CIA ENVISIONED SOVIET SCIENTISTS AS U.S. AGENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300550021-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 17, 2004
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: September 11, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000 00550021-9
WASHINGTON POST
~ 1
P4 11`_ I"
Soviet Scientists
248 Iet
By Patrick Oster
I The Central Intelligence Agency secretly financed
a research project at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in order to gain data'on how to turn
Russian scientists into CIA agents.
As part of itsProject AIK-ULTRA, the CIA, using
a private foundation as a "front," spent a' total of
$12,000 in 1958 and 1959 on detern-iing "what criteria
can be developed in spotting and assessing [Soviet
scientists] as potential agent recruits," according to
CIA memos obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The research was conducted by Anthony J. Wie-
ner, who at the time was affiliated with MIT's Cen-
ter for International Studies, which was set up in
1951 with CIA money and had as its first director
Max F. Millikan, a former assistant director of the
agency.
Wiener; currently a consultant with the Hudson
Institute "think tank" in New York, was apparently
an unwitting pawn in the CIA's mind-control proj-
ect. -
The research. which relied heavily on interviews
with American and 'Western scintists returning
from the Soviet Union, was financed by the now
defunct Society for the Investigation of Human
Ecology, A New York-based CIA front set up in the
1950s to,provide a legitimate cover for CIA research
projects, including some involving "brainwashing."
In a CIA memo dated Sept. 17, 19558, an agency
official outlined the real purpose of Wiener's re-
search: "Given a model or prototype [of a scientist],
it is desired that guidance be provided as regards
the most effective way or ways in which repressed
and rationalized anti-regime motivations may be
aroused or, more properly, re-activated."
"The purpose of the above projects," the memo
said, "will be to sharpen our sights and methods as
respects the spotting, development and recruitment
of selected types of citizens."
Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000300550021-9