239tHe rockefeller foundAtion And tHe reform
of tHe internAtionAl studies conference
One of the criticisms of the ISC in its early years was that it spent a con-
siderable amount of time doing not very much at all. Somewhat by con-
trast, in the wake of its tenth annual session, the ISC was criticised for
attempting to do far too much in too little amount of time.^1 The view
that the conference was seeking to cover too vast a field of inquiry and
that as a consequence of this it was failing to adequately address the sub-
jects of its inquiry was touched on by Murray in his closing address at
the ISC’s 1937 session.^2 Similar views were privately expressed by John
Foster Dulles and some of the other American participants in that session
in letters written to Walker, who, as we have seen, was the acting director
of the Social Sciences Division of the Rockefeller Foundation. Walker had
attended the conference in Paris as an observer on behalf of the founda-
tion. Some months after it had concluded, she began to canvas views con-
cerning the quality of the work undertaken by the conference and how, if
it were thought necessary, the conference might be reformed. It is doubt-
less testimony to the seriousness with which the work of the conference
CHAPTER 3Conferences at Prague and Bergen
and the Looming War
© The Author(s) 2020
J.-A. Pemberton, The Story of International Relations,
Part Three, Palgrave Studies in International Relations,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31827-7_3
(^1) Chalmers Wright to Leo Gross, 24 September 1936, AG IICI-K-II-6, UA.
(^2) International Studies Conference, Peaceful Change: Procedures, Population, Raw
Materials, Colonies, 609.