WHY THE CIA OFTEN SUCCEEDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100010051-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 51
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

"STAT
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THE CAMPAI&LER
Winter 1972-73
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by JI('r>tyle?Go!!Iiu r, Jr.
Recently, in dosages ranging from the MIT-"Club
of Rome" Limits-of Growth, through the publications of
.John D. Rockefeller III'sburgeoning Zero- Grow?thmove-
ment, and Harman Kahn's.latest best-seller, intellectual
and semi intellectual readership circles are being de-
luged with an eerie genre of literature coming to be
called "futurology." Although the collection reeks of
the traditions of Nostradamus, Churchward, and L. Ron
Ijubbard, most of the research behind these publications
is sponsored in dead seriousness by such. CIA-type
agencies as the RAND Corporation, Ford Foundation,
and a proliferation of only less celebrated institutions
throughout the advanced capitalist sector.
Those agencies are not wasting their time and funds;
In a certain sense, the stuff works.
Two of the papers presented at the recent Linz con-
ference attempted to unravel some of the recent output.
The first, by Columbia University's Edward W. Said( 1),
offered a scholarly overview of a sophisticated U.S.
Mid-East policy developed, in part, by the RAND Cor-
poration. The second, which veered off its track at the
end, was the provocative review offered by Lund Uni-
versity's Research Director for the Division of Social
Phychology and Conflict Research, Lars Dencik. (2 )
The Labor Committee delegation's differences with
Dencik provide the point of departure for an account
of why CIA operations so often succeed.
Dencik characterizes the genre:
"So called future research is not only humbug, it is
not only the last spasmodic attempts by a senile po-
sitivistic social science to get out of its hopeless
impotency, not only a Meath-throe in the holy of late
capitali gym, On the contrary, it is somethingto look
out for in the strulg,gle against imperialism, since
what `future research' really is, is an instrument
of power in the hands of the most important forces
of imperialism." (3)
So far, so good.
Our issue with him was made clear during, the plen-
ary discussions of his paper and oral presentation.
During. that presentation and subsequent exchanges, he
emphasized the need to combat futurology by debunking
it. According to both his replies to several queries on
on the point and the internal evidence of his paper and
presentation, he locates the main significance of the
genre in its use for journalistic"brainwashing of large
populations.
Said's reporting on the Arab counter-insurgency
programs locates Deneik's mistake. Futurology studies
may have an incidental significance as they provide
the direct propaganda for influencing mass opinion;
their important application - and purpose -lies else-
where. All important futurology studies represent A
STATEMENT OF OPERATIONS POLICY, TO BE I11-
PLEMENTED AS FIELD WORK CONDUCTED BY
TRAINED TEAMS OF COUNTER-INSURGENCY OPER-
ATIV ES.
The CIA's Vietnam Hamlet program could easily
provide the material for a futurology best-seller of the
Kahn type. The policy would be used by such a writer
to paint a picture of Southeast Asia in the year 2000
A. D., a culture developed around the principle. of "local
control." The significance of such a book would not be
.hat identified by Dencil. Its import would be the elab-
aration of a policy being conducted in South Vietnam by
.'punter-insurgency teams.
The Limits of Growth and Blueprint for Survival
COYl. 1
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