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Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 28, No. 2 December 2001 Stephen A. Zeff RICE UNIVERSITY THE WORK OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH PROGRAM Abstract : This article begins by recounting the circumstances that led to the AICPA’s decision in 1957 to appoint a special committee to recommend a stronger research program to support the process of establishing accounting principles. It then proceeds to examine in depth the committee’s sometimes difficult deliberations that eventu- ally led to a unanimous report, in which it recommended the cre- ation of an Accounting Principles Board and an enlarged accounting research division within the Institute. In the course of the article, the author brings out the strong philosophical differences among several of the Big Eight accounting firms that had been impeding the work of the Committee on Accounting Procedure and that also intruded into the Special Committee’s deliberations. INTRODUCTION One of the major junctures in the process of establishing accounting principles in the United States occurred in 1957- 59.1 After almost 20 years of experience with the Committee on Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Art Wyatt, George Catlett, Chuck Horngren, Oscar Gellein, Dick Brief, Tom Dyckman, Marc Epstein and Bob Mautz for comments on earlier drafts. Mautz is the lone surviving member of the Special Committee. They are not responsible, however, for the contents of this paper. 1Prior to the 1970s, what is today known as “standa