44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, 10/ 



way the Board was able to anticipate many needs, and the mihtary 

 agencies were kept informed about the Board's materials and the 

 projects under way. The Director could ask whether the Military 

 would be interested in such and such a project and receive a direct 

 answer. Furthermore, the liaison officers drew up outlines for the 

 Board of the type of information needed, the form of presentation, 

 and the time available for its assemblage. 



Although in theory liaison should be effective with any agency, 

 in actual operation the best results were obtained with Naval and 

 Military Intelligence, particularly the former owing to the personal 

 interest of Capt. Ellis M. Zacharias, Deputy Director of ONI, and the 

 ability of the officers assigned to the Board, Lt. (now Comdr.) C. M. 

 Terry and Comdr. Richard F. S. Starr. Liaison with other war agen- 

 cies was never too effective, and was apparently impossible with the 

 civilian agencies. This may be because the armed forces had the most 

 urgent need for this type of area information, or perhaps it could be 

 explained in the words of one of the Director's reports: "Civilian 

 Government agencies, in Washington as elsewhere, tend to become 

 self-sufficient within the limitation of the Bureau of the Budget." One 

 generalization stands out clearly. The most valuable liaison officers 

 were not those who best understood the work of the Ethnogeographic 

 Board, but rather those who were thoroughly familiar with the or- 

 ganization and operation of the office which they represented. The 

 Army seemed to feel that it took one anthropologist to understand 

 another, which is perhaps true, but does not lead to the most effec- 

 tive service liaison. (This is intended as a sound generalization, and 

 not as a deprecatory comment on the merits and abilities of the three 

 commissioned anthropologists who served successively as liaison 

 officers to the Ethnogeographic Board. These three would, I believe, 

 agree with me.) 



The possibility of naming a Washington staff member as a liaison 

 representative to some agency was never elaborated, although two 

 were appointed at the request of the Office of the Provost Mar- 

 shal General and of the Emergency Rescue Agency of the Navy 

 Department. The Board felt that it was amply represented else- 

 where by its Board members and Sponsors. 



3. PROPAGANDA 



Once established, the Board prepared a mimeographed state- 

 ment about its organization, membership, and purpose, and this 

 was printed later as a small brochure. This statement was widely 



