128 



II. Establishment of the Issue 



Before the Administration of John F. Kennedy, most military appli- 

 cations of social science research in foreign countries were on an ad hoc 

 basis in wartime — the study of military government in occupied terri- 

 tory, propaganda and psychological warfare, morale questions, and 

 related subjects. A modest peacetime effort in applied research abroad 

 was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research in 1946, involving a 

 contract with Ruth Benedict and later Margaret Mead to "* * * study 

 culture at a distance" to help in the administration by the Navy of 

 Pacific island communities.- Other peacetime applications of social 

 science research by the Nation's militai-y establishment were centered 

 on manpower, training, organization, and problems of human factors 

 engineering in connection with weapon system development. 



Military uses of hehavioral research in foreign areas 



Early in his Administration, President Kennedy was motivated by 

 the first Cuban crisis and other manifestations of political instability 

 in developing countries to increase the U.S. capability in dealing with 

 "guerrilla forces, insurrections, and subversion." Such a capability 

 would entail a general strengthening of military resources of anthropo- 

 logical, cultural, and other social science data in relevant areas of the 

 world. In his March 28, 1961, message on the defense budget, the Presi- 

 dent said that the U.S. interests were threatened by limited guerrilla 

 warfare such as had brought Castro to power in Cuba. To counter the 

 threat of being "nibbled to death," as the President expressed it, the 

 United States needed to strengthen the capability for conventional 

 (i.e., nonnuclear) and lower levels of intensity of conflict. It was 

 evident that the President's concept of warfare would generate a re- 

 quirement for background material on social dynamics. Said the 

 message : 



To meet our own extensive commitments and needed improvements in conven- 

 tional forces, I recommend tlie follov^ing : A Strengthened capacity to meet limited 

 and guerilla warfare * * *. We need a greater ability to deal vpith guerilla forces, 

 insurrections, and subversion. Much of our effort to create guerilla and anti- 

 guerilla capabilities has in the past been aimed at general v^'ar. We must be 

 ready now to deal with any size of force, including small externally supported 

 bands of men ; and we must help train local forces to be equally effective.^ 



The Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, was charged with 

 reconstructing DOD to fill this mission. It involved such changes in the 

 DOD as the bringing in of civilians trained in systems analysis and 

 social and behavioral sciences research and enlargement of DOD's in- 

 ternal and external social research program. 



The substantial increase in Defense spending for foreign area re- 

 search in the social sciences contrasted markedly with the level of effort 

 in tlie Department of State in sponsoring corresponding researches. 

 The Defense social research program in 1961 amounted to $17.17 mil- 

 lion for psychological research and $0,215 million for social science 

 research. However, by 1964, Defense expenditures for psychological 

 research had risen to $31.1 million and for social science research had 



2 Luisi Petrullo. Government Sponsorship of Overseas Research. Paper presented in a 

 symposium on "Psychology, Government, and Overseas Research" at the meeting of the 

 American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., September 1967. American Psy- 

 chologist (vol. 23, No. 2. February 1968), p. 108. 



* President John F. Kennedy. Special message to the Congress on the defense budget. 

 In Public Papers of the Presidents — John P. Kennedy, 1961. (Washington, U.S. Govern- 

 ment Printing Office, 1962), p. 236. 



