Is Your Professor A CIA Asset?

In addition to having a special interest in U.S. presidential elections, the U.S. mass media and Indonesia’s domestic political situation, the CIA has also always had a special interest in the U.S. university world. According to a chapter titled “Cloaks and Gowns: The CIA In The Groves of Academe” by University of Georgia Professor Loch Johnson, which appeared in Intelligence And Intelligence Policy In A Democratic Society, in 1986 “the number of campus people working with the CIA…still figured in the hundreds at over 100 American colleges and affiliated research centers.” University of California at Berkeley Administration Vice-President Earl Bolton, for instance, “reportedly carried out covert contract work for the CIA (which consisted largely of advice on how to obtain services from the campuses more effectively without having the relationship revealed),” according to the same book.

Professor Johnson also recalled that in 1976 the U.S. Senate’s Church Committee reported that “academics (including administrators, faculty members, and students) researched and wrote books and articles for the CIA, spotted and assessed individuals for agency use, served as `access agents’ to make introductions between the CIA and potential agents or employees (foreign and American), provided information (with or without prior instructions), and performed an assortment of other intelligence-related activities.”

Professor Johnson provided more specific examples of the nature of relationships between U.S. university professors and the CIA’s National Collection Division (NCD) or other divisions of the CIA:

“…They can be as limited as asking a professor just returned from a trip abroad to drop by the local NCD office to share his impressions (a `debriefing’)…Or they may involve a formal, paid association in which the professor counts for the CIA the number of deep-water ships he sees in Luanda while doing research on African migratory butterflies. The work done by academics for the CIA, then, may be voluntary or paid, and may include occasional or systematic collection and recruitment tasks, or even covert action and counterintelligence.

“A professor may be asked by the agency through the NCD (or some other entity) to attend an international conference of scholars (say, physicists). At the conference and under CIA instructions, he will seek out a foreign scientist…and as subtly as possible weave into their conversation a set of questions (`By the way, just how well is the Becker jet-nozzle, uranium-enrichment process really working out, old chap?’). If the scientist were also a state minister or a well-placed government aide, the American professor could easily enter the realm of covert action or counterintelligence. He may pass a CIA propaganda theme along to the minister, thereby serving as an agent-of-influence (covert action). He may also be used…to plant the false notion that he himself might like to work secretly for the minister’s government to spy on the United States. He could thus become a double agent who, in this guise, might be able to glean modus operandi and other information about the foreign government—including what its own agents may be after (counterintelligence). These are only a few examples of the numerous ways in which the agency might wish to employ an academic overseas in covert action or Central Intelligence operations.”

Intelligence And Intelligence Policy In A Democratic Society also notes that “The CIA believes strongly in the importance of recruiting foreign students within the borders of the United States” and “to accomplish this task effectively the agency also believes it requires covert contacts to focus the recruitment effort.” The same book also describes how U.S. academics go about secretly helping the CIA recruit foreign students on U.S. campuses:

“In the course of these secret efforts to spot, assess, and recruit on behalf of the CIA, academics may involve themselves in a number of activities…Taking advantage of a student’s sense of trust toward faculty, for example, a professor may gather information for the CIA about his ideological views, his attitudes toward American foreign policy objectives in general and the intelligence mission in particular, his financial situation, and the like. Seminar discussions, office counseling, social gatherings, term-paper grading, and other contacts between faculty and their students provide several opportunities for agent spotting.”

Ironically, at the same time it secretly recruited foreign-born students on U.S. campuses to serve its special interests, the CIA illegally spied on native-born U.S. students between 1967 and 1973, as part of its "Project Reisistance" U.S. campus operation. According to Intelligence And Intelligence Policy In A Democratic Society:

"At the request of the director of Personnel, the CIA director approved a policy (Project RESISTANCE) in 1967 ordering the Office of Security to protect the well-being of CIA recruiters...The primary impetus for the stepped-up security was an episode at Columbia University, where a CIA recruiter was held hostage for several hours by student radicals...''

"Documents released by the CIA under a Freedom of Information Act request indicated that the Office of Security pursued this mission with zeal. From 1967 to 1973, files were developed on various universities and colleges; meetings of protestors were attended; new informants were recruited; advance visits were made to campuses `to determine attitude of dissidents'; black student activities were monitored and reported; and, a close working relationship was established between the CIA and the local police."

(Downtown 7/8/92)

Next: Columbia University’s Historic Gannett Media Conglomerate Connection

`Bobby Sands' Last Cry'

(chorus)

Belfast explodes, Derry erupts
Responding to the love contained in Bobby’s heart.

(verses)

If you fight for Ireland, you might be locked up
And jailed without a jury vote inside of the H-Block
Bobby Sands, he starved himself, and England let him die
“Prisoners of War we are!” was Bobby Sands’ last cry.

Elected to the Parliament with less than a month to live
Giving his life for the Blanketmen and for all of Ireland
Bobby Sands, he starved himself, and England let him die
“Prisoners of War we are!” was Bobby Sands’ last cry. (chorus)

Exposing to all of the world the heartless cruelty
Sixty-six days on hunger strike without a bite to eat
Bobby Sands, he starved himself, and England let him die
“Prisoners of War we are!” was Bobby Sands’ last cry.

Not yet even 30 years old, why did he have to die?
All the British rulers commit so many crimes
Bobby Sands, he starved himself, and England let him die
“Prisoners of War we are!” was Bobby Sands’ last cry. (chorus)

Backed by U.S. companies, using U.S. guns
British troops shoot at children, all in the name of “freedom”
Bobby Sands, he starved himself, and England let him die
“Prisoners of War we are!” was Bobby Sands’ last cry.

How many more must starve to death before Ireland can be free?
How many more years of pain before the British leave?
Bobby Sands, he starved himself, and England let him die
“Prisoners of War we are!” was Bobby Sands’ last cry.

The Bobby Sands’ Last Cry protest folk song was written in May 1981 during the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike, shortly after Irish freedom fighter Bobby Sands died on May 5, 1981. During the nine years he spent in prison because of his political activism in the North of Ireland, he also wrote the lyrics to folk songs like Back Home In Derry, poetry, essays, stories and a diary.

To hear the Bobby Sands' Last Cry protest folk song, you can click on either of the following links:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bob+A.+Feldman/Biographical+Folk+Songs/Bobby+Sands%27+Last+Cry or

http://www.mp3.com/artist/bobafeldman/songs/

To hear some other protest folk songs, you can check out the “Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society” site at the following link:

http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music

Next: Is Your Professor A CIA Asset?

5,000 U.S. Professors on CIA Payroll in 1970s?

One reason your college professor may not be very eager to discuss in class the CIA’s role in the 1965 Indonesian coup (a few years before Barack Obama’s now-deceased mother began working at the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia) may be that your college professor is secretly working for the CIA. As CIA Off Campus: Building The Movement Against Agency Recruitment And Research by Ami Chen Mills noted:

"CIA spokesperson Sharon Foster said in 1988 that the CIA has enough professors under Agency contract `to staff a large university.’ Our universities are crawling with covert scholars-turned-agents and our independent academic foundations are being seriously undermined…”

The same book also observed:

“As of the late 1970s, approximately 5,000 professors were doing CIA work in some capacity, either `spotting’’ U.S. or foreign recruitment candidates, participating in research and grant work or carrying out more active programs like foreign police training. It is estimated that about 60 percent of these academics were aware of the nature of their employment, while another 40 percent did the CIA’s bidding in the dark—through front companies or foundations. In the 1990s, the number of academics on the CIA payroll has undoubtedly increased…”

(Downtown 4/27/94)

Next: Bobby Sands’ Last Cry lyrics

Who Killed Martin Luther King?

In the preface to the now-deceased James Earl Ray’s 1992 book, Who Killed Martin Luther King?, Attorney Mark Lane wrote the following:

“I join in James Earl Ray’s call for the appointment of an independent federal special prosecutor to investigate the FBI’s involvement in the plot to kill Martin Luther King. The facts are clear that former FBI officials removed King’s defenses just before he was killed, transferred potential witnesses the day before the murder and tampered, `lost’ and destroyed key evidence. FBI written memos provide undisputed evidence that the bureau targeted King for harassment and `removal’ from the scene. This documentary evidence alone is enough to establish probable cause that the bureau, Director J. Edgar Hoover and his underlings conspired to assassinate the civil rights leader. Together with the testimony of former agents and Memphis police officers I am convinced that a federal grand jury presented with relevant evidence by an honest special prosecutor would conclude that Hoover and other FBI officials were responsible for the assassination of Dr. King.”

Next: 5,000 U.S. Professors On CIA Payroll In 1970s?

Protest Columbia University's Complicity With U.S. Imperialism: April 24-27,2008

To mark the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Columbia Anti-War Student Revolt against Columbia University’s complicity with U.S. imperialism,

http://www.archive.org/details/Columbia1969_2

veterans of the 1968 Columbia Student Strike will be converging at Columbia’s School of Journalism between April 24 and April 27, 2008. See the following link for the schedule of commemoration events:


Next: Who Killed Martin Luther King?

Civilian Casualties and Columbia's IDA Jason Project 1960s Work

Thousands of Indochinese civilians may have been killed as a direct result of the weapons technology development war research work that was done by IDA and its Jason Division during the period when Columbia University was an institutional member of IDA. As the book The Air War In Indochina by Cornell University’s Air War Study Group revealed in 1972:

“The figures show that during the intense phase of the North Vietnam bombing, 100,000 to 200,000 tons of munitions per year were dropped. This bombing inflicted 25,000 to 50,000 casualties per year, 80 percent of whom were civilians…

“Indochina…has…become the laboratory for the evolution of the electronic battlefield…

“For the period from 1965 to April 1971, the estimate of civilian casualties in South Vietnam is 1,050,000 including 325,000 deaths…

“…Special electronic techniques for improving nighttime interdiction has been under development by the U.S. Air Force through a project named IGLOO WHITE. Initial operation of some of the components began in December 1967, and since that time a whole family of electronic devices has come into being…Sensors are implanted on the ground or suspended in the foliage by air drop…Aircraft overhead receive electronic messages from them and relay the information to a central computer control station. Strike aircraft are then directed to the designated area.

“…American scientists and engineers—civilians as well as those working for the Department of Defense—have been deeply involved in the development of the electronic battlefield.”

Neither the Columbia University Administration nor the Pentagon has ever released much information on the number of Indochinese civilians who were killed or wounded as a direct result of the IDA and Jason Division weapons research work that Columbia University institutionally-sponsored in the 1960s. But at least 250,000 Indochinese civilians apparently lived near the “Ho Chi Minh Trail” area that the electronic battlefield developed by the Jason Division of Columbia’s IDA initially targeted in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Next: Protest Columbia University’s Complicity With U.S. Imperialism: April 24-27, 2008

Columbia University's IDA Jason Project 1960s Work--Part 15

By 1968, the electronic battlefield technology that Columbia’s IDA Jason Division had developed was being used in South Vietnam in the Battle of Khe Sanh. And, on Sat. Feb. 3, 1968, Columbia University Professor and Director of Columbia’s Watson IBM Labs Richard Garwin “traveled to Vietnam” with Henry Kendall and several other scientists “to check on the operation of the electronic barrier,” according to The Jasons by Ann Finkbeiner. The same book also observed:

“The sensors allowed such accurate detection of the enemy at night, in fog, behind hills, and in the jungle, that attacks on the enemy could be remote—that is, only artillery or air strikes—and would need no soldiers.

“…The electronic barrier turned into the electronic battlefield, the modern method for carrying out nonnuclear warfare, in particular on the urban battlefield…The relay to which the sensor talks is now a UAV, an unmanned aerial vehicle like the Predator or the Global Hawk, used in both Gulf wars and in Afghanistan…The responders are now bombs that are guided by lasers…”

Next: Civilian Casualties and Columbia’s IDA Jason Project 1960s Work