CIA-NASSAU FILES: A LO

Document Type: 
Collection: 
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
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
January 27, 1980
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00806R000200910010-8.pdf120.57 KB
Body: 
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."