once again, the Foundation was ahead of its time in helping to transform a eld of research from an academic hobby and commercial toy to a discipline of its
71 Olson and Groom, op. cit. note 49, 99. 72 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 417, Folder 4948; Radio Program
Notice, 6 April 1945. 73 Olson and Groom, op. cit. note 49, 106111. 74 Olson and Groom claim that the publication of this journal was one of the most signicant events in the history of the eld [of international relations]; op. cit. note 49, 118.
253
own. Foundation funding also ensured that the results of public opinion research reached policymakers (and political propagandists) and thereby contributed to modern statecraft.75 It is to this example that we now turn.
3. S KILLS AND K NOWLEDGE AVAILABLE FOR THE C ONDUCT OF

THE
WAR : T HE P RINCETON P UBLIC O PINION S TUDIES P ROGRAMME
Political and scholarly interest in public opinion requires little explanation. During the early 20th century, the rise of democratic reform movements, the experience of mass mobilization, and the increasing strength of labour movements contributed to a growing sense of anxiety among American elites.76 In a democracy, the public has the right to be heard and governments have a duty to listen, as V.O Key has observed.77 This right was taken up by American social science, as a means to power. As Europe went to war, public opinion polls became a vital instrument of party and interest group politics in America. Public opinion was, of course, a fundamental concern to those most interested in the construction of a new globalist consensus. East Coast elites represented the heart and soul of such a consensus and operated through a number of key institutions. The Rockefeller Foundation acted strategically to foster lines of study, teaching, research and other activities. Much of this activity touched public opinion in one way or another. The most direct example of its intervention came with the establishment at Princeton University of the Ofce of Public Opinion Research, led by Hadley Cantril.78 The foundation gave the Ofce $90,000 over four years (19401943) to study public opinion and opinion trends; to rene existing and experiment with new, research techniques; and to train a new generation of researchers. Of the total, $15,000 was allocated for the tabulation and analysis of poll data collected over the previous ve years by the Amer75 Hadley Cantril, Gauging Public Opinion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944, 1947), viiviii. 76 Eldon J. Eisenach, The Lost Promise of Progressivism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994). 77 V.O. Key, Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), 17. 78 In the Annual Report, 1940, 61, the President of the Foundation argued that Nations ght not only on military, economic, and diplomatic fronts: they ght with words and pictures. It was with the impact of words that Cantril was principally concerned, particularly those used by American leaders regarding the war and the post-war world.
254
INDERJEET PARMAR
ican Institute of Public Opinion, the organization led by George Gallup.79 A further $5,000 was used to pay Gallup to ask questions about war issues on Cantrils behalf.80 Cantril, with his desire to discover who believes what, how intensely, and why, was at the cutting edge of public opinion research in the United States. If his research could reveal, as he claimed, basic [American] values and attitudes, then he would be in a position to inuence their specic war attitudes. Cantril, as a social scientist, wanted to study opinion as inuenced by objective characteristics such as income, education, ethnicity, religion, region, age and so on. On such bases, he believed he would be in a position to learn why opinion changes, [and] predict opinion trends.81 Given the conditions of a world at war, Cantril passed a great deal of information to President Roosevelts ofce, to the Council of National Defense, and to Army and Navy intelligence.82 Indeed, government ofcials suggested that Cantril regard some of his ndings as military secrets to be kept out of the public domain. Cantrils research considered a wide range of political and socialscientic questions (e.g., the impact of wording on responses, and the impact of interviewer-bias on poll results). Particularly interesting were studies on public attitudes towards Latin America; the impact of presidential radio addresses; the popularity of a Keep-Out-of-War Party; and the socio-economic characteristics of isolationists and interventionists. Briey, the research showed that Americans interested in Latin America were more likely to be anti-Nazi and pro-English. From this, Cantril extrapolated how an hypothetical propagandist might use that knowledge: by building up a general anti-Nazi frame of reference which could then be mobilised, to create specic opinions for specic action against Germany
79 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Princeton UniversityPublic Opinion,
Box 270, Folder 3216; Memorandum, 5 December 1939. 80 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3216; funding note, 12 July 1940. 81 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3216; A Proposed Study of the Effect of the War on Public Opinion in the United States, attached to a letter from Cantril to John Marshall (Rockefeller Foundation) 13 November 1939. 82 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3218, Application for Renewal of Public Opinion Study, attached to a letter to John Marshall. Cantril went to great pains to demonstrate the power of public opinion poll results, analysed scientically. The practical leader, he suggested, when confronted with a real problem, could avail himself of this information. He further commented that such information could be used to guide education and to help government to predict the resistances they would meet in formulating peace proposals; it would show what education and propaganda is necessary . . . to get people to accept a just peace . . .. RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3216; Cantril to Marshall, 28 November 1939.
255
in South America . . . or anywhere else. Finally, he added, to transform an attitude into an action, required propaganda that would increase the personal signicance, [the] . . . felt intensity of the Nazi threat.83 The research on presidential radio addresses also yielded practical conclusions. This showed that listening to the President correlated positively with income; that listeners were mainly interventionists (pro-Britain) because they believed they had more to lose by a German victory. The research also showed that, following FDRs reside chat of 29 December 1940, the proportion of listeners favouring aid to Britain rose by nine per cent. More usefully, Cantril showed why that increase reverted within four weeks to its former level, because no presidential action had followed to maintain momentum. Concluding that FDRs speeches did have some inuence, Cantril suggested that their inuence might be increased among lower income groups if the broadcasts were more widely advertised in advance.84 On the nature of a possible anti-war party, Cantrils research suggested that in this eventuality, women would outnumber men by 3:2, and that young people from lower income groups would be particularly noticeable. Semi-skilled and skilled workers would form over forty per cent of the Party; farmers, seventeen per cent; employers, thirteen per cent; and professionals, ten per cent.85 Socio-economic class appeared a fundamental variable. Interventionists were mainly men from the middle and upper income sectors of American society, who had the most to lose in the case of a Nazi victory and would suffer least from the privations of a war economy. In brief, Cantril concluded, there is little conict here between self-interest and sympathy [for Britain].86 Such ndings, based on scientic analysis, were of use to policymakers, as indeed they were designed to be. By 1943, $50,000 had been paid by government agencies and departments to Cantrils ofce, not including unspecied amounts from the Co-ordinator of Inter-American
83 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3218; Cantril to Marshall, 9 September 1940. 84 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 271, Folder 3228; Comparison of Opinions of Those Who Do and Do Not Listen to the Presidents Radio Talks: Condential Report, by Hadley Cantril, 17 September 1941. 85 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 271, Folder 3228; The People Who Would Join a Keep-Out-of-War Party: Condential Report, by Hadley Cantril, 21 November 1941. 86 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200S Subseries 200; RF report on Cantrils work, The Changing Attitude Toward War, 16 January 1941.
256
INDERJEET PARMAR
Affairs.87 Certainly, the Foundation ofcial principally involved with this work, John Marshall, believed that Cantril had won . . . rather unusual recognition in government circles.88 The US Army (Section G-2) even went so far as to open an ofce at Princeton (within Cantrils own), a Psychological Warfare Research Bureau.89 By 1943, Cantrils ofce was cooperating with twenty-two governmental (and private) agencies.90 The State Department was using Cantril (condentially, so as not to publicly reveal its worries) to study public attitudes towards a post-war settlement.91 Cantril even received several appreciative letters from President Roosevelt.92 A specic example of policy inuence may also be cited. Cantrils research showed that fty per cent of Americans objected to the way in which men who had completed their Selective Service (military) duties were to be re-employed in their communities (through a partyappointed member of the local draft board). The survey also showed a more popular way that would avoid local patronage politics to achieve the same end, which was eventually implemented.93 Inuence could, and did, ow in both directions. In the case of Cantril, it appeared to operate via his contacts in Washington, DC; through the middle-man role of the Foundation; and through his own general anxiety to remain useful to policymakers. Cantril was anxious to remain realistic in his work, a view that both the Foundation and the State Department periodically reinforced. He was also conscious of the need to be seen to be aiding the war effort. Meeting key people in Washington, DC; framing realistic questions; being practically signicant these were his watch87 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 271, Folder 3229; Condential Report to Rockefeller Foundation on Work of the Ofce of Public Opinion Research of Princeton University from 1940 Through 1943, 14 December 1943, by Hadley Cantril. 88 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3220; Interview, Cantril, Gallup and Marshall, 28 May 1941. 89 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3221; Cantril to Marshall, 30 April 1942. 90 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3224; Interview, Cantril and Marshall, 29 January 1943. 91 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3225; Cantril to Marshall, 4 October 1943. 92 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3225; Interview, Cantril and Marshall, 16 December 1943. See, for example, Franklin D Roosevelt Presidential Library (New York), PPF 8229 Hadley Cantril; FDR to Cantril, 12 November 1942. For Cantrils political loyalty to FDR, David K. Niles to Grace Tully, 11 November 1942, in the same le. 93 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3224; Memorandum, Proposed Work of Ofce of Public Opinion Research on Post-War Reconstruction, by Hadley Cantril, 10 February 1943.
257
words.94 As early as November 1940, Cantril was spending two-thirds of his time in the capital, politicking in the hope of making his research a useful arm of policy formation.95 To highlight his utility, John Marshall told Cantril that government was interested in two things: what is being said by political leaders, and studies of the effect. Joseph Willits defended this argument when he wrote about the propaganda value of opinion polls. Although the Foundations policy was to shun propaganda, he argued that, for the duration, all bets may be off on this subject; social scientists, he suggested, are as much justied in making their skills and knowledge available for the conduct of the war as the natural scientist who works on gunsights.96 Consequently, the Foundation brought Cantrils research ndings to the attention of overtly political propaganda organizations, such as the interventionist Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies.97 Foundation ofcials consistently checked the quality of the work of Cantrils ofce with independent external referees, including George Gallup, Edward Meade Earle (of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton), and Lester Markel and Arthur Hayes Sulzberger (both of The New York Times).98 All gave excellent reports.99 By producing scientic research ndings, Cantril impressed policymakers eager to exploit his
94 RFA RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3218; Cantril to Marshall, 3
August 1940. 95 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3218; Cantril to Marshall, 10 December 1940. 96 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folders 3219 and 3221; Marshall to Cantril, 21 March 1941; and internal memo by J. Willits, 6 January 1942. 97 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3218; Evarts Scudder of CDAAA to Marshall, 27 November 1940, thanking him for the report. Cantril also supplied reports to several other special interest groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers, trades unions, and farm organizations. See, RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3224; Memorandum, Proposed Work of Ofce . . ., 10 February 1943. The CDAAA was, itself, an ad hoc group of CFR members, led by William Allen White (editor of the Kansas Emporia Gazette) at the suggestion of FDR; see Michael Wala, The Council on Foreign Relations and American Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1994). 98 Sulzberger was the publisher of The New York Times and a Rockefeller Foundation trustee and executive committee member. Markel later became a public opinion expert, publishing a book on the subject, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy (New York: Harper, 1949). 99 The only negative remarks about Cantrils work, or rather about his alleged methods, were made by Paul Lazarsfeld, the Columbia University public opinion expert. Lazarsfeld claimed, in a remarkable outburst, that Cantril behaved like a lower East-side Jew Kike on the make. See RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 200S, Box 270, Folder 3224; Interview Note, Lazarsfeld and Willits, 29 March 1943.
258
INDERJEET PARMAR
research and techniques. Many public agencies began to use his research techniques. He impressed politicians and the attentive with his nding that popular commitment to internationalism was supercial, and that much work remained to be done. Mastering, as far as possible, techniques to discover the mysteries of public opinion was fundamental to Cantrils utility. Once mastered, such techniques, it was believed, could be used to alter radically the meaning of the term, the consent of the governed. Popular consent, it was believed, could then be manufactured or engineered more effectively.100 Despite their differences of emphasis, both the Yale and Princeton initiatives may be seen as interlinked, as part of an overall effort by Rockefeller philanthropy to inuence public opinion and to assist policymakers. Both were pioneering efforts, foreshadowing the later programmes of the Ford Foundation in the 1950s and the US government during the 1960s. The Rockefeller Foundation also backed other pioneering projects embracing American universities and foreign affairs. Among these, was the Universities Committee on Post-War International Problems (UCPWIP) headed by the President of Harvard University, Ralph Barton Perry. However, the Harvard Committee received only a one-off grant of $5,000 from the Foundation for its work among local committees in 150 universities and colleges across America. The relatively small grant was instructive: the Foundation would back only initiatives that were practical and focused. As Willits wrote to Edward Meade Earle of Princetons Institute of Advanced Study in 1942, all grant applicants would have to answer two questions: Will their project make a difference to the war effort? Is the Government in favour of it?101 The Harvard Committee, in theory, had all the right credentials: Ivy League status; highly reputable leaders, including Edward Meade Earle, Frank Aydelotte, Frederick Dunn and Jacob Viner; and positive responses from the State Department to its approach of generating new ideas rather than facts.102 But Foundation ofcials believed that there were already too many committees; many had only hazy notions of what needed to be
100 See Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Macmillan, 1941); and Edward Bernays, The Engineering of Consent, in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 250, March 1947, 113128. 101 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200, Box 250, Folder 990; Willits to Earle, 9 January 1942. 102 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 US, Box 410, Folder 4851; Universities Committee on Post-War International Problems Harvard University, Universities Committee: Statement of Purposes, November 1942. See also Perrys letter to Leo Pasvolsky on the striking similarities of outlook of academics and policymakers, 26 February 1943, in National Archives (College Park, Maryland), RG 59, General Records of the Department of State.
259
done; and some felt that Perry was impractical and naive if he thought 150 committees spread across America could actually achieve anything worthwhile.103 The $5,000 grant, therefore, was a gesture meant to avoid causing offence to a proper but misguided group of Bostonians and their colleagues. Although the Foundation kept no records of rejected applications which makes it difcult to contrast lines of inquiry consistently accepted and rejected there is one reference to a rejected project. This proposal, by the Columbia University sociologist, Robert S. Lynd, was solicited by Princetons Edward Meade Earle, who headed the (partly) Foundationfunded American Committee for International Studies (ACIS). Meade had asked Lynd to propose a study of the impact of armament and national mobilization on the social structure of the United States . . ., on civil liberties, the labour movement, and on education. The study, Earle advised, ought to ask how America could reconcile its military needs with the maximum preservation of the democratic principles and the objectives of a welfare democracy . . ..104 Given his radical record exemplied in his book, Knowledge For What?, which suggested aws in the free enterprise system and the benets of national planning105 Lynd would probably have produced a proposal at odds with the more conservative leanings of Foundation ofcials. In any case, there is no record of a project in the Foundations archives. In a telephone conversation with an ACIS ofcial, however, Joseph Willits, of the Foundation, rejected Lynds preliminary proposal as, rst, not a real research project, and as, second, not really doable (sic). Instead, Willits suggested that Lynd should write a series of magazine articles and avoid an elaborate research project.106 The rejection of Lynds project tends to conrm the idea that the Foundation deliberately avoided fostering certain lines of inquiry. The message appeared to be that America, at the cusp of its century, ought to be
Records of Leo Pasvolsky, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, 19381945, Box 3, File 12. 103 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200 US, Box 410, Folder 4851; Record of Interview, Willits and Perry, 8 October 1942. 104 RFA, RG1.1 Projects Series 200; Institute for Advanced Study, Box 350, Folder 4167; Earle to Lynd, 6 July 1940. 105 Robert S. Lynd, Knowledge For What? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940). 106 Telephone conversation, Willits and William W. Lockwood, 9 October 1940, in same le as Earles letter to Lynd, op. cit. note 105. For further details of Lynds proposal, see Parmar, op. cit. note 2. Lynds application was also rejected by the Carnegie Corporation, after it had been vetted by no fewer than twenty-six referees, twenty-one of whom had been positive about the proposal.
260
INDERJEET PARMAR
more concerned with avoiding isolationism and creating an internationalist public opinion than with the consequences of mass mobilization for social or civil liberties. Yet, if Cantrils research was accurate, it would seem that lower income groups stood to lose most if the nation went to war, a question that Lynd felt worth pursuing. Lynds project was rejected on the grounds of impracticality, the same consideration that limited the Harvard Committees funding to only $5,000. It is probable, however, that there was a degree of ideological discomfort with the tenor of Earles question and of Lynds method of addressing it. Although the evidence is thin, the absence of funded projects that questioned globalism and the extension of US power may underline the point. The Foundation was predisposed towards globalism and mobilised its funds accordingly, as the rationale of funding for the FPA clearly shows.
C ONCLUSION The American foreign policy establishment, of which the Rockefeller Foundation was an active and founding institution, came of age in the late 1930s and during the Second World War. As Joseph Kraft argues, the principal objective was to win the war against the Axis powers and, fundamentally, to marginalise politically the enemies of liberal internationalism inside the United States in particular, the isolationists.107 The idea was to make the world safe for the United States, and the United States safe for itself. Within this broad programme, the Rockefeller Foundation strengthened the intellectual credibility of globalism by funding specic lines of research, teaching and training. It also mobilised academics and sponsoring organizations that informed public opinion.108 Between 1927 and 1950, the Foundation gave $2.9 million (at current prices, between $2030 million) to the organizations and institutions considered in this paper a massive investment in constructing and maintaining a consensus on US foreign relations. The Yale Institute of International Studies was created with Rockefeller funds, as was Cantrils Princeton-based Ofce of Public Opinion Research. In addition, both were practical, utilitarian and realistic in their approaches. The YIIS The Power School received Rockefeller philanthropy for over a decade.109 In making this investment,
107 Kraft, op. cit. note 15. 108 Beckmann, op. cit. note 46, notes a similar role of Rockefeller philanthropy in regard
to non-Western studies. 109 For the impact of foundation funding on political science, see Peter J. Seybold, The Ford Foundation and the Triumph of Behavioralism in Political Science, in Arnove (ed.),
261
the Foundation compromised several of its own professed principles: to be independent of government; to remain aloof from politics; and to shun propaganda campaigns. The Rockefeller Foundation consciously used its strategic position to foster certain experts, specic institutes and organizations, and lines of inquiry to ensure the generation of a particular world-view, which would have intellectual and scientic respectability and, therefore, ideological and political credibility with government and public alike. While the evidence thus provides substantial support for a Gramscian approach to the understanding of American foundations and their work, it does not conrm the views of Karl and Katz. The claim that the Rockefeller Foundation did not interfere with the research of their funded organizations may be correct in a formal sense, since the Foundation did not force any researcher considered in this study to alter his ndings in any way. However, the careful selection policy of the Foundation made such overt interference unnecessary. The evidence shows a systematic and rigorous monitoring of applicants by Foundation ofcials, with the aid of third parties, as to the utility of each project and the ability, character and standing of each applicant. The view that major American foundations, of which Rockefeller is a leading example, were intellectually dependent is not supported by the evidence. To be sure, Foundation ofcials did respond to organizational and individual requests for grants and did rely upon academic referees in determining which to support. This was dependence only in the narrowest sense, because ultimately the power of decision remained in Foundation hands. There was no shortage of applications for funds, and external referees reports could be, and often were, ignored, as was the case with the Harvard Committee and the Lynd proposal. The power to fund or not to fund lay with the Foundation. Karl and Katz ask whether European cultural interpretations are applicable to the American experience. The evidence suggests that although they may have shunned party politics, American intellectuals and philanthropic organizations were intensely political. For example, the Foundation supported foreign policy-related research (CFR, for instance), research and propaganda organizations (FPA and IPR), and utilitarian programmes of study, research, teaching and training in the universities. Most of these initiatives were linked with the needs of the American government. These
op. cit. note 3, 269304; for sociology, see Donald Fisher, The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in the Reproduction and Production of Hegemony: Rockefeller Foundations and the Social Sciences, Sociology, 17 (2), (1983), 206233; and Fisher, American Philanthropy and the Social Sciences in Britain, 19191939: The Reproduction of Conservative Ideology, Sociological Review, 28 (2), (1980), 277315.
262
INDERJEET PARMAR
initiatives were broadly bi-partisan, and did not reect party politics. But they were more politically fundamental than party politics, because philanthropy and academia were engaged in creating and promoting an entirely new way of looking at American foreign affairs and Americas place in the world. They were creating, in many respects, the environment within which party politics would increasingly operate. Of the remaining models, a modied corporatist model comes closer than statism to explaining the evidence, although it looks very similar to the Gramscian one. Although corporatists sometimes make passing references to the similarities and the complementarity of the two schools of thought, there is yet to emerge a satisfactory synthesis.110 The state played an important role in practically all the initiatives highlighted above but except in the case of the CFR and, perhaps, the Princeton public opinion programme its role was not decisive. It is clear that the CFRs War and Peace Studies Project was the single most important foreign affairs initiative funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and accommodated by the State Department. The role of the American government, therefore, ought not to be underestimated. The corporatists have underestimated the power of the state and overestimated the role of private groups. The statists have given excessive emphasis to state autonomy. It is in the theoretical space between them that the Gramscian analysis becomes useful. Gramscis concept of state spirit in attempting to engineer the consent of the governed for radical reform, bridges the theoretical divide between statism and corporatism and helps us better to understand the concerted efforts of the Rockefeller Foundation, in collaboration with the American state, to construct a new globalist consensus within academia, and between government and academic elites.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge the nancial assistance of the British Academy (Humanities Board), and the helpful comments and suggestions provided by two colleagues at Manchester, Douglas Jaenicke and Jonathan Harwood, and the Editor of Minerva. Many thanks are also due to the archivists at the Rockefeller Archives Center.
110 See, for example, McCormick, Drift or Mastery? op.cit. note 19; and Thomas Ferguson, From Normalcy to New Deal: Industrial Structure, Party Competition, and American Public Policy in the Great Depression, International Organisation, 38 (1), (1984), 4194.
263
A BOUT THE AUTHOR Inderjeet Parmar is a Senior Lecturer in Government at the University of Manchester. His research interests focus upon elites and foreign policymaking in Britain and the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. He is the author of Special Interests: The State and the Anglo-American Alliance, 19391945 (London: Frank Cass, 1995), and of several journal articles. He is currently writing a book comparing the role and inuence of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Department of Government University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL UK E-mail: Inderjeet.Parmar@man.ac.uk
Copyright of Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning & Policy is the property of Springer Science & Business Media B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

To Relate Knowledge and Action - The Impact of The Rockefeller Foundation On Foreign Policy Thinking During Americas Rise To Globalism (Parmar 2002)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

To Relate Knowledge and Action - The Impact of The Rockefeller Foundation On Foreign Policy Thinking During Americas Rise To Globalism (Parmar 2002)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

INDERJEET PARMAR

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

1. T HE F OUNDATION S ROLE AMONG P OLICY R ESEARCH AND

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

2. T HE ROCKEFELLER F OUNDATION AND THE YALE I NSTITUTE OF

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

3. S KILLS AND K NOWLEDGE AVAILABLE FOR THE C ONDUCT OF

WAR : T HE P RINCETON P UBLIC O PINION S TUDIES P ROGRAMME

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

TO RELATE KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

You might also like