LETTER FOR MR. ALLEN H. KASSOF FROM EDWARD W. PROCTOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75B00380R000300050013-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 31, 2005
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: April 16, 1973
• Content Type: LETTER

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WASHINGTON, D.C. 20505
16 April 1973
Mr, Allen H. Kassof
Executive Director
International Research and Exchanges Board
110 East Fifty-Ninth Street
New York, New York 10022
Dear Mr. Kassof:
Dr. Schlesinger has asked me to respond to your letter
to him of April 6, 1973 concerning CIA contacts with U. S.
academicians.
You are correct in your view that academicians are under
no obligation to report any information to us. It is for each
individual to decide whether or not he will cooperate with us.
If he wishes to assist us, we deal with him as an individual in
a discreet and confidential manner. If he chooses not to do so,
we respect his wishes and make no further effort to contact him,
I can assure you that the matter rests there and that such individuals
do not, as you put it, "run the risk of finding themselves defined
as hostile or even unpatriotic".
Because this is a matter for each individual to decide for
himself, I would hope that your organization will not find it
necessary to discuss it in an open forum, particularly with
foreigners present.
Sincerely,
Edward W. Proctor
Deputy Director for Intelligence
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 Approved For Release 2005/06/06 : CIA-RDP75B00380R000300050013-4
Letter to Mr. Kassof of the International Research and
Exchanges Board
From: Edward W. Proctor
Dated: 16 April 1973
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Distribution:
Original - Addressee
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INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH AND EXCHANGES BOARD
110 EAST FIFTY?NINTII STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 1402:
CABLE: IRE.YBORD NEWYOR:K ? TELEPHONE: (212) ?52-9510
April 6, 1973
Mr. James Schlesinger, Director
Central Intelligence Agency
McLean,. Virginia
Dear Mr. Schlesinger:
The International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) conducts,
on behalf of the American academic community, a number of scholarly
exchange programs and allied activities with the Soviet Union and
the countries of Eastern Europe. We are sponsored by the American'
Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council,
and supported by funds from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs of the Department of State, the Ford Foundation, and the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Among the programs we administer
are certain educational portions of the inter-governmental agreement
between the USA and the USSR.
One of our major participating universities recently notified us
that a representative of the CIA visited their campus to quiz various
faculty members and administrators concerning the behavior, activities,
and social and political opinions of the Soviet scholars who are
currently in residence. Similar complaints have reached us in the past
from other universities.
We have advised individuals and institutions thus affected that,
so far as IREX is concerned, they have no obligation. to report such
information concerning our Soviet and East European scholars. At the
same time, we have not presumed to instruct them not to do so, since it
seems to us that such a prohibition would have no force and that in
any case it is a citizen's prerogative to deal with any government
agency according to his own best lights.
You will understand that this places our academic colleagues in
an extremely awkward and uncomfortable situation, since those who
believe--quite rightly, in my opinion--that it is- both wrong and foolish
to induce scholars and university administrators to serve as the eyes
and ears of an intelligence agency run. the risk of finding themselves
defined as hostile or even unpatriotic. Thus they are torn between placing
themselves and their institutions in real or imagined jeopardy vis-a-vis
the government, or behaving in an unprincipled manner :which, moreover,
almost certainly violates scholarly ethics.
If the Agency's practice continues, and perhaps there are considered
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Mr. James Schlesinger - 2
to be overwhelming reasons in favor of such a course, our participating
universities may well demand that IREX take a definite position on
the question in order that they may avoid being placed in such an
untenable situation. That, in turn, would require a full and open
airing of the problem and an exchange of opinions in public, possibly
as soon as the forthcoming annual meeting of our member universities
on April 18th in New York City, an occasion on which there will also
be a number of foreign guests also present. For obvious reasons I very
much hope that this can be avoided, for I can foresee only damaging
consequences for all concerned. I therefore especially hope that I
shall be in a position to assure those who will wish to raise the question
that the problem no longer exists.
Sincerely yours,
AHK/jh
c.c. Mr. Charles Stefan, SES, Department of State
Mr. Guy Coriden, CU, Department of State
Dr. Frederick Burkhardt, President, American Council
of Learned Societies
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