The Wizards of Langley

by Jeffrey T Richelson

  The following spring, Adm. William O. Studeman, who had become acting director upon Woolsey’s resignation, announced that the CIA, NRO, and Community Management Staff would contribute $375,000 to continue research into application of such techniques to breast cancer detection.*

  DANGEROUS MISSIONS

  In spring 1995, U.S. officials met the flag-draped coffin of Gary C. Durrell at Maryland’s Andrews Air Force Base. Durrell, a forty-four-year-old father of two, had died shortly before in Pakistan, the victim of terrorist gunfire. His death was another reminder that, for some, working for the Directorate of Science and Technology could be just as dangerous as working for the Directorate of Operations; Durrell had been in Pakistan as part of the Special Collection Service’s Karachi element.62

  The SCS had continued to pay significant intelligence dividends during the Hineman and Hirsch years. SCS elements could be found in embassies in Moscow, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Tel Aviv, Tegucigalpa, and another forty capitals. In Tegucigalpa, the SCS element monitored the police and military as well as the terrorist activities of some of the forces opposing the government. The Tel Aviv outpost intercepted Israeli military and national police communications—allowing the State Department to be informed about, among other things, police activities directed at the Palestinians.63 Undoubtedly, during the abortive attempt to oust Mikhail Gor-bachev in August 1991, the Moscow embassy listening post intercepted whatever communications of the coup plotters, including the KGB chairman and Minister of Defense, could be snatched from the airwaves.64

  Other SCS missions involved a closer approach to the target. An SCS operation might involve eavesdropping from a van outside the window of a foreign ministry official—which might make it possible for an analyst to read every message being written in the official’s office at the time it was being written. Another project allegedly involved capturing pigeons that roosted outside the Soviet embassy in Washington and attaching small microphones to them. After returning to their perch outside an open office window, they produced “incredibly good results,” according to a former Canadian intelligence officer.65

  One operation involved bugging the Chinese ambassador to Washington, who frequently talked about sensitive matters while sitting on a bench in the embassy compound. SCS technicians developed a fiberglass “twig,” which contained a listening device. It was tossed into the compound near the bench. SCS bugging operations also involved crystal objects, mugs, porcelain roses, dried floral arrangements, a small totem pole, as well as an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus painted on a one-inch-thick piece of wood. All were planted in offices or offered to diplomats as gifts.66

  One SCS officer arrived in Kabul toward the end of 1984 and spent several hours a day pretending to be a diplomat, meeting with Afghanis who wanted to travel to the United States, visiting the Foreign Ministry, and attending receptions. But he spent most of his time, usually in twelve-hour stretches, in a windowless suite of three small rooms protected by an electronic lock. One room was a lounge; another served as a storage area for the eavesdropping equipment. In the third room, electronic devices were piled up to the ceiling—creating a wall of knobs, buttons, tape recorders, and glowing oscilloscopes. Relying on a massive guide labeled TEXTA (for Technical Extracts from Traffic Analysis), the eavesdroppers could find what frequencies their targets employed.67

  The SCS officer monitored Afghan troops as well as the military airport tower, noting on three-by-five index cards aircraft types, arrival and departure times, and destinations. A copy of each teletype message sent by an Afghan government official appeared on a printer in the room. The SCS element in Kabul was able to provide coverage across the country. Included was a grisly intercept reporting that the Afghan resistance had peeled off the skin of a captured Soviet soldier while he was still alive. According to a former Reagan administration Middle East expert, “They were plugged in on Afghanistan. . . . We were soaking up everything.”68

  In Pakistan, Gary Durrell and his SCS colleagues were undoubtedly soaking up as much information as they could. Durrell was a native of Alliance, Ohio. As a member of the Air Force Security Service, the Air Force component of NSA, he worked at eavesdropping sites in Texas and Italy. In 1977, he joined NSA, and spent the next eight years in England at the RAF Chicksands eavesdropping site—which intercepted both Soviet and West European communications. In 1987, he “resigned” from NSA, ostensibly to join the State Department. In fact, he joined the SCS, which by then had moved into its new headquarters in Beltsville, Maryland. The sign outside those headquarters indicated the site housed the State Department’s “Communications Systems Support Group.”69

  Before heading overseas, Durrell trained at a site in Maryland that had the appearance of a high-tech company. At the “Maryland field site,” as it is referred to in unclassified documents, Durrell and his fellow trainees were instructed on the use of sophisticated listening equipment, some of the equipment no bigger than a briefcase and some stacked like the stereo equipment one might find in a living room. They were trained to do their eavesdropping from locked rooms inside embassies and consulates.70

  When he left the Maryland field site, Durrell had a cover story, foreign currency, and business cards, with the phone number of a notional boss who would vouch for him. Durrell had also studied photographic albums showing the landmarks and intersections in what was to be his new neighborhood, so as to eliminate the need to ask directions or otherwise call attention to himself. To further enhance his State Department cover, he memorized his purported travel route to the department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters, including the bus route and closest Metro stop. He probably, as was usually the case, had also been formally appointed to the United States Foreign Service, with a certificate signed by President Reagan and his Secretary of State as proof.71

  In the first five years after joining the SCS, Durrell worked under State Department cover in Bangkok, Bombay, and Djibouti. His reports were sent via satellite to a complex of antennae adjacent to the Maryland field site. Inside the consulate in Karachi, Durrell spent four months intercepting communications concerning narcotics trafficking, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation.72

  That mission came to an end on March 8, 1995. As he was riding in a consulate van on his way to work, terrorists leaped from a stolen taxi and fired their AK-47 assault rifles at the van. Sixteen bullets ripped into the van, killing Durrell and a consulate secretary and wounding another employee. The attack may have been a response to the arrest in Pakistan of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who would be convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.73

  CLOSING DOWN THE X-FILES

  When the CIA ended its support for remote viewing and other parapsychology research in 1976, other agencies were willing to take its place. Until 1995, either Army Intelligence or the Defense Intelligence Agency supported such activities as part of projects with exotic names such as GRILL FLAME and STARGATE. In 1979, the DIA asked alleged psychics to provide information on a Soviet submarine program as well as the functions of key buildings in foreign countries. Psychics were also asked to help locate some missing Americans in Iran during the 1979–1980 hostage crisis. The Army’s Special Operations Division asked a psychic to help them locate Brig. Gen. James Dozier, who was kidnapped in Italy in December 1981.74

  In 1986, the military’s psychic friends were asked to locate Muammar Gadhafi before the U.S. bombing raid on Libya. The next year, the DIA requested some of the purported psychics to divine the purpose of a Soviet facility at Dushanbe, and in 1989 the Joint Staff asked for help in determining the exact function of a suspected terrorist training facility in Libya. In 1993, the DIA asked the psychics to locate tunnels that the agency suspected the North Koreans were digging under the demilitarized zone separating their country from South Korea. In 1994, some of the alleged psychics were tasked to find plutonium in North Korea.75

  In 1995, despite its claim that the program produced some successes—including the 1979 predic
tion that a new Soviet submarine would be launched within 100 days and the identification of a building where Lt. Col. William Higgins was being held in Lebanon—DIA was planning on terminating its STARGATE program.76

  By that time, CIA supporters such as Carl Duckett and John McMahon were gone, and James Hirsch had not grown any less skeptical than when he headed the research and development office. There was, however, pressure on the CIA from influential members of Congress and staffers—including Senators Daniel Inouye (D.–Hawaii), Robert Byrd (D.–West Virginia), and Claiborne Pell (D.–Rhode Island). For Pell, sometimes referred to as “The Senator from Outer Space,” STARGATE was not the first New Age program he had supported.77

  Several staffers from the intelligence oversight committees who believed, according to Hirsch, that the program had “tremendous potential” pressed the CIA to resume funding. In the late 1980s, the CIA had asked the National Research Council for an assessment of the intelligence value of paranormal spying, and was told there was no reason to support such activities. With Congress mandating that the CIA review the possible utility of remote viewing for intelligence collection, Hirsch, who believed there was “absolutely zero intelligence payoff,” decided to obtain an updated, outside assessment of the military’s use of psychic spies.78

  In June 1995, ORD contracted with the nonprofit American Institutes for Research (AIR) for a review of the STARGATE program.79 An assessment was to be made of two of the three components of STARGATE—the operations program, which relied on remote viewers to provide intelligence on foreign targets, and the research and development program, which used laboratory studies in an attempt to find improved methods of remote viewing for intelligence purposes. (The third component of STARGATE was “foreign assessment,” which focused on foreign activities to develop or exploit purported paranormal phenomena in ways that might affect U.S. national security.)80

  The CIA asked AIR to produce a comprehensive evaluation of the research and development in this area, with a focus on the scientific validity of the technical approaches. In addition, AIR was to evaluate the overall utility of the program to the government and consider whether any changes in the operational or research and development activities of the program might produce better results. Finally, AIR was to provide the CIA with recommendations “as to appropriate strategies for program activity in the future.”81

  Focusing on the laboratory component of the program were two outside experts—Dr. Jessica Utts, a professor of statistics at the Davis campus of the University of California, and Dr. Ray Hyman, of the University of Oregon’s psychology department. Utts had written articles that supported the existence of paranormal phenomena, whereas Hyman was a well-known skeptic. In 1986, he had published a lengthy review article on parapsychological research that questioned whether any of the claims of positive results from paranormal experimentation could stand up to scientific scrutiny. In 1989, he had written a highly skeptical report for the NRC on DIA’s remote-viewing activities, noting that experiments conducted by DIA had been graded solely by DIA officials and the results had not proven replicable by independent experts. Meanwhile, two senior AIR scientists examined the operational aspect of the STARGATE program.82

  Utts and Hyman prepared written reviews of the laboratory studies, which echoed their previous work and formed the basis of the AIR report’s observation that although the laboratory results were statistically significant, in that hits occurred significantly more often than by chance, it was “unclear whether the observed effects can unambiguously be attributed to the paranormal ability of the remote viewers.” Other possible explanations included the characteristics of the judges or the targets. The report noted that “use of the same remote viewers, the same judge, and the same target photographs makes it impossible to identify their independent effects.” The report further noted that the laboratory experiments had not identified the origins or nature of the remote-viewing phenomenon, “if, indeed, it exists at all.”83

  In an attempt to assess the operational component of STARGATE, the two AIR representatives interviewed users of the information produced, the remote viewers, and the program manager. The report noted that although the end users found some accuracy with regard to broad background characteristics, the “remote viewing reports failed to produce the concrete, specific information valued in intelligence reporting.” The study also observed that the information provided by the remote viewers was “inconsistent, inaccurate with regard to specifics, and required substantial subjective interpretation.” Finally, it reported that “in no case had the information provided ever been used to guide intelligence operations,” and that “remote viewing failed to produce actionable intelligence.” 84

  The report concluded that such observations “provide a compelling argument against continuation of the program within the intelligence community.” 85 Not surprisingly, Hirsch agreed. He went to Nora Slatkin, the agency’s Executive Director, who accepted his recommendation that the CIA should remain out of the paranormal field. If DIA officials wanted to reorient the program to give it some scientific validity, they could continue it, but DIA was not interested, and the government’s psychic friends network was shut down.86

  *The program was so secret that there was a special compartment, designated ZIRCONIC, established within the already highly secret BYEMAN Control System to designate information relating to stealth satellites. Within ZIRCONIC, yet another term, NEBULA, designated stealth satellite technology.

  *It was not the first time CIA research had benefited medical science. In the 1970s, CIA research into lithium iodine batteries, conducted to ensure the prolonged operation of reconnaissance satellites, was made available to the medical community. It subsequently became the dominant technology used in heart pacemakers. (Interview with senior DS&T official, 1996.)

  10

  AGILE INTELLIGENCE

  During his years as associate deputy director and then deputy director for science and technology, Jim Hirsch had witnessed turmoil not only throughout the world but at the CIA. From Bill Casey’s death in 1987 through 1995, there had been a parade of DCIs. Casey’s replacement, William Webster, was succeeded by Robert Gates. When Bill Clinton took office, he replaced Gates with James Woolsey—who after two years of finding it hard to get an appointment with his boss, decided to call it quits. Woolsey’s proposed successor, national security adviser Anthony Lake, withdrew in the midst of a very hostile reception from the Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Then, after having to withdraw the nomination of his next candidate, a former Air Force general, Clinton turned to Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch, whose longer-term goal was to become Secretary of Defense.

  Not long after Deutch arrived, Hirsch was planning his departure. His replacement was an outsider. Unlike previous deputy directors for science and technology, Ruth David had no previous experience within, or even contact with, the agency. Her tenure at the head of the directorate was the shortest since Bud Wheelon’s and was marked by turmoil and change.

  Several new offices were created, and one of the original three established in 1962 was abolished. There was internal strife due to David’s plan for funding the new offices. The directorate also lost responsibility for national photographic interpretation as a result of a major reorganization orchestrated by Deutch. To some, David’s tenure marked a decline in the importance and status of the directorate—in part, due to her own decisions.

  BLUE-RIBBON PANELS

  Before Hirsch departed, he appointed two blue-ribbon panels to take a look at the directorate. One was headed by Ed McMahon, the executive vice-president of MRJ, a high-technology company whose president was Donald Haas—the former head of the research and development and development and engineering offices who had also served as NRO deputy director. McMahon’s group focused on the organization and management of the directorate.1

  Gordon J. MacDonald, a geophysicist at the University of California, San Diego, who had been one of the first s
cientists recruited by the CIA to help it employ the intelligence community’s technical systems in support of environmental research, chaired the second panel. Joining Mac- Donald in trying to identify technologies the directorate should pursue was longtime adviser Richard Garwin; William Dally, a professor of computer science at MIT; William Press, a professor of astronomy at Harvard; and Steven Koonin, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. Press, Dally, and Koonin were all members of the JASON group of scientists who advised the Defense Department.2

  According to Koonin, who had become a full professor at Cal Tech in 1981 at the age of thirty, his group received briefings during summer 1995 at secure facilities in northern Virginia, where they held a couple of all-day meetings. It was “a whirlwind look at all pieces of the DS&T.” The impression he took away from the briefings was that although there was “isolated . . . technical excellence,” the directorate was “somewhat fragmented and in disarray.” There were several specific problems—technologies that had evolved in the Cold War were less useful with respect to post–Cold War targets and threats; there was poor interaction between the directorate and the agency’s intelligence and operations components (including between the Office of Technical Service and the Directorate of Operations); there was a lack of new talent; and analysts were disappointed with respect to the information support available to them.3

  Ultimately, the two separate panels came together to give a joint briefing on their findings. With respect to organization and management, the scientists recommended flattening the organizational structure of the directorate, which could involve establishing new offices directly under the deputy director. They also suggested an increased reliance on use of outside consultants to help deal with vastly different issues such as diseases, chemical and biological warfare, and the environment. Perhaps most significant, they suggested placing greater emphasis on information technologies.4