A KILLER OF A CAMPUS FAD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030086-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 86
• Publication Date: March 10, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030086-3
ARTICLE APPEARED PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
ON PAGE-/ 10 March 1984
` ? While the players know whom they
are supposed to assassinate, they
killer of a don't know who has been assigned v.
A terminate them. Thus, over the sev
eral-week course of the game, they
y l will have 0,
t
h
campus. fa
The. players
say it's all
Assassin is an espionage game that --5-` - "" uy'r, moments, to
is popping up on U.S. campuses faster "dead e.the name of his target. The
than James Bond can help an enemy "dead" player's quarry then becomes
agent unmake her bed. And in the his killer's new target The game is
course of engendering a lot of fun, it over when only one player remains.
is stirring up a smidgen.of controver-,, Prizes. (underwrittehby a several
sy 1 dollar;registration fee) are typically
?
The students playing the game awarded. to the: last surviving assas-
view it as a harmless diversion from sin. The winner'
inner of the current NYU
in f i "c
h
f
d
i
t
e pressures o
aca
em
c life. Many contest, for example, will receive
:parents footing the bill for expensive $100
In the Princeton
d
.
game, a
di-
/~y+~+ educations probably don't see it tional ..prizes will be -awarded for
o t G / c7 are quite that way, however, .and.a num-. most kills and "most creative kill"
ber of school officials d 't 'th .
on et
not amused.
By Al Haas
M,.., staff %"w
1. student life appealed to the students ry,would be alone in his dormitory
At Brown University, the dean of After learning just when his quar?
ohn Gibbs is a Princeton Uni- . on moral grounds to stop playing it, room, he had one of his target's
versify freshman who majors and they did. At Princeton, a similar friends knock at his door, gain en?
in physics and .works out on dean made 'a similar plea, and the `trance, and then pulla water gun.
Nautilus machines. ? He is so' - kids kept playing . The target, thinking this was the
young, clean-cut and 'polite At-New York University, no admin- person assigned to assassinate him,
that it is bard to think of him as an tstrator objected, but the campus se- grabbed his gun and a shootont en.
assassin. curity forces got into, the act They., sued. -
But he ' was -secretly directed to banned the game from campus build
eliminate a fellow student recently, ings such as the dining hall, lest an In the midst of the gunplay, Gibbs
and he went about his clandestine innocent nonplayer be inadvertently jumped in through the open door
chore with a thoroughness and cre- squirted while eating lunch. They and blasted his victim.
ativi that would have made a sea- -also got the game organizers to sub
ty Such tales of intricate dewing -0o
soned CIA operative envious. ' stitute' fluorescent-colored water
guns -for the more realistic black are' legion. Scott Wenger, editor in
Strangely enough, however, his gu chief -of NYU's Washington Square
worries were hardly, over when he ones, so that people wouldn't get up- News, likes to tell how he exploited
dispatched his victim with several set when they saw a player flashing his newspaper post to make his first
bursts from his semiautomatic pistol his or her weapon . outside some- kill in the current game organized
In the stealthy game this improbable body's dormitorywindow. by-his fraternity:- -
hit man plays, the hunter is also the Assassin has its variations 'from
.hunted. . school to school (the Yale players "It was rather astutely done, if I
"I'm terrified every time there is a use suction-cup dart pistols instead may say so;" Wenger notes modestly.
knock at the door," the personable of water guns), but the game is typi- "I had an editor call up my target and
undergraduate confides, glancing to- cally played along the lines of the say we were doing a story on mice
ward the entrance to his dormitory one currently in progress at Prince and roach infestation, and ask if we
room. "I keep my gun ready: ' r ton:_
could come over and take some pho--.
Gibbs is smiling when he says this tos of his place. I went in the bath-
it is bard not to smile when you are i In' that game, which started with room, then came out with my 'gold-
talking about being shot, or shooting 1' 140. players, each of the participants fish' water gun and shot him twice in
someone else, with a water gun. ' 'was assigned -a "target".from among the face and twice in the chest."
But it's also hard not to feel a wee the rest of the players and, in turn,
bit paranoid when you are playing became the target of another player.
the game of "Assassin." Paranoia, af- Continued
ter all, is a part of the game - and
part of the fun.
er.. And the 'kills are often quite cre-
some Because university ivo- to see ee i its violent
terminated vi administrators ative '-Consider Princeton's Gibbs,
.would like with with and the elaborate lengths he went to
win c
ore of assassi-
nating their quarries while trying to
avoid being shot by the unknown
players who are after them.
When a player succeeds in assassi-
nating: his target, the latter is
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030086-3