CIA BACK TO SCHOOL FOR TOUCH OF CLASS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100020022-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 12, 2010
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: January 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Approved For Release 2010/08/12 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000100020022-4
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
21 January 1986
CIA back to school
for touch of class
NW von .s Niws $u los
WASHINGTON-Twenty years
after the Central Intelligence
Agency was all but banished from
American
it has r -e ,the CIA says
:tsl~ its ties and is
receiving research and advice
from a number of univer-
sity
Gates, the deputy direo-
for of intelligence, said the
had sought to accelerate a=
begun under President Jimmy.
Carter, of soliciting help from "the
best minds in the country."
But the CIA's dealings with
professors have been challenged
by critics in Congress and within
the universities as a threat to the
independence of academic re-
The new emphasis on seeking
outside viewpoints was prompted,
in part, by a review of past intelli-
gence failures, Gates said. Some of
these, such as mistaken
predictions in the 1970s about the
future of the Shah of Iran, could be
traced, he said, to the development
of a "U.S. government perspec-
tive."
"There were scholars out there
saying the shah was in trouble,
and somehow that never got moor.
posted into any official assess-
ment," Gates said in an interview.
"What we are after is people who
will challenge us constructively,
offer us perspective,
who will stir up the pot a bit and
who will help us consider all points
of view, particularly the unortho-
dox.
"Large bureaucracies like this
one have difficulty
promoting
imagination and creativity."
Gates said that about a fourth of
the agency's intelligence estimates
are now reviewed in draft form by
professors or other outside ex-
perts, including retired military
people. Previously only a "minus-
cule" amount of the agency's re-
search was reviewed in this fash-
ion, he said.
Since 1982, the CIA has been the
host of 75 conferences a year in
which its analysts met professors
and experts outside the govern-
ment, Gates said. Only three to
four such meetings were held an-
nually in past years. in addition,
agency analysts are attending
more academic conferences on
s TT,iecxxss of interest
over the proper
questions the
relationship between the CIA and
academics came into sharp focus
at Harvard University late last
year is a dispute over the dealings
between the agency and Nadav
Safran, the head of Harvard
University's Center for Middle
Eastern Studies. A. Michael Spen-
ce, dean of the faculty of arts and
sciences, concluded in a report this
month that Safran had violated
Harvard's rules when he failed to
disclose that the CIA had contribu-
ted $45.000 to a conference on Is-
lamic fundamentalism held at the
university last year.
Safran also received a 007,000
grant from r
research on
his latest bbook. The
contract gave the agency the right
to from being pmanuscript
ub and pro-
hibited Safran from disclosing the
source of his funds. Both condl
tions violate Harvard's rules.
Safran is to resign his poet as head
of the center at the and of this
academic year but remain a
tenured professor at Harvard.
Rep. Don Edwards- [D., Calif.],
chairman of the Judiciary Com-
mittee's Subcommittee on Civil
agency should public and Constitutional Rights, said the
contracts with professors.
Edwards contended the agency's
support for Safran's research
violated a 1976 CIA promise to
Congress that it would not covertly
sponsor publication of books in this
country.
"They're not supposed to operate
within the United States and as far
as I'm concerned, this is operating
within the United States,"
Edwards said.
Gates said the CIA had several
types of dealings with professors.
Most common, he said, were the
conferences, sponsored by the
agency or outside groups, in which
academics and agency analysts
discuss various international
issues. These do not involve classi-
fied information, Gates said. Aca-
demic experts also are called upon
to review the agency's findings.
More rarely, he said, the agency
contracts for research papers on
l particular topics. take leavea sanand
are hired for year-long positions as
scholars in residence at the CIA.
The number of professors under
contract is relatively small when
compared to the "many hundreds"
of academics who attend agency
conferences and serve as paid or
unpaid consultants, Gates said.
The CIA's early history in the
1990s was scho-
lars who === posts
with the agency or worked as con-
sultants. But Gates said that in the
1960s, the agency and other arms
of the American government be-
came "persona non grata" on the
nation's campuses.
At that time, while many cam-
puses were shaken by antigovern-
ment demonstrations, it was dis-
closed that the CIA had covertly
funded and manipulated the Na-
tional Student Association and se-
cretly : used academics to write
books and other materials to be
used for propaganda purposes
abroad.
Under Stansfield Turner, direc-
tor of the CIA under Carter, the
agency began to rebuild its ties to
academic experts, and Gates said
the Reagan administration had
sought to broaden the relationship.
Approved For Release 2010/08/12 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000100020022-4