No instance of scholarly activity has ever affected hemispheric relations so profoundly as the exposure in 1965 of the notorious Project Camelot, a research study of counterinsurgency in Chile which proved to have the backing of the United States Army. In this book Irving Louis Horowitz, the editor, has put together twenty-one selections that not only dissect the Camelot affair but also get at the general problem of government-sponsored social science research and the activities of American social scientists abroad. The selections consist of articles in professional journals, papers read at professional conferences, speeches of congressmen, and selected documents.
These selections are divided into five parts. The first part, titled “Setting,” consists of a long lead article by the editor. The second part, on “The Design and Purpose of Project Camelot,” contains four documents issued by the research office of the Department of the Army through 1964 and 1965 describing the Camelot research design and objectives. The third part, headed “The Academic Response,” consists of “thought pieces” on the whole affair by Marshall Sahlins, Kalman H. Silvert, Robert Boguslaw, Jessie Bernard, and Herbert Blumer. The fourth part, on “The Political Response,” pulls together many political reactions. Here Representative Dante Fascell sets forth how his subcommittee will promote and help purify future social science research, and Senator William Fulbright expatiates on promoting revolutions instead of thwarting them. Also Theodore Vallance, a director of Camelot, answers his many critics in an introspective, reflective essay, while George Denney, Jr., of the State Department meticulously describes his department’s new review procedure of foreign area research. The section also contains Chilean Socialist and Communist party responses on how their country was “subverted.” Finally, the fifth part, “The General Implications,” again incorporates thought pieces, but on a more philosophical level, by William Polk, Ithiel de Sola Pool, Johan Galtung, Robert A. Nisbet, and the editor.
The book has many merits. The editor culled his selections from a wide variety of sources, and the authors cover the whole social science field, including representative governmental personnel as well. The selections are highly spirited, touching on issues that go deep, and yet the writing is restrained and thoughtful. This reviewer did not find a weak selection in the book.
Several selections were especially impressive. Horowitz’ own lead article offers an interesting collective self-portrait of the men working on Project Camelot and also evaluates perceptively the antagonistic forces set in motion by the project. Silvert discusses the Chilean reaction well and convincingly deplores the present state of amateurism in Latin American area studies. Galtung analyzes what he calls “scientific colonialism” from his own experience abroad. Blumer and Nisbet devastatingly attack the involved social scientists as naively seduced and ethically corrupted by Camelot, arguing that as a research project it was poorly designed, biased in favor of the status quo, and predicated on all sorts of retreats from strict academic standards.
Five of the selections included argue the merits of government-sponsored social science research. The best, by Boguslaw, states that the critical question is not the source of financial support, but rather the conditions associated with it, and suggests that under certain conditions foundation aid and university grants can be just as insidious as government sponsorship.
This type of book will probably reinforce the original predispositions of the reader. To ventilate the issues more thoroughly, the editor might better have organized it by topics. This approach would have necessitated cutting apart some articles. But at least one could have systematically compared the pros and cons of issues that keep coming up throughout the book—e.g., the worth of the research design, the effectiveness of the new State Department reviewing procedure, and the need for a Social Science Foundation. Also this approach would have allowed the social science participants in Camelot to have their say on all of the questions raised. This reviewer finds the collective portrait of the participants somewhat pallid. If some of the leading social scientists were involved in the Project, if they committed grave offenses, and if there should be academic censoring, as Nisbet wants, then what we need is a muckraking book, with names mentioned, positions taken, and the airing of dirty laundry. Instead we have a piece of academic gentility.
