VII - Statement of the Problem

April 3, 1957

- 4 -

creative life. The terms of these pairs seem frequently to be in opposition,
with the result that decisions concerning policy sometimes attenuate or
sacrifice one in the interests of the other; and international oppositions are
frequently stated in controversies concerning order and freedom, democracy and
the common good, in which one side at least is guilty of sophistry. Moral
ideals are of crucial importance both in determining national policy and in
securing understanding and acceptance of it; yet appeal to moral objectives
and values is properly discounted, since in international debate ideals become
wax, to be bent in any direction, to assume any form, to be adjusted to fit
contradictory courses of action. The moral framework should supply the
connecting link relating the clarification of ideals, like the dignity of man,
brotherhood, and love, to the operation of specific policies and institutions.
The problem is not so much to remove ambiguities as to identify ideals in
embodiments so diverse as to raise the suspicion of ambiguity. The meaning
of an ideal is found in a way of life, and a way of life is preserved by
appreciation of its purposes: morality can be achieved in international negotia-
tions by the translation of ideals into institutions, so that the declaration of
doctrine can inspire confidence based on understanding and the operation of
institutions can provide means of discussion and agreement concerning
courses of action.

b. The moral framework of national community. The objectives considered in the preliminary reports on domestic policy have been economic and social; the policies are concerned with resources and welfare. But economic

April 3, 1957

- 5 -

and social objectives provide the circumstances and the conditions for the
development of moral insight and the creative realization of individual poten-
tialities. The utilization of human resources and the development or use of
democratic processes likewise operate in a context of moral ideals and of
creative intelligence, which are embodied in the American way of life, and they
provide the matter and the means for the realization of ideals and creativity.

A moral framework should clarify the interrelations of the conditions and ends
of policies that relate economic and social objectives to human resources and
democratic processes -- the interdependence of problems of population growth,
mass education, and health with problems of needed high-talent manpower,
conflicting incentives, and sensitivity to values; the variation of problems of
leadership with problems of public opinion; and the balance of problems of
resources with problems of costs. But it should also provide place to treat the
relation of ideals to the conditions which give them concrete definition and
which provide at once opportunities for wider participation in more diversified
values and dangers of degradation of values in the utilization of opportunities;
it should bring to attention the function of creative intelligence in modifying
conditions. In the moral framework the realization of equality of opportunity
should be related to the uses made of opportunities in order to reestablish
the ancient distinction between utilities and goods which, with semantic
changes, is now a negative and ambiguous distinction between material and
non-material goods.

April 3, 1957

- 6 -

c. The moral framework of international and national policy. International and national policy influence each other, not only in the sense that domestic policy reflects world opinion and is taken as a sign by which to evaluate international policy, but also in the sense that American life and what Europeans have come to refer to as the process of "Americanization" are taken as prophecy and warning of what the life of the future may come to be. Even before the publication of Georges Duhamel's *Scenes from the Future Life* (1930) and increasingly since Robert Jungk's *The Future is Already Here* (1953), preachments concerning the ominous future in which moral and spiritual values are lost and intelligence is degraded are illustrated with instances from life in America. There is relatively little change of basic pattern as one turns from the friendly to the unfriendly portraits. We circulate pamphlets, periodicals, and books through our Information Service portraying a way of life; what is seen is a level of material prosperity devoid of leisure or taste for amenities or impulse to cultivate artistic, intellectual, or religious values. We portray processes which employ and safeguard freedom and democracy; what is seen is regimentation and the exploitation of private interests which are more sinister for being undetected. A moral framework should suggest that the rectification of this distorted picture is more than a problem of information or propaganda: it depends on facing the common international problems of innovation and tradition, material prosperity and the good life, high standards of living and underprivileged peoples, which are implicated in these stereotypes, and also on searching out the elements of truth

April 3, 1957

- 7 -

which they express, not only concerning American life, but concerning life
in modern technological, industrial society.

## 2. Statement of the Problem of a Moral Framework of National Policy

Problems of morality are essentially problems of individual conduct. They are given systematic doctrinal statement in ethical formulations which set up principles and employ analytical methods to orient discussion in highly divergent directions -- to ideals and duties, virtues and the realization of potentialities, utilities and the common good, pleasure and the control of the passions, or any of a great many other schematic directions. The theoretic relations of ethical systems are complex, and their discussion is invested with passions that accord little with the precepts of any of the opposed systems. Even the relations between morals and ethics vary from system to system -- they are sometimes identical, sometimes interdependent, sometimes independent. Agreement on a moral framework should involve agreement concerning common ideals which may be realized diversely and concerning necessary common courses of action which may be motivated diversely; it tends to become entangled with insistence on agreement on the formulation of doctrine and the choice of mode of behavior. The traditional moral influences -- family, church, neighborhood and local community -- tend to construct moral communities which share an ethical view. In its simplest terms, the need for a moral framework can be stated as the need for a frame of reference within which such moral influences are adjusted to a broader context -- in which the influence of the family is adjusted to a

April 3, 1957

- 8 -

broader context -- in which the influence of the family is adjusted to a technological society, the influence of religion to a diversity of incentives and beliefs, the influence of opinion to the novelty of unusual motivation and achievement. In its cost complex terms, the need is for a frame within which the moral influences that have operated in direct face to face human relations may be extended to the clarification of distant, and eventually international, obligations. The danger at each step is that the need for confidence concerning actions anticipated will be made into insistence on rigid precepts which preclude moral development and transform the judgment of consequences into imputation of motives. It is accompanied by the danger that the need of shared community will be met by imposed sanctions which preclude the diversity of individual creativity and extend the accountability required for community to supervision of all thought, criticism, and statement.

The problem of a moral framework is a particular form of the problem of a common philosophy. A philosophy may be found in a way of life, or it may be stated in a formal doctrine, but when one seeks a framework of philosophic agreement the tendency is almost inevitable to seek doctrinal conformity rather than concurrence concerning the nature of man and his destiny in the universe. All communities are based on a philosophy in one of these two senses. Men may associate because of common principles in a voluntary community like a philosophic school, a utopian colony, or a religious congregation and work out the problems of their common life on the

April 3, 1957

-9-

basis of a common philosophy; or a community of men associated for a variety
of reasons, including the accidents of birth, neighborhood, and employment,
may express a variety of interpretations of the objectives made possible by
their common life and of the bonds that bind them in association. When the
community is a nation or an alliance of nations, this distinction becomes
the contrast between a national policy based on, and expressed in, a single,
universal, imposed philosophic doctrine, like dialectical materialism and a
national policy based on common ideals, like human dignity, freedom, uni-
versal rights, equality, which may be expressed in a variety of doctrines
formed to interpret that common philosophy and to provide a source of
hypotheses concerning common ideals and the means by which they may be
preserved and enriched. A philosophic framework for a free community is a
philosophy which has no unique authoritative doctrinal expression because
it provides the context for creative diversities of interpretations supporting
common action and encouraging individual divergence.

The function of a moral framework is to provide for the interplay of
external influence and internal purpose, of material opportunity and ideal
realization, in international relations, in national community, and in the in-
teraction between the larger and the smaller community. It introduces the
moral dimension into politics by posing the moral problem in a political con-
text. Its effect should be both to improve moral thinking and to bring morality
to bear on politics. The term "responsibility" can serve as a key to the
complexities of these interrelations. "Responsibility" is a new word. It was

April 3, 1957

-10-

used for the first time in the languages of the West at the very end of the
eighteenth century, and although all the elements of meaning which are
bound together in the definition of the new word have had long histories, not
only in the Western tradition but in all civilizations, the need to coin a new
word and the rapidity with which it became a central term in the vocabulary
of practical action reflect changed conditions and altered moral perspectives.
The clustering of meanings attached to "responsibility" is similar to the
semantic formation of other terms, such as "communication," "history," and
"experience," which have assumed a like burden in the diagnosis of modern
problems and in the elaboration of programs of action. Four related meanings
attached to the term "responsibility" can serve to lay out the dimensions of
a moral framework of national policy. There is a form of responsibility which
is ascribed to a man by virtue of his function, or task, or status in society;
this is functional or social responsibility. There is another form of responsi-
bility by which a man is held accountable for the consequences of actions and
omissions covered by law and legal sanctions; this is legal responsibility.

These two forms of responsibility operate by external processes of praise and
blame, reward and punishment, and their instrumentalities are material gains
or losses -- honor, position, possessions, scope of activity, and freedom of
movement. The remaining two meanings of responsibility build upon these by
transforming external pressures into internal motivations and by supplement-
ing the calculation of utilities with the judgment of values. The imputation
of actions to an agent in praise and blame may open up into a sensitivity to

April 3, 1957

- 11-

moral values without consideration of the esteem in which they may be held
by others or even in opposition to common opinion; this is moral responsibility.
The accountability by which a man is held to make restitution for injury and
damages may open up into a responsiveness to obligations to one's fellowman
based on rational considerations which transcend the letter of the law; this
may be called prudential or intelligent responsibility.

The problems of morality in a political context emerge from considera-
tion of this moral framework. The relations of the latter two varieties of
responsibility, dependent on internal motivation and responsiveness to
rational considerations, to the former two, dependent on external pressures
and legal sanctions, present both dangers and opportunities in world situation
today. The imputations of public opinion may extend functional responsibility
no further than a respect for the reasonable expectations and customary
judgments of others. It may provide a code of behavior for individuals and
nations without imposing a rigid uniformity of taste and action; it may take
the form of a proper respect for the opinions of mankind, such as led the
founding fathers of the American Republic to explain the causes of their re-
volt, without following current opinion as a guide for action. This functional
responsibility, dependent on one's place in a larger whole, presents dangers
to moral responsibility, dependent on the ideals that may motivate one's
actions. The danger of the tyranny of public opinion, concerning which John
Stuart Mill wrote a hundred years ago, is that the external pressure of what
is accepted and expected may inhibit the innovations and originalities of

April 3, 1957

- 12 -

internal aspirations. This danger takes on an added force in a period of technological and industrial advance, since functional responsibility affects the availability of necessities and of material goods; when they are endangered they become ends in themselves and are set in opposition to moral and spiritual goods. Thence arises the double danger that inner-directedness will disappear in a prevalently outer-directed culture and that a dominantly materialistic culture will transform the appeal and the character of art, science, philosophy, and religion. The opportunities, however, are as great as the dangers. A proper operation of functional responsibility should produce the atmosphere of confidence and understanding in which creative diversity is not only tolerated but encouraged; and material prosperity should provide a basis for equality of opportunity not only for the satisfaction of needs but for the cultivation of values. In a moral framework, policy designed to establish functional responsibility, sensitive to the reasonable expectations requisite for mutual confidence and adapted to supply the necessities requisite for security and wellbeing, should advance rather than inhibit policy designed to encourage moral responsibility, adapted to individual potentials and directed to ideal objectives.

The accountability to which men are held for the consequences of their actions may extend no further than political recognition of the common interests of the community and legal restitution for damages and punishment for crime. Responsibility in this sense depends on a reflexive relation between citizens and public officials and a causal relation between official

April 3, 1957

- 13 -

sanctions and private agents. It may provide a bond of community without invading or restricting warranted rights and liberties, much as the American constitution erects an institutional framework of responsibility, which functions also to provide safeguards set forth in the Bill of Rights. Legal and political responsibility have been profoundly affected by two processes of change -- one affecting the responsible members of communities, the other affecting the scope and functions of communities -- which have had a long history but which have accelerated dramatically during the last decade. The history of the acquisition of freedom has been a history of responsibility: the abolition of slavery, serfdom, and disenfranchisement has advanced until there is widespread recognition of the moral claim of all men to personal freedom, economic security, political suffrage, and, in general, to responsible participation in political decisions. The reaction against imperialism and colonialism has broken up the large political units which assumed and disputed responsibility for world affairs in the nineteenth century, and their place has been taken by a precarious balance between many small nations, which have striven to accentuate their political autonomy and their cultural uniqueness, and the world community, in which all nations are interdependent.

The familiar dangers of an irresponsible and uninformed electorate and an irresponsible and corrupt government are accentuated by the double danger of illegitimate intrusions into private rights and interested opposition, disguised as defense of rights, to proper governmental functions. The

April 3, 1957

- 14 -

familiar dangers of military and political imperialism, which reduces peoples to the position of satellites, have advanced while the peoples of the older empires have acquired their political freedom, and those processes have been further complicated by a recrudescence of concern to preserve sovereignty and a newly recognized need for alliances and economic cooperation. The opportunities, again, are as great as the dangers. A proper operation of legal and political responsibility within a nation and among nations should produce the conditions requisite for the pursuit by each people of its proper life and its particular good as well as the conditions conducive to rational discussion and decision concerning the common good. In a moral framework, policy designed to establish legal and political responsibility, intranational and international, should advance rather than inhibit policy designed to encourage accountability to reasonable argument transcending law and political institutions and affecting their operation and objectives.

### 3. International Problems

Morality should be an instrumentality as well as an end in the formulation of international policy. Morality, moreover, has a material basis and it operates within a community of interests and values. Nations, like individuals, have material needs; in the face of unsatisfied need and extreme hardship appeal to moral and spiritual values loses meaning and effectiveness, and since minimum requirements for life and security are indefinitely extensible the pursuit of material goods may limit other activities and

VII - statement of the Problem

April 3, 1957

- 15 -

transform cultural values. Nations, like individuals, have characters, which determine their actions and the associations they seek to make and those they seek to avoid; they resists external influences that might alter their institutions or their objectives and they measure the actions of other nations against their expectations. These are problems of the operation of responsibility in the four senses that have been distinguished. The autonomy and security sought by nations have an economic foundation: imputation runs in a continuous line from functional responsibility which makes the nation viable, to moral responsibility, which employs resources to secure ideals.

Nations are political associations operating in the political context of other nations and alliances of nations; accountability runs in a continuous line from political responsibility under the rule of law and in accordance with treaty agreements to the responsibility of reasonable discussion and negotiation among nations. Morality as an instrumentality should establish and employ international institutions in advancing functional responsibility, which relates national policy to the opinion of mankind, and political responsibility, which relates national policy to an emerging international rule of law. Morality as an end should take the form of developing conditions for cultural creativity in nations and advancing reasonable intercourse and communication among nations.

It follows from the consideration of such a framework of international problems that morality is advanced by the establishment of institutions and by the clarification of ideals. It also follows, however, that one is not an

April 3, 1957

- 16 -

adequate substitute for the other, and that the absence of one diminishes
the effectiveness of the other, for instrumentalities undirected by ideals
are subject to dangerous misuses, while ideals unrelated to institutionalized
processes encourage delusions and ungrounded expectations. Any project to
advance morality in international negotiations should take into account the
grave perversions to which moral ideals are susceptible and the sharp sus-
picions to which appeals to morality give rise. Talk about ideals without
clear relation to effective and available means to achieve them is a sign of
irresponsibility induced by disingenuousness or weakness; assertions of
purpose or policy without clear relation to understandable and acceptable
ends is a sign of irresponsibility resulting from insensitivity or aggressive-
ness. Appeal to ideals and values is suspected as a cloak for the advance-
ment of private interests; failure to evoke ideals is suspected as the mark
of materialism. The realisms of functional and political responsibility need
not be confused with, nor be set in opposition to, the idealisms of moral
and rational responsibility. On the contrary the dignity of man and respect
for his freedoms and rights and for his claim to equality, justice, and par-
ticipation in the advances of science and culture take on meaning in the con-
crete steps by which they are approximated and in the concrete safeguards
by which they are protected. The statement of moral issues in international
relations, therefore, requires not only the separation of moral instrumentali-
ties from moral ideals, but also the statement of the concrete contexts in
which both are used. Four varieties of international relations present four

April 3, 1957

- 17 -

distinct kinds of moral problems. Each deserves careful study, and a moral
framework of national policy will emerge only when the relations among them
are understood and put into application.

a. National policy with respect to underdeveloped regions and underprivileged peoples. Programs of economic assistance and cooperation are conspicuous examples of the operation of responsibility in international relations. They concentrate on immediate problems of functional responsibility--problems of agriculture, industry, production, employment, nutrition, health--but their initiation and success depends on the operation of moral responsibility in both parties to the cooperation. They have consequences in political responsibility and in the development of governmental institutions, and they influence the character of responsible discussion and communication between nations. But their consequences, in immediate economic advances or, through them, in responsible self-government, cultural unification, and creative rationality, depend on the interplay of these four varieties of responsibility. More knowledge is needed concerning the effects of economic change on cultural values and concerning the adaption of traditional values to material innovations, concerning the relation of the improvement of the economic structure of a society to the raising of the standard of living, and the relation of both to the development of democratic processes of self-government, concerning the relation between cultural integrity and free communication, and between economic and cultural cooperation and what has come to be called "economic" and "cultural" imperialism. In policy-making one ought to ask

April 3, 1957

- 18 -

how can economic cooperation be made to assist the recipients of aid to
become mature and responsible nations? how can democratic ideals and
processes be advanced without unwarranted or misinformed intrusions into
internal affairs, and conversely how can peoples speaking to peoples express
their proper concern for the values and problems of others? what is the
proper relation between economic cooperation, military assistance, cultural
interchange, and political agreement? The moral framework suggests that
all these questions, and the responsibilities they entail, should find their
focus in economic problems and functional responsibility.

b. National policy with respect to uncommitted peoples or with respect to the potential "third force." The widespread discussion of international policies, leading to judgment of motives behind policies and of consequences of their execution on world peace, is a second example of the operation of responsibility. These discussions turn on questions of the responsibility of a people to give reasonable account for its actions. We have not succeeded in making the values we seek or the public philosophy we share clear to the peoples of the world, and there are some grounds to suspect that the failure is due to our inability to make them clear to ourselves.

Instead we have explained our prosperity and we have preached the need for military alliances; and we have been shocked to learn that we are suspected of materialism and aggressive motives. We seldom make intelligent use of the cultural advantages of democracy over dictatorship, and we have not even thought that the classics of American political thought might serve a

April 3, 1957

- 19 -

positive purpose as well as furnish the counterbalance to the use the Soviets make of the pamphlets of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. The moral framework suggests that we might do better if we stopped trying to explain ourselves and tried instead to use creative intelligence in discussing *common* cultural problems and in constructing a framework of two-way communication and mutual understanding.

c. **National policy with respect to alliances.** The two world wars and the dissolution of large imperial structures have reinforced a need for alliance, sometimes on a regional basis (such as the American States, the Atlantic Community, Western Europe, the Arab League, South East Asia, cross-hatched by a variety of blocs and defense organizations), sometimes on a basis of historical associations (such as the British Commonwealth). The problems of these alliances and of their relations to each other and to the United Nations concentrate on moral responsibility, that is, on the values that associate nations possessed of common interests and faced by common dangers. One of the paradoxes of appeals to morality in international relations is that moral precepts are employed most effectively and most frequently to further the interests of the morally impervious at the expense of the morally sensitive. It is a political absurdity perpetrated in the name of morality to impose sanctions on nations whose peoples are responsive to world opinion and not on nations whose peoples are unable to indicate to the world whether they are responsive or not. It is an intellectual absurdity to permit nations to extend a new colonialism and imperialism and then borrow their ideological analysis to

April 3, 1957

- 20 -

condemn nations whose sense of responsibility at least contributed to the dissolution of their empires. The interplay of politics and morals is not simple, and a moral framework suggests, among other implications, that moral responsibility is not exercised by assuming responsibilities that cannot be discharged or by condemning the actions of one party to a dispute without considering the causes and possible solutions of the basic problem, or, in general, by moralizing in political negotiation or legal judgment.

### d. National policy with respect to the oppositions of major powers.

Victories in two world wars seemed to improve the prospects for democracy and peace, yet they were followed by the division of the world into two hostile camps. The problems of that division concentrate on questions of legal and political responsibility, and the strategy of war, as Clauswewitz observed, is an extension of the oppositions and strategy of politics. A policy of containment operates primarily on intermediate regions, and a policy of liberation is likely to arouse ungrounded expectations. Unless the path of war is inevitable, functional and political responsibility must be employed to increase moral and rational responsibility. The operation of legal and political instrumentalities is not improved by cutting off other contacts. Spread of education may be viewed as a promise of moral growth and not merely as a threat of technological superiority, while continuation of discussion and communication in all fields might improve the possibilities of mutual understanding. A moral framework suggests the analogy of a contract: accountability is sought, in dealings with parties whose moral respon-

April 3, 1957

- 21 -

sibility is unknown or questioned, by concentrating on legal means of insur-
ing performance of the actions stipulated in the contract; those devices are
distinct from those which might be employed, in the leisure gained by the
contractual or treaty relations, to improve the character or the intelligence
of the contracting parties.

These four regions mark off the problems of morality in international
relations.

July 2, 1957

Dear Henry:

The Atwood editing of the Keezer and Colm papers is a dull job, mere condensation. He took out some of the interesting details which might have appealed to readers (for example, he eliminated the definition of GNP; most people I know would like to see it well defined). He took out references and footnotes which might appeal to the intellectual reader. There was no editing for style.

The Hughes editing of the Pettee paper (even when he held the opinion that the paper should NOT be included among those polished--see his note on the inside of the Pettee folder--and although he, too, did not edit for style) was a thoughtful job. He took out all repetitions and irrelevancies. He pointed up the most important things. He actually added zip to the paper. By contrast to the Atwood editing, the Hughes effort is lively and interesting.

P.S. I have _never_ been a Hughes fan!

Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

6 August 1957

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Director, Special Studies Project
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
22 West 55th Street
New York 19, New York

Dear Henry:

As you requested in our discussions of Thursday and Saturday, I have gone over the Subpanel II report in detail. I am inclosing both some extensive comments and an annotated copy of the report giving grammatical changes and indicating portions needing clarification. You might see that I get back either this or another copy, so I'll know where we stand.

In general, I think the remark I made on Saturday still stands: this is a much better report than the previous versions, the question which I raise notwithstanding the real difficulty is that no individual or group (including our Subpanel) has had the time, the competence and the occasion to think through these weighty matters. Nor am I sure that the Subpanel will accept any solution which you, I, Dwight or Jim McCormack might evolve. In any event, we must try, and my points are designed to help in that evolution, as well as to enhance the possibility that our end-product will carry weight outside the Special Studies Project.

I shall look forward to hearing from you on Friday, after you have talked to Nelson. By that time also, you may be able to say where we go with the Subpanel III report. At least you can't say we lack for words.

February 4, 1958

MEMORANDUM

To:HAK
From: Isabelle Savell

Attached is a letter from Mrs. Rosenberg, listing the changes she feels are desirable in the January 21 draft of the IV Report. into

Most of them have been taken into account in the January 31 draft (I almost called in the CIA to find out what you had done with some of the points); but there are a few which I thought should be called to your attention.

1. Lester Granger's suggestions on the handling of the Negro problem/ I believe these have been covered in the V Report, where they are more appropriate.

2. Mrs. Rosenberg stresses the point that the most important way to increase tax revenues is to create an atmosphere where production and expansion will increase. Perhaps you will want to give further emphasis to this in the next draft?

3. She raises a question about eliminating references to the need for a review of federal subsidies, including the postal subsidy. You eliminated only the reference to the postal subsidy.

4. Mrs. Rosenberg questions the $68.4 billion defense budget figure, indicating her belief that savings on items other than missiles should make possible a reduction in that figure.

There is one further point raised by Mrs. Rosenberg's comments to which you may want to give consideration: namely, that management of water resources is a regional problem. This was incorporated in the January 31 draft on Page 49, and the Port of New York Authority was cited as an illustrative agency. As you know, the Port Authority is not a water regulating agency, and it occurred to me this citation might therefore be confusing. There are several interstate agencies concerned with regulation and control of water resources--the Interstate Sanitation Commission (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) is one of the most effective. Would it be advisable to cite one of these agencies instead?

And finally: I have been through the January 31 draft for typographical errors. There are a few, and we will catch them the next time around.

April 8, 1958

Dear John:

With reference to your request for more up-to-date figures for the
table on occupational distribution, the following figures have been given
to me with the source cited as the 1957 Statistical Abstract:

| 1956 | Professional workers and technical workers | 10.1 |
|---|---|---|
|  | Proprietors, managers and officials, excluding farm | 11.0 |
|  | Clerical workers | 14.6 |
|  | Skilled workers and foremen | 14.3 |
|  | **Total** | **50.0** |

The point you mention relating to financing of higher education is,
I believe, based on the statement in the March 17 draft on page 47 which
says: "Thus ten per cent of this increment in gross national product/
-- somewhere between $13.5 and $16.5 billion -- would be sufficient
to double the 1955 level of educational outlay." All the figures in this
paragraph have been checked in pamphlets published by the Educational
Policies Commission. The source of the statement about doubling the
1955 level of educational outlay comes from The Contemporary Challenge
to American Education, Educational Policies Commission, 1958, p. 17,
which says:

"At the minimum, expenditures on education should be
doubled within a decade, as proposed by the White
House Conference on Education."

I hope this information is what you want.

Mr. John W. Gardner
589 Fifth Avenue
New York 17, N. Y.

18

cc: Corinne Lvman

V - Report (Draft)

April 16, 1958

- 33 -

kind in the same period. Since only about 20 per cent of college graduates enter school teaching the magnitude of the problem is apparent, even allowing for the fact that recent college graduates are not the only source of supply. At the college level the teacher shortage is more critical still. The number of new college teachers needed by 1970 is roughly three times the number of Ph.D. graduates likely to be turned out during this period.

The danger of a decline in the quality of our corps of teachers is obvious. Even today it is in need of upgrading: as of 1956, 33 per cent of the elementary teachers did not hold A.B. degrees and more than 21 per cent of all public school teachers had less than four years of college. At the college level, far from upgrading our corps of teachers we are slipping backward. The National Education Association reports that "since 1953-54, holders of the doctor's degree among the newly employed full-time teachers have decreased 25.2 per cent and those with less than a master's degree have increased 26.9 per cent." And the pressures immediately ahead are likely to worsen the condition. The decline in quality may not reveal itself fully in the statistical charts. But our children will get the full impact of it.

Under the present system of incentives, both financial and social, it is unlikely that we shall attract into teaching even a fraction of the able people we need. This threatens to become a particular problem at the college level. For many of the qualities which are most necessary for

V - Report (Draft)

April 16, 1958

- 39 -

important -- is not as controversial a matter as some seem to think.

When educational leaders can be persuaded to list subjects in order of
priority, a high degree of agreement emerges <u>as to the top items on the
list.</u> Without presuming to lay down an inflexible set of recommendations,
we may suggest what these high priority items in a solid high school
curriculum might be. (These recommendations are based partly upon a
recent study by Dr. James B. Conant and partly upon the findings of a
conference sponsored by the National Education Association on "Education
of the Academically Talented.")

English -- four years for all students.

Mathematics -- two years for all; three to four for college preparatory
students.

Science -- one year for all; two to four for college preparatory students.

History or related social science -- three to four years for all students.

Foreign Languages -- at least three years of one language for every
college preparatory student.

Particularly with respect to the highest priority subjects, we must
modernize and improve the quality of the courses themselves. Virtually
every subject in the school curriculum would profit by a lively reform
movement of the sort now going on in mathematics teaching. Certainly
every subject in the curriculum would profit by the attention of the best
minds in that particular field. For too long the leading authorities in these

V - Report (Draft)

April 16, 1958

But testing procedures unwisely used can do harm. A few basic considerations with respect to them must be understood.

First, tests are most effective in measuring academic aptitude and achievement. There are certain other kinds of aptitude and achievement that they can measure, but with less assurance. And there are many kinds of talent that must go unmeasured because no adequate measuring instruments exist. In short, the tests are effective on a limited front. Decisions based on test scores must be made with the awareness of the imponderables in human behavior. We cannot measure the rare qualities of character that are a necessary ingredient of great performance. We cannot measure aspiration. We cannot measure courage and vitality.

Second, no single testing should become a basis for important decisions. A series of scores obtained over years enables teachers to achieve a reliable perspective on the young person's aptitudes, and minimizes the possibility of false diagnosis.

Third, test scores are one kind of data to be placed alongside other kinds of data. The test score is not to be worshipped as a datum so decisive that it alone can be used to settle an individual's fate; it is a highly useful addition to other data but should not replace them. Unfortunately, the most powerful influence making for excessive dependence

V - Report (Draft)

April 16, 1958

note that a student might be in a fast-learning group in mathematics, in
a second group for history, and a third group for French. This is a very
different thing from arbitrarily separating all students with intelligence
scores above a certain figure and placing them in a separate curriculum
as a block.

Some critics of our high schools have advocated the European
pattern of two entirely separate school systems after approximately the
sixth grade -- one system college preparatory and the other more
vocational in character. Such separation would be unpalatable to most
Americans. And in any case separate school systems are unnecessary.
There is no reason why youngsters at all levels of scholastic ability
should not sit in the same homeroom, play on the same teams, act in the
same plays, attend the same dances and share in the same student govern-
ment. And there are many reasons why such a common experience is
important.

The argument against two entirely separate school systems need
not rule out the possibility that in our larger cities we may develop special
schools to meet special purposes (e.g., the famed Bronx High School of
Science). Our best guide in these matters is our American habit of varying
the rule to fit the circumstances.

In preceding paragraphs we have referred repeatedly to that portion
of the high school population that is capable of high caliber college work --

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April 16, 1958

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undemocratic in spirit. We cannot escape the fact of individual differences, and we cannot escape the necessity for coping with them. Whether we like it or not, they are a central fact in any educational system -- and in any society. The good society is not one that ignores them but one that deals with them wisely and compassionately.

If we are really serious about equality of opportunity, we shall be infinitely serious about individual differences, because what constitutes opportunity for one man is a stone wall for the next man. If we are to do justice to the individual we must seek for him the level and kind of education which will open his eyes, stimulate his mind and unlock his potentialities. We should seek to develop many educational patterns -- each geared to the particular capacities of the student for whom it is designed.

But though the educational patterns may differ, the goals remain much the same for all: enabling each young person to go as far as his aptitude will permit in fundamental knowledge and skills, and motivating him to continue his own self-development along similar lines.

If we recognize the necessity of diverse educational paths, it may then be easier to accept the fact that college education is not the only road to a full and useful life. Americans who honestly believe in the full realization of every man's potentialities find themselves engaged in a double advocacy. On the one hand, they must strive to make college education more

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April 16, 1958

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support and control is a healthy thing for all concerned. Here as in so
many other aspects of our national life we find that diverse sources of
control make for freedom and vitality in the system.

Some have urged that one solution of the problem lies in reform
of the private college "pricing system." Today tuition charges frequently
represent 50 per cent or less of actual instructional costs, so that every
student automatically receives a large "hidden scholarship" financed out of
endowment income, current gifts, and low faculty salaries. Overt
scholarships are then superimposed upon the "hidden scholarships" for
those students who cannot even afford the "cut rates." Some have
suggested an alternate policy under which tuition would be set at the _full_ cost of instruction and each student would receive whatever amount of
scholarship assistance he needed and would pay whatever proportion of
the full tuition he could afford. This would eliminate "hidden" scholarships,
put all student subsidies out in the open, and place all student charges on an
ability-to-pay basis. No student would be kept out for financial reasons,
none would receive a subsidy if he did not need it, and not a dollar of
alumni gifts or other income would be wasted on hidden subsidies to students
whose families could well afford the _real_ cost of a good college education.
But unfortunately there are substantial difficulties in such a plan.

Unquestionably the solution for the privately-financed institutions
lies not in any one device but in the simultaneous exploration of numerous

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April 16, 1958

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paths -- both for cutting costs and for raising money: for example,
eliminating unnecessary frills in the curriculum; sharing facilities with
neighboring institutions; dropping the extravagant notion that every
institution must offer a carbon copy of the curriculum offered by every
other institution; making radically better use of physical facilities;
raising tuition; cultivating increased corporate and alumni giving; and
obtaining certain kinds of federal support. Unless changes such as
these are carried out there is a real danger that the role and influence
of private higher education will progressively decline in the years ahead.

these are carried out there is a real danger that the role and influence
obtaining certain kinds of federal support. Unless changes such as
raising funds; cultivating increased corporate and alumni giving; and
other institutions making radically better use of physical facilities;
institution must offer a carbon copy of the curriculum offered by every
neighboring institutions; dropping the extravagant notion that every
eliminating unnecessary trifle in the curriculum; sharing facilities with
baths - both for cutting costs and for raising money; for example,

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April 16, 1958
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April 16, 1958

first steps. Until the Negro has been offered equal opportunity with the non-Negro to develop and use his individual talents to the utmost, and until he can be encouraged to make the most of his opportunity, we shall have failed to achieve our moral goal. Whether the Negro in fact profits from expanding opportunities will, of course, depend in some measure on the effort that he himself puts forth.

**Better use of womanpower.** As a recent report of the National Manpower Council made clear, women are playing an increasingly important role in the American economy: one out of every three workers in our regular labor force of nearly 70 million is a woman. To this already large contribution, we can expect a substantial increase over the next decades due to the age composition of our population. The average American woman today is married before she reaches voting age, and frequently completes her family of two or three by her late twenties. Thus by her early or mid-thirties her children are in school and she may be in search of meaningful activity outside the home. Some women may find satisfaction in volunteer work, but many others will prefer or need a paid job on a part- or full-time basis.

However, the availability will go to naught -- despite the eagerness of many married women to work -- if we do not take active steps to utilize this "potential resource." In the educational, nursing and welfare fields --

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April 16, 1958

- 66 -

in its own stereotyped notions of what constitutes talent. As a result an
apparent shortage of talent may often represent only a shortness of vision.
Sometimes a change of jobs is extremely useful in lifting the individual out
of his rut and exposing him to new challenges. In this connection it must
be noted that elaborate pension and benefit plans weaken the incentives of
men and women to move to positions where better use could be made of
their capacities and experience. There is urgent need for more vesting of
pension rights, so that the employee who moves to another job need not
leave behind years of accumulated benefits.

Another problem is the large organization itself. The traits
commonly associated with a high level of creativity (e.g., in the best
scientists) are not always such as to make for success or even happiness in
a large organization. Since many large organizations today cannot function
without men of these gifts, a good deal of effort has been expended to
resolve this dilemma. Some industrial concerns, particularly those that
depend on a high level of technological innovation, have learned much about
how to attract and hold such individuals. The military, bound by many
rigidities in the treatment of its personnel, has learned less. And labor
unions still have far to go if they are to develop a forward-looking policy
for the nurture of talent within their ranks.

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April 16, 1958

- 50 -

G. Financing

All of the problems of the schools lead us back sooner or later to
one central problem -- the problem of financing. It is a problem with
which we cannot afford to cope half-heartedly. Education has always been
essential to achievement of our political and moral objectives. It has
emerged as a necessary ingredient in our technological and social advance-
ment. And now events have underscored its value in terms of sheer survival.

It will not be enough to meet this problem grudgingly or with a little
more money. The nation's need for good education is immediate; and good
education is expensive. That is a fact which the American people have never
been quite prepared to face. In order to meet the national need, support for
education must rise to a completely new level. If the public is not prepared
for this, then responsible educators, business leaders, political leaders,
unions, and civic organizations must join in a national campaign to prepare
them.

public is them?
S. pl.

But first our national leaders will themselves have to grasp the true
scope of the task. Perhaps the greatest problem facing American education
is the widely-held view that remedies can be found by a slight improvement
of present patterns, that all we require are a few more teachers, a few
more buildings, a little more money. Such an approach will be disastrous.
We are moving into the most demanding era in our history. An educational

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April 16, 1958

a modest alteration of human affairs. Spectacular advances in scientific understanding of the nucleus of the atom, of the living cell, of brain functioning, of genetics, and of many other fields hold implications that will test to the utmost our adaptive capacities, our stability and our wisdom.

The immediate implications for education may be briefly stated. We need an ample supply of high calibre scientists, mathematicians and engineers. Quantitative arguments over the shortages in these fields are beside the point. We need *quality* and we need it in considerable quantity! Whatever the existing needs, it is in the nature of a revolution that its continuing impetus derives from the "unknown needs," the new opportunities and vistas which are the hallmark of creativity.

There is a danger of training scientists so narrowly in their specialties that they are unprepared to shoulder the moral and civic responsibilities which the modern world thrusts upon them. But just as we must insist that every scientist be broadly educated, so we must see to it that every educated person be literate in science. In the short run this may contribute to our survival. In the long run it is essential to our integrity as a society. We cannot afford to have our most highly educated people living in intellectual isolation from one another, without even a basic understanding of each other's intellectual concerns. Such fragmentation must lead to a loss of social purpose.

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April 16, 1958

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factory is a miracle of voluntary cooperation that can only be accomplished by people who have developed deeply ingrained habits of playing by the rules, of self-discipline, and of internalized restraints. The same is true for most functions of a mass society.

But while complex organization is necessary, it is also costly. It is often a stifling atmosphere for the exercise of individual creativity, and it may induce a conformity that becomes a threat to the society's vitality. In the atmosphere of regularity and order, the individual is under considerable pressure to gear his personal performance to an acceptable common denominator. This may yield clear benefits in smoothness of organizational functioning but is hardly conducive to the kind of creative performance on which society now so importantly depends.

In short, the growing complexity of our social organization presents problems as well as opportunities for the cultivation of human capabilities. It tends to encourage effort -- but often only up to a level of average acceptability. It opens avenues of advance, but these avenues converge on the citadels of routine where the individual pace must conform to fixed traffic patterns. It stimulates self-development but threatens to define its goal as mere competence. Meanwhile the very contribution that a highly organized society most requires -- original thought and effort -- is precisely that which it unconsciously discourages.

DEBEVOISE, PLIMPTON & MCLEAN

20 EXCHANGE PLACE
NEW YORK 5, N. Y.

May 5, 1958

Mr. John W. Gardner
President
Carnegie Corporation of N.Y.
589 Fifth Avenue
New York 17, N. Y.

Rockefeller Panel V Report

Dear Mr. Gardner:

I was asked to comment on the April 16 draft of the Panel V Report, and I have just passed along my only three comments to Miss Slater.

The third of these comments is, in my mind, of sufficient importance that I thought I would write you my thoughts. My concern is with the section "Better Use of Woman Power" on pages 61 and 62.

The tenor of this section is that we would be making a better national use of woman power by having mothers work in paid jobs outside the home, perhaps as soon as the youngest of her children reaches school age. The suggestion is that many mothers will not find a "meaningful" activity inside the home, but will do so outside. Similarly, there is a suggestion that "satisfaction" is to be found in work outside the home, as distinct from the role of the mother and housewife.

I confess a rather strong contrary view. I believe we should do everything possible to emphasize the meaningful nature of the mother's activities in the home. One of the greatest problems with our society today is the absence of a recognition by society of the importance of the mother remaining in the home as a teacher and moral and spiritual counselor and example.

Mr. John W. Gardner

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May 5, 1958

Any suggestion that a mother's job is at all completed when the youngest child reaches school age is, to me, extremely dangerous. I cannot conceive of a mother's role as diminishing one whit until a child actually leaves the home.

In the Panel IV Report, Chapter 5, we emphasize the importance of family life. Indeed, much of our social disturbance and disorder finds its root in a weakening of the structure of family life. It is exactly the situation of working mothers which frequently underlies the weakening of a home situation.

Far be it from me to tie the poor gals to the kitchen sink! Indeed, I can see only too clearly in my own better half the frustrations of not having some activity outside the home. But I would view this "search for meaningful activity outside the home" (to use the words of the present draft) solely in terms of helping the mother to enrich her own life and thereby be a better mother.

I certainly do not disagree with the concept that there is a latent source of woman power -- for teaching, nursing and many other fields. But the essence of my views is this: let us put the emphasis on women whose children have left the home, or substantially so. As for those with young children, I would urge a positive statement for the meaningful nature of the woman's role in the home, rather than suggest any diminution of the importance of that role when the youngsters are in school.

Like the views of most any commentator, these are over-stated. Discounting them properly, you may find something in these statements worth considering. I will not be hurt if you do not!

Congratulations on a superbly written and thrilling document. I was particularly pleased by the paragraph on page 68 relating to "Sharing Personnel" and "Transferring In and Out of Government From Other Fields." I also thought the last few pages were most inspiring.

COPY

May 7 -- En route by car to Phila, and points west.

Dear Henry,

This is broadly O.K. from my point of view, but at several
critical points it "thins out" dangerously, I fear. For example, its
treatment of the Federal aid question is, I think, pretty good but it
then moves into the plight of the private "half" of higher education
with almost no discussion of the critical "competition" now develop-
ing between the two parts of the system with many private institutions
caught between the unnecessarily low tuition charges of State insti-
tutions (regardless of need of the individual student) and the ability
of the State institution to get tax appropriations almost at will for
both new capital facilities and teachers. I am sure that any look into
this sector of the future ought to say that one of the great issues is
whether our private colleges are really worth preserving and if so,
(as I believe) how can they be kept both strong and solvent.

The existing "price policies" of public higher education at
the least require rigorous reexamination both from the point of view
of preserving a mixed system but also from the point of view of
improving our public education: e.g., (a) to put some economic stif-
ening into the ridiculous waste of a "system" having an attrition rate
of 60 percent; (b) reserve state and local tax resources for "beefing
up" the quality of the public ed. system for all before the college by
requiring those who have the privilege of college to pay at least a
fair share of this cost now and by delayed payment programs. In short,
a more realistic pricing policy in the state universities would help
at every point in our mixed system.

I suggest a look at the draft papers Seymour Harris has done on
pricing policy in higher education for confirmation that this is a really
decisive issue for the future of private higher education.

And also take a good look at the enclosed copy of my recent
protest to the Sec. of the Navy if you want a concrete example of how
dangerous an ill-considered Fed. Gov't. action can be. A lot of us are
now fighting this one and I cite it to show how little understood the funda-
mental issues are. I do feel we owe this side of this paper a little more
emphasis.

I especially applaud pp. 76 - 77 !

s/ John Dickey

COPY

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
Offices of Administration
Hanover, New Hampshire

The President

April 15, 1958

Honorable Thomas S. Gates, Jr.
Secretary of the Navy
Department of the Navy
Washington 25, D. C.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you concerning a matter which I believe merits your personal attention. By letter dated April 4, 1958, Vice Admiral H. P. Smith, Chief of Naval Personnel, advised Dartmouth and other similarly situated institutions that the Navy has decided to abandon its established policy of equal scholarship quotas for all NROTC institutions and to replace it with a policy of favoring institutions with lower tuition charges. Admiral Smith's letter states that this action is being taken for reasons of "economical management." In subsequent telephone conversations with me Admiral Smith stated that in reaching this decision no consideration has been given to the following matters. Indeed, I think he will confirm my statement that these considerations were not before him when the decision was taken.

For some time now the Executive Branch of the Government from the President down has been expressing the most acute concern that everyone should do everything in his power to strengthen American institutions of higher learning. All of us on these jobs have been urged from all sides to implement the recommendations of the President's Commission on Higher Education, one of the most critical of which was the raising of faculty salaries. Congress has before it measures sponsored by this Administration to deal with these problems through a Federally financed scholarship-aid program and in other ways. Many other independent measures are being pressed to the same end.

Few, if any, students of American higher education have any doubt about the imperative necessity of raising tuition charges,

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particularly in the private colleges and universities, if we are to
keep these institutions strong and meet the crisis in faculty salaries.
Within the past year the great majority of our strong institutions in-
cluding a number of the state universities, have tried to assume their
responsibility in this matter by increasing their tuition charges for
those who can afford to pay their way. Even so these charges in general
do not average more than 50% of the cost to an institution of a student's
education. These efforts have been applauded by well nigh all students
of the subject and we are being urged on all sides to press forward on
this last financial front of self-help. Now, suddenly to be confronted
with an official Navy Department action openly announcing a policy to
penalize institutions that have raised their tuition charges is almost
beyond comprehension. I am sure I need not labor the fact that such an
action if followed generally throughout the Government would in the long
run be a serious threat to private colleges and universities, indeed be
a threat to quality education in both the public and private institutions.
Immediately, such a policy cannot help but be a serious deterrent to
further action in both public and private institutions to meet their cri-
tical salary problem in the most honorable and direct course open to
them, namely, charging something remotely approaching realistic
fees for those who can pay.

I have taken the liberty of writing to you and others about
this matter because the issue far transcends the mere number of NROTC
scholarships at issue. I urge you with utmost confidence in the serious-
ness of this matter to have the question reviewed by men who understand
the implications of this decision from the point of view of the general
welfare of American higher education.