Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars vol 1 Issue 4

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CONTENTS

Vol. 1, No. 4: May 1969

Kathleen Gough Aberle - Anthropology and the Third World

Arthur MacEwen - Pakistan, Economic Change, and Social

Scientists

Noam Chomsky - The Asian Scholar and the American Crisis

Richard Kagan - McCarrans Legacy: The Association for Asian

Studies

O. Edmund Clubb - McCarthyism and Our Asian Policy

Ross Koen - Two Postscripts to the McCarran Hearings

Jean Chesneaux - Approaches to the Study of China

BCAS/Critical Asian Studies

www.bcasnet.org


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CCAS Statement of Purpose

Critical Asian Studies continues to be inspired by the statement of purpose

formulated in 1969 by its parent organization, the Committee of ConcernedAsian Scholars (CCAS). CCAS ceased to exist as an organization in 1979,

but the BCAS board decided in 1993 that the CCAS Statement of Purpose

should be published in our journal at least once a year.

We first came together in opposition to the brutal aggression of

the United States in Vietnam and to the complicity or silence of

our profession with regard to that policy. Those in the field of

Asian studies bear responsibility for the consequences of their

research and the political posture of their profession. We are

concerned about the present unwillingness of specialists to speak

out against the implications of an Asian policy committed to en-

suring American domination of much of Asia. We reject the le-

gitimacy of this aim, and attempt to change this policy. We

recognize that the present structure of the profession has often

perverted scholarship and alienated many people in the field.

The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars seeks to develop a

humane and knowledgeable understanding of Asian societies

and their efforts to maintain cultural integrity and to confrontsuch problems as poverty, oppression, and imperialism. We real-

ize that to be students of other peoples, we must first understand

our relations to them.

CCAS wishes to create alternatives to the prevailing trends in

scholarship on Asia, which too often spring from a parochial

cultural perspective and serve selfish interests and expansion-

ism. Our organization is designed to function as a catalyst, a

communications network for both Asian and Western scholars, aprovider of central resources for local chapters, and a commu-

nity for the development of anti-imperialist research.

Passed, 2830 March 1969

Boston, Massachusetts


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Special

Approaches to the Study of China 32 Jean ChesneauxThe Sorbonne

Editorial Board:Kathleen Gough Aberle, Nina Adams, Noam Chomsky,John Dower, Ed Friedman, Leigh Kagan, MauriceMeisner, Jonathan Mirsky, Franz Schurmann, MarkSelden, Jon Ungar, Marilyn Young

Staff:Judy Corvin, Jo n Livingston, Linda Marks, JimSanford(editor), Bil l Wray

Communications:Bulletin of Concerned Asian ScholarsRoom 3041737 Cambridge St.Cambridge, Mass. 02138

Subscriptions:$4: General$2: Introductory-Student


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4

Anthropology and the Third World Kathleen Gough Aberle

(Revision of a speech delivered a t the CCASconference, March 28, 1969)

I should l ike to say a few words abouthow I see Anthropology and anthropologists,in re la t ion to the Third World, in the pastand today.l I t is almost a cliche nowadaysto say that Anthropology has been in somesense a child of imperialism. Anthropologyas we know i t began in the eighteenth century, both as a humanistic study and as abranch of modern science. In intention, itwas a holist ic study of man and his works,which i t was believed would both enlightenmen and improve the human condition. As auniversi ty disc ipl ine , however, Anthropologybecame special ized in the late nineteenthcentury, when the Western nations were busyconquering the whole world and dividing i tup into colonies or spheres of influence.I think that the very scope of ou r subjectmatter has been largely determined by thisfact. Thus, one common descript ion of Anthropology is that i t is the study of a l lpeoples and the ir cul tures , with a primaryemphasis on primitive (or pre-l i terate)cultures. In pract ice , however, th is hastended to mean that Anthropology has concentrated on the study of conquered peoples.I realized only a few years ago tha t thesubjects of anthropological studies turn outvery predominantly to have been conquerednon-white people such as American Indiansor Black people in the United States , or occasionally, vi l lages or other small communit ies of poor whites, as in Wales or Ireland,which one might also refer to as "conquered"in a broader sense.

Anthropologists' actions and theorieshave therefore been strongly conditioned byimperialism. I do not mean to say tha t the i rtheories have been determined only by imperialism. That would be foolish. I t is ob

vious tha t the general state of knowledgeof the times - for example the developmentin other discipl ines such as Geology, Astronomy or Physics - strongly influencedanthropological theories. So, of course,did the precise state of anthropologists 'own discoveries and data - - th e fact, forexample, that totemism was being discoveredor described, or tha t part icular types offossi l men, or of ancient tools, were being discovered in sequence, obviously ha dthe utmost to do with the particular theor ies that were developed. Nevertheless,I think tha t our general theoret ical context ha s been broadly connected with thephases of imperialism.

I have neither time nor knowledge toexplore these phases adequately, but willsuggest three l ines of thought. Firs t , before the Boasian period in American andWorld War I in Europe, cultura l evolutionism dominated most of Anthropology. Thiswas obviously much connected with the rapidexpansion of imperialism, especially between about 1860 and 1900. Western societywas seen as the apogee of c iv i l iza t ion . I twas a hopeful, optimist ic outlook ( i f oneignored the temporary cost of human l i f e ) .The general approach was one of trying tomap out stages of cultura l development,with th e assumption tha t Western industr ia lculture was so far th e best , i f not th ef inal , stage, and tha t we would bring thisculture to the res t of the world throughour conquests.

Leaving aside complicated developmentsand regional varia t ions in th e interim, asecond main period fe l l between th e twoWorld Wars, when structura l functionalismbecame so prominent in Brit ish and European anthropology, and a somewhat differentkind of functionalism, in culture and personality studies in th e United States . I t


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seemS to me that these studies belonged toa period when th e empires had set t led down;economically, they were re la t ively stagnant;independence movements were being effectively contained; and emphasis was being placedon maintaining the sta tus quo. The tragedies of World War I ha d made people less opt imistic about progress; the s tress now wasmainly on stable societies and personalit ies , on the in terre la t ions of their parts ,and on how the parts maintained one another.

There have been a number of differentdevelopments in Anthropology since WorldWar I I . One is a revised form of culturalevolutionism, closely linked with studiesof cultura l ecology. I t may be that theprominence of such studies in the UnitedStates (as dis t inct from Brita in and Europe)has some indirect connection with Americantechnological dominance and overseas expansion, even though individually, anthropologis ts concerned with these studies havetended to oppose American expansionism, andespecial ly the war in Vietnam. Anotherstrong trend has been concern with applyingAnthropology to problems of economic development in new nations, always, of course,within the framework of international capi talism. Since such studies necessari lyassume that s ignif icant economic development is possible in the Third World throughcapi ta l i s t ins t i tu t ions , they are tendingto be increasingly challenged by thinkersin the new nations where such developmentis not in fact occurring. Other kinds ofdepartures have been into small-scale andl imited ethnographic descript ions and intohighly abstract treatments of problems inl inguis t ics , ethnoscience and kinship - a l lfar removed from the disturbing events ofth e real world in the las t twenty years.At the other extreme are th e fa ir ly smallnumber of anthropologists who place themselves actively in the service of branchesof the United States government in order tohelp f u r t h ~ r i ts attempts a t conquest or a teconomic and pol i t ica l penetrat ion abroad.In general, while perhaps only a small proportion of anthropologists actively favourimperialism, th e vast majority acquiescein i t by denying i t s existence, by choosingproblems remote from the contemporary world,or by taking a long view of cultura l evolution and assuming that man's actions arelargely or wholly cultura l ly determined.

I wish now to turn to our socialroles as anthropologists , which greatlyaffect both our data-gathering and ou rtheories, as well as our impact on people.I see three main types of social roles:(1 ) in re la t ion to our "informants", oftenin Third World nations; (2) in re la t ionto our employers - governments, universit ies and foundations; and (3) in relacionto each other; and through each other, toour discipl ine as a col lect ive endeavour.

With regard to informants, I thinkthat anthropologists have tended to vaci l la te between emotional detachment anda kind of white l ibera l approach. Anthropologists tended to conclude either thattheir science was or should be wholly value-free, or else could be used to allevia tesome of the suffering that imperialismhad brought about. I t was not, of course,usually realized that imperialism hadbrought these sufferings - anthropologistshave been singularly blind to the effectsor even th e existence of imperialism.With regard to employers, there has beena general tendency not to cr i t ic ize themto o much, not to take very radical stands,obviously because they provide the moneyand you can ' t go on being a professionalanthropologist i f you are completely outof favour with your government or withyour university, whose administration i s ,in effect , an indirect arm of the government. With regard to our colleagues and'our discipl ine, I suggest that th e assumpt ion of value-free social science, whileuneasily held an d often challenged by individual anthropologists , flourished partly because i t offered an escape from th efact that the in teres ts of our informantsand of our employers were often deeplyopposed, an d that we availed ourselves ofthe privileges and protection of the conquerors while claiming good will towardthe conquered. In effect , the assumptionof value-free social science provided impl ic i t support for the status quo.

I think that today, we are beingsqueezed out of these approaches and theseroles by two sets of forces. One is thatof active counter-revolution, and especially of American expansionism a l l ove r th eworld. The other force is , of course,that of the revolutionary movements in


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6s ignif icant parts of th e Third World, as wellas, incipiently, in the Western nations themselves.

Two years ago, I t r ied to count ' the populations of the Third World nations which hadei ther active, f ighting revolutionary move-ments within them or large revolutionary part ies coupled with serious social unrest. Atthat time, th e outcome of my enquiry was thatroughly a third of the former "Third World"had already had revolutions and become social is t ; about another third contained gueri l lamovements or large revolutionary part ies;while the remaining third contained re la t ive-ly stable sate l l i !e , colonial or ostensiblyindependent nations. Since that time th emost signif icant developments are, I think,that both India and Pakistan appear to .beentering a proto-revolutionary stage. Thuswe have had the recent uproars in Pakistan;: 'and in India there has been the formation ofa new Revolutionary Communist Party, l inkedwith various t r iba l an d peasant upris ings against landlords and government. Thus, evenin that part of the Third World which hasseemed re la t ively s table, one cannot escapethe fact that under capitalism, the,gap between r ich and poor is c o n t i n u a l l y . i ~ r e a s -ing, so that revolutionary upheavaIl, 'andcounter-revolutionary reprisals , are veryprobable in th e near future.

Because of such developments I thinkthat anthropologists are being increasinglytorn apar t between their informants (or amajority of thei r informants) an d their em-ployers, who are, or who represent, the counter-revolutionary powers. What does an anthropologist do who is working for a counterrevolutionary government, in a revolutionaryor proto-revolutionary world?I see this as our central dilemma. Ibelieve we have to choose where our loyalty

is , between these two main sets of forces.One reason we must choose is that i f we donot choose, the counter-revolution wil lchoose us, whether we l ike i t or not. Or ev en whether we are aware of i t or not. In thisconnection, an instructive statement was madein 1967 by th e Panel of the Defense ScienceBoard of the National Academy of Sciences inth e United States. 2 Briefly, the statementsays that the behavioural science communitya t large must be made to accept responsibi l i ty

for recruit ing Department of Defense research managers. These in turn, withouttalking direct ly about counter-insurgencyor counter-gueri l la warfare, wil l be responsible for organizing both "independent" anq applied scholarship, both byThird World scholars and by American scholars and research ins t i tu tes abroad. Part icu la r emphasis is la id on th e fact thatstudies made by independent ( or one mightsay, "innocent") scholars supported bynon-defense agencies, ca n be very useful tothe Department of Defense i f their dataare "exploited" by suitable research teamsinside the United States, especial ly , i fcare is taken to see that appropriate subjects are investigated by research agenciesabroad. I t is th"is kind of statement whichconvinces me that th e idea of a neutral ,value-free social science investigation ofmodern society is a snare and a delusion.Therefore, social scientis ts must be veryclear in their minds why they are undertaking a study, whom they hope to benefitby i t , and whom they might conceivablyharm.

I do not mean to say that i t is necessary for us jus t heedlessly to leap into bat t le or to swear allegiance to part i -cular revolutionary movements simply because they are revolutionary. But I thinkwe have to decide, bas ical ly, whether wefavour th e continuance and f u r t h ~ r expansion of Western imperialism or whether weoppose i t . The choice is , of course, mostacute for those who study contemporary society, but i t is not ent i re ly absent forarchaeologists, palaeontologists and otherwho study the pas t . Thus, for example, i fsuch scholars accept money from th e UnitedStates government, or seek i t s protection,to do research in places l ike Thailand,without making a strong and vociferous protes t against their government's pol icies ,they provide a respectable scholarly smokescreen for the kinds of counter-revolutionary an d often brutal ac t iv i t ies going onthere, not to mention in next-door VietnamClearly, however, the dilemma is much worsfor those of us interested in modern peasant societ ies and in modern socia l change

I think that I must be opposed to im-perialism and that I must identify myselfwith those in the Third World who oppose i t


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I must be committed to th e general objectiveof revolution against imperialism, eventhough I differ and argue with some of thetheories and actions of part icular revolut ionary movements.

What are th e implications for ananthropologist who decides that he or she has become committed to an ant i - imperia l is t , antirac is t , and (I would say) socia l i s t approachto society? Firs t i t seems to me that thereis a vast and exciting body of inte l lectualwork awaiting us. Anthropology, l ike th eother social sciences, has had a profoundlyconservative bias ever since i t became a univers i ty d iscipl ine. But fortunately, therehas also been, throughout, an "underground"stream of radical scholarship, mainly a l-though not always stemming from Marx. Ithink that we who have recently woken up toour heritage and our si tuat ion have a pri-mary in te l lec tual task to read and masterthis radical l i t era ture , to bring i t intoconfrontation with what we have learned inour cold-war univers i t ies , and to sort outwhat we ca n agree with in th e l igh t of themost modern data, and what we must re jec t .Incidentally, i f we do this I think we automatically cease to be solely anthropologis ts and have also to become, as far aspossible, pol i t ica l sc ien t is ts , economists,and sociologists as well.

I see a l l this as a very serious matterand am not yet aware of a l l i t s implications.I do not think i t is something that we canget away with without penalties. I f we takeant i - imperia l is t , socia l i s t value positionsand i f th is approach real ly impregnates ourwork, obviously i t wil l have consequencesfor us. In th is connection, I much admirea statement by some 500 in te l lec tuals from70 countries made a t the Cultural Congressof Havana in 1968, and addressed to a l l inte l lectuals of the world. I would l ike toplace i t in opposition to the other s ta te-ment to which I jus t referred,. by th e Panelof the Defense Science Board:

"We recognize that th is enterprise ofdomination assumes th e most diverse forms,from the most brutal to the most insidious,and that i t operates a t a l l levels; pol i t i -cal , mili tary, economic, rac ia l , ideological, and cultura l ; and we also recognizethat this undertaking is carried on with e

normous f inancial resources and with thehelp of propaganda agencies disguised ascul tural ins t i tut ions ."Imperialism seeks, by the most variedtechniques of indoctrination, to ensure so

cia l conformity and pol i t ica l passivi ty.At th e same time, a systematic effort ismade to mobilize technicians, men of science and in te l lec tuals generally in th eservice of capi ta l i s t ic and neo-colonial istin terests and purposes. Thus, talents andsk i l l s which should contribute to the taskof l iberat ion and progress become, instead,instruments for the commercialization ofvalues, th e degradation of culture, andthe maintenance of the capital is t ecoriomicand social order.

" I t is the fundamental in terest andthe imperative duty of in te l lectuals to res i s t th is aggression and to take up , without delay, th e challenge thus posed tothem. What is required of them is supportfor the struggles of national l iberat ion,social emancipation, and cultural decolonization for a l l people of Asia, Africa,and Latin America, and for the struggleagainst imperialism waged in i ts very centre by an ever greater number of black andwhite ci t izens of the United States; andto enter the poli t ical struggle againstconservative, retrograde and racis t forces,to demystify the la t te rs ' ideologies andto attack the st ructure upon which theseres t and th e in terests they serve . . .

"This commitment must begin with anunqualified re ject ion of the policy of cultural subjection to th e United States, andthis implies the refusal of a l l invi tat ions,scholarships, employment and part icipat ionin programmes of cul tural work and research,where their acceptance could entai l col laboration with this policy."3

So this is really a serious matter.I t may mean, for example, that many of uswil l no longer be able to do fieldwork a tf i r s t hand in Asian countries; partly because much of th e money that might be available to us would entangle us in im-per ia l i s t goals or networks of relationships; and part ly , of course, because mostof the money won't be offered to us whenwe begin to write about the things we see


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8 as important. Some of our work may be prevented by th e l i f t ing of passports or therefusal of visas. Nevertheless, i f ourprimary in teres ts and knowledge ~ in Asian studies, we must see how much we ~ do ,and that may be surprising; I'm looking nowa t William Hinton si t t ing in th e back rowand thinking how much humanistic and inte l-lectual work he accomplished in China - more,probably than most of the academic scholarsin this room.

I do not wish to give the impressionthat I believe we Western students of Asiashould be making Third World revolutions.I don' t think we can, or that th is is ourprimary duty. As a by-product of our work,we may sometimes be able to give limitedaid to revolutionary movements with whichwe become especially ident i f ied . I t seemsto me, however, that th e main focus must beou r own society, which is af ter a l l wherethe main trouble l i es . I t is probable, infact , that many young Asian scholars willactual ly leave Asian studies in the near future and work a t home, researching or organizing their own society. For those ofus who remain in Asian studies, perhapswe can form l inks between the inside andth e outside, between the various metropolitan countries and the vast domains of imperialism. Particularly i f we become organized, we ought to be able to put up somekind of pol i t ica l struggle fo r the in teres ts

Kathleen Gough: Co-author and editor withDavid M. Schneider of

Matril ineal Kinship, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1961. Recent ar t ic les :

"Kerala Poli t ics and th e 1965 Elect ions", Internat ional Journal ofComparative Sociology, Vol. VIII,No.1 , March 1967, pp. 56-88.

of Asian peoples, to whom we owe so much ofour knowledge. Chiefly, however, our maingoal should be to enlighten ourselves andour own countrymen about the l ives and thecontemporary struggles of Asian peoples.By doing so we shal l aid in th e change ofconsciousness of our own people and thusin the reconstruction of North America.Footnotes:lThese thoughts are explored more ful ly inth e "Social Responsibil i t ies Symposium",CurrentAnthropology, December 1968, pp .391-435. The only jus t if ication fo r summarizing them here is that they may reacha different audience.

2Defense Science Board, National Academyof Sciences. 1967. Report of the Panelon Defense Social and Behavioral Sciences.Williamstown, Mass. Quoted by Andre G.Frank in "Social Responsibi l i t ies Symposium", loco c i t . , p. 412.

3proceedings of th e Cultural Congress ofHavana, 1968. Appeal of Havana. Reprinted in Granma, January 21, 1968;quoted by A.G. Frank, loco c i t . , pp. 41213.

7 ~ * * * *"Communist Rural Councillors inKerala", Journal of Asian andAfrican Studies, Vol. I I I , Nos.3 and 4, July and October, 1968,pp. 181-202."Peasant Resistance and Revoltin South India", Pac i f ic Affairs,Vo L XLI, No.4 , Winter 1968-69,pp. 526-544."Social Change in a Kerala Village",forthcoming in K. Ishwaran, ed.,Social Change in India, ColumbiaUniversity Press.


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9

Pakistan, Economic Changeand Social ScientistsArthur MacEwen

(Revision of a speech del ivendat the CCASConference, March 28 , 1969)

Last Tuesday when a mili tary group tookover the Pakistan government, General Yahya,who then became Chief of State, gave his socalled "speech to th e nation" in English. Atthe maximum, five percent of Pakistan'speople understand English. Yet i f Yahya isl ike h is predecessor, Ayub Khan, or Pakistan'sf i r s t leader, Mr. Jinnah, he may have di f f i -culty with both Urdu and Bengali, the nationa l languages. Yahya gave the speech in Eng-l ish because he was speaking to an e l i t e ,the el i te which he considers relevant whenspeaking to th e "nation".

The gap between those who rule Pakistanand the mass of the Pakistan people is , ofcourse, not only l inguist ic and cultural . I tis a gap which is also economic and socia l .Pakistan, l ike many other poor countries, isdominated by a very r igid class structure.

Yet the fundamental issues regarding class division and class structure are generally speaking ignored by economistsstudying Pakistan. Western economists or, forthat matter, Pakistanis who have learnedeconomics in th e West, view their primaryfunction as determining technical prescriptions for economic development. Economicdevelopment, in turn, is defined simply asa rising GNP; and a rising GNP is seen asbeing in the in teres ts of the Pakistan"nation". The fact that there may be a division of in teres ts within Pakistan, a division along class l ines, is never an issuefor Western economists.

their work on Pakistan. The point theymake, however, i s that th e class divisionsin Pakistan are good, or in some senseneeded in order to bring about development. lFor them the problem of development isviewed primarily as the problem ofaccumulating capital . By direct ing a l lincrements to income into th e hands of asmall e l i t e , a relat ively high rate ofsavings will be obtained. The el i te wil lsupposedly use i ts savings to increase thequantity of productive assets , and th eeconomy wil l grow. The process, of course,yields more income inequality which, sothe argument goes, yields more growth.Social services and projects to help thepoor people are something for the futureaf te r the stage of accumulation has beenundergone.

I t turns out that two of the chiefproponents of this sort of theory are,f i rs t , the Chief Economist of the PakistanPlanning Commission, and second, thedirector of Harvard's Development AdvisoryService (which provides th e PlanningCommission with most of i ts so-calledtechnical assistance, i . e . , economistswho have been writing Pakistan's development programs for the l as t 15 years) . Intheir terms, of course, such a theory isnot a t a l l s i l ly . I f one measures progresssimply in terms of a r is ing level of average per capita income without regard tothe distr ibut ion or the content of thegoods and services that are being provided,then the theory provides a reasonably gooddescript ion of Pakistan's economic development since the advent of the Ayub Khanregime in 1958.

Actually, that l a s t statement is not What happened in the 1958-68 periodquite t rue. Some economists have given can be viewed as a resu l t of Ayub's successattent ion to class aspects of society in


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10 in bringing about a coalition of a number ofeli tes in a society which had prior to thattime been in conflict with one another. Atraditional agricultural el i te , a militaryeli te, and a relatively new industrial el i tewere brought together to provide a polit icalstabil i ty necessary for th e kind of growththat I have described.

This political consolidation andeconomic growth has taken place under thewatchful eye of the United States. Usingeconomic aid as an instrument, th e UnitedStates has encouraged the "class-divided"development of Pakistan. To consider a fewkey factors: f i r s t , a large part of the aidhas been military or related to military,and i t has served generally to strengthenthe hand of a conservative military groupin the country's affairs . Secondly, ou raid programs emphasize th e development ofthe agricultural sector, especially inareas where agriculture is dominated bylarge landholders. Furthermore, the typeof technical program we choose to supportpays off most directly for the landlords,while we place relatively l i t t le emphasison technical change through education, atype of change which wouid payoff for amuch broader group.

But, as I have said, l i t t le is beingdone in Pakistan which benefits the ' ~ r o a d e rgroup." While the policies of the Pakistangovernment have raised GNP significantlyover th e las t 10 years, the lo t of poorpeople has no t changed. One recent studyindicates that in East Pakistan the standardof living of rural laborers has no t changedsince the early f i f t ies . Another studyshows that there has been no increase in thereal wages of industrial laborers. 2There is , of course, nothing unusual in

development being accompanied by a highlyunequal distribution of income. Within th econtext of capitalist development i t is hardto see what other options there are. Undersuch circumstances income must be channeledinto the hands of an el i te ; for howeverwell or badly i t does, there is no one elseto lead development. That is to say,capitalist development is capita l is tdevelopment.

Capitalist development, with i t s greatinequities, is , of course, no t the only way.There is an alternative. The prerequisiteto that alternative is that power be takenby the workers and peasants of Pakistan.Revolutionand the creation of s o c i a ~ i s min Pakistan and other very poor countrieswould certainly lead to a vast redistr ibution of income. The redistribution ofincome, in i tse lf , however, would no t makepeople much better off . The most impor-tant role of income equality in social is tdevelopment is as an incentive. Onlythrough equality will the mass of peoplefeel, and rightly so, that their interestsare the interests of th e s tate . Thepriorit ies of a social is t Pakistan wouldbe very different from what they are today;for example, education, health, publictransportation, would be of highimportance. When th e people receive thebenefits of development through these sortsof projects, they will want to participate,to work harder. Thus social is t developmentwould not only be more humane, but i t wouldalso be more successful.

In the context of this vision of asocial is t path for developing countries,do think social scientists can performsome useful functions. However, i t isquite clear that these functions arelimited. There is a revolution to be made,and i t will be made by th e people ofPakistan. I f we can take an optimisticview of the past year's turmoil in Pakistan,i t would seem that a movement is alreadydeveloping.

The problem is , how can socialscientists who are interested in poorcountries service this movement? Firs t , wehave a job of education to do here in theUnited States. I have not said much aboutAmerican imperialism, but we all know thatfighting here in th e United States againstimperialism is one way to help poorcountries break their yoke of underdevelopment. Social scientists , by presentingthe people of this country with informationand analysis of events in poor countries,can help build an anti-imperialist move-ment in th e United States. Our experiencein and knowledge of poor countries wouldseem to make us especially useful in thisrespect.

I


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Secondly, I think to a somewhat lesserextent we can perform a similar functionvis-a-vis th e revolutionary movements inth e poor countries. ~ I o s t intellectuals in acountry like Pakistan are removed fromrevolutionary activity by th e combination ofrepression and coopt ion, and support of themby outsiders like ourselves may be especiallyneeded. While intellectuals will never bethe core of a revolutionary movement, ouranalysis can be of some use. For example,economists can expose the development programs of Pakistan fo r what they are, i. e. ,a cover for th e continued dominance by asmall eli te.

The third aspect of the socialscientis ts ' role stems from what is , for me,an essential feature of any radicalanalysis. A radical analysis of a societydepends upon posing basically differentalternatives. For example, we can only seewhat is really wrong with Pakistan'sdevelopment programs i f we examine them inth e light of the socialist alternative.

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furthermore, developing a clear picture ofth e social is t alternative helps people towork toward that alternative. Socialscientists can help a revolutionary movement figure ou t where i t is going.Finally, and perhaps most importantly,social scientists must no t think that theironly role is a professional one. We canno t just provide service to a revolutionarymovement. We must be part of i t .

Footnotes:ISee ~ l a h b u b ul I1aq The Strategy of EconomicPlanning, and Gustav Papanek Pakistan'sDevelopment.2See S.R. Bose, '7rend of Real Income of theRural Poor in East Pakistan, 1949-66--AnIndirect Estimate," Pakistan DevelopmentReview, 1968; and A.R. Khan, "What has beenhappening to real wages in Pakistan?"Pakistan Development Review, 1967.


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The AsianScholar and the American Crisis Noam Chomsky (Revision of a speech del ivered a t theCCAS Conference, March 29 , 1969)

I don ' t know anything a t a l l aboutth e early backgrounds of American Asianscholarship, but I would guess tha t i tgrew to some extent out of the Missionaryt rad i t ion . I f tha t ' s t rue , I think thebest advice for Asian scholars today isperhaps to go back to thei r roots , an dbecome missionaries to the people tha t r ea l -ly can us e i t , and you know which ones Imean. I f there was ever a society thatneeded to be civi l ized and brought the "val ue s of Chris t iani ty," to have a cul tural re -volution carried out, this is i t . I thinki t ' s very important that some of the speakers in th is meeting have looked a t problemsof Asia as a ref lect ion of , or a t leas t inre la t ion to domestic American problems. Myown cursory acquaintance; with the f ie ld ofAsian scholarship. indicates tha t tha t ' ssomething of a n o v e l t y ~ There is an obvious ideological element in the fa i lure toview Asian problems in thei r in teract ionwith domestic American i ssues. This relatesto one aspect of what one might well ca l lthe American c r i s i s , i t s ideological aspect ,which in part involves a bel i e f tha t our pol icy with respect to the res t of the worldis purely react ive . We're the."guardian ofth e gates" where the gates tend; to get far ther and far ther away every decade or so. Weare protect ing somebody from something what i t is changes from time to time. Weare defending or extending what we represent ,namely, l iber ty and jus t ice and free opportuni ty for people who for one reason or another have not been able to acquire thesebenef i t s . This bel ief in American innocencecombines with something else, namely a t re-mendous fear , often unfocused, but nevertheless a rea l fear of the th i rd world, a fearwhich to some extent borders on paranoia,

and which now supports what ha s become avi r tua l declarat ion of war by the UnitedStates against the third world.

This combination of fear and bel i e f ininnocence is obviously very dangerous. I t ' seasy to i l lu s t r a te ; I'm not going to try todocument i t a t any great length. I thinkthe fear has been perfect ly well expressedby a man whom people tend to scoff a t , a l -though he real ly is in many ways a man ofthe people, namely Lyndon Johnson, in anynumber of very quotable statements whichhe 's made over th e years. When he said,years ago, tha t "without superior a ir powerAmerica is a bound an d throt t led giant ; impotent an d easy prey to any yellow dwarfwith a pocket knife", and when he says tha tthere are only 200,000,000 of us, and 3bi l l ion of them and they're going to takewhat we have and so on and so forth - he'sexpress in g feel ings \"'hich are very widespread and deep-seated. I t is wrong tolaugh a t such statements. I t makes no moresense to laugh a t tha t aspect of real i tythan i t did to laugh a t the fear of the people of Germany 30 years ago, tha t SOme Jewish-Bolshevik-Capital ist , etc. conspiracywas threatening to destroy the center ofEuropean c iv i l i za t ion . When a great powerwith enormous resources is overcome by thiskind of psychosis, i t is no time to laugh,i t ' s a time to do something else.

The bel ie f in American innocence isequally easy to document . . Well, l e t mejus t mention one example. In the l a s t fewdays, I 've been looking a t some of the ar t i -cles that were published r ight af t e r theSecond World War, one of them in part icularby A.A. Herle, which he describes whathe thinks American policy toward Asia shouldbe. He suggests that ou r policy should beone of uni lateral American intervention tosafeguard what he ca l l s the r ights of peo


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13 ples, this being a new era in world history_I t used to be that nations were only con-cerned with th e rights of nations, but nowwe've r isen to a new level of civil izationand we're concerned with the rights of peo-ples ;and since obviously the UN i sn ' t so-phisticated enough and not advanced enoughculturally to be able to deal with therights of peoples, then the United Statesis going to have to do i t unilateral ly. Hesuggests two part icular countries where weought to do this , namely Greece and Iran.This was 1947; and of course we've beencarefully looking af ter the rights of peo-ple in those two countries and many othersever since then.

This combination of fear and belief ininnocence is hardly unique. I t ' s the kindof sickness that can be dealt with and per-haps cured only by a very strong dose ofreali ty , and the people who should adminis-ter i t are people who know something aboutthe matter; people l ike you, that is . Inyour capacity as Asian scholars, there isnothing more important that you can do thanto administer this dose of real i ty. One'sl i fe as an Asian Scholar does not of courseexhaust one's l i fe - there are many otherkinds of pol i t ica l activism that one oughtto be engaged in these days. But in one'sspecific capacity as an Asian scholar, anykind of scholar, I think there is nothingmore important than to do work that is ser-ious, objective, and free from dogma, workthat will therefore be more sympathetic,more radical, more fraternal in i ts rela-t ion to the strivings of masses of peoplethroughout the world. And to do this workin a form which is on th e one hand persua-sive within the profession, and on the oth-er hand meets the needs of people who don'twant to bother with a ll th e footnotes, butjus t want to know the main gi s t of thingsand to get a picture of what the world isreally l ike - - even i f various professorsa t Harvard feel that this understates thecomplexity of the s i tuat ion. I t is truethat the world is more complex than any de-scription of i t . One need not, however, beparalyzed by this real izat ion.

think one .shouldn't underemphasize.the effect that serious academic scholar-ship might possibly have. I t ' s interestingto think back over the impact of reinter-

pretations of the cold war over the lastfew years. There are real ly a very smallnumber of people who have been involvedin revis ionis t history. But within a briespace of time, this has become such a sig-nif icant intel lectual force that nobodycan fa i l to pay attention to i t , and Ithink almost any college student todaywould take for granted things which wereregarded as rather scandalous jus t a few

y e a r ~ ago. This understanding graduallyextends into the mass media and into th eschools. This change of att i tude has comeabout in part because there is a studentmovement. I f there hadn't been some po-l i t i ca l movement doing a l l sorts of thingson the side, then the scholarly works ofreinterpretation would have remained inth e obscurity to which they were consignedin earl ier years. Nevertheless there isan interplay, and these two factors - th edevelopment of a poli t ical movement andthe development of serious work which, ina sense, gives a framework within whichth e pol i t ica l movement works - this inter-play is very valuable and ought to contin-ue. Neither can take place successfullywithout the other.

A second example which is even morepertinent today, I think, concerns the verinteresting developments in the scientif iccommunity, beginning with technical mat-ters l ike the ABM. I think the debate oveth e ABM has been a real awakening for a loof scientists . I t ' s been assumed for along time that the government makes mis-takes because i t gets bad advice, and i fonly i t got good advice, obviously i t wouldo the r ight thing - because i t ' s a government by the people, for the people, and soon. Now, the ABM is a very clear test cas.of this hypothesis. I 've rarely seen as i tuat ion in which scientists were so uni-fied on a technical issue - on th e issuefo whether the thing will work or whetheri t wil l defend you against anyone, orwhether th e computer system will function,and so on. Here is a group of people whocan real ly tes t th e proposition that thegovernment is simply waiting for good ad-vice, and you can see what's h a p p e n ~ n g .think there is an awareness developing thathe ABM program is a case of a conclusionin search of an argument, and that th e government and i ts corporate affi l ia tes are

I I


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14

searching unti l they've got an argumentthat can be used to befuddle or obfuscate.All of this is leading to a good deal ofcynicism, and tha t ' s important, I think.For example, the cynicism was revealed atan ABM ra l ly the other day a t MIT when onetheoretical physicist made a ra ther cons tructive suggestion: he suggested thatra ther than using radioactive materials which conceivably might be useful for something - in the nose cones, we should f i l lthem with cheese so that we ca n deal withexcess farm production while we're also

Middle East , to any place that wasn't already preempted by our somewhat weaker andless imaginative colleagues in the Kremlin.Secondly, the World War taught a very important lesson in economics, which is having a great impact on domestic American so ciety. Until the Second World War we hadnot real ly succeeded in escaping from th eDepression - in 1939 there were 9 millionunemployed. The Second World War showedthat a highly mobilized society, with subs t an t i a l government interveution in th e economy to induce production, could succeed,giving a subsidy to the electronics industry. a t leas t for some space of time, in over-

Now I think that this is having an effectin th e scientif ic community. I think i t ' sleading to a more accurate understanding ofthe way poli t ics really works, of how important decisions are made, and tha t ' s important.

Now I think in the f ield of AsianScholarship there are similar opportunit ies for Americansto understand what hasbeen the impact of the United States on ,l e t ' s say, th e peasants of the Phil ippineIslands, and to understand what"danger" th e peasants of the Phil ippineIslands pose to us. This is something thatca n be brought to people, and i f done seriously and persuasively, i t ca n perhaps affect the dual problem of fear of the thirdworld and belief in American innocence.

I 've been talking about an ideologicalcomponent in the general system of repression and destruction and waste which iswhat the United States is coming to standfor in the world. Just to look back a l i t b i t on recent his tory, the Second WorldWar was very cr i t i ca l in the developmentof this system in a number of ways which, Ithink, are very relevant to our presentsi tuat ion. For one thing, every industr ialpower in the world was wiped out or ser i ously damaged by th e Second World War, except for us. We came out with our industr i a l production quadrupled. We could not res i s t the temptation to use this fantasticpower to construct and organize a world system of stable states (I think Mr. Huntington would cal l i t ) , an American worldpire as it might be called in more objectivelanguage. This meant that we extended ourt radi t ional domains - Latin-America, partsof the Pacific - to Southeast Asia, to the

coming the very serious problems of the1930's , and i t taught this lesson to precisely the people who could benefit fromi t : the corporate executives, for example,who came to Washington and discovered thatcentralized social management was a prettygood thing; you could use i t for your owninteres ts .

I think that lesson has been well ab sorbed, and i t ' s now taken granted thatthere has to be substantial government intervention in the economy and a high degree of central izat ion and planning. Nowany economist, any graduate student in economics, ca n design very useful ways inwhich the government might use public fundsto improve the society: build a mass transportation system, low cost public housingand a ll sorts of things. But th e troubleis that there are a few constraints withinwhich this system has to function. For onething, government-induced production hasto be non-competitive with the private empires that fundamentally determine publicpolicy. This excludes a number of poss ib i l i t i es . For example, i t excludes ara t ional mass transportation system precisely because of i t s ra t ional i ty , whichwould obviously very seriously damage th eautomobile and s teel industry, the o il industry, and so on. And, secondly, the publ ic subsidy has to be acceptable to thepublic; that is , people have to be willingto have a big chunk of their earnings takenaway to subsidize some part of the industr ia l system. Now i f you combine these conditions - - non-competitiveness, fast-wasting end products, rapid obsolescence asone condit ion, and acceptability to thepublic as a second condi t ion- - there really aren ' t too many poss ibi l i t ies l e f t that


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15 meet these conditions. One thing that meetsthem, of course, is war expenditures. I t ' sno t competitive, there 's always more andmore of i t , i t ' s wasted very fast , i t doesn ' t produce more capi tal and so on, andcond1y i t ' s acceptable to people as long asthey l ive in fear, and believe that we needthis vast expenditure in order to keep theVietcong from stealing our television sets ,or whatever i t is .

Objective scholarship can str ike a tone pil lar of this whole system, namely inthe matter of acceptabili ty. If you caneliminate the paranoid fear and th e beliefin th e benevolence of our objectives and act ions, then the psychological support forvast expenditures for arms disappears, andI think i t might be very hard to sustaini f this element disappears. Now i f that expenditure for arms is hard to sustain, th eeffects on the economy and our society maybe profound.- But in any event, this is away in which I think something as simple asobjective scholarship might turn out to be,i f you l ike, rather subversive - that i s ,it might affect the whole comple.x system ofideological controls and bel iefs that maintains repression on an international scale.

There is a second respect in which Ithink objective scholarship can be extremely important poli t ical ly and in a'lsensesomewhat "subversive," and that is that i tcan serve to demystify the system. The Civics course that you study in the 8th gradete l ls you that the poli t idal inst i tut ionsact the way the people t e l l them to, andthat th e economy is under the control ofconsumer sovereignty . . . you know, you payyour dollars which are your votes and thatdetermines the way the system functions.This description is a kind of mystification.The pol i t ica l inst i tut ions are quite unresponsive to popular demands: in the area offoreign policy, almost total ly so.

Furthermore, even i f th e economic inst i tut ions were responsive to consumersovereignty, that wouldn't be much help inthis stage of th e development of an indust r ia l system. There are basic needs thatsimply can ' t be expressed in market. terms,like th e collective need for a mass t ransportation system. You can ' t deCide, in themarket, whether to spend your $3,000 on a

Chevrolet or a public t ~ a n s p o r t a t i o n system. There are certain needs - and theyhappen to be th e oneS that are probablyth e most crucial ones for us today that belong in another domain: they involve pol i t ical organization; they involve co11eotive expression of needs thatdon't fal l into a market system, and that 'sa very serious part of th e American cr is i s ,no doubt. But I think that i t is veryhard to unlearn the lesson of the 8th gradecivics course. I t is easy to believe because most of the people who believe i tare gett ing a good deal from th e system,and are, or can hope to be participantsin the culture and the economy of affluence.But th e things that are happeningnow are beginning to demystify the system,to show how pol i t ica l inst i tut ions actually function, and to reveal the inadequacies of the "model of affluence."For example I think there are many scient i s t s who are more aware than they were.a few weeks ago of the extent to which certa in private interests determine publicpolicy. Or consider th e "credibil i ty gap"- the exposure to which to a large extentwe owe to people in th e Asian scholarlyfield, for example Franz Schurmann's work

on th e work of poli t ics of escalation.This again has served to show that farfrom i t being the case that th e governmentis th e representative of th e people, rather i t ' s more accurate to say, in many respects, that th e government is th e enemyof th e people - particularly the executivebranch of the government which is definitely, in large areas of i t s functioning, simply an enemy of the American people as i t ' san enemy of the human race. You find recognition of this , incidentally, in thetreatment that Congressmen have been giving to representatives of the Pentagon inth e las t few days, and in the general feeling of scepticism and cynicism that appearin very large parts of the population.I think, as compared with a couple ofyears ago, the att i tude of very large segments of the American people toward thegovernment today is probably rather l ikethat of a moderately sophisticated Russians

to their government; that is , you assumethat i t ' s lying, you assume that i t ' s doingsomething behind the scenes that i t ' s not


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16 tel l ing you about, that i t ' s probably acting counter to your in terests , and alsothat there 's not very much you can do abouti t . And to a large extent this is accurate.But I think that the fact that the percept ion has developed, and i t was untrue acouple of years ago, again is a step forward.

Correlated with this - and again veryrelevant to the Asian f ield - is a kind ofdemystification of expert ise. The mosteffect ive way in which in tel lectuals havehelped to support our global system of repression is by giving i t a certain immunityfrom crit icism by investing policy with theaura of science. Here too, I think i t ' svery important to point out what a thincoating a l l of this is , to expose what really is the relat ionship between policy decisions and anything that 's known about internat ional af fa i r s or pol i t ica l structuresor th e particular societies that are beingmanaged and controlled - "modernized", touse th e technical euphemism. I think manypeople tend to assume that the governmentturns to the expert to find out what i tought to do . This is a natural assumption,yet when you look at the way things actually work, you get a different picture.There's a very small number of people whocome from corporations, law firms, investment firms, foundations, and so onand soforth, who set policy and call. upon expertsto bols ter i t . Those who object to thesepolicies stop being "experts."

Perhaps the most striking case is someone l ike George Kennan, who in 1947 part i cipated in the writing of the famous Mr. Xdocument, and at that point of course, hewas a very hard-headed, rea l i s t ic , toughminded expert because he said we ought to 'contain the Soviet Union. When a few yearsla ter , Kennan s tar ted making speeces abouthow the Soviet Union i sn ' t l ikely to attackthe West, about how they share civi l izedvalues and exhibit certain human t r a i t s ,etc . , - well , you know how long George Kennan stayed in the State Department. Infact, when he started talking l ike that , hebecame an irresponsible mystic. Dean Acheson said that Mr. Kennan is a mystic whonever real ly understood the rea l i t ies ofpower. Well, he understood the rea l i t iesof power in 1947 and he failed to understand

them in 1950, and I think this fa l l from.grace is traceable to the difference inwhat he was pr'oposing or at leas t was understood to be proposing at those two times.

Again, I think such demystification of expertise can real ly be carried out most effectively by th e experts themselves. T h i ~ r ~ n be a verv important and a very effective way of bringing further insight into the functioning of our pol i t ica l system.

When one is talking about the American cr is is , th e things I 've been mentioning are rather superficial - they are not the heart of the American cr is i s in any sense. I don't think there is any way to escape the fact that this is a cr is i s of Capitalism that is profound. The fact of the matter is that a system of production fo r profit , a system in which, as was described th is morning, a human being is regarded as an instrument of production or is regarded as economic man who t r ies to maximize his own material se l f - interes t independently of i ts effect on anyone else - such a system is a kind of barbarism. That part icula r kind of barbarism may have been usefulfor developing an industr ia l system a hundred years ago, but i t jus t doesn't f i twith the present day. Today i t leads toacts of barbarism l ike the Vietnam war,l ike the ABM and th e arms race and theultimate catastrophe which will certainlycome i f we continue in this direct ion.This is a very deep cr i s i s . I t ' s not thekind of cr is i s tha t ' s going to be met byshowing why George Kennan became an i r responsible mystic, or by explaining thatthe peasants in th e Philippines don'tthreaten us. I think the cr is i s has tobe met by very signif icant and far-reachingchanges in our society, ultimately changesthat succeed in bringing social inst i tut ionpol i t ica l ins t i t ions , economic inst i tut ionsthe whole commercial and industrial systemunder direct popular control. I think wehave th e level of technology, the level oftechnical sk i l l and scientif ic culture tomake that a very feasible prospect. Atleas t one can think about i t , and think ofways of moving towards i t .

Now, Asian scholars are not going tocarry out th is change, and there's no pointpretending that they are. Asian scho1ar


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ship is not going to bring th e commercialand industrial system under popular control,but a t least i t can make a very serious con-tr ibution, not only in th e direct ways thatI 've been talking about, but also by theside effects, by the fact that success inturning one area of ttl.inking and involve-ment and action towards rationali ty and sympathy and fraternal understanding for humanproblems, can affect other areas. And infact in almost every profession today there 'ssomething analogous to th is . For example a tMIT last Saturday, there was a meeting glow-ing out of the March 4 Research Strike, inwhich over 100 scien t is ts , quite a number ofthem senior faculty, came and undertook acommitment not only to come to meetings andpay their dues, but to work intensively onprojects which are related to the questionof how science is subverted by the demandsof the arms race, and the demands of wasteand destruction and repression in general.I think this is a paral le l to developmentthat have taken place here. Now i f a l l ofthese developments in many fields ca n becomeorganized, can become coordinated, can be-come unified; i f they can, and this is evenmore Utopian, perhaps, i f they can becomepart of an organized mass polit ics thatgoes well beyond the professions and the U-

niversit ies , and which - i f in factSUccessful - will submerge these develop-ments within i t as ought to happen; i fa vast cooperative enterprise of thatkind can take place at many levels ofaction and thinking, then i t may be con-ceivable that.we will be able to face, ina serious way, those problems of our so-ciety which are profound and severe, pro-blems that ultimately require a true so-cial revolution which will significantlymodify social relat ions , relations ofproduction, human relations, . the charac-ter of ou r culture I t ' s not ruled outthat such a development might take place.I think i t ' s fa i r to sa y that this is avery Utopian, unrealis t ic vision, but"real ism"doesn ' t look very attractive atth e moment. The "realist ic" vision, Ithink, is one of barbarism a t a culturallevel, with the consequences that we see:turning Vietnam into a moonscape, and to-morrow the same thing in some other partof the world, and ultimately somethingparallel in the United States as well. Inth e face of these alternatives, th e onlysensible, the only real is t ic thing is tobe a Utopian.


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18

Me C'arran's Legacy:TheAssoe iation for Asian StudiesRichard Kagan(Revision of a speech delivered a t the AASConference, March 29 , 1969)

The MCCarran Hearings in i ts attacks onthe Ins t i tu te of Pacific Relations (1951-52)destroyed the major professional organizat ion concerned with contemporary Asian studies . The reaction to this event by the inst i tut ional successor to the I.P.R. - theAssociation for Asian Studies - ha s been towithdraw from any poli t ical ly sensit ivescholarship or action. Holden Furber, the1968-69 president of th e AAS, just i f ies thisposition by the questionable claim that:"To take up matters of poli t ical c o n s i d e r a ~tion would mean we would cease to be a scholarly organization, to say nothing of compromising our consti tution and tax-exemptstatus."l The Association's conservativeinterpretat ion of the law and i ts educational policies definitely express a poli t icalpoint of view - one which clearly ref lectsthe fears of the f i f t i es rather Jhan th eneeds of th e seventies; one whicllidentifieswith and seeks protection from the most conservative elements in our society . wheneverone suggests that the Association poll i ts .members on their Vietnam views, disctiss th ethreats to academic. freedom in Asia or inAmerica, th e Association's policy posit ionis that i t must stay neutt.al in order to ..forestal l a loss of t a x - e x e m p t i o ~ (The IPR.supposedly lost i t s exempt status ' because. 'of i t s "involvement" in issues). TheAAS willnot repeat the mistake. By raising th espector of the McCarran Hearings and theiraftermath, t.he AAS has by default accep.tedMCCarran's and E a s t 1 a ~ d ' s verdict against theIPR and has incorporated i t into their ownposture. Essential ly, the AAS's interpretation of th e IPR experience has created a t i -mid poli t ical position which is maintained by

the assumption that any engagement in areas not purely scholarly wil l automatically resul t in a successful Internal RevenueService attack.

The purpose of the following discussion is to in i t ia te an investigation of the legacy of MCCarthyism on our f ield . We wil l f i r s t give an example of another inst i tut ion which was attacked a t th e same time but successfully fought back; a brief history of the tax-exempt ruling and i t s application'; and an attempt to place our reactions within the larger scheme of American history.

When we examine th e record, we immediately real ize that the IPR's financial destruct ion was. a fact . Before the MCCal:'ran Investigations in 1951, the Inst i tu te ' s average yearly income was approximately $100,000. This was mainly derived from .foundat ion grants. ' In 1951,during the f i r s t year of the Hearings, grants made up just $ 3 0 , 0 0 0 ~ In 1953, the year after the Hearings, no grants were forthcoming. Thefinal blow oC.cUrred in 1955 when Senator. Eastland requested T. Coleman Andrews,COIDlIiissioner of Internal Revenue, to withdraw the Ins t i tu te ' s t a x ~ e x e m p t status. 2The principal. consequences of this reclassification for the IPR were to curtai l i ts reso'urcesand scope of ac t iv i t ies . The ins t i tu te was fotced to se l l parts of i ts 1ibrary to handle court and other costs. In1960,theAmerican Council and th e editoria1 ' s t a f fo f Pacific Affairs were transferred

.,j " .to Va:ncouver, Brit ish Columbia, where they are .now under the supervision of Professor William Holland. All international act i-vi t ies were abandoned and have never been ehabil i tated, such as conferences which"were devoted exclusively to th e discussionof policy problems concerning the Pacific
http:///reader/full/neutt.alhttp:///reader/full/neutt.al


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Area.,,3The AAS has concluded from a l l thisthat any foray into policy or poli t ical problems will bring down the axe, and thus i t

has withdrawn from public expressions onpolicy. However, th e logic of th e legacy ofthe IPR's troubles as argued by the Association can be challenged by his tor ica l analogy and legal precedent.The history of the Fund for the Republ ic poses a constructive and possible al-ternative to take in face of Congressionalattack. The Fund for the Republic was conceived and financed by the Ford Foundation.That Foundation in 1949 produced a study ofhow a tax-exempt organization could best actin th e "volat i le areas of civi l r ights and

civi l l ibert ies." The report , enti t led th eGathier Report, responded to the investigative act ivi t ies of the House Un-AmericanActivities Committee by recommending an ex amination of "certain aspects of 'un-Americanact ivi t ies ' investigation." The Report added , "A foundation may enter controversialareas boldly and with courage as long asi t . . . aids only those persons and agenciesmotivated by unselfish concern for the publ ic good.,,4 One resul t was that the FordFoundation established the Fund with resources of $15,000,000, designed solely to bedevoted toward th e protection and maintenanceof civi l l ibert ies. The Fund was incorporate d in New York in December 1952, six monthsafter the end of the McCarran Hearings.

The Fund's lawyers taking cognizance ofthe fate of th e IPR, observed:Applying the lessons of the abovecases to the Fund for the Republic,Inc., we take i t to be clear thatthe Fund is free to engage in part isan advocacy for th e principlesof th e Constitution of th e UnitedStates and the Declaration of Independence. 5

Three years la te r , 1955, th e same yearthat th e IPR's tax-exemption was withdrawn,th e IRS along with HUAC investigated the Fundfor the Republic. As in the case of th e IPR,the charges against the Fund involved "but afraction of a per cent of th e foundation'senergies and appropriations."6 The Fund

19

launched an intensive counter-attack _st i rr ing up affirmative public opinion, anpol i t ica l leaders. Men such as SenatorsJohn F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey wereoverwhelmingly affirmative in their response to the Fund; Today th e Fund s t i l lexists and functions under th e new name ofCenter for the Study of Democratic Inst i tut ions. In the winter of 1969, i t held aConference on China to which Japanese andAmerican pol i t ica l leaders and scholarswere invited.

The AAS stand not only has turned i tsback on the lessons of th e Fund thereby l imiting i ts own actions, but by a confinedinterpretation of th e law regarding taxexempt groups has further placed i t se l finto a poli t ical ly uncri t ical posit ion.The intent of the 1934 amendment to th e tacode was to exempt groups which promotedthe public interest . Only i f the IRS coulprove that selfish gain was the goal of anorganization could i t revoke tax-exemptionThe amendment was "intended to encourageprivate groups to act as partners of government in solving public problems. ''7In contradiction to the intent of the law,the IRS has become a poli t ical weapon inth e hands of witch-hunting reactionariesand conservatives.

Since the AAS has accepted the Eastlaninterpretation of th e law on tax-exemptionit has abdiGated some of i ts integrity educationally and morally. Whereas otherprofessional scholarly groups at least allow their Executive Secretary to regis teras a lobbyist i f and when deSirable, thisoption is not even open for discussion inthe AAS.8 Both professional and clearlyconservative organizations such as th e Ameican Bar Association, the American MedicalAssociation, and th e American Rifle Association, as well as groups dedicated to socichange such as th e Southern Christ.lan Leadship Conference which sponsored the PoorPeople's Campaign, engage in various formsof lobbying and pub 1 ic ac t ion without losing their tax exemption. Retention or revocation of this status is contingent notonly upon th e poli t ical climate of our nat ion, but equally upon th e strength withwhich other tax-exempt groups exercise theoriginal intent qf the law.


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How can we ensure our r ight engagein action for the public interest and s t i l lremain tax-exempt? One way is to take anactive interest in restoring the 1934 amendmentto i t s original purpose. The lead hasbeen taken by the Second Circui t Court ofNew York which has ruled that i f lobbying"'was not intended for the aggrandizement ofa particular "group' and served 'no self ishpurpose of the . . profession, " ' then the profession could retain i ts tax exemption. 9While other organizations (like th e SierraClub ) are threatened by a loss of tax-exempt status, wi l l the AAS stand up on behalf of the principle i n v o l v e d ~ : will i tf i le friend-of-the-court briefs? write tothe Treasury Department? inquire into th escope of act ivi t ies which our profession ca npursue? or will i t remain in an immobilizedsilence generated by i ts response to McCarthy?What is needed is a thorough investigationof the nature and use of th e Association modeled perhaps on the Gathier Report which would remove the aura of mystificationfrom the IPR legacy and le t us DECIDE to actor not to act in a courageous and well-thoughtout manner. We ca n make both history andlaw - we are not their defenseless victims.

The China field is not unique. American l iberals and intel lectuals in a l l disciplines have been severely affected by theperiod of th e McCarran Hearings and th e subsequent attacks by Mc Carthy. I t is crucial,therefore, that we become more aware of ou rown American heri tage, and how our f ield andresearch direct ly reflect the American experience. We must investigate our identi t iesas American scholars concerned about Asiaand th e basis of our thinking and att i tudes.I would here just l ike to suggest two reactions to th e 1950's which have been sharedby both l iberals and many China scholars.

The f i r s t was to eschew involvement in public act ivi t ies. The scholar 's public service role was re-defined, re-oriented, from one of instruction at large to that of the expert and social technician. The professional 's conscience, which formerly united social and professional concerns,was sp l i t apart: social or moral concerns too openly expressed reaped dangerous consequences and had to be excluded from professional act ivi t ies. One indication of th is withdrawal from public exposure can be seen in the

authorship of book reviews in popular newspapers before and af ter 1951. In the years1945 through 1950, twenty-two reviews outof thir ty contributed to the New York Timeswere by writers who had been attacked byth e China Lobby. The number for the HeraldTribune in th e same period was sl ightlyhigher. During 1952-1956 no reviews by anyof the iHove writers were published by thesepapers. The scholars had withdrawn intothe refuge of individual consultation withhigh government off ic ia ls or into silence.Another more recent indication of the effects is in the area of high school textbooks. Of the ten major and most widelyused school books on China, a ll of whichwere written since 1955, only one was written by a China scholar, two by Japan scholars, and the re s t by professional writers.These books express the fears of the f i f-t ies , not th e analysis of the s ixt ies . Theycater to th e public image of China that wasformed by th e China Lobby and by ou r StateDepartment .11

The "withdrawal of th e scholars was anact of self-defense. The McCarran Hearingsand McCarthy's attacks were aimed at th el iberals who appeared able to influence bothgovernment policy and public opinion. Congressional investigations provided a t remendous supply of hearsay for right-wingand poli t ical ly opportunistic groups to attack the scholars. Consequently in faceof Congressional and pressure groups' a ttacks, the l iberals and China scholars chosenot to expose themselves any further to thepublic a t large. In making this choice,however, th e scholar abnegated a s ignif i cant part of his educational role and succumbed to McCarran' s prescription for him

The second complementary strand of reaction to McCarthyism was the strengtheningof th e e l i t i s t characterist ics of scholarsby their withdrawal from public service.The intel lectual 's reaction to the McCarthyperiod ha s been bri l l iant ly analyzed byMichael Paul Rogin in his study, The Intellectuals and McCarthy: th e Radical Specter . One of his theses is that the l iberalsventured into "conservative pol i t ica l theory" where stabi l i ty was th e key word, whereth e focus was on the role of rational responsible poli t ical leadership, and where thmain fear was radicalism of th e masses.


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This view nourished an e l i t i s t outgrowth thathas been shared by China scholars. The harvest has brought in a predilection for working with or for the government, expressingsuspicion and antagonism to any movement fromth e bottom, and believing in the power of"inst i tut ions to check and control human beings." "The eli t ism which once glorif ied intel lectuals as a revolutionary avant gardenow glor if ies them as experts and social technicians" committed to improving th e statusquo. 12 In sum, th e MeCarran-McCarthy legacyhas been to increase a t radi t ional orientationto el i te pol i t ics .

How does this relate to us in terms ofaction?At the very least we should re-considerour relation to the American public and'ournotion of what th e public interest i s . Inbrief , this could engage us in th e following

programs: We could keep the profess'lon andthe public informed on new State Departmentappointments and act ivi t ies with regard toAsia. We could organize parts of our conventions around cr i t ical topics of current importance and invite Asian scholars includingthose from North Vietnam, North Korea, OuterMongolia, China, etc. We could take a closerlook a t the welfare - physical , psychological,and pol i t ica l - of the Asian students in A-merica. We could create a committee to investigate threats to academic freedom in theAsian field - a t home and abroad. We could review a l l high school materials on Asia, andactively promote curriculum development. Wemight investigate how Asian studies is taughtat our military academies and governmentschools. We could cal l for an investigationof poli t ically sensit ive issues l ike the opiumtrade in Asia, or the suppression of Ross Koen's book. And finally we could create formsof pol i t ica l and professional sol idari ty: topublicize and support case.swhere the pol i t i -cal and civi l rights of a professor are jeopardized.

Within the context of a more his tor ica lperspective of our own role as scholars, anda more thorough study of our legal rights within a tax-exempt framework, we can re-orientth e AAS away from the h ~ r e t o f o r e unchallengedlegacy of th e MeCarran Hearings and allow fora richer and more vi t a l interpretation of ou rpast and a challenging and dynamic future.

McCarthyism is not an aiien force impinging on our work. The seeds of Me-Carthyism are 'within us. We must refuseto propagate and nourish them.FootnoteslQuoted from an interview in Newsweek, Apr i l 14, 1969, p. 74 . Professor Furber hasexpressed these opinions before, but admits that he neither knows th e law involved or who gave th e AAS such legal advice. One former president of th e associat ion told me that Jonathan Bingham, aNew York lawyer and poli t ician, had beenthe Associations' legal council. I havenot yet been able to confirm thiS, andwould appreciate any information regarding this .

2Many years la ter , the,'IPR won back i tsexemption, but t h e , d a ~ a g ~ was already ac comp1is hed . ' .",

-:-Ift ' - , .' :..

3Jane t Wyzanski, "The,. ~ ; a . . R e a r i n g s : A CaseStudy in M c C a r t h y i s m , ~ t A . ; l t ~ ,Thesis, Harvard U n i v ~ r s i t y "Marcll15, 1962.. . -.

4For


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You See?' Ideological Blinders on Second-ary School Units on C1:lina," in the anti-text series of Pantheon Press. This bookwill be on radical approaches to AsianScholarship and will be edited by MArkSelden and Ed Friedman.

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l2Christopher Lasch, "The Cultural ColdWar: A Short History of the Congressfor Cultural Freedom," Barton J . Bern-stein, ed . Towards a New Past, (Pan-theon, 1968) p. 338.


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McCarthyism and our Asia Policy O. Edmund Clubb

(Abridgment of a speech delivered at theAAS Conference, March 29, 1969)

Speaking in New York on March 20 ofthis year, Senator Javits referred to "thelingering pall of McCarthyism, which continues subtly to inhibit thought and debatein this country concerning China."lMcCarthyism, by my thesis, played a significant role in molding both our China policyin particular and our Asia policy in general,and in keeping i t in that form through theinhibition of the normal functioning of thegovernment's policy-making apparatus.

McCarthyism was oriented naturally inlarge measure to the "China Question."After World War II ended, when civi l war wasbeginning between the Nationalists andCommunists in China, Patrick J . Hurley resigned as ambassador to China and advancedonto the American polit ical stage with shotgun charges that "pro-Communists" and "proimperialists" in the State Department hadundercut his policies. By equatingdifferences of opinion and judgment with"pro-CommunismJl (or "pro-imperialism"),General Hurley sowed dragon's teeth for theMcCarthyites' subsequent destructive crusadeagainst the so-called "Communist conspiracy"in the State Department.

In 1949 th e Chinese Communists overthrew the Nationalist regime. In January1950 the Department of State issued a chargethat the Soviet Union was establishing i tsdomination over Manchuria, Outer Mongolia,Inner Mongolia, and Sinkiang. Thisnaturally contributed to the popularmalaise: "Shall a trumpet be blown in thecity, and the people not be afraid?" OnFebruary 9, 1950, Senator McCarthy made hisfamous Wheeling speech in which, re-wording

the Hurley allegations, he charged that205 Communists were at work in the StateDepartment "s t i l l working and shapingpolicy." In September 1950, Congressenacted, and promptly passed overPresident Truman's veto, the InternalSecurity Act (popularly known as the"McCarran Act"). The storm known as''McCarthyism'' thereafter tooK on addedforce and assumed full shape. I t wasdirected primarily at th e State Departmentand Foreign Service personnel, but i tsscope duly widened, so that many otherpersonalities and governmental organs became targets. 2

I t was during this period that theState Department's loyalty-security programmoved into high gear. A sampling of thelines of inquiry pursued indicates attitudenewly deemed reprehensible and sufficientto bring the officer under suspicion as disloyal or a security risk.

I t was assumed variously in hearingsof Foreign Service Officers that to speaki l l of Chiang Kai-shek, thir.k that ChineseCommunism was complex rather than simple,opine that the Sino-Soviet relationship wasnot monolithic, or estimate that picking upthe lost French anti-Vietminh cause in IndoChina would be a grave error, were allsigns of moral deviation and to be condemned. The new orthodoxy demanded thatAmerican officialdom, for safety's sake,should be pro-Nationalist, believe thatChinese Communism was Moscow's MarxismLeninism and that the two Communist stateswere inseparable, and hold that where theFrench might have failed, the United Statescould and should have victory. Summed up,a new creed, best described as a simplisticanti-Communism aiming a t the military containment of China, began to govern in the


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field of American foreign policy. The wholeposition was buttressed by the alarms spreadby defense specialists of dire eventualitiesthat threatened, and by the public relationsactivities of various calculating Asianleaders who, learning quickly from th esuccessful tactics employed by Chiang Kai-shek for the winning and maintenance of aprofitable American support, became professional "anti-Communists."

The policy-making function i t se l f becamecorrupted. The officers of the ForeignService had reported the facts of complexsituations as they saw them, and had ventured to interpret the significance ofevents. They had never borne the responsibili ty of determining policy: that was thefunction of the State Department, theSecretary of State, ultimately of th ePresident. Now Foreign Service Officers werebeing struck down for their reporting andestimates. The situation as i t developedwas described by President Truman:

In such an atmosphere, key governmentemployees tend to become mentallyparalyzed. They are afraid toexpress honest judgments, as i t istheir duty to do, because later ,under a changed atmosphere anddifferent circumstances, they may beCharged with disloyalty by those whodisagree with them. Our nation cannot afford or permit such a mentalblackout. ,,3 (emphasis supplied)

I f dissenting opinions and judgments were tobe adduced in support of charges of disloyalty or security r isk, how was thegovernment to obtain objective views fromi ts officers regarding the Soviet Union,China, Southeast Asia--or any area whereCommunism might be present?

The loyalty-security program became anintegral part of the governmental structure.That there was persistence of the basicmalady in the years that followed was disclosed in 1959 by a Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee study of U.S. foreign policy. Theexecutive committee charged with the investigation invited a selected group of retiredForeign Service Officers, not identified,to submit their views on American foreign ..policy.

24 The answers were f a r ~ r a n g i n g . One ofthe strongest criticisms had reference toth e impact of the loyalty-security programon the Foreign Service:"Until recent years diplomatic andconsular officers of all ranks inthe field were encouraged to reportobjectively and to makerecommendations in accordance withtheir best judgment . . now all that ischanged. I t is common knowledge inthe Department of State and in theForeign Service that Foreign Serviceofficers have been reprimanded andeven heavily penalized for makingreports or recommendations unpalatableto certain persons in the Departmentand that they have been ordered notto repeat the offense . . . ,,4Let us look at the new Asia policy inthe making. In the polit ical hustings inth e election years 1950 and 1952, onedemagogic warcry was ''Who lost China?".with the easy inference that China was"lost" to the United States by treason.As is well known, th e Republicans won in1952 and John Foster Dulles became th e newSecretary of State.Even before th e presidential election,Dulles had voiced the basic principles onwhich the policy of the United States and

i ts al l ies should be founded, the f i rstbeing:"The dynamic prevails over thes tat ic: th e active over the passive.We were from th e beginning avigorous confident people born witha sense of destiny and mission . . . "S

In his f i r s t address to assembled StateDepartment and Foreign Service personnelafter his induction into his new post,Dulles demanded "positive loyalty" to th epolicies of the administration. Not evena technical margin for dissent remained.Dulles made i t entirely clear by hissubsequent actions that he proposed toformulate th e nation's foreign policy without reference to "area experts," who wereplaced in a state of what might be calledpsychic "preventive detention."


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The reorientation of the United States 'Asia policy, centered on the concept of themilitary containment of China, was pressedforward at a rapid pace by Dulles. Inresponse to th e French defeat in Indo-China,in September 1954, Dulles achieved th eorganization of SEATO.6

On December 2, 1954, th e United Statesentered upon a treaty of military alliancewith th e Nationalists on Formosa, and th eUnited States thus became aligned in stanceand policy with one Chinese faction againstanother in an unfinished civi l war. I tseemed to be the cream of the jest that, onthat same December 2, Senator ~ 1 c C a r t h y wascondemned by the U.S. Senate for conducttending "to bring the Senate into dishonorand disrepute, to obstruct theconstitutional processes of the Senate, andto impair i t s dignity."7

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy died in May1957, Secretary of State John Foster Dullesin May 1959. By the lat ter date, our Chinapolicy had been fixed in an inflexible mold.We find ourselves today immobilized inthe position which we began to construct,by bipartisan effort , under the whiplash ofMcCarthyism, in 1950. The United States

has constructed a semi-circle of militarybases, garrisoned by American troops,reaching from South Korea to Thailand, forth e containment of Chjna. We have warredin Korea, the Formosa Strai t , and inVietnam, avowedly to th e same end. Let usgrant that th e cause of our predicament isnot to be found simply and exclusively inMcCarthyism or th e thinking of John FosterDulles and Dean Rusk: many factors, andmany men, have been involved in thisdevelopment. But I submit that McCarthyismand th e emotional, messianic patterns ofthought induced by that demagogic phenomenonwere at least major factors in bringing aboutthe results we see before us. 8 .

Has there been opposition in governmentto the American China policy? Practicallynone has been visible. As regards th eVietnam War, avowedly fought:to containChinese Communism, there has of course beenevidence of rather more Congressionalrestlessness, but remarkably l i t t le ofdissent within the Executive branch. There

25was interesting testimony to th e e x i s t e n c ~of an intellectual malaise in a recentReston column. 9 He remarked that therewere many high officials--and he namedsome of them--in th e Administration whodisagreed with President Johnson on th eVietnam policy, but that despite theiropposition to th e war they "didn't quitespeak their minds to the President, le talone to the public . . . " They gave theirloyalty to the President, said Reston,rather than to their country, and some "arenow wondering in private l i fe whether thiswas in th e national interes t ," and aretroubled. Well they might be . But noteone aspect of the new situation: now thereare no charges by Congressional committeesor by the press that the nation has beenle d into error by subordinate members ofthe Foreign Service.

The China policy of today, the Asiapolicy of today, are no t by any stretch ofthe imagination to be viewed as the handiwork of career Asian experts. Our Chinaand Asia policies are the creation of menat the top of government alone. McNamara,in a speech of March 1964, observedobliquely that "five United StatesPresidents have acted to preserve freeworld strategic interests in th e area."Now a sixth has fallen heir to Dulles'divine mission, based as i t is on faultyf i rs t premises, incorporating vast fantasy.He has also inherited a State Departmentand Foreign Service apparatus which has hadi ts true function gravely weakened. As theanonymous retired Foreign Service Officerswarned a decade ago, in the quest for atotal security with respect to individuals,the national security has been endangered.

For the introduction of McCarthyisminto our foreign7"Policy making processesmeant in essence the supplanting of realismin the realm of foreign affairs by policiesbased l;lpon ideology':-base


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Footnotes:lNew York Times, March 21, 1969.2See, fo r a description of targets,Chapter 2, "Senator McCarthy at Work": andfo r a treatment of methods, Chapter 3,"The Methods", in James Rorty & ~ I o s h eDecter, McCarthy and the Communists, Boston1954; and Bert Andrews, Washington WitchHunt, N. Y. 1948, particularly Part I ,"The Hunters and the Hunted."3Memoirs by Harry S. Truman, N.Y. 1956, 2vols. , Vol. II, Years of Trial and Hope1946-1952, 285. See in support of thisestimate Eleanor Bontecou, The FederalLoyalty-Security Program, Ithaca 1953, 151.For the President's condemnation of tnedemagogic exploitation of th e securityprogram "in an attempt to frighten andmislead the American people," see ~ci t . , 284-85.

4Study of United States Foreign Policy,Summary of Views of Retired Foreign ServiceOfficers Prepared for the Committee onForeign Relations, United States Senate,Pursuant to The Provisions of S. Res. 31,86th Congress, 1st Session, June IS, 1959.Washington 1959, 41.5 ~ f a n c h e s t e r Guardian Weekl;y, Oct. 22, 1952.6He had endeavored to create such anorganization earlier in the year, so that

it would serve for the effort at "saving"Indo-China, but had been blocked by thereluctance of other states to participatewhile the Indo-China \liar was in course.7Congressional Quarterly Service, Chinaand U.S. Far East Policy 1945-196-6-,Washington 1967, 71.8See Stud;y of United States Foreign POlicy,Summar;y of Views of Retired Foreign Service Officers, ci t . , 11, for the commentof one anonymouS-Critic:

"it seems to me that a serious illusionwhich has beclouded our appraisal ofthe Russian, Chinese and other developments has been in persuading ourselvesthat because democratic institutions,as we have conceived and developedthem, are suited to our way of l ifethey must be equally advantageous topeoples of an entirely different background. As a result we have been asinsistent on democratizing the worldor, in other words of making i t over inour own image, as the Russians have inmaking i t over in conformity with theirown. This is a parochial view whichfails to take into account the greatdiversity of mores and cultures in theworld . . . "

9James Reston, "The Doubts and Regrets ofthe Johnson Dissenters," New York Times,Mar. 9, 1969.


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Two Postscriptsto the McCarran HearingsRoss Koen(Paper delivered a t the AAS Conference,March 29, 1969)

Before I begin my rema

Documents

Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars vol 1 Issue 4