From ethnographic knowledge to anthropological intelligence: An anthropologist in the office of strategic services in Second World War Africa

ABSTRACT

This article explores the overlapping modalities and practical purposes of anthropological ethnographic knowledge and political–military intelligence gathering – the commonalities as well as the boundaries between them – through an analysis of the career of the anthropologist Jack Sargent Harris (1912–2008), a secret operative for the United States’ Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War in Nigeria and South Africa. Calling upon archival and oral historical sources, the article relates Harris’s training in Boasian cultural anthropology and as a professional ethnographer of African societies and cultures to the ways he recruited informants, conducted surveillance, related to foreign Allied officials, utilized documentary evidence, and worked to establish authority and credibility in his wartime intelligence reporting. The article argues that political purpose is a central artefact of anthropological ethnography as it is in other ethnographic modalities even if the justifications for these endeavours remain distinct.

KEYWORDS:

• History of Anthropology
• Anthropological Ethnography
• Government Anthropology
• Anthropology and the Military
• Office of Strategic Services

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jack Harris’s sons Michael Oates Harris and Jonathan Harris, and his brother Dr Alvin Harris and sister-in-law Yetta Harris, for their encouragement, assistance, and many courtesies. They would also like to thank the archivists and librarians who have facilitated their research, including David L. Easterbrook, Kevin B. Leonard, Janet C. Olson, and Allen Streicker, at Northwestern University; Dean Rogers, Archives and Special Collections, Vassar College; David Kessler, Jennie Hinchcliff, Michael Maire Lange, Lee Anne Titangos, and Lorna K. Kirwan at The Bancroft Library, University of California-Berkeley; as well as numerous archivists at the National Archives (UK), the National Archives and Records Administration (USA), and the National Archives of Nigeria, Ibadan. They would like to thank for their guidance and assistance Sofía Allison, Joseph Ayodokun, Caroline H. Bledsoe, Maria Brandt, Richard O. Clemmer, Bárbara C. Cruz, Marc Edelman, John S. Gilkeson, Jr, Jane I. Guyer, Kate Klein, Herbert S. Lewis, Ryan S. Morini, Diane J. Pearson, Charles Pinck, David H. Price, Sydel Silverman, Susan Strange, and Susan Williams. Finally, they would like to thank the journal's editor Daniel Knight for his encouragement and production editor Reynaldo C. Bullon for his editorial prowess. An earlier version of this article was presented to the Crossroads in African Studies Conference, Centre of West African Studies/Department of African Studies and Anthropology, University of Birmingham, 4–6 September 2013.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Insa Nolte http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8003-9989

Keith Shear http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0564-6279

Kevin A. Yelvington http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1721-2571

Notes

1. The National Archives, London (hereafter TNA), Records of the Security Service (hereafter KV), 2/907, 62a, Lt. Cdr. Montagu to D.G. White, 15 August 1944, encl. ‘Interview with Dr. J.F.J. Van Rensburg, Kommandant-General [sic] of the Ossewabrandwag’ (hereafter ‘Interview with Van Rensburg’). This document was published with some reformatting in Visser (1976, 148–175).

2. Works on the OB include Marx (2008); Roberts and Trollip (1947); Furlong (1991); and Visser (1976). Van Rensburg’s memoir is Their Paths Crossed Mine: Memoirs of the Commandant-General of the Ossewa-Brandwag (1956).

3. ‘Interview with Van Rensburg’.

4. See TNA, KV 2/757 through KV 2/768 for records of British surveillance of South African pro-Nazi organizations. Compare the OSS and British Intelligence presence in South Africa to that in the Belgian Congo to secure uranium (Williams 2016).

5. ‘Interview with Van Rensburg’. Stephens and Harris’s joint authorship of the report is confirmed in National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NARA), Records of the Office of Strategic Services, Record Group (hereafter RG) 226, Entry 108C, Box 13, Folder 73, Item No. 361, ‘General Operations Report: Flagg’, 16 June 1944.

6. ‘Interview with Van Rensburg’.

7. NARA, RG 226, Entry 224, Box 315, Personnel File: ‘Harris, Jack Sargent’, Coordinator of Information, Whitney H. Shepardson, Director, S.I., to William A. Kimbel, 21 July 1943.

8. Northwest Arkansas Times, 2 February 1949, 10.

9. For Harris’s account of the interview and report, see Yelvington (2008, 463–464). For Harris’s account of his wartime activities, see, also, Edelman (1997, 11–12). See the fascinating ‘biographical novel’ by Jack Harris’s brother Alvin Harris that combines factual reporting with recreations of Jack Harris’s life and exploits, including those documented in this article (Harris 2013).

10. TNA, KV 2/907, 62a, Lt. Cdr. Montagu to D.G. White, 15 August 1944.

11. Kevin A. Yelvington, interview with (brother) Alvin Harris, 8 December 2011, Palm Desert, California.

12. Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, IL, 35/6, Melville J. Herskovits Papers, 1906–1963 (hereafter HP), B[ox] 9, F[older] 13, Harris to Herskovits, 3 September 1935. See Harris (1935).

13. HP, B9, F13, Harris to Herskovits, 25 October 1934.

14. HP, B9, F13, Harris to Herskovits, 29 October 1936. Although Harris became a victim of McCarthyism in the 1950s (see Harris 2013), he later told Yelvington (2008, 455) that he ‘never thought of [him]self as a Marxist’.

15. Archives and Special Collections Library, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, Ruth Fulton Benedict Papers (hereafter RBP), Series I, B29, F1, Harris to Benedict, 19 February 1939.

16. RBP, Benedict to Harris, 7 July 1937.

17. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 25 June 1937. Harris refers to ‘Shoshoni’ which was anthropologically acceptable as the name for the group. Some current academic convention has ‘Shoshone’ as the name for the people and ‘Shoshoni’ as their language. However, in their practice they call themselves ‘Newe’, which means ‘people’.

18. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 2 August 1937.

19. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 13 July and 2 August 1937.

20. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 25 June 1937.

21. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 2 August 1937.

22. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 9 August 1937.

23. RBP, SSRC reference, undated (early 1938). For an assessment of Harris’s role in defining the White Knives anthropologically, see Clemmer (2009).

24. The grant, a predoctoral fellowship, meant that Harris could not officially be awarded the Ph.D. until after his return from Nigeria. HP, B9, F13, Harris to Herskovits, 24 June 1938. Harris consistently refers to the ‘Ibo’; reflecting current academic convention and Nigerian practice, we use the phonetically more accurate ‘Igbo’.

25. HP, B9, F13, Herskovits to Harris, 23 December 1937 and Harris to Herskovits, 31 January 1938; Yelvington (2008, 458–459).

26. HP, B9, F13, Harris to Herskovits, 11 November 1938.

27. HP, B9, F13, Harris to Herskovits, 21 September 1938; University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library, MSS 82/163c, William R. Bascom Papers (hereafter WRBP), Carton 2, Folder 65, Harris to Bascom, 9 October 1938.

28. HP, B9, F13, Harris to Herskovits, 23 December 1938. Jones later taught anthropology at Cambridge.

29. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 19 February 1939.

30. Northwestern University Libraries, Africana Archives No. 30, Jack Sargent Harris Papers (hereafter JSHP), B1, F1, J[ournal] I, 11 January 1939. This was four weeks after he first visited Ozuitem on 15 December 1938: JSHP, B2, F11, C1, ‘Daily Economic Activities – Amankwu’, 12 February 1939.

31. RBP, Harris to Carl Withers, 24 January 1939.

32. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 19 February 1939.

33. RBP, Harris to Carl Withers, 24 January 1939.

34. JSHP, B1, F1, JI, 11 January 1939.

35. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 19 February 1939.

36. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 19 February 1939.

37. RBP, Harris to Carl Withers, 24 January 1939.

38. JSHP, B1, F1, JI, 11 February 1939.

39. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 19 February 1939.

40. See the numerous folders, ‘Daily [Economic] Activities – Amankwu’, in JSHP, Boxes 2–6.

41. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 15 July 1939.

42. National Archives of Nigeria, Ibadan, Records of the Chief Secretary’s Office, Lagos, 26, File No. 11930, Vol. XV, ‘Owerri Province Annual Report, 1939’, Part II, E.N. Mylius, Senior District Officer, ‘Native Administration Affairs: Owerri Province’, 6.

43. NARA, RG 226, Entry 224, Box 315, Personnel File: ‘Harris, Jack Sargent’, COI, Application and Personal History Statement, 15 January 1942.

44. WRBP, Carton 2, Folder 65, copy for Bascom of Harris to Bunche, 9 January 1942; Edelman (1997, 11; Yelvington 2008, 463). Harris expressed frustration at not being able to see high-level officers, until he finally had an audience with William L. Langer in the Research and Analysis Branch and David K. E. Bruce, who later becomes OSS’s London bureau chief. Given Harris’s experience as a seaman, the COI’s Robert C. Tryon, a University of California psychologist, suggested that Harris be assigned to surveil seamen, but Harris wanted to volunteer to go to Africa. Harris says it was Bruce’s assistant, Henry Field, a fellow anthropologist, who understood the potential for social science in the war effort.

45. NARA, RG 226, Entry 224, Box 41, Personnel File ‘Bascom, William R.’, Bascom to COI, 20 January 1942; NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 400, WN#14885, ‘The Significance of Nigeria in the Present War Situation’, 12 February 1942; WRBP, Carton 2, Folder 65, Harris to Bascom, 26 and 29 January 1942.

46. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 400, WN#14885, Bascom to ‘H.C.’, 18 February 1942.

47. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 400, WN#14885, Harris and Bascom to Colonel Donovan, ‘The Significance of Nigeria in the Present War Situation’, 12 February 1942.

48. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 411, WN#15591, ‘West Africa Project Number 2’, attached to I.D.S[Shapiro] to Major David Bruce and Mr David Williamson, 6 April 1942.

49. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 411, WN#15591, ‘West Africa Project Number 2’, attached to I.D.S[Shapiro] to Major David Bruce and Mr David Williamson, 6 April 1942. Only very few people in West Africa were told about the anthropologists’ links to COI, including Colonel Louis Franck of Britain’s SOE and Walter Stratton Anderson, the U.S. Vice-Consul in Accra who, until December, 1941, had been in Lagos. TNA, Records of the Special Operations Executive 3/74, ‘S.O.E. Missions in West Africa’, 9 May 1942, summarises SOE’s work in West Africa from its beginnings in December, 1940 to the period immediately before Harris and Bascom arrived in Lagos. On Anderson, see United States Department of State (1943, 90).

50. NARA, RG 226, Entry 211, Box 30, WN#19857, ‘Weekly Progress Report Ending Saturday, June 6th’, 13 June 1942.

51. NARA, RG 226, Entry 211, Box 30, WN#19857, ‘Program of African Division’, 18 June 1942.

52. NARA, RG 226: Entry 224, Box 41, Personnel File ‘Bascom, William R.’, John J. McDonough to John W. Williams, ‘Re: Pontiac Station Wagon – Lagos’, 9 September 1942, encl. copies of shipping documents; Entry 92A, Box 1, Folder 9, A.W. Schmidt to John J. McDonough, ‘Station Wagon’, 10 February 1943.

53. NARA, RG 226: Entry 92A, Box 1, Folder 9, Robert Vaughan to Office of Strategic Services, 16 July 1942; Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17972, ‘Report No. 10 of Kenneth Wilson [Harris]’, 5 September 1942.

54. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 312, WN#12644, ‘O.S.S. Undertaking in British West Africa’, 26 October 1942.

55. Before being sent to Lagos, Watts had served with the American Field Service from September, 1939 until November, 1941. See NARA, RG 226, Entry 224, Box 820, Personnel File ‘Watts, Erwin Hoy’.

56. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 358, WN#14091, ‘British West Africa’, undated (ca. 1944).

57. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17970, Kenneth Wilson [Harris], ‘O.S.S. (S.I.) Organization in Nigeria’, Lagos, 28 August 1942.

58. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 405, WN#15332, Secret West Africa Project No. WA-1, 14 November, 1942.

59. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 62, WN#00208: A. D. Hutcheson to I.D. Shapiro, 17 July 1942.

60. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17970, Report from 256 [Aubrey D. Hutcheson], Lagos, 26 August 1942.

61. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 405, WN#15332, Excerpt from ‘Report No. 10 of Kenneth Wilson [Harris]’, Lagos, 5 September 1942.

62. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17970, ‘Report from 256 [Aubrey D. Hutcheson]’, Lagos, 26 August 1942.

63. RG 226 Entry 210, Box 492: WN#17970, Kenneth Wilson [Harris], ‘O.S.S. (S.I.) Organization in Nigeria’, Lagos, 28 August 1942; WN#17972, ‘Report No. 10 from Kenneth Wilson [Harris]’, Lagos, 5 September 1942.

64. RG 226 Entry 211, Box 30, WN#19857, ‘Summary Report on West Africa,’ 29 July 1942; Lawler (2002, 135).

65. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210: Box 358, WN#14091, ‘British West Africa’, undated (ca. 1944); Box 489, WN#16193, ‘Report on a Trip Made to West African Coast by A.D. Hutcheson July 25 to October 25, 1942’, 6 November 1942 (hereafter ‘Report on a Trip’).

66. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 358, WN#14091, ‘British West Africa’, undated (ca. 1944).

67. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17970, Report from 256 [Aubrey D. Hutcheson], Lagos, 26 August 1942.

68. NARA, RG 226, Entry 224, Box 41, OSS Personnel File: ‘Bascom, William R.’, I.D. Shapiro to Capt. O.C. Doering, 19 October 1942; W.R. Bascom to W.L. Rehm, Resignation, 30 October 1942. Bascom joined the Board of Economic Warfare and then the Foreign Economic Administration based in the Gold Coast.

69. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 62, WN#003003, Final Letter of Instructions to British West African Liaison Officers, 16 October 1942.

70. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17970: Kenneth Wilson [Harris], ‘O.S.S. (S.I.) Organization in Nigeria’, Lagos, 28 August 1942; Report from 256 [Aubrey D. Hutcheson], Lagos, 26 August 1942. See also ‘Report on a Trip’.

71. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 9 February 1939.

72. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17970, Kenneth Wilson [Harris], ‘O.S.S. (S.I.) Organization in Nigeria’, Lagos, 28 August 1942.

73. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 27 August 1938.

74. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17970, Kenneth Wilson [Harris], ‘OSS (S.I.) Organization in Nigeria’, 28 August 1942 (emphasis in original).

75. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17970, Kenneth Wilson [Harris], ‘OSS (S.I.) Organization in Nigeria’, 28 August 1942. This comment reflects a ‘normalized’ under- or non-representation of African-American OSS agents in Africa.

76. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17972, ‘Report No. 10 from Kenneth Wilson [Harris]’, 5 September 1942.

77. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 492, WN#17972, ‘Report No. 10 from Kenneth Wilson [Harris]’, 5 September 1942.

78. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 417, WN#15710, Africa Section to Trout, 23 December 1942.

79. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Item No. 205, ‘General Operational Report: Pouch 16: Flagg’, Cape Town, 28 January 1944. ‘Flagg’ rather than ‘Wilson’ was Harris’s code name in South Africa.

80. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Gibbs L. Baker to Harris, Pouch Letter #3, 24 September 1943. Conversion done using United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Inflation Calculator. Accessed July 7, 2016. http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

81. NARA, RG 226, Entry 108C, Box 13, Folder 73, Item No. 33, Pouch Letter No. 6, Flagg: General Operational Report, Cape Town, 21 October 1943. The Acting Commissioner of Police, Brigadier Baston, declared his eagerness ‘to get some Granger tobacco’ and Harris asked Washington to ‘send out about three pounds of the foul stuff’ for Harris to ‘present’ to Baston. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 202, WN#08590, Item No. 79, ‘Coetzee: Head of C.I.D.’, 5 November 1943.

82. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 417, WN#15710, Jack Harris to Theodore H. Ryan, Pouch Letter No. 31, 16 February 1943.

83. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, AWS [Adolph William Schmidt] to GB [Gibbs Baker], 25 November 1943.

84. RBP, Harris to Benedict, 13 July 1937.

85. NARA, RG 226, Entry 108C, Box 13, Folder 73, Item No. 76, ‘Meeting with Lord Harlech: British Intelligence’, 5 November 1943.

86. NARA, RG 226, Entry 108C, Box 13, Folder 73, Item No. 10, Pouch Letter No. 5, ‘Flagg: General Operational Report’, Cape Town, 14 October 1943.

87. NARA, RG 226, Entry 108C, Box 13, Folder 73, Item No. 79, ‘Coetzee: Head of C.I.D.’, 5 November 1943.

88. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Item No. 75, ‘General Operational Report: Flagg’, Cape Town, 5 November 1943.

89. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, ‘Flagg: Operational Report No. 2’, Cape Town, 8 October 1943.

90. TNA, KV 2/762, 225a: Telegram from Webster, Cape Town, 25 October 1943; ‘Addendum to Memorandum on Axis Espionage in the Union’, 29 October 1943; Telegram from Ryde, Pretoria, 30 October 1943.

91. NARA, RG 226, Entry 108C, Box 13, Folder 73, Item No. 77, ‘Major Ryde’, 5 November 1943; TNA, KV 2/907, 29A, copy of telegram from Ryde, 3 November 1943 (on Coetzee’s obstructiveness).

92. NARA, RG 226: Entry 210, Box 202, WN#08589, Item No. 174, ‘Pretoria Meeting’, Cape Town, 24 December 1943; Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Item No. 205, ‘General Operational Report: Pouch 16: Flagg’, Cape Town, 28 January 1944.

93. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Item No. 205, ‘General Operational Report: Pouch 16: Flagg’, Cape Town, 28 January 1944.

94. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Pouch Letter #17, Julien J. Mason to Jack S. Harris, 24 February 1944.

95. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Item No. 280, ‘General Operational Report: FLAGG’, Cape Town, 25 March 1944.

96. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Letter No. 9 to Ebert, Cape Town, 9 December 1943.

97. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 202, WN#08589, Item No. 174, ‘Pretoria Meeting’, Cape Town, 24 December 1943.

98. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 474, WN#17696, Item No. 206, ‘Secret Enemy Radio Station in Transvaal’, Cape Town, 21 January 1944.

99. See for example, NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 202, WN#08589, Item No. 150, ‘London Pressure on Smuts’, 3 December 1943.

100. Ratings ranged from A1, indicating complete trustworthiness of both source (letter) and information (numeral), to D4, denoting an unreliable source and improbable information: NARA, ‘OSS Grading of Reports’. Accessed July 7, 2016. http://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/military/rg-226.html.

101. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 510, WN#17454, R. Boulton, Divisional Deputy, S[ecret] I[ntelligence], Africa Div., to Chief, SI, 19 January 1945.

102. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Item No. 244, ‘General Operations Report’, Cape Town, 17 February 1944.

103. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 471, WN#17746, Item No. 417, ‘Changing Attitude of Lenton’, Pretoria, 20 July 1944.

104. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Pouch Letter #28, 314 [Weaver] to 186 [Harris], 16 August 1944.

105. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 187, WN#08382, Item No. 332, ‘Consequences of Attempt to Get 855’, 6 May 1944.

106. TNA, KV 4/195, Liddell Diaries, Vol. 11, 6 November 1944, 230.

107. TNA, KV 3/10, ‘Southern Africa’, 75–77; Chavkin (2009, 207–208, 210).

108. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Item No. 255, ‘General Operations Report’, Cape Town, 9 March 1944.

109. NARA, RG 226, Entry 216, Box 6, WN#26391, Item No. 348, ‘Posner’, 18 May 1944.

110. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Pouch Letter #31, 314 to 186, 27 September 1944.

111. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 382, WN#14546, Item No. 480, ‘Meeting with Colin Steyn’, Pretoria, 29 August 1944.

112. ‘No Social Whirl at Fletcher School for Budding Diplomats in Massachusetts’, Schenectady Gazette, 25 November 1954.

113. NARA, RG 226, Entry 214, Box 2, WN#21109, Item No. 401, ‘General Operations Report: Flagg’, Pretoria, 13 July 1944.

114. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 202, WN#08590, Item No. 140, ‘Meeting with Van Rensburg’, 19 November 1943, attaching Harlan B. Clark, ‘Memorandum to the Minister: Visit to Dr. Van Rensburg’, 10 November 1943.

115. ‘Interview with Van Rensburg’.

116. NARA, RG 226, Entry 210, Box 382, WN#14546, Item No. 458, ‘Some Aftermaths of the Van Rensburg Report’, Pretoria, 21 August 1944.

117. TNA, KV 2/907.

118. HP, B33, F18, Harris to Herskovits, 5 July 1944. After the war, Harris took up Bunche’s invitation to join the United Nations’ Trusteeship Council which Bunche led and worked for decolonization in Africa and fought racism there as an activist diplomat (see Yelvington 2008; Harris 2013).

Additional information

Funding

Nolte’s and Shear’s research was supported by funding from the British Academy [grant number SG111745], and Yelvington’s research was supported by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and by the University of South Florida. The authors are grateful to these bodies for their generosity.