C.I.A. MIND PROBES NOW MORE BENIGN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300120028-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 17, 2004
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: August 7, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

r, Rol 2T61P/M :118-013 58000300120028-9
ASHINGTON =.There seemed to be ?
nothing the Central Intelligence. Agency
had not considered: Lobotomies, powerful
tion of sleep and food, subliminal sugges-
tion, isolation, ultra-sonic sound, flashing stroboscopic
ed
lo
m
d
s
y
p
an
e
Ilghts.The agency even consulted magan
prostitutes
But nothing gave the agency the formula it sought
for creating its own Manchurian candidate: And; last week,
under attack again .for having violated ethical norms in
their psychological experiments`," agency officals maintained
that they were through tampering with the human mind.
They hastened to add, however, that they had not aban-
doned the aspect of their 25-year exploration 'into the world
of psychiatry that was perhaps the most benign and may
hive been the only blossom in a rank garden:. The construe=
tion of elaborate personality profiles of employees in sensi- -
ti.ve jobs, potential. agents and international military and
political figures.
"The work we're doing now does not involve attempts.
to modify behavior,", Admiral Stansfield Turner, the director
of the agency, told a Senate hearing last week. "It involves
studying it." He said that "the kind of thing we're interested
ir} is what will motivate a man to become an agent of.
the United States :A a very difficult situation: We have
to be familiar with the attitudes and responses of people
we approach to become our spies."
Intelligence officials call these psychological studies
"personality assessment." Potential spies are indeed as-
ST
sessed, but the sweep of the program Is much greater than
the admiral suggested. The agency has developed "personality
assessments" of Fidel Castro and the late Che Guevara,
Mao Tse-tung and his successors, the leaders of the Kremlin
.and the chiefs of state of most of the nations regarded
as allies of the United States. "You do it on friends and
enemies alike," said one intelligence specialist, "because
you can never know when someone's going to switch."
When the President of the United States goes to meetings
abroad, he is armed with assessments of the officials he
will confront, as were members of the United States negoti-
ating team at the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks.
At times the assessment program has overstepped the
bounds of the agency's charter, which forbids operations
directed against Americans inside the United States. The
agency ordered a personality study of Daniel Ellsberg when
he was awaiting trial for allegedly having given the Penta-
gon Papers to The New York Times. An assessment was
done also of Mr. Ellsberg's lawyer, Leonard Boudin. E. How-
ard Hunt, a former intelligence agent who was jailed for
his part in the Watergate break-in, burglarized the files
of Mr. Ellsberg's psychiatrist to get. material for the assess-
In ent. .
A personality assessment is simply a guide to an indi-
vidual's behavior. It describes his weaknesses and strengths.
predicts actions and reactions; and suggests how he can
be influenced. The psychologist preparing an assessment
for the agency asks: What are the person's principles? His
habits? Is he a drinker, a woman-chaser, a reader, a jogger,
a hockey fan, a chess player, a chain-smoker, a'dog lover,
a Sunday morning gardener? Who are his friends? Where.
is he from? Who was his father?.,'.
Usually the psychologist is unable to interview the
subject. So lie works with photographs and reports provided
by agents and other Government employees and informants,
published materials, and official records. Whenever possible
the psychologist likes to have a tape-recording of his 'sub-
ject's voice to analyze.
Personality assessment in one form or . another is as -
old as the intelligence profession. But it received increased
emphasis. in the early .1950's from Allen W. Dulles, then
the director of the agency. Mr. Dulles had sought neurologi-
cal treatment for his son, who had been . seriously injured
in Korea. He went "to see Dr. Harold G. Wolfe, a New
York neurologist.- Mr. Dulles became interested in research.
Dr. Wolfe was -doing on indoctrination by the Chinese of
American pilots captured during the Korean War. Before
Ion,-, Dr. Wolfe, at the behest ' of the agency, had set up
the Society' for the Investigation of Human Ecology at the
Cornell Medical Center in New York. The society became
an important mechanism for funding a number of agency
studies directed at manipulating human behavior.
The Department of Sociology at Rutgers University was
paid to conduct a study of Hungarian refugees. Dr. D. Ewen
Cameron of McGill University in Montreal got a grant to
explore "the effects of repeated verbal signals upon human
behavior." There was an LSD experiment conducted by a
team of social and medical scientists at the Massachusetts
Mental Health Center in Boston. The Educational Testing
Service of Princeton, N.J., which conducts the National Col-
lege Board and Graduate Record Examinations, received
funds to investigate the relationship between two broad
theories of personality.
When the society was disbanded in 2965, .Col. James
L. Monroe, a psychologist who had been a senior intelligence
official, and several others joined another agency-backed
organization called "Psychological Assessments Inc." After
Psychological Assessments closed its doors a few years ago,
Colonel Monroe moved to Texas and set up a firm that
prepared studies for business and industry. The colonel said
recently that he hoped the agency had benefited from some
of his research. "If they're going to make judgments about
foreign powers," he said, "the.y've got to know about how
people function."
Joseph B. Treaster is a reporter -for The New York
Times. I
Approved Fort Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-IJDM88-01315R000300120028-9