TORN CLOAKS
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP91-00561R000100080071-5
Release Decision:
RIPPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
1
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
February 27, 2012
Sequence Number:
71
Case Number:
Publication Date:
August 22, 1977
Content Type:
OPEN SOURCE
File:
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
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Body:
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100080071-5
ONPA(W !O
UNITED STATES
.Torn cloaks
Washington's cloak and dagger brigade were
keeping their daggers sheathed last week
following President Carter's extensive revamp
of the US intelligence network. 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
(CIA). According to the White House, the
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 ctA activities.
The new scheme substantially increases the
power of Turner. an old naval academy class-
mate of the president, who became ca director
only six months ago. He has not proved
popular in all sections of the intelligence
community, and his period of office has seen
bitter feudi n g between thectA and the other two
organisations under Pentagon control, the
Defence Intelligence Agency and the National
Security Agency. -_ , _
r
TO THE POINT INTERNATIONAL
22 AUGUST 1977
Turner's unpopularity with his own cu sub-
ordinates is thought to have led to a number of
leaks about ciA 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
bac)C 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 them 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 cu 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 andamnesia-the latter
so that interrogated agents would not re-
member that they had"'
ad revealed anything.
There was also the case of food additive which
could produce feelings of confusion and
anxiety.
with "knockout" drugs on unwitting terminal
cancer victims. In one case a leading bio-
psychiatrist was approached about a plan to I
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 electrodes" in the brain.
In his Senate testimony Tuner-who said
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 four..
dations or drug companies, 12 hospitals or
clinics and three prisons.. -
The goings-on -at the cL% are not Carter's.
only concern in the security- field. At the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (Fat) the search
is still on for a successor- to the legendary
J. Edgar Hoover- Under his rule the rBt gained
international fame but, since his death in 1972,
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. , : ^ I
Neurosurgers and electric shock treatment
were investigated as a means of "pro- -
gramming" enemy agents and CIA men to
carry out any mission, and tests were done
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100080071-5 ?i