The War on Poverty and the Great Society were notable for, among other things, the amount of federal resources they brought to bear to focus on poverty and its alleviation. During this 50th anniversary year of the Economic Opportunity Act, it is appropriate that an APPAM roundtable acknowledge the substantial investments in social research and development that were generated and that laid the institutional, intellectual, and methodological foundations for the field of public policy analysis as we know it. While several recent books chronicle the efforts of the War on Poverty/Great Society, they rarely discuss the research and evaluation tools developed in any depth. This roundtable will discuss, among other topics, the government role in: developing random assignment as an evaluation tool; econometric tools for evaluation; the study of implementation; large-scale demonstration projects; and other topics. In addition to chronicling some of the research efforts and outcomes the roundtable will be an interesting topic for the APPAM membership; especially for many younger members who may have only a faint idea about this history.