ABC NIGHTLINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540004-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: February 15, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540004-8
ABC NIGHTLINE
15 February 1984
ANNOUNCER: This is ABC News Nightline. Reporting from Washington, Ted Koppel.
KOPPEL: It is perhaps the ultimate 'what if.' What if the power of the human
mind could be harnessed to track what cannot be seen or to discover what cannot
be found by conventional means? What if it became possible to communicate
mind-to-mind, regardless of distance and without employing any technology? And
perhaps the most disconcerting 'what if' of all, what if the U.S. government
dismissed all talk of parapsychology as nonsense, while the Soviet Union made a
legitimate breakthrough in the field? It is that last 'what if,' according to
three recent books, that has* caused the Pentagon and the CIA to ever so
discretely look into the subject. Here's Nightline correspondent James Walker.
WALKER: The arms race, the superpowers match missle for missile, tank for tank,
plane for plane and now brain for brain. That's right. Some military observers
and scientists believe that the United States and the Soviet Union are engaged
in a psychic arms race, that both sides are training psychics to use their minds
to conduct espionage and sabotage. How would it work? This 1052 memo from the
CIA explains one military apoli.cation. 'If a number of individuals could be
found in the U
S
h
h
.
. w
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ave a very high ESP, extrasensory perception capacity
.
ua
s cou
be assigned to intelli ence problems
Such a
pro !en a t a given Dort
had a submarine
or a a you c be a ac by ESP.' ESP is part of the controversial field called
parapsycno ogv an includes such alleged abilities as telepathy--reading
someone's mind, remote viewing--seeing things out of normal range of sight,
precognition--predicting the future, and psychokinesis--moving objects with your
mind. But many American scientists are highly skeptical. Dr. Paul Kurtz heads
the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. DR.
PAUL KURTZ (Skeptic): Are psychics able to discover where the submarines are?
Can psychics use psychokinesis and stop incoming missiles or damage sensitive,
ah, weaponry? That's all, at this point, pure speculation and pure fantasy.
WALKER: In 1960, one such fantasy alarmed the Soviets. This article in a
French magazine claimed that the crew members of the U.S. nuclear submarine
Nautilus had received telepathic messages from America as the sub cruised under
the North Pole. The Soviets read the article. MARTIN EBON (Soviet Specialist):
This material. was picked up by Professor 'Leonid Vaselea in Leningrad, who
translated it, had it distributed among his colleagues and said, in effect,
Look what these Americans are doing.'
WALKER: Martin Ebon, who is a Soviet specialist, says the article was a hoax,
perhaps planted to fool the Soviets. It did spark their interest. Soviet
scientists were allowed to study the strange powers of *Nina Kologana, who
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540004-8