Cold War anthropology: Collaborators and victims of the National Security State

This paper examines some of the interactions between anthropologists and Am erica's National Security State during the Cold War. The Human Ecology Fund , an anthropological funding front used by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950s and 1960s, is discussed to elucidate one of the ways that the National Security State sponsored and consumed anthropological knowledge. C lyde Kluckhohn's secret interactions with the FBI, State Department, and CI A are discussed to exemplify how some scholars covertly interacted with int elligence agencies during the Cold War. Finally, documents from anthropolog ist Melville Jacobs' troubles at the University of Washington for his Marxi st political associations indicate ways in which radical anthropologists we re persecuted. It is argued that despite the proclaimed end of the Cold War , many of the features of the National Security State are still in place, a s are new interfaces between the military-intelligence agencies and the aca demy.