cold war anthropology by david h. price
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
1/32
C O L D WA R A N T H R O P O L O G Y
T H E C I A ,
T H E P E N TA G O N ,
A N D T H E G R O W T H
O F D U A L U S E
A N T H R O P O L O G Y
D AV I D H . P R I C E
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
2/32
C O L D WA R A N T H R O P O L O G Y
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
3/32
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
4/32
David H. Price
C O L D WA R A N T H R O P O L O G Y
T H E C I A ,
T H E P E N T A G O N ,
A N D T H E G R O W T H
O F D U A L U S E
A N T H R O P O L O G Y
Duke University Press | Durham and London | 2016
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
5/32
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
6/32
F O R M I D G E W I T H L O V E , S Q U A L O R ,
A N D T H A N K S F O R H AV I N G T H E S TA M I N A T O S O
O F T E N A P P E A R I N T E R E S T E D E N O U G H T H R O U G H O U T
T H E Y E A R S O F O N G O I N G U P D A T E S O N T H I S
S E E M I N G L Y E N D L E S S P R O J E C T .
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
7/32
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
8/32
Anthropology since its inception has contained a dual
but contradictory heritage. On the one hand, it derives rom a
humanistic tradition o concern with people. On the other hand,
anthropology is a discipline developed alongside and within the
growth o the colonial and imperial powers. By what they have studied
(and what they have not studied) anthropologists have assisted in,
or at least acquiesced to, the goals o imperialist policy.
R A D I C A L C A U C U S O F T H E A M E R I C A N A N T H R O P O L O G I C A L A S S O C I A T I O N | 1969
Anthropologists who study South Pacic cargo cults
have come to expect and receive research grants as much
as Melanesians expect to receive cargo.
T E R R E N C E B E L L | 1989
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
9/32
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
10/32
C O N T E N T S
xi Preace
xxv Acknowledgments
xxix Abbreviations
P A R T I C O L D WA R P O L I T I C A L - E C O N O M I C
D I S C I P L I N A R Y F O R M A T I O N S
3 O N E Political Economy and History o American Cold War
Intelligence
31 T W O World War II’s Long Shadow
54 T H R E E Rebooting Proessional Anthropology in the Postwar World
81 F O U R Afer the Shooting War: Centers, Committees,
Seminars, and Other Cold War Projects
109 F I V E Anthropologists and State: Aid, Debt, and Other Cold War
Weapons o the Strong
137 Intermezzo
P A R T I I A N T H R O P O L O G I S T S ’ A R T I C U L AT I O N S W I T H
T H E N A T I O N A L S E C U R I T Y S T AT E
143 S I X Cold War Anthropologists at the CIA: Careers Conrmed and
Suspected
165 S E V E N How CIA Funding Fronts Shaped Anthropological Research
195 E I G H T Unwitting CIA Anthropologist Collaborators: MK-Ultra,Human Ecology, and Buying a Piece o Anthropology
221 N I N E Cold War Fieldwork within the Intelligence Universe
248 T E N Cold War Anthropological Counterinsurgency Dreams
276 E L E V E N Te AAA Conronts Military and Intelligence Uses o
Disciplinary Knowledge
301 T W E L V E Anthropologically Inormed Counterinsurgency in
Southeast Asia
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
11/32
x | C O N T E N T S
323 T H I R T E E N Anthropologists or Radical Political Action and
Revolution within the AAA
349 F O U R T E E N Untangling Open Secrets, Hidden Histories, Outrage
Denied, and Recurrent Dual Use Temes
371 Notes
397 Reerences
433 Index
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
12/32
Te analytic branch o the is given to tweedy, pipe-smoking intellectuals
who work much as i they were doing research back in the universities
whence many o them came. It probably has more Ph.Ds than any other areao government and more than many colleges. Teir expertise ranges rom
anthropology to zoology. Yet, or all that, they can be wrong.
S T A N S F I E L D T U R N E R | ormer director o Central Intelligence, 1985
P R E F A C E
Tis book considers some o the ways that military and intelligence agencies
quietly shaped the development o anthropology in the United States during
the rst three decades o the Cold War. Whether hidden or open secrets, these
interactions transormed anthropology’s development in ways that continue to
inuence the discipline today. Tis is an anthropological consideration o an-
thropology; studying up in ways I hope help the discipline reconsider its inevi-
table engagements with the world it studies (Nader 1972).In many o the early Cold War interaces connecting anthropology and
military-intelligence agencies documented here, the anthropologists produc-
ing research o interest to governmental agencies pursued questions o genuine
interest to themselves and their discipline. Sometimes gentle nudges o available
unding opportunities helped anthropologists choose one particular element
o a larger topic over another; in other instances anthropologists indepen-
dently pursued their own intellectual interests, producing work that was only
later o interest or o use to military or intelligence agencies. In some instancesanthropologists recurrently produced work o no value to, or opposing poli-
cies o, these agencies. Anthropological research was sometimes directly com-
missioned to meet the needs o, or answer specic questions o, military and
intelligence agencies, while other times sponsorship occurred without unded
anthropologists’ knowledge.
Laura Nader argues that one o anthropology’s undamental jobs is to pro-
vide context: to enlarge the scope o study beyond particular instances and en-
compass larger contexts o power, mapping power’s inuence on the creation
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
13/32
xii | P R E F A C E
and uses o social meanings. Understanding power involves studying the eco-
nomic and social systems rom which power relations arise. Given the military-
industrial complex’s dominance in postwar America, anthropologists might well
expect to nd the explanatory systems o our culture to be embedded in and
reecting these larger elements o militarization in ways that do not appearobvious to participants. Cultures requently integrate, generally without criti-
cal reection, core eatures o their base economic systems into widely shared
ideological eatures o a society. Most generally these are seen as naturally oc-
curring eatures o a culture, ofen ethnocentrically assumed to be views shared
by any society. Among pastoral peoples this may mean that religious systems
integrate metaphors o gods as shepherds (who shall not want), pristine des-
potic hydraulic states worshipping their chie bureaucratic administrators as
god-kings, or capitalists constructing versions o a Jesus whose Sermon on theMount somehow supports the cruelties o laissez-aire capitalism. Such ideo-
logical integrations o a society’s economic oundations are common subjects
o anthropological inquiry, though the disciplinary histories o the last hal century
have seldom consistently ocused on political economy as a primary orce shap-
ing the theory and practice o anthropology.
Anthropologists, sociologists, and some disciplinary historians study the
interplay between political economy and the production and consumption o
anthropological knowledge. Since Karl Mannheim’s (1936) observations on the
sociology o knowledge systems, there has been broad acceptance o such links.
Tomas Patterson’s Social History of Anthropology in the United States (2003)
connects political and economic impacts on the development o the discipline.
Anthropologists like June Nash, Eric Wol, Gerald Berreman, Kathleen Gough,
or Sidney Mintz direct attention to the political and economic orces shaping
eld research or the selection o research topics (whether peasants or geopoliti-
cal regions) (Berreman 1981; Gough 1968; Mintz 1985; Nash 2007: 3; Jorgensen
and Wol 1970). Eric Ross’s Malthus Factor (1998b) brilliantly shows how the
development o demographic theory rom the age o Malthus to the Cold War
was inherently linked to the political economy o the age. In different ways,
William Roseberry’s essay “Te Unbearable Lightness o Anthropology” (1996)
and Marvin Harris’s Teories of Culture in Postmodern imes (1998) challenged
anthropologists to connect postmodernism’s explicit neglect o the importance
o political economy with broader disciplinary political disengagements. Critiques
o colonialism’s impact on anthropology by Asad (1973), Gough (1968), and
others dominated discourse in the 1970s and signicantly shaped anthropol-
ogy’s understanding o its role in political and economic-colonial ormations.
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
14/32
P R E F A C E | xiii
Yet, while the Central Intelligence Agency (), the Pentagon, and acets o
American militarism marked political crises rom Project Camelot to the Tai
Affair, anthropologists’ scholarly attempts to put the agency back in the Central
Intelligence Agency have been episodic and eeting. Joseph Jorgensen and Eric
Wol ’s (1970) essay, “Anthropology on the Warpath in Tailand,” provided aramework and sketched enough details to launch the serious academic pursuit
o such questions, yet the academic pursuit o documenting such disciplinary
interactions remained largely ignored.
I have gone to great lengths to base this narrative and analysis on documents
that meet standards o academic research, striving to provide citations or each
piece o this puzzle—which both limits and strengthens what can be said o
these relationships; in several instances I have excluded discussion o appar-
ent connections with intelligence agencies because o the limited availability osupporting documents. Tis book is not an exhaustive study o these relation-
ships; it provides a ramework or urther work and a sample o these pervasive
mutually benecial interactions. I made extensive use o the Freedom o Inor-
mation Act () to le hundreds o requests with the , the Federal Bureau
o Investigation (), the Department o Deense, and other agencies, request-
ing documents on anthropologists and organizations where anthropologists
worked during the Cold War. I have also drawn heavily on governmental and
private archival sources, as well as previously published materials. While
allowed me to access tens o thousands o remarkable documents rom the
and other agencies, the continues to guard much o its history and usually
complies with requests in the most limited way, resisting intrusions into
its institutional history. Yet even with this resistance, it is possible to docu-
ment specic incidents and iner general patterns rom the sample o available
documents.
While portions o my research or this book began during the early post–
Cold War years, the emergence o the post-9/11 security state signicantly and
inevitably shaped my analysis o past and present interactions between anthro-
pologists and military-intelligence organizations, just as my historical analy-
sis o post-9/11 developments was inuenced by my historical research on past
intelligence agency abuses (see, e.g., Price 2004a). In struggling to add political
context to our historical consideration o the development o Cold War an-
thropology, I hope to have suffi ciently complicated the narrative by stressing
the dual use nature o this history: showing that anthropologists ofen pursued
questions o their own design, or their own reasons, while operating in specic
historical contexts where the overarching military-industrial university complex
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
15/32
xiv | P R E F A C E
had its own interest in the knowledge generated rom these inquiries. Te dual
use dynamics o these relationships are o central interest to this book.
For some readers, writing about the raises questions o conspiracies, but
I nd no hidden orces at work here any larger than those directing capitalism
itsel. As social orces o signicant breadth and power, and playing importantroles in supporting America’s militarized economy, the Pentagon and the
can be diffi cult to write about in ways that do not make them out to be totaliz-
ing orces that explain everything, and thereby nothing, at the same time. While
some may misinterpret my ocus on the importance o these military and intel-
ligence elements, exaggerating their signicance to the exclusion o other social
eatures, my ocus on these militarized elements o midcentury American po-
litical economy is as central to this work as Richard Lee’s (1979) ocus on !Kung
San hunting and collecting, June Nash’s (1979b) ocus on Bolivian mining laborrelations, or Roy Rappaport’s (1984) ocus on sembaga Maring horticulture
and easting cycles. Anthropological analysis o systems o knowledge produc-
tion (even its own) needs to contextualize the worlds in which this knowledge
exists. As Steve Fuller argues in his intellectual biography o Tomas Kuhn,
“Part o the critical mission o the sociology o knowledge . . . is to get people
to realize that their thought stands in some systemic relationship to taken-or-
granted social conditions” (2000: 232). And while the Cold War’s national secu-
rity state was not the only orce acting on anthropology during this period, it
is the subject o this book—and a orce with signicant power in midcentury
America—and it thus receives a lot o attention here.
Dual Use Anthropology
Te phrase “dual use” appearing in the book’s title is borrowed rom the physical
sciences, which have long worried about the symbiotic relationships between
the “pure” and “applied” sciences, relationships in which academic theoretical
developments are transormed into commercial products or military applica-
tions. Dual use science became a central eature o experimental natural sci-
ences during the twentieth century. Tis transormation shaped branches o
physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine, and scientists rom these and other
elds increasingly came to surrender concerns about the applied uses o the knowl-
edge they produced as being part o the natural order o things i they were to
be able to do their work. As physics moved rom answering questions with
mathematics, pen and paper, and simple apparatus, to requiring the manuacture
o massive, expensive machinery built not by a dozen scientists but by hundreds or
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
16/32
P R E F A C E | xv
thousands o scientists, to plumb secrets o the subatomic realm, it needed spon-
sors whose uses o such knowledge were undamentally different rom those o
pure knowledge and discovery. With the increased weaponization o physics,
such unds came to ow rom militarized sources with such requency that the
silence surrounding such occurrences became a common eature o the disci-pline’s milieu.
Te dynamics o these processes and the outcomes o this dual use nature
o scientic advancements are well known, and the general understanding that
“pure science” has both “nonpractical” and “applied” uses has widespread accep-
tance in American society. During the second hal o the twentieth century, this
dynamic became a thematic element o Americans’ shared belies in scientic
progress. Te tragedy o Robert Oppenheimer’s slow comprehension that he and
his colleagues would be excluded rom decision-making processes concerninghow their weapons would be used became part o the American dual use narra-
tive. Most scientists understand that the knowledge they produce enters a uni-
verse in which they likely have no control over how this knowledge is used; some
o this awareness comes rom the legal conditions governing the labs where they
work, conditions in which employers ofen own the intellectual rights to the
ruits o their labors, but these dynamics go ar beyond such legal concerns.
For decades the phrase “dual use research” has described the militarized ap-
plications o basic science research, at times describing scientic breakthroughs
that have both commercial and military applications, such as developments in
global positioning satellites that led to both precision weapons targeting sys-
tems and commercial dashboard navigation systems or amily cars. Debates
over dual use science ofen ocus on biomedical breakthroughs that simulta-
neously hold the potential both or cures and or the development o devastat-
ing weapons. Such potential applications ofen mix “pure science” research with
commercial or military dual uses in ways that conound or mix understandings
o “deensive” and “offensive” uses o biomedical knowledge (Miller and Selge-
lid 2008). Approaches to such biological research are ar rom uniorm. Some
groups o scientists, like the Cambridge Working Group, raise public concerns
posed by research into viruses and other transmittable diseases; others, like
members o Scientists or Science, advocate or the right to continue such re-
search (Greeneldboyce 2014). But even with these disputes, this awareness
o the dual use potential o such work helps ocus and clariy the undamental
issues o these debates.
Dual use research programs signicantly altered the trajectories o
twentieth-century physics, and the payouts or commercial interests and the
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
17/32
xvi | P R E F A C E
weapons-industrial complex have been so sizable that the U.S. government
supports massive unding programs or supercolliders and other large expen-
ditures that appear to have no direct applications to weapons work. But i past
perormance is any predictor o uture uses, either applications or new ron-
tiers o adaptable useul knowledge will ollow. David Kaiser (2002) argues thatmany o the expensive large physics projects with no apparent military applica-
tions, such as supercolliders, unctionally create a surplus o physicists who can
assist military projects as needed.
Te dynamics governing the direction o the knowledge ow o dual use
research appear to ofen avor transers o knowledge rom pure to applied re-
search projects, but a close examination o interplays between theory and appli-
cation nds any determinative statements ar too simplistic to account or the
eedback between theory and application. Notions o “applied” and “pure” scienceare constructions that, although useul, have limitations. In 1976, Stewart Brand
asked Gregory Bateson about the roots o his cybernetic research. Bateson ex-
plained that his initial interest in developing cybernetic theories o cultural sys-
tems came not out o abstract, nonapplied theoretical musings but rom applied
military research. Bateson’s interest in cybernetic eedback in cultural systems
was, ironically, itsel propagated by an instance o reverse eedback insoar as
his abstract theoretical interest came rom concrete problems arising rom de-
signing sel-guiding missile systems. In a move reversing what might appear to
be general trends o dual use inormation ow, Bateson took applied military
knowledge and transerred it into the basis o a theoretical abstraction analyzing
biological and cultural systems.
Distinctions between “applied” and “pure” research shif over time. Some-
times the abstractions o theoretical or pure research ollow rom applied prob-
lems; other times theoretical developments lead to applied innovations in ways
that diminish the utility o these distinctions. Te physical sciences long ago
acknowledged the dual use nature o their discoveries: assuming that discover-
ies or inventions made with one intention necessarily were open to other, at
times ofen militarized, uses. Some scientic developments like radar, the Internet,
navigation systems, walkie-talkies, jet propulsion engines, night vision,
and digital photography were initially introduced as military applications and
later took on dual civilian uses; in other cases, what were initially either com-
mercial or “pure research” scientic discoveries took on military applications,
such as the discovery that altimeters could become detonation triggers, or the
chain o theoretical physics discoveries that led to the design and use o atomic
weapons.
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
18/32
P R E F A C E | xvii
Field research projects in other disciplines have also brought dual uses linked
to the Cold War’s national security state. Michael Lewis’s analysis o the Pacic
Ocean Biological Survey (), a U.S.-nanced ornithological study in India
in the 1960s involving ornithologist, Offi ce o Strategic Ser vices () alumnus,
and Smithsonian director S. Dillon Ripley, shows a project that provided scien-tists and American intelligence agencies with the data they separately sought: the
ornithologists gained important data on migratory bird patterns, and the De-
ense Department gained vital knowledge it sought or a biological weapons pro-
gram. Lewis ound the survey was not simply a “cover” operation but instead
“exactly what it was purported to be—an attempt to determine what diseases
birds o the central Pacic naturally carried, and to determine bird migration
patterns in that region. And it is also clear that was connected to the US
biological warare programme” (Lewis 2002: 2326). Te project was directedrom the army’s Biological Warare Center at Fort Detrick, with plans (appar-
ently never enacted) to test biological agents to monitor disbursement patterns.
As Lewis observed, “Studying the transmission o biological pathogens by birds
or deensive purposes is only a hair’s-breadth rom turning that inormation to
an offensive purpose” (2326).
American anthropology has been slow to acknowledge the extent to which
it is embedded in dual use processes, preerring to imagine itsel as somehow
independent not only rom the militarized political economy in which it is
embedded but also rom the traceable uses to which American academic geo-
graphic knowledge has been put. Te Second World War and the Cold War
years that ollowed were an unacknowledged watershed or dual use anthropo-
logical developments. During the war, cultural anthropologists worked as spies,
educators, cultural liaison offi cers, language and culture instructors, and strate-
gic analysts. Not only did anthropological linguists prove their worth in learn-
ing and teaching the languages needed or waging the war, but their research
into language training made undamental breakthroughs in language teaching
techniques; one dual use o these developments was that pocket oreign lan-
guage phrase books, based on model sentences with inserted vocabulary words,
became the basis o Berlitz’s commercial oreign language pocketbook series
(D. H. Price 2008a: 76–77). Physical anthropologists contributed orensic skills
to body identications and were in demand to assist in anthropometric designs
o uniorms and new war-ghting machines. Diverse technological innovations
(rom developments o isotope-based absolute dating techniques to adapta-
tions o radar and new orms o aerial stenographic photography) derived rom
advancements pushed orward during the Second World War.
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
19/32
xviii | P R E F A C E
While it is seldom acknowledged, many anthropological projects during the
Cold War occurred within political contexts in which the American govern-
ment had counterinsurgent (or, occasionally, insurgent) desires or studied
populations. Counterinsurgency encompasses various practices designed to sub-
due uprisings or other challenges to governments. Some orms o counterinsur-gency rely on what political scientist Joseph Nye (2005) termed “hard power”;
others draw on sof power. Hard power uses military or paramilitary orce and
other orms o violence to attack insurgents; sof power uses co-option and cor-
rosion to win avor among insurgents. Whether anthropologists provided cul-
tural inormation to military or intelligence agencies or assisted in the imple-
mentation o international aid programs to stabilize oreign regimes, this book
nds that they played many roles linked to counterinsurgency operations—at
times undertaking these roles while pursuing their own research projects.In part, cultural anthropology’s sel-conception as a discipline generally
removed rom the processes o dual use science arose rom how so many o
its practitioners appeared to remain in control o their disciplinary means o
production. While grants or other unds that allow anthropologists to spend
months or years in the eld make lie easier, sel-nanced ethnography or the
production o social theory still occurred with relatively meager unds. Most
anthropologists do not need to work in expensive teams and do not rely on
cyclotrons or particle accelerators; at its most basic, ethnography needs time,
people, libraries, theory, reection, and colleagues.
Although archaeologists routinely work on large, multiyear, coordinated, expen-
sive research projects, relatively ew cultural anthropological research projects
during the postwar period had high-budget needs similar to those spawning the
expansion o dual use trends in chemistry or physics. Few cultural anthropo-
logical research designs required signicant material support beyond the basic
essentials o travel unds, pencils, paper, pith helmet, mosquito nettings, and
portable typewriters. Early Cold War anthropology projects rarely required
expensive equipment or brought together numerous scholars working on a
single project.
Government-nanced language programs, like the Army Special raining
Language Program or itle VI–unded basic language acquisition, gave schol-
ars the academic skills needed or eld research, but these programs lacked
mechanisms o coercive ocus that could automatically capture unded scholars
or some sort o later state purpose. Some postwar projects hired unprecedented
large teams o anthropologists to undertake orms o coordinated eldwork proj-
ects. Some o these were governmental programs like the Coordinated Investi-
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
20/32
P R E F A C E | xix
gation o Micronesian Anthropology (, unded by the U.S. Navy); others
were largely unded by private oundations with ties to U.S. political policy like
the Ford Foundation’s Modjokuto Project—run out o ’s -linked Center
or International Studies.
Because so much o anthropology’s postcolonial history all but ignores in-teractions between anthropologists and military and intelligence agencies, I
worry that my ocus on these direct and indirect relationships risks creating its
own distortions by creating the impression that an overwhelming majority o
anthropological research directly ed military and intelligence apparatus. Tis
was not the case. I assume that the majority o anthropological research had no
direct military or intelligence applications, though the indirect ways these pro-
grams inormed military and civilian agencies about regional knowledge were
ofen signicant, and the desires o these agencies routinely shaped the undingo anthropologists’ research.
Tese dual use relationships also nurtured dual personalities among some
anthropologists who attempted to balance disciplinary and state interests. Te
postwar years leave records o anthropologists seeking unding opportunities
directly and indirectly linked to Cold War projects through patterns reminis-
cent o alal Asad’s depiction o Bronislaw Malinowski as a “reluctant imperialist”
(1973: 41–69). Although Malinowski at least partially understood the potential
negative impacts o such unding relationships, beyond the rare dissent o soon-
to-be-disciplinary outsider Jerome Rauch (1955), there was little public consid-
eration o such impacts until the mid-1960s. Tese silences birthed schisms
within anthropologists, like Julian Steward, who developed stripped-down
Marxian materialist ecological models while campaigning or Cold War area
study unds, even while training a new generation o scholars whose work more
directly drew on Marx. Tere were schisms within archaeologists and cultural
anthropologists exploring the rise o pristine state ormations using theories
o Karl Wittogel, a Red-baiting anticommunist, whose own dual personality
openly quoted and used Marx’s writings with impunity while he inormed on
Marxist colleges and students to the and the tribunals o McCarthyism (D. H.
Price 2008c). Other dual personality traits developed as anthropologists like
Clyde Kluckhohn and Clifford Geertz worked on projects with direct or indirect
connections to the or the Pentagon, even as they omitted such links rom
the textual descriptions they thinly constructed.
Even during the early days o the Cold War, some anthropologists were critical
o encroachments o American Cold War politics into anthropological practice.
Elizabeth Bacon, John Embree, and Jerome Rauch voiced insightul critiques
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
21/32
xx | P R E F A C E
o the sort amiliar to contemporary anthropologists. Teir work and other
examples o early critical analysis can inorm contemporary anthropologists
seeking alternatives to military-linked anthropological prospects in a world
increasingly seeking to draw on anthropological analysis or post-9/11 military,
intelligence, and security projects.One lesson I learned by studying the work o Cold War anthropologists is
that individual anthropologists’ belies that they were engaged in apolitical or
politically neutral work had little bearing on the political context or nature o
their work. Instead, these scientists’ claims o neutrality ofen meant they had
unexamined alignments with the predominating political orces, which went
unnoted because they occurred without riction. But as Marvin Harris argued
in Te Rise of Anthropological Teory almost hal a century ago, “Ethical and
political neutrality in the realm o social-science research is a limiting condi-tion which cannot be approached by a posture o indifference. Neither the re-
searcher who preaches the partisanship o science, nor [he or she] who proesses
complete political apathy, is to be trusted. Naturally, we demand that the scien-
tic ethic—delity to data—must be the oundation o all research. But we must
also demand that scientic research be oriented by explicit hypotheses, whose po-
litical and moral consequences in both an active and passive sense are understood
and rendered explicit by the researcher” (1968: 222). Extending this observation
to this project, I nd that my own political and ethical orientations align with
my academic critiques o the and the Pentagon as organizations threaten-
ing rather than protecting democratic movements at home and abroad, though
during the two decades o this research, my political and ethical views them-
selves have been transormed by the act o historical research. But, as Harris
argues, regardless o declared or undeclared ethical or political positions, it is
the delity to the data by which research is judged, as should the moral and po-
litical consequences (both active and passive) derived rom the seeds we sow.
Situating Tis Book
Tis is the nal book in a trilogy chronicling interactions between American
anthropologists and military and intelligence agencies. Te rst volume (chron-
ologically, though not published in this order), Anthropological Intelligence
(2008a), detailed how American anthropologists contributed their disciplinary
knowledge to meet the military and intelligence needs o the Second World
War. Te second volume, Treatening Anthropology (2004b), explored how loy-
alty hearings and the ’s surveillance o American anthropologists during
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
22/32
P R E F A C E | xxi
the McCarthy period limited the discipline’s theory and practice—deadening what
might have been critical theoretical developments and discouraging applied
orms o activist anthropology tied to issues o social justice and equality.
Tis nal volume connects elements o these earlier books; whereas Treat-
ening Anthropology told the story o victims o the national security state’s persecu-tion o anthropologists who questioned the justice or rationality o America’s
Cold War era political economy, this volume analyzes how Cold War anthro-
pologists’ work at times aligned with the interests o rich and powerul agencies,
such as the or the Pentagon. Tis volume connects with the exploration in
Anthropological Intelligence o how the needs o World War II transormed an-
thropology in ways that would later take on new meanings during the Cold War.
Few Americans who came to see anthropological contributions to military or
intelligence agencies while ghting ascism and totalitarianism during the Sec-ond World War critically stopped to reconsider the impacts o extending such
relationships into the Cold War.
Tis book traces a historical arc connecting transormations in anthropolo-
gists’ support or military and intelligence activities during the Second World
War to the widespread condemnation o anthropological contributions to
American military and intelligence campaigns in the American wars in South-
east Asia. Tis spans a complex historical period marked by cultural revolu-
tions, startling revelations o and illegal activities, secret wars, cynical
neocolonial governmental programs, and increasing awareness o anthropol-
ogy’s historical connections to colonialism. In less than three decades the discipline
shifed rom a near-total alignment supporting global militarization efforts, to
widespread radical or liberal opposition to American oreign policy and resis-
tance to anthropological collaborations with military and intelligence agencies.
Tis was a proound realignment o intellectual orientations to the state.
Cold War Anthropology ocuses on how shifs in the Cold War’s political econ-
omy provided anthropology with rich opportunities to undertake well-unded
research o interest to anthropologists, while providing this new national secu-
rity state with general and specic knowledge. Once-secret documents now show
unding programs and strategies that were used to shape the work o scholars
conducting international research. Many Americans continued to interpret
early Cold War political developments with views linked closely to the world
o the previous war. Occupations and other postwar programs ound anthro-
pologists continuing to use many o the skills developed during the last war, now
in a world pursuing new political goals. Te postwar reorganization o the Ameri-
can Anthropological Association () anticipated new unding opportunities.
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
23/32
xxii | P R E F A C E
Area study centers and other postwar regroupings o social scientists studying
questions o interest to the Department o State, the Department o Deense,
and intelligence organizations broadly impacted postwar anthropologists.
Anthropologists and military or intelligence agencies interacted through
our distinct types o relationships: as witting-direct, witting-indirect, unwitting-direct, and unwitting-indirect participants (D. H. Price 2002: 17). Afer the
war, many anthropologists transormed elements o their wartime ser vice into
governmental research, policy, development, or intelligence work. Some devel-
oped careers at the Department o State or the . Some o the work involved
seamless applications o wartime work, adapted to shifs in the postwar world.
Investigative reporting and congressional hearings identied several -
linked social science research projects nanced by unding ronts. Press
reports rom 1967 revealed the Asia Foundation as a unding ront, and theAsia Foundation’s relationship with the is examined. Te Human Ecology
Fund is also examined as a ront that nanced and harvested anthropologi-
cal research o interest to the .
One way that anthropologists’ eldwork intersected with intelligence agen-
cies was through their writings being accessed without their knowledge; in
other instances, cultural anthropologists and archaeologists used eldwork as a
cover or espionage. I examine one instance in which a agent received an-
thropological unding and was sent to the eld under the guise o conducting
anthropological research.
In several cases, anthropologists or research groups used military-linked
unds or basic research, producing knowledge that had national security uses.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Human Relations Area Files () subcon-
tracted army area handbooks and used the unds rom this work to nance basic
theoretical research o interest to anthropologists. American University’s
Special Operations Research Offi ce () and Counterinsurgency Inorma-
tion and Analysis Center () wrote counterinsurgency reports drawing
on anthropological writings. One program, Project Camelot, signicantly
impacted the , and records rom Ralph Beals’s post-Camelot inquiries into
military and intelligence interactions with anthropologists provide signicant
new inormation detailing how the sought assistance and inormation rom
anthropologists during the early Cold War.
Afer leaked documents revealed that American anthropologists were
undertaking counterinsurgency work in Tailand, several anthropologists be-
came embroiled in public clashes within the over the political and ethical
propriety o such work. Anthropological research or the Corporation
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
24/32
P R E F A C E | xxiii
on Vietnam and anthropologists’ contributions to , , and
counterinsurgency projects in Tailand show increased uses o anthropological
knowledge or counterinsurgency. Te allout rom the Tai Affair pressed the
to adopt its rst ethics code, prohibiting secret research, orienting anthro-
pological research toward the interests o research subjects, and requiring newlevels o disclosure. Te ’s ocus on ethical issues raised by anthropological
contributions to military and intelligence projects identied some o the disci-
plinary problems with military uses o anthropology, yet many o the core ques-
tions about the dual use nature o anthropological research remain unanswered
within the discipline today.
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
25/32
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
26/32
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
When I began publishing work on anthropologists and the Cold War and was
not sure whether to do a single book spanning the materials covered in this
volume, Treatening Anthropology , and Anthropological Intelligence, three wise
women (Nina Glick-Schiller, Janice Harper, and Laura Nader) independently
told me to break the stories up into separate volumes and to lead with the Mc-
Carthy story. Janice Harper explicitly told me that anthropologists love stories
in which we are victims (McCarthyism) but won’t like being shown as “collabo-
rators.” I had no idea it would take me two decades o largely ununded, buthighly rewarding, research to document this story.
Te inuences or this project are broad, but the seeds or these volumes
were planted three decades ago when I was an undergraduate reading the work
o June Nash, Laura Nader, Delmos Jones, Joseph Jorgenson, Gerry Berreman,
Eric Wol, and others on how powerul orces and organizations like the
and the Pentagon have directed anthropological inquiries. My graduate work
with Marvin Harris strengthened my writing and ocused my attention on
political-economic orces shaping the worlds in which anthropological knowl-
edge was produced and consumed. My years as a pre-Internet human-Google
working as Marvin’s research assistant in his largely abandoned campus offi ce
ound me surrounded by his old 1960s and early 1970s issues o the American
Anthropological Association Fellows Newsletter , reading accounts o some o the
history recorded here. Tough Marvin Harris and Marshall Sahlins amously
clashed over signicant epistemological differences, and even with my clear
links to Harris, Sahlins has encouraged me and supported my efforts to docu-
ment these past connections between anthropologists and military and intel-
ligence agencies.
My riendship and work with Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair and
writing or CounterPunch strengthened my writing voice, and helped me connect
what are ofen misunderstood as separate academic and political worlds. Nina
Glick-Schiller was the rst editor to take my political historical work seriously
enough to get me into print without dampening my critique; her encourage-
ment and support helped me continue to work on a topic that most editors
ound intriguing but were hesitant to publish (see Price 1998). I am deeply grateul
or the editorial guidance and riendship provided by Gustaa Houtman, who
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
27/32
xxvi | A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
helped me publish post-9/11 critiques o militarized social science in the Royal
Anthropological Institute’s Anthropology oday during a period when it was
diffi cult to publish such work in the U.S. When I experienced diffi culties pub-
lishing a report documenting the ’s 1951 covert relationship with the
described in chapter 3 in the American Anthropologist (afer three split reviewsquestioning the wisdom o exploring such matters in public), president
Louise Lamphere convened a panel at the association’s 2000 business meeting
(late in the evening, afer the inamous Darkness in El Dorado public airing
o grievances) to discuss these ndings. Without Louise’s support and Laura
Nader’s encouragement, I might have chosen to abandon a topic that was im-
possible to nd research grants to sponsor, and nearly impossible to publish on
when I started and returned to working in the Middle East. Roberto González’s
detailed comments on the manuscript helped me better ocus elements o myargument. Karen Jaskar’s librarian sensitivities wisely convinced me to not hy-
phenate “dual use” in the title, or elsewhere, to avert uture searching and cata-
loging catastrophes. I am indebted to Jack Stauder or generously giving me a
treasure trove o documents and artiacts rom his years in the ’s Radical
Caucus and Anthropologists or Radical Political Action.
Tis book was not unded by traditional research grants. Te ailures to secure
research grants early on in this project led me, without regrets, to nance this
research by other means. Many o the archival trips were added on to invited
speaking engagements at universities (American University, Berkeley, Brown,
Chicago, Columbia, Irvine, George Mason, University o New Mexico, Syr-
acuse, Yale, etc.) or academic conerences, or I used small unds rom Saint
Martin’s University: a teaching excellence award cash prize, two one-semester
sabbaticals (in the last twenty years), and some sparse aculty development
unds. Funds or some processing were provided by the Institute or the
Advancement o Journalistic Clarity. My dear riends Cathy Wilson and David
Patton hosted me at their home during many archival trips to Washington, DC.
Ken Wissoker’s guidance and support at Duke University Press have been
invaluable in helping all three o these volumes come into print. I am deeply
grateul to all the scholars who hosted my campus talks or helped publish my
work, at times weathering criticisms and setbacks or bringing these critiques
directly to the environments where they work.
I have been researching this book or two decades. Earlier versions o some
o the historical episodes recounted here have appeared in different orms: An-
thropology oday published earlier analyses o the Human Ecology Fund (D. H.
Price 2007b, 2007c) and the - System (D. H. Price 2012b). I published
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
28/32
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S | xxvii
a chapter exploring anthropological responses to American military actions
in Southeast Asia as part o a School or Advanced Research seminar volume
(D. H. Price 2011b). I also published an early analysis o - interac-
tions (D. H. Price 2003a), although documents I discovered later reshaped sig-
nicant portions o that analysis.Among the many other colleagues and riends who played important
roles in shaping the production and orm o this work during the past decades
are David Aberle, Philip Agee, John Allison, David Altheide, Tomas Anson,
Olivia Archibald, Julian Assange, Alan Bain, Sindre Bangstad, Russ Bernard,
Gerry Berreman, Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, Catherine Besteman, Andy Bickord,
Jeff Birkenstein, Father Bix, Karen Brodkin, Brenda Chaln, Noam Chomsky,
Harold Conklin, Lorraine Copeland, Dalia Corkrum, Jonathan Dentler, Dale
Depweg, Sigmund Diamond, Jim Faris, Greg Feldman, Brian Ferguson, LesField, Sverker Finnström, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Maximilian Forte, Kerry Fos-
her, Andre Gunder Frank, Charles Frantz, Irina Gendelman, Deborah Gewertz,
McGuire Gibson, Aaron Goings, Jonathan Graubart, Linda Green, Hugh
Gusterson, Erik Harms, Chris Hebdon, Alan Howard, Jean Jackson, Bea Jaure-
gui, Barbara Rose Johnston, Adrian Resa Jones, Linda Jones, John Kelly, Chun
Kyung-soo, Roger Lancaster, Robert Lawless, Richard Lee, Sara Leone, Robert
Leopold, Kanhong Lin, Tomas Love, Catherine Lutz, Andrew Lyons, Har-
riet Lyons, Jon Marks, Ray McGovern, Brian McKenna, Father Kilian Malvey,
Erika Manthey, Stephen X. Mead, David Miller, Sidney Mintz, Bill Mitchell,
Sean Mitchell, John Moore, Laura Nader, Steve Niva, Greg Orvis, Mark Pap-
worth, Bill Peace, Glenn Petersen, Jack Price, Milo Price, Nora Price, Steve Reyna,
Eric Ross, Mike Salovesh, Schuyler Schild, Robert Scott, Daniel Segal, Michael
Seltzer, Gerry Sider, Duane Smith, Molly Smith, Roger Snider, Lawrence Guy
Straus, George Stocking, Ida Susser, David Vine, Eric Wakin, Jeremy Walton,
and eresa Winstead.
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
29/32
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
30/32
A B B R E V I AT I O N S
American Anthropological Association
Academic Advisory Council or Tailand
American Council o Learned Societies
American Friends o the Middle East
Air Force Offi ce o Scientic Research
Agency or International Development (see also )
American Institute or Free Labor Development
American Institute or Research Army Language School
Angkatan Perang Ratu Adil
Accelerated Rural Development (Tai government project)
Army Research Offi ce
Advanced Research Projects Administration
Army o the Republic o [South] Vietnam
Aghan Student Association
Center or International Studies, Massachusetts Institute o
echnology
Committee or Free Asia (later became Asia Foundation)
Central Intelligence Agency
Coordinated Investigation o Micronesian Anthropology
Counterinsurgency Inormation and Analysis Center (part o )
Counter Intelligence Program ( domestic
counterinsurgency program, 1956–1971)
Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support
Center or Research in Social Systems
Director o Central Intelligence ()
Department o Deense
Deense Science Board
Economic Cooperation Administration (Marshall Plan)
European Recovery Plan (Marshall Plan)
Foreign Area Research Coordinating Group (also called )
Foreign Area Studies Division (a division o )
Federal Bureau o Investigation
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
31/32
xxx | A B B R E V I AT I O N S
Fund or International Social and Economic Education
Foreign Morale Analysis Division
Foreign Operations Administration
Freedom o Inormation Act
Foreign Ser vice Institute Front Unie de Lutte des Races Opprimees
Government o [South] Vietnam
Human Ecology Fund
Human Relations Area Files
Harvard Reugee Interview Project
International Cooperation Agency
Institute or Deense Analysis
Institute o Inter-American Affairs Institute or Intercultural Studies
Institute o Human Relations
Institute o Pacic Relations
Mutual Security Agency
Michigan State University Group
National Advisory Committee or Aeronautics
National Academy o Sciences
National Foundation on Social Science
National Institute o Mental Health
National Liberation Front (Vietnam)
National Research Council
National Security Agency
National Security Council
National Science Foundation
Offi ce o Naval Intelligence
Offi ce o Naval Research
Offi ce o Policy Coordination
Offi ce o Public Saety
Offi ce o Scientic Research and Development
Offi ce o Strategic Ser vices
Offi ce o War Inormation
Pacic Ocean Biological Survey
Principles o Proessional Responsibility
Psychological Strategy Board
Remote Area Conict Program (an program)
-
8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price
32/32
A B B R E V I AT I O N S | xxxi
Research ANd Development ( Corporation)
Research in Contemporary Cultures
Russian Research Center (Harvard University)
Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group
Secret Intelligence Branch, Offi ce o Strategic Ser vices Society or the Investigation o Human Ecology
Summer Institute o Linguistics
Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
Special Operations Research Offi ce, American University
Statement on Problems o Anthropological Research and Ethics
Stanord Research Institute
Social Science Research Council
Strategic Ser vices Unit U.S. Special echnical and Economic Mission
echnical Cooperation Administration
United Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organization
Union o Radical Political Economy
U.S. Agency or International Development
U.S. Inormation Agency
U.S. Inormation Ser vice
U.S. Operation Mission
Washington Area Human Relations Area Files