OSU PROF LINKED TO CIA WORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200850001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 26, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200850001-5
AKRON BtACON JOURNAL (OH)
26 January 1986
Earlier this month, Nadav Safran, a jests were
Harvard government professor, resigned ties, medical facilities and penal
as director of the Center for Middle institutiops, The CIA's Informa-
Eastern Studies-fs' tailing to disclose tion and Privacy Division said
that the CIA sponsored a corderence the two of those projects, numbered
center organized on Islam and politics. 96 and 101; were conducted at
That -s
onsorshi
dr
w
l
Min- ootr
pursue--in f s
By Patrick t1N- : .
1Mas Jwu" a*
To his frlendsand
Alexander Itft was a. sc and a
He is considered among- Ohio State
Unversity's top sii psychology scha1ars.
in this century, and his psrs$ialf y thee-
along'
Sigmund Freud, Car!
Jung and David
Hume.
His thinking and
work are a land-
marR. Todsyq his pa-
pers are housed in
archives named for
him at the. University
of Nebraska.
p
p
e
attertt
on in Eu- Ohio State.
rope, Asir and the Middle East as The most information was re-
well as America. leased on subproject 96. Called A
A
d
l
n
.
ast week, the CIA told the
New-York Times it had re-estab.
lished ties with universities and is,
receiving data from an increasing
number of professors;
The project done at Ohio State
25 years ago was part of a pro.
gram code-named MKULTRA -
pronounced M.R. Ultr&. It was'
the CIA's main research program
into the development of chemical
and biological agents from 1953
to the mid-1960s. Approved by
former CIA Director Allen Dulles,.
the project searched for ways to
develop chemical and biological
agents to be used in "clandestine
operations to control humap be.
havior," according to Congres-
sional documents.
In August 1977, when CIA Dl,
rector Stansfield Turner released
a ream of documents on
MKULTRA to Congress, the pro-
gram triggered worldwide out-
rage.
That same month, Ohio State
officials announced it was one of
80 U.S. institutions Involved, al-
though the CIA would not identify
the researchers.
But before the public learned
about MKULTRA, it was a well-
kept secret even within the CIA
- so sensitive it wasn't men-
tioned ' a secret 1968 CIA study
of the agency's relationship with
the academic community.
The extent of the research re-
mains unknown since a CIA offi-
cial ordered most MKULTRA
records destroyed in January
1973. Yet some research - in-
cluding ones done by Ohio State
professors - had been saved.
Many universities do not view
CIA-funded scholarly research as
taboo, but in almost all cases
they require funding by intelli-
gence sources to be disclosed to
the university. It isn't clear
whether anyone at Ohio State
knew Kelly received a CIA grant.
The research projects
MKULTRA was an umbrella
under which 149 known subpro.
Study of the Current Decision
Matrices.of (deleted) Scholars, it
was Proposed by an Ohio State
Psychology professor July 18,
1959.
The project records, consisting
of 30 pages of correspondence, a
Proposal, receipts and invoices,
Provide a classic illustration of
how the CIA secretly arranged to
have scholars do research.
The Proposal said the project's
Purpose was to search for a new
theory to explain how people
reach decisions:
"Traditionally psychologists
have approached the problem of
understanding human behavior
by attempting to seek out the mo.
tives or forces which seem to im-
pel Persons willy-nilly along par-
ticular lines of action. . But
there is another approach," the
proposal said.
As an alternative, the research.
er proposed using a new theory
called psychology of personal
constructs - patterns p Fceived
by individuals that are used to
explain the realities encountered
in life.
The researcher sought to dis-
cover how a college professor
could be inclined to change his
personal constructs and hence his
position on an issue. The re-
searcher assumed any person can
be forced to change his position,
so "it becomes important to find
out what alternatives are availa.
ble to him when he must make
new choices."
"The firmness of his stand may
be reassuring, providing he is
never dislodged from it," the pro-
posal said. "But the question is,
what direction will he jump if he
can no longer stand where he is
standing?"
According to the records, the
professor's wife accompanied him
and helped collect data.
According to a CIA memo dat-
ed July 22, 1959, the project had
two main goals: 1) to apply the
Kelly ' Those who knew
him generously season their comments
with glowing adjectives, calling him:
honest, ethical, brilliant, patriotic, in-
sightful, Renaissance man.
But there is one trivia item many did
not know: The proposal for Kelly's 1960-
61 sabbatical research project spon-
sored by the now-defunct Human Ecolo-
gy Fund ended up in the CIA's records
that document Ohio State's participation,
in the agency's decade-bong-,search for
ways to control the hlr*
mind.
This discovery and , made by
the Beacon Journal tievugh the federal
Freedom of Informatiast Act, links an
Ohio State faculty member Jbr the first
time to one of the CIA's most bizarre
and controversial bits of once-secret re-
search.
In addition, the circumstances pro-
vide a view of the CIA's secret dealings
with the academic community, a vola-
tile issue on campuses during the stu-
dent unrest of the 1960s and an issue
that has re-emerged as a source of con-
cern among many in the academic com-
munity today. .
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200850001-5