ABSTRACT
It should be evident to the reader that an author who devotes twenty percent of a monograph to exposition of his research methods and their ethical implications anticipates that some controversy will be raised about them. In 1969, however, I did not foresee the degree of both positive and negative reaction this study would inspire or that interest in its ethical implications would continue well into the following decade. The printing of excerpts from the book in Trans-Action magazine in January, 1970, and Nicholas von Hoffman’s prompt reaction brought the issue to public attention as the first copies of the work came off the press. Rainwater and Horowitz responded with an editorial that was all the more timely because at just that time the professional associations of anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists were debating new codes of ethics for their members. Glazer’s book on field research methods appeared while “plumbers” were being dispatched from the White House as part of the most extensive program of domestic surveillance the American public has ever endured; and Warwick’s paper was published while the nation was becoming increasingly sensitive to the dual dangers of snooping and secrecy. The essays I have included in this retrospect are those I judge to be the best written and most widely-read commentaries on the ethical issues elicited by my research. I hope that they, along with my own concluding essay, will provide useful material for discussion as social scientists attempt to clarify their research posture in a post-Watergate society.176
