The constant gardener
RAND Corporation
Harish Mehta,
McMaster University
Project RAND was created by the Douglas Aircraft Company of Santa Monica, California to
research and develop military aircraft and spaceships for use in World War II. In May 1948,
RAND, whose name derives from the phrase "research and development," became an independent
non-profit organization whose main function was to conduct scientific and economic research
that would enhance US national security. Starting with a $1 million loan from the Ford
Foundation in 1948, RAND began to diversify its research into space systems, digital
computing, and artificial intelligence. The RAND corporation also helped to develop the
planning, programming, and budgeting system that was adopted by the US federal government in
the early 1960s.
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a RAND consultant with the highest security clearance of any US
civilian in Vietnam, released to the press a highly classified history of the war known as
"The Pentagon Papers." The documents in these papers, which came from various high level US
government agencies, presented a very pessimistic view of the war that conflicted with the
official White House contention that victory was achievable in Vietnam. RAND also sent
dozens of social scientists to South Vietnam to determine how villagers might be induced to
support the government against the communists. Typically, RAND social scientists embraced
modernization theory and offered technical solutions that reflected the values of liberal
developmentalism.
Suggested Readings:
Ellsberg, Daniel. 2002.
Secrets: Revealing the Pentagon Papers. New York:
Viking.
Kaplan, Fred. 1983.
Wizards of Armageddon. New York:
Simon and Schuster.
Robin, Ron. 2001.
The making of the Cold War enemy: Culture and politics in the military-intellectual complex. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.