-Caveat Lector-
3/5/01
A reminder. George Bush Sr. was head of CIA from Yale. -- Joshua2
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Forerunner, April 29, 1980
Panel met secretly in Princeton
Dulles Papers Reveal CIA Consulting Network
by John Cavanagh
A government which corrupts its colleges and universities by
making political fronts of them . . . has betrayed academic
freedom and compromised all who teach. When colleges and
universities are made conduits of deceit and when faculty
members are paid to lie, there is an end to the common good
of higher education.
-- Professor Van Alstyne, former president of the
American Association of University Professors
(Academe, June 1976, p. 54)
Throughout the 1960s, and possibly longer, at least five Princeton professors
worked secretly as high-level consultants for the CIA, according to
previously
undisclosed documents contained in the personal papers of former CIA director
Allen
W. Dulles '14.
Cyril Black, Klaus Knorr, Joseph Strayer, James Billington, and the late T.
Cuyler
Young served as members of the "Princeton Consultants," a secret panel of
academics who met in Princeton, together with Dulles, four times a year to
assist
with intelligence assessments for the CIA's Office of National Estimates.
Professor Black, who had told the Daily Princetonian in 1976 that he had
never been
in the CIA's "employ," confirmed to the Forerunner last week that he had
indeed
served as a paid consultant for the spy agency. "Nobody ever asked me if I
was a
consultant," Black explained.
Billington acknowledged to the Daily Princetonian in 1968 that he consulted
for the
CIA's Office of National Estimates, according to him, "two or three times a
year."
Strayer had also been publicly identified as a CIA consultant. The CIA
activities of the
other two professors, however, have until now remained a secret, as has the
existence of the Princeton Consultants group.
Black confirmed that then-Princeton President Robert Goheen was aware of the
group's existence. But he said that it was "not a university matter at all."
The Dulles papers and letters, which are housed in Princeton's Seeley G. Mudd
Library, afford a rare glimpse into the CIA's interactions with Princeton and
other
universities from the early 1950s until Dulles's death in 1969. Dulles
maintained close
ties with his alma mater, including seats on Princeton's Board of Trustees
and on the
Woodrow Wilson School Advisory Council.
Access to the Papers is contingent upon approval by an Allen W. Dulles
Committee.
In addition, researchers are required to sign a contract stating that any
publication
using the Papers will be submitted in advance to the Committee for approval.
After a
one-month delay, permission was obtained for this article.
Before this month's careful research in the Dulles Papers, little was
documented of
relations between the CIA and the Princeton faculty. Other than history
professor
Joseph Strayer, whom one writer termed "the agency's most devoted consultant"
(James Ridgeway, The Cloned Corporation, 1968, p. 138), only two professors
had
been identified who served in organizations that received CIA funding:
Politics
professor Paul Sigmund with the Independent Research Service, and Near
Eastern
Studies professor Morroe Berger with the Congress for Cultural Freedom.
Previous disclosures about Princeton and the CIA were limited to close ties
in three
other areas: recruitment (including extensive CIA collaboration with former
Dean of
Students, William D'O. Lippincott '41 and former Director of Career Services
Newell
Brown '39); CIA research carried out on the Princeton campus (including the
secret
MK-ULTRA mind control program); and close institutional ties (several
Princeton
alumni have served as CIA Director, Deputy Director, or Director of
Personnel).
Princeton Consultants: The Structure
Perhaps the most extraordinary of the Papers' contents are letters and memos
which
expose Strayer as a small tip of a consultant iceberg. Filed under "Princeton
Consultants" and cross-referenced under "Central Intelligence Agency: Panel
of
Consultants (Princeton Consultants)," letters from 1961 to 1969 sketch the
outlines
of one of the central programs of professors covertly consulting for the CIA.
The only year during which the entire membership of the Consultants is known
is
1961, when all of them signed a note of "respect and affection" to Dulles
that
accompanied a gift.
At that time, the panel consisted of nine senior professors: the late T.
Cuyler Young
(Near Eastern Studies, Princeton); Klaus Knorr (Strategic Studies,
Princeton); Joseph
Strayer (Medieval History, Princeton); Cyril Black (Soviet Studies,
Princeton); the late
William Langer (History, Harvard); Robert Bowie (International Studies,
Harvard);
Max Millikan (International Studies, M.I.T.); Raymond Sontag (European
History,
Berkeley); and Calvin Hoover (Soviet Economics, Duke); and four others:
Philip E.
Mosely (Director of Studies, Council on Foreign Relations); Hamilton Fish
Armstrong
(editor, ForeIgn Affairs); Caryl P. Haskins (Director, Carnegie Institution);
and Harold
F. Linder (Assistant Secretary of State and Chairman of the Export-Import
Bank).
Two later members of the Princeton Consultants are disclosed in
correspondence to
Dulles and his wife Clover: Princeton History professor James Billington
(January 15,
1965 letter from Dulles to Billington) and M.I.T. China expert Lucian Pye
(January 30,
1969 letter from Pye to Clover Dulles).
Both Dulles and Sherman Kent, Chairman of the CIA's Board of National
Estimates,
also attended the Consultants meetings. The meetings were held in two-day
blocks,
four times a year. Many of the meeting dates coincided with Princeton trustee
meetings, probably for Dulles's convenience. This appears to have created
some
problems for Dulles, however, whose personal schedule for the third week in
October
1962 shows several time conflicts between his normal trustee duties and
activities he
pencilled in his own handwriting under the heading "CIA Consultants."
The precise year that the Princeton Consultants began operations is unclear
from the
Dulles Papers. A "Princeton Consultants" file first appears in 1961. However,
in
thirteen identical letters dated October 21 of that year, Dulles thanks each
of the
Consultants "for what you have contributed to our work here over the years."
This
language indicates that the group's existence reaches back well into the
1950s. Black
confirmed that his membership in the Consultants dates from around 1957.
A further clue to the Consultants' origins is found in Consultant Calvin
Hoover's
memoirs (Memoirs of Capitalism, Communism, and Nazism, 1965). He writes (p.
270) that, after December 1950: "I agreed to serve as a member of a board of
national estimates, composed largely of professors, generals, and admirals.
It was a
pleasure to find myself associated once more with Allen Dulles and with other
friends
of OSS days."
Within the next two and a half years, however, Hoover suffered a heart
attack. He
recalls (p. 273): "Bedell Smith asked that I continue to serve as a
consultant [to the
Board] to the extent that my health would permit. I agreed and continued to
serve in
this capacity during succeeding years."
If Hoover's consultancy began with the Princeton Consultants, then the
group's
existence stretches back at least to 1953.
The Consultants' termination date is also not revealed in the Papers. At the
time of
Dulles' last letter concerning the Princeton Consultants schedule (May 15,
1968 letter
from Dulles to Frances Douglas), the former CIA head was still attending
their
meetings and "look[ed] forward to the future ones."
Black told the Forerunner that he had served on the Consultants until the
late 1960s
and that he believes they kept going for "a few years" after he left. Knorr
added that
he didn't think the group existed "when Bowen was president" of Princeton.
This
would place the Consultants' termination before 1972.
In addition to the Papers' frequent references to the CIA's Board of National
Estimates, three other bits of evidence lead to the conclusion that a major
portion of
the Consultants' work went to the Board.
First, when approached by The Daily Princetonian on possible CIA affiliations
(November 8, 1968), Consultant "Billington told The Princetonian he consulted
for
the Office of National Estimates 'two or three times a year' for a 'nominal
fee -- $50 a
day.' He explained he participated in conferences with other academics which
submitted 'broad and scholarly' National Intelligence Estimates to the
National
Security Council. Billington added he was only one of 'quite a few'
Princeton
professors who worked for the CIA but refused to make an estimate on how
many."
Second, according to the Dulles Papers, Sherman Kent, Chairman of the CIA's
Board
of National Estimates, came to most, if not all, of the Consultants' meetings
until he
retired in 1967. He also presided over at least one meeting in 1967,
indicating his
importance to the group.
Finally, in a letter of November 5, 1965 from the CIA Director W.F. "Red"
Raborn to
Dulles, Raborn turned down an offer by Dulles to resign from the Princeton
Consultants as follows: "I assure you that I have no desire to see you leave
this
Panel. On the contrary, I am anxious that the Agency generally, and the Board
of
National Estimates in particular, shall enlarge and extend their contacts
with persons
capable of advising and assisting in their work."
Thus, the Dulles Papers reveal a direct link between the Princeton
Consultants and
the Board of National Estimates. Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti in
collaboration
with John Marks (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, 1974) describe the
Board of
National Estimates in 1973 as a 12- to 14-person board with a staff of forty
to fifty
specialists. It is doubtful that the Princeton Consultants were the Board;
rather, they
probably formed an adjunct to the "specialists."
The central function of the Board of National Estimates and its specialists
was to
prepare, each year, some fifty-odd National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) --
called
"blue books" -- which, according to Marchetti and Marks (p. 314), "were
considered
the highest form of national intelligence." Estimates covered such topics as
assessment of the "enemy's" intentions in different countries and regions,
and
foreign military capabilities.
Marchetti and Marks described what then became of the finished NIEs, using as
a
case in point a late 1960s study of the socio-political problems of Latin
America (pp.
16-17): "This estimate had been endorsed by the United States Intelligence
Board,
whose members include the heads of the government's various intelligence
agencies,
and had then been sent to the White House and to those departments that were
represented on the 40 Committee." The 40 Committee was (p. 14) "an
interdepartmental panel responsible for overseeing the CIA's high-risk
covert-action
operations."
The Marchetti and Marks description indicates that the Princeton Consultants'
work
could have served as an intelligence base for the series of brutal and often
illegal
covert operations of the 1950s and 1960s (and possibly also the 1970s)
against the
democratically elected or constitutional governments of Mohammed Mossadegh in
Iran (1953); Patrice Lumumba in the Congo (1961); Joao Goulart in Brazil
(1964);
Juan Balaguer in the Dominican Republic (1965); Cheddi Jagan in Guyana
(1962-66);
and Salvador Allende in Chile (1973).
Since it is also known that the Consultants operated during a sizable segment
(and
possibly all) of the Vietnam War, the question arises whether their
"estimates" of
"enemy intentions" were an input into the CIA's Phoenix Program of torture
and
assassination, which led to the death, between 1968 and 1972, of some 20,000
Vietnamese citizens.
Both Black and Knorr categorically denied any relationship between the
National
Intelligence Estimates and the CIA's covert activities. According to Black,
this
hypothesis is "so far off what happened that it's very hard to comment
without
spending hours on it." Knorr characterized the allegation as "sheer
speculation." He
also asked rhetorically: "Are these people [the consultants] responsible" for
the uses
to which their estimates are put?
Consultant Calvin Hoover's memoirs shed some light on this controversy. He
describes the Board of National Estimates as follows (Hoover, p. 270):
It was the responsibility of our board to produce intelligence estimates
which could be used
as the background by the appropriate agencies of our government for
decisions on
long-term international policies and on current action required,
particularly those within the
competency of the National Security Council. National intelligence
estimates had to be
provided covering a very large number of countries and particular
situations, all involving
in some fashion the threat of Soviet aggression. For example, how
explosive was the
political, social, and economic situation in Iran? When Mossadegh came
to power, to what
extent was he under the domination of the local Communist party and was
the Communist
party effectively controlled by Moscow? If the oil resources of Iran
were nationalized,
would they be made available to the Soviet government and could they
effectively be
utilized? How serious would be the loss of these resources to the West?
Hoover's reference to Mossadegh raises a question about the role of
"estimates" in
at least one actual CIA operation: the 1953 coup in Iran that put the Shah
back onto
the throne for the next 25 years.
William Langer, one of the Consultants from Harvard, wrote his sentiments on
"estimating" to Dulles in a letter of April 22, 1963:
Yet I suppose the operations end would be of little significance unless
there were proper
processing of the results. And in any case, so much of basic
intelligence hinges on the
painstaking work of collation and evaluation. Estimating is simply the
final stage of a long
and arduous business without which it is quite impossible to arrive at
any notion of one's
opponent's intentions.
Here, a consultant clearly enunciates one link between "estimating" and
actual
operations.
The Board of National Estimates was formally disbanded in 1973 when another
Princeton graduate, William Colby, was director of the CIA (source: Marchetti
and
Marks, pp. 67, 315). The Board was replaced by a group of eight senior CIA
officers
known as National Intelligence Officers (referred to as "the Wise Men" by
their
colleagues). Organizationally, they are still located near the top of the CIA
hierarchy,
in the Office of the Director of the CIA. And they still churn out National
Intelligence
Estimates which require the assistance of consultants.
Beyond the task of "estimating" for the CIA, little is known of the duties of
the
Consultants. Dulles' November 4, 1965 letter to CIA Director Raborn does
refer to
the Princeton group as "the Agency's panel of Consultants," which suggests
that
their purview may have been much broader.
It appears that outside of the CIA and the Consultants themselves, almost no
one
knew of the Consultants' existence. The Dulles Papers reveal only one
instance of
Dulles corresponding with an outsider about the Consultants. While still
Director of
the CIA, Dulles wrote to Robert Goheen, then president of Princeton (February
20,
1961): "I hope to renew the invitation to you which last winter was 'snowed
out' to
meet with our group of pundits who foregather three or four times a year in
Princeton." The date Goheen was invited for coincided with a meeting of the
Princeton
Consultants. Goheen now serves as the U.S. Ambassador to India.
Princeton Consultants: Loyal Professors
It seems appropriate that the Consultants often met in the Gun Room of
Princeton's
Nassau Club -- located across the street from Commons -- for their
interactions
often resembled those of a tightly-knit "old-boys" club. Many members'
friendships
harked back to pre-World War II days.
Consultant Hoover's memoirs, for example, chronicle a close working
relationship
with Consultant Langer back in 1941 in one of the precursor organizations to
the
CIA -- the Committee on Intelligence (COI). Hoover later lived and carried
out
intelligence work in post-war Germany with Consultant Robert Bowie. He toured
Poland in 1958 with Consultant Harold Linder.
Many of the Consultants sat on the same committees of the Council on Foreign
Relations. Members lauded each other with praise in the forewords to their
books.
And, through it all, they maintained secrecy about their CIA consulting work.
Many also shared common Princeton ties. In addition to the five of the
fifteen known
consultants who taught at Princeton -- and Dulles who was a Princeton alumnus
and
trustee -- Robert Bowie was a 1931 Princeton graduate and Lucian Pye was a
research assistant at Princeton's Center for International Studies (with
Knorr and
Black) from 1952 to 1956.
Many of the Consultants have actually taken leave from their academic duties
to work
for the CIA. These include Strayer, Sontag, Hoover, Millikan, Langer and
Bowie. In
1977, Bowie became Deputy Director for National Intelligence, which among
other
tasks, put him in charge of National Intelligence Estimates.
The Consultants' working relationships regarding CIA matters often carried
over into
their non-Consultant work. The Dulles papers reveal that Billington,
currently director
of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
frequently critiqued the manuscripts of Allen Dulles' books. After receiving
a
generous check for the work, he wrote to Dulles (July 25, 1964) that if there
was
anything he could do in the future, he would rather do it with the clear
assurance
that there would be no more remuneration. He said that working with Dulles
had
been one of his most rewarding experiences and that Dulles was doing him a
favor
by letting him continue to do so on occasion. (Billington refused permission
to quote
directly from this letter.)
In another instance, Dulles wrote to Consultant Hamilton Fish Armstrong, then
editor
of Foreign Affairs, about an anti-CIA book that the magazine was reviewing
(September 6, 1962): "Personally I would hope that if Foreign Affairs had to
include
an item in regard to the book, it would be not quite as enthusiastic as the
text you
read to me."
Apparently Dulles didn't lose his love of spy tactics after stepping down as
Director,
as his letter reveals in his instructions to Armstrong: "Kindly keep Colonel
Grogan's
letter for your own information and then destroy it when you have read it."
Finally, a confidential memo from a private consultant (Michael J. Deutch,
November
13, 1963) to the Washington Institute on Foreign Affairs revealed the
assistance
Dulles gave to his Consultant colleagues who served as Directors of the
Council on
Foreign Relations (Mosely, Haskins, Pye and Armstrong):
"I wonder whether Allen Dulles knows how much he has contributed to the
success of the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York when he headed the Agency by
having his top
aides suggest from time to time subjects for Council Study Groups. Dr.
Wolfers, Roger
Hilsman, Gen. Lansdale, Cols. Lincoln, Jordan and I would never have
been invited to join
the Council [on Foreign Relations] were it not because of their
participation in these Study
Groups."
Billington, Strayer and Hoover seem alone among the Consultants in publicly
acknowledging their CIA consulting work, although all three vastly
understated the
extent of their involvement, and none ever disclosed the existence of the
Princeton
Consultants.
Cyril Black, for one, has repeatedly issued denials -- quite carefully-worded
ones, in
retrospect -- whenever the question of CIA ties came up. A May 24, 1976 Daily
Princetonian article reported that "Professor of History Cyril E. Black, head
of the
Center for International Studies, said he had been 'approached, but [he has]
never
[been] in their [the CIA's] employ.'" Black told the Forerunner on February
22, 1980
that "I stand by that statement."
But two months later, as the story of the Princeton Consultants was
unraveling,
Black volunteered the information that he had indeed served on the consultant
panel.
His statement to the Daily Princetonian was intended, he said, to distinguish
between employment and consultancy. Black explained that he "was offered
employment in the [CIA's] Bureau of National Estimates" in the early 1960s,
but
turned it down because "it wasn't particularly interesting."
The 1976 Princetonian article also quoted Black as saying that consulting is
all right
as long as it "doesn't hurt your friend or deceive anybody." Asked whether
his
carefully-worded denial could be considered deceptive, Black replied that
"it's hard to
say," adding that "one can certainly argue the case."
The cautious denial by Black and the qualified admission of CIA work by the
three
others can perhaps be better understood in the light of an August 5, 1968
"secret"
memo from Earl Clinton Bolton, then vice-president of the University of
California, to
CIA academic consultants, on the subject of "Agency-Academic Relations." The
memo suggests defenses for professors accused of CIA connections, as well as
a
"very well considered, affirmative public relations program" for the academic
community's CIA work.
Ideas for the latter included: lecture series "to establish the study of
intelligence as a
legitimate and important field of inquiry for the academic scholar"; "stress
in
recruiting, articles and speeches that the Agency is really a university
without
students and not a training school for spies"; and "do all recruiting
off-campus and
try to time these visits so that the probability of reaction is decreased";
and other
tactics.
One present-day irony that emerges from these disclosures about the
Consultants is
that among the three persons that President Carter chose in 1979 to produce
an
outside review of the CIA was Consultant Klaus Knorr.
_________________
John Cavanagh is director of the Institute for Policy Studies and coauthor of
nine books, including Global
Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order (Touchstone, 1995).
Special thanks to Jonny
Fox, Alan Sokal, and Nancy Van Meter for help with interviews and preparation
of this story (1980).
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