The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot
Reivich, Lois
Project Camelot, a mammoth six million dollar counterinsurgency project, was a creation of the Army's Special Operations Research Office (SORO) centered at American University, Washington, D.C....
...Though not a thoroughly penetrating critique of academic complicity in U.S...
...government agency foreign policy games, some aspects of the book deserve attention...
...But Project Camelot never passed the planning stages...
...Horowitz notes correctly that such human engineering efforts were developed both for internal and external use, beginning with Hoover's Presidential Research Cormmittee on Social Trends, which was financed by the Rockefeller-dorminated Spellman Fund...
...In the wake of this debacle, Irving Louis Horowitz, a sociology professor at Washington University in Saint Louis, Mo., has compiled a series of essays presenting the views of various politicians and academicians on the issue of social science involvement in government policymaking and military research...
...government which culminated in the cancellation of the project...
...CRESS counterinsurgency studies include: 1. Fifty-seven case studies of counterinsurgency in the 20th century (three volumes...
...In May 1965, less than a year after its inception, the indignant reaction of the Chilean legislature and press (after disclosure of an offer to secure the cooperation of a Chilean professor) set off a chain of reactions within the U.S...
...Seymour ilartin Lipset, the reknomJned Berkeley sociologist, is writing on 'Mvilitary Planning and Some Implications of National Development," a cross-national study of students' contributions to stability or instability in a nation, and an examination of the development of educational institutions and their relationship to the modernization process in Latin America...
...2. Counterinsurgency Honduras...
...In the non-military sphere, all aspects of society are explored...
...3. Counterinsurgency eru...
...For a summary of important counterinsurgency projects, see the June 1967 NACLA Newsletter...
...investors...
...For example, Horowitz's introductory essay has a section which criticizes the ambiguous methodology and unsound ideological presuppositions of the project...
...Congressional reaction to Project Camnelot was unfavorable...
...Corporate interests are second only to the government in support of social science research...
...Social scientists deeply involved with policymaking agencies tend to accept an elitist ideology and adhere to a norm of secrecy in their work, thereby eroding one of the key bases of genuine social "science...
...Academic opinion ranged from Ithiel de Sola Pool's defense of CIA research and his admiration for the new cost-effective systems approach they utilize, to iviarshal Sahlins' vehement criticism of academic involvement in foreign area research, the intelligence nature of this-"classified" material and the naivete of scholars who attempt to liberalize U.S...
...Recent social science military intelligence studies on Latin America range from investigations of the changing role of the military in Latin American society and protection of the Panama Canal, to potential insurgency threats in Central and South America...
...Congressmen feared that such shenanigans might jeopardize important foreign alliances...
...In an all-too-short section, Horowitz traces the growth of government concern for the development of social engineering rather than of social science, a trend epitomized by the bureaucratic research institutes of today...
...2. "Yon-military Effects of Physical Force by Counterinsurgency 1iilitary Units in Phase I Low Intensity Warfare," previously entitled "Effects of hysical Force in Population Control and Counter-Guenilla Operations During Low Intensity Warfare...
...Studies include an Agency for International Development (AID) sponsored projection of manpower needs for LatinIYACLA newsletter - September 167 - 7 America, and studies on birth control, land reform, the Indian roblem and background investigations for U.S...
...Though two years have passed since Project Camelot was laid to rest, similar strategic military research not covered in Horowitz's book is still going on...
...The State Department, in its perennial quarrel with the Defense Department, insisted on ultimate authority over research in foreign areas...
...Its aim was to test a general systems approach to predicting and influencing instability in several Latin American countries...
...Straining for balance, most of the book contains moderated criticism from various persons...
...Volue III: "The D perience in Africa and Latin America...
...The Air Force has contracted Hebrew University in Israel for "Innovation, Social Change and Institutionalization," a study of conditions facilitating or impeding the acceptance of the modern Western way of life...
...Apparently nothing but the most superficial lessons were culled from Project Camelot...
...SCRO, for example, has been revitalized as CRESS, and still operates out of American University...
...He notes that a sociological study which equates revolutionary social change with social pathology can only be seen as reactionary...
...In the final essay, Horowitz highlights the increasing dependence of American social science on government need and financing...
...Further studies are being conducted in Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia...
...In sum, the sources of research funds rest in the hands of the upper class...
...Project Agilets chief investigator, Hans eigert, has already produced: 1. ackaround for Counterinsurgency Studies in Latin imerica, Volume I (Venezuela, Colombia and Panamla...
...strategy in this way...
...The conscience and consciousness of the social scientist seems to have remained essentially untouched...
...Selected Third WJorld countries' successes or failures to bring about orderly change will be measured against the Israeli experience...
Vol. 1 • September 1967 • No. 7
