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3 Armed Forces & Soc'y 3 (1976-1977)

handle is hein.journals/amdfcsad3 and id is 1 raw text is: Public Confidence in the U.S. Military DAVID R. SEGAL JOHN D. BLAIR University of Maryland CONFLICTING VIEWS OF THE MILITARY There is little consensus among scholars regarding the level of public esteem for the U.S. military. In summer 1974, Adam Yarmolinsky was reporting the military to be on the bottom of the scale in national esteem.1 At the same time, researchers at the University of Michigan were expressing surprise at finding the military to be the most trusted public institution.2 While we have seen no data that support Yarmolin- sky's assertion, two different statistical series in fact show differing trends over the period 1964-1975: high and relatively stable evaluations of the military in one case, and declining public confidence in the other. Analysis of these trends may shed some light on the actual level of public confidence in the military institution. In the even-numbered years between 1964 and 1974 (with the exception of 1966), the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan asked representative samples of the American population to rate the military and other institutions on a feeling thermometer ranging from zero (very cold or unfavorable) to 100 (very warm or favorable). These data are presented in the first row of Table 1. In 1964, the mean rating of the military was 75. The average declined during ARMED FORCES AND SOCIETY, Vol. 3 No. 1, November 1976 ©1976 Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society [31

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