TORN CLOAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100110008-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2007
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: August 22, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP99-00498ROO0100110008-3
GN P,4r,Z
UNITED STATES
.Torn cloaks
Washington's cloak and dagger brigade were
keeping their daggers sheathed last week
following President Carer's extensive revamp
of the US intelligence nerwork..But there was
precious little enthusiasm in the spying world
for the reforms, and the knives may yet come
out with a vengeance once the dust has settled
and the matter falls from the public gaze.
-Carter's new measures put the nation's
intelligence activities under the umbrella of
the National Intelligence Tasking Centre,
to be controlled by Admiral Stansfield Turner,
the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
(c-A). According to the White House, tie
reorganisation is designed to "provide for
strong direction by the president and the
National Security Council, and to centralise
the most critical national intelligence
management functions under the director
of central intelligence". Guidance and policy
will still come from the National Security
Council, which, under Henry Kissinger's
control, tended to rubber stamp cu activities.
The new scheme substantially increases the
power of Turner. an old naval academy class-
mate of the president, who became codirector
only six months ago. He has not proved
popular in _ all sections of the intelligence
community, and his period of office has seen
bitterfeuding between theaA and theothertwo
organisations under Pentagon control, the
Defence Intelligence Agency and the National
Security Agency.
TO THE POINT INT'r tNATIONAL
22 AUGUST 1977
Turner's unpopularity with his own ctx sub-
ordinates is thought to have led to a number of
leaks about cu experiments in mind control.
These experiments, which were the subject of
reports appearing in The New York Times,
subsequently figured in the evidence given by
Turner to a Senate committee. The agency's
-interest in mind manipulation began as far
bacjc as 1949. and grew out of a concern that :
the Soviet Union and China had developed the,
ability to control men's minds through drugs,.
or "brainwashing". At first thectn experiments
formed a purely defensive programme designed
to counter this presumed threat-later found to
be highly exaggerated-but by the mid 1950s
the experiments had taken on offensive aims. :
The aA appears to have ignored medical
ethics, and through the years its behavioural
control programme became increasingly bizarre.
including work on substances to produce:
"controlled "headaches and amnesia--the latter
so that interrogated agents would not re-
member that they had revealed anything.
There was also the case of food additive which
could produce feelings of confusion and
anxiety.
Neurosurgen? and electric shock treatment
were investigated as a means of "pro- -
gramniing" enemy agents and ci men to
carry out any mission, and tests were done
STAT
with "knockout" drugs on unwitting terminal
cancer victims. In one case a leading big-
psychiatrist was approached about a plan to
explore the brain's pain system. The researcher,
who rejected the ctA overtures, was engaged
at the time in private research. on the im-
plantation of "depth elecucdes" in the brain.
In his Senate testimony Turner-who said .i
that no such work was continuing today'--
revealed that a total of 149 experiments had
taken place over a period of 13 years at 44
colleges or universities. 15 . research foun-
dations or drug companies. 12 hospitals or
clinics and three prisons...
The goings-on -at the cu are not Carter's.
only concern in the security- field. At the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (Fm) the search
is still on for a successor to the legendary
J. Edgar Hoover. Under his rule therm gained
international fame but, since his death in 1912,
Hoover's reputation has been coming apart at
the seams as new revelations have been made
about illegal break-ins and wiretapping. A
series of replacements have been unable to
restore the bureau's high standing, and morale
has slumped. Carter appointed a blue-ribbon
panel to present him with a list of possible
directors, but no sooner were the five names
made public than the weaknesses of each,-
from inexperience to the taking. of free
corporate trips, were cited, and Carter again
enlarged his search. Judging by past attempts,
the figure he seeks--combining saintliness
and strength-will be hard to find..
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP99-00498ROO0100110008-3