MCGILL AND THE AGENCY: RECRUITED BUT NOT SIGNED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100330007-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: April 18, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/18: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100330007-7
COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR
Columbia University (NY)
18 April 1980
and ' the ` envy
;e but not 5 'ned
President McGill has been a from the CIA that professors at
s lb ject of the CIA's attention' his institution had worked on
:since his years as a Harvard, projects in the Agency's
graduate student. MKULTUA program.
'In 1953, McGill said' ih a' re- He initiated an investigation,
cant interview, he received a based on documents the CIA
later from Virginia asking him provided, to determine who at ?
ro attend an employment inter
iew in Boston. A second letter
identified the potential em-
ployer as the CIA. McGill, who
Mien was completing his Ph.D.
in psychology, wasn't interest-
ed.
Columbia had been involved in
the studies of mind-altering
drugs and related personality
control research. (Professor
William Thetford's studies,
described in the accompanying
article, were those involved.)
About six years later, when McGill corresponded with
McGill was an assistant pro- CIA Director Adm. Stansfield
essor at Columbia, he got a call Turner through the fall of 1977,
asking him to go to a midtown in an effort to expose all possi-
Manhattan office. This was just ble links between the university
before lie was to make a trip to and the Agency. That exercise,
Europe for an academic meet-' and his previous contacts, in-
lug..
spired McGill's fascination with
McGill recalled that he went
'o the office and "was then
uriefed by a woman who told
;ne they were the CIA." The,
.
. .
f:gency, he said, "wanted me to, "The real evil that the CIA
loll them who represented the has let loose on us is that by
.ioviet Union at the meeting I engaging in these sort of ac-
was to attend." tivitics without formal guide-
McGill agreed to take notes at.' lines, they have raised a level of
the procecdings and be debrief- paranoid suspicion in all the
ed by the CIA on his return to universities.,
,ne United Stat^s. ''This whole problem
Almost 20 years later, the'! wouldn't have arisen if the CIA
Agency became the subject o/ had understood the fact that the
McGill'sattention. Likc'43other' whole center of our activity is
?_ollege presidents, he learned based on truth," McGill said.
the CIA's work. lie is philo
sophical about the ultimate ef-
forts of the Agency's contact
with the academic world
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/18: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100330007-7