The Special Studies Project was a study funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and conceived by its then president, Nelson Rockefeller, to 'define the major problems and opportunities facing the U.S. and clarify national purposes and objectives, and to develop principles which could serve as the basis of future national policy'.
The seven sub-panels were:[1][2] The military subpanel's report was rush-released much earlier than the others, about two months after the USSR launched Sputnik, in October, 1957.
It was given prominent treatment on the front page of The New York Times,[3] selling thousands of copies and garnering unprecedented influence.
Many of its major recommendations - principal among them a massive arms buildup to counter perceived Soviet military superiority - were adopted by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his State of the Union address in January, 1958.
[4] The project was finally published in its entirety in 1961 as Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports.