CIA EASES STAND ON RESEARCH ROLE; SCHOLARS CAUTIOUSLY WELCOME SHIFTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030008-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: February 26, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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'A STEP FORWARD'
CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
26 February 1986
CIA Eases Stand on Research Role;
Scholars Cautiously Welcome Shifts
By ANGUS PAUL
The Central Intelligence Agency has
made changes in its policies that could
result in fewer scholars' having to sub-
mit manuscripts for prepublication re-
view and in more scholars' being able to
acknowledge publicly the agency's role
in their work.
"We have decided that our interest in
obtaining the cooperation of this coun-
try's scholars and allaying the misun-
derstandings and suspicions that have
grown out of our earlier approach war-
rants at least some change in our poli-
cy," Robert M. Gates, the C.I.A.'s dep-
uty director for intelligence, said in a
panel discussion at Harvard Universi-
ty's John F. Kennedy School of Gov-
ernment.
"Accordingly, C.I.A. will henceforth
permit acknowledgment of our funding
of research that is later independently
published by a scholar unless (1) the
scholar requests privacy or (2) we de-
termine that formal, public association
of C.I.A. with a specific topic or subject
would prove damaging to the United
States."
Scholars generally welcomed the
shift but emphasized that it did not elim-
inate potential conflicts between aca-
demic freedom and C.I.A.-supported re-
search.
The revisions constitute "a step for-
ward," John Shattuck, vice-president
for government, community, and public
affairs at Harvard, said in an inter-
view. Mr. Shattuck was a participant
in the panel discussion at which Mr.
Gates spoke.
"What Mr. Gates had to say indi-
cated that the C.I.A. is taking account
of fundamental values that are at
stake for a university." he said.
But authority that the agency still
reserves, he added, could be "a seri-
ous impediment to the independent
judgment of scholars."
The third member of the panel, Jo-
seph S. Nye, Jr., professor of gov-
ernment at Harvard, said in an inter-
view that the C.I.A. policy revisions
had moved the agency "significantly
in the right direction, but we won't
know how significantly until we see
how they're implemented."
Harvard itself has had two recent
controversies over the involvement
of faculty members with the C.I.A.
On the day Mr. Gates spoke, the
Crimson, the Harvard student news-
paper, revealed that Samuel P. Hun-
tington, a professor of government
and director of the university's Cen-
ter for International Affairs, had
helped prepare a paper for the C.I.A.
An earlier case involved Nadav
Safran, a professor of government
who resigned as director of the uni-
versity's Center for Middle Eastern
Studies following an investigation
into his accepting two grants from the
C.I.A. The resignation is effective at
the end of this semester.
Even before the controversy that
resulted from the Safran case, Mr.
Gates said, "we revised our contract
language with respect to prepublica-
tion review."
Under the policy, a scholar who
has had a C.I.A. contract to do re-
search on a certain topic, and who
wants to publish an article or book on
that topic, is required by the agency
to submit his manuscript for review
only if he has had access to classified
information, said Kathy Pherson, a
C.I.A. spokesman.
Previously, a scholar had to submit
for review any work on a topic he had
researched for the agency, even if he
had not had access to classified data,
she said.
Reaction Is Mixed
Mr. Nye praised that narrowing of
the review requirement, but he ar-
gued that it could be narrowed fur-
ther, so that a scholar would, for ex-
ample, have the right to determine
which parts of his manuscript he
would submit to the agency.
Mr. Shattuck, however, said that
any effort by a sponsor of research
"to restrict or review publication is
pushing up against the freedom of in-
formation and open inquiry."
Mr. Gates said the Directorate of
Intelligence, one of the C.I.A.'s four
departments, "now explicitly tells
any organization or individual orga-
nizing a conference on our behalf that
the participants in the conference
should be informed in advance of our
sponsoring role."
Informing conference participants
has never been prohibited by the
agency, Ms. Pherson said.
One issue in Mr. Safran's case was
his failure to disclose promptly
enough that the C.I.A. had provided a
$45,700 grant to help pay for a con-
ference that the Middle Eastern stud-
ies center held last October.
The change in policy on revealing
the C.I.A.'s sponsorship of research
is progress, Mr. Safran said, "but
I'm in agreement with the New York
Times editorial, which says that the
escape clauses the agency left to it-
self take away much of the conces-
sion and leave the problem unre-
solved."
The Times editorial, published on
February 18, said, "The escape
hatches puncture the credibility of
the C.I.A.'s avowals of candor. Given
its reflexive passion for secrecy, the
agency can be counted on to scent
damage in the most innocuous infor-
mation."
Mr. Nye said Mr. Gates did not
seem to intend his exception on dam-
age to the national interest to be in-
terpreted broadly. If it were, Mr.
Nye added, the agency's shift in poli-
cy would prove insignificant.
The C.I.A. expects to apply the
new policy "sensibly, not capri-
ciously," Mr. Gates said through
Ms. Pherson.
Nonetheless, Mr. Nye said, the
agency should place no restrictions
on the acknowledgment of C.I.A. in-
volvement with research, and that
scholars should not choose to work
with the agency if they were told of
the possibility of such restrictions.
The difficulty for a university, said
Mr. Shattuck, is to reach a consensus
on campus regulations that protect
"the spirit of open inquiry" on one
hand, and "the freedom of associa-
tion" on the other.
"We need," Mr. Nye said, "to
find principles that allow us to recon-
cile our obligations as citizens and as
scholars. "
Continued
STAT
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STAT
CIA's Robert M. Gates at H JOE WRINN
arvard:
"The university cannot prosper and
protect freedom of inquiry oblivious
to the fortunes of the nation."
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