143 



making sure that reality and appearance are reasonably in accord for the 

 research scholar * * * making certain that if we must serve two masters — the 

 Government agencies and also the canons of our own profession — we have our 

 own priorities clear * * * that we are uot posing as something which, at the 

 moment, we are not.''' 



Eventually manv social scientists began to see the broader implica- 

 tions of the project — the civic and scientific responsibilities of social 

 scientists and their relationship to the formation of public policy. 

 Gabriel Almond \Yarned that '-big social science is on the way and 

 that the United States and the world had better be ready for it." «° 

 Sahlins posed questions which his colleagues should begin to tackle: 



Who can or might distort the purposes of this research for his own political 

 ends? Which interest groups can be made to see their research as in their 

 own interest? To what extent can one risk acceptance of their support without 

 destroying the basis of the research itself? How can the researchers balance 

 their own sense of traditional scientific morality against the tactics of those who 

 will see this morality as a weakness and exploit it to the limits dictated by 

 their own political purpose? Is it at all possible to conduct even the most 

 basic and nonapplied research using real world events as data without some 

 risks of the results being taken over and used by "bad guys"? 



He added that "Such questions seldom if ever get asked * * *"' by 

 social scientists.^^ 



The Administration resjjonds 



DOD AND NAS 



In order to implement the President's directive that the Department 

 of State review federally sponsored foreign area social science proj- 

 ects and weed out those detrimental to foreign policy objectives, a 

 Foreign Affairs Research Council was established within the Depart- 

 ment of State. It was chaired by Thomas L. Hughes, Director of the 

 Bureau of Intelligence and Research of State, and composed of 14 

 other senior State Department officials. The Council then met with 

 the Bureau of the Budget and other Federal agencies, and attended 

 a meeting of the Social Science Research Council, to secure advice on 

 establishing criteria and review procedures for federally sponsored 

 research in foreign areas. 



In September of 1965, Donald MacArthur, Deputy Director of De- 

 fense Research and Engineering, DOD, agreeing that the impact of 

 DOD's foreign social science operations on foreign policy had to be 

 examined, asked Frederick Seitz, president of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, to establish a committee to assess and advise on foreign 

 area and social science research. That same month, the x\.dvisory 

 Committee on Government Programs in the Behavioral Sciences was 

 established in the National Research Council. DOD funded the project 

 and was joined several months later by the Russell Sage Foundation. 

 The foundation suggested enlarging the scope of the committee's task 

 to include problems which had been enumerated by the Fascell com- 

 mittee in its report: "ways in which the behavioral sciences can 

 become a more effective instrument of Government," and "ways in 

 which the Government can contribute most productively to the growth 



^ William Marvel, president, "Education and World Affairs." Remarks. Background 

 (vol. 9, No. ?.. November 1965), dd. 182-3. 

 ""Lowe, op. clt.. p. 47. 

 *i Sahlins, op. cit., p. 116. 



