CIA-NASSAU FILES: A LO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200910010-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 14, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: January 27, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200910010-8
Key dacuments mi5sing
N
By CATHY'DAVIDSON KERR
Stu" writer
A 17-month search of Central Intel-
ligence Agency files for information
on" CIA activities at Princeton
Uniyersity has produced 47 docu-
ments that reveal almost nothing
about the agency's relationship to
Princeton students, faculty or the
university itself.
The packet of documents, mailed
last week in response to a September
1978 'request under the Freedom of
Information Act, even fails to include
information on CIA activities at
Princeton that have already been
confirmed by the agency.
Missing, for example, are docu-
ments that describe payments. to two
unnamed persons at Princeton in the
1950s for work on projects related to
1~MKULTRA, the "mind control" re-
search sponsored by the CIA. Those
documents, which the CIA released
to the university in 1977, spurred
modification of the university's facul-
ty research guidelines.
Missing also is documentation of
any one of numerous reports of con-
tact between the CIA and Princeton
students and staff members that
have circulated on campus during
the past few years. Some of those ac-
counts involved administrators serv-
ing as * recruiting contacts. There
.were other stories about professors who were experts on overseas areas
and provided information on them to
the CIA.
THE 47 DOCUMENTS that were
sent included a 1979 Cornell Daily
Sun article about a lecture given by
a CIA official, a copy of 'a 1973 con-
tract for translation of material writ-
ten in Romanian, Hungarian, Chinese
and Japanese and- a 1956 memo
noting that the American Whig-Cli-
osophic Society' had invited Alger
Hiss to speak on campus.
Also included . were letters ` and
memoes written ,irk 1971, 1973, 1976
and 1978, detailing attempts by the
CIA's Office of Economic Research to
recruit economics graduates students.
for jobs. ... :' _!
TRENTON TIMES (N. J.)
27 January 1980
A few routine Freedom of Informa-
tion requests for information on CIA
activities on some college campuses L
have produced indications of patterns
of cooperation between the CIA and
the colleges involved. The release of
those documents has produced
storms of controversy. at those
institutions.
In-general, however, the request
for information on CIA- activities at
Princeton is typical of the way the
agency has handled Freedom of
Information matters. A long delay
was. followed by a packet of docu-
ments that reveal almost nothing. "A
i lot of people who have filed Freedom
'of Information requests have been
really disappointed because the stuff
is not very sexy. There's really noth-
ing that would make a good story,"
said Don McGrew, a'CIA official.
A staff member at the Campaign
for Political Rights, which has
studied the CIA in depth, put it dif-
ferently. "They hold back all they
can," she said.
CIA OFFICIALS, however, have
long complained that the Freedom of
Information Act makes it difficult for
the agency to conducts its business. i
The officials claim, for example, that
some foreign security agencies are
reluctant to cooperate with the CIA
because they fear that: sensitive
information will be revealed through
Freedom of Information requests.
? Thus Sen. Daniel. Moynihan? D-
N.Y., and a bipartisan group of sena-
tors introduced legislation last week
that would exempt the. CIA from
'complying with requests made under
the Freedom of Information-Act, ex-
cept in cases where individuals ask
for data from their personal files.
The legislation was introduced - in
reaction to President -Carter's State
of the Union address last week, in.
which he said the U.S. "must tighten
our controls on sensitive intelligence
information and we -need to remove
unwarranted restraints on America's
ability to collect intelligence." .
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release
any way to contractual arrangements
and formal or informal relationships
between the CIA and Princeton
University itself, or Princeton stu-
dents or staff. .
The CIA responded at the time that
a similar request had already been
filed. The Trenton Times, the agency
promised, would. be sent "all the
materials, if any, that may be releas-
ed as a result of the Agency's cur-
rent processing" of the previous
When those materials were finally
released, the MKULTRA documents
were not included, a CIA information
and privacy officer explained in a
telephone, interview last week, be-
cause "they're in the public domain
and -. are available at Princeton
University."
PRINCETON administrators had,
in fact,. asked the CIA for copies of
documents related to MKULTRA ac-
tivities at Princeton in 1977, after the
university was notified by the agency
that it had been one of 86 institutions
involved in. some portion of the
"mind control" research in the 1950s
and 1960s. .
Twb researchers affiliated with the'
university, it turned out, had receiv-
ed payments totalling $4,075 for ana-
lyzing the mind-orienting chemicals
present in .morning glory seeds and
_
for preparing 1 packets of reading
material on social character in the
'U.S. and another; unnamed culture.
McGrew; the agency employee who
actually searched ' files for . the
'Princeton information, was then
asked if other material on CIA activi-
ties at the university--had also-beeni
omitted from the packet.' He' said,
"We're 99 percent sure that we've
got everything on Princeton Universi-
ty" in the 47-document packet. .
Everything, that is, that's "releas-
able." The Freedom of Information
Act has applied to the CIA ever since
it wa$'approved by Congress in 1966,
but the courts have generally upheld
the agency's right to withold materi-?
aljn order "to- protect, sources. and
methods."