COURT WIDENS SCOPE OF CIA INQUIRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030082-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 82
• Publication Date: June 11, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/02 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030082-7
ASSOCIATED PRESS
11 June 1984
COURT WIDENS SCOPE OF CIA INQUIRY
WASHINGTON
The Supreme Court today widened the scope of its inquiry into whether the
Central Intelligence Agency may be forced in some cases to reveal its
intelligence sources.
The court granted an appeal by members of the Ralph Nader group Public
Citizen challenging the CIA's authority to withhold the names of universities
where researchers took part in a notorious program in the 1950s and 1960s
involving brainwashing and experimental drugs.
On March 5, the justices granted a government appeal and promised to review a
federal appeals court ruling that the CIA may not refuse automatically to
disclose the names of researchers involved in the program, code named MKULTRA.
The appeals court here, in the same ruling, allowed the CIA to withhold the
names of the universities.
Public Citizen members John C. Sims, a lawyer, and Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, a
physician, asked the Supreme Court to permit disclosure of the universities.
Sims and Wolfe are seeking under the Freedom of Information Act both the
names of the institutions and researchers to help them discover the scope of
MKULTRA experimentation, the effects of the drugs used and the names of the
people who were used as subjects.
Some individuals were given LSD and other drugs without their knowledge in
the research program. At least two persons died because of the experiments.
The CIA contends that it promised confidentiality to the researchers, and
that forcing the agency to reveal their names may threaten other intelligence
sources.
MKULTRA was investigated by a congressional committee and a presidential
commission in the mid-1970s, exposing numerous alleged abuses.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/02 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000100030082-7