SUBJECT:
CIA Remote Viewing Declassification
'
As you know from our conversation yesterday,
I will be
Wednesday
(14 June) with the American Institutes
for
Research
(AIR)
to begin CIA's panel review of past CIA and DIA
programs where remote viewing was investigated for intelligence
collection.
This
is not a public meeting and AIR is not planning
to meet with the media during the review.
Since there
is an
ongoing media inquiry by ABC News,
however,
it
is possible that
ABC will learn of AIR's activities
in support of CIA and will
attempt
to contact them or us.
For -professional reasons,
AIR seems
predisposed not
to comment until the panel has completed its
review.
However,
anticipating possible questions regarding the
review,
I have prepared some preliminary responses
for you:
• Why
is CIA studying parapsychology?
CIA is not currently developing or using parapsychology.
CIA is conducting a panel review of past programs at CIA and
DIA in response to a Congressionally Directed Action.
• What was
the nature of these past programs?
These programs involved the investigation of
parapsychological phenomena,
mainly remote viewing,
for
intelligence collection.
•
Did these programs produce positive results?
Until the panel review has been completed, we cannot
comment on how effective past programs were.
Parapsychology
has always been an extremely controversial area.
The
National Research Council previously reviewed a US Army
training program in 1988 and recommended that
it be
discontinued.
The NRC did not evaluate past CIA or DIA
programs at that
time.
• When was CIA involved,
and with whom?
CIA funded research and development activities at
Stanford Research Institute
(SRI)
during about
1972
to about
1977.
This activity was discontinued about
18 years ago.
Much
of
the work performed by the investigators at
SRI,
however,
was
later published in the open literature.
• When was DIA involved?
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Unclassified
Since we have not completed the review,
we can't provide
the exact time frame but primarily during the last ten years.
• Who
is conducting the review?
The CIA's Office of Research and Development with the
aid of a blue ribbon panel of experts
in the behavioral
sciences at the American Institutes
for Research.
•
Will the results
of
the review be made public?
At this point,
there
is no reason why the results cannot
be made public,
when the review is complete,
and when CIA has
completed additional declassification of various program
documents
.
• How can we find out more about these programs?
The CIA is
in the process of reviewing and declassifying
it's previous research and development activities.
The
results
of
the panel will be available before the end of the
calendar year.
• How much was spent on this activity,
and how many people
were involved?
These were modest programs,
involving few personnel and
dollars
.
• How were the CIA program results used?
The CIA program was never a major effort,
nor as
far as
we know were its results used to influence any major
intelligence assessments.
CIA discontinued this program
activity before
it could be institutionalized.
At the time
it
was conducted the program was considered to be speculative.
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