wikipedia | Project Camelot was a social science research project of the United States Army that started in 1964 and was cancelled after congressional hearings in 1965.[1] The goal of the project was to assess the causes of conflict between national groups, to anticipate social breakdown and provide eventual solutions. The proposal caused much controversy among social scientists, many of whom voiced concerns that such a study was in conflict with their professional ethics.[2]
Chile was to be the test case for the project, but Claudio Bunster was alerted almost immediately to its possible military nature when Johan Galtung
showed him a letter from the Special Operations Research Office (SORO)
inviting him to a seminar to discuss the project in 1966 at the American University in Washington DC.
The seminar was actually held in the summer of 1965 but by then the
initial exploratory mission to study the feasibility of running such a
project was being phased out and the project itself was officially
cancelled on July 8, 1965.[2]
The project's purpose was described by the army as follows:
| “ | Success in such tasks as equipping and training indigenous forces for an internal security mission, civic action, psychological warfare, or other counterinsurgency action depends on a thorough understanding of the indigenous social structure, upon the accuracy with which changes within the indigenous culture, particularly violent changes, are anticipated, and the effects of various courses of action available to the military and other agencies of government upon the indigenous process of change.[3] |
