ABSTRACT
Few American sociologists have made as significant an impact on the discipline or been as controversially and contradictorily regarded as Talcott Parsons. In 1951, Parsons published the fruits of this collaboration in The Social System, outlining the main tenets of his theory of "structural-functionalism." Robert Merton, then head of the sociology department at Columbia University, was identified by the informant as a likely member of this inner group who had probably been selected for his position by Parsons. On October 27, 1952, J. Edgar Hoover granted Boston authorization to initiate a "security-type" investigation of Parsons. He instructed Boston to give particular scrutiny to Parsons's association with the Russian Research Center and any access he might have to secret government work through it. An informant identified Parsons as a member of the Educator's Committee of the American Committee for Spanish Freedom (ACSF).
