Word: scholaritis
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...following are excerpts from a speech by Adam Yarmolinsky '43 to the Radcliffe Government Association, "The Role of the Scholar in Foreign Policy." Yarmolinsky, professor of Law and chairman of the Kennedy Institute of Politics' Fellowship Committee, was formerly Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense under McNamara. -- Ed note...
...scholar's role in foreign policy were only to ask the embarrassing questions, that would make it too easy. There is work to be done as well. And it is precisely the area of advising the busy foreign policy professional on the nature and content of foreign politics that the scholar can make his greatest substantive contribution. The professional diplomat is the man who knows where, in Paris or in Phnom Penh, in Bonn or in Bujumbura, to find the door to which diplomatic notes should be delivered. He has a pretty good idea of what will happen...
This is perhaps an unnatural role for our foreign policy professionals, who are understandably anxious to carry on their activities with their opposite numbers. But it may be the better part of valor. And the special contribution of the scholar may be to ask the busy professional, as I was asked that day in my office: "What difference does all your activity really make...
Passing the question of area vs. pure disciplinary specalization, what the scholar has to offer here is what the foreign policy professional needs. But even this happy situation does not guarantee a happy relationship between scholars and polciy makers. If this is indeed to be a marriage of true minds, both partners have to learn to respect each other's roles, and to accommodate themselves somewhat to the limiting conditions within which the other fellow works. The policy maker has to realize that he cannot demand and obtain instant scholarship; that objectivity and reflectiveness and depth of perception can only...
There is nothing dishonorable or even inappropriate in the examination by scholars of policy problems, foreign or domestic. They can provide at least as much intrinsic interest as problems of theory or methodology. But if the scholar is to make a contribuiton to policy problems, he must be willing to address himself to the problems of the policy maker. He must be willing to help answer the policy maker's question. "What do you want me to do about it?" He may, and indeed he should try to stretch the limitations within which the policy maker works, but he cannot...