The Empire of Think Tanks
Dickson, Paul
THE EMPIRE OF THINK TANKS PAUL DICKSON Research and development (R&D) -"-*-has been growing dramatically in the nation since the end of World War II, Today it is a vast, powerful, and well...
...I took one look at the study and saw that it was horrible," he says...
...The Space Agency has shelled out huge research sums for histories of itself and most of its divisions...
...While many, Senator George Mc- Govern prominent among them, have pointed out that not nearly enough money is going into research and ed- ucation in nutrition, two recent De- partment of Agriculture research con- tracts, together costing over $100,000, studied the history of the Canadian tobacco auction and the frayed shirt collar (its official description was . . to determine the effects of laundry variables on edge abrasion of durable press cotton garments...
...Examples of this relatively re- cent form of public-opinion manipula- tion and censorship are common...
...If not conscientiously ap- plied, well-performed research can lead to a range of ends from a simple nonuse to a more insidious ruse—a way of dodging action under the guise of studying the problem...
...For the first time since the beginning of the postwar R&D honeymoon, science and technology are being forced to face the significance of their having gone public...
...The report has still not been officially released, al- though copies of it have been given out...
...Toward the end they were literally buried in paper...
...Unfortunately, such abuses have been relatively free of criticism—even when the waste is blatant...
...What we must realize is that as in- stitutions assume the formal role of casting about in the future, they dra- matically increase their influence on that future...
...R&D is a particularly critical element in the battle over national priorities because it not only reflects our current priorities but largely de- termines what will be technologically feasible in the future...
...In addition, research into such general areas as health services, hous- ing, the problems of urban decay, sav- ing the environment, and mass trans- portation are "also-rans," way down on the list...
...In the vital area of arms control and disarmament the research budget for 1971 amounts to a mere one two- thousandth of the weapons research budget...
...As in any other multibillion-dollar industry that offers the promise of a fast buck, hustlers, tycoons and those willing to sell their objectivity for a fat contract have been attracted into R&D along with the honest, hard- working researcher...
...The National Science Foundation says that eighty-five per cent of the govern- ment's R&D from 1967 through 1969 went for "national security"—that is, the amalgam of defense, nuclear, and space efforts...
...Dur- ing the Johnson Administration $650,000 worth of outside research critical of the controversial supersonic transport (SST) was suppressed by the Federal Aviation Administration by stamping it with an "Official Use Only" label...
...Of this amount $395 goes for defense and of that $125 is spent on the Vietnamese war...
...Despite the promises and claims to the contrary by politicians, extremely low priority is given not only to curing cancer but also to such projects as new...
...At one level, concern is expressed in student outrage and upheaval over the American value system...
...John R. Ehrenfeld, president of the Walden Research Corporation, summed up the frustration of a combatant in the war on pollution: "Who does Nixon think he's fooling...
...He says, "Our office has refused to pay for a study for over two years, all the time sending it back and telling the contractor to do it over until it was done right—and it still hasn't been done right...
...The vast size of the Federal research program and the tendency for agencies of government to be vague in describ- ing their desires are just two of the reasons for bad research...
...The growing number, strength, and diversity of these research institutions coupled with the gargantuan national commitment to R&D raise important questions for our society...
...One million have it now, and the latest statistics indicate that it presently claims 900 people a day...
...He strongly believes that the Government is either too po- lite or too lazy to make anyone do over a worthless study...
...Even when the matter is well within the legitimate realm of military re- search, the Pentagon seems to find a way to generate unnecessary research, as in the case of 1969 Army contracts with two different firms to develop a bigger—just bigger, no change in de- sign—canteen cup...
...Although individually amusing and good filler material for newspaper columnists on slow days, ir- relevant and absurd studies abound to an extent that it is far from amusing...
...Even NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine has mentioned the irony of . . mankind watching two men scramble around the moon while standing knee-deep in garbage...
...The nation's research into the means of achieving peace amounts to little more than dabbling" Dubious examples of technological "advance" and decline^ abound...
...Most Americans are unaware of the degree to which government and industry are working on the quality of life (in particular, war and technology) for the future...
...R&D for civil defense is pumped into new designs for fallout shelters, evac- uation plans and other schemes and paraphernalia that are almost totally ignored by the public, which, by con- trast, is seriously concerned about the effects of narcotics on youth...
...The results in too many cases have been absurdly high expenses, producing waste, cor- ruption, duplication, irrelevance, sub- jectivity, and, at the very least, lack of originality...
...During the period from 1954 to 1970, some sixty-eight major weapons projects were terminated...
...So potentially powerful is the group of think tanks that serves the U.S...
...These two issues of priorities and quality raised by the giant phenom- enon of R&D are beginning to be faced by those in the research empire...
...Questioning of priorities in American research and its domination by military concerns is producing more and more questions from Congress, the press, and the public, especially students...
...In contrast, each American's share for cancer research amounts to nineteen cents...
...This common abuse prompts interesting reactions...
...Ironically, that experiment —putting a monkey into orbit in a satellite—ran to more than $100 mil- lion and was billed as medical re- search...
...The Army, for example, has created a series of think tanks to examine the future of warfare...
...In August, 1967, for example, President Johnson appointed an expert-studded group to study U.S...
...In the same vein is research com- missioned for little more purpose than giving support to an agency attitude or policy...
...In an era of so many phenomena that are hard to comprehend, the think tanks are no exception...
...It thus has a powerful effect on the future quality of our lives and is a far better guide to the life we will lead in the decades ahead than all the rhetoric of pol- iticians proclaiming a rosy tomorrow...
...He's still spending more money on chemical warfare research than on air pollution, yet he tells us he's cutting the first and pushing the second...
...Remarkably, their analysts play crucial roles in conduct- ing and planning war and determining the weapons America will build, yet they remain virtually anonymous when these decisions are authorized...
...Many in the medical commu- nity pointed out that it was unneces- sary because its aim of determining the effects of weightlessness of a monkey was repeating, on a less relevant spe- cies, the same research that had been and was being carried out on man in the Apollo program...
...The difficul- ty of just trying to wade through—let alone evaluate—the volume of paper generated by countless researchers and agencies has meant that few people in the Federal Government have taken a critical look at the quality of research...
...No one seems to have pointed out that the setting up of three antiduplication systems in itself brings up the question of duplication...
...The latter device was recognized in a little-noticed suggestion in the report from the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence...
...Unbounded growth has slowed since 1968 as the overall re- search budget has stayed at the $16- 17 billion level, and though few doubt that it will rise again, the mark-time level indicates that increases are not automatic...
...Major R&D projects that do not work out are simply can- celed, though in the case of the Penta- gon, for example, such a showdown can add up to quite a large sum of money wasted...
...Both the complexity of the phe- nomenon and the fact that, generally, think tanks maintain their privacy and serve without fanfare have led to mis- conceptions and surrounded them in mystery...
...Unti' a short time ago the Army was culti- vating and stockpiling bubonic-plague bacilli as a weapon with the blessing* of the same Congress that, with hilar- ity, had voted down a measure tc eradicate rats...
...THE EMPIRE OF THINK TANKS PAUL DICKSON Research and development (R&D) -"-*-has been growing dramatically in the nation since the end of World War II, Today it is a vast, powerful, and well financed empire within the nation, replete with its own priorities, powers, and pecking order...
...The major reason for the study was that the United States was to meet in early 1969 with more than ninety govern- ments to hash out the future of satel- lite communications...
...communications policy, with particular emphasis on interna- tional communications...
...The problem is so serious that the Li- brary of Congress, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Com- merce are all working on computer- ized information retrieval systems that would help prevent the Government from commissioning research that has already been done...
...The Department of Health, Education and Welfare has commissioned and paid for things like "The Social His- tory of French Medicine, 1789-1815" •—a questionable effort in the first place and doubly so in view of that agency's constant reminder that not enough R&D money goes into such rel- evant areas as stroke prevention and cancer research...
...Since power is greatest at the Fed- eral level, the power of the think tanks that serve Government is the strongest...
...Perhaps the most trenchant comment made on this "shadow" concept came from former Presidential adviser Roger Hilsman in his book, To Move a Nation, when he said of the military-sponsored think tanks, "Although not accountable to the electorate, they have power and are just as much part of the govern- mental process as the traditional legis- lative, judicial, and executive branches of Government...
...PAUL DICKSON is a Washington-based free lance writer who has contributed to Esquire, Saturday Review, and The Washington Monthly as well as to The Progressive...
...The three most important variables in considering the current state of the empire are its priorities, the quality of its work, and its powers—and the perils of ceding them these powers...
...and the new occupational category of "fu- turist" has evolved...
...The im- mense list includes studies of Northern grouse, Korean women skin divers, the nervous system of the Chilean squid, the aging process in rocks, the tem- perament of Italian men, "Communist Vulnerability to the Use of Music" (a study classified as Confidential), di- arrhea in horses, psychological differ- ences between tattooed and untattooed sailors, the economy of aborigines, witchcraft in the Congo, the role of facial expressions in communications, migratory animal studies, and—one that achieved notoriety in Congress when it was revealed—a $600,000 con- tract with the University of Mississippi to determine the role that birds might play in wars...
...Outside of a few members of Congress, nobody seemed upset over the whole matter even though a mil- lion dollars was spent on studies to- ward a report that was not ready in time to serve its intended purpose...
...While think tanks play many roles— all worthy of investigation—an exam- ple that brings home their importance both now and in the future is the in- creasing interest in long-range fore- casting and thinking about the fu- ture...
...Atop this empire is a diverse group of institu- tions called think tanks, which as agents of applied research and policy study have a fateful impact on the na- tion...
...The low priority thus put on cancer research was prob- ably best driven home by Dr...
...Simply put, if a think tank tells its sponsors and others willing to listen that X, Y, and Z will occur by the year 2000, then X, Y, and Z are more likely to occur as policy and technological goals adapt to those predictions...
...The very term "think tank" carries with it the aura of enigma— and perhaps even of conspiracy...
...He noted that if the fiscal 1970 budget was divided up by the number of people in the population, it would work out to a share of $964 for every Copyright © 1971 by Paul Dickson...
...On top of that, the results were in direct conflict with a fair labeling act that the Administration was pushing...
...But the final report was still not ready by the time of President Nixon's inauguration...
...Government that they have collectively been nicknamed "the shadow government...
...We turn down most of these jobs but occasionally feel we have to take one as a favor or else face the threat of not getting legit- imate research work from that agency...
...It came from U.S...
...From the forthcoming book, Think Tanks, Atheneum...
...In recent years the Department of Defense has emerged as the undisputed king of irrelevant research...
...The Pentagon's entry into social re- search and other forms of nonmilitary research has prompted Admiral Hy- man G. Rickover to launch more than one verbal attack...
...These two con- tracts cost a total of $58,000...
...Just considering the ex- ample of their role in creating impor- tant new products we find that syn- thetic rubber got an important start at the Mellon Institute, electrostatic copying or Xerography was developed at the Battelle Memorial Institute, magnetic tape recording grew out of work at the Illinois Institute of Tech- nology Research Institute, and Arthur D. Little Inc...
...This last study called for scholars to investigate the use of chickens, crows, and other birds to steer missiles, detect mines, conduct search-and-destroy missions, and other assorted tasks...
...James T. Grace, Jr., director of the Roswell Park Memorial Institute, a leading cancer research group, in a speech be- fore the National Cancer Society in 1970...
...The moon landings have shown how much is possible if a great deal of thought, resources, and dedication are channeled into any stated goal...
...In the popular mind think tanks sometimes conjure up a nightmarish world of rampant technology geared to pro- gram humanity out of existence—and sometimes a gleaming world where the miraculous is put on a daily busi- nesslike basis...
...The comparative status of cancer research is just one illustration of the state of national research priorities...
...Specific challenges are being launched as well...
...Moreover, much of their work has been cloaked in secrecy or obfuscated in other ways with the result that little scrutiny has been directed toward their increasing power...
...I took the report, stashed it away in a desk drawer, and hoped nobody would ask for it...
...District Judge A. Leon Higgenbothem, who called for a national moratorium on commissions and new study units to probe the causes of racism, poverty, crime, and the urban crisis...
...Besides bringing up the question of whether history writing should be commissioned by its subject, such allocations are odd for an agency that keeps saying it does not have enough money for space flights...
...The Comp- troller General has estimated that cost overruns on military weapons systems have totaled about $21 billion in the last decade, but only recently—after public disclosure of such overruns as the $2 billion extra for the C5-A jet transport—has Congress started to give the kind of careful scrutiny to military costs that it has normally re- served for research to help the poor, the blind, and the retarded...
...Says a vice pres- ident of a major California research firm, "The Government is a prime market for subjective research, and we try to guard against it...
...The Pentagon think tanks have been staunchly de- fended by their military sponsors . . ." As the number of think tanks con- tinues to grow and more and more people look to them to solve problems, analyze policy, and perform long-range thinking, their power necessarily in- creases—a power that is seldom chal- lenged or questioned...
...Thing...
...foreign and military policy, weap- ons systems, plans, tactics, and technol- ogy...
...The irrepressible admiral added that because of the number of military studies piling up, he found himself thinking of the commission es- tablished by the Weimar Republic to find out why Germany lost World War I. "The commission found that a ma- jor cause of this defeat was the amount of paperwork required of the armed forces," said Rickover...
...Despite all the political sound and fury being expended on pollution of the environment, the amount of mon- ey spent for air, water, and solid-waste pollution research is still less than one per cent of the tota.1 Federal research tab...
...In fact, one single unmanned 1969 NASA space experiment cost more than half the total research into cancer for the same year...
...The nation's research into the means of achieving peace amounts to little more than dabbling...
...In too many cases large sums are paid for re- search on nonurgent $100 ideas...
...Inde- pendent think tanks, not officially tied to the Government, also need to be scrutinized...
...Funds for research by the Arms Control and Dis- armament Agency have skidded from $3.6 million in 1969 to an estimated $2.1 million in 1971...
...In an assessment of the importance of the hundreds of think tanks in the United States, the Federally sponsored ones offer only a starting point...
...Govern- ment chose to fight in Vietnam...
...The unique roles played by the Pen- tagon think tanks have made them instrumental in shaping and creating U.S...
...In order for the R&D budget to inch over even the one per cent mark in the next few years there will have to be more public pressure on Congress and the Executive...
...The vast majority of Project Apollo money had been pumped into space R&D during the decade prior to the first landing...
...Much of it is delivered on paper in the form of a report that can be—and often is—slipped away in a filing cabinet by the bureaucrat who commissioned it...
...The kind of values that these facts reflect has been a major cause of the malaise among social reformers in the late 1960s and will undoubtedly retard such nonmilitary efforts in the 1970s...
...Just as these semigovernmental corporations are playing an important role in deciding military issues, so are think tanks attached to other agencies of government making other impor- tant determinations—President Nix- on's welfare reform package, the cur- rent set of Federal housing plans, and safety requirements for nuclear power plants are all examples of policies shaped and refined in think tanks...
...Several independent "futurist" tanks have emerged, and massive studies are under way on American life and technology in the future...
...Neither extreme is true, though there is an element of truth in each...
...Given their roles as problem-solvers, innovators, and plan- ners in a complex, troubled, and prob- lem-saturated era, think tanks are clearly worth thinking about...
...man, woman, and child...
...a total of $10.7 billion was invested in them before they failed, faltered, or were canceled...
...As far as I know, that report is still stashed away in my old drawer...
...yet the amount spent for cancer research in fiscal year 1970 was only $173 mil- lion, which is about one-twentieth of the space research budget for the same year and about one-fiftieth of the amount spent for military research...
...A second widespread abuse is that of contracts and grants that are inap- propriate to the mission of the spon- soring agency or are of generally dubi- ous value...
...The most famous of these think tanks is the RAND Corporation, which has been a prime mover in mil- itary research and has had an impact on martial realms ranging from new weapons to the way the U.S...
...On the strength of their alleged knowledgeabil- ity they have been given great freedom to operate in a wide variety of polit- ical, social, international, and military areas—a power that has served to wid- en considerably the province of the military...
...The researchers used loaded questions in their interviews with the public...
...But this kind of action is all too rare...
...Major R&D projects that do not work out are simply canceled . . A final class of common abuses in government R&D stems from Federal apathy and laxity...
...Re- search and study as a substitute for action or application can be detected all over the Federal landscape: mil- lions in antipoverty money going into studies of the poor that are not being heeded, or study commissions looking into the findings of previous study commissions, and the like—a moun- tain of research findings being treated as an end in itself...
...Testifying before the Joint Economic Committee of Con- gress in November, 1968, he said of his fellow military men, "They are at- tracted to studies like mice to a gran- ary...
...While abuses exist throughout the R&D empire, they are again most noticeable at the Federal level...
...Several years ago a research organization turned in to the Food and Drug Administration a $100,000 study on the agency's image...
...R&D money is being squandered in many ways, and the implications for both American science and society are serious...
...Bad research is hard to control and detect...
...The task force was disbanded...
...A research team was assembled and contracts were awarded to a variety of research institutions for studies...
...Think tanks offer amazing potential for change, innovation, and a better future...
...The group, called the Telecommuni- cations Task Force, got moving in the winter of 1967...
...Western Electric, the production arm of AT&T, begins work as prime contractor on the Safeguard missile system at the same time that telephone service is rapidly deteriorat- ing...
...One of the least sinister forms of abuse is duplication, but it is no less costly than others...
...R&D money is being squandered in many ways, and the implications for both American science and society are serious...
...This futurist orientation has re- sulted from both the initiative of the tanks themselves and of the Govern- ment...
...Government...
...There is little question that the cure for this disease must ultimately come from the research laboratory...
...More people have died on Amer- ican highways than in all American wars combined, as Ralph Nader con- tinually points out, usually adding...
...After Congress ap- propriated $45 million for air-pollu- tion research in the fiscal 1970 budget, the President asked for only $27 mil- lion for the fiscal 1971 budget— amounting to a cut of $18 million, ac- companied by a lot of rhetoric on im- proving the environment...
...Where does it all go then...
...at another, it is responsible for the common objec- tion that begins, "If we can put men on the moon, why can't we . . ." and winds up with any one of a thousand valid purposes from curbing venereal disease to making a shoelace that can't break...
...Nobody ever did...
...The judge felt that there had been too much study and too little application of findings...
...They advise in such diverse areas as transportation, natural resources, defense, and domes- tic welfare programs...
...Nor do they draw the line on policy and decision- making for the U.S...
...Although there is still some ques- tion as to how military objectives will be defined, Congressional action has limited the unbridled research power Df the Pentagon...
...came up with the first successful process to manufacture fi- berglass, to name a few such cases...
...There is, however, a catch in invoking the Apollo/NASA example, because such new knowledge as is de- veloped in such a program must be applied and directed in order to get anywhere...
...Strangelove to Dr...
...To further illustrate a seeming in- difference to areas of grave social con- cern: Amounts going for research into the prevention of drug abuse have hovered around a million a year for the last few years, while in comparison the average research allotment for that perennial boondoggle, civil defense, has averaged more than $5 million...
...The Pentagon think tanks have been staunchly defended by their military sponsors, yet those same spon- sors have admitted time and again that they have very little control over them...
...Another common abuse was summed up by Representative Henry Reuss, Wisconsin Democrat, who, in conducting an investigation of the use of research in Federal domestic pro- grams, said, "Federal agencies have a tendency to withhold research findings critical of present performance or pol- icies...
...Robert A. Nelson, who until recently headed the Depart- ment of Transportation's research- oriented Office of High Speed Ground Transportation and who is now a fel- low at the Brookings Institution, feels that apathy may be the most subvert- ing abuse of all...
...The President set a deadline of August, 1968, for the group's report so that the United States would have plenty of time to use it in getting ready for the meeting...
...yet we spend less on highway safety research than it costs to build half a nuclear submarine...
...Their terrain extends from war to peace, from Dr...
...Bad communica- tions, interagency rivalry, poor control, and carelessness have produced many double, triple, and quadruple efforts...
...ways to prevent narcotics abuse, to achieve peace through arms control, and to curb ever-increasing air pollu- tion...
...Many of them receive the bulk of their funds from the Govern- ment, and, though not officially "spon- sored" like RAND, they bring up the same questions of power, unchecked and unanswerable, evoked by the offi- cially sponsored outfits...
...The international meeting was held, and the United States fared badly because it did not have a clear-cut policy...
...Nelson, who headed a large research effort, calmly estimates that as much as fifty per cent of Government paper studies may be worthless...
...Of particularly du- bious value was a project called "The Demography of Happiness," which cost a quarter of a million dollars and consisted of sending a team of re- searchers to Puerto Rico to find that wealthy people were, generally, hap- pier than poor ones and healthy people are almost always happier than sick ones...
...Although a relatively new phe- nomenon, they have already had a great impact...
...More and more, their analysis and planning are being performed for in- dustry, governments of cities and states, and foreign nations...
...Persistence by a group of Senators led by Mike Mans- field, for example, led to legislation passed in 1969 stipulating that the mil- itary can commission research that is clearly related only to military objec- tives...
...Deadly nerve gases were being shipped with regularity on a railroad system that gets more danger- ous every year—in fact, 1969 was the twelfth year in a row that train acci- dents went up...
...are as bleak in such areas as housing urban planning, and environment while our resources are heaped on ef- forts to develop antiballistic missiles manned strategic aircraft, underwatei long-range missile submarines, new destroyers, jet transports, and new spacecraft...
...The figures back him up: The United States ranks fourteenth in in- fant mortality rates in the world twelfth in maternal mortality, eleventh in life expectancy for women, anc nineteenth in life expectancy for men Ahead of the United States in life ex- pectancy are East Germany, Norway Ireland, Japan, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy Canada, and New Zealand...
...In some cases the role of the Govern- ment goes beyond that of simply not detecting bad research to actually in- spiring and rewarding it...
...Rampant apathy is acknowledged by a former Food and Drug Adminis- tration official who tells how easy it is not to give a damn...
...Cancer, it is estimated, will kill a quarter of the 200-odd million Amer- icans now living...
...He has labeled much of the work "a waste of taxpay- ers' money," has said that some of it has no conceivable military value, and has gone so far as to say that it has had an adverse effect on the nation's military posture...
...John A. Mathews, who heads a novel group advocating a Federal Department of Peace, has studied recent Federal budgets for to- tals spent on researching peace by all parts of the Government and finds it averages a paltry $2.6 million a year...
...Making the situation even more ludi- crous are some of the contractors be- ing paid to perform peace research: the Department of the Navy, the Mc- Donnell-Douglas Corporation (one of the largest defense contractors), and the Army Materiel Command...
...Roger Egeberg, the Gov ernment's chief adviser on health, hai stated recently that America has be come at best a second-rate nation ir health...
...Salk, from harsh practicality to ideal- ism, from hawkish retired generals to Ralph Nader, and from the most amazing Yankee ingenuity and inno- vation to the role of errand boy to the Establishment...
...With the effort of R&D focused mainly on military concerns and no strong priorities clearly established be- yond that of national security, other stark comparisons and ironies are easy to find...
Vol. 35 • November 1971 • No. 11
