EMIGRE TELLS OF RESEARCH IN SOVIET IN PARAPSYCHOLOGY FOR MILITARY USE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080032-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 5, 1998
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: June 19, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN

51977.The New York Times Company?
? NEW YORK, SUNDAY, JUNE '19, 1977 ?
$1.00 beyond 50.mile zone from New York City.
Higher in air delivery cities.
Emigre Tells of Research in Soviet
In Parapsychology for Military Use
-By FLORA
Special to The
PARIS, June 18?An emigre Soviet
physicist says that the Soviet Union has
been doing secret work in parapsycholo-
gy, for what appear to be military and
police purposes.,
The Soviet emigre, August Stern, who
now lives in Paris, spent three years in
a secret Siberimi laboratory in the late
1960's trying to find a physical basis for
psychic energy, or "psi particles," as they
are called., ?
Moscow's interest_ in the subject was
demonstrated in the case of Robert C.
Toth, a correspondent ,of The Los Angeles
Times, who was interrogated this week
in Moscow by the K.G.B., the security
police, and was accused of having re-
ceived, "state" secrets" about parapsy-
chology. He was allowed to leave for
home after protests by the United States
Government
[In Washington, officials said the in-
telligence community was aware of
Soviet research in parapsychology, but
added that American specialists did not
believe the Russians had made any.
unusual discoveries. One official said
LEWIS
New York Timer
some Soviet work appeared aimed at
developing psychological warfare
methods.L . . . ?
The Toth incident rhad the earmarks
of an entrapment, in -the view of some
diplomats. There is na sign that the 25-
page document on parapsychology hand-
ed to him on the street just before he
was seized contained important informa-
tion. However, there is a record of Soviet
sensitivity and August Stern's informa-
tion indicates that parapsychology is a
matter, of concern to the authorities.
Mr. Stern is a son of Dr. Mikhail. Stern,
an endocrinologist' who was imprisoned
before being allowed to.. leave the Soviet ,
Union in March. August Stern said he
ivas told before leaving the Soviet Union
two years ago that an even more secret
laboratory than the one he knew in Sibe-
ria had been set up in Moscow under
the direction of the K.G.B.
A French scientist and former intelli-
gence agent, Jacques Bergier, has written
a book saying that extrasensory percep-
Continued on Page 20, Column' 1
Continued From Page 1
don, one of the theories studied by parap-
sychology, may be used in espionage,
thought control, surveillance and as a.
form of weapon. ?
Parapsychology covers four specific
fields of nonphysical phenomena. They
are telepathy (transmission of thought
without use of the senses), extrasensory
perception, telekinesis (transmission of
motion without any evident use of physi-
cal energy) and clairvoyance (the ability
to see distant or future events without
physical intervention).'
Most scientists remain skeptical that
such phenomena actua.11y exist, but there
are researchers throughout the world
dedicated to proving and, if possible, ex-
plaining them. .
Formal, officially subsidized Soviet re-
search in the field has gone on for years,
sometimes publicly vaunted and at other
times denounced and even denied.
U.S. Navy Was Interested in 1950's
At one time in the late 1950's and early
1960's, the United States Navy and the
Stanford Research Institute did experi-
ments in telepathy to see whether it could
provide an undetectable means of com-
municating with submarines. So far as
is known, the experiments failed. But
owrd of them reached Moscow and appar-
ently provoked high-level interest in the
subject.
Associated Press
Robert C. Toth, Los Angeles Times
correspondent, in London yesterday.
Approved For Release 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080032-9
THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAE JUNE 19, 1977
Emigre Reports on Soviet Research in Parapsychology for Military Uses
01
,?..(41 In 1975 some Soviet parapsychologists
were persecuted and the whole subject
CD
4:vas publicly attacked. Eduard Naumov,
coa researcher with no evident connection
?with the military or police, was triedon
gq , charge of accepting fees for lectures
Lo' ,..hout permission, and was sentenced.
two years in labor camp. His col-
eagues were dismissed from their jobs
?and otherwise harassed. At the trial,
Cemuch was made of the fact that he had
I...contacts with Western parapsychologists.
CO Later, on June 13, 1975, Leonid L
N-Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, urged the
CDTJnited States to agree on a ban of r- -
?search and development of new. kinds of
CI:Weapons "more terrible" than anything
0_, the world has known. American arms
u-control negotiators have tried to find out
0 from their Soviet counterparts what he
Cehad in mind, but they have not learned
..'anything more than that he meant "some
_kind of rays," according to United States
C)officials.
? ? . Vascillating Treatment Noted
CD At first, American intelligence thought
CNI
-...... he might have been referring to laser
Cu') beams, or some way of focusing cosmic?
ays, but they no longer believe this to
; the -
%? e e case. They say they are baf-
it
, ed by the reference.
There is no evidence that Mr.Brezhney
(N -
? was referring to ,something in the field 1.
w of parapsychology. But it is a possibility
ithat has occurred to some observers, es-
pecially because of the vascillating treat-
ment of parapsychologists, the evident
involvement of the K.G.B. with the sub-
ject, and what some regard as a tradition-
0 al Russian interest in mysticism.
LL After his initial detention a week ago,
Mr. Toth was reported to have quoted
? from a statement made by an employee
? of the Academy of Sciences who had been
called by the authorities to examine the
1"
documents in his possession. The state-
ent referred to "psi particles" and said
this material is secret and shows the
1 kind of work done in some closed scien-
tific institutes of our state." ,
Last year, the Paris newspaper Le
lgonde published a letter by a Russian
named Vladimir Lvov denouncing a previ-
ous letter by a French professor, Henri
Gastaut, and denying that parapsycholo-
gy research was officially supported in,
the Soviet -Union.
Mr. Lvov was identified by Le Monde
as a "Soviet scientific writer in Lenin-1
grad," but Western sources said they be-
lieved he was connected with the K.G.B.
The French professor had simply men-
tioned, in the course of a plea for support
of parapsychology research, that the Rus-
sians were engaged in it.
The reply, titled "Myths and Realities
in the Soviet Union," and published on
Aug. 4, 1976, Mr. Lvov said:
"The truth is simple. There is no parap-
sychology as a legitimate and officially
recognized branch of Soviet science. No
institute or scientific research center in
the U. S. S. R. is occupied with telepathy,
psychokinesis, etc. But there are a few
groups of amateurs. . . who look into
the 'paranormal' with the aid of some
journalists without scruples of scientific
exactitude."
Yet, soon after the trial of Mr. Naumov,
the Soviet parapsychologist, a report to
- The Times of London said the Soviet
Academy of Pedagogical Sciences had de-
clared the Study of psychic phenomena
a subject fit for scientific study, and
therefore not a permissable field for unof-
ficial researchers.
Mr. Stern's reminiscenses of the labora-
tory where he worked and the way it
was finally shut down only add to the
public record. The laboratory was in No-
vosibirsk's Science City, a complex be-
longing to the Siberian branch of the
Academy of Sciences. It was in a separate
building, and the door could be opened
only by a coded lock with the code
changed every week. It was known as
"Special Department No. 8" and was re
ferred to as a branch of the Institute
of Automation and Electrometry.
Headed by a Navy Officer
The head was Vitaly Perov, a navy offi-
cer, who opened it in 1966, Mr. Stern
saeifder
deference
to
that Mr. Perov showed
d
two sitors who came in
the early days to check on theinstalla-
tion. Mr. Stern believed the visitors to
be K.G.B. men.
Workers were recruited from around the
country until there were about 60 persons
at the laboratory. The scientists among
them were given virtually unlimited funds
for elaborate equipment. "It cost many
millions," Mr. Stern said. His own work
was in theoretical physics. His view was
that there might be an orderly system
' in which all kinds of energy could be
charted, similar to Mendeleyev's periodic
table of chemical elements. As a result
o f the periodic table, which originally left
some blank spaces, unknown elements
system.
If such a chart could be discovered
for energy, Mr. Stern thought, it, too,
might be found to have blank spaces that
might lead to physical identification of
particles to explain the mystery of psy-
chic energy, the "psi particles."
He worked for two years and found
nothing. Other experiments at the labora-
tory involved applying electric shocks to ,
newly-born kittens to see whether their
mothers, three floors upstairs, registered
any reaction through some mental con-
nection; television surveillance Of people
in a room to see whether they responded
to attempts by others several rooms away
to send them telepathic orders; studies
involving monkeys and electromagnetic
fields. !
There were also experiments with '
photon waves, in which frogs' eyes were
;used as a more sensitive measuring in-
' strument than a machine. One involved
putting bacteria on two sides of a glass
;plate to see whether a fatal disease could
I be transmitted through the glass. It was
reasoned that if this could be done, it
' would show that photons?light particles
?were accounted for some inexplicable
forms of communication.
Suddenly, in 1969, the laboratory was
shut down. Mr. Stern Said he did not
know the reason and did not think it
was really the team's lath of success or
the poor quality of its science, as official-
ly suggested at the time, but a change
' of attitude or power balance in the Krem-
lin
'
Leningrad Project Was Canceled?,
He was back in Moscow by thenc4ie
heard that the military, and particufftly
the navy, was conducting parapsychiggy
research in Leningrad.
? A friend of his, a Leningrad scie@st
named Gennadi Sergeyev, told hinOhe
was receiving permission and funcleDto
open anew laboratory and offered 2m
a job. But the Project was canceled.
Later, friends told Mr. Stern that8he
work done in Novosibirsk and plaited
in Leningrad had been combined in apew
laboratory in Moscow under the au es
of the K.G.B. He never, learned any Item
about it. ? ^
By the time he left in 1974; he Vas
told that all parapsychology work d
been curtailed except for the s et
K.G.B. laboratory. He said he had rd
rumors that something "important,
dangerous" had been discovered, b
commented:
"I never believed it. How can the K.QH.
do effective research? They need Ual
scientists." ?
His experience in Novosibirsk had on-
vinced him that many researchers egith
official sponsorship were poorly qual8ed
or even quacks and their claims colld
gnroattedbe._ substantiated. His own res h
papers were confiscated before he
rY
Approved For Release