The Theorists’ Gambit: Kenneth Thompson’s Cultivation of Theoretical Knowledge About Politics During the Early Cold War

1 Nicolas Guilhot, ‘Introduction: One Discipline, Many Histories’ in Nicolas Guilhot (ed), The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). Nicolas Guilhot, ‘The Realist Gambit: Postwar American Political Science and the Birth of IR Theory’ in Nicolas Guilhot (ed), The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 2–3, 15.

2 Farhang Rajaee, Kenneth W. Thompson, the Prophet of Norms. Thought and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan History of International Thought (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 121.

3 For “connector,” Rajaee, Kenneth W. Thompson, 52–3; “transmitter of the main ideas of political realism,” Rajaee, Kenneth W. Thompson, 121. For “backstage logistics” and “a central organizer of the entire field [of IR] and probably Morgenthau’s most talented impresario,” Guilhot, ‘Introduction’, 14–5.

4 Because I focus primarily on Thompson’s early career as a foundation officer rather than on his own work as a theorist of international relations, I draw much more on Rockefeller Foundation documents than I do on his published work.

5 Rajaee, Kenneth W. Thompson, the Prophet of Norms; Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Reports (New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 1935–1952, 1956, 1961).

6 Inderjeet Parmar, Foundations of the American Century. The Ford, Carnegie & Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).

7 Rockefeller Foundation Annual Reports 1935–1952; Parmar, Foundations of the American Century; Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations & United States Foreign Policy (Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press, 1977, Repr. 2004).

8 Rockefeller Foundation Annual Reports 1941, 1944; Parmar, Foundations of the American Century, 68–9.

9 Parmar, Foundations of the American Century, 65.

10 Rockefeller Foundation Annual Report 1951, 345–6.

11 From its founding in 1945 up through 1950, Columbia’s School of International Studies and the area studies institutes it housed received nearly $750,000 in Rockefeller grants. Notre Dame’s Committee on the Study of International Relations received at least $138,000 disbursed over a six year period. This committee was led by Waldemar Gurian, the editor and founder of the Review of Politics, a journal friendly to realist theory, religious thought and political philosophy – an orientation Thompson strongly endorsed.

12 For example, the 1950 Annual Report justified a substantial $420,000 grant to Columbia’s Russian Institute by citing the large number of the Institute’s alumni who had entered government service (RF Annual Report 1950, 206–7).

13 Dean Rusk, ‘As I Saw It As Told To Richard Rusk,’ in Daniel S. Papp (ed), (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990). Rusk later recalled that stepping out of the foreign-policy fray into the Rockefeller presidency – “the best job in America” – had been a welcome change. “The best job in America” appears in the following passage from Rusk’s memoirs: “Shortly before I left the administration, President Truman called me into his office. ‘Dean,’ he told me, ‘you can have any job in my administration you want. Ambassador to Japan, whatever….But I will not stand in your way in taking the best job in America” (Rusk, ‘As I Saw It’, 178–9).

14 Richard H. Immerman, John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in US Foreign Policy. Biographies in American Foreign Policy Series (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999)

15 The passage cited comes from former consultant John B. Stewart who recalled being told that “the initiative for the Foundation’s program came from John Foster Dulles, then the Chairman of the Board of the Foundation.” Stewart to David Kettler, p. 1, 10.28.2005. Personal communication shared with the author.

16 Rusk’s comments appear in the Minutes of the LAPP Advisory Committee Meeting on March 21, 1955, p. 5, folder 78, box 9, series 910, R.G. 3, RFA, RAC.

17 Brian C. Schmidt, ed., International Relations and the First Great Debate (London: Routledge, 2012).

18 Schmidt, International Relations, 98–9.

19 Schmidt, International Relations, 100, 111.

20 Guilhot, ‘The Realist Gambit’, 132.

21 Guilhot, ‘The Realist Gambit’, 134.

22 Guilhot, ‘The Realist Gambit’, 143–4.

23 Guilhot, ‘The Realist Gambit’, 143–55.

24 Robert Jervis, ‘Morality, Policy, and Theory: Reflections on the 1954 Conference,’ in Nicolas Guilhot (ed), The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011); Inderjeet Parmar, ‘American Hegemony, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of Academic International Relations in the United States’ in Nicolas Guilhot (ed), The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

25 David M. McCourt, ed., The Council on Foreign Relations Study Group on International Theory, 1953–54. Forthcoming.

26 McCourt, The Council on Foreign Relations, 24. While Thompson organized the 1954 Rockefeller conference to showcase Morgenthau’s theoretical contributions, his part in the CFR meetings (as one participant among a group of over twenty) was a decidedly smaller one. It is not surprising, therefore, that Thompson expressed his own ideas about international relations theory more tentatively and briefly expressed in the CFR-sponsored meetings. Thompson seemed to function as a cautious stand-in for Morgenthau here, explicating his teacher’s ideas, pointing out the nuances in Morgenthau’s conceptions of national interest (McCourt, The Council on Foreign Relations, 116) and power (McCourt, The Council on Foreign Relations, 125) to the other conferees.

27 McCourt, The Council on Foreign Relations, 25.

28 For brief biographies of Lipsky and Holborn, see McCourt, The Council on Foreign Relations, 28–33, 37–8 and 76–7.

29 McCourt, The Council on Foreign Relations, 340–1.

30 McCourt, The Council on Foreign Relations, 347–8.

31 Kenneth Thompson, ‘Toward a Theory of International Politics,’ The American Political Science Review, 49 (1955), 733–46.

32 Thompson, ‘Toward a Theory of International Politics,’ 746.

33 For addressing contemporary issues, see Franz Neumann to Willits, 11.24.52, p. 1, folder 75, box 8, series 910, R.G. 3, RFA, RAC. For closer relations to government officials, see Robert MacIver to Willits, “Suggested Program for Conference,” p. 2, 7.31.52, folder 73, box 8, series 910, R.G. 3, RFA, RAC.

34 For the value of the theory/philosophy distinction, see Herbert Deane to Willits, 10.22.52, pp. 1-2, folder 74, box 8, series 910, R.G. 3, RFA, RAC. For the complementarity between theory and empirical research, see Franz Neumann to Willits, 11.12.52, and Willard Hurst to Dean Rusk, 11.10.52. Both in folder 75, box 8, series 910, R.G.3, RFA, RAC.

35 For John Foster Dulles, see note 15 above. Deane was a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University during the time of his service; Stewart received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1953. Deane (born in 1921) served as a consultant to Social Sciences from 1952 to 1954; Stewart (born in 1924) served for several terms, but the one most crucial to LAPP was from 1953 to 1955. Herbert A. Deane officer’s diary, 1952-1953, R.G. 12.1; John B. Stewart officer’s diary, 2 vols., 1953–1955, R.G. 12.1, RFA, RAC. Material from the Foundation’s Program and Policy files for LAPP shows that Deane ceded control of LAPP to Stewart in the fall of 1953. See Deane to Willits, September 3, 1953 and Willits to all members of first LAPP Advisory Committee, October 15, 1953, folder 77, box 8, series 910, R.G. 3, RFA, RAC.

36 Kenneth Winifred Thompson, curriculum vitae, Rockefeller Foundation Biographical File, RFA, RAC.

37 Rusk’s comment is cited in the text on p. 2 above; a citation for it appears in note 16.

38 During the 1955 Advisory Committee Meeting, shortly after the remark by Rusk cited in the preceding note, Thompson comments, “What should a foundation think about the fact that in 22 applications there is not a single application that seems to add directly to the democratic answer to Marxism. One of the reasons that accounts for the decline of political theory in the West is that political theory has not grappled with these crucial problems and is not seriously trying to deal with these vital questions.” Minutes of the 1955 Advisory Committee Meeting for LAPP, March 21, 1955, p. 6, folder 78, box 9, series 910, R.G. 3, RFA, RAC.

39 At the March 12, 1956 Meeting of the Advisory Committee for LAPP, Rusk said: “The Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation have made a sharp increase in the funds available for key underdeveloped areas. I personally suspect that the issues we talk about in legal and political philosophy are particularly important to the underdeveloped countries. Hence how do we tie, or do we, this idea of the Program in Legal and Political Philosophy? Through constitutional law? Comparative law? Political philosophy? Should we make any intensive effort to tie our interests in legal and political philosophy into our interest in underdeveloped countries?,” pp. 1-2, folder 79, box 9, series 910, R.G. 3, RFA, RAC.

40 According to an internal foundation memo cited by Guilhot (‘The Realist Gambit’, 146). Thompson was already thinking about Columbia and Berkeley as possible sites for developing congenial approaches to IR as early as January 1954.

41 Waltz served as the rapporteur at the 1954 Rockefeller conference Thompson organized (Guilhot, ‘Introduction’, 10; nt. 13, 29).

42 Waltz thanks all three by name in the preface to the 1959 edition (1959, vii).

43 Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War. A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 42–79

44 Waltz’s time on Columbia’s faculty was brief; he left for Swarthmore in 1957. Stewart became an Assistant Professor at Barnard College in 1953 after receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia in the same year. Deane was an instructor at Columbia from 1949 until at least 1952; he also received his Ph.D. from Columbia in the early 1950s.

45 Columbia received $75,000 over a 5-year period (RF 1956 Annual Report, 213).

46 Schuyler Wallace to Thompson, 6.20.56. In Folder 4236 (Columbia University – Political Theory (Research), 1956–1965), Box 495, R.G. 1.2, Series 200S, RFA, RAC.

47 See Thompson interview notes, 6.11.56. In Folder 4236 (Columbia University – Political Theory (Research), 1956–1965), Box 495, R.G. 1.2, Series 200S, RFA, RAC.

48 See Fox to Thompson 12.28.60 and Thompson interview notes with William T.R. Fox, 1.27.59. In Folder 4236 (Columbia University – Political Theory (Research), 1956–1965), Box 495, R.G. 1.2, Series 200S, RFA, RAC.

49 Kenneth Thompson, Schools of Thought in International Relations: Interpreters, Issues, and Morality (Baton Rouge, LA.: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 129–31.

50 Thompson, Schools of Thought in International Relations, 138.

51 I learned about these grants from Norman Jacobson, one of my professors at Berkeley, who traced the prominence of political theory in the department back to these 1950s grants. Jacobson also specifically recalled that Thompson was the Rockefeller officer responsible for them. For a similar account, see Sheldon S. Wolin, Tape-recorded interview by Nicholas Xenos. Whitethorn, CA., July 10–11. American Political Science Association Oral History Archive (Lexington: University of Kentucky Library, 1992). Emily Hauptmann, ‘The Evolution of Political Theory in Berkeley in a Climate of Experiment and Secession’ PS: Political Science & Politics, 50 (2017), 792–6.

52 The phrases cited appear in the document discussed more fully below. The full citation to the document appears in note 54 below.

53 Dean Rusk interview notes from a meeting with Kenneth Thompson and Leland DeVinney, January 17, 1955, folder 4855, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC; Kenneth W. Thompson interview notes from a meeting with Robert Scalapino, June 8, 1956, folder 4855, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC; Norman Jacobson to Kenneth Thompson, May 31, 1956, folder 4855, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

54 Kenneth W. Thompson interview notes re. “The Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley,” May 11 and 12, 1956, pp. 1–2, folder 4855, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC. A report from the chair of Political Science at Berkeley in 1951 lists the number of full-time faculty in the academic year 1950–51 as 15, noting that two more full-time persons have been hired for the following year (pp. 2, 8). Even though the department grew rapidly from 1951 to 1956, the group of 15 Thompson cites who work on political theory would have made up a substantial proportion of the whole faculty – probably more than half. The number of full-time faculty in 1951is cited in Peter Odegard, “Report of the Chairman, Department of Political Science, to the President, for the Academic Years 1948–49, 1949–50, 1950–51.” Unpublished Records of the Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley.

55 Leslie Lipson, Chair; Eugene Burdick, Ernst Haas, Sheldon Wolin, “Proposed Instructions from the Chancellor to the Committee that will Disburse the Rockefeller Grant,” n.d., folder 4855, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2., RFA, RAC. A university press release announcing the grant also presented its aims broadly. Noting that the grant was made to “an entire department” rather than “separate individuals,” the press release itemized the topics grant recipients might study this way: “international organization and state or regional groupings; the diplomatic, military, economic or cultural aspects of relations between nations; and the comparative politics of nations.” Draft press release, University of California, 11.9.56, folder 4855, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

56 “Report on the Rockefeller Grant to Political Science,” June 1957, Albert Lepawsky, p. 3, folder 4856, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

57 As in the case of the 1958 award made to George Belknap to “study…decision-making populations in the urban and metropolitan areas within the Bay Area….[T]he study will be relevant to political theory because a theory of politics in a society such as ours must take into account the ‘realities of fluid decision-making populations’.” In “Report on the Rockefeller Grant to Political Science,” February 20, 1958, p. 5, folder 4856, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

58 Kenneth W. Thompson interview notes re. “University of California – Department of Political Science: re renewal of grant in political theory,” conversations with Robert A. Scalapino, January 24 and March 9, 1961, pp. 1–2, folder 4857, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

59 RF Grant Action 61135 to the University of California - Department of Political Science, approved October 20, 1961, p. 61817, folder 4855, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

60 See Rajaee, Kenneth W. Thompson, the Prophet of Norms, 102–05, for a broader discussion of Thompson’s role in Rockefeller’s University Development Program, focused on universities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. After he became a Vice President at Rockefeller in 1961, Thompson was more involved in this program than with overseeing the second institutional grant to Berkeley’s Political Science Department.

61 Gerald Freund interview notes on meeting with Robert Scalapino, April 4, 1962, p. 1, folder 4857, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

62 Robert Scalapino to Gerald Freund, April 24, 1962, folder 4857, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

63 See Charles M. Hardin interview notes with Robert Scalapino, February 14, 1962, folder 4857, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC; RLW (Robert L. West) to Gerald Freund, May 7, 1962, characterizes what the department has done so far as “a minimum effort,” and wonders whether the chair of the department “is…supplying men of lesser experience because he believes that is what Africa needs or deserves?” [emphasis in original], folder 4857, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

64 Robert Scalapino to Kenneth W. Thompson, July 10, 1963, folder 4858, box 567, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

65 Robert Scalapino to Gerald Freund, February 17, 1964, p. 5, folder 4859, box 568, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

66 Robert Scalapino to Gerald Freund, February 17, 1964, pp. 8-11; Le Roy Graymer, Departmental Administrator to Joseph E. Black, November 4, 1966, p. 5, folder 4860, box 568, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

67 In 1965, several Foundation officers begin discussing the Foundation’s University Development Program (UDP) with department members. This program now seems to guide how the Foundation thinks about assisting universities in the developing world; moreover, by the mid-1960s, UDP appears to be providing programmatic structure to the Berkeley grant, given that LAPP no longer exists. See for instance Ralph K. Davidson interview notes on conversation with Ralph Retzlaff, September 10, 1965, folder 4859, box 568, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC. Also, “A Proposal to the Rockefeller Foundation from the Department of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley, for A Program of Assistance to Political Science Departments of Asia, Africa and Latin America,” November 1966, folder 4860, box 568, series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

68 When Robert Scalapino, (Personal communication with the author, July 11. Berkeley, CA, 2005), referred to others as theorists, he consistently distinguished between those he considered “traditional” and “modern” and placed IR theorists Morgenthau, Thompson and Waltz in the latter category. Waltz joined the Berkeley department in 1971 and remained there until his retirement.

69 Scalapino probably struck Thompson as a promising policy advisor, given his service as a naval intelligence officer specializing in the Japanese language during World War II. In 2011, a U.C. Berkeley Institute for East Asian Studies obituary listed numerous foreign policy advisory positions Scalapino had held, including serving on State Department Advisory Committees for East Asia and China from 1965 to 1980, the Council on Foreign Relations and many others (http://ieas.berkeley.edu/news/scalapino_in_memoriam.html.)

70 Robert Scalapino, Marxism and the Far-Eastern Intellectual, 1954–1957, Grant Action 5.25.56 (RF 56091), folder 4865, box 568, Series 200S, R.G. 1.2, RFA, RAC.

71 Still, Jacobson was surprised when I showed him Thompson’s 1956 list of Berkeley faculty who could potentially contribute to the political theory grant. He remarked, “this is almost the whole department; who’s not on this list?” (Norman Jacobson, Personal communication with the author. August 4. Berkeley, CA, 2005).

72 Among the examples Jacobson cited were Herbert McClosky, who had taught political theory courses (including one on Dostoevsky) at Minnesota prior to coming to Berkeley in 1960 and David Apter, who had edited a 1971 volume on anarchism (Norman Jacobson, Personal communication with the author. July 20. Berkeley, CA, 2005). I asked Jacobson specifically about Apter and McClosky since other members of the department who had been graduate students in the 1960s had specifically identified them both as theorists (Jack Citrin, Personal communication with the author, July 27. Berkeley, CA., 2005; Robert Price, Personal Communication with the author, July 15. Berkeley, CA., 2005).

73 Norman Jacobson, ‘Political Realism and the Age of Reason: The Anti-Rationalist Heritage in America’ Review of Politics, 15 (1953), 446–69; Norman Jacobson, ‘The Unity of Political Theory: Science, Morals, and Politics’ in Roland Young (ed), Approaches to the Study of Politics (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1958).

74 Kenneth Thompson, ‘The Limits of Principle in International Politics: Necessity and the New Balance of Power,’ The Journal of Politics, 20 (1958), 437–67. Thompson (‘The Limits of Principle’, 438–39) also criticizes “moralism,” specifically as it appears in theories of international politics. His reservations about some sciences of politics are thoroughly discussed by Guilhot, ‘The Realist Gambit’.

75 Emily Hauptmann, ‘From Opposition to Accommodation: How Rockefeller Foundation Grants Redefined Relations between Political Theory and Political Science in the 1950s’ American Political Science Review, 100(2006), 643–49.

76 Kenneth Thompson, Schools of Thought in International Relations: Interpreters, Issues, and Morality (Baton Rouge, LA.: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 5–6.