At last: Shickshinny Knights of Malta linked to the Draper/Vonsiatsky Condon ManCand crowds

Fund Backs Controversial Study of "Racial Betterment"

by Grace Lichtenstein A private trust fund based in New York has for more than 20 years supported highly controversial research by a dozen scientists who believe that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites.
The Pioneer Fund, a tax-exempt foundation incorporated in 1937 for the express purpose of research into "racial betterment," was worth more than $2 million, according to its 1975 Internal Revenue Service return. Yet several officers of the leading geneticists profession- al organization say they never heard of it. A month-long study of the Pioneer Fund's activities by The New York Times shows it has given at least $179,000 over the last 10 years to Dr. William B. Shockley, a leading proponent of the theory that whites are inher- ently more intelligent than blacks.
The money was paid through Stanford University, where professor Shockley was a Nobel Prize-winning professor of engineering science, as well as through his own personal foundation - a customary method of foundation disbursement.
Another major beneficiary is Dr. Arthur R. Jensen, an educational psychologist at the University of California, whose article in 1969 theorizing that intelligence was hereditary touched off a furor over the value of compensatory education for disadvantaged black students.
Some Others Who Got Grants

Dr. Travis Osborn of the University of Georgia, Dr. Frank C. J. McGurk and Dr. Audrey Shuey are other well-known researchers in the same area who got Pioneer grants.
Two researchers known to few specialists in the genetics field, Dr. Roger Pearson and Dr. Ralph Scott, also got substantial grants, which they declined to discuss. Neither man is a geneticist.
Theories of racial inferiority pursued by Pioneer's staff of researchers have been widely discredited in recent years. Some data developed by Cyril Burt, a British scientist, which had underpinned the theory, are now alleged by leading geneticists to be without scientific value.
In addition, at least one major association of professional geneticists has publicly decried the use of what it regards as questionable material on heredity and race to buttress political positions.
However, Burke Judd, former secretary of the Genetics Society of America, and Hope Punnett, secretary of the American Society of Human Genetics, said that in principle they were in favor of any legitimate genetics research, even when it encompasses what some feel is an extreme point of view.
"If you really believe in open research you've got to let these people do their 'research' and then let the rest of us question it," said Dr. Punnett. She said she did not take either Dr. Jensen or Dr. Shockley "too seriously" because she did not think they had developed good scientific information to support their theories.
Some Are Embarrassed

Other colleges that have accepted Pioneer grants for "eugenics and heredity" include the University of California at Berkeley, University of Georgia, University of Southern Mississippi, Randolph-Macon College, Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology and the University of Northern Iowa.
High officials of the last two schools said hey now were embarrassed by the grants. They asked to remain anonymous, on the ground that criticism by them would suggest interference with academic freedom.
It is not known whether Pioneer financed research in fields other than heredity and eugenics.
Spokesmen at all the schools who knew about the grants said they did not know the Pioneer Fun had been chartered for research into "racial betterment." Nor did those scientists who The Times was able to reach who would answer questions.
A spokesman for the University of California at Berkeley said its records showed no Pioneer Fund grants to Dr. Jensen, although it did accept a Pioneer grant for a political science professor. Dr. Jensen confirmed that some of his grants came through the university.
In each case the university, or another foundation, was named as recipient of the grants, although the actual work was done by a specific professor in residence. This is common practice in grant-giving everywhere.
However, in at least one school, Northern Iowa, the professor, Dr. Ralph Scott, used some of the money not only for research but for anti-busing, anti-school integration seminars in such off-campus places as Louisville, (KY) and Boston (MA), according to the school's grants administrator.
Question of Tax Exemption

"This might put the fund's tax-exempt status in jeopardy," an Internal Revenue Service spokesman said when asked about general rules applying to funds such as Pioneer.
Under Federal law, such funds remain tax-exempt as long as "no substantial part of the activity" is "carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation."
"You're in a very sticky area," the I.R.S. spokesman replied when asked about the definition of propaganda. Pioneer Fund is currently in a tax- exempt category applying to groups exclusively charitable, religious, testing and educational. Although it has been a major "banker" in the financing of research on race and genetics, Pioneer's chief executive will not talk to reporters. Nor will some of the scientists who take its money acknowledge their connection with Pioneer. The president of Pioneer Fund is Harry F. Weyher [pronounced like "wire"], a lawyer whose office at 299 Park Avenue also is the fund's office. Questioned by telephone about Pioneer, Mr. Weyher said, "It's a client." Then he added, "I'm not going to talk to you any more," and hung up.
Mr. Weyher, several directors and the fund's founder have had long-standing connections with conservative causes or political candidates, although no one has suggested that the conservatives in question shared their interest in eugenics and heredity research.
The founder, Wickliffe [Preston] Draper, a 1913 graduate of Harvard who died in 1972, was the reclusive heir to a Massachusetts textile-machinery fortune, according to published accounts.
Two Committees Supported

In the 1950's and 1960's Mr. Draper supported two now-defunct committees that gave grants for genetics research. Mr. Weyher was his lawyer. The committee members included Representative Francis E. Walter, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC]; Henry E. Garrett, an educator known for his belief in the genetic inferiority of blacks, and Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi.
When it was disclosed in 1960 that Richard Arens, staff director for the Un-American Activities Committee, was also a paid consultant to the Draper- financed committees, Mr. Arens was forced to leave his Congressional job.
In 1960 published reports quoted some leading American geneticists as saying they had turned down requests from Mr. Draper to do research into theories of racial inferiority among blacks.
Mr. Weyher, in a newspaper interview at the time, said Mr. Draper had already sponsored a book on restricting immigration and another on the intelligence of blacks by Dr. Shuey, a retired professor at Randolph- Macon Woman's College.
Mr. Draper also gave money to right wing political candidates, including the late Representative Donald Bruce [Republican] of Indiana, and the late Representative Walter, as well as to conservative lobbying organiza- tions such as the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies.
When Mr. Draper died his estate turned over $1.4 million to the Pioneer Fund. Among two men listed as directors of Pioneer in 1975, the most recent year for which Internal Revenue Service records are available, is John B. Trevor, [Jr.] of New York, [whose father was] a founder of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, adviser to Billy James Hargis' Christian Crusade and author of an article on South Africa that appeared in The Citizen, the publication of the White Citizens' Councils.
Testifying against more liberal immigration laws in 1965, Mr. Trevor warned against "a conglomeration of racial and ethnic elements" that he said led to "a serious culture decline."
The other Pioneer director [in 1975] is Thomas F. Ellis of Raleigh, N.C., manager of [Senator] Jesse Helm's 1972 campaign for Senator and an impor- tant backer of Ronald Reagan's 1976 Presidential campaign.
Pioneer-sponsored research in eugenics, a movement devoted to improving the human species through control of hereditary factors in mating, and dysgenics the study of trends in population leading to the deterioration of hered- itary , is a subject of much dispute in the genetics field.
An 'Inescapable Opinion'

Dr. Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, has for years been collecting material on eugenics and dysgenics research. He said in a telephone inter- view a few days ago from his home in Palo Alto, Calif., that he had reached "the inescapable opinion that a major cause of American Negroes' intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin."
This, he continued, "is not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in environment," such as better schools, jobs or living con- ditions.
He said he was "very grateful" for Pioneer's grants. A spokesman for Stan- ford said that $179,000 over 10 years to Dr. Shockley from Pioneer sounded correct, although the school did not have an exact dollar figure.
The views of Dr. Shockley and Dr. Jensen and their supporters, have come under attack recently from, among other sources, the Genetics Society of America, a leading professional organization. In July 1976 it published a statement of its committee on genetics, race and intelligence that was endorsed by nearly 1,400 members.
"In our views there is no convincing evidence as to whether there is or is not an appreciable genetic difference in intelligence between races," it said.
"Well designed research... may yield valid and socially useful results and should not be discouraged. We feel that geneticists can and must also speak out against the misuse of genetics for political purposes and the drawing of social conclusions from inadequate data."
Genetics and Busing

When informed about Dr. Scott's activities on busing at Northern Iowa, Professor Judd said it sounded contrary to normal academic practices for an educational, tax-exempt foundation to finance genetics research linked to the school-busing controversy. "But I don't have enough information," he added.
According to Northern Iowa officials, Dr. Scott is studying "forced busing and its relationship to genetic aspects of educability." In this context he sent a graduate student to Mississippi and held seminars on busing, according to sources at the university.
Dr. Scott, a professor of education, refused to comment on his research and to say whether its results had been published anywhere.
Roger Pearson, a British-educated economist who has been the beneficiary of two Pioneer grants for work while he was dean at Montana Tech, also refused to talk about his research.
Such nonresponses are unusual in the field of academic research openly sponsored by tax-exempt foundations. Standford, for example, has a policy stating that "findings and conclusions" of research supported by outside grants "should be available for scrutiny and criticism.
Dr. Pearson, who served for the 1974-1975 academic year as dean at Montana Tech before leaving by mutual consent in a disagreement over educational goals, got $60,000 from Pioneer while he was there.
Montana Tech officials said they had no idea that he apparently was the same man who some years ago edited Western Destiny, a journal with many pro-South Africa, anti-Communist and anti-racial mixing articles and who wrote a number of pamphlets for the conservative-oriented Noontide Press such as "Eugenics and Race" and "Early Civilizations of the Nordic Race."