CAMPUS RESEARCH AND SECRECY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030134-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 134
• Publication Date: June 7, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-R
ARTICLE APPEARED
By Jollik -Mark-off
Renewed high levels of Pentagon fund-
ing for secret scientific research on Amer-
ican university campuses is producing a
similar renewal of the old controversy
over academic freedom and university
priorities.
On the one hand, university scientists
are stampeding the Pentagon to cash in on
the bonanza in military research dollars.
On the other. hand, many scientists and
other academicians, alarmed. at the
strings attached to the dollars, are fearful
that legitimate, non-military scientific re-
search is being sacrificed, along with aca-.
demic fr eedom.;
In a joint letter to the Reagan adminis-
traUon released In early April, the presi-
dents of five of America's most important
universities expressed "grave concern" at
recent federal efforts to impose new re-
strictions on academic teaching -and re-
search.
The letter asked the State. Defense and
Commerce departments to show that re-
cent research funding guidelines issued by
the Defense Department "are not intended
to limit academic exchange arising from
unclassified research and teaching." The
authors expressed the fear that Pentagon
oversight of the research may have a
"chilling" effect on scientific research.
The letter was signed by the presidents
of Stanford University, the California In-
stitute of Technology, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, the University of
California and Cornell University.
Their concern stems from new guide-
lines-based on ' the 1972 International
Traffic in Arms Regulations and the more
recent Export Administration Regulations,
-that are intended to limit the transfer of
technology to socialist countries.
The new Pentagon guidelines make it a
federal. crime even to discuss with a for-
eign scientist-without prior approval-
any result that might improve the "state.
THE BALTIMORE SUTl
7 June 1981
D P90-00806 R000100030134-9
of the art" of U.S. military technology ized and fluid nature of most campuses;'
without prior State Department approval. they said in their letter.
University officials are concerned that ~ "Universities are neither structured
the new rules' strictness may lead to an nor staffed to police the flow of legitimate
interpretation that U.S. scientists attend- visitors to a given laboratory or the dis-
ing 'foreign academic meetings are in semination of information by their faculty 1
violation of the law for discussing their re- at international conferences."
search with foreigners. Since the,issuance of the original Pen-
The controversy has focused on a key I tagon memorandum, there have been sev-
microelectronics research project, funded eral disputes that indicate the-academic
by the Pentagon, that is designed to create community may be heading for a confron-
,faster integrated circuitry for military Cation with the Reagan administration.
use. Stanford University, Cornell, the Uni- ' For example, Cornell was' told by the
-versity of Southern California and the
Carnegie Mellon Institute are among the Department of Commerce earlier this
universities named as part of the industry- year that a visiting scholar from an East-
university "teams" designated to conduct I ern European country was to be excluded
from`a research laboratory where certain
the research;
The problem arises from the fact that a computer-related research was being con-
large percentage of the students in key ducted. Rather than accede to the order,
Cornell decided not to invite the scholar. .
g
graduate programs are foreign, makin enforcement of the guidelines difficult.
At Stanford University, 20 percent of
the graduate' students enrolled in comput-
er science and 25 percent of-those in elec-
o f
t
did not accept the scholar because we
"We
felt we couldn't live under the 'conditions
that the Department of Commerce im-
posed on us; They were extremely restric-
tive.... Seminars and even conversations
rica engineering are oreign.
" witl- colleagues were prohibited,'"said Dr.
The basic problem," says a Stanford Don Cook, dean of research at Cornell.
spokesman, Bob Beyers, "is that anybody At Stanford, an attempt by a Dep;
who gets a good degree and really studies ment of Defense agency to write into a
in the right area-you can take all his
contract language that would have given
papers away and everything else, and he's ?
the agency "prior review.., before the pub-
lication of research results ended in a
compromise. The Pentagon will be able to
see the findings before they are published,
but will have no power to restrict publica-
tion. Fears were also heightened iprlier this
lated. to specific inventions that might year by the National Security Agency's at-
lead to military weapons innovations, , .tempt to restrict -the. dissemination of,
while allowing "basic" scientific research cryptography research' results obtained by
to continue freely. ' Dr. George Davida, of Georgia Tech.
however ac- i The controversy over renewed calls for
Even Pentagon officials
,
knowledge that there is a "gray area" ,be-
tween the two.kinds of research. This is
.particularly true of microelectronics,
which is an applied science.
The university presidents also point out
secrecy in military research Is complicat- I
ed by the dramatic shift in the source of
federal research dollars.
Defense funding of campus' research
has increased : sharply' in the last few.
ney
n
ffi
d
D
a
o
-
ing to Pat
eva
years accor
that the application of.export restrictions,,to universities would pose' 'significant cial in the Office of the Dean of Research
practical difficulties. at Stanford.
"It would, be virtuall y impossible for ~ "We had a decline around 1971'as a re= ?
mist universities to administer such re- suit of taking classified research off cam-
.strictions given the necessarily decentral- pus;' she says. "Since that time, defense
rQN77NUED
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030134-9
still got it in his head.
"And you can't lop that off-yet," he
adds.
Another problem arises in determining
what is strictly military research and
what isn't. Under the new rules, the Penta-
gon has attempted to restrict research re-