MISSIONARIES WITH A MISSION?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180123-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 123
• Publication Date: May 30, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180123-3
STAT
ARTICLE AP EARRED
ON PAGE, ;
-
THE NATION
30 MAY 11081
VN4 ONWARD WYCLIFFE SOLDIERS
:Missionaries
Tjt i.aMission?
.;BILL WALLACE
n - March .7, : guerrillas from Colombia's revolu-
tionary April 19 Movement executed Chester A.
Bitterman 3d, a 28-year-old American missionary
they had -kidnapped two months earlier. They
justified their action -by claiming that the U.S.-based
:organization Bitterman worked for,' Wycliffe Bible Trans-
Jators, was a front for the Central Intelligence Agency. Bit-
terman's employer, a widely known religious and educa-
:-tional organization with close ties to several colleges and
universities, as well as a legion of endorsers among business,
governmental and, diplomatic circles, denied April 19's
;:claims, and. most people quickly dismissed the guerrillas'
-.allegations as irrational ravings from the perpetually para
noid underground of Latin American politics.
:. - But April 19 is not the first organization to charge that
'Wycliffe Bible Translators has links with the U.S. in-
telligence community. Nor does all the criticism emanate
from the far left. A steadily increasing number of
academics, including numerous 'Latin American an-
thropologists, have accused Wycliffe of providing cover for
covert C.I.A. operations and of engaging in intelligence
gathering. A variety of South American magazines and
newspapers have criticized Wycliffe and its subsidiaries, the
Summer Institute of linguistics and the Jungle Aviation
and Radio Service (J.A.A.R.S.), for working closely with
some of the most repressive governments in Latin America,
and for promoting the exploitation of Latin resources by
multinational corporations. Even some churchmen have at-
tacked Wycliffe for using the pretext of its Christian mission
to promote Western notions of politics, ? law and social
organizations, thus helping to destroy indigenous cultures
among isolated peoples..
Wycliffe was founded by William Cameron Townsend, a
Bible salesman from Orange County, California, who, as a
young man. during World War I, worked among the
primitive tribes in Central America. According to Uncle
Cam, an. "authorized" biography of Townsend written by
James and Marti Hefley in 1974 and printed by The Word
Books, a religious publishing house, the young Bible trader
quickly realized that the Spatiish-language ' religious .
Swedish since most of the non-Christian Indians he ap-
i proached could communicate only in obscure native tongues
literature he was pe ing mig as well have been written in
which seemed to have no alphabet or established rules of
usage. Townsend mounted a series of linguistic expeditions
into remote parts of the Central American And Mexican
jungles, studying several of these little-known languages and
developing grammars for them. In 1934, Townsend and a
group of his colleagues established a language program for
would-be. Bible translators at Sulphur Springs, Arkan-
sas-the first Summer Institute of L' ti I 19 5 h
nn
uns
3
g
cs. Al
, t e
institute's first graduating :.class began working among
preliterate tribes in Mexico, and Wycliffe Bible Translators " l
was born.
Today, the organization has at least 3,000 career linguists
and other professionals working in more than twenty-five
countries. According to.a recent pamphlet from Wycliffe, .
the group's legions of Christian soldiers have worked among :
obscure tribes of preliterate peoples in Asia, Africa, North
and South . America, the Philippines, New Guinea and
Europe. Several years ago, the -organization even sent a
delegation to the Soviet Union to study some of the lesser-
known national languages within the U.S.S.R.
Wycliffe's primary activity is translating the New Testa-
ment and other biblical texts into the languages of
aboriginal societies, . which the larger and better-known
Christian missionary organizations consider too small to
bother with. In the course of that work, Wycliffe has
developed a missionary relationship with more than 555
tribes all over the world, and has translated religious works
into more than 200 languages.
But Wycliffe is much more than a missionary organiza-.
tion. It is supported by outside funding totaling roughly $8
million ayear. Much of the money is paid by the govern-
ments of the countries in which it operates. The remainder
comes from U.S. governmental agencies like the Alliance {
for Industrial Deyelopment and the former Department of
Health, Education and Welfare, and from wealthy funda-
mentalist businessmen and small church organizations. In
1947, Wycliffe organized its own airline of bush pilots and
mechanics to support Wycliffe missionaries probing the
:PQA'L ,Q
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180123-3