Ivan Daniel London (1913–1983) and Miriam B. London (1923–2011) were American scholars who were known for their research on the social systems of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) on the basis of refugee interviews. Both were born in the United States to immigrant parents from Ukraine, which was then part of Russia and later the Soviet Union, and were exposed to a multi-lingual environment. Both started their academic studies within the natural sciences. This early training in scientific disciplines appears to have had a major impact on the methodological treatises Ivan D. London contributed to the field of Social Science and on the methods he and his wife Miriam London applied in their interviewing approach and subsequent processing of amassed information. During the better part of the Cold War era their publications, particularly, in the field of Contemporary China Studies were considered highly controversial by the prevalent sinological academic circles. Today, it can hardly be denied that their research was ground breaking.
Ivan D. London Ivan D. London was born Jan. 8, 1913 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (US), where he studied mathematics at Temple University and earned his A. B. degree in 1935. After military service, however, London turned to psychology. In 1945 he earned his A. M. degree in that discipline at Northwestern University in Illinois (US) and in 1950 he earned his doctoral degree at Tulane University in New Orleans (US). His Ph.D. thesis dealt with "The convergent and divergent in Systematic Psychology". Early publications indicate that Ivan D. London's academic interest entirely focussed upon the state of affairs of psychology in the Soviet Union, particularly the conditions and procedures utilized within Soviet psychiatric hospitals:
A historical survey of psychology in the Soviet Union, Contemporary Psychology in the Soviet Union, Soviet psychology and psychiatry, Therapy in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. In 1950 he joined the Russian Research Center at Harvard University where he worked as a research associate within the "Harvard Refugee Interview Project on the Social System of the Soviet Union" (Harvard Emigre Interview Project). In early 1952, however, Ivan D. London accepted the position of an associate professor at Brooklyn College at the City University of New York, where he was to teach social psychology, later as a full professor, until his death on April 12, 1983, in New York City. In 1960 Ivan D. London also obtained the certificate of psychologist in the State of New York. At Brooklyn College Ivan D. and Miriam London established a research group which later became the "Research Institute for Political Psychology". Via this institute, scholars from other universities were invited to collaborate on projects they were conducting, specifically Oleg Anisimov, Herbert H. Paper (1925-2012), Gordon E. Peterson, Nikolai P. Poltoratzky (1921-1990), Ivan Elagin (1918-1987), Vladimir Samarin (1913-1992), Avery D. Weisman (1913-2017) and others. In 1953 Ivan D. London was entrusted with the Inwood Project on Intercultural Communication, the scope and methods of which are reflected by the following six publications:
The young East German and Soviet defector: A report on similarities, A note on Soviet science, Nonthematic, nontechnical factors influencing the effectiveness of plausible appeals directed to a Soviet audience, The Soviet propaganda image of the West, Differential reactions of recent and earlier defectors to anti-Soviet propaganda themes and Soviet reaction to the down-grading of Stalin and some suggestions for American broadcasts to the Soviet Union. In the course of the three and a half years duration of that project a sample of 425 Soviet emigres was "constituted in West Germany, Chile and America with a scattering in other countries" and interviewed "to replace the impressionistic reports of foreigners ... and propagandistic output of Soviet authorities by systematic research". The emigres consisted of (1) refugees who voluntarily left the Soviet Union during the last war, (2) former forced laborers, so-called Ostarbeiter, and prisoners-of-war, (3) defectors who fled the Soviet Armed Forces or the Occupational Administration during and subsequent to world war II, and (4) non-returners, who having been sent abroad on commission decided not to return home. About 40% of the sample were postwar emigres, the remainder were wartime emigres. Significantly, the findings of the Inwood Project research "diverged markedly in several respects" from those of the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System. As De-Stalinisation progressed during the second half of the 1950s, Ivan D. London was able to establish a broad range of contacts among Soviet psychologists, and became a leading expert in Soviet psychology in the U. S. In 1963 the Londons turned their attention to the People's Republic of China (PRC) a country hidden behind the so-called Bamboo Curtain in East Asia the more the so-called Iron Curtain in Europe was becoming permeable. Partially supported by private foundations, including the Smith Richardson Foundation, they were able to support their research on China over a period of twelve years, from 1963 through 1975, in which they took yearly field trips of two to three-month duration to Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Methodological considerations and method of research
Calling for a paradigm shift in the Social Sciences During the first half of the 20th century, many academic psychologists endorsed the idea that their discipline should become more scientific by emulating concepts and methods of traditional physics. During the same time, many traditional physicists were also struggling to reconcile their basic concepts of classical mechanics with the discovery of the principles of quantum mechanics. Ivan D. London was the first psychologist to argue that psychology would benefit by pursuing an equivalent consideration. During his studies in mathematics London had been fascinated by the treatises of the German physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) on quantum mechanics, which he was able to read in the original. Observing, however, it had become the fashion by those who emphasized the necessity and positive value of statistical formulations in psychology to invoke Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy, London in his treatise
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