Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price

8/20/2019 Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price

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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


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David H. Price


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


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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 .


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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


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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


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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


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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


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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.


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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


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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


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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


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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.


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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.


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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-


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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


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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


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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.


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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


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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.


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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


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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


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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.


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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


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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)


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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

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Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price

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