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20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Rand Corporation.md
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@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ The project's first phase (mid-1964 through early 1965) was led by [[John Donnel
### Phase II: Goure and the Air Power Thesis
Phase II (early 1965 through April 1967) was controlled by [[Leon Goure|Leon Gouré]], head of Rand's Social Science Department, previously a Soviet civil defense expert. Gouré redirected the study's emphasis toward identifying which specific weapons and tactics, particularly air power, most eroded VC morale. His published reports concluded that continued bombing pressure would be effective, that VC morale was declining under air assault, and that forces would surrender under sufficient sustained pressure. These conclusions were consumed favorably at senior levels. Walt Rostow, National Security Advisor to President Johnson, drew on Gouré's work in preparing optimistic briefings. Robert McNamara was described by colleagues as reading Gouré's reports "like good scotch." Gouré briefed General Westmoreland, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the NSC. Even Westmoreland later found Gouré's optimism excessive.[^1]
Phase II (early 1965 through April 1967) was controlled by [[Leon Goure|Leon Gouré]], head of Rand's Social Science Department, previously a Soviet civil defense expert. Gouré redirected the study's emphasis toward identifying which specific weapons and tactics, particularly air power, most eroded VC morale. His published reports concluded that continued bombing pressure would be effective, that VC morale was declining under air assault, and that forces would surrender under sufficient sustained pressure. These conclusions were consumed favorably at senior levels. [[Walt Rostow]], chairman of the State Department Policy Planning Council in 1965 and from April 1966 the President's special assistant for national security affairs, drew on Gouré's work in preparing optimistic briefings.[^9] Robert McNamara was described by colleagues as reading Gouré's reports "like good scotch." Gouré briefed General Westmoreland, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the NSC. Even Westmoreland later found Gouré's optimism excessive.[^1]
Field analyst [[Anthony Russo]], who arrived in Saigon in February 1965 and conducted interviews across the country, found the interview data so diverse that "it could be used to argue anything." He documented that Gouré's published conclusions required systematic selection of responses supporting his air power thesis while suppressing contradictory material. He also prepared a separate report documenting systematic torture of VC prisoners at detention sites where Rand's interviews were conducted, a document Ellsberg later described as "the first to document American complicity in the routine use of torture." Gouré instituted an informal censorship policy by which interview transcripts were sanitized before analysis, removing all mentions of torture or mistreatment of detainees by US forces and their allies. In February 1966, Gouré signed Russo's and Scott's names to a memorandum promoting increased air strikes, Agent Orange use for population displacement, and refugee generation without their knowledge or permission.[^1]
@ -96,9 +96,9 @@ Rand's Santa Monica headquarters is described in accounts from the period as res
### Remote Viewing Era References
In accounts of the 1970s parapsychology research milieu, Rand is noted as larger and more prestigious than the [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] among scientific think tanks, and it figures in the French accounts of 1959 and 1960 of a [[The Nautilus (Telepathy Project)|USS Nautilus]] telepathy experiment, which the U.S. Navy denied and which a 1975 DIA study called rumors.[^9][^10]
In accounts of the 1970s parapsychology research milieu, Rand is noted as larger and more prestigious than the [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] among scientific think tanks, and it figures in the French accounts of 1959 and 1960 of a [[The Nautilus (Telepathy Project)|USS Nautilus]] telepathy experiment, which the U.S. Navy denied and which a 1975 DIA study called rumors.[^10][^11]
In Le Matin des magiciens, [[Jacques Bergier]] and [[Louis Pauwels]] wrote that at the beginning of 1957 the Rand Corporation laid before [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|President Eisenhower]] a report proposing telepathy for communicating with submarines, particularly under the polar ice cap, and that the report had no effect for a year. In the same chapter they list Rand among the organizations with parapsychology study laboratories, and a footnote cites a "Rapport de la Rand Corporation, 31 août 1958" in connection with a statement that the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission proposed in 1958 to use clairvoyants to guess where Russian bombs would fall.[^11] A report to Soviet Defense Minister [[Rodion Malinovsky]] of March 1960, as quoted by [[I. V. Tsykunov]], says that from the end of 1957 Rand, Westinghouse and Bell Telephone had been working intensively on telepathy.[^12]
In Le Matin des magiciens, [[Jacques Bergier]] and [[Louis Pauwels]] wrote that at the beginning of 1957 the Rand Corporation laid before [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|President Eisenhower]] a report proposing telepathy for communicating with submarines, particularly under the polar ice cap, and that the report had no effect for a year. In the same chapter they list Rand among the organizations with parapsychology study laboratories, and a footnote cites a "Rapport de la Rand Corporation, 31 août 1958" in connection with a statement that the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission proposed in 1958 to use clairvoyants to guess where Russian bombs would fall.[^12] A report to Soviet Defense Minister [[Rodion Malinovsky]] of March 1960, as quoted by [[I. V. Tsykunov]], says that from the end of 1957 Rand, Westinghouse and Bell Telephone had been working intensively on telepathy.[^13]
### Footnotes
@ -110,7 +110,8 @@ In Le Matin des magiciens, [[Jacques Bergier]] and [[Louis Pauwels]] wrote that
[^6]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," p. 187 note 76.
[^7]: RAND RM-365, Jean M. Hungerford, The Exploitation of Superstitions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare (April 14, 1950; ASTIA ATI 210637), full text at https://archive.org/details/1950-hungerford-exploitation-of-superstitions-for-purposes-of-psychological-warfare; rand.org record https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM365.html. Bessner, "The Night Watchman," p. 201 note 128 (dates it April 15, 1950).
[^8]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," pp. 205-207 and notes 145-150, citing Goldhamer, The 1951 Korean Armistice Conference: A Personal Memoir, and Robert C. Tucker's memoir for the Joy detail.
[^9]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
[^10]: Maire, Louis F., III, and J. D. LaMothe. *Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research*, DST-1810S-387-75, September 1975, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500420001-2, https://cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500420001-2.
[^11]: Pauwels, Louis, and Jacques Bergier. *Le Matin des magiciens*, abridged and annotated university edition prepared by Yvonne Lenard with Monica Faulkner (Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 136-141.
[^12]: Tsykunov, I. V. "От фантазии к реальности: как история «Наутилуса» открыла гонку сверхъестественных вооружений между СССР и США" [From fantasy to reality: how the story of the Nautilus opened the race for supernatural weapons between the USSR and the USA]. Aliter, no. 20 (2023), pp. 34-55. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/ot-fantazii-k-realnosti-kak-istoriya-nautilusa-otkryla-gonku-sverhestestvennyh-vooruzheniy-mezhdu-sssr-i-ssha. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^9]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume II, Vietnam, January-June 1965*, document 121, memorandum from Rostow as "Chairman of the Policy Planning Council," February 15, 1965, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v02/d121 ; *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume IV, Vietnam, 1966*, document 115, memorandum from "the President's Special Assistant (Rostow)," April 5, 1966, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v04/d115
[^10]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
[^11]: Maire, Louis F., III, and J. D. LaMothe. *Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research*, DST-1810S-387-75, September 1975, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500420001-2, https://cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000500420001-2.
[^12]: Pauwels, Louis, and Jacques Bergier. *Le Matin des magiciens*, abridged and annotated university edition prepared by Yvonne Lenard with Monica Faulkner (Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 136-141.
[^13]: Tsykunov, I. V. "От фантазии к реальности: как история «Наутилуса» открыла гонку сверхъестественных вооружений между СССР и США" [From fantasy to reality: how the story of the Nautilus opened the race for supernatural weapons between the USSR and the USA]. Aliter, no. 20 (2023), pp. 34-55. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/ot-fantazii-k-realnosti-kak-istoriya-nautilusa-otkryla-gonku-sverhestestvennyh-vooruzheniy-mezhdu-sssr-i-ssha. Sole source for the passages so cited.