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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/John L. Wilhelm.md
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@ -36,9 +36,9 @@ relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Science 80]]"
role: "managing editor, after Time"
fn: 11
fn: 12
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-10-05
updated: 2026-10-09
---
John Lenhart Wilhelm III graduated from [[Princeton University]] in 1959, served as an aviation intelligence officer in the [[U.S. Navy]] (planning bombing raids during the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to his obituary), and joined [[Time]] in 1961. At Time he became National Science Correspondent and reported on manned and unmanned space flights, the Vietnam War battle of Hamburger Hill, the 1968 B-52 crash at [[Thule Air Base]] in Greenland, the Kent State shootings, the [[Pentagon Papers]] and the arrest of [[Daniel Ellsberg]], and wrote the magazine's first cover story on environmental pollution.[^1] His name appears among the correspondents on the masthead of the March 4, 1974 issue of Time, which carried the cover story "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier" by [[Stefan Kanfer]].[^2]
@ -57,24 +57,25 @@ In the *Humanist* review of Targ and Puthoff's *Mind-Reach*, [[Ray Hyman]] quote
### "Psychic Spying?" and the House committee, 1977
On August 7, 1977 the [[Washington Post]] published Wilhelm's article "Psychic Spying? The CIA, the Pentagon and the Russians Probe the Military Potential of Parapsychology."[^8] [[Annie Jacobsen]] reports that the article centered on [[Samuel Koslov]], described there as the Navy's top scientist, who publicly expressed outrage about the SRI work on extrasensory perception and said he had demanded that it stop. According to Jacobsen, Koslov told Wilhelm: "If you ask me, 'Do you think it's a pile of crap?' I do, and you can quote me," and the article appeared when the details of the [[Moscow Signal]] and [[Project Pandora]] had only recently become public.[^9]
On August 7, 1977 the [[Washington Post]] published Wilhelm's article "Psychic Spying? The CIA, the Pentagon and the Russians Probe the Military Potential of Parapsychology."[^8] The article ran in the Post's Outlook section, pp. 1-5, and its author line identifies Wilhelm as "a former national science correspondent for Time magazine" whose book on psychic research, "The Search for Superman," "was published last year."[^9] In the article Wilhelm wrote that Harold Puthoff "is a high-ranking Scientologist," that Pat Price, "who died two years ago, also was a high-level 'Operating Thetan,'" and that "the involvement of Scientologists in the tests at SRI partially accounts for at least two government agencies pulling back from funding further work there."[^9] [[Annie Jacobsen]] reports that the article centered on [[Samuel Koslov]], described there as the Navy's top scientist, who publicly expressed outrage about the SRI work on extrasensory perception and said he had demanded that it stop. According to Jacobsen, Koslov told Wilhelm (the remark appears in the article itself): "If you ask me, 'Do you think it's a pile of crap?' I do, and you can quote me," and the article appeared when the details of the [[Moscow Signal]] and [[Project Pandora]] had only recently become public.[^10]
A CIA memorandum of November 17, 1977 (OTS/BAB Memo 287-77) records that "the Committee's interest was occasioned by the article 'Psychic Spying' which appeared in the Parade Section of the Washington Post on 7 August 1977." In response to a request from the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]], the Director of the [[Office of Technical Service]], David Brandwein, and other OTS officers briefed committee staff, among them Michael O'Neil and Pat Long, from about 1000 to 1100 hours on November 16, 1977, in the committee's offices. The staffers "asked very pertinent questions and were given frank and in-depth replies" to a short oral history of OTS work in the field dating to 1961. An OTS officer was asked to find out whether any other agency component was sponsoring ESP research. OTS left with the committee a written outline of its ESP work (classified SECRET), the IEEE article covering the unclassified portions of the SRI work, and a brief article on Pat Price; the committee declined additional information.[^10]
A CIA memorandum of November 17, 1977 (OTS/BAB Memo 287-77) records that "the Committee's interest was occasioned by the article 'Psychic Spying' which appeared in the Parade Section of the Washington Post on 7 August 1977." In response to a request from the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]], the Director of the [[Office of Technical Service]], David Brandwein, and other OTS officers briefed committee staff, among them Michael O'Neil and Pat Long, from about 1000 to 1100 hours on November 16, 1977, in the committee's offices. The staffers "asked very pertinent questions and were given frank and in-depth replies" to a short oral history of OTS work in the field dating to 1961. An OTS officer was asked to find out whether any other agency component was sponsoring ESP research. OTS left with the committee a written outline of its ESP work (classified SECRET), the IEEE article covering the unclassified portions of the SRI work, and a brief article on Pat Price; the committee declined additional information.[^11]
### Later career and death
After Time, Wilhelm was managing editor of the American Association for the Advancement of Science magazine *Science 80*, then a freelance science writer, with an early profile of [[Stephen Hawking]] among his pieces. He became a television producer, and was Emmy-nominated as executive producer of the [[PBS]] documentary *Comet Halley*, narrated by [[James Earl Jones]]. His other productions included *Planet Earth*, *My Heart, Your Heart* with [[Jim Lehrer]], *Two Cheers for the CIA*, and *Triumph at Carville: A Tale of Leprosy in America*, the last co-produced with his wife, Sally Squires Wilhelm. The obituary was published by the [[Association of Former Intelligence Officers]], of which he was a longtime member. He died at his home in Washington, D.C. on August 21, 2025, aged 87, of pancreatic cancer.[^11]
After Time, Wilhelm was managing editor of the American Association for the Advancement of Science magazine *Science 80*, then a freelance science writer, with an early profile of [[Stephen Hawking]] among his pieces. He became a television producer, and was Emmy-nominated as executive producer of the [[PBS]] documentary *Comet Halley*, narrated by [[James Earl Jones]]. His other productions included *Planet Earth*, *My Heart, Your Heart* with [[Jim Lehrer]], *Two Cheers for the CIA*, and *Triumph at Carville: A Tale of Leprosy in America*, the last co-produced with his wife, Sally Squires Wilhelm. The obituary was published by the [[Association of Former Intelligence Officers]], of which he was a longtime member. He died at his home in Washington, D.C. on August 21, 2025, aged 87, of pancreatic cancer.[^12]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "John Wilhelm, Longtime AFIO Member and Journalist," obituary, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, October 17, 2025. https://www.afio.com/obituaries/2025/10/17/john-wilhelm-longtime-afio-member-and-journalist/
[^2]: "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time,* March 4, 1974, cover story, with the issue's Publisher's Letter (which names Associate Editor Stefan Kanfer as writer of the cover story) and masthead, CIA-RDP96-00787R000700030001-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000700030001-3
[^3]: Memorandum for the Record, "Request for Information about Stanford Research Institute (SRI) Paranormal Research Project by Mr. Wilhelm former Time Reporter," April 16, 1974, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200200023-5 (a second copy is CIA-RDP96-00787R000700090018-9). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^2]: "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time,* March 4, 1974, cover story, with the issue's Publisher's Letter (which names Associate Editor Stefan Kanfer as writer of the cover story) and masthead, CIA-RDP96-00787R000700030001-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000700030001-3
[^3]: Memorandum for the Record, "Request for Information about Stanford Research Institute (SRI) Paranormal Research Project by Mr. Wilhelm former Time Reporter," April 16, 1974, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200200023-5 (a second copy is CIA-RDP96-00787R000700090018-9).
[^4]: Wilhelm, John. *The Search for Superman: An Extraordinary Journey of Psychic Exploration.* Pocket Books, 1976; publication year and publisher as given in Hanlon, Joseph, "Spoon-bending science," *New Scientist,* 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080018-5, and in the AFIO obituary cited above.
[^5]: "The Search for Superman by John L. Wilhelm," typed outline, in "1978-80 SRI Misc. Papers," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100040006-1. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^6]: Hanlon, Joseph. "Spoon-bending science," *New Scientist,* 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080018-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^7]: Hyman, Ray. "Psychics and Scientists: 'Mind-Reach' and Remote Viewing," review of Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, *Mind-Reach* (Delacorte, 1977), CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^5]: "The Search for Superman by John L. Wilhelm," typed outline, in "1978-80 SRI Misc. Papers," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100040006-1.
[^6]: Hanlon, Joseph. "Spoon-bending science," *New Scientist,* 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080018-5.
[^7]: Hyman, Ray. "Psychics and Scientists: 'Mind-Reach' and Remote Viewing," review of Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, *Mind-Reach* (Delacorte, 1977), CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4.
[^8]: Wilhelm, John L. "Psychic Spying? The Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon and the Russians Probe the Military Potential of Parapsychology," *Washington Post,* August 7, 1977 (title and date as given in Jacobsen and in the CIA memorandum cited at note 10).
[^9]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
[^10]: OTS/BAB Memo 287-77, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," November 17, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8 and sanitized copy CIA-RDP96-00787R000500170001-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^11]: "John Wilhelm, Longtime AFIO Member and Journalist," Association of Former Intelligence Officers, October 17, 2025. https://www.afio.com/obituaries/2025/10/17/john-wilhelm-longtime-afio-member-and-journalist/
[^9]: Wilhelm, John L., "Psychic Spying? The CIA, the Pentagon and the Russians Probe the Military Potential of Parapsychology," *Washington Post*, August 7, 1977, Outlook section, pp. 1-5; copy in the CIA STARGATE collection as an enclosure, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3 (Scientology passage and Koslov quotation on the pages headed "The Scientology Link" and "'Scanate' or 'Bullpasture?'"). The section is given as Outlook in the bibliographies of Kress (CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0) and May (CIA-RDP96-00787R000100250012-3); OTS/BAB Memo #287-77 gives "the Parade Section of the Washington Post."
[^10]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
[^11]: OTS/BAB Memo 287-77, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," November 17, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8 and sanitized copy CIA-RDP96-00787R000500170001-0.
[^12]: "John Wilhelm, Longtime AFIO Member and Journalist," Association of Former Intelligence Officers, October 17, 2025. https://www.afio.com/obituaries/2025/10/17/john-wilhelm-longtime-afio-member-and-journalist/