SOVIET-BLOC RESEARCH AND TRAINING FUND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00914R001200120003-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Sequence Number: 3
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2007/06/05: CIA-RDP83M00914R001200120003-7
SOVIET-BLOC RESEARCH AND TRAINING FUND
PROBLEM: The United States is running low on a element vital to its
national security: expertise on the Soviet Bloc. While the USSR has
invested massively in international studies, including closely
targeted research on the U.S., we have done the exact opposite.
Private and public funding for foreign language and area studies,
heavy in the 1960s, has dropped so low. over the past decade that in
the key area of Soviet Bloc analysis we have fewer than two-thirds of
the specialists we need. Although government agencies, with some
exceptions, are not feeling an acute, immediate shortage of qualified
personnel, they and the broader academic world face the reality that
junior scholars are not now entering the field in number sufficient
to replace those who are retiring (especially in economics) or to
expand research into areas that have received insufficient attention
(Soviet activities in Africa and Europe, Soviet conduct in the SALT
negotiations, and Soviet minorities in Central Asia). The reservoir
of academic expertise is drying up. Seeing a future of diminishing
academic opportunities and shrinking funding from private and. public
sources, younger scholars are turning away from Soviet studies.to
more promising career fields. As a result, our national capability
to analyze our principal adversary--a fundamental ingredient of Ameri-
can strength--is in serious jeopardy. Once the capacity is dismantled,
it will take decades at very high cost to recreate. The urgent need
is to provide a stable foundation for Soviet studies, a base on which
scholars and institutions can rely and rebuild.
PROPOSAL: To meet this national security requirement, this bill would
establish an endowment-of $50 million to create a Soviet-Bloc Research
and Training Fund. The sum would be invested and reinvested-in U:S.
Treasury debt instruments, the interest from which will be used to,
support a national program of (1) advanced research for broad-dissem-
ination to the public and to government policy-makers and (2) the
training of'research specialists under university auspices in the
U.S. as well as support for their studies in East European countries
and the Soviet Union.
The interest from the Fund would be made avai.,lable to the existing
National Council for Soviet and East European Research, the-Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the International.
Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) to finance the work of U.S.
scholars in Washington-area research facilities and the programs of
exchange which take American specialists into the Soviet Bloc. The
Council itself would continue and expand its current support for a
nationwide program of advanced research on the USSR and Eastern Europe
at U.S. research institutions and fund specialized training on a shared-
cost basis. There would be an annual report to Congress on these
activities.