Part of this conceptual dilemma, but only part, lay in the traditional distinction between the "public" and "private" spheres of American society. What is public administration, what is everything else (i.e., "private" administration), and what is the dividing line between the two types has been a painful dilemma for a number of years. As most of us know, "real world" phenomena are making the public/private distinction an increasingly difficult one to define empirically, irrespective of academic disputations. The research and development contract, the "military-industrial complex," the roles of the regulatory agencies and their relations with industry, and the growing expertise of government agencies in originating and developing advanced managerial techniques that were and are influencing the "private sector" in every aspect of American society, all have conspired to make public administration an elusive entity in terms of determining its proper paradigm.