THINK TANKS FIGHT FOR LIFE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400280005-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: March 19, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release pF RDP88-01315Rb0(400 QU5-%'j ~-"` "` ~ e
MAR 1972 ~R a.- Q C, ~ a J u c?~
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E Influence riiilies,) Yuuosf:llity brows r . t 1 e.~ pfd 1~ r
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'Thin al Tanks Fiala for Life'
By Stanley Karnow The military establish- (1-Tex.) asserted that "the warranted, for the think
washineton Post Stail wr.ter ment's disenchantment with time has come for the mill- tanks also have been tar-
tlre think tanks was further
A decade or more ago, few tary services to begin phas- nished in the public mind as
were as influential as the with the most prestigious of
Federal Contract Research the research groups, the
Centers, popularly known as Rand Corp., admitted to
"think tanks." Sponsored by having filched the super-sen-
the Pentagon, these idea sitive Pentagon Papers from
generators played a decisive its headquarters in Santa
role in shaping high policy Monica, Calif.
and, -although, remote irom
the electorate, they were Security Clamp
sometimes as powerful as That ii cident spurred the
any other branch of govern Pentagon to impose a secu-
ment. . rity clampdown on Rand
Now, however, the autono- and to tighten its controls in
,mous non-profit brain trusts other research organiza-
have not only lost much of tions. It also provoked at-
-their' authority, they are tacks against think tank in-
struggling for sheer survival tellectuals as being too lib-
+.as they face an assortment eral, thereby balancing the
of difficulties that threaten image of them as cold war-
to put them out of commis- . riors.
-sion. Legislative dissatisfaction
The think tanks in thcii with the think tanks, which
'heyday laid the groundwork- had been growing for years,
for the U.S. space' program, also reached a peak last fall,
and they conceived the when Congress slashed the
strategies that steered the budgets of four key research
nation through the danger- outfits by 58:2 million-
ous years of its nuclear ri- about 13 per cent.
;valry with the Soviet Union. The cuts hit what are
Their employees, frequently called the "paper factories".
`armed- with only chalk and -organizations that essen-
'blackboard, developed reva- tially turn out ideas. They
lutionary analytical tech- are Rand, which works
niques and new weapons largely for the Air Force;
systems, and their research- Research Analysis Corp., an
ers produced. thousands of Army affiliate; the Center
studies, some with titles like for Naval Analyses, which is
"Communist Vulnerabitrty backed by the Navy; and the
to the Use of Music" and Institute for Defense Analy-
"Performance of liniature sis which serves the Secre-
Pigs After Partial Body Irra- tary of Defense and the
diation." Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A ? dozen independent re. The budgets of eight other
search organizations still op. ? Federal Contract Research
erate on a total annual Centers were left intact.. But
budget of more than 5264 these outfits, in contrast to
pillion, most of which goes the "paper factories," con-
for weapons development centrate primarily on the
Pesearch. But the activities development of sophisti-
of these outfits are being in.
cated military hardware.
crtosingly exposed to, crib- The largest recipients
cism. among them are the Hero-
} Their principal patruns in space Corp. and the Applied
the Defense Department, Physics Laboratory at Johns
.which once relied on thorn Hopkins University of Balti-
flint-n
heavily for new concepts,
have. long had doubts about ominous Outlook
their free-wheeling opera- As ominous as the budget
tional style. These doubts, cuts was the view of the fu-
have been compounded by- ture of the research units
Internecine Pentagon feuds expressed b Congress. In a
1ng out the think tank ope -
atioris." Mahon added ~ that
the functions of the think
tanks should be taken over
directly by the government.
Congressional hostility to-
ward the think tank steins
from various motives. Some
legislators, like Sen. J. Wil-
liam Fulbright (D-Ark.) see
them as evil tools of the
Pentagon.- Others perceive
them to he composed of dan-
gerous "eggheads," while
still others contend that
their employees enjoy privi-
leges not accorded to.civil
servants.
The belief that the re-
search groups enjoy special
deals lingers from . past
probes into their activities.
A 1965 investigation of Aero-
space, for example, revealed
among other things that it
was dabbling in Florida real
estate with public funds and
that it had spent $3.133.03 to
ship an executive's yacht
from Massachusetts to Cali-
fornia.
Legislative View
Legislators who have no
strong opinions against the
think tanks explain, mean-
while, that the idea factories
elude them. Sen. Thomas J.
McIntyre (D-N.H.), whose
Senate Armed Services sub-
committee on research and
development is, supposed to
keep watch on the think
tanks, says that it is "almost
impossible for a small-town
lawyer" like 'himself to ask
the 'hard questions" about
the research units.
McIntyre told an Inter.
viewer not long ago that his
biggest concern about the
think tanks is a "lack of
knowledge about what
they're up to." Even with ex-
pert help, he added, the Sen-
ate could not adequately
study the budget requests of
the research organizations,
The men who direct the
research outfits hope to re-
gain their former financing
-and maintain their free-
that date ' back- to the rcNpdtF?ii Re ePMu2OW01 r
rrauons. chairman George H. Mahon, their
CtIA1J UL LJL. 0LL Q11dC1UVVa
concocting sinister schemes
to blow up the world.
This image, however fan-
ciful, has been strong
enough within the U.S. stu-
dent population to prompt
many universities to break
their relationships with cer-
tain of the research organi-
zations.
Links Severed
The Institute for Defense
Analyses, for example, for-
merly numbered 12 universi-
ties as members of its?corpo
ration. But after students at
Princeton, Columbia and
elsewhere demonstrated
against this link, all the unr-
versltins have s'rered their
formal ties with the Instf-
tute-although academic fig-
ures still participate in the
organization as individuals ?
rather than as representa-
tives'of their schools.
Some of the think tanks
also lost prestige because of
their dubious involvement
in Southeast Asia. Rand, for
instance, undertook an elab-
orate study that fundamen-
tally served to justify the
use of tactical U.S. air-
power ? in South Vietnam.
The study endorsed the
bombings on the grounds
that peasants blamed the
Vietcong for turning their
villages into targets for air
strikes.
Later Rand studies on
Vietnam were far less ac-
commodating to the White
House and the Defense De-
partment. In August 1970,
for example, Rand specialist
Brian M. Jenkins published
a report entitled, "Why the
North Vietnamese Keep
Fighting," that effectively
punctured official U.S. con-
tentions that the enemy was
on the brink of collapse.
Frank Analysis
A year before, when he
was serving in Vietnam,.
Ellsberg wrote a brutally
frank descriptive analysis of
the failure of the South Vi-
%cation C~0r pro-
Wfirt province. A
again this May. Yet: Washington reaction to his
optimism -may be un-study, he candidly disclosed