AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL TO IMPROVE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY AND THE GOVERNMENTAL COMMUNITY CONCERNED WITH FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP05S00620R000200480015-2
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Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
24
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
August 28, 2009
Sequence Number:
15
Case Number:
Publication Date:
May 3, 1977
Content Type:
MEMO
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International studies Association
University Center for International Studies ? University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 ? Phone: (412) 624-4936
May 3, 1977
MEMORANDUM #4
TO: Admiral Stan Turner, USN
OEOB Suite 347
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
FROM: Vince Davis
liI[SCEMT 11,11WS
President 1976-77
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION
Patterson School Of Diplomacy
UK-Patterson Tower, Suite 1665
Lexington, Ke t rla / 40503 J.S.A.
Phone (6Th) 2H.`;"A' 56/7/8
RE: An alternative proposal to improve relationships between
the academic community and the governmental community
concerned with foreign affairs and international relations
Memorandum #4 here is the final in the series of memos that I have
written to you over the past 72 hours, all in response to your
cordial and flattering invitation expressed in letters and most
recently in your offices last Tuesday, April 26,
Memoranda #1, #2 and #3 were written on my Patterson School letter-
head. Memorandum #4 is being written on my ISA presidential paper,
to help illustrate some points that I will make later on herein.
(Note that my year in office as ISA president expired in mid-March.)
1. A history of strained relations between academic people
and government people in the international affairs field
At the risk of telling you some things that you already
know, let me briefly trace some aspects of the history of
the relationship between the academic community and the U.S.
governmental community in the area of international affairs.
This relationship was strong and cordial as the United
States moved out of the World War II experience. Many pro-
fessors took leaves of absence from their campuses in order
to serve in the military or with the Department of State
VINCENT DAVIS, University of Kentucky, president; RICHARD N. ROSECRANCE, Cornell University, past-president;
HERBERT C. KELMAN, Harvard University, president-elect; AREND LIJPHART, University of Leiden (The Netherlands),
vice-president DINA ZINNES, Indiana University, vice-president; CARL BECK, University of Pittsburgh, executive director,
KAREN EIDE BAWLING, University of Pittsburgh, associate director.
STAT
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during the 1941-45 hostilities. After the war, most pro-
fessors specializing in foreign policy and international
affairs accepted the fact of the "cold war" relationship,
and willingly did research and teaching in keeping with
U.S. policy interests. Much of U.S. cold war strategic
thinking actually emerged from civilian intellectuals
working as university faculty members or in related
"think tanks" such as the RAND Corporation.
The launching of Sputnik I in October 1957 further
stimulated the intellectual-academic-scholarly community
in civilian life to do more research and teaching consonant
with U.S. policy interests. The National Defense Education
Act (NDEA) was prompted by Sputnik I, and NDEA poured huge
sums into campus efforts. The major private foundations
such as Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie added many more mil-
lions of dollars to support campus-based research which was
designed to support U.S. foreign policy in one way or another.
Most scholars in academic life, particularly those who
specialized in foreign policy and international affairs
research, strongly supported the 1960 presidential candidacy
of John F. Kennedy, and dozens of those scholars soon went
to Washington to take positions in the Kennedy Administra-
tion. In the early 1960's, the Institute for Defense Analyses
(IDA) and the DOD Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
supported some of the best and most exciting new research
underway by campus-based professors in foreign policy and
international affairs.
In summary, the period of about 20 years, from about
1945 to about 1965, was marked by close, cordial and coopera-
tive links between U.S. government agencies and civilian
professors and other scholars in the foreign policy and
international affairs categories.
But those close, cordial and cooperative ties began
to break down in the mid-1960's. Indeed, some early signs
of strain could be seen in the negative reactions by many
professors to President Kennedy's handling of the Bay of
Pigs episode, the Berlin Wall crisis, and the Cuban missile
crisis. President Kennedy was still largely a hero to most
professors at the time of his assassination in November 1963,
but some criticisms were growing.
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If the academic community had developed a few growing
criticisms of President Kennedy and U.S. foreign policy as
of late 1963, the scholars were far less friendly toward
President Johnson. The reservations toward Johnson grew
quickly louder in connection with the Dominican Republic
operations in 1965, and the criticisms from the campuses
grew to a loud roar of outrage as the Vietnam War got
steadily larger in the late 1960's.
Other things happened in the late 1960's that increased
the criticisms from the academic community toward Washington.
The International Education Act, with Congressman John Brade-
mas as the successful floor manager of the bill in the House,
was enacted with great enthusiasm from the campus cheering
sections. But the President did not fight for the bill, and
the legislation (although technically still on the books to
this day) was never funded. For practical purposes, the Act
was a dead letter, thus marking the beginning of the end of
large-scale federal support for research and teaching about
international affairs at American universities and c es.
Similarly, the famous
provoked great outrage in the
academic community, on the assumption that the university
scholars had been duped into serving as covert intellectual
spies to assist U.S. warmongering in the Third World. The
fall-out on campuses produced new uni-
versity policies designed to strongly discourage if not actu-
ally to prohibit professors from doing military-supportive
research, and certainly to prohibit any kind of secret re-
search. Ten years earlier, it was perfectly acceptable--
indeed, even fashionable--for young scholars to write doctoral
dissertations that had to be classified and kept in government
vaults. But, by about 1967-68, this was a strong taboo.
Scholars on campus were badly frustrated by the Vietnam
War as of the 1968 elections, and relatively few professors
got enthusiastic about either candidate. Nixon was certainly
not attractive on many campuses. But Nixon convened a meet-
ing in the White House in April 1969, attended by about 35
very prominent scholars and scientists--a meeting that Nixon
said was intended to help heal the breach between government
on the one hand, and the scholarly-scientific community on
the other hand, in the area of international affairs and
foreign policy.
STAT
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I was one of the approximately 35 people invited to
attend that meeting with Nixon in the White House in April
1969 (after I had written the Department of Defense chapter
in a review study sponsored by Johnson's White House and
the Ford Foundation, in the summer and fall of 1968). Some
of the others on hand at that April 1969 meeting with Nixon
included Harold Brown and Albert Wohlstetter. But nothing
ever came of that one-shot affair. Kissinger grew rapidly
in power, and Kissinger did not feel the need of significant
assistance from the academic community. Thus, throughout
the eight years of the Nixon-Ford period, the civilian
scholars in academic life who specialized in foreign policy
and international affairs felt progressively more neglected
by government people.
Neo-isolationism was a part of the picture too. Ironic-
ally and paradoxically, even those scholars who argued for
more government attention toward domestic problems such as
race relations and the environment--and who therefore were
themselves part of the neo-isolationist trend--grumbled
about the dwindling federal support for research and teach-
ing on foreign policy and international affairs.
The dwindling federal support for research and teaching
on foreign policy and international affairs was matched by
a turn-off of private support from the big foundations. As
a result, in the early and middle 1970's, the civilian aca-
demic specialists in foreign policy and international affairs
research and teaching found themselves with almost no sources
of support other than what their local universities and col-
leges could provide--at that very time when universities and
colleges were experiencing serious financial problems for
other reasons.
A few other things happened in the late 1960's or
early 1970's that were initially encouraging to the academic
people on campus, but that turned sour. For example, as part
of the fall-out from the episode of 1967,
Secretary of State Rusk was given new authority by the Presi-
dent, and Rusk issued a tough new set of guidelines governing
virtually all (except CIA) government-sponsored contract
research in the social sciences dealing with foreign areas.
Rusk gave the operational responsibility to an inter-agency
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entity called the Foreign Area Research Coordination Group
(or FAR as it was called), which had been in existence for
about three years already. Sixteen (16) U.S. government
agencies were represented on FAR, including the CIA and
many DOD components within the DOD representation. FAR
was chaired by George Denney of State, although most of
the work was actually done by E. Raymond Platig, Director
of the Office of External Research in the Bureau of Intelli-
gence and Research at State. FAR began to produce a bi-
monthly newsletter, called "FAR Horizons," which appeared
first in January 1968.
FAR was intended to improve the quality and quantity
of government-sponsored research in foreign affairs, but
it never amounted to much. The participating agencies
were not very interested in cooperating, and the key people
at State were relatively ineffectual. In short, FAR failed
for many of the same reasons that Maxwell Taylor's "State-
prime" SIG/IRG system failed. The big action in Washington
was not at the State Department, and State lacked the clout
or will to honcho this kind of thing.
Entering the bicentennial '76 election year, therefore,
the academic community engaged in foreign policy and inter-
national affairs research and teaching was a rather dis-
heartened and disspirited lot. Most of these scholars were
able to show some degree of enthusiasm for the Carter candi-
dacy, but partly because very few of the scholars had ever
supported Republican candidates in any case, and certainly
not after the Watergate scandals. These people on campus
hoped that Mr. Carter was serious about being a president
of all the people, about taking a fresh new look at U.S.
foreign policy substance and organizational structures,
and about attracting fresh new talent from all over the
nation to work on foreign policy and international affairs
issues.
But now, some 100 days into the Carter presidency,
most of the academic specialists on foreign policy and
international affairs are reverting to pessimism if not
cynicism. The appointment of Andy Young as Ambassador to
the United Nations has drawn loud applause, because it seems
to symbolize a fresh new U.S. policy response toward the
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problems of the Third World. But the handling of the SALT
negotiations are getting mixed reviews in academic circles,
and many (of the relatively few) Carter appointees in
foreign policy and international affairs jobs have not met
with great applause among interested professors. Strange
as it may seem, many professors are emerging from their
dove-like posture of the Vietnam War period, and are becoming
more concerned about the growth of Soviet military capabil-
ities, but these professors see no clearcut Carter response.
Ideas on foreign aid and many other policy areas have not
been clearly enunciated, and academic specialists have not
been asked to help.
Indeed, one criticism of Carter that can be heard on
many campuses from academic specialists in foreign affairs
and international issues is that the President, after having
promised to seek fresh new talent, has largely appointed the
same old people who work or hang around policy-oriented in-
stitutions within the Boston/Cambridge-to-Washington corridor
along the East Coast.
Nevertheless, with appropriate strategies, the academic
specialists across the land in foreign policy and international
affairs fields want to believe in President Carter and want
to help. They may appear cynical, but cynicism is usually a
mask for idealism. They are not seeking government jobs--
indeed, few of them would accept government jobs, because
they are genuinely committed to their academic work. But,
if asked, they would help in other occasional formats.
In summary, then, the academic-scholarly-intellectual
specialists in foreign policy and international affairs
enjoyed a close, cordial and cooperative relationship with
relevant U.S. government agencies from the end of World War II
to the early 1960's, but for about the past 15 years this once-
warm relationship has been very strained to the point where
it is now virtually broken, but with new possibilities because
of the Carter Administration for restoring it to something
approximating its earlier cordiality. It won't happen auto-
matically, but it could happen with the appropriate strategies.
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2. A proposed strategy for restoring government-scholar cordiality
First, the strategy must not aim for overnight victories.
A relationship that was broken over about 15 years may take
another 15 years to restore.
Second, the strategy must not be window-dressing. There
must be signs of genuine interest and enthusiasm on the part
of the government sector. The government, in a sense, must
take the lead in the courtship.
Third, the strategy should work with relatively low-
visibility programs, not splashy efforts designed to attract
media attention.
Fourth, the programs within the strategy should be held
on relatively "neutral turf," and should be neutralized in
other ways. The White House, for example, would qualify as
relatively neutral turf, but so would locations away from
Washington such as Wingspread (the Johnson Foundation confer-
ence center in Racine) or similar places around the nation.
Further neutralization implies that State, Defense and the
intelligence community (or, for short, CIA here) should be
represented at most program events, but no one of these
agencies should be the sponsor or host.
As one format that I feel sure would be successful
(although other format devices are well worth considering,
for possible addition to this strategy), I propose a series
of "policy seminars" to be held at least monthly for about
a year as a trial run--or perhaps more often than monthly.
For simplification here, let me call these "World Issues
Policy Seminars"--or the WIPS program.
Each WIPS would focus on a specific and genuine policy
problem, such as (for example) "U.S. Policy Options and
Problems in the Marianas and Western Pacific Basin." There
should be a structured but relatively flexible agenda, fea-
turing perhaps two or three prepared papers circulated in
advance to all participants. Each WIPS should run for about
24 hours, perhaps beginning with a get-acquainted lunch on a
Friday, with continuous plenary sessions that afternoon, a
working dinner, an after-dinner session, followed by a Satur-
day morning session and a wrap-up farewell lunch.
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Each WIPS should include not more than about 16 or 18
people, which is roughly the maximum number that could sit
around a single table and hold meaningful discussions under
a firm but friendly chairman. The participants should be
about equally divided between government and academic people,
as for example:
Government: 2 from the NSC
2 from Defense
2 from State
2 from the CIA
Academia: 8 research scholai/scientists
from a relevant mixture of
disciplines and backgrounds
Defense, State and the CIA are emphasized in the little
chart above, because the estrangement between the academic
sector and the government sector pertains most particularly
to these three federal bureaucracies--and most particularly
to the CIA. The great value of this kind of mixture on the
government side is that the professor who has strongly un-
favorable views of any one of these three federal bureau-
cracies will not necessarily have similar views toward the
other two. For example, a professor who would under no cir-
cumstances accept a direct bilateral invitation from the CIA
to meet at the CIA Building in Washington would almost surely
have no hesitation in accenting a "neutral" invitation (per-
haps from the White House) for a multilateral meeting where
CIA people would be merely some among various government
agency officials from different parts of government.
For some topics, the government sector representatives
at a WIPS event should include people from agencies other
than or in addition to the NSC, Defense, State and the CIA--
for example, from Treasury or Agriculture. But those other
agencies typically do not have the same severe relationship
problems with academia.
Nevertheless, a main point to stress here is the beauti-
ful flexibility of the WIPS format. For some topics, for
example, it might be very useful to have two or three corpora-
tion executives and/or labor leaders around the table, in
addition to the academic and government representatives.
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Indeed, I would argue that it could be very useful to
have one or two "wild card" participants at each WIPS event--
for example, the dean of a good school of journalism, or a
leader in the League of Women Voters. The "wild card" people
would help "to keep the others honest," and to prevent the
discussions from becoming too narrowly specialized and tech-
nical and inbred.
I would discourage inviting very many--if any--of the
non-campus research specialists who work for contract re-
search organizations such as RAND, because those people have
ample working contacts with most government agencies already.
Finally, a "project manager" should be chosen to manage
this overall endeavor designed to restore mutual respect and
cordiality between the government sector and the academic
sector in foreign policy and international affairs fields.
Ideally, this person should come from academic life on a
one-year assignment on a leave of absence from his/her campus.
To use an academic person in this capacity would convey a
critically important symbolic message stressing the govern-
ment sector's commitment to improve relationships. But, of
course, it should be an academic person who, although friendly
toward the government and government people, has absolutely
no ambition to join the government, and who would not attempt
to use this position as a springboard into a longer-range
government post.
If this project proved useful and successful after a
year, the first "project manager" could be succeeded by a
new person similarly invited to take on these responsibilities
for a year, on leave from a campus professorship. Obviously,
this project manager should be a person enjoying a very good
reputation and widespread personal contacts throughout the
academic community.
The project should be headquartered on "neutral turf,"
which could be somewhere within the White House or in one
of the Executive Office Buildings nearby. Alternatively,
the arrangement could be set up on a contract basis with the
project manager, allowing him to use some wholly independent
office in midtown Washington working under his/her own name
or as a branch office of his/her home campus. But this
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independent office should not be at Brookings or at any
of the university campuses in Washington which already
have extremely close (maybe incestuous) ties with govern-
ment, and which therefore are not likely to appreciate the
main problem that we are addressing here in the first place.
The first-year budget for this project would be rela-
tively small, at least by Washington standards. I think
that the figure should not be over about $100,000, and maybe
well under this. The main costs would be good salaries for
two people, in order to attract top talent. The two people
would be the "project manager" and an "executive secretary"
who would constitute the entire project staff. Each WIPS
event would include about eight (8) academic people, and we
can assume that about half of those would require travel
support covering airfares at an estimated average of $250
per person. All eight of the academic people would need
about $50 per diem each, covering a hotel room and meals
for about 24 hours in Washington. Other miscellaneous costs
would probably result in a total layout of about $2,000 per
WIPS event. Assuming about twelve (12) WIPS events per year,
we can round off 12 x $2,000 to $25,000. A rough budget,
not counting office rental or office equipment and supplies,
would therefore resemble:
$55,000 -- Project manager's salary
20,000 -- Executive secretary's salary
25,000 -- WIPS costs (airfares, per diems, etc.)
$100,000 -- ROUGH TOTAL PER ONE YEAR
If invitations to the academic participants at the
WIPS events were issued on some kind of White House paper,
this would cut costs, because most professors can easily
get their own universities or colleges to cover their costs
to travel to participate in a White House event. Otherwise,
the project would need to be able to cover more travel costs
for the academic participants.
In summary, this basic WIPS idea is very flexible, and
is susceptible to many variations. It can be scaled up, down,
backwards or sideways. However, if scaled up very much, this
would endanger the small-group informality that is desired,
and if scaled down very much, this would jeopardize the
intended cumulative momentum.
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The key goal to be kept uppermost in mind at all times
is that this project would be designed to improve cordial
working relationships between those government and academic
sectors where reciprocal attitudes have become severely
strained if not broken over the past 15 years, and this
means primarily the relationship between the NSC-State-
Defense-CIA network on the government side, and the scholarly
specialists on foreign policy and international affairs on
the academic side.
3. Corollary advantages to the government
The basic purpose of the proposed program is stated in
the paragraph immediately above. However, in addition to
this general goal, there are important corollary benefits
that could accrue to the government side.
One important kind of spin-off advantage would be for
the participating government agency representatives to use
a WIPS event as an opportunity informally to "audition"
professors whom an agency might wish to contact later on
for a more specific set of purposes.
Let us say, for example, that the CIA was interested in
getting better acquainted with some academic specialists on
Subject X. A WIPS event could be scheduled to examine some
dimensions of Subject X, and a couple of top CIA people would
represent that agency at the WIPS. During lunch, dinner and
at other relaxed breaks in the schedule, the CIA people could
"mix and mingle," getting better acquainted with the academic
participants and establishing friendly first-name face-to-face
contacts. Then, several days later or at some point following
the WIPS, if the CIA people found that some one or two of the
participating professors were particularly stimulating and
insightful, the CIA people could place phone calls on a first-
name basis and invite those professors to a follow-up event
under Agency sponsorship. The contact would have already
been made on "neutral turf," and the follow-up phone calls
would appear very natural in the course of events. On the
other hand, if none of the professors appeared especially
relevant to CIA purposes and needs, no follow-ups would occur,
and there would be no wasted time, money or embarrassment to
any parties concerned. The same "auditioning" function could
be utilized by all participating government agencies at a WIPS.
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4. Some serious consequences of allowing the strained
government-academia relationship to continue
It is impossible to assure that U.S. foreign policy
would be "better" if there were improved relationships
between the relevant and interested government agencies
on the one hand, and the relevant academic specialists on
the other hand.
However, three basic functions performed by the
academic specialists can be identified, and the performance
of these functions on campus will work against the interests
of the U.S. government if the strained relationship is
allowed to continue.
The first major function performed by the academic
specialists is to teach the citizens of tomorrow about
the nature of U.S. government and the nature of the world.
It may sound corny and trite, but the kids who sit in our
college and university classrooms are going to be the
business leaders and professional people tomorrow--they
will be the voters who send representatives to Congress,
and who put pressure on those Congressmen to do this or
do that--they will be the people who respond to public
opinion polls, and help to shape public opinion in their
communities.
The views toward government and toward the world that
these students acquire while on campus can have a marked
impact on their behavior as adult citizens later on. In-
deed, keep in mind that--with the voting age at 18--most
college students are eligible voters while on campus.
Therefore, if the professors who teach the classes on
campus are cynical and disenchanted toward government,
and if the professors have a sense of despair about what
it is possible to do to improve the international system,
these attitudes of the professors will be transmitted to
the students. And if government leaders are indifferent
toward helping the professors toward a fuller understanding
of the problems of government, and a fuller understanding
of world issues, then the government leaders themselves
are contributing to widespread public cynicism and misunder-
standing.
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I can give you one example of this kind of serious
indifference on the part of government leaders. About ten
years ago I was having a conversation with my old friend
Tom Hughes, then the Director of the Bureau of Intelligence
and Research at the Department of State (with the rank of
Assistant Secretary then--he is now president of the Carnegie
Endowment headquartered in Washington). Tom was complaining
to me that none of the college textbooks on American foreign
policy really understood the problem. I challenged him by
replying, "This is a serious allegation, Tom. If you are
right--and you may well be right--then join me in writing a
new textbook that will avoid the misunderstandings of the
existing textbooks. You have some responsibility in this
matter, if you seriously think that we professors are mis-
educating whole generations of college students about a
matter as serious as American foreign policy." And he
vernment leaders allow themselves to become totally isolated
from the nation while they sit in Washington, and they become
quite indifferent toward what people know or think out in
the boondocks of America. The best recent example of the
problems which can arise when government leaders make this
mistake is the whole Vietnam War business from about 1968
to about 1973.
Bear in mind that the college and university professors
also teach the students who will go on to become high school
teachers, and bear in mind that most Americans terminate
their formal educations with a high school diploma. What do
these elementary and high school kids know about the world?
Here are a few startling results from a survey taken by the
Department of HEW in 1974, from a national sample of students
in the 4th, 8th and 12th grades:
--- 40% of the 12th graders thought that Israel was
an Arab country;
--- 50% of the 12th graders could not correctly name
the Arab country from these choices: Egypt, Israel,
India and Mexico;
--- Most of the 8th graders thought that Golda Meir
rather than Answar Sadat was President of Egypt.
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In another survey taken by my good friend Professor
at the University of Illinois in 1974, looking
at 14-year-old students in eight (8) different countries
including the U.S., the American students ranked near the
top in knowledge of local, state and national affairs, but
next to last in knowledge of world affairs.
College and university professors in the fields of
foreign policy and international affairs, in addition to
training the citizens and general public of the future,
also provide the specialized training for people who enter
government service. Virtually 100Q7 of the staff members
at the NSC, at the Department of State, the Department of
Defense, and the CIA received their educations (often in-
cluding graduate degrees) from U.S. colleges and univer-
sities. These professors therefore provide the "raw material"
that the U.S. government recruits for the major agencies in-
volved in foreign policy and international affairs. There-
fore, if the professors have cynical attitudes and misunder-
standings toward government and toward the world, the recruits
entering government careers will not be ideal "raw material."
This, then, is the second major function performed on campus
that should be of interest to government people.
The third major function is research. College and uni-
versity professors specializing in foreign policy and inter-
national affairs do a great deal of research, writing articles
and monographs and books that sometimes are widely read in
government circles in Washington. In this sense, the research
output from the campus people constitutes a significant part
of the "intellectual capital" drawn upon by the government
people. The academic researchers are therefore a precious
resource to the government, further stressing the importance
of cordial contacts between the government sector and the
academic sector.
All of the things that I am saying here may be so trite
and obvious to you that you are bored in reading this (if
you are reading it at all). But, take it from me, having
dealt with these problems for at least the past 15 years,
there are damned few government people who are actively
concerned and doin a thin about these problems. The
is far from unique--indeed, it's the
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5. My qualifications as a candidate to be "project manager"
and related considerations
Let me stress again, in the strongest possible terms,
that I have no desire to work in government for anybody
anywhere. I have declined various attractive proposals
for government work consistently over the past 18 years.
My only personal commitments to government-type work are
connected with my obligations as a Naval Reserve officer.
This desire not to be in government is certainly not
because I am hostile toward government. On the contrary,
in an old-fashioned patriotic way, I am strongly committed
to improving the quality of government, and I admire the
many good people who work in government at all levels.
My desire not to be in government service stems from my
overriding commitment to continue "doing my thing" in
academic life, contributing to improved government by per-
forming those three major functions described on pages 12-14
of this Memo #4.
However, I have been crusading in various ways over the
past 20 years for improved relationships between government
people and academic people concerned with foreign policy and
international affairs. This is my strongest single extra-
curricular commitment. Therefore, if I could contribute to
this "cause" by performing in the role of "project manager"
as described starting on page 9 of this Memo #4, I would
give such a proposal my most earnest and probably favorable
consideration, for the 1977-78 year starting in summer 1977.
I could name for you several dozen prominent people in
academic life who would be well-qualified to perform in this
role of "project manager" as I have outlined the project.
However, since you have raised this matter with me, allow
me to suggest some of my own qualifications.
I think that I am perhaps the only person in the fields
of foreign policy, military policy and international affairs
in American academic life who possesses all five of the
following characteristics:
(a) Executive Director of the most prominent profess-
ional society in the field, the International
Studies Association (ISA)--for six years, 1964-70
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(b) Later, President of this same professional society,
ISA, 1976-77, with about 4,000 members and affiliates
worldwide
(c) Dean or Director of one of the eleven (11) specialized
international affairs graduate schools in American
academic life
(d) Holder of one of the very few distinguished endowed-
chair professorships in this field in American aca-
demic life
(e) Executive Editor of a major publications series
(Sage Professional Papers in International Studies,
distributed worldwide from Los Angeles and London)
in the field, with about 60 paperback books in print
starting in 1971
I used my old ISA presidential letterhead for page 1 of
this Memo #4 merely to stress that my work for the International
Studies Association over the past 15 years has given me wide-
spread contacts through academic life. ISA is an interdiscip-
linary organization, meaning that these contacts extend into
all of the social sciences--anthropology, business administra-
tion, geography, history, journalism, psychology, sociology,
etc.--beyond my own training in political science and economics.
Note that my successor as the new incoming ISA president, Pro-
fessor Herb Kelman at Harvard, is a distinguished psychologist.
My immediate predecessor as president was Professor Dick Rose-
crance, a noted political scientist at Cornell who served on
the Department of State's Policy Planning Council in the late
1960's. Dick's immediate predecessor as ISA president was
Professor Ken Boulding, an economist so distinguished that he
is often mentioned as a candidate for a Nobel Prize (and he
is one of the "five top economists in the world" as described
in the new book by Leonard Silk of the New York Times). Ken's
wife, Elise Boulding, also very active in ISA, is a prominent
sociologist. ISA also includes within its membership many
area specialists on regions such as Asia, Africa, Latin Amer-
ica, etc.
In summary, my ISA work has given me extensive contacts
throughout academic life, in the U.S. and worldwide. I think
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that I have first-name friends or acquaintances on at least
1,000 college and university campuses in the U.S. (or about
half of the accredited colleges and universities in the na-
tion), and I can indirectly make contact with people on all
of the others. Many know me by first name but I cannot al-
ways recall their names when I see them at meetings--I am
not a very good politician in this regard (and other regards
too). These people range the spectrum--old established pro-
fessors and youngsters, males and females, prominent people
and obscure people, hawks and doves, rightwingers and left-
wingers and middle-of-the-road types--the whole spectrum.
I am active in some other contexts too. I founded one
of the two most respected professional organizations special-
izing in military policy research--the Section on Military
Studies (SOMS). The other one, chaired by Professor Morris
Janowitz at the University of Chicago, is the Inter-University
Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUSAFS) for which you
spoke after dinner a few years ago (because of my recommenda-
tion to Morris), and I have been a member of the IUSAFS Execu-
tive Council for about the past decade. I am a member of the
Society for the History of American Foreign Relations, and a
member of the smaller Committee for the Study of Diplomacy.
Since so much of my work has been within the Interna-
tional Studies Association (ISA), I will enclose here a few
ISA documents. But let me add some other kinds of situations.
I have been a consultant and guest lecturer for all
five of the major U.S. senior war colleges, and for some of
the command and staff schools. I was once even a consultant
and guest lecturer for the old U.S. Department of Agriculture
"Executive Development Seminars" program, and some more or
less similar work for Defense and State over the years.
Perhaps my most challenging work as a consultant began
in January 1968 when President Johnson, with the cooperation
of McGeorge Bundy at the Ford Foundation, decided to sponsor
a major study of the NSC-State-Defense-CIA network. I was
originally used as an outside consultant, but later was invited
aboard actually to write the chapters on the Defense Department.
of the CIA was also a key figure on that project.)
I was later invited, but declined, to serve in a somewhat simi-
lar capacity as "Director of Studies" for the recent Murphy
Commission.
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A few years ago I agreed to serve as Chairman of the
"Civilian Advisory Panel" for the so-called Clements Com-
mittee on Excellence. in Military Education in the Pentagon.
Although the overall advisory panel was never actually
formed, I was used fairly frequently as an individual con-
sultant on that matter (but little if any of my suggestions
were taken).
In February 1976, I was used as the featured wrap-up
speaker at the first conference held by the RAND OSD Man-
power Project in Santa Monica, and project director Rick
Cooper continues to call me occasionally for advice on that
matter. (See attached letter copy from Rick.)
Last week I was phoned by vice pres-
ident and the man in charge of RAND's Was ington operations,
asking me to be a key person in helping him to launch a new
academic-type journal to be called International Conflict.
I had to tell him OK as a quid pro quo--because he is writing
a major book in a series that I am publishing here at the
University Press under the overall title "The U.S. and the
World in America's Third Century."
In February 1977, I was one of the relatively few
academic people on hand for the first big meeting of the
Civilian/Military Institute (C/MI) in Colorado Springs.
Others on hand included five 4-star officers (among whom
were C/JCS General George Brown and VCNO Admiral Harold
Shear), 14 3-star officers, and 14 1-and-2-star officers,
plus many former assistant secretaries of State and Defense
(such as Paul Nitze), many former or active ambassadors
(such as George Kennan), and numerous other dignitaries.
(See attached copy of a New York Times report on the C/MI
meeting.) The C/MI people have asked me to continue helping
them to develop their programs.
A few days ago I received a letter inviting me to be
a key member of a committee of consultants to evaluate the
New York State University System Regents Doctoral Programs
in political science. (See attached letter copy.) Other
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blue-ribbon group, and it has a very large assignment: To
evaluate Ph.D. programs within one of the biggest and most
prominent state university systems in the nation. It looks
as if my specific assignments will include evaluating the
Ph.D. programs at Columbia and Cornell, perhaps also Syracuse.
Stan, I have not said these things about myself here
"to toot my own horn." I would have an incentive to toot
my horn only if I were seeking a job in Washington, when
in fact I am trying to avoid precisely that. Therefore,
I have mentioned all of these matters about myself because
I was not sure that you were fully up-to-date on my various
professional activities, and for some related reasons as
follow below.
First, if I worked in government for a year, I could
not simply go into isolation from the academic community
as if I had dropped off the edge of the earth. I have
continuing commitments and responsibilities which could
mean, if I were working in Washington, an occasional trip
(maybe once a month or so) away from Washington. Among
other things, I would need to make maybe three or four short
trips back to my Patterson School here in Kentucky, to make
sure that operations were still securely afloat.
Second, for better or worse, I am a "public person"
in my profession, with high visibility (which I often wish
that I did not hay Several months ago when I was con-
sideringL invitation for me to join him at LTDU
during 19//-78, I was having a separate conversation with
some of the most prominent and respected senior professors
in my academic field. One of these old boys said to me,
"Vince, why would you want to go work for a freshly-minted
3-star Army officer, when you are already the equivalent
of a 4-star officer in our academic community?" Whether or
not that was an accurate observation (and, thank goodness,
we don't have that kind of military rank-consciousness in
the academic community), I am a sufficiently "senior officer"
that whatever I do tends to get discussed and attracts some
attention across the academic community nationwide. Senior
officers, as I don't have to tell you, send important symbolic
signals merely because of where they are located and what they
STAT
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are doing. BUT this could be an asset if I were to serve
in the role of "project manager" as described in this memo,
because my work in that role would carry useful symbolism
about improved government-academic relationships.
Third, because of my various professional endeavors,
I do have extensive contacts throughout the academic com-
munity (and many places in government) which could be very
useful in launching the kind of project that I have outlined
in this Memo #4. Indeed, perhaps I ought to mention one
particular program for which I served more or less as the
"father," and that can be viewed in some respects as a pilot
model for the WIPS idea that I have outlined here. Back in
about 1967, when I was Executive Director of the Interna-
tional Studies Association (ISA), I approached the American
Foreign Service Association (AFSA) about creating an ISA-AFSA
joint committee designed to improve relationships between the
academic community and the Department of State. The joint
committee was in fact created, it was very active for about
two years, and we (the joint committee) sold Secretary Rusk
on three out of four major proposals that we made to him.
One of these three that has been most successful (and is
still in operation) is State's "Scholar-Diplomat Seminars"
program.
6. Some specific terms and requests
If I were asked to be "project director" or program
manager" for the kind of ideas outlined herein, I would
hope to receive an annual salary in the $50,000 to $55,000
range. This kind of figure would not earn me any "profit"
over my ordinary financial situation here--in fact, it would
maintain me at roughly the same situation that I have here
in terms of standard of living, disposable income, etc. The
detailed figures on the costs to me involved in a one-year
move to Washington were worked out when I was talking to Bob
Gard earlier. If you want these detailed figures, I can
certainly provide them to you.
As suggested above, it would need to be understood that
I would have to make occasional short trips (24-to-48 hours,
maybe once per month on average) away from Washington on my
other academic community business (at no cost to the govern-
ment). But these forays to academic conferences and meetings
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would afford me further opportunities to publicize my
government-academia "good-will ambassador's role" for
1977-78.
I would like to be given some reasonable assurance
against purely political/personal dabbling by others in
my work. Of course, I am not naive enough to think that
any job in Washington is ever wholly free from political
considerations. But here is the kind of situation that
I would want to avoid. Some guy on the NSC staff says to
me, "Hey, Vince, on that seminar you are organizing next
month, please invite my old friend Professor X---he and I
were college roommates." And some guy at State says to me,
"Vince, I sure hope you can invite Professor Y---he and I
were in the Foreign Service together in the Antarctic back
in '37, and he is really a top expert on penguins." And
some guy at DOD or CIA says to me, "Vince, for your seminar
invitees, be certain to include Professor Z---he and I were
in the Army and in the OSS together in War II and, besides
all that, his wife's third cousin is the brother of President
Carter's cook." ----- Needless to say, I would welcome inputs
from all participating government agencies for any events
that I might be organizing, but I would prefer to have sug-
gested invitees described in terms of professional qualifi-
cations rather than by individual name. I certainly do not
plan to invite any "old buddies" of my own merely because
they are old buddies. What I am proposing is a top-quality
operation, with invitees chosen purely on their records and
qualifications. This means that, for many if not most of
the seminars, the academic invitees could well be people
known to me only by reputation and not personally--although
I would make detailed preliminary checks to make sure we
were getting the kind of people we desired.
Eventually, if anything comes of this proposal here,
I would want to receive a formal appointment letter originat-
ing from some place other than State, Defense or the CIA.
I would want my paychecks and my budget account on somebody's
ledger other than at State, Defense or the CIA, although it
would be immaterial to me if the money or finally came.via a
fund transfer from one of thedepartments or agencies., I could
a
begin -I3 montTis
y ~~ ~~o~ wor as eaFLy -as--rune 1977,
immediately after finishing my Naval Reserve duty with you,
but I would need the month of August to wrap up affairs here.
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I have suggested at several points herein that the White
House would be a wholly suitable, (and in some respects advan-
tageous) overall sponsor and contracting entity for the pro-
posed year-long project. However, if the White House desired
merely to serve as the contracting entity, but with no overt
or publicized White House sponsorship, I would be more than
willing to let you trade on the good name of the Patterson
School, and my own name. In other words, the contract could
provide for me to operate out of a new Patterson School "branch
office" to be established in Washington for the purposes of
carrying out the contract, and I could have printed an appro-
priate variation on my basic letterhead here--which I think
is pretty well known around the academic community. In the
business world, you get charged a special additional fee if
you want to use somebody's logo or trademark. I offer you
this as a "freebie" , and nothing about the White House would
be printed on the letterhead. In this case, however, for
reasons that I could explain, I would probably need the use
of a good IBM "mag-card" typewriter, and a fairly good phone
budget.
Finally, here is a major request--not a condition--but
a MAJOR REQUEST. To do this job well, as I have described
it, I would need one (and only one) Lunar-accicta?r T HnTr-
such a person in mind. She is
who has been my Executive Assistant here at the Patterson
School. She is the most extraordinarily talented person
who has ever worked with or for me. She has been a key figure
with me in building the Patterson School from relative obscur-
ity into a position of growing prominence nationwide and world-
wide. She is perfect in all matters ranging from routine
office work to major executive-managerial work. She is beau-
tiful in handling all of the VIP's who visit us here, and
these have included Dean Rusk, Denis Healey, Henry Cabot Lodge,
Gerald R. Ford, and a good many people now in the Carter Admin-
istration such as Dick Holbrooke and Don McHenry. Because of
her work for me, she has almost as many good first-name friends
and acquaintances in academic life and in government as I do.
Thus, she is truly my alter ems.
are a very close
couple. They are dear personal friends of Anne and myself,
aside from the professional connection, leaving my
staff here (an irreplaceable loss) becaus is has accepted
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an extremely attractive position as Professor of Clinical
Pharmacology at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
Thus, will move to Minneapolis over the summer.
However ave tentatively discussed a Washington possibility
with involving her working with me there. They
are the situation should materialize i appro-
priate fashion, to consider an arrangement whereby would
commute from Minneapolis to Washington work with me wring
the five-day working week, returning to Minneapolis virtually
every weekend. This would be a strain. It would take a
substantial chunk of money too, particularly if the weekly
roundtrip airfares had to come out of about a $20,000 annual
salary ($25,000 would be much more comfor~a ), plus the
costs of a small efficiency apartment fort to live in
during the workweeks in Washington.
Stan, when you went
on taking with you
on the grounds
saying that
larly in the kind of
were with me in this
plus a few other people)
Naval War College, you insisted
Rusty was your invaluable assistant. I am
is equally valuable to me, particu-
work that we are discussing here. If she
assignment, it would at least double my
own output capacity, thus probably leaving me enough surplus
time to spend perhaps two or two and a half days per week
helping you and Bob Bowie at your McLean address.
If it proves impossible for you to include
in the package, then please let me know as soon as po
Among other things, this factor will be important to
in planning their Minneapolis move over the summer, but
it will also be a key factor in my own thinking. If it is
impossible for to be involved in Washington work with me,
please advise what you have in mind for an assistant for me.
(I can think of one or two pretty good people already in the
Washington area whom I might be able to get.) I have planned,
organized, hosted and chaired literally hundreds of meetings
and conventions of various kinds in academic life, but it is
more than a one-man ob. If you take the two people whom I
am suggesting (i.e.,~ and myself), I think you would be
getting the most successful team of its kind in American
academic life--the team that has put the Patterson School of
Diplomacy and International Commerce on the academic map.
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Feel free to share this memorandum with any people whom
you consider appropriate, including President Carter and/or
Zbig Brzezinski. I should add that I have had only casual
contacts with Zbig over the years. He might or might not
recognize my name. (Enclosed is the most recent letter that
I have in my files from him, merely declining an invitation
to lecture for us here.) As I said elsewhere in these memos,
Zbig's orientation was always toward Washington, and perhaps
to one or two New York organizations such as the Council on
Foreign Relations. As far as I am aware, he never held any
significant offices or roles in professional societies in
academic life. My own orientation was always the reverse,
toward the academic community and its work within professional
societies. In short, Zbig and I operated in separate orbits.
[End of Memo #4]
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