NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE REPORTING ON MEMOIRS OF A CIA PSYCHOLOGIST

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Records Related to the Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 07165444
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: June 6, 2025
• Document Release Date: June 12, 2025
• Publication Date: June 25, 1976

nfl EOTTEU ON 25 JUNE 197 APPROVED FOR RELEASE 2025 UNDER EXECUTIVE ORDER 14176 ill the help of handwriting anaJysis, a test called the hological Assessment System and 30,000 persona ity files, Jim Iceehner spent seven years, screening CIA agents and recruits. He's now on. the agency's "useless person" list By IA Orth "I1,e young, CIA case officers looked intently at their instructor. g up a lemon. ''I want you to take this lemon," be said, "and never let it icave you., for the next three or four days. Smell it, touch it. Tell me your feelings :ilot it. Get to know your lemon like you've never known another lemon in your life. This is an order." The instructor was teaching "Personality Tilt-or CIA psyci gist, rin ro.pert called upon to train fresh clandestine operators arts of intelligence work. The lemon exercise was supposed to we, their sensitivity, and the trainees were required to turn it, written t, several days later. It was the usual rnx Some had developed meaningful rcht ships with their fruits. They rhapsodized for three pages ahout their lemons had no trouble pit.:king them out from a bowl of dozens_ One noneonfoi mist, however, merely drew a big picture of his lemon and labeled it with a question ft.ark. the instrot..tot , Jim Keehner, was pleased. "I NV:ts trying to get them in contact with 'Weil feelings," he explained. "Feelings had been left out of her prcvious trainin� which is all eognitive." In 1968 the CIA hired Jim Keehner as a spc1ist in the agency's ofigoi effort to increase the psychological skills and awareness of it rmployees. A CIA case offt:fer's prime duty is to recruit "agents" among foreign citzns around the viorld, and the agency has a vital interest in any inethoci�no matter how far out� that pre,.rises to reveal weaknesses, vulnerabilities and psychic pressure points in possible. ecruits, The CIA. in fact. has become one of the xvorld's foremost laboratories for Illiti- SUal ychological techniques. Keehner's office in tire agency's Technical Service vision had a mandate to test anything�from hallucirtog,enic drugs to computerized handwriting. analysis�.that would help case officers manipulate their Lrzents or oti-fer unsuspecting, potential agents. Keehner's mission NVZIS to teach other CIA officers how to bring agents under control. Ironically, the negative maul c of his work, loos- ened his own self-control and brought him to the point of a complete breakdown. Still bearing the marks of his shattering experience, Keehner hesitantly agseed to provide a portrait of the agency's psychological operations. conlinu- C(41 p.),