The Kurt Lewin–Goodwin Watson FBI/CIA files

Abstract

FBI files on Kurt Lewin, founder of this journal, and his close colleague Goodwin Watson, reveal inter alia the investigation of Lewin postmortem by the FBI/CIA, and FBI surveillance of Watson while he was a proponent of corporate T-groups, a precursor to present day team development. Sixty years on from Human Relations' launch, and Lewin's premature death, the files enrich understandings of Lewin's, and Watson's, lives and work. The socio-political structures-in-process they evidence also support the idea of the T-group as a knowing political tactic, apparently emancipatory, yet immunized from (proto-)Cold War inquisition by its very focus on the here-and-now.

The Cold War origin of action research as managerialist cooptation

“…This use of science was not, according to Watson, and later to Nicholson, merely about self-preservation. According to Watson, he and his NTL colleagues (likely therefore to have included Lippitt) did believe that the T-group, and social/behavioural science per se were truly a vehicle for progressive social change, as well as personal transformation (Watson, 1963;Nicholson, 1997Nicholson, , 1998Cooke, 2005). They may have been naively psychologistic, and mistaken in this respect; but I argue (Cooke, 2005) this aspiration, and its oppositional Cold War significance have yet to be fully acknowledged.…”

“…According to Watson, he and his NTL colleagues (likely therefore to have included Lippitt) did believe that the T-group, and social/behavioural science per se were truly a vehicle for progressive social change, as well as personal transformation (Watson, 1963;Nicholson, 1997Nicholson, , 1998Cooke, 2005). They may have been naively psychologistic, and mistaken in this respect; but I argue (Cooke, 2005) this aspiration, and its oppositional Cold War significance have yet to be fully acknowledged. Moreover, tactically, Lippitt's 'compliance', if that is what it is, compared to Collier's 'resistance', did at least ensure the survival of action research notwithstanding his, and the RCGD/NTL strand of action researchers', New Deal, progressive associations.…”

“…In (Cooke, 2005). Like Lippitt, Watson knew and worked alongside Lewin and was a co-founder of the SPSSI.…”

“…Among the McCarthyite/McCarranite methods used to try and close down the IPR was a 1955 attempt by the US Internal Revenue to remove its tax exemption -'the lifeblood for many non-profit organizations' (Thomas, 1974: 115). 6 In this section, I have only begun to set out the extent to which the Cold War is now understood to have impacted upon intellectual life in the United States, and, I have argued, on institutions, disciplines, and individuals particularly associated with action research (see also Robin, 2001;Cooke et al, 2005). On this basis alone it might be possible to construct an understanding of managerial action research as a cultural product of a Cold War society, in which there were strong pressures not to scrutinize or engage with structural concerns.…”

The interrelationships between organisational climate and job satisfaction and their impact on training outcomes

“…Therefore, these people would likely find solutions with the resources available to them (Magni et al, 2018). Following Lewin's theory (Cooke, 2007), people are affected by the forces in their environment. His work advances our knowledge of the relationships between contextual determinants (specifically, the organisational climate) in training outcomes.…”