ICA RECRUITING STUDENTS, CHANGING IMAGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020034-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: January 30, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
9
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/18: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020034-4
UNIV. OF WASHINGTON DAILY (WA)
30 January 1986
CIS-recruiting students, changing image
P ssst. hey buddy. You got a trench coat? Or a pair of
dark sunglasses? Can you keep a secret, wear a
fedora and make late night rendevous with shady
characters'?
Well, then. the Central Intelligence Agency may be
able to help you. Recruiters from the controversial govern-
ment agency are on campus conducting employment in-
terviews as part of a recent effort to improve university
relations.
"They're here because they have expanded their re-
cruitment, and are looking for a lot of personnel." Ivan
Settles. Director of the UW Placement Center said. "They
have recruited on our campus for years and years, and they
have been very successful."
"They put up posters in our buildings, advertise in the
Daily. set up displays ... What shocks me ... is that no
one seems to be questioning this," Student Jonathan
Heller said in a letter to the Daily. "As students I believe
that we have the right and responsibility to question au-
thority.
"Who is the CIA? What do they do? Should they be
made welcome at our University?" he asked.
"The CIA is a legitimate employer," Settles said.
"Some people want to be employed by them just as much
as somebody else wants to be employed by Bank of
America. RainierBank, or Boeing. It's a government
agency."
"What we are after is people who will challenge us
constructively, offer us a different perspective, who will
stir up the pot a bit and who will help us consider all points
of view, particularly the unorthodox," Deputy Director of
Intelligence Robert Gates told the New York Times.
Gates, who was speaking about the CIA's effort to re-
establish it's connections to American campuses, empha-
sized the usefulness of the academic world to the agency's
operations.
"Can you imagine what people would say if we con-
tended that no one in the academic world has anything to
offer us. that there is no information or Derspective that
could help us do our job?" he said. "It's inconceivable
that any one would make that point."
The organization. which has operations world-wide,
looks for many different fields of specialization. "Histor-
ically, they've looked for engineers, specifically electrical
engineers, and people with Slavic and near-eastern lan-
guages," Settles said. "Personnel on the top of their list
last year were accountants. "
"They are primarily looking for people with strong
language backgrounds, strong backgrounds in computer
science, politics and economics," he said. "As far as we
know, the people employed seem to be very happy. "
The CIA has long maintained an active recruiting staff
on the UW campus, and in the UW Placement Center one
can peruse the glossy brochures and information manuals
the agency distributes to colleges and universities across
the nation.
"They've brought people in to talk to our groups on
campus, and in fact the only person, in sixteen years, to
THE CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE
AGENCY
is interviewing on campus
29 & 30 January. 1986
-Aerospace Engineers
-Computer Engineers
--Computer Scientists
-Economists
-Finance Majors,
Accountants
-Geology, Geography
Majors
-Math, Physics Majors
-Electrical Engineers
-Historians
-Mechanical Engineers
-Political Scientists
-Area Studies Specialists
-Foreign Language Majors
-Overseas Officers
U.S. Citizenship required.
Positions are in Washington. D.C. or overseas.
Contact the Placements Center, Loew Hall.
get a standing ovation from a group, was a CIA recruiter.
He was very straightforward, and responded to all our
questions without changing the subject," Settles said.
He praised the efforts of the CIA's recruiters, saying,
"I think that if you were to talk to them, they would be
very open, very honest."
This was not the case with Tricia Hendricks, the re-
cruiter conducting interviews this week, who refused to be
interviewed or photographed by the Daily.
"We don't talk to the press," she said.
The Daily encountered similar resistance when con-
tacting CIA administrators in charge of scouting the 6,000
universities for potential employees. After several people
refused to discuss the agency's campus operations, the
Daily managed to interview Robert Butts. Chief of Re-
cruiting for the CIA.
"As far as degrees are concerned, we are hiring almost
any discipline," he said. "In other words, political sci-
ence, accounting, engineering-we span the spectrum."
"We, like most employers, would like to think that
we're going to get somebody who's got a 3.0 or better,
although if you've got a 2.5 and you've done a lot of extra-
curricular activities, and you're working your way through
college. that's certainly a consideration," he said.
Butts admitted that many students object to his
agency's presence on their campuses. The problem began
in the sixties, and administrators are working to improve
relations with students.
"We schedule days where we can come on campus and
interview people who've signed up," he said. "We run
newspaper ads, magazine ads, for example, we just had an
ad in the New York Times."
"We just recently ran ads in Ebony magazine, because
we're very interested in recruiting minorities," he said.
"They agency regularly receives protests all over the
country, fromall kinds of people-that's their right. So
it's not rare. We are trying to improve our image," he said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/18: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020034-4