Joy Rohde
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449673
- eISBN:
- 9780801469602
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449673.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter focuses on Project Camelot, a research project organized by the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) to determine the fundamental causes of communist revolution and prescribe ...
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This chapter focuses on Project Camelot, a research project organized by the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) to determine the fundamental causes of communist revolution and prescribe solutions to them. Promising a breakthrough in “peace research,” this multiyear, multimillion-dollar project was described as “an attempt to find nonmilitary and nonviolent solutions to international problems.” Indeed, social scientists hoped that social science would bring reason and rationality into American relationships with the third world. However, scholars and government officials in Chile learned that the research was sponsored not by a university or a research foundation, but by the Defense Department. A study that Americans deemed peace research appeared to Latin Americans as a prelude to American military invasion. The allegation spread around the globe, and as a result, civilian government officials responded with outrage, charging that Camelot proved their worst fears: the Pentagon was attempting to seize control of foreign policy making from the State Department.Less
This chapter focuses on Project Camelot, a research project organized by the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) to determine the fundamental causes of communist revolution and prescribe solutions to them. Promising a breakthrough in “peace research,” this multiyear, multimillion-dollar project was described as “an attempt to find nonmilitary and nonviolent solutions to international problems.” Indeed, social scientists hoped that social science would bring reason and rationality into American relationships with the third world. However, scholars and government officials in Chile learned that the research was sponsored not by a university or a research foundation, but by the Defense Department. A study that Americans deemed peace research appeared to Latin Americans as a prelude to American military invasion. The allegation spread around the globe, and as a result, civilian government officials responded with outrage, charging that Camelot proved their worst fears: the Pentagon was attempting to seize control of foreign policy making from the State Department.
