CHAPTER 13 THE POPULATION ESTABLISHMENT AND FALSE BAD NEWS: A CASE STUDY Heady times those, and something in it for everyone--the activist, the scholar, the foundation officer, the globe circling consultant, the wait-listed government official. World conferences, a Population Year, commissions, select committees, new centers for research and training, a growing supply of experts, pronouncements by world leaders and, most of all, money--lots of it (Kantner, 1982). Centered around particular issues related to public policy there usually develops an institutional network that may usefully be referred to as an "establishment". In his 1982 presidential address to the Population Association of America, John Kantner provided the above colorful description of the prior years of the population establishment - the people and institutions involved with the issue of the population growth of poor countries. I'll use as an example this complex of activist organizations, university "centers", international organizations, scholars, government agencies, and the press. These elements mentioned by Kantner in the quotation above influence research funding, perquisites, individual and institutional decisions about research topics to pursue, choices of people to hire and invite, emphasis placed upon various findings in the research, and sometimes the conclusions themselves. The widely ramified nature of the establishment, with its wide-ranging powers, enables it to have a large effect upon public opinion and sometimes on public policy.<1> Before I presented these statements "publicly," I raised many of these matters "internally" to the profession -- in long letters with much of the documentation contained herein, to two presidents of the Population Association of America, to the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, and to the president and chief executive and board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And there have been people within the "establishment" who have conscientiously given a public hearing to the views about population economics that I espouse, or have themselves fairly represented similar views, and on some occasions suffered for doing so. <2> The image of one hand washing the other comes to mind in thinking about an establishment. But an establishment really is more like an octopus, with myriad tentacles embracing the issue from all directions and leaving no avenue to escape. And an establishment inevitably becomes what the earlier label for the Mafia implies: "Cosa Nostra", our thing, the money oyster of all those who sit at the banquet table, as Kantner's quote implies. The ultimate establishment was the Soviet bureaucracy before the breakup of the USSR, and it was indeed popularly referred to as the Mafia. The description that follows refers to the early 1980s and earlier, but little has changed since then. The makeup of the establishment as of the early l970s was analyzed by Peter Bachrach and Elihu Bergman in Power and Choice. (1973) When read in 1982 (when this chapter was first written) or in 1996, the Bachrach-Bergman description of the closely-woven pattern of people, organizations, and money that developed from 1956 to 1970 seems eerily up-to-date. The evolution of this establishment's views into national policy for the United States was set forth well in World Population Crisis (1973) by Phyllis Piotrow, then a committed member of that establishment. The joining-together of population and environmental issues is the only development that occurred after the 1970s. The banner of that joining-together is the Global Tomorrow Coalition, which at last look included more than 50 organizations ranging from the Audubon Society to Zero Population Growth, and represented over 5 million members. The environmental movement is said to be among the two or three strongest lobbies in Washington (though whether or not that is true would be hard to test). Its officers interlock, past and present, with each other, the State Department, AID, the Council for Environmental Quality, and other relevant government agencies. The Coalition is also inter-related with the Year 2000 Committee, whose l8 members in the 1980s included the head of the Population Council, the head of the World Bank, Robert McNamara, and Walter Cronkite. GTC's publication Interaction (p. 11, date lost) boasted of its "elite Year 2000 Committee [which] is by design a small group of individuals...persons of such prominence, recognition, and accomplishment that they share a remarkable capacity for access to decision-making levels in both government and the private sector." The various individual organizations in the GTC worked together to promote federal legislation. The scope and mode of their activity was shown in the February 1987 issue of Interaction which listed four full pages of "Member Initiatives for the 1987 Session of the 100th Congress". Two typical "initiatives" of note are these: POPULATION Objectives: 1. An adequate overall funding level for development assistance so as to provide a reasonable allocation for international family planning programs. The goal for FY 1988 is to maintain current year levels of $234.6 million. 2. An FY 1987 U.S. contribution to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. AID withheld the entire $25 million it had budgeted for UNFPA in FY 1986 because of UNFPA's assistance to the Chinese population program. Supporting Organizations: Alan Guttmacher Institute, Population Crisis Committee... NATIONAL FORESIGHT Status: In previous years, different bills to improve national foresight capabilities within the Executive Branch of the Federal Government have been introduced by Sens. Albert Gore (D TN) and Mark Hatfield (R OR). Sen. Gore's "Critical Trends Assessment Act," which has been supported by the Natural Resources Defense Council, would set up a separate "Office of Critical Trends Assessment" (i.e., foresight) within the Executive Office of the President with responsibility for making projections based on demographic, population, environmental, economic, and other significant global trends at the direction of the President, and reporting to the Congress. At least two Coalition members, Zero Population Growth and Population-Environment Balance, support Hatfield's Global Resources, Environment and Population Act. That bill would establish a national policy of federal support for voluntary attainment of a stable U.S. population; require that the Federal Government establish the capability to derive internally consistent projections of population growth, environmental quality, and natural resource trends; and direct the Council on Environmental Quality to publish annually a report on global resources, population, and environment. GTC's own national foresight mandate, approved unanimously by the GTC Board, calls for improvement in U.S. foresight capability along lines similar to those in both the Gore and Hatfield bills, but does not include support for a national population policy. Additional support for the aims of the population establishment is drawn from even more broadly-based organizations. For example, the main-line organization of U.S. scientists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), itself runs an active program of "research" on population and related matters, which is discussed below, and its journal Science frequently carries articles about population and environmental issues that I consider to be heavily slanted (as best seen in the choice of adjectives used in those stories). The population establishment operates world-wide. International Planned Parenthood Federation in London takes on assignments with U.S. taxpayer money that cannot (for reasons of legality or "delicacy") be handled directly by State Department's Agency for International Development (AID) or U. S. Planned Parenthood. An official of OECD wrote this about the Pathfinder Fund: ...the relationship that has developed between Pathfinder and AID works well and is to the advantage of both parties. AID, which has always made extensive use of intermediary non-governmental bodies in all sectors of its development programme, finds that in the field of population assistance, Pathfinder, with its close and varied contacts in developing countries, offers possibilities for action that it would often be difficult for it to take itself, operating on a direct government-to-government basis. Thus it has been able to finance some modest population work in countries where government population policies are still ambivalent (Tanzania, Zaire), or are in the very early stages (Rwanda, N. Yemen), or even are overtly negative (Bolivia, Paraguay). Sometimes the AID grant may even enable Pathfinder to make a first contact in a country that has hitherto been opposed to any kind of family planning activity (Pathfinder is hoping to discuss possibilities in both Burma and Malawi, for example). In other cases, while there may be no problem about the government's sympathies, it may still be desirable to undertake some particularly controversial activity on a purely private basis...Where Pathfinder finances an activity out of the AID grant, it is AID's criteria that must be applied...However, when these constraints become particularly irksome, Pathfinder is always free to use its private source funds for activities that AID will not support (Wolfson, 1983, p. 173). And the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), in conjunction with the Population Crisis Committee and spearheaded by Werner Fornos, has since 1978 been mobilizing the opinion of "parliamentarians" throughout the world. This is how Werner Fornos describes the effort in UNFPA's publication Populi (Vol. 11, No. 1, 1984): The growing awareness among legislators in developing and industrialized countries that rampant population growth must be contained is a major stride that has been achieved since the World Population Conference was held in Bucharest 10 years ago. Indeed, if the world is to cope successfully with the immense challenge of slowing down excessive global population growth, it is self-evident that legislators must play an integral role. United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar maintains the parliamentarians, as communicators between governments and peoples, are in "a unique position" to help secure policies appropriate for their time and place and to ensure the success of these policies once adopted. SOME EXAMPLES OF "ESTABLISHMENT" ACTIVITIES Regrettably, I cannot present a broadly-based systematic investigation of this topic. Collecting a wide sample of evidence would be made difficult by lack of resources, unwillingness of persons to weaken organizations they consider valuable, my own distaste for asking questions about such matters, and the infrequency with which the most pervasive abuses are put on paper.1 Therefore, I shall simply relate some events --------------- 1The reader will understand that because of the evanescent nature of the process under discussion, it is most difficult to find hard evidence. The business usually is conducted with "You know what I mean?" and a wink. And it is discussed after pledge of confidentiality; for example, staff members of the UN have told me privately that they knew that aspects of working papers for the 1984 Mexico City conference twisted the facts because that was what was wanted, but I cannot document the conversations or even attribute them. --------------- that I can document, leaving out those for which I have only oral and not written evidence. The Sell-out of the AAAS to the Mellon Foundation. A committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sought funds to study the relationship of population, resources, and the environment. Among other potential funding sources, the committee turned to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and received a feasibility grant. The Mellon Foundation letter to the AAAS telling the AAAS the conclusions it should find if it wanted research funds may be found in Chapter 00. As a result of that demand that the outcome of the inquiry be fixed in advance as a condition of the funding, one of the members of the AAAS committee protested against what was happening, and left. Nevertheless, the AAAS took whatever actions were necessary to satisfy the Mellon Foundation. The grant was made, and the project went forward. On 30 May, 1986, Science announced that "a new interdisciplinary program on population resources, and the environment, supported by foundations is moving ahead. We mean to give it the best we have..." The same editorial by AAAS chief executive William D. Carey also asserted that "On the bright side, China emerges as a model for economic development," and presumably for population policy as well (p. 1073). (It may also be relevant that the then-president-elect of AAAS, Gerard Piel, who is the Chairman of the Board of Scientific American which has published many articles on our subject, denounced in an editorial in Science the position of the United States in Mexico City in 1984 -- misstating it in the process, I might say -- as Population increase, our representatives declared, is not of itself a bad thing...On the supply side, they argued, intervention by the state must not be allowed to inhibit the response of sufficiently motivated entrepreneurs. This advice, not endorsed by the delegations of other market economies [but quite consistent with the NAS report, as I read it] , carries the faults inherent in prescription from narrow ideology [whatever that is]" (26 October, 1984) In an editorial the following month, the then-president of AAAS wrote about "the relation of growing populations to aspects of social and economic development. Concern over these issues is also reflected in the creation of a AAAS Committee on Population, Resources and the Environment" (David A. Hamburg, 16 November, 1984) And AAAS has long been active as an advocate of population control. The Controller General, in the Report to the Congress on AID (1986?, p. 55) mentioned: Under a $1.2 million contract the American Association for the Advancement of Science organized working groups of U.S. and developing country anthropologists and others to provide policymakers with information on consequences of rapid population growth and to help family planning program administrators identify and modify cultural factors associated with expansion and improvement of family planning delivery systems. This episode shows how various institutions cooperate with each other in furtherance of common goals, resulting in a distortion of the truth. Laundering of AID Funds to Support Domestic Activities. The concern about the money at stake, and the lengths to which institutions and individuals are willing to go to obtain the money, is illustrated by the unethical (if not illegal) money-laundering2 that takes place whereby AID funds --------------- 2By "moneylaundering" I mean transfers of funds which enable the funds to be used for purposes not intended by the original donors. --------------- are funneled back (sometimes directly, sometimes through the United Nations) to U.S. population organizations (e.g., Worldwatch, Population Institute, Population Crisis Committee, Institute of Society, Ethics and Life Sciences, Population Council, Pathfinder Fund, AVS, Planned Parenthood, and so on, and used for domestic propaganda. These activities are documented in my 1981 book; no question has been raised about their factual validity in the years since that publication. Evidence of the persuasive and ideological (in contrast to research) activities of all those organizations may also be found in my 1981 book. Consider an advertisement for "Globescope 87", a conference held April 29-May 1, 1987, organized by The Global Tomorrow Coalition in conjunction with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and Cleveland State University. This conference was a domestic activity of the environmental movement; the roster of speakers listed representatives from the entire range of environmental and population organizations. The "Donors" included UNEP, which took money from U.S. taxpayers and then funneled it back into this domestic program which was in effect a propaganda activity. Another "Donor" was Worldwatch Institute, which gets money from UNFPA, which gets money from U.S. taxpayers; in this case the money makes three stops after leaving the taxpayer. Other "Donors" included National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, World Resources Institute, and Population Crisis Committee, some of which almost surely got U.S. taxpayer money then, both directly and by way of the U.N. It should be kept in mind that I have made no investigation of these matters since 1979. It would be interesting to know what a systematic inquiry into these flows of money would uncover. But no one is employed to track down this kind of mess. Propagandizing the U.S. Public. The extent to which one point of view--that population growth is bad--is accepted by the relevant professions, and promulgated as scientific fact, may be seen in the report on "Population Education in the Schools," by the Population Information Program at Johns Hopkins (March-April, 1982), which was then funded with huge sums from AID. It begins: "Formal population education is designed to teach children in school about population issues and, in many cases, to encourage them eventually to have smaller families." The "education" programs are shot through with unfounded assertions about population, environment, and resources. Buying the Political Action of Demographers. At the conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) in Florence in 1985, a form was circulated by the Chair and the Past Chair of the Population and Family Planning Section of the American Public Health Association that "facilitated" members of IUSSP sending telexes to their U.S. senators and congresspeople in opposition to the Kemp amendment. (The amendment was intended to prevent funds from going to any organization which "supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion.") The organizers "facilitated" by providing the language for the telex, and stating that "Your message, sent by telex, will be adapted by APHA to suit the Senate and House situations...All you need do is put your name, home address and zip code on this sheet and place it in boxes being distributed for the purpose" (italics in original). Some persons who accepted the offer and sent telexes denied to me that they were influenced by wanting to keep funds flowing to such organizations as IUSSP which finance a large part of the travel to the conference. He who pays the piper does not call the tune among IUSSP demographers, I was told by them. But the circulated cover memo also said, "If you are willing for a telex to be sent in your name, at no cost to you..." (italics in the original.) Clearly the persons who drafted the request thought that its tiny cost could affect people's propensity to telex their congressional representatives. And if a handful of dollars for a telex -- less than the cost of a cheap meal -- is thought by the organizers to influence IUSSP members, is it unreasonable to think that thousands of dollars of travel money and/or grant funds might have influence, too? Pre-determination of Research Conclusions by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Much of the research done with the money mentioned by Kantner in the headnote quotation was work purchased to bolster one particular conclusion arrived at in advance, a conclusion that the data do not support. In l979 the NIH Center for Population Research promulgated a Request for Proposals (RFP) for projects on the consequences of population growth in rich countries (MDC's). The RFP contained this statement in introducing the subject: "The proposition was derived from these conferences that a reduction in the rate of population growth is both inevitable and useful." Such an introduction--and please keep in mind that it referred to MDC's and not poor countries (LDC's)--is not likely to lead to unbiased research, and must surely discourage application for, and approval of, studies that would show positive consequences. In effect, those who responded to the RFP were handed the direction of the conclusions before they began. They were told which side of their bread the butter was on. Starving of Research That Might Find Unwelcome Conclusions. Important in the state of our knowledge about the consequences of population growth is that remarkably little research has been funded on the entire topic of population growth's consequences (perhaps on the assumption that the consequences are obvious). In preparation for a conference on future directions for population research held by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1981 or 1982, I looked at the l976 and l980 issues of the NIH Inventory and Analysis of Federal Population Research which happened to be at hand. The topic "Consequences of population change" received funding of $l34,000 for 3 projects in l976, out of $l8 million total for 227 projects in Social and Behavioral Science. In l980 the figures were $22l,000 for 3 projects out of $33 million for 23l projects--much less than l% in each year. More was apparently spent on the consequences of animal behavior than of human behavior. Furthermore, the studies that I found listed under the heading "population change"--shown on the pages appended--mostly do not seem intended to assess economic changes. In contrast, vast amounts of funding go to support studies that might help implement policy that follows from the conclusion that population growth is bad, that is, studies of the determinants of fertility. I do not suggest that all or even most of that work is without scientific value. I do suggest, however, that its scientific payout relative to its cost would not look favorable relative to many other things the society might do with its research budget, except on the assumption that there is a very high value in reducing population growth throughout the world. Also relevant is the pattern of institutional funding as summarized a few years ago by the Population Crisis Committee (See Figure l). Big sums go to population organizations and to environmental organizations that are explicitly or implicitly anti-natal. I see no signs of a penny going to any organization that might see any positive aspects of population growth. More generally, reduction of population growth is pressed by a very large set of organizations, many of them part of the Global Tomorrow Coalition. On the other side are--no organizations at all. Figure l (Simon, 1981, p. 298) Is it any wonder that those who espouse lowering population growth get away with the claim that "all informed persons agree" with their belief? They are so sure of the rightness of their views that they are even against inquiry and discussion of the issues: As two demographers put it: "This is not an area for frivolous approaches [they were referring to this author's work] or one where academics may contend confusedly with no great harm to anyone. It is an area where an effective mobilization of public will and commitment based on understanding of issues is essential" (Sirageldin and Kantner, 1982, p. l73). Imagine yourself as a demographer considering research into the consequences of population growth, and faced with the institutional situation described above. It should not be surprising that the economic studies of the consequences of population change that have shown positive effects--for example, the effects of population change and density on productivity, investment in irrigation, road networks, agricultural practices and the like--have largely been done by non-members of the demographic establishment, and mostly seem to have been carried out without funding by the organizations that ordinarily support population research. The real surprise is that with the incentive structure being what it is, few if any studies funded by population organizations (or any other studies, for that matter) have found empirical evidence of negative effects of population growth on long-run social or economic performance. It also seems amazing that despite all the research and publicity about the conventional view, there is as much public interest about (in Kantner's term) "revisionist" thinking as there is. Provision of Justifications for the Establishment's Activities. Establishments tend to provide persuasive justifications for the course they support. For example, the population establishment makes much of the individual rights of women and couples, saying that it is "pro choice". But at the same time the parties speak in favor of reducing population growth, a goal qua goal which is inconsistent with the goal of simply helping people attain their individual preferences. This leads them to the "consciousness-raising" dodge: If people don't want to do what you want them to do, you call for influencing them until they have apparently changed their minds and are ready to do what you want. The most casual reading of population establishment documents -- even the very most carefully written of them, the UNFPA statements -- make this clear. In their desire to reduce births the population establishment has embraced China's population program. We have seen some earlier examples in the quotations from William Carey and Gerard Piel of AAAS. The UNFPA gave its first award to China (along with India). Theodore Schultz, Nobel-prize-winning economist and famous in the economics profession for his flinty integrity, was on the awards committee and promptly resigned in protest, issuing this letter to the press: THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO July 18, 1983 Mr. Rafael M. Salas Secretary Committee for the United Nations Population Award United Nations 220 East 42nd Street New York, New York 10017 Dear Mr. Salas: I am deeply distressed by your announcement of the Population award which belatedly has come to me. I accepted your invitation to serve as an "honorary advisor" in good faith. But on March 17, at the outset of the meeting of the U.N. committee, it was announced that only "heads of states" would be considered in making the award despite the fact that none of the qualified nominees for this award is a head of a state or high public official. The decision of the committee was totally self serving. As state appointed members, they decided to court the favor of those to whom they are beholden regardless of the excellent qualifications of other nominees. It was a travesty completely at variance with the good faith with which I accepted your invitation. The harm was done by awarding the price to a public official in China where public policy is responsible for the appallingly high rate of female infanticide and a prize to the head of state of India despite her cruel mandated sterilization. I was the only one of your "honorary advisors" who was present when I was with you on March 17. My painstaking homework to evaluate the nominees was not called for. My distress is all the more acute by the fact that your announcement lists my name as if I had some say in making the awards. I feel compelled to advise the considerable number on my list of excellent nominees to let them know that I was not a party to what was done. To protect the integrity of The University of Chicago from the misconceptions that are implied by my name appearing in your announcement of the awards, I am asking the University to make this letter public. I request that my name not be used henceforth in whatever is done with respect to this population award. With regards, Theodore W. Schultz Please notice in Schultz's letter how the UNFPA decided to consider only heads of state for the award, with the obvious objective of buttering up those who might be political supporters of the UNFPA. These are the kinds of devices that establishments employ, with the ultimate consequence that the public receives a seamless garment of false information. The central policy issue for the population establishment through the decades has been to continue getting AID funds. This is seen in the legislative "initiative" quoted earlier, and also in a series of expensive newspaper advertisements by Planned Parenthood (e.g., The Washington Post, March 12, 1987, p. A17), referring to those who want to cut the funds as "irresponsible extremists" who are "standing in the way" of "Women in the developing world [who] want choice." Also, as this is being written, there arrived the Newsletter of Californians for Population Stabilization (formerly California ZPG), inviting the reader to attend an "Awards Dinner in Honor of The People's Republic of China." Please try to contain your mirth as you read the details: Guest Speaker Werner Fornos, President Population Institute, Washington, D.C. Comments and Film Lin Guozhang, Deputy Consul General People's Republic of China Entertainment Chorus music during social hour Roving Microphone Available for commentary by individuals and organizations during dinner Ceremonial To honor People's Republic of China for acknowledging overpopulation and encouraging family planning. Educational To raise general awareness of California's elected representatives and public of the need for population concern abroad and at home. Information packets available for all guests. Social To introduce members of the private public- interest sector to elected representatives and to each other; to explore the possibility of united action; to impress upon the members of the public-interest sector the impact of population problems upon their individual concerns. Cultural To introduce to California's elected representatives and the public-interest sector the people, philosophies, problems, and concerns of the People's Republic of China in a relaxed atmosphere of food, drink and general good fellowship. Professional Association Involvement With Political-Activist Organizations. The Population Resource Center is a politically-oriented group working to advance the idea that population growth is a danger and ought to be controlled. No one with even slight knowledge of the population movement could look at the Board of Directors at that time - which included names like Harriet Pilpel, Richard Benedick, Charles F. Westoff, and Congressman John E. Porter -- without knowing that this is an organization dedicated to reducing the world birth rate. There is a financial and personnel relationship between the PRC and the Population Association of America (PAA), the sort of connection that most scholars consider inappropriate for a scientific organization. But establishments find reasons for what they do, in this case: i) The PAA-PRC connection is said by the officials of the PAA to be good for the demographic profession. More specifically, it is said that the PRC acts as the PAA's "eyes and ears in Washington" to help get more money for demographic research. (Yes, money again.) That the PAA ought to lobby for more money is simply taken to be an unquestioned good thing.3 There is apparently no concern that a) the funds in question come from taxpayers, and b) there may be other uses of the resources that may be of higher social value than the demographic research that might be foregone -- even (!) the spending of the monies for their personal use by the taxpayers who earn the money. I suppose demographers believe that what they are doing is more important than what others do -- a belief held by almost every other known group of human beings, of course, and therefore suspect because of the mutual inconsistency in those views. Or perhaps demographers simply believe that it is justification enough that the funds will do good for their own group, a view that is cynical even if it is common. ii) The funds which go to PRC come from PAA members' dues, and are commingled with other PRC funds which go to further purposes that at least some PAA members find objectionable. The description of the activities of the Public Affairs Committee of the Population Association of America as of Fall, 1982, included this description of "The Project on Population and the Private Sector": designed to identify specific areas of mutual interest and concern both to private corporations and to organizations working in the field of population and international development...Executives from U.S. corporations were brought together with senior leaders from the U.N. Fund for Population Activities, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, foundations, private population and development groups and the U. S. Congress...Five major points of intersection between the interests of the corporate community and those of population and development organizations were identified by the participants in this Project: ...*creation of a more favorable environment for investment, trade, and commerce in Third World countries over the medium and long term, which will be assisted by reductions in adverse population pressures"... (P. A. A. Affairs, Fall, 1982, p. 1, italics in original). Not only is this out-and-out propaganda for one point of view, but it also suggests that the reason for U.S. involvement in world population control is for self-interest rather than for "humanitarian" motives -- the Ravenholt scandal again (see Simon, 1981). Furthermore, the PAA Public Affairs Committee does all this in "collaboration" (PAA Affairs, Summer, l982, p. 2) with the Population Resource Center. The latter organization says that it "does not espouse a particular population program or philosophy to `solve' population problems" (l98l Annual Report, p. 2). But it clearly evinces the belief that population growth in LDC's and elsewhere is a bad thing. (This is proven by the Population Resource Center's participating membership in the Global Tomorrow Coalition along with such organizations as Environmental Fund, FAIR, Negative Population Growth, Population Crisis Committee, Population Institute, U.S. Club of Rome, World Population Society, ZPG, and a host of environmental organizations.) The PAA's Public Affairs Committee is designated by the PAA to give PAA's "official" view to Congress and bureaucrats about public policy related to demographic issues. Such a group inevitably creates the impression that its pronouncements are settled scientific doctrine. The non-dissociation of the PAA from these political and ideological and propagandistic "briefings" is made crystal-clear by the following extract from the PAA's bulletin: Public Affairs Committee Michael Teitelbaum and Al Hermalin delivered the committee's report with the assistance of Anne Harrison Clark of the Population Resource Center. During 1981, the Population Resource Center, in collaboration with PAC, organized 24 briefings and policy discussions in 16 cities involving over 70 PAA members. The sessions involved the connections between population factors and a wide range of policy issues on the local, state, national and international levels. Representatives from private foundations, Congress, US Government agencies, State and Local governments, international organizations and private corporations participated in these discussions. A brochure outlining these sessions is available from the Population Resource Center and summaries of the briefings are available from the Population Reference Bureau. Another busy year of briefings is anticipated and may well be highlighted by an invitation to provide a large briefing for the National Governor's Association. PAC and the past, present and future presidents of PAA have sent a letter to all members of Congress to protest provisions of the "super Hyde" bill sponsored by Sen. Helms which would prohibit all research related to abortion. PAC also has provided input to the debate concerning the Population Policy Bill and to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1982. PAC has provided advice concerning witnesses and issues to the agencies of Congress involved with these matters. PAC has also sponsored and will continue to sponsor meeting with key members of the federal administration to assure that the interests of the population research are well known to those conducting oversight of population data gathering and research support. (PAA Affairs, Summer, 1982, p. 2.) The PAA says that inappropriate activities do not take place, and that PRC activities are not paid for with public or PAA members' funds. Hewlett Foundation funds are given for this PAA activity, and this is said to absolve the PAA of responsibility for PRC. But one wonderers: If the funds for the activity come from elsewhere, why are they channeled through PAA? This sort of shell game has been around for a long time. The interlocking nature of the establishment can be seen again in the announcement of a new president for the PRC, as reported in PAA Affairs (Winter, 1987, pp. 2-3) should clarify the matter: Population Resource Center Chooses New President Jane S. De Lung has been chosen to be the new President of the Population Resource Center. De Lung brings to the Center twenty years of experience in family planning, demographic research in the health and human service area, and public policy. Recently, De Lung started her own consulting firm through which she designed a $7.1 million demonstration project working with teen mothers on welfare. She also assisted in a demonstration project to increase minority male participation in family planning and reproductive health clinics. From 1982-1986, De Lung served as Project Manager for the Center for Health Facilities Research, a private research firm specializing in public and private health care. There she was responsible for population forecasting, long-range planning, and data systems. From 1972-1981, she was Vice-President of the Illinois Family Planning Council and more than tripled their clients and increased their budget approximately two and a half times. She has served as Chair of the Fundraising Committee of Mercer county, New Jersey, Planned Parenthood and on the board of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Her international experience includes participation in Family Health International from 1969-1973 and the International Union for Scientific Study of Population conference in 1981 and 1985. And the same cozy establishment relationships continue to the date of writing, as per this note from P. A. A. Affairs: The Population Institute announces their 16th Annual Global Media Awards for excellence in population reporting. The awards are given to honor those who have contributed to creating awareness of population problems through their journalistic endeavors in a meritorious manner. (P.A.A. Affairs, Summer, 1995, p. 8.) Winners receive an expense paid 3-week study-tour to China where they will be able to cover the Fourth World Conference on Women and examine family planning programs and special efforts China has undertaken to slow down population growth. (P.A.A. Affairs, Summer, 1995, p. 8.) It's all one big happy family - or rather, one big happy industry - and one that has a special affinity for China's population program. Loss of Research Funds for Disputing the Conventional Wisdom. An example of how people and institutions pay a price for voicing views that run against those of the establishment is found in the experience of Samuel Preston and the University of Pennsylvania population center. Preston was the principal author of the "revisionist" 1986 NRC-NAS report. Mellon grants went to several population study centers in 1986, but a grant was denied to the University of Pennsylvania, one of the most prestigious among the centers. Preston was then head of that center. Pressure Upon the President of Princeton University. Possessors of power are always tempted to use it, and often do. The population establishment, like other establishments, uses its far-reaching powers to try to squelch opposition. For example, sometime after the second book of mine that Princeton University published (Simon, 1981), a "question" was "raised" to the President of Princeton University (a "derogatory comment") by a person or persons at the Office of Population Research of sufficient importance that the Director of PUP thought it necessary to write a letter of justification of the book's publication was necessary. In addition, Sanford Thatcher, my editor at PUP and a man of extraordinary integrity and affection for the truth, felt the need to prepare his own letter which ran more than two pages. This sort of pressure reduces publication outlets open to unpopular views, and helps explain why the public continues to hear false bad news on these subjects. Pressure Upon Employer. Establishments attack dissidents personally, too. A set of protest telegrams containing veiled threats concerning me were sent to the President of the University of Illinois, orchestrated by the head of one of the most active anti-population-growth organizations. For the details, see Simon (1977). **ENDNOTES** <1>: It is not pleasant or easy to believe that one's one community distorts knowledge and suppresses truth out of self- interest. It is natural to presume that the established institutions serve the public welfare, especially an institution motivated by such good intentions, and populated by so many decent people, as the "population establishment" in the United States. But to refrain from criticizing them on this ground serves no good end. <2>: Among these persons are Richard Easterlin, Allen Kelley, Dudley Kirk, Ronald Lee, Larry Neal, William Peterson, Edmund Phelps, Samuel Preston, and Theodore W. Schultz. Scholars in this category but outside the establishment include Colin Clark, Thomas deGregori, Nicholas Eberstadt, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Jacqueline Kasun, and Alan R. Waters. There are others in both categories whom I have unfortunately forgotten. I hope that none of these persons is embarrassed by being included in the list. It surely is because of their professional knowledge of what is at heart an economic subject -- the usable-resource effect of population growth -- that almost all of the persons in the list are economists. It is more puzzling that many of the most zealous persons on the other side of the issue are biologists. Chapter 00 offers some possible explanations. page 1 /mediabk popes13m/November 6, 1996