OSS Psychological and Communications Studies Research, by Paul Wolf

The Ideology of Philanthropy

By Edward H. Berman (1983)

At the end of World War II only a handful of American universities had programs in international affairs and even fewer had developed offerings in non-Western studies. Those few in existence in 1945 had been established largely with funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. 1 Twenty years later international-affairs and area- studies programs were entrenched in major university centers from New York to California. The faculty for these programs generally divided their time between the area-studies or international-affairs programs and one of their university's social science (and occasionally humanities) departments. These scholars in turn formulated the major tenets of the conventional theory of development for the nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations played the catalytic and sustaining role in these activities after 1945. Their reasons for doing so were inextricably linked to rising cold-war tensions, as was their support for the expanding field of national security studies at the same time. 2 The foundations only began to reduce their level of support when the federal government decided to underwrite these programs more generously after 1960.
In this chapter we examine the reasons for the foundations' decision to expand the capabilities of selected American universities in nternational studies, and detail how their grants created the new programs that set the standard for a thriving and influential field. The foundation grants for these programs were coupled with funds to support certain social science disciplines that were deemed indispensable to the development of viable foreign area-studies programs. These included sociology, political science, and economics. Foundation personnel believed that the dynamics of the nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America could best be understood by American academics who combined a thorough knowledge of the society in question, through a study of language and culture, with one of these social science disciplines. They were concerned, as a Ford Foundation officer put it, about "the abysmal lack of knowledge" available to American decision makers concerning these areas, which were of increasing importance in United States foreign-policy determination. 3 The American university programs were intended to alter this situation and, in the words of another Ford officer, they were also 'to provide the educational foundation for our new national interest in these areas." 4 As in most of their work, the foundations achieved their objectives through a combination of their direct efforts, subsidization of outside agencies that implemented their programs, and strategic grants to faculty and student researchers.
These attempts to improve the capacity of selected American universities in foreign area studies coincided with foundation efforts to strengthen the educational infrastructures of a limited number of African, Asian, and Latin American nations. Foundation officers were aware that their increasingly heavy involvement in the educational affairs of developing nations was based more on their shared perceptions of what was required than on any explicit theory about the development process. This awareness led the foundations to support the efforts of a number of American social scientists, who were affiliated with the evolving international and area-studies programs, in their elaboration of a theory of development for the nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The resultant developmental theory was, not surprisingly, supportive of the thrust of the foundations' overseas activities. The theory also provided legitimation for the foundations' programs abroad, while simultaneously reinforcing the developmental effort of United States governmental agencies, whose personnel frequently consulted with foundation officers. The chapter examines the evolution and content of this foundation-sponsored developmental theory. It concludes by raising some questions about the theory's implications for Third- World nations, whose developmental plans have to a large extent been framed in categories established by this theory.
The Growth of International and Area-Studies Programs after 1945
The Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations played their leading roles in creating the major international and areastudies programs at American universities because, in the words of a Ford officer during the period, they recognized "the need to improve the capabilities of the United States in meeting its responsibilities in world affairs-more especially for maintaining the strength of the non-Communist nations and for assisting the social and economic development of the new emerging nations." 5 The first major effort to this end was in 1945 when the Rockefeller Foundation granted $250,000 for the creation of a Russian Institute affiliated with Columbia University's new School of International Affairs. Other large Rockefeller grants to Columbia soon followed, as did several from the Carnegie Corporation, which in 1947 made a series of grants to enable several universities to further their efforts in international affairs and area-studies programs. The most significant of these was a $740,000 grant to Harvard University for the establishment of a Russian Research Center.6 By 1952 the two foundations had granted several million dollars to strengthen international and area-studies programs. Significant as these efforts were however, they were dwarfed by the subsequent Ford Foundation appropriations for the same purpose.
Ford's interest in strengthening American competency in international affairs was first mentioned in a 1952 internal document that suggested possible program areas for the recently reorganized foundation. Although the study focused on Ford opportunities in Asia, it soon became the basis for most of the foundation's overseas activities. Carl Spaeth, the report's author, recognized that "America's power to overcome Asian misunderstanding and to contribute to the shaping of events in these areas can only be in proportion to the extent of her knowledge of the characteristics of the region in which she operates, and the availability of competent, trained personnel to carry out her intentions there." He concluded by noting that "the development of American knowledge about Asia and an increase in the number of men skilled in dealing with her problems could well prove to be the key to the [problems] of Asia and its relation to world peace." 7 The resultant funds to train these specialists were channeled through the foundation's International Training and Research Program. By the mid-1960s the Ford Foundation had allocated the staggering sum of $138 million to a limited number of universities for the training of foreign-area and international-affairs specialists. 8
There was agreement among foundation personnel that these specialists should make available to foreign-policy decision makers their knowledge of the nations that they studied. The national security of the United States demanded no less. Consequently, the foundations frequently acted as the intermediaries between area specialists and government agencies in matters pertaining to national security. One example of this was discussed at a 1953 meeting of Ford's Board of Overseas Training and Research. The draft minutes of that meeting record that "the feeling was expressed that long-term studies undertaking to evaluate the vulnerability of ... [India, Indonesia, and Iran] to Communist influence were greatly needed and should be undertaken. ... [Mr. Gray] suggested that the staff work out appropriate and adequate liaison with the government [to carry out such studies]." Professor George M. Kahin of Cornell University submitted a proposal that detailed how such a study would be conducted in Indonesia. 9
Several years later Charles Fahs of the Rockefeller Foundation commented on the important role to be played by foundation-supported international-affairs specialists in the furtherance of United States foreign-policy objectives. In a memorandum to Rockefeller president Harrar, Fahs argued that "wherever possible, programs should be subcontracted to non-governmental agencies, e.g., universities. An effort is long overdue to correlate overseas contracts with area study competence in the contracting institutions in order to assure greater knowledge of the local situation." 10
The Ford Foundation almost singlehandedly established the major areas- studies programs in American universities. Between 1959 and 1963, for example, Ford made direct grants of approximately $26 million to support non-Western language and area-studies programs at fifteen universities Boston, California, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Indiana, Michigan, Northwestern, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, Washington, Wisconsin, and Yale. 11 These same universities are the leaders in the production of Ph.D. degrees and, because of their prestige, generally manage to place their graduates in the upper echelons of the American corporate, political, and academic strata, from which their graduates' ideas frequently dominate their respective fields. 12
The area-studies programs were designed to develop American scholars' expertise in specific areas, e.g., Africa, Latin America, the Near East, South Asia, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The foundations also supported the growth of more general programs in international affairs during the 1950s and 1960s, and the funding was equally generous. The most important of these included Harvard's Center for International Affairs, the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Center for Strategic Studies at Georgetown University, the Institute of International Studies at Berkeley, the Stanford University Institute for Communications Research, and the Center for International Studies at Princeton University. Nor were these programs limited to the United States. The Graduate Institute of International Affairs in Geneva has been supported from its inception largely by the Rockefeller Foundation. The Royal Institute of International Affairs in London and St. Antony's College, Oxford, have also been sustained over the years by funds from the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations. 13
The links among the foundations, some subsidized university centers, and foreign-policy formulation are suggested by noting just a few of the key individuals associated over the years with these foundation- supported international programs. The first director of MIT's Center for International Studies was Max Milliken, a former assistant director of the CIA. An equally influential member of the center staff was W. W. Rostow, who subsequently became a key foreign-policy advisor to President Kennedy and Johnson and an architect of the Vietnam war. Individuals associated with Harvard's Center for International Affairs over the years have included Robert R. Bowie, head of the State Department's policy planning staff; Henry A. Kissinger, secretary of state in the Nixon administration; McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor to presidents Kennedy and Johnson and later Ford Foundation president; and James A. Perkins, vice-president of the Carnegie Corporation and a director of the Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan Bank.
Fellowship provisions were from the beginning an important component of the foundation effort to enlarge the pool of knowledge about foreign areas. The Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations made their contributions to this end, but again it was the Ford Foundation whose activities were so remarkable because of their scale. As early as 1953 Ford's Board of Overseas Training and Research announced grants totaling $488,150 to "enable 97 young Americans to begin or continue studies concerning Asia, the Near and Middle East." The announcement went on to indicate that "the purpose of this program is to stimulate increased knowledge [of these areas] and to help meet the urgent needs ... for large numbers of men and women well qualified in business, education, ... agriculture, labor relations, and the professions." 14 Ford officials regularly stated their conviction that fellowship recipients would contribute to the national interest by making their knowledge available to those responsible for foreign-policy formulation. 15
This Foreign Area Fellowship Program was administered for its first decade by staff of Ford's International Training and Research Program. In 1962 program administration was entrusted to a joint committee of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council, which in turn delegated responsibility to a number of area committees, e.g., the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies, the Joint Committee on African Studies. Massive Ford support accompanied this transfer. Beckmann estimates that between 1953 and 1965 the Foreign Area Fellowship Program granted approximately $10 million dollars to 1214 scholars, primarily for advanced graduate study dealing with particular geographical locales. Former fellowship holders are strategically located not only in the major international and areastudies programs in American universities, but are commonplace in less prestigious institutions as well. Their publications contribute to the nation's knowledge about the non-Western world and help to shape the population's general perception of that world. 16
Just as the foundations take great care in the selection of those foreign nationals who will study in the United States, so do they -- and the joint councils that now administer their programs -- exercise similar care when selecting among applicants for award of the prestigious Foreign Area Fellowships. Such careful selection does not, however, guarantee the passive socialization of apprentice American scholars into desirable norms. It is probably the case that many, if not most, will follow academic careers characterized by intellectual orthodoxy and acceptance of the society's overall political objectives; this at least is the conclusion drawn by recent investigations. 17 It is equally possible, however, that a certain number, but statistically a small proportion, will become detached from academic and political orthodoxy. This contradiction has potentially important political considerations, not the least of which is its ability to undermine the confidence of some intellectuals and decision makers in the continuance of the American imperial mission.
Foundation-sponsored training of future American scholars -- whether administered directly or through a more specialized agency -- could no more insure that the recipients would internalize certain norms and support predetermined ends than could similar undertakings in Third World universities. 18 Indeed, the more pluralistic nature of American universities -- compared, at least, with those of Africa, Asia, and Latin America -- and the wider range of dissent tolerated in this society, makes it likely that some young scholars formerly supported by foundation largesse will become critics of their former patrons and will communicate their views to a wide range of students and fellow scholars. Their critiques have the potential to challenge the legitimacy of foundation activities, their prominent roles in American society, and the material base upon which they rest.
Yet another contradiction needs to be mentioned at this juncture. In recent [years] the foundations and organizations like the World Bank have provided research support for scholars whose political perspectives were considerably to the left of their sponsoring agencies. This is a marked departure from the practice of the 1960s and early 1970s. A well-known example of this new direction at home was the support provided by the Ford Foundation for the Marxian interpretation of American education by Bowles and Gintis. 19
The funding of so-called radical researchers has extended to scholars studying international problems as well, particularly those of Third World development. 20 Paulston notes that "educational agencies such as the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, the Rand Corporation, et al., have recently sought the aid of neo-Marxist scholars in efforts to diagnose what went wrong with reforms grounded in the liberal worldview, a perspective that by definition avoids recognition of power and conflict and is thus unable to explain its failures." 21
Support for scholars working in the Marxist tradition does not necessarily imply sympathy for the politics of the researchers by the sponsoring agency, nor does it mean acceptance of the conclusions reached. There are several possible reasons for this support.
One reason, perhaps related to the point made by Paulston, is that funding agencies have determined that support for these scholars is important because their research frequently generates information that more orthodox research methods fail to uncover. Knowledge of the Third World is important to United States foreign-policy analysts, regardless of its source, as foundation personnel have long recognized. 22 As Arnove remarks, the information generated by researchers on Latin America -- whatever their political persuasion or methodological orientation -- "enables the United States to understand better and, perhaps, respond more effectively to Latin American thinking and actions." 23
A second reason might be that some, although not all, who sit in the State Department, the World Bank, and the foundations are bothered by their liberal consciences. Perhaps they have trouble reconciling the knowledge that their aid programs in reality do little to alleviate the plight of the world's dispossessed, while at the same time providing legitimacy for a basically inequitable economic and social order from which they benefit. A third reason could be that some within the foundations feel that a grant here or there to an unorthodox or even "radical" researcher might serve to defuse the potential criticism that the foundations only encourage research congruent with their interests, while regularly proclaiming the opposite.
The Consensus on Third-World Development
The work of these development-oriented sociologists, like that of their fellow social scientists, was heavily subsidized by' the Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations, either directly or through the Social Science Research Council. Ford's Melvin Fox recalled how the foundation was "twisting arms very, very vigorously" to get scholars to concentrate on development theory. 68 Foundation subsidization of the work of these mainstream social scientists had its desired effect. By the late 1960s, as Packenham indicates, there had evolved a clearly delineated viewpoint among mainstreams social scientists in elite American universities, as well as among Washington policy makers, regarding the most efficacious path to development for Third-World nations. This consensus held that Third-World development should be carried out

mainly in terms of stable, nonradical, constitutional, and, if possible, peaceful and pro-American policies.... The scholars and policymakers supplemented economic determinism with sociological and psychological determinism. Both groups also largely assumed the converse, namely, the beneficience for socio-economic transformation of stable, constitutional political systems. 69

The fact that such conservative ideas concerning development meshed perfectly with the goals of United States was not fortuitous. Myrdal has noted that American studies of the developing world at this time were "expected to reach opportune conclusions [by their sponsoring agencies], and to appear in a form that is regarded as advantageous, or at least not disadvantageous, to national interests as these are popularly understood." 70 The interests of the United States in the Third World, as popularly understood at the time by mainstream social scientists and policy makers, were defined in terms of gradual movement toward a form of Western democracy, continued alignment to the world capitalist system, continued access to strategic raw materials, order, and stability, and at best a policy not antagonistic to the United States -- all of which were to be encouraged by the nurturing of an indigenous elite that understood the benefits that could accrue from such policies.
O'Brien notes that this developmental consensus endorsed the leadership role of "technological and bureaucratic elites." The political scientists concerned with the development shared the "bureaucrat's perspective in fearing the passion and unpredictability which may be unleashed if people escape control from above." 71 Social scientists, business leaders, foundation personnel, and those who implemented United States foreign policy agreed on the importance of order and stability for Third-World development. Packenham notes that the consensus held that "radical politics, including conflict, disorder, violence, and revolution, are unnecessary for economic and political development and therefore are always bad." 72 As early as 1949 the director of the Rockefeller Foundation's Division of Social Science commented on the role of the social sciences in helping "to serve the orderly evolution of the unindustrialized countries." 73 In short, the measured and gradual development of Third-World nations was seen to serve the interests of world stability, preclude the advance of "radical" regimes and the concomitant possibility of nationalization of foreign holdings, while simultaneously affording an international context within which the major foundations could play crucial roles in developing national polities.
The views of the social scientists, foundation personnel, and government officials toward Third-World development were mutually reinforcing. Many of the key foundation personnel concerned with the social sciences had worked in one of the Washington agencies involved with foreign policy in the immediate post-1945 period, while others had close ties to major American universities.
This period was also characterized by the frequent movement of social scientists between their university bases and policy centers in Washington, where they made available to government officials their analyses of social phenomena at home and abroad and suggested policy options for implementation. So broad was the evolving consensus concerning the ideology of corporate liberalism at home and imperial liberalism abroad that such interaction only strengthened the sense of rectitude -- if not arrogance -- which characterized the work of the mainstream social scientists. Halberstam's analysis of the planning and implementation of the Vietnam war largely on the basis of the "expert" and "objective" advice by intellectuals with pronounced social science backgrounds of the mainstream variety is, of course, the best documented-and most appalling-manifestation of this syndrome. 74 To these people the struggle against the communist juggernaut was beyond ideology. To intimate that their work was ideologically biased was tantamount to questioning their integrity.
This ideological commitment to America's international role meant that the theories of development elaborated by the foundation- supported academics only gained currency to the degree that they were judged to be supportive of the broader foreign-policy objectives that grew out of that ideology. Such theories restricted the possible range of development in the Third World to options that were perceived as advantageous to the United States, but not necessarily to the developing nations in question, all the rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. Developmental theories posited on the assumptions of gradualism, the maintenance of the existing institutional order, the legitimacy and inviolability of certain elites, the importance of sustained economic growth-to name only several-refuse to recognize that the price of such development in terms of human misery and suffering may exceed that of development brought about through revolution and different forms of economic and social arrangements. Such views are also ahistorical. The development of the West was generally accompanied by revolution and civil war, as Rhodes, for one, notes. He asks how rational people can ignore this reality when focusing on the contemporary Third World and continually stressing order and stability. 75 While Barrington Moore's views on these subjects have received a polite response from academics, the implications of his work have been largely ignored. 76 The proponents of gradualism and moderation, wedded as they are to Western-oriented institutions, elite domination, and modi operandi which do little to alleviate the plight of the masses in the underdeveloped nations while ensuring extended markets for capitalist activity, continue to see their particular viewpoint prevail.
Sharing as they did in the belief of America's imperial mission, foundation personnel allocated their funds for developmental social science work to insure that only "responsible" viewpoints (read, viewpoints that generally concurred in the tenets of imperial liberalism) would be circulated among members of the academic community and to Washington policy makers. While an occasional "radical" viewpoint (e.g., Moore's or Robert Heilbroner's) might be funded, generally through the Social Science Research Council, there was little chance that his isolated voice could be of consequence as it contested with the more numerous voices of developmental orthodoxy. Indeed, it is conceivable that occasional funding of a study contravening the established position was even advantageous for the foundations. The dissenting viewpoint could be used to counter foundation critics who charged that the organizations only subsidized researchers supportive of the foundations' preconceived positions on particular issues. 77
The social science emphasis on evolutionary development and institutional order in the Third World should be understood in the context of the international role that the social scientists, foundation officers, and government officials deemed appropriate for the United States. The messianic quality of American foreign policy, with its rigid dichotomies between the "good guys" (the United States and its allies) and the "bad guys" (the Soviet Union and its satellites) during the cold-war hysteria of the 1950s and early 1960s, coupled with the frequent movement of American academics to and from official and advisory positions in Washington, made almost inevitable the acceptance of the shibboleths of American foreign policy by numerous academics, particularly those in positions to comment on the dangers for the developing world inherent in Soviet expansionism. 78 But an understanding of the antecedents of such views in no way lessens the ideology supporting them.
The Outcomes and Implications of Sponsored Developmental Theory
The foundations' support of the "objective" research of a group of recognized social scientists helped to legitimate an ideological approach to developmental problems that took place within foundation- supported area-studies programs. The views that these social scientists articulated became, after a modicum of debate, the accepted dogma on problems of Third-World development. Their pronouncements were held to represent the only worthwhile approaches to Third-World development problems. These intellectuals acted, in Gramsci's phrase, as the "experts in legitimation." 79
Bodenheimer's examination of the application of this developmental consensus in Latin America led her to discover its origins in "the concrete realities of U.S.-Latin American relations." She notes also "how it is deeply rooted in the political economy of mid-20th century America." This scholarly consensus, which she terms the "paradigm- surrogate," cannot be divorced from the "dominant interests within the American social order-interests which also play a decisive role in shaping United States policy toward Latin America." 80
The Latin American-based developmental studies by United States, researchers have distorted the reality of the region because of the intellectual assumptions inherent in the dominant theory. The methodological approaches utilized have led to the collection of only a limited range of data, which in turn have contributed to this skewed image. These data, which are generally supportive of existing Latin American-U.S. relations, are then used to "prove" that the presuppositions about the nature of Latin America were valid. The ideologically grounded and unidimensional theories of development that dominate United States research on Latin America tend, at the same time, to preclude the formulation of alternative development theories that might better serve the interests of greater numbers of Latin Americans. Bodenheimer notes that one salient aspects of the dominant theory "leaves room neither for the alternative routes or objectives of development, nor for the possibility that the current route may lead to a dead end or to economic stagnation." 81
The ideology of the dominant developmental theory stands in clear relief in Latin America. Bodenheimer writes how the theory devalues the importance of class differences, thereby practically eliminating the problem of stratified power relationships. An analysis of the problems of Latin America that ignores the importance and implications of widening social-class differences is, to put it generously, myopic. But because the theory is dedicated to the concepts of order and stability, and because class conflicts invariably threaten these, the dominant theory is ill-equipped to raise the possibility that only a radical reorganization of existing social relations can lead to meaningful development. Instead, the theory "projects a pious hope that development can be achieved without paying the high cost of removing the social and economic obstacles, that the impoverished masses can somehow be upgraded without infringing on the interests of the established elites." 82 Such an attempt is consistent with the foundations' sincere efforts to alleviate the misery of the masses through gradual, ameliorative reform, while at the same time leaving society's direction -- at home and abroad -- in the hands of a carefully nurtured elite.
DiBona's study of the impact of Western development theory in India reaches similar conclusions. 83 He notes the influence on Indian educational planning of the American economists of the human resource school, particularly Schultz, Harbison, Myers, Denison, Anderson, and Bowman. Their emphasis on the training of high-level manpower for developmental purposes has influenced Indian economists to argue in favor of generous funding for institutions of higher learning. Because of the scarcity of resources available in the Indian economy, however, this emphasis on higher education has led to reduced levels of support for primary education, particularly in rural areas. The vast majority of Indians, of Course, are village dwellers. The increasing proportion of educational expenditures on higher education -- which is generally available exclusively in urban areas -- only widens the gap between the urban elites and the rural peasantry.
An increasing number of commentators have raised questions about the direction of conventional developmental theory, its efficacy, and its impact on traditional societies. Ford Foundation vice-president Francis Sutton has noted the inability of this theory and of existing Western social science to address the problems faced by most developing countries, particularly the establishment of "governments that have extensive control over their economies and are broadly socialist in character." 84 Former Secretary of State Kissinger, in discussing the overthrow of the regime of the Shah of Iran, recently alluded to a problem of conventional development theory. "The enlightened view," he said, "was that there was a sort of automatic stabilising factor in economic development. That has turned out to be clearly wrong." 85
Others have elaborated on these assessments. F. J. Method, for one, notes how most assistance to Third-World nations "has tended to foster development also conventional lines, strengthening the modern sector ... but doing little to support local change and to assist people with problems of living outside the modern sector." 86 John A. Smyth feels that a major shortcoming of the efforts of the Western developmental agencies has been the preoccupation with an "economically efficient educational investment" at the expense of a concern for equity. 87 This emphasis on "efficiency" derives from the need to obtain quantifiable results that demonstrate movement and "gain." The relationships linking these concepts to capitalism and Western social science are patent.
Wolf notes the disruptive impact on traditional societies of "the world-wide spread and diffusion of a particular cultural system, that of North Atlantic capitalism." 88 The distinctive economic structure of this cultural system "was profoundly alien to many of the areas which it engulfed." At the same time, such an economic structure formed the basis for the developmental theories designed for implementation in these same societies. To put the matter another way Western capitalism was an integral part of the dominant developmental theory that emerged after 1945; this theory was dependent for its implementation on Third World elites who accepted the organizational and social patterns inherent in a society with a capitalist orientation (whether of the laissez-faire or welfare-state variety); both these elites and the theory that they embodied were antithetical to traditional values. The newly introduced capitalist order, incorporated as it was into the conventional developmental plan, "cut through the integument of custom, severing people from their accustomed social matrix in order to transform them into economic actors, independent of prior social commitments to kin and neighbors." It is the disruptive nature of the Western developmental theory that leads observers like Mazrui to ask "whether modernization can be decolonized without being destroyed." 89
Weisskopf doubts that this is possible. He cites especially the "dominance of the foreign-oriented [indigenous] elites . . . of educational institutions, communications media, and cultural resources," and notes how these "tend to amplify the threat to indigenous cultural development." 90 Mazrui expands on this, noting how the African universities turn out graduates who not only have come to dominate their respective societies, but who are at the same time "the most deeply westernized" and "the most culturally dependent." 91 This is no less true for graduates from those Latin American and Asian universities supported by the foundations than for their African counterparts.
The increased awareness by foundation representatives and by Third World nationals that conventional developmental theory has not fulfilled its promise has not, however, led to a reformulation of the theory's main tenets. There are several reasons for this. One of these, according to Miller, is that the emphasis on sustained economic growth has not diminished. 92
This leads to the second reason. The developmental plans of most Third World nations today are in the hands of indigenous policy makers. These leaders have been educated in, or at least greatly influenced by, orthodox developmental theory. This means, to borrow from Fagen, that "the majority of elites speaking in the name of the South [the developing nations in the southern hemisphere] have from the outset been spokesmen for, and in some cases even the direct creation of, national and international class interests quite satisfied with the existing world economic system if not with their share of the pie." Some of these elites are certainly interested in altering the inequitable system favoring the developed nations at the expense of their own. They are, however, powerless to alter the existing situation as long as their polities remain dependent upon the centers of world capitalism. According to Fagen "only profound changes in the developmental strategies currently in use (not just the elites in power) can significantly alter this situation. Whether alterations this profound can be other than socialist and revolutionary remains to be demonstrated historically." 93
It is doubtful if the American foundations, which have played such a crucial role in the evolution of the developmental theory that has ed to this situation and which are dedicated to the furtherance of the capitalist system from which they sprang, will agree to support studies that lead to the significant reformulation of the existing strategies that is required to make development more than a chimera for the majority of Third World peoples. 94 A significant alteration in the developmental strategies currently in vogue means a concomitant restructuring of International economic and political relationships. There is no evidence to date to indicate that the foundations would agree to such a drastic measure. A tangible result of the failure of the foundations and other national and multinational aid agencies to help reformulate existing developmental strategies, however, may be more mass-based revolutionary movements similar to those in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Excerpts from The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy The Ideology of Philanthropy, by Edward H. Berman, State University of New York Press (1983) pp. 99-105, 118-.

Footnotes:

1. George Beckmann, "The Role of the Foundations in Non-Western Studies," in U.S. Philanthropic Foundations Their History, Structure, Management, and Record, ed. Warren Weaver (New York Harper & Row, 1967), notes, p. 396, that the Rockefeller Foundation granted approximately $1 million between 1934 and 1942 for the establishment of university-based programs in Slavic, East Asian, Near Eastern, and Latin American studies.
2. The growth of the field of national-security studies is the subject of Gene M. Lyons and Louis Morton, Schools for Strategy Education and Research in National Security Affairs (New York Praeger Publishers, 1965), and will not be a concern of this chapter. The current attempts by government agents and their university collaborators to define university-based programs that would serve the interests of the U.S. national security apparatus is the subject of Andrew Kopkind's "A Dillar, a Dollar, an N.S.C. Scholar," The Nation, 25 June 1983.
3. Ford Foundation, Melvin J. Fox, Oral History Transcript, p. 72.
4. Don K. Price to Henry T. Heald, 7 Feb. 1958. Ford Foundation International Training and Research Papers, Administration.
5. Beckmann, "Role of the Foundations in Non-Western Studies," p. 398.
6. The figures comes from ibid., pp. 396-98.
7. Carl Spaeth, "Program for Asia and the Near East," 1952, p. 27. Ford oundation International Training and Research Papers, Board of Overseas Training and Research file, Establishment of Board of Overseas Training and Research, 1952.
8. The figure comes from Beckmann, "Role of the Foundations in Non-Western Studies," p. 398.
9. Excerpt from Draft Minutes of the Meeting of-the Board of Overseas Training and Research, 5 May 1953. Ford Foundation International Training ad Research Papers, Administration, Board of Overseas Training and Research, Minutes of Meetings and Other Reports, 1953/54.
10. Charles B. Fahs to J. George Harrar, 5 Jan. 1961. Rockefeller Foundation, New York City (RFNYC) folder 900. Program and Policies, Underdeveloped Areas, 1961-63.
11. Beckmann, "Role of the Foundations in Non-Western Studies," pp. 399-400.
12. An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 Sept. 1980, suggests how graduates of these few universities dominate American corporate life.
13. Philip E. Mosely, "International Affairs," in Weaver, U.S. Philanthropic Foundations, pp. 385-92.
14. Press Release, for release 22 June 1953, Ford Foundation International 'raining and Research Papers, Minutes of Meetings and Other Reports.
15. See, e.g., Minutes of Meeting of Board of Overseas Training and Research, 5 Sept. 1953, Ford Foundation International Training and Research Papers, Administration; and Don K. Price to Henry Heald, 7 Feb. 1958, Ford Foundation International Training and Research Papers, Administration. Also, Don K. Price to John W. Gardner, 24 Mar. 1954, Ford Foundation International Training and Research Papers, Administration, Board of Overseas Training and Research, Meeting, 31 Mar. 1954.
16. Beckmann, "Role of the Foundations in Non-Western Studies," p. 402, [aims that "of 984 former fellows, 550 hold faculty positions in 191 colleges and universities in 38 states." He further notes that former fellows "have published 373 books and over 3000 articles and short monographs; moreover, they have edited and contributed to another 516 volumes."
17. For example, Everett C. Ladd and Seymour M. Lipset, The Divided Academy Professors and Politics (New York McGraw-Hill, 1975).
18. See pp. 000-00 of the text. [sic]
19. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life (New York Basic looks, 1976).
20. See pp. 000-00 of the text. [sic]
21. Rolland G. Paulston, "Ethnicity and Educational Change A Priority for Comparative Education," Comparative Education Review, 20 (Oct. 1976), p. 275.
22. See p. 00 of the text for the view of Ford's John Howard on the primacy of information over source in the case of Third-World nations. [sic]
23. Robert F. Arnove, "Foundations and the Transfer of Knowledge," in Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism The Foundations at Home and Abroad, ed. Robert F. Arnove (Boston G. K. Hall, 1980), p. 321.
68. Ford Foundation, Fox, Oral History Transcript.
69. Packenham, Liberal America and the Third World, p. 298.
70. Myrdal, Asian Drama, p. 12. Benjamin R. Barber has put this somewhat differently "Despite pretentions to objectivity, the ideological biases of many western social scientists have become embarrassingly transparent. Democracy becomes the only 'scientific' form of government, capitalism shares with science the 'open-market,' models of development and modernization turn out to bear a remarkable resemblance to the evolution of American industrial capitalism." See his "Science, Salience, and Comparative Education Some Reflections on Social Scientific Inquiry," Comparative Education Review, 16 (Oct. 1972), p. 428.
71. O'Brien, "Modernization, Order, and the Erosion of a Democratic Ideal," p. 372. For a minianalysis of the manner in which these technological and bureaucratic elites impede meaningful development in an African setting, see Joel Barkan, "Some Dilemmas of Higher Education in Africa (why African university graduates won't develop Africa)," Conch, 10 (1978), pp. 176-90.
72. Packenham, Liberal America and the Third World, p. 132.
73. Joseph H. Willets, "Preliminary Conclusions from the Study of Crete," 8 Mar. 1949. RFNYC folder 900, Pro-Unar 2.
74. David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York Fawcett Crest, 1973). Godfrey Hodgson, In Our Time America from World War II to Nixon (London Macmillan, 1976), comments at length on the widespread nature of this consensus.
75. Robert Rhodes, "The Disguised Conservatism in Evolutionary Development Theory," Science and Society, 32 (Fall 1968), p. 385. For an incisive critique of the ideological nature of some of the mainstream literature on development, see Irene L. Gendzier, "Modernity and Development," Theory and Society, 8 (1979).
76. Moore, in his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, analyzes the efficacy of the revolutionary as opposed to the evolutionary path of development.
77. See pp. 000-00 and 000-00 of the text for additional comments on this theme. [sic]
78. For an important discussion that questions the validity of the assertion that the Soviet Union's objectives during the Cold War were any more expansionist than they had ever been, see Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace The Origins of the National Security State (Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1977).
79. Quoted in John Merrington, "Theory and Practice in Gramsci's Marxism," in The Socialist Register, 1968, ed. Ralph Miliband and John Saville (London --Merlin Press, 1968), p. 154.
80. Susanne J. Bodenheimer, "The Ideology of Developmentalism American Political Science's Paradigm-Surrogate for Latin American Studies," Berkeley Journal of Sociology (1970), pp. 98, 122.
81. Ibid., p. 103.
82. Ibid., p. 109.
83. Joseph DiBona, "The Development of Educational Underdevelopment in India," Asian Profile, 5 (Dec. 1977).
84. Francis X. Sutton, "American Foundations and Public Management in Developing Countries," p. 16. Reprinted from "Education and Training for Public Sector Management in Developing Countries," Rockefeller Foundation, Mar. 1977. Available in a Ford Foundation reprint.
85. "Kissinger's Critique (con't.)," The Economist, 10 Feb. 1979, p. 3.
86. Francis J. Method, "National Research and Developmental Capabilities in Education," in Education and Development Reconsidered The Bellagio Conference Papers, ed. F. Champion Ward (New York Praeger Publishers, 1976), p. 137.
87. John A. Smyth, "Equity Criteria in Educational Planning," in Education and Development Reconsidered, p. 116.
88. Eric R. Wolf, Peasant Wars in the Twentieth Century (New York Harper Colophon Books, 1969), p. 276. The quotes in this section are from this source.
89. Ali A. Mazrui, "The African University as a Multinational Corporation," Harvard Educational Review, 45 (1975), p. 200.
90. Thomas E. Weisskopf, "Capitalism, Underdevelopment, and the Future of the Poor Countries," in Economics and the World Order from the 1970s to the 1990s, ed. Jagdish N. Bagwati (London Macmillan, 1972), p. 50.
91. Mazrui, "African University as a Multinational Corporation," p. 194.
92. Ralph J. Miller, "The Meaning of Development and Its Educational Implications," in Education and Development Reconsidered.
93. Richard R. Fagen, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Market Thoughts on Extending Dependency Ideas," International Organization, 32 (Winter 1978), p. 295.
94. A work in progress indicates the role of the Ford Foundation in institutionalizing in Chile during the 1960s the domain assumptions of Western sociology, and raises questions regarding the beneficiaries of the transplantation. See Edmundo F. Fuenzalida, "Consequences of the Reception of 'Scientific Sociology' on the Social Organization of the Production of Sociological Knowledge in Chile Transnational Integration/Disintegration," a paper presented at the Conference on the Origins and Operations of Educational Systems, organized by the Research Committee on Sociology of Education, International Sociological Association, Paris, 6-9 August 1980.