developed propaganda designed to sway Italian public opinion. His mission was not only to encourage the Italian public to keep Italy in the war on the Allied side but also to undermine support for socialist and communist political parties. He may even have used Rockefeller Foundation money to help convince socialist leader Benito Mussolini to support the war. During his time in Rome, however, Merriam usurped the prerogatives of the US ambassador and embassy staff, and his repeated clashes caused him to be sent back to the United States after just six months in the post. Merriam claimed to be deeply shaken by his experiences in Italy, although he did not make clear in what way his views had changed. He also engaged in an extramarital affair while overseas, which led to marital problems. Back in Chicago, Merriam coordinated and edited a series of comparative studies by political scientists on the use of expertise in policy making, civic education, and public opinion. Merriam's contribution to the series, The Making of Citizens (1934), was highly laudatory of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy's use of these tools to strengthen the sense of national purpose and achieve policy goals. Merriam was highly critical of these regimes, though, and felt that a more scientific approach would avoid the messianism on which these governments relied and strengthen democratic and pluralistic norms. He co-founded the Local Community Research Committee (LCRC) in 1923 with money from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, he set up programs to collecting data on urban problems, and disseminating current policy ideas. He also helped organize the Social Science Research Council (an outgrowth of the LCRC) in 1923 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, and served as its first president in 1924. In 1929, he co-founded (again, with a grant from the Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation) the Public Administration Clearing House, an umbrella group which fostered collaboration and communication among associations in the field of public administration. Merriam served as president of the American Political Science Association in 1925. That same year, he authored the book New Aspects of Politics, which called for marshalling the resources of political science research in a search for solutions to pressing social issues. Merriam returned to government service in 1929, serving as vice chairman on President Herbert Hoover's President's Research Committee on Social Trends (PRCST). A landmark federal research initiative into demographics and