A$ 9748

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Mr, FULBRIGHT. Mr. Presidént, the
Committee on Foreign Relations held a
short but most interesting series of hear-
ings earlier this year on the subject of
the psychological aspects of foreign pol-
icy—-a subject which both the public
and the bureaucracy tend to ignore.

Miss Elizabeth Wharton, of the United
Press International, wrote a brief but
perceptive article on those hearings. The
article has been printed rather widely.

In view of its succinct summary of the
hearings and the fact that it focuses on
some of the fundamental problems na-
tions have in communicating with each
other, I ask unanimous consent that
the article be printed in the Concres-
SIONAL Recorp. The article appeared in
the Tampa Tribune-Times of Sunday,
July 20, 1969.

There being no objection, the article
was ordered to be printed in the Recorp,
as follows:

BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES aS TOOL OF
DIPLoMAcY

(By Elizabeth Wharton)

WasHINGTON.—An American Is brought up
to look a man in the eye when talking to
him. He also is conditioned by his culture to
Keep a certaln distance from a person with
whom he’s conversing.

An Arab is taught from childhood that
looking a man in the eye during conversa-

‘thon is extremely rude. He also Is accus-
tomed to stand quite close to a person with
whom he’s talking.

If an American meets an Arab, and neither
1s aware of the other’s cultural conditioning,
any conversation between them is likely to
produce serious misunderstanding and mu-
tual irritation. The American thinks the
Arab is crowding in too close, so he steps
back, which insults the Arab. The American
thinks the Arab is shifty because he won’t
look him in the eye, and the Arab thinks the
American is trying to stare him down.

Social scientists, particularly in the so-
ealled behavioral fields of anthropology and
peychology, recognize these cultural differ-
ences and understand how important they
can be as a cause of friction. . ,

Governments—and most people—do not.

In an effort to determine what insights so-
tlal science studies might offer to smooth
the path of international relations, Chair-
man J, William Fulbright of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee held a series
of hearings on the subject of “anthropologi-
eal and psychological aspects of U.S. foreign
policy.”

Witnesses were Dr. Margaret Mead, anthro-
pologist, writer, and curator for ethnology at
the American Museum of Natural History in
New York; Dr. Karl Menninger, noted psy-
chiatrist, founder and president of the Men-
ninger Clinic and Menninger Foundation in
Kansas; and Dr. Edward T. Hall, author and
professor of anthropology at Northwestern
University.

All three believe behavioral science could
make a significant contribution to the quest
for peace and International amity. :

They cited the experience of World War IT,
when intensive U.S. research on Japanese
culture ylelded two outstanding successes
and many minor ones.

The first achievement concerned treatment
of Japanese prisoners of war. When Amer-
tean military commanders began taking their
first prisoners inthe Pacific islands, the
Japanese not only freely discussed military
secrets but even offered to help their captors
track down Installations and ammunition
dumps,

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

“The Americans didn’t trust the prisoners,
of course, since Americans are conditioned
not to give such information to their cap-
tors. We told them the prisoners could be
trusted because the Japanese had never been
conditioned to being taken prisoner,” Dr.
Hall explained. “Their culture decreed that
they be good soldiers, and to them being
good soldiers also meant being good prison-
ers. We were right, and the information
proved very useful.”

The second great success was in persuad-
ing the U.S. Government to permit the
Japanese to retain the Emperor after the
war—a recommendation made by the be-
havioral scientists within months after the
attack on Pearl Harbor.

If the Emperor had been forced to abdi-
cate, Dr. Mead said, Japanese society would
have taken generations, instead of just a
few years, to recover from the war.

Government-sponsored behavioral studies
tapered off after the war, and the entire fleld
of social science fell into dispute during what
Dr. Menninger called the “rampant know-
nothingism” of the late 40s’-and early 50s’.

The three experts suggested that a num-
ber of national crises since then could have
been averted, or, at least, ameliorated, if
such research were still being done as a guide
to government policy. Dr. Mead cited two
examples:

The first was the Pueblo incident. To
North Koreans, truth is an elastic concept
in which bare facts are less important than
the interpretation one chooses to place upon
them. They knew the Pueblo was off-shore
spying on them, and whether the ship was
a few miles inside or a few miles outside an
invisible line on the water simply didn’t have
anything to do with it.

But Americans rely on facts, and our in-
struments proved the ship was a certain
number of miles outside the invisible line.

The final settlement, under which the
United States agreed to sign a “confession”
of invading North Korean territory—and
promptly repudiated it—might have been
reached much sooner than it was if the be-
havioral scientists had been consulted, Dr.
Mead said.

Her second example was the violent disrup-
tion which resulted from the Supreme
Court’s school desegregation decision of 1954.
Behavioral scientists had warned in advance,
she said, that such a drastic change must
be effected rapidly.

“To the human mind, anticipated change
is frightening, while accomplished change is
accepted,” she explained, Therefore, she feels
it was the clause in the decision which al-
lowed local governments to move “with all
deliberate speed” which caused all the
trouble, .

Hall said the practice of sending American
representatives abroad without preparation
on the mores of the society to which they
were going subjected them to a “culture
shock” from which they might never recover
enough to do the job they set out to do.

He used time as an example. The United
States, he said, is a “monochronic” culture
which times everything to the minute and
in which the people, the industry: and the
‘government function on a set schedule.

Latin America, on the other hand, is a
“polychronic” society in which people set
little store by schedules, and consider times
set for appointments to be only an approxi-
mation.

“Both time systems work, but they work
in different ways,” he said. “What is more,
they do not mix. .

“I have observed a number of Ameri-

cans ... fail in their mission because they
mever learned to read the local time
customs.” :

At the same time, Hall continued, Ameri-
cans feel a terrible need to be loved, cannot
tolerate criticism from. others and don’t
think much of self-criticism elther.

July 29, 196.

“We have to feel we are dolng well all the
time,” he said. “It’s a real problem, because
it is self-defeating to be complacent.”

All three witnesses agreed that consulting
social scientists on national policy would give
the United States an enormous advantage
over the Communist world whose inflexible
ideological framework has no room for un-
fettered social research.

Fulbright agrees, but says he has not yet
decided how to go about trying to convince
a U.S. bureaucracy which has a certain in-
flexibility of its own.

“We spend an enormous amount of money
collecting information about the Russians,”
the Senator explained. “I should think it
would be a very good investment to spend
even a little money hiring behavioral scien-
tists to interpret the information and draw
conclusions from it.”

 

TAX SURCHARGE PASSAGE

Mr. FANNIN. Mr. President, each day
this body delays action on the extension
of the surcharge, our Nation drifts
farther down the road to fiscal irre-
sponsibility. At the domestic level, fuel
is added to the fire of inflation with our
deficit spending continuing because our
revenue does not equal our expenditures.

The grocery bag for the welfare recip-
ient, or those on a fixed income, shrinks
in size as prices continue to skyrocket.
This results from many circumstances
prevalent in our economy today, not the
least of which is the loss of confidence in
the American dollar.

Our dollar is also in jeopardy in the
world money market if we do not sta-
bilize our economy with a more favorable
balance of payments. To improve our
balance-of-payments position we must
increase our exports, decrease our im-
ports, or improve our dollar flow. Of
course it could be a combination of these
corrections that could result in a favor-
able fiscal position. We must convince
the other nations of the world of our
willingness to get our financial house in
order. No one knows whether the econ-
omy might break during this critical

‘waiting period while we await the pas-

sage of the surtax extension. It has hap-
pened before when circumstances did not
seem any more threatening.

Because of inflation, we are losing
the ability to compete; other countries
are winning a greater percentage of
world trade. The trend is starting to
rapidly increase in their direction.
Whether we talk about steel, motor vehi-
cles, or a vast number of other products
including sophisticated electronic equip-
ment, we are losing the battle.

In recent years we have become net
importers of iron and steel mill products
and the gap is still increasing. We are
net importers of paper, yarns, fabrics,
and man-made fibers. Our trade position
has swung to the deficit side with Canada
since 1967, a deficit with Japan since
1964, and a deficit with Germany since
1965. :

In a 5-year outlook, published in April
of 1969, the U.S. Department of Com-
merce says this: te

Moderating U.S. inflationary pressures ...
is a basic prerequisite for improving the
trade balance... .

Millions of jobs are being lost to
American workers by our loss of in-