CHARLIE PALMER PULLD THE STUDENT ASSOCIATION OUT OF ITS CIA SLUMP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300720002-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 21, 1970
• Content Type: NSPR

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I. of Charlie as the black mustache
.U.here he was. The outgoing that adorns young Palmer's upper
president of a nationwide organ!- lip. By some contemporary stand-
zation, dressed in a rumpled aT ds, Charlie Palmer's hair is not
white shirt and blue jeans, iollirig really loaf and hardly desorves
on the coffee-stained beige carpet the description of shaggy. But it
of his office while a large clog does tune, down over his ears as,.
lunged playfully at hint. Two perhaps, sort of a symbol of
staff members sat nearby on a NSA's moderation halfway
stagging couch. Minutes earlier, between the campus radicals and
the conversation focused on the the campus "straights." Once this
problems of raising thousands of spring, when Charlie was about
dollars to keep the organization to appear before national t.elevi.-
goint; and to meet reparations
lion cameras, his. girl friend,
demands of the National Associa- Mary - Lou Oates, trimmed
tion of Black Students. But his hair with some household
weighty problems and light horse scissors. She wanted hire to have
play riiix easily for the outgoing
more appeal for Middle Amer-
president of the United States ica. Charlie has recovered,
National Student Association. At but his black locks still have a
23, Charles F. Palmer had held tentative look about there. Wash-
the reins of the nation's oldest ingtoit Post columnist Nicholas
student organization for a year. Von Hoffman once wrote that
and his successor, David Ifsbin of "Charlie Palmer looks like Ernest
Potomac, finds NSA considerably IIeraiingtvay as a young man." It's
more stable financially than not a bad description.
Palmer found it a ye. r ago. Charlie spent" his pre-college
Staff members and fellow off!- days in the predominantly Mcxi-
cers in the headquarters at 2115 S can-American community of East
Street NW view Charles Palmer Los Angeles and attended Wood-
with .a mixture of respect and row Wilson High School where
genuine warmth that surfaces in the student body., was more than
casual conversations and good- 60 per cent Chicano. His fath-
natured banter. While he was 1 or , John Palmer, is a dedicated
still sprawled on his office floor' civil libertarian who-works as a
with his rusty red and black dog mechanical - engineer. His Spam
Sancho towering over him, one ish-speal1:ing mother, Selma,
bearded and grinning,, staff, nom- helped contribute an ttndersta.nd-
ber' announced, "We all used to, ing of the community. A younger
push Charlie around. But then he brother, Ralph, is now in college,
started bringing Sancho with II1ITI although he is not necessarily fol-
and now we know who is boss!" loving in his older brother's
foot- steps. Speaking Spanish was es-
the mention of Charlie's name, sential for Charlie in his position
has been described as part collie, as guard oil! the Woodrow Wilson
signals were called. Lang cage,
however, was not the only prob-
lem. Charlie recalls, "In ray sen-
ior year, the quarterback was a
little Japanese guy who couldn't
pass from the pocket and so he
had to roll out all the time to pass
the ball and he couldir't see over
the line. So, when he rolled out,
he would yell `bond over' before
he would throw. And, when we
bent over, we got flattened."
V71201) he wasn't getting flat-
tened, Charlie was scolrin;g solid
grades in a school that saw few of
its graduates go on to college. He
had a flair for science and was
accepted by the University of Cal-
ifornia at Berkeley to study for a
degree in bio-chernistr-y. "It was
like going to Disneyland," he
says, "t.o be a freshman chemistry
student at Berkeley and I vas,
really scared because my huh
school background -didn't seem as
sharp as sorrie of the others." To
offset this sense of inferiority, he
set up a schedule "that would
make the Marines look soft. I had
these charts accounting for all niy
time, including two hours for rec-
reation." Hair trimmed short
enough to please the most con-
servative critic, lie arrived on the
Berkeley campus in the fall of
1934--the year the Free Speech
Movement began. But the highly
publicized movement seems . to
have had little immediate impact
or, cleterrniiled Charlie Palmer.He
stayed with bio-chemistry for two
ye~ars, l5lCltiC2llAg a stint
and a half '
as an analyst for the U.S. Forest
Service, before switching to poli-
part German shepherd and part football team. because that ~.
_ with
people. I-To seems as much a part political tzieory. The wor,.
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tical science and taking honors in