HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Daniel Koshland, Editor Science 1333 H St NW Washington DC, 20005

Transcription

1 HARVARD UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS 6 April 1987 Area Code (617) Graduate Secretary Main Office /2 Science Center 325 One Oxford Street Cambridge, Massachusetts Daniel Koshland, Editor Science 1333 H St NW Washington DC, Professor E. Z. Vogt Chai rman, Class V, NAS Anthropology Department Harvard University Dear Mr. Koshland and Dear Professor Vogt, I am addressing both of you in your official capacities as Editor of Sc?ence - member of the NAS, and Chairman of Class V of the NAS. I have just received the latest Science containing the published letter from Marion Levy and the "response" from S. P. Huntington. I have a number of objections, which I shall document in the accompanying analysis. In particular, the Report which Huntington wrote for the State Department in 1967 continues to be unavailable either from Huntington or from the State Department. In light of Huntington's misrepresentations in his "response", the confusion which he has created for readers of Science, and the need for an evaluation of his Report based on facts, I claim that: A. It is the editorial responsibility of Science to inform its readers of the facts and documentation in the enclosed analysis of Huntington's "response". B. It is the editorial responsibi1ity of Science and the responsibi1ity of Class V to request from Huntington the following items, which should be available for public analysis and scrutiny by readers of Science and members of the National Academy Huntington's 1967 Report to the State Department; a copy of the Proposal preceding the Report; the extent of the funding (was it about $250,000 as recalled by Marion Levy?); Huntington's "research instruments" and the documentation for his "proposed techniques" (as mentioned in a Stated Department Memorandum of 31 January 1968) Lacking this information, one cannot arrive at a conclusion based on factual or scholarly analysis. I find it pointless to speculate until the information is available. Si ely yours, Serge Lang cc: S. P. Huntington, Julian Wolpert (Chairman, Section 53, NAS), Bryce Crawford (Home Secretary, NAS), Eliot Marshall and Christine Gilbert (Science), Nicholas Wade (New York Times), Boyce Rensberger (Washington Post), Robert Silvers (New York Review of Books), Bob Scheer (Los Angeles Times), David Barren and Jon Moses (Harvard Crimson), M. Meselson (Chairman, FAS), David Hill, Marion Levy, John Edsall, Edward Anders, Leopold Pospisil, Joshua Katz, H. Bradford Westerfield, etc. Enclosures: My analysis of Huntington's "response", letters from the State Department, Memorandum of 31 January 1968, my letters of 22 and 27 January to the State Dept

2 Koshland and Vogt, 6 April 198? Analysis of Huntington's "Response" 1. Huntington asserts: "I have never made any secret of my work there [in Vietnam] as a consultant in the Policy Planning Council of the State Department. I subsequently published an article in Foreign Affairs (1) based in large part on that study..." I have the Foreign Affairs article in front of me. Footnote (1) refers to No. 46, (1968), p The article goes through p (a) Nowhere in this article do I see any reference that the article is based on "that study" or any other "study" for the State Department. The article makes no mention of being based on work sponsored by the State Department, or any other Government agency. There is no way to tell that it might be related to the 1967 "Huntington Report" (as it is sometimes called), to the State Department. Probably this 1967 Report is the one whose proposal Marion Levy was shown. However, it would be improper scholarship to assume or presume anything about that article in its relation to the actual Report and the Proposal which preceded it. If indeed the article was based on work supported or sponsored by the State Department, or the CIA, or whatever, then it was incumbent on Huntington to state this support or sponsorship explicitly, according to the usual norms of publication. The lack of such attribution is a prima facie case of scholarly irresponsibility. (b) Lacking any sort of acknowledgement to the State Department in the Foreign Affairs article, Huntington's assertion that he "never made any secret of [his] work [in Vietnam] as a consultant...of the State Department" is a misrepresentation. This misrepresentation is all the more serious since Huntington is attacking Marion Levy's credibility. Readers of Science so far have no way of knowing that Huntington did indeed make a secret of State Department sponsorship or support in 1968 since he did not mention such sponsorship or support in his Foreign Affairs article. Was the reason for the "secret" that the Report was classified? (c) Robert D. Putnam in PS (fall 1986) wrote: This now-declassified study is in some respects one of the most interesting of Huntington's works. Nor surprisingly, the study embraced the Administration's basic objective of defeating the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong insurgency. However, rejecting the Administration's policy of military "pacification" as doomed to failure, Huntington argued that South Vietnamese government should seek "accommodation" with local religious and political organizations...as a published version of the report put it, "Peace in the immediate future must be based on accommodation...hence there is good reason to encourage the early inauguration of a political process within-south Viet Nam in which all significant political groups can participate."

3 Koshland and Vogt, 6 April 198? Footnote 21 refers not to the original study but to "The Bases of Accommodation". Foreign Affairs 46 Tjtily 1968) pp Putnam is guilty of misleadina readers and scholars on several counts: First he refers to an article which made no mention of being a "version" of Huntington's original "study" or "Report", let alone explaining how the article might differ from the "study". How does one know how the quotes correspond to the original study? Second, Putnam writes also that "an abbreviated version of the Report, published in the immediate aftermath of the Tet offensive, included several added paragraphs of misplaced optimism..." Putnam does not make it clear where the "abbreviated version" was published, nor whether this version actually referred to the actual Report explicitly. However, he does make clear that there were "added paragraphs", and therefore that whatever versions were published, they differ from the Report. An evaluation of the Report must be based on the Report itself, and the "research instruments" or data on which it was based, not on "abbreviated versions" or versions with "added paragraphs". Both Huntington in Science and Putnam in PS create a morass of defective scholarship and misrepresentations. The reference to "added paragraphs" Is evidence that Putnam had access to the original "study" or "Report". On the other hand, Huntington has failed to provide a copy of the Report either to me or to Marion Levy, he gives questionable references as described above in his Science "response", and so far, I have not been able to obtain the Report on the Freedom of Information Act, as explained in detail below. It goes against the most routine norms of scholarly work that an insider like Putnam should have access to a document which other scholars cannot obtain. I object. 2. Huntington asserts that he "secured its declassification under the Freedom of Information Act". I wrote originally to the State Department on 19 July, and as I got more information from various people (not from Huntington) I wrote again on 11 November, 22 January, 27 January to ask for more documents, including a copy of the Report, a copy of the Proposal preceding the Report, and also Huntington's "research instruments" as he calls them. I had one answer dated 19 December, when I received a document showing how some people in the State Department reacted to Huntington's Report. I received nothing else besides the cover letters, which stated: A search of files under the Department's control has resulted in the retrieval of two documents which appear relevant to your request. After careful review, we have determined that one of these documents can be released. The other requires coordination with another government agency... This material has been reviewed by the Department's Classification/Declassification Center...Please note that the one document which requires "coordination" has been referred to another agency for review and direct response back to the Department. In this light, I ask why Huntington's assertion is not simply false. Is the "other agency"the CIA, for whom Huntington has consulted in the past? He does not mention any other agency in the "response" published by Science. If indeed the Report has been declassified, then I don't see why there is need for "review" by "another agency". Therefore the evidence so far shows that Huntington is misrepresenting, and misleads readers of Science by making them believe that they could get a copy of the Report "under the Freedom of Information Act".

4 Koshland and Vogt, 6 April About February 1, I received a call from someone at the State Department to tell me that more material was coming. I have not heard from them since. I do not know if Huntington has been in touch with either the State Department or the CIA, or whatever is the "other agency" to facilitate or obstruct the delivery of the other documents I asked for, including the Report. Every alternative is possible in light of Huntington's misrepresentations in Science, or his failure to provide the Report, the Proposal, and his research instruments to scholars like me and Marion Levy who 'also requested them directly from him. k. The one document which the State Department released to me is a Memorandum dated 31 January 1968, from James P. Grant to Joseph A. Yager. This memorandum states among other things: It should also be noted that many of his [Huntington's) proposed techniques have long been used by our experienced Vietnam hands at the working level... What are Huntington's "proposed techniques" mentioned in the State Department Memorandum? If they did not involve "surveys" or "questionnaires", what did they involve? Both as a citizen and as a member of the NAS, I am entitled to know on what basis Huntington arrived at his conclusions, and what his "proposed techniques" were, not to speak of his "research instruments", and the extent to which he was funded for his "study". 5. Huntington asserts: "One responsibility [of scholars] surely is to check out the facts before circulating charges that someone is "a charlatan or a fool" that derive from incomplete recollections of a corridor conversation 20 years ago." Since last July I have tried to check out facts by asking both Huntington and the State Department for documentation. Leaving out the State Department for a moment, I emphasize that Huntington has failed to provide me with that documentation. He is thus failing to provide me with "facts". His "response" to Marion Levy consists mostly of opinions, and of misrepresentations as I have documented above. Given the obstructions I am encountering, how could Levy have checked facts? Remark 1. Science is usually very careful about its printed "letters to the editor". For instance, Science -refused to print a first draft of Marion Levy's letter, and made objections which I regarded as valid. Around February 1, Marion Levy sent another draft which Science did print. Marion Levy also cc-ed both drafts of his letter to Huntington. Conversely, however, neither Science nor Huntington communicated Huntington's "response" to Marion Levy before publication. Remark 2. Added to the problem of getting the appropriate documentation, there are also problems with the substance and nature of Huntington's opinions and conclusions, and his "misplaced optimism". In the next part of this analysis, I shall deal briefly with these additional problems. Such problems lead me and others to question the competence of so-called "experts" like Huntington.

5 Koshland and Vogt, 6 April 198? Additional comments on the Foreign Affairs article 6. The Foreign Affairs article (July 1968) consists mostly of political opinions and ex-cathedra statements, without any documentation how Huntington arrived at his opinions. On the first page, Huntington criticizes the Administration in these terms: Spokesmen for the Administration, on the other hand, have in the past underrated the strength of the Viet Cong and have ascribed to the Saigon Government a popularity which had as little basis in fact as that which the critics attributed to the NLF...The misplaced moral ism of the critics has thus confronted the unwarranted optimism of the advocates, (p. 642) Leaving aside the rhetorical thrust concerning "moral ism of the critics", I note that Huntington's criticism of the Administration and his dig at the "unwarranted optimism of the advocates" is all the more absurd since some of his own opinions,, turned out to be no more than "misplaced optimism", and to have no "basis in fact " as when he wrote: The principal reason for this massive influx of population into the urban areas is, of course, the intensification of the war following the commitment of American combat troops in (p. 649) In this sense, history - drastically and brutally speeded up by the American impact - may pass the Vietcong by. Societies are susceptible to revolution only at particular stages in their development. At the moment the rates of urbanization and of modernization in the secure rural areas exceed the rate of increase of Viet Cong strength... In an absent-minded way the United States in Viet Nam may well have stumbled upon the answer to "wars of national liberation." The effective response lies neither in the quest for conventional military victory nor in the esoteric doctrines and gimmicks of counterinsurgency warfare. It is instead forced-draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly brings the country in question out of the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate sufficient strength to come to power. (p. 652) Indeed, Robert D. Putnam in his PS article takes Huntington to task for that same "unwarranted optimism" when he states that Huntington was guilty of misplaced optimism about the effects of American-sponsored "forced-draft urbanization" on the prospects for South Vietnamese resistance to the Communist insurgency. (PS. p. 843) 7. Huntington states: "The realities of the situation in Viet Nam will not please the extremists on either side. If properly oerceived and accepted, however, they may provide some basis for accommodation and an eventual compromise settlement." (p. 643) (*) or worse. As I have written before, Huntington's invocation of "history" and "forced draft urbanization and modernization" reminds me of the criminal acts by^ the Stalinists who destroyed a large part of the peasant class in the Soviet Union in the thirties, and the forced-draft ruralization by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (a mirror image of forced draft urbanization), after the U.S. invasion of that country

6 Koshland and Vogt, 6 April 198? 6 The presumption of what "will not please the extremists" belongs to pop psychology, and is a rhetorical thrust which scholars can evaluate in light of Huntington's own defective scholarship. Huntington's description of how his analysis would be received by "extremists on either side" is also an opinion, for which I know of no "basis in fact". Who are the "extremists"? The Memorandum of 31 January 1968 provides evidence that the State Department viewed Huntington's Report rather sympathetically in several instances, as when the Memorandum states: It should be noted that many of his proposed techniques have long been used by our experienced Vietnam hands at the working level. Many Americans in the provinces have recognized the influence of local Vietnamese minority and religious group leaders, and have channeled U.S. assistance through these communal organizations. Most of our field personnel become quite sophisticated about the realities of Vietnamese political life...i am inclined to think that his suggestions have merit in many areas of the Delta, but I doubt that we can rely on this strategy exclusively... In conclusion, I think Huntington has made a very interesting proposal which merits our serious consideration. We agree with much of his analysis of the present situation, but I believe a more comprehensive strategy would offer a better opportunity for success - one that promises both economic and social progress as well as political stability. 8. On the other hand, that same Memorandum shows that at least in one instance the State Department saw through Huntington's verbiage, namely when the Memorandum states: There is a major point in the study about which Huntington is not clear: nowhere does he suggest "how or when" elimination of the Viet Cong forces and the retreat of the North Vietnamese regulars can be brought about to establish the preconditions which he describes for accommodation with isolated Viet Cong hamlets. Conclusion. The Foreign Affairs article is grossly deficient in scholarship and documentation. It illustrates Huntington's pervasive inability to distinguish facts, perceptions of facts, opinions", and what is neither. I expect reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences to meet much higher standards. Huntington's presence in the NAS would contribute to undermine the credibility of NAS reports.