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Major U.S. Think Tanks: RAND Corporation In 1948 RAND was created at the urging of its original sponsor, the Air Force. After World War II, RAND focused especially on research in national security. Today RAND operates on a broad front, making its research available to public policy makers at all levels, private sector leaders in many industries, and the public at large. RANDs research and analysis aims to: provide practical guidance by making policy choices clear and by addressing barriers to policy implementation; develop solutions to complex problems by bringing researchers in all relevant academic specialities; dissemination of research findings. RAND has more than 500 employees. Official Organizational Status: Independent Institute Political Orientation: U.S. Center-right Scope/Research Areas: RAND specializes in: Foreign relations and diplomacy, security and defense, economic issues, regional studies, science sand technology, labor and human resource development, social issues, education and health and welfare. Funding Sources: 1998 Budget: US$ 113.5 million. National, local and state government (83 %) and private donations (17 %). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Table: Publishing Programs of Think Tanks
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Abolition of Resale Price Maintenance The London-based Institute for Economic Affairs (AEI) from its beginning undertook an extensive publishing program to push forward its free-market ideology. Among its publications was one particular paper, which had a direct and immediate political impact. Published in 1960 "Resale Price Maintenance and Shoppers' Choice" by Basil Yamey argued for the abolition of Resale Price Maintenance, which by fixing prices in shops prevented large stores from necessarily under-cutting smaller shops. Yamey argued that a free market in shop prices would save the shoppers £180,000,000 a year, and prices would fall by five percent. The publication of Yamey's paper was timed to coincide with a period of public debate on the subject to ensure maximum impact, and Yamey's suggestions were taken up by the incumbent Conservative Government. Although the Abolition of Resale Price Maintenance by | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Funding Sources and Revenues While most progressive think tanks acquire their funding through many different sources, for conservative think tanks financing by corporations prevails. Among the think tanks receiving a considerable amount of corporate money are the Cato Institute (U.S. conservative/libertarian), the Brookings Institution (U.S. centrist), the Heritage Foundation (U.S. conservative), the American Enterprise Institute (U.S. conservative) and the Also, whereas the combined revenue base of such conservative multi-issue policy institutions as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, the Cato Institute, and | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Major U.S. Think Tanks: Heritage Foundation Heritage was started to counter what it perceived as the liberal intellectual climate of Washington in the 1970s. The Heritage Foundations mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Heritage pursues this mission by performing research addressing key policy issues and effectively marketing these findings to its primary audiences: members of Congress, key congressional staff, policymakers in the executive branch, the nation's news media, and the academic and policy communities. Official Organizational Status: Independent research and educational institute. Political Orientation: U.S. Conservative Scope/Research Areas: The Heritage Foundation's research areas include: economic issues, health and welfare, education, culture and religion, security and defense, foreign policy and international relations/institutions. Priority is given to issues, such as: Social Security reform, fundamental tax reform, livable cities, ballistic missile defense, education reform, domestic and economic policy and foreign and defense policy. Recent publications include: Feulner, Edwin J.: The March of Freedom. (1998). Holmes, K. et.al.: 1999 Index of Economic Freedom. (1998). Funding Sources: 1998 Budget: US$ 26 million. Private donations (47 %), foundations (21 %), investment income (21 %), corporate donations (4 %). Among others US$ 1 million from the Korea Foundation - funded by South Korea's foreign ministry. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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NATO The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington on 4 April 1949, creating NATO (= North Atlantic Treaty Organization). It was an alliance of 12 independent nations, originally committed to each other's defense. Between 1952 and 1982 four more members were welcomed and in 1999, the first ex-members of | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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codes an algorithm for bringing a legible message into an illegible form. There has to exist some sort of code book to encode/decode it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Enigma Machine The Enigma Encryption Machine was famous for its insecurities as for the security that it gave to German ciphers. It was broken, first by the Poles in the 1930s, then by the British in World War II. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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cryptoanalysis the study of breaking others' codes to transform a message back into a legible form without knowing the key from the beginning | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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plaintext the original, legible text | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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