EX-CIA 'SPOOK' FINDS A NICHE AT HELM OF UNIVERSITY IN CHICO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100290002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 26, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 24, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100290002-7
SACREMENTO BEE (CA)
24 June 1983
Science Fiction Writer
Ex-CIA 'Spook' Finds A Niche
At Heim Of Universift.yr In Chico
By Jim Haynes but 25 of Wilson s s ones and short novels -
Bee Correspondent mostly science fiction - have been published,
but "you can imagine how many I wrote that
CHICO - Can a former spook" who is 'didn't get published. I had the usual trunk full," he
also a science fiction writer, an 18th-century said.
In his first academic position after leaving-the-
English literature scholar and a "knee-jerk Tiber- CIA, Wilson was a professor of English at Clarion
al" find fulfillment in a small Sacramento Valley State College in Pennsylvania, where he also
town? - d h
t
t
i
Absolutely, said California State University,
Chico, President Robin ' Wilson, who arrived in
Chico three years ago "unshaven and spent the
first night camping in Lassen."
While the 54-year-old college administrator is
not exactly a drifter, he readily admits he has
moved 22 times in his adult life and is"teased by
friends "that I just can't hold a good job..
Wilson, who has held a 'good job" as president
of the 14,000-student university at Chico since
"They sent me a check for $360 and I thought,',
This is it. Where have I been all this time?'" But
later written stories did not sell so readily nor
publishers' checks arrive frequently, and a bud-
ding author never depended on fiction writing to
:cake a living.
pursue s ta
i
eres
rn creat
ve writmg by found-
ing the Clarion Writers Workshop (which is now
at Michigan State University).
Other academic posts, mostly administrative,
led him to Ohio State University in 1977 and then
to CSUC in 1980.
In Chico, Wilson said, he has found his niche.
"You're talking to the major town booster."
The attraction of Chico Itself, Wilson said, has
mostly offset the difficulty -of recruiting a quality
1980, recently described his background. in an
California's educational establishment "The only
interview with The Bee and discussedsme of the "
- some friction between the hing that saves us is Chico, the town, h he said. -
achievements, frustrations and general Impres There is
sions of his tenure here. / campus
and the city, Wilson acknowledged.
The CSUC president began his career otimb-in . -
academia after spending eight years with the Chico's nonstudent residents complain regu
Central Intelligence Agency 'in Berlin and Wash- larly about loud noise, rowdy beer busts and park-
ington, P.C. ing problems near the student fraternity houses,
He joined the CIA in 1959 "during the height of for example. City officials are considering a zon-
the Cold War. I was in clandestine operations, the ! lag action to restrict sorority and fraternity hous-
real spook part of the service, and it was an excit- es to one area south-of the campus.
ing time," Wilson said. -Wilson said he understands the problem. "I live
Later he was transferred to the agency's?intel- next door to a dorm myself and I get beer cans
thrown in the yard."
ligence-gathering division at CIA headquarters in But, he added, in most cases, the students who
McLean, Va., where "we did all the crystal ball live off campus are "old enough to drink, vote and
gazing ... and I became something of an expert bear arms," and there is little control the univer-
on the Soviet Union." sity can exercise.
But that was also a period of great "internal Wilson said he believes the university has
struggle." Wilson said. A self-described "(Adlai) made major strides in two areas during his ten-
Sievensonian knee-jerk liberal," he left the CIA at ure: affirmative action and grade deflation.
the peak of American involvement in Vietnam. Of the 73 tenure appointments made at CSUC
"The U.S. adventure in Southeast Asia had a since he arrived, 65 percent have gone to men
considerable impact on me," Wilson said. Howev- and 35 percent to women, compared with an over-
e-.. the CIA experience left no bitterness: "I don't all faculty ratio of 80 percent men and 20 percent
regret my time in the CIA at all," he said.. .. women.
It was during his CIA service in Berlin that The university is also making progress in hir-
Wilson decided he "needed a hobby and first .ing minority faculty members despite being
turned to making photo enlargements, but some-.' "remote from the (mixed ethnic) pool," he said.
bow that didn't quite do it." "We have just filled two deanships with a native
Wilson had earned a Ph.D. in English from the American and Hispanic. And we didn't hire them
University of Illinois with a dissertation on 18th just for that. One has degrees from Columbia and
century English novelist Henry Fielding and fi- Harvard and the other from Stanford."
nally turned to writing fiction himself. - As a result of an effort to reverse creeping
He wrote his first story, "The Third Alterna- grade inflation, the grade point average for CSUC
tive." which was published in the science fiction students has dropped from 3 to 2.6 on a 4-point
journal Analog in 1964. scale since 1980, Wilson said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100290002-7