Putin plagiarized from Pitt professors
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
If plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, then Russian President Vladimir Putin has made two University of Pittsburgh professors blush.
Researchers at the Brookings Institution, a private nonprofit corporation in Washington, D.C., recently discovered that Putin copied significant chunks of a 1978 textbook by Pitt professors William R. King and David I. Cleland and passed it off as his own for his mid-1990s economic dissertation.
"One is always pleased when one's work is found to be useful, but it's a little disappointing when one's work is found to be represented as someone else's," said King, a professor at Pitt's Katz Graduate School of Business. "It's a pretty serious breach of academics when one presents material that isn't original as their own."
About 16 pages of text and at least six diagrams and tables from Putin's 218-page dissertation -- which earned him the equivalent of a master's degree in business administration from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute in 1997 -- were taken almost word-for-word from King and Cleland's "Strategic Planning and Policy," according to Brookings researchers Clifford Gaddy and Igor Danchenko.
The book was translated into Russian in 1982.
It is unclear whether Putin actually wrote the dissertation -- it was fairly common practice in Russia to pay for such work -- but Gaddy said it is likely that the Russian president and former KGB spy thoroughly read the Pitt professor's textbook.
"I'm convinced that Putin did read that textbook. This is exactly the style of governing the country that he has used in Russia," Gaddy said. "He's actually taking their ideas and treating Russia as if it's a corporation -- 'Russia Incorporated.' "
In September, Gaddy and several other experts on Russia met with Putin at a conference. Gaddy said that when he asked the Russian president about his dissertation, he became "tense" and avoided the subject.
Originally, Gaddy and Danchenko were looking into Putin's views on Russian economics and energy, especially in relation to the sustainable development and management of the Russian oil and natural gas industry. When they gained access to Putin's dissertation, they found that several sections seemed disjointed.
After looking up the only non-Russian source cited in the bibliography -- King and Cleland's book -- they discovered the plagiarism.
Repeated calls and phone messages left with the Russian Presidential Executive Office were not returned Monday.
There is little chance that any action will be taken against Putin, said Tim Dodd, executive director of Duke University's Center for Academic Integrity.
"Is anybody surprised here?" asked Dodd, who has worked with numerous groups from the former Soviet Union to root out academic corruption. "This was a Soviet-era spy. What do spies do? They utilize whatever means necessary, use whatever deceptive facts they have to, and misrepresent themselves in order to reach a desired end."
Both King and Cleland said they are unlikely to take legal action.
"Who would we sue?" said Cleland, 80, an emeritus professor of industrial engineering. "The copyright is held by the publisher, the Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., so I don't think there's anything we can do."
University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg declined to comment. Calls to Van Nostrand Reinhold were not answered.
Cleland and King met when they served in the Air Force in the 1960s, and both coincidentally accepted positions at Pitt in 1967. They have collaborated on several books and did consulting work for firms worldwide.
Both said they were surprised and flattered when they heard about the alleged plagiarism yesterday.
"My daughter called at midnight last night and told me about it," King said. "We were joking, maybe I should offer to become president of Russia, but I don't really want to live in Moscow."
Researchers at the Brookings Institution, a non-profit think tank located in Washington D.C., have recently accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of making improper use of almost 16 pages and six figures from a 1982 translation of a 1978 textbook in his economics dissertation. ''Strategic Planning and Policy'', written by University of Pittsburgh professors William R. King and David I. Cleland, was published in 1979. 

Brookings Institution researchers  Clifford Gaddy and Igor Danchenko claim that Putin's dissertation, which earned him a candidate's degree in economics from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, copies almost verbatim from the text. 

Gaddy states, "I'm convinced that Putin did read that textbook. This is exactly the style of governing the country that he has used in Russia. He's actually taking their ideas and treating Russia as if it's a corporation -- 'Russia Incorporated.'" 

Many Russian government officials at the time would pay a ghostwriter for such publications, as gaining a degree could add legitimacy to one's governing policy. In that sense, it is possible Putin bought or paid for the dissertation and did not read over - in essence, passing plagiarised work off as his own, but not himself committing plagiarism. Gaddy states: "It's very clear he never wrote the thing in the first case, this is a clear diploma-mill-type operation. This is a dissertation, paid for, made-to-order."

Although Gaddy and Danchenko set out searching for Putin's views on economics and sustainable development, they noticed in reading his dissertation that certain sections seemed out of place. The only English language source in the text was King and Cleland's book. In the translation from Russia to English of the dissertation, text was discovered that came from that book without credit. 

King and Cleland have no plans to sue.