However, Harvard's Dillon Professor of International Affairs Joseph S. Nye Jr. says that such statements are overly optimistic. "Only some of the changes have happened so far," Nye says. "There's still a long way to go."

Some of the plan's supporters have said that its basic premise of "change-through-aid" was proven effective in America's postwar economic intervention in Western Europe and Japan. Many Soviet scholars, however, explain that a number of factors make the Soviet situation unique. Not only is the region in a period of extraoridnary political instability, but it is also divided along ethnic and cultural lines that make centralized reforms difficult. Furthermore, the Soviets may have considerable difficulty in establishing market mechanisms, such as a system of private property, after 74 years of central planning--a factor which critics say receives inadequate attention in the Harvard plan.

Left Out of the Bargain

Some of those who are quickest to point out the flaws in the Harvard plan are those who were excluded from its development. The Window of Opportunity team consisted of some Soviet scholars, but mostly well-known experts from other fields, including Stone Professor of International Trade Jeffrey Sachs '76, the Harvard economist who has been a principal adviser to the post-Communist Polish government.

Among those not included on the roster were the two leaders of Harvard's Russian Research Center--Adam B. Ulam and Marshall I. Goldman. Goldman suggests that some of the plan's problems might have been avoided if the Allison-Yavlinsky team had drawn on the expertise of Harvard's many Soviet scholars.

In fact, Goldman says, the center's staffers were somewhat "miffed" to be left out of the project "partly out of professional jealousy, of course, but also because we thought the project would have benefitted from some intellectual give and take."

"I think we could have made a contribution," Goldman says, but adds, "To be honest, the way things worked out, we're kind of happy that we didn't have anything to do with it."

"In some senses [the group's composition] made it more of a public relations stunt than a serious economic effort," says Kramer.

Program participants point out that it was natural for the project to take place at the Kennedy School since it was conceived and brought about by Allison, a former dean of the school. Allison did not return repeated phone calls from The Crimson for this article.

However, in the November 1990 issue of the Kennedy School Update, Allison said of the project, "In the course of doing this we will learn more about the political economy of these great transitions and about the interaction between the political, economic and cultural issues that are often neglected by a specialist approach than we could by any other research strategy I can imagine."

But the project's critics say that it ended up relying on people with little academic background--though often extensive practical experience--in the field. "Harvard does have a very strong collection of Soviet experts," says Schoenfeld. "But they're not at the Kennedy School, they're at the Russian Research Center."

Gaps in Understanding

Although the committee's composition may have bruised some egos, scholars point out several more substantive ways that the lack of intellectual diversity harmed the final product. Goldman says he believes that there were gaps in the program participants' understanding of each other's economic systems. For instance, he says, the plan made no allowance for the introduction of wholesaling to the marketplace.

"The U.S. side took for granted that wholesaling would exist, while the Soviet side didn't understand what it meant," he says.

Goldman says the proposal as it stands is "seriously flawed." He says he believes that, despite the planners' best intentions, the project has already had distinctly negative consequences inside the Soviet Union. "It gave a lot of people the impression that the Soviets were going around hat in hand begging for money," he says. "For a proud people, I think they would have preferred it would be done with a little more subtlety."