Project Camelot

Testifying before the U.S. Congress in 1965, R.L. Sproul, director of DARPA said: "It is [our] primary thesis that remote area warfare is controlled in a major way by the environment in which the warfare occurs, by the sociological and anthropological characteristics of the people involved in the war, and by the nature of the conflict itself."54

The recognition within DOD that research and development efforts to support counterinsurgency operations must be oriented toward the local human terrain led to the establishment of the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) at the American University in Washington, D.C. With anthropologists and other social scientists on staff, SORO functioned as a research center into the human dimension of counterinsurgency. Many SORO reports took a unique approach. In 1964, the Army commissioned an unusual paper titled "Witchcraft, Sorcery, Magic, and Other Psychological Phenomena, and Their Implications on Military and Paramilitary Operations in the Congo." Authored by James R. Price and Paul Jureidini, the report is a treatise on paranormal combat, discussing "counter-magic" tactics to suppress rebels who are backed by witch doctors, charms, and magic potions.55

In 1964, SORO also designed the infamous Project Camelot. According to a letter from the Office of the Director of the Special Operations Research Office, Project Camelot was "a study whose objective [was] to determine the feasibility of developing a general social systems model which would make it possible to predict and influence politically significant aspects of social change in the developing nations of the world." The project's objectives were "to devise procedures for assessing the potential for internal war within national societies; to identify with increased degrees of confidence those actions which a government might take to relieve conditions which are assessed as giving rise to a potential for internal war; [and] to assess the feasibility of prescribing the characteristics of a system for obtaining and using the essential information needed for doing the above two things."56

Project Camelot, which was initiated during a time when the military took counterinsurgency seriously as an area of competency, recognized the need for social science insights. According to the director's letter: "Within the Army there is especially ready acceptance of the need to improve the general understanding of the processes of social change if the Army is to discharge its responsibilities in the overall counterinsurgency program of the U.S. Government."57

Chile was to be the first case study for Project Camelot. Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung was invited to design a seminar for Project Camelot. Although he refused, he shared information about the project with colleagues. Meanwhile, Hugo Nuttini, who taught anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, accepted an assignment for Project Camelot in Chile. While there, he concealed Camelot's military origin, but word leaked out. Protests arose from Chile's newspapers and legislature and the Chilean Government lodged a diplomatic protest with the U.S. Ambassador. In Washington, D.C., following congressional hearings on the subject, McNamara canceled Project Camelot in 1965.

Originally posted by RiotComing
Hi Shawnna, no I haven't read that Q&A, I've been out at a function and just come home. And no, I've been stressing that we shouldn't even think about BR, and discuss the participants and the topics raised instead. So I'm not painting him in a light of any particular colour, if it were to be any kind of hue it would be a shadow, as he appears to take a back seat in most of the proceedings.

Which is fine, he's letting the people tell their stories unhindered. It's interesting you say none of the participants are validating facts. If anything, it's drawing the strings together and corroberating pretty much every theory floating around out there - that's the fascinating thing about Camelot for me. Every speaker, without exception, has engendered my reaction of "yeah! that makes total sense! that's exactly what so-and-so-said" like missing jigsaw pieces falling into place.

It's your decision in the end if you choose to ignore what these people are bringing to the table. Fine with me.

Originally posted by Shawnna
I suggest a little more research is needed before you make a judgement as to his integrity. The Q&A and expose are both quite eye-opening and worth your effort to read. Additionally, the serpo thread here at ATS is also reflective of Bill's complicity in that hoax.