CONSIDER THE MORNING GLORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400250007-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 29, 2004
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: December 1, 1977
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

9 TICLE APF.F, I RFD
Approved For Release M T : CIA-RDP88-01315ROOOO 00250007- ~_
l7ECEIIBER 1
?
Observation
' 97
~
v -tC / I'0-u to
Consider the Morning Glory
Paul Ramsey
Consider the morning glories on the vine, how they
grow; they toil not neither do they spin: and yet I say
unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these [Matt. 6: 28, 29].
According to documents recently released
by the CIA, an unidentified member of
Princeton's chemistry department was paid $765 to
extract and study the alkaloids in a species of morning
glory seeds. The chemist was supposed to test the
efficacy of the lovely and lowly morning glory for
producing agents affecting the central nervous system of
human beings. It was part of the CIA's nationwide effort
to learn how to control the human mind. Another
researcher is alleged to have compiled in 1958 a
comparison of American culture with that of an unnamed
foreign country.
As a defense of these projects one might offer that at
that time (the 1950's and car ly 1960's) researchers "were
rather proud of their cooperet etnr with the government." So
stated one of this nation'!. I-yeat newpapers, the Daily
Princetonian. Another defense is that the chemist did
this on his own time. It was his own chosen use of his
talents-like former Dean (it the Faculty Douglas Browri
helping to write federal Social Security legislation or my
submission of a position paper to the National
Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in
Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Still another
defense is that there was reliable intelligence that the
USSR was well along in research on agents to control the
human mind. My colleague who tried (if indeed he did)
to unlock the glory of the morning glory was practicing
,pre-emptive deflowering necessary for the common
defense. Finally, one might say that if such research was
done, it cannot happen again. It is now contrary to
university policy to engage in research that must be kept
secret and whose results cannot be immediately shared
with a wider community of scholars.
The hullabaloo on the Princeton campus and in the
country generally over the latest revelations about CIA
projects reminded me of my own scholarly activities as a
member of the faculty of Princeton University over that
same period of time. I too was conducting certain
investigations. Not in the laboratory, but out of books
and articles. There was nothing secret about it, and the
only human experimentation involved was sitting on my
fanny for long hours thinking about the possible meaning
of the "just war" tradition when applied to modern
warfare and weapons technology. Cross my heart and
hope to die, I was never paid by the CIA.
More than once in recent weeks I have had occasion to
wonder over the irony of all this. I have also sorrowed
over the pathos of a people, of a major power, and of our
churches that steadfastly refuse to think very seriously
about the morality of warfare (with congruent weapons)
lest war become thinkable again. By fixing our minds on
other national goals we imagine we have "prioritized"
out of existence the reality of war and weapons systems.
We succeed only in excluding war from the world we
think about. What is out of mind is the urgent need to
impose some justifiable limits upon war should it occur,
and upon preparations for defense that constantly go on
without waiting for the last resort. As a result, research
efforts aimed at humanizing warfare by making it less
lethal are made to look like a great scandal.
A 11 this needs to be sorted out. For the sake
of orderly reflection let us set aside, first,
the fact that the CIA may have sponsored the
investigation that looked into' the properties of the
morning glory. Myself, I have always thought it a
"likely tale" that Daniel Ellsberg was a CIA agent sent
in there to purloin the Pentagon Papers and give them to
the New York Times. While such a scenario is doubtless
partly a product of my conspiratorial mentality, it is
supported by my observation that in the Pentagon Papers
the CIA reports came off better than all other sources of
intelligence, and its recommendations and warnings to
our policymakers were, at least, better than those from
other sources.
Let us set aside, secondly, the fact that the research
was secret. Perhaps our universities and their faculties
ought not to engage in secret research for the government
or for drug companies that have a property-interest in the
PAUL RAMSEY is Harringt?it et l~$p t~a~~tQ~OlodOI /'I(V1c6ftb-,R RO-b1v 1 OR8O9402SQbilG7RIicy. This
Ethics at Princeton University. defends the objectivity and purity of the university as an