THE RISE AND FALL OF PROJECT CAMELOT :
studies in the relationship
between social science and practical politics
edited by Irving Louis Horowitz, 1929- . Cambridge MA: The MIT Press,
1967; 385 pp. Bibliographic footnotes, name index, subject index.
--review by Dale Wharton, Montreal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 1995 11 06
How to quash people's risings in developing countries? To find out,
the US Army in 1964 launched Project Camelot: multinational social
science research. Editor Horowitz was then professor of sociology at
Washington University, St Louis MO. Having worked in Argentina and
Venezuela, he knew two societies picked for attention by Camelot. He
assembled this reader on his own. It comprises project briefs plus 10
papers by academics, four by politicians, and two by bureaucrats.
Authors range from Camelot participants to Communist partisan.
The basic social sciences are five: anthropology, political science,
economics, psychology, and sociology. The applied social sciences are
administrative sciences, education, law, planning, and social work. In
its struggle to outlive the Great Depression of 1929-39, the US
government turned to the social sciences. Herbert Hoover began with
The President's Research Committee on Social Trends. It got indirect
backing from the Spelman Fund, a Rockefeller beneficiary.
Under Hoover and Roosevelt, The Committee on Administrative Management
set an example. It split off policy (an elite activity) from politics
(a mass activity). Social scientists who leaned toward policy helped
draft the Executive Reorganization Act of 1939. The Act gave rise, for
example, to the postwar Council of Economic Advisors.
Project Camelot's budget, modest as it was for the Pentagon, dazzled
social scientists. Few questioned its support of apparent meddling by
the US military. The Army managed Camelot through a contractor, the
Special Operations Research Office (SORO) of American University. It
did not classify the project for security. This time Minerva, goddess
of wisdom and industry, coupled in public with Mars, the war god.
SORO mailed an outline to scholars at home and abroad. Camelot would
explore "the social processes which must be understood in order to
deal effectively with problems of insurgency.... [It saw how good are]
positive actions designed to reduce the sources of disaffection" (p
48). Still, it promised its Army sponsor a look at "the relative
effectiveness of various military and quasi-military postures,
practices, and levels of military involvement" (p 50). It allowed that
"programs recommended to the indigenous government may include advice
on (1) the use of military force, (2) police activities..." (p 52).
Project Camelot would not neglect small groups. It wanted to learn
more about "cohesion, socialization, goal development, and motivation
in primary groups...[on the chance that] much of the fabric of a
society is shaped, changed, and controlled in primary groups" (p 66).
Field studies would quantify outlooks, beliefs, longings, dreams.
The project design would yield two mathematical models--one of
internal conflicts and one of social systems. (SORO said a model is
what is assumed, defined, and proposed about the workings of a system;
the model should reflect logical consistency, the actual state of
affairs, and existing social theory.)
The models would guide further efforts. These would scrutinize 20
postwar cases of internal conflict, study current socioeconomic
conditions in five societies, and compare, relating the 20 conflicts
and the five social systems. Other methods would test this factor
analysis. They would apply library research, surveys, content analysis
of the shifts in political symbols, etc.
Johan Galtung, a Norwegian sociologist, was in Santiago de Chile
lecturing at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, a UNESCO
school. SORO invited him to a design seminar for Project Camelot.
Galtung declined (he tells why in this book). But he passed Camelot's
printed matter along to colleagues. It was April, 1965.
Hugo Nuttini taught anthropology at University of Pittsburgh. Born in
Chile, he was now a US citizen. He flew to Santiago in April, 1965, on
assignment for Project Camelot. He would feel out the chances of
gaining cooperation there. Nuttini chose to hide Camelot's military
origin. The trickery irked scholars who knew about the project from
Galtung. (Some already suspected US social science of mainly excusing
capitalism at home and empire abroad.) The left press picked up the
muttering at University of Chile and Catholic University.
Consider the climate. President Eduardo Frei was a Christian Democrat,
but Chile sometimes opposed the Organization of American States. So
did Brazil--until its elected leader, Joao Goulart, was overthrown the
year before. Now comes a Yankee spy talking insurgency. What next?
May, 1965: US Marines landed in the Dominican Republic. They jailed
Juan Bosch, the lawful president, owing to US fears of Castroism. In
Santiago, any detachment concerning Camelot vanished. Did it foretell
an antidemocratic coup? Outcries arose from Chile's newspapers and
legislature. The government of Chile lodged diplomatic protest with
the US ambassador, who cabled home to drop Project Camelot pronto.
In Washington, Congressional hearings opened as rivals jostled:
military v civilian personnel in the Department of Defense, DOD v
Department of State in foreign affairs. July 8, 1965, Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara canceled Project Camelot. (It would be 1973
before a military junta cut down the physician-president, Salvador
Allende, and set aside Chile's constitution.)
Footnote to Canadians: Nine years before the Parti Quebecois won its
first provincial election in 1976, this book mentioned Project Revolt:
social science research into the French Canadian sovereignty movement.
The sponsor of Project Revolt was the US Department of Defense.
%C Cambridge MA
%D 1967
%E Irving Louis Horowitz, 1929-
%G LCCCN (accession number) 67-14204
%I MIT Press
%K anthropology army Chile CIA economics insurgency police politics \
psychology research science social sociology sovereignty
%O bibliographic footnotes, name index, subject index, 21 cm
%P ix, 385 p
%T The rise and fall of project Camelot: studies \
in the relationship between social science and practical politics
##
