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19
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Alexander Berger.md
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@ -23,28 +23,28 @@ relations:
start: 2011
fn: 4
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-10-08
---
Alexander Berger is the chief executive of [[Open Philanthropy]], renamed Coefficient Giving in November 2025, the grantmaker funded chiefly by [[Dustin Moskovitz]] and [[Cari Tuna]] through their foundation [[Good Ventures]]. He joined [[GiveWell]] from [[Stanford University]], cofounded Open Philanthropy when it was still GiveWell Labs, became co-chief executive with [[Holden Karnofsky]] in June 2021 and sole chief executive in July 2023. He has been a director of the couple's 501(c)(4), the [[Open Philanthropy Action Fund]], since 2018, and its returns have carried his Open Philanthropy officer titles since 2021.[^1][^2][^3][^4][^5]
### Stanford
Berger graduated from Stanford in 2011 with a B.A. in philosophy and also holds a Stanford M.A. in education policy.[^2] As a freshman he heard the political scientist [[Rob Reich]] as a guest lecturer, took Reich's courses over the next two years, and completed the Honors Program in Ethics in Society with Reich, the faculty director of the [[McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society]], as his thesis advisor. In an honors seminar in his junior year he read a paper noting how safe kidney donation had become; the same year he came across GiveWell, the charity evaluator Karnofsky and [[Elie Hassenfeld]] had founded in 2007, and began volunteering for it. After graduating he worked there as a researcher "conducting evidence reviews and cost-effectiveness analyses for potential top charities." A second alumna of the same honors program, [[Claire Zabel]] of the 2013-14 cohort, went on to lead Open Philanthropy's grantmaking on effective altruism.[^1][^2]
Berger graduated from Stanford in 2011 with a B.A. in philosophy and also holds a Stanford M.A. in education policy.[^2] As a freshman he heard the political scientist [[Rob Reich]] as a guest lecturer, took Reich's courses over the next two years, and completed the Honors Program in Ethics in Society with Reich, the faculty director of the [[McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society]], as his thesis advisor. In an honors seminar in his junior year he read a paper noting how safe kidney donation had become; the same year he came across GiveWell, the charity evaluator Karnofsky and [[Elie Hassenfeld]] had founded in 2007, and began volunteering for it. After graduating he worked there as a researcher "conducting evidence reviews and cost-effectiveness analyses for potential top charities." A second alumna of the same honors program, [[Claire Zabel]] of the 2013-14 cohort, went on to lead Open Philanthropy's grantmaking on effective altruism.[^1][^2][^6]
### The Kidney Op-Ed
On December 5, 2011, about six months after graduating, Berger published "Why Selling Kidneys Should Be Legal" in *[[New York Times|The New York Times]]*, datelined [[San Francisco]]: "On Thursday, I will donate one of my kidneys to someone I've never met." He gave his age as 21. "When I first told some friends and family that I wanted to donate a kidney, they assumed I'd gone off my rocker," he wrote. "They saw it as a crazy act of self-sacrifice, rather than what it is," which he called "one of the many ways a reasonably altruistic person can help others." He argued that the 1984 federal ban on compensating kidney donors left more than 34,000 people joining the waiting list in 2010 against fewer than 17,000 transplants, that "the victims of the current ban are disproportionately African-American and poor," and that a regulated market in which "only the government or a chosen nonprofit would be allowed to purchase the kidneys," at a price "somewhere in the ballpark of $50,000," paid by insurers or [[Medicare]], "could actually save the government money" against the cost of dialysis. He cited a ruling of the previous week by the [[Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals]] allowing compensation for bone marrow donors.[^6]
On December 5, 2011, about six months after graduating, Berger published "Why Selling Kidneys Should Be Legal" in *[[New York Times|The New York Times]]*, datelined [[San Francisco]]: "On Thursday, I will donate one of my kidneys to someone I've never met." He gave his age as 21. "When I first told some friends and family that I wanted to donate a kidney, they assumed I'd gone off my rocker," he wrote. "They saw it as a crazy act of self-sacrifice, rather than what it is," which he called "one of the many ways a reasonably altruistic person can help others." He argued that the 1984 federal ban on compensating kidney donors left more than 34,000 people joining the waiting list in 2010 against fewer than 17,000 transplants, that "the victims of the current ban are disproportionately African-American and poor," and that a regulated market in which "only the government or a chosen nonprofit would be allowed to purchase the kidneys," at a price "somewhere in the ballpark of $50,000," paid by insurers or [[Medicare]], "could actually save the government money" against the cost of dialysis. He cited a ruling of the previous week by the [[Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals]] allowing compensation for bone marrow donors.[^7]
### Open Philanthropy
Berger was, in Open Philanthropy's own biography of him, "a cofounder of Open Philanthropy" who "led our initial process for selecting focus areas and hiring and training program officers within them."[^2] In 2018 he told the *[[Stanford Social Innovation Review]]* writer [[Marc Gunther]], who counted seven entities around Tuna (among them the Open Philanthropy Project LLC, the Action Fund, two donor-advised funds at the [[Silicon Valley Community Foundation]], the Good Ventures Foundation and Good Ventures LLC), that "each has a reason for being" and that "tax considerations are key."[^7]
Berger was, in Open Philanthropy's own biography of him, "a cofounder of Open Philanthropy" who "led our initial process for selecting focus areas and hiring and training program officers within them."[^2] In 2018 he told the *[[Stanford Social Innovation Review]]* writer [[Marc Gunther]], who counted seven entities around Tuna (among them the Open Philanthropy Project LLC, the Action Fund, two donor-advised funds at the [[Silicon Valley Community Foundation]], the Good Ventures Foundation and Good Ventures LLC), that "each has a reason for being" and that "tax considerations are key."[^8]
On June 16, 2021, Karnofsky announced that Berger "has been promoted to co-CEO," writing that he had "for some time" been "the primary leader for most of our work on causes focused on maximizing verifiable impact within our lifetimes." The same post renamed that portfolio "Global Health and Wellbeing" in place of "near-termism" and stated: "We now have a dual-CEO structure, with both of us reporting directly to the board." Karnofsky kept biosecurity and pandemic preparedness and "potential risks from advanced AI"; Berger took global health and development "(including to GiveWell-recommended charities)," scientific research, farm animal welfare and criminal justice reform.[^3]
On July 27, 2023, Karnofsky wrote "on behalf of Open Philanthropy's board" that Berger "is now sole CEO," that Berger had run the organization during Karnofsky's leave of absence, and that the two had worked together since 2011; Berger "co-founded Open Philanthropy (back when it was GiveWell Labs), initially leading our policy philanthropy work." Karnofsky's own title changed "from co-CEO to Director of AI Strategy," and [[Emily Oehlsen]] was promoted to managing director over Global Health and Wellbeing. Tuna, styled in the post as president, said: "Dustin and I have worked closely with Alexander for many years, and he's helped us think through many of the toughest questions we've faced as philanthropists." Berger said the mission "resonates just as much with me today as it did when Holden, Cari, Dustin and I were starting to think about it together."[^4]
In 2026 Coefficient Giving listed Berger as chief executive, Tuna as chair and Oehlsen as president.[^8] Berger said that year that the organization had spent about a tenth of the [[Gates Foundation]]'s budget in 2025 and more than twice that so far in 2026, and, of its standing with [[Anthropic]], whose president [[Daniela Amodei]] is married to Karnofsky: "We're definitely not the Anthropic Foundation."[^9]
In 2026 Coefficient Giving listed Berger as chief executive, Tuna as chair and Oehlsen as president.[^9] Berger said that year that the organization had spent about a tenth of the [[Gates Foundation]]'s budget in 2025 and more than twice that so far in 2026, and, of its standing with [[Anthropic]], whose president [[Daniela Amodei]] is married to Karnofsky: "We're definitely not the Anthropic Foundation."[^10]
### The Action Fund
@ -57,7 +57,8 @@ The Open Philanthropy Action Fund, EIN 81-2644663, files in care of [[Apercen Pa
[^3]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Open Philanthropy's New Co-CEO." Open Philanthropy blog, June 16, 2021, archived May 31, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220531031049/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/open-philanthropys-new-co-ceo
[^4]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Alexander Berger is Now Sole CEO of Open Philanthropy." Open Philanthropy, July 27, 2023, republished by Coefficient Giving, archived March 17, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260317060608/https://coefficientgiving.org/research/alexander-berger-is-now-sole-ceo-of-open-philanthropy/
[^5]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Coefficient Giving Action Fund" (formerly Open Philanthropy Action Fund), EIN 81-2644663, Form 990 Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2016 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/812644663
[^6]: Berger, Alexander. "Why Selling Kidneys Should Be Legal." *The New York Times,* December 5, 2011, archived October 24, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20251024084715/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/opinion/why-selling-kidneys-should-be-legal.html
[^7]: Gunther, Marc. "Giving in the Light of Reason." *Stanford Social Innovation Review,* Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason
[^8]: Coefficient Giving, "Team," accessed September 2026. https://coefficientgiving.org/about-us/team/
[^9]: Smith, Ben. "Coefficient Giving's CEO on Silicon Valley's $40 billion philanthropy boom." *Semafor,* September 3, 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/03/2026/coefficient-givings-ceo-on-silicon-valley-40-billion-philanthropy-boom
[^6]: Open Philanthropy, "Claire Zabel," team biography, Wayback Machine capture of January 19, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220119041801/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/claire-zabel
[^7]: Berger, Alexander. "Why Selling Kidneys Should Be Legal." *The New York Times,* December 5, 2011, archived October 24, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20251024084715/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/opinion/why-selling-kidneys-should-be-legal.html
[^8]: Gunther, Marc. "Giving in the Light of Reason." *Stanford Social Innovation Review,* Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason
[^9]: Coefficient Giving, "Team," accessed September 2026. https://coefficientgiving.org/about-us/team/
[^10]: Smith, Ben. "Coefficient Giving's CEO on Silicon Valley's $40 billion philanthropy boom." *Semafor,* September 3, 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/03/2026/coefficient-givings-ceo-on-silicon-valley-40-billion-philanthropy-boom

33
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Allen Dulles.md
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@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
---
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-09
title: Allen Dulles
aliases:
- Allen Welsh Dulles
@ -22,6 +22,12 @@ summary: Allen Dulles served as CIA Director from 1953 to 1961, overseeing Opera
born: 1893-04-07
died: 1969-01-29
location: Washington, D.C.
relations:
- type: director_of
with: "[[American Committee on United Europe]]"
start: 1949
role: "vice-chairman"
fn: 2
---
Allen Welsh Dulles (April 7, 1893 - January 29, 1969) served as [[Director of Central Intelligence]] from February 26, 1953, to November 29, 1961 - the longest tenure of any DCI, the first civilian DCI, and the only brother of a sitting Secretary of State to hold the position. Dulles built the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] into the instrument of Cold War covert action that executed [[Operation AJAX]] in [[Iran]] (1953), [[Operation PBSUCCESS]] in [[Guatemala]] (1954), and the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion of [[Cuba]] (1961). The Bay of Pigs disaster cost him his position - President [[John F. Kennedy]] forced his resignation, along with [[Richard Bissell]] and [[Charles P. Cabell|C.P. Cabell]] - and his subsequent appointment by President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] to the [[Warren Commission]] investigating Kennedy's assassination placed him in the remarkable position of overseeing the investigation of the event that had ended both his patron's life and his own career.[^1]
@ -43,23 +49,27 @@ The incorporation of Gehlen's network into American intelligence - authorized at
The unverifiable provenance of Gehlen's Soviet networks meant that the intelligence they produced - which formed a significant portion of early CIA's knowledge about the Soviet Union - was of unknown reliability. Some of it may have been Soviet-directed disinformation fed through networks the KGB controlled. The relationship between the Gehlen inheritance and [[James Jesus Angleton|Angleton]]'s subsequent mole hunt paranoia - his conviction that CIA's Soviet intelligence was systematically compromised - has been examined by historians without definitive resolution.[^1]
### American Committee on United Europe
Dulles was vice-chairman of the [[American Committee on United Europe]] (ACUE), which [[Richard Aldrich]] describes as formed to support [[Winston Churchill]] and the [[European Movement]] and officially incorporated in February 1949. [[William J. Donovan]] was its chairman, and [[Thomas W. Braden]], a former OSS officer, was its executive director.[^2] Aldrich reports Braden's assertion in the 1980s that ACUE funds originated with the CIA, and writes that the 1962 Oxford thesis of [[F. X. Rebattet]], son of the European Movement's secretary-general [[George Rebattet]], "confirms that most ACUE funds originated with the CIA."[^3] Dulles also corresponded with [[Max Ascoli]], whose papers index a photocopy of a typed letter from Dulles dated May 27 among the 1968 letters on the closing of [[The Reporter]].[^4] A February 7, 1958 letter to Dulles from the chairman of the President's Committee on Scientists and Engineers thanks him for addressing the Conference on America's Human Resources at [[Yale University]] and encloses a participant list that includes "Mr. Max Ascoli, Editor and Publisher, The Reporter."[^5] [[Hugh Wilford]] writes that The Reporter's deputy [[Philip Horton]] used contacts with Donovan, Dulles and James Jesus Angleton to enhance its foreign coverage.[^6]
### DCI: Iran, Guatemala, and the Covert Action Doctrine
Dulles was named Deputy Director (Plans) in 1951 and became DCI on February 26, 1953, days after President Eisenhower's inauguration. His brother John Foster simultaneously became Secretary of State. The confluence gave the Dulles brothers a degree of combined policy and intelligence authority unprecedented in American government.
Operation AJAX (August 1953): Working with British intelligence, Dulles's CIA executed the coup that overthrew Iranian Prime Minister [[Mohammad Mosaddegh]] and returned [[Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi|Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]] to full power. The operation was designed and led in the field by [[Kermit Roosevelt|Kermit Roosevelt Jr.]], grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. Operation AJAX established the operational template that Dulles and Bissell believed could be replicated elsewhere.
Operation PBSUCCESS (June 1954): The CIA's overthrow of Guatemalan President [[Jacobo Arbenz]] was presented to Eisenhower as a vindication of covert action - a small paramilitary force, CIA air assets, and psychological warfare had collapsed a government with minimal U.S. exposure. Dulles and his team drew exactly the wrong lesson: that the model was transferable. The direct organizational line from PBSUCCESS to the Bay of Pigs ran through the same personnel - [[Howard Hunt]], [[Tracy Barnes]], [[David Atlee Phillips]] - applying the same framework to a target that had fundamentally different characteristics.[^2]
Operation PBSUCCESS (June 1954): The CIA's overthrow of Guatemalan President [[Jacobo Arbenz]] was presented to Eisenhower as a vindication of covert action - a small paramilitary force, CIA air assets, and psychological warfare had collapsed a government with minimal U.S. exposure. Dulles and his team drew exactly the wrong lesson: that the model was transferable. The direct organizational line from PBSUCCESS to the Bay of Pigs ran through the same personnel - [[Howard Hunt]], [[Tracy Barnes]], [[David Atlee Phillips]] - applying the same framework to a target that had fundamentally different characteristics.[^7]
[[MKULTRA]]: Dulles authorized the CIA's human experimentation program in April 1953 under Technical Services Staff chief [[Sidney Gottlieb]]. The program used LSD and other substances on unconsenting subjects, including mental patients, prisoners, and unwitting CIA employees. Dulles's authorization memorandum noted concerns about Soviet brainwashing capabilities and framed the program as defensive research. The program's scope - eventually comprising 150 subprojects at 80 institutions - far exceeded what Dulles's authorization documents described.
### MKULTRA: The Sandoz Panic and the Olson Death
Dulles approved MKULTRA on April 13, 1953, ten days after Richard Helms proposed a program for the "covert use of biological and chemical materials," with an initial $300,000 exempt from normal financial controls and payable blindly on the signatures of Gottlieb and TSS chief [[Willis Gibbons]]. Acting in a climate of Cold War urgency, that same month Dulles approved a $240,000 payment after an intelligence report claimed [[Sandoz]] wanted to sell 10 kilograms of [[LSD]] on the open market; CIA officers flew to Switzerland with a black bag of cash only to learn Sandoz had produced barely 40 grams in fifteen years, the entire panic stemming from a military attaché who confused milligrams with kilograms. When [[Frank Olson]] died in November 1953 after Gottlieb dosed him with LSD at [[Deep Creek Lodge]], Dulles ordered Inspector General [[Lyman Kirkpatrick]] to investigate; the resulting reprimands were softened through six drafts and placed in no personnel file.[^3]
Dulles approved MKULTRA on April 13, 1953, ten days after Richard Helms proposed a program for the "covert use of biological and chemical materials," with an initial $300,000 exempt from normal financial controls and payable blindly on the signatures of Gottlieb and TSS chief [[Willis Gibbons]]. Acting in a climate of Cold War urgency, that same month Dulles approved a $240,000 payment after an intelligence report claimed [[Sandoz]] wanted to sell 10 kilograms of [[LSD]] on the open market; CIA officers flew to Switzerland with a black bag of cash only to learn Sandoz had produced barely 40 grams in fifteen years, the entire panic stemming from a military attaché who confused milligrams with kilograms. When [[Frank Olson]] died in November 1953 after Gottlieb dosed him with LSD at [[Deep Creek Lodge]], Dulles ordered Inspector General [[Lyman Kirkpatrick]] to investigate; the resulting reprimands were softened through six drafts and placed in no personnel file.[^8]
### Rockefeller's Special Group and the Human Ecology Front
Under Eisenhower, Dulles reported all CIA covert operations, including MKULTRA, the coups, and assassination planning, to the NSC "[[Special Group]]" chaired by [[Nelson Rockefeller]], the structure formalized by NSC 5412/2 in December 1955 that gave the president plausible deniability; in a 1955 "Family Jewels" briefing Dulles described the full range of covert programs to Rockefeller's board. When MKULTRA needed a research hospital, Dulles sought Rockefeller's approval for a scheme to channel CIA money through private foundations to win matching federal grants for a wing at [[Georgetown University Hospital]]. The program's primary funding front, the [[Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology]], was organized at Dulles's initiative through [[Harold Wolff]], the Cornell neurologist who had treated Dulles's brain-damaged son; Dulles attended one of its first board meetings. His relationship with [[D. Ewen Cameron]] predated the funding: in November 1945, still with the OSS, Dulles had sent Cameron to Nuremberg to assess whether [[Rudolf Hess]] was fit to stand trial.[^4]
Under Eisenhower, Dulles reported all CIA covert operations, including MKULTRA, the coups, and assassination planning, to the NSC "[[Special Group]]" chaired by [[Nelson Rockefeller]], the structure formalized by NSC 5412/2 in December 1955 that gave the president plausible deniability; in a 1955 "Family Jewels" briefing Dulles described the full range of covert programs to Rockefeller's board. When MKULTRA needed a research hospital, Dulles sought Rockefeller's approval for a scheme to channel CIA money through private foundations to win matching federal grants for a wing at [[Georgetown University Hospital]]. The program's primary funding front, the [[Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology]], was organized at Dulles's initiative through [[Harold Wolff]], the Cornell neurologist who had treated Dulles's brain-damaged son; Dulles attended one of its first board meetings. His relationship with [[D. Ewen Cameron]] predated the funding: in November 1945, still with the OSS, Dulles had sent Cameron to Nuremberg to assess whether [[Rudolf Hess]] was fit to stand trial.[^9]
### Bay of Pigs and Forced Resignation
@ -71,13 +81,13 @@ Dulles submitted his resignation in September 1961; it was formally accepted Nov
### The Warren Commission
On November 29, 1963 - exactly two years after Dulles's forced resignation - President [[Lyndon B. Johnson|Lyndon Johnson]] appointed the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy's assassination. Among the seven commissioners Johnson named was Allen Dulles despite Kennedy’s firing of Dulles.
On November 29, 1963 - exactly two years after Dulles's forced resignation - President Lyndon Johnson appointed the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy's assassination. Among the seven commissioners Johnson named was Allen Dulles despite Kennedy’s firing of Dulles.
The investigation was examining whether CIA-connected parties (specifically the anti-Castro exile networks and organized crime figures that Dulles had directly overseen) had any role in the assassination. He was now in a position to shape what evidence the Commission sought, what witnesses it called, and what conclusions it reached regarding the CIA programs he had run.
Dulles was reportedly among the most active commissioners in shaping the investigation's scope. He briefed commissioners on CIA history and procedures. He did not disclose the [[ZR/RIFLE]] assassination plotting program - which [[Richard Helms]] as DDP was simultaneously concealing from the Commission at the agency level. The CIA's failure to disclose the assassination plots to the Warren Commission, documented by the Church Committee in 1975, was the institutional decision; Dulles's personal role in that decision - as both a commissioner and the former DCI who had authorized the programs - was the structural conflict of interest the Commission's composition created.
The [[HSCA|House Select Committee on Assassinations]] (1979) found that the Warren Commission had not been fully informed of CIA activities relevant to the investigation. The precise mechanism by which this occurred - institutional CIA decision, active concealment by Dulles, or some combination - was not definitively established.[^2]
The [[HSCA|House Select Committee on Assassinations]] (1979) found that the Warren Commission had not been fully informed of CIA activities relevant to the investigation. The precise mechanism by which this occurred - institutional CIA decision, active concealment by Dulles, or some combination - was not definitively established.[^7]
### Death and Legacy
@ -86,6 +96,11 @@ Dulles spent his post-CIA years writing, lecturing, and defending the covert act
### Footnotes
[^1]: Kinzer, Stephen. *The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War.* Times Books, 2013 (covers both brothers, the Sullivan & Cromwell connections, and the covert action programs). Grose, Peter. *Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles.* Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
[^2]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba.* New Press, 1998. Church Committee. "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders." Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975. Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991. Chapter 4.
[^3]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 4; "Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," Joint Senate Hearing, August 3, 1977.
[^4]: Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon*. HarperCollins, 1995, Ch. 18; John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 9.
[^2]: Richard J. Aldrich, "OSS, CIA and European Unity: The American Committee on United Europe, 1948-60," Diplomacy & Statecraft 8, no. 1 (1997), p. 192, DOI 10.1080/09592299708406035, https://text.www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/aldrich/publications/oss_cia_united_europe_eec_eu.pdf.
[^3]: Aldrich (1997), pp. 211-212 (Braden's 1980s assertion at p. 211; Rabattet passage at p. 212), same URL.
[^4]: Senato della Repubblica, Archivio storico, Max Ascoli fonds, sottofascicolo 15, index of names, https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/inventario/scheda/max-ascoli/IT-AFS-005-002785/letters-expressing-regrets-upon-closing-of-the-reporter-from-personal-friends-of-max-ascoli-1968.
[^5]: Howard L. Bevis to Allen W. Dulles, February 7, 1958, CIA-RDP80B01676R003800020106-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003800020106-4.
[^6]: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer (Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 230-231.
[^7]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. *Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba.* New Press, 1998. Church Committee. "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders." Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975. Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991. Chapter 4.
[^8]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 4; "Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification," Joint Senate Hearing, August 3, 1977.
[^9]: Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon*. HarperCollins, 1995, Ch. 18; John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 9.

77
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Bill Clinton.md
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@ -16,74 +16,91 @@ tags:
- ClintonFoundation
- FlightLogs
- LolitaExpress
summary: "Bill Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States and Governor of Arkansas during the Mena CIA-linked drug-smuggling period, whose administration terminated Project Stargate in 1995, and who took multiple flights on Jeffrey Epstein's aircraft for Clinton Foundation work in 2002-2003 while denying any knowledge of Epstein's crimes."
summary: "Bill Clinton, Governor of Arkansas during the Mena smuggling period and 42nd President, whose administration ended Project Stargate in 1995 and who flew on Jeffrey Epstein's aircraft for Clinton Foundation work in 2002 and 2003."
born: 1946-08-19
location: "Hope, Arkansas"
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-06-20
updated: 2026-10-09
---
Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as Governor of [[Arkansas]] and as the 42nd President of the [[United States]] from 1993 to 2001. After leaving office he established the [[Clinton Foundation]] and traveled internationally on its behalf, including on aircraft owned by [[Jeffrey Epstein]]. Flight logs entered into civil litigation list Clinton on flights aboard Epstein's Boeing 727, the aircraft journalists later nicknamed the "[[Lolita Express]]." Clinton has denied knowledge of Epstein's sexual offenses and has denied visiting Epstein's private island, [[Little St. James]]. No court, prosecutor, or official investigation has produced evidence that Clinton committed a crime in connection with Epstein.[^1][^2]
### Governor of Arkansas and the Mena Drug Operations
As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton presided over the period when [[Barry Seal]] operated his [[Central Intelligence Agency]]-connected [[Cocaine]] smuggling operation at Mena airport. Clinton's close friend [[Danny Ray Lasater]] was convicted as part of a major drug ring in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]], raising questions about what the governor knew about the activities at [[Mena, Arkansas|Mena]].[^16]
As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton presided over the period when [[Barry Seal]] operated his [[Central Intelligence Agency]]-connected [[Cocaine]] smuggling operation at Mena airport. Clinton's close friend [[Danny Ray Lasater]] was convicted as part of a major drug ring in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]], raising questions about what the governor knew about the activities at [[Mena, Arkansas|Mena]].[^3]
Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson testified that troopers were aware "that there was large quantities of drugs being flown into the Mena airport" and that "it was a CIA operation." Despite the scale of Seal's operations, which a letter from the Arkansas attorney general to U.S. Attorney General [[Ed Meese]] valued at 3 billion to 5 billion dollars in smuggled drugs, the state government took no action to shut down the operation. Clinton's administration in Arkansas presided over the period when the Mena airport served as a hub for both drug trafficking and Contra supply operations.[^16]
Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson testified that troopers were aware "that there was large quantities of drugs being flown into the Mena airport" and that "it was a CIA operation." Despite the scale of Seal's operations, which a letter from the Arkansas attorney general to U.S. Attorney General [[Ed Meese]] valued at 3 billion to 5 billion dollars in smuggled drugs, the state government took no action to shut down the operation. Clinton's administration in Arkansas presided over the period when the Mena airport served as a hub for both drug trafficking and Contra supply operations.[^3]
### Project Stargate
As president, Clinton's administration oversaw the 1995 declassification and termination of the [[Stargate Project]], the government's remote-viewing program, after a CIA-commissioned review concluded the program had no demonstrated intelligence value. The *Remote Viewers* account does not detail any direct involvement by Clinton in the program, but notes that [[William Perry]], who served as Clinton's Secretary of Defense, had earlier been involved in funding decisions for the program during the Carter administration.[^15]
As president, Clinton's administration oversaw the 1995 declassification and termination of the [[Stargate Project]], the government's remote-viewing program, after a CIA-commissioned review concluded the program had no demonstrated intelligence value. The *Remote Viewers* account does not detail any direct involvement by Clinton in the program, but notes that [[William Perry]], who served as Clinton's Secretary of Defense, had earlier been involved in funding decisions for the program during the Carter administration.[^4]
### Epstein Contacts and Flight Logs
Epstein donated 1,000 dollars to Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and contributed to later Democratic fundraising, and Clinton Foundation records show a 25,000 dollar contribution from an Epstein-linked foundation in 2006, according to a timeline compiled by [[ABC News]]. Epstein and [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] were recorded as visitors during Clinton's presidency and were photographed at [[White House]] events. Clinton's spokesman has said the former president met Epstein privately on two occasions after leaving office, once at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse and once at the [[Clinton Global Initiative]] offices in Harlem.[^1]
Flight logs released in civil litigation and later in document tranches list Clinton on flights aboard Epstein's Boeing 727, registration N908JE. Reporting on the logs in 2016 noted Clinton appearing on at least 26 flight "legs," a figure that counts individual segments of multi-stop trips rather than distinct journeys, and noted that he traveled on at least some legs without his [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]] detail. Maxwell, recorded in the logs by the initials "GM," appears on the trips, as do entries read as the initials of Epstein assistant [[Sarah Kellen]]. The logs record who boarded which aircraft and when; they do not, on their face, establish what occurred at any destination.[^2][^3]
Flight logs released in civil litigation and later in document tranches list Clinton on flights aboard Epstein's Boeing 727, registration N908JE. Reporting on the logs in 2016 noted Clinton appearing on at least 26 flight "legs," a figure that counts individual segments of multi-stop trips rather than distinct journeys, and noted that he traveled on at least some legs without his [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]] detail. Maxwell, recorded in the logs by the initials "GM," appears on the trips, as do entries read as the initials of Epstein assistant [[Sarah Kellen]]. The logs record who boarded which aircraft and when; they do not, on their face, establish what occurred at any destination.[^2][^5]
[[FactCheck.org]], reviewing the manifests, counted six trips comprising the 26 flights between February 2002 and November 2003, the discrepancy between trip and leg counts arising from whether each take-off and landing is tallied separately. The documented segments included a February 2002 Miami-to-Westchester hop, a round trip from New York to London in March 2002, a May 2002 sequence through Japan, [[Hong Kong]], Singapore, and Brunei, a July 2002 stop tied to a wedding in Morocco, the September 2002 Africa tour, and a November 2003 routing through Brussels, Oslo, Hong Kong, and Beijing. President [[Donald Trump]] in 2025 claimed Clinton flew on the plane "27 or 28 times," a characterization FactCheck.org described as conflating the leg total with the number of trips; the same review found no flight log placing Clinton on an aircraft bound for the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]].[^11]
[[FactCheck.org]], reviewing the manifests, counted six trips comprising the 26 flights between February 2002 and November 2003, the discrepancy between trip and leg counts arising from whether each take-off and landing is tallied separately. The documented segments included a February 2002 Miami-to-Westchester hop, a round trip from New York to London in March 2002, a May 2002 sequence through Japan, [[Hong Kong]], Singapore, and Brunei, a July 2002 stop tied to a wedding in Morocco, the September 2002 Africa tour, and a November 2003 routing through Brussels, Oslo, Hong Kong, and Beijing. President [[Donald Trump]] in 2025 claimed Clinton flew on the plane "27 or 28 times," a characterization FactCheck.org described as conflating the leg total with the number of trips; the same review found no flight log placing Clinton on an aircraft bound for the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]].[^6]
Maxwell, deposed in the Giuffre litigation, stated of the island that "just so we are clear, the allegations that Clinton had a meal on Jeffrey's island is 100 percent false." On one of the 2003 legs, from Oslo to the Russian city of Novosibirsk, the manifest listed Clinton, Epstein, the aide [[Doug Band]], and individuals identified by the initials "GM" and "SK." No court, prosecutor, or official investigation has produced a finding that Clinton witnessed or participated in any crime aboard the aircraft.[^12][^2]
Maxwell, deposed in the Giuffre litigation, stated of the island that "just so we are clear, the allegations that Clinton had a meal on Jeffrey's island is 100 percent false." On one of the 2003 legs, from Oslo to the Russian city of Novosibirsk, the manifest listed Clinton, Epstein, the aide [[Doug Band]], and individuals identified by the initials "GM" and "SK." No court, prosecutor, or official investigation has produced a finding that Clinton witnessed or participated in any crime aboard the aircraft.[^2][^7]
### 2002 Africa Trip
Clinton departed on September 21, 2002, on a roughly nine-day trip through several African nations to advance the Clinton Foundation's early work on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, including efforts to expand access to antiretroviral medication for mothers with HIV. The itinerary ran through Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique, and South Africa and included a day spent with former South African President [[Nelson Mandela]]. FactCheck.org and reporting on the manifests counted this single trip as accounting for roughly 11 of the 26 logged flight legs.[^4][^11]
Clinton departed on September 21, 2002, on a roughly nine-day trip through several African nations to advance the Clinton Foundation's early work on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, including efforts to expand access to antiretroviral medication for mothers with HIV. The itinerary ran through Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique, and South Africa and included a day spent with former South African President [[Nelson Mandela]]. FactCheck.org and reporting on the manifests counted this single trip as accounting for roughly 11 of the 26 logged flight legs.[^6][^8]
The manifest for the outbound leg from New York to the Azores listed Clinton, the actors [[Kevin Spacey]] and [[Chris Tucker]], Epstein, Maxwell, and roughly a dozen others including Doug Band, the investor [[Ron Burkle]], [[Casey Wasserman]], former Transportation Secretary [[Rodney Slater]], and Clinton aides. Chris Tucker appears in the records on the outbound and subsequent legs of the African routing. Spacey, named on the flight log, later said he had flown with Epstein and a group described as young women and characterized his presence as incidental to the Foundation trip; he was never accused of wrongdoing in connection with it.[^4][^5]
The manifest for the outbound leg from New York to the Azores listed Clinton, the actors [[Kevin Spacey]] and [[Chris Tucker]], Epstein, Maxwell, and roughly a dozen others including Doug Band, the investor [[Ron Burkle]], [[Casey Wasserman]], former Transportation Secretary [[Rodney Slater]], and Clinton aides. Chris Tucker appears in the records on the outbound and subsequent legs of the African routing. Spacey, named on the flight log, later said he had flown with Epstein and a group described as young women and characterized his presence as incidental to the Foundation trip; he was never accused of wrongdoing in connection with it.[^8][^9]
The trip was arranged in part through Doug Band, who served as a central organizer of Clinton's post-presidential travel and of the Foundation's network of donors and contacts during this period. Clinton said through a spokesman in 2002 that he regarded Epstein as "both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets." After Epstein's 2019 arrest, Clinton's spokesman said the trips "included stops in connection with the work of The Clinton Foundation."[^5][^1]
The trip was arranged in part through Doug Band, who served as a central organizer of Clinton's post-presidential travel and of the Foundation's network of donors and contacts during this period. Clinton said through a spokesman in 2002 that he regarded Epstein as "both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets." After Epstein's 2019 arrest, Clinton's spokesman said the trips "included stops in connection with the work of The Clinton Foundation."[^1][^9]
### Denials and Statements
After Epstein's July 2019 federal arrest, Clinton's spokesman Angel Urena issued a statement saying Clinton "knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York." The statement said Clinton had taken trips on Epstein's plane in 2002 and 2003 in connection with Foundation work, that staff and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg, that Clinton had not spoken to Epstein "in well over a decade," and that Clinton "has never been to Little St. James Island." The reference in that statement to Secret Service traveling on every leg sits alongside reporting on the logs indicating Clinton flew at least some segments without his detail, a discrepancy his office has not separately reconciled in public.[^1][^2]
In his 2024 memoir *Citizen*, Clinton wrote that he wished he had never met Epstein, that traveling on Epstein's plane "was not worth the years of questioning afterward," and that he and Epstein discussed only "politics and economics." Clinton again denied visiting Little St. James and wrote that he had stopped contact with Epstein by the time of Epstein's 2005-2006 legal troubles in Florida. Clinton wrote that he had thought Epstein "odd" but had no knowledge of his crimes.[^6]
In his 2024 memoir *Citizen*, Clinton wrote that he wished he had never met Epstein, that traveling on Epstein's plane "was not worth the years of questioning afterward," and that he and Epstein discussed only "politics and economics." Clinton again denied visiting Little St. James and wrote that he had stopped contact with Epstein by the time of Epstein's 2005-2006 legal troubles in Florida. Clinton wrote that he had thought Epstein "odd" but had no knowledge of his crimes.[^10]
In a deposition compelled by the [[House Oversight Committee]], conducted behind closed doors in late February 2026 near the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, New York, Clinton again denied any knowledge of Epstein's offenses, stating "I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong" and "I saw nothing that ever gave me pause." It was the first time a former president had been compelled to testify before a congressional panel. In his opening remarks Clinton objected to the committee's separate deposition of his wife [[Hillary Clinton]], saying she "had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein" and "has no memory of even meeting him." Hillary Clinton was deposed and said she had no information relevant to the inquiry. Video of both depositions was released in early March 2026. Neither has been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.[^13][^14]
In a deposition compelled by the [[House Oversight Committee]], conducted behind closed doors in late February 2026 near the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, New York, Clinton again denied any knowledge of Epstein's offenses, stating "I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong" and "I saw nothing that ever gave me pause." It was the first time a former president had been compelled to testify before a congressional panel. In his opening remarks Clinton objected to the committee's separate deposition of his wife [[Hillary Clinton]], saying she "had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein" and "has no memory of even meeting him." Hillary Clinton was deposed and said she had no information relevant to the inquiry. Video of both depositions was released in early March 2026. Neither has been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.[^11][^12]
### References in Unsealed and Released Documents
Documents unsealed in January 2024 in the defamation case [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] included deposition testimony from [[Johanna Sjoberg]], given in 2015, in which she testified that Epstein had once said "Clinton likes them young," which she clarified referred to "girls." Sjoberg attributed the remark to Epstein as something he said and not as a statement of her own knowledge about Clinton, and said she understood Epstein to have had "dealings" with him. The same filings referenced a 2011 account in which [[Virginia Giuffre]] said she had seen Clinton on Epstein's island; Giuffre later said she did not witness a helicopter flight she had earlier described, and she made no allegation of wrongdoing by Clinton. Reporting on the January 2024 release noted that the documents did not implicate any previously unnamed person and contained no accusation of a crime by Clinton. A judge in the Maxwell litigation had previously denied a request to depose Clinton.[^7][^8]
Documents unsealed in January 2024 in the defamation case [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] included deposition testimony from [[Johanna Sjoberg]], given in 2015, in which she testified that Epstein had once said "Clinton likes them young," which she clarified referred to "girls." Sjoberg attributed the remark to Epstein as something he said and not as a statement of her own knowledge about Clinton, and said she understood Epstein to have had "dealings" with him. The same filings referenced a 2011 account in which [[Virginia Giuffre]] said she had seen Clinton on Epstein's island; Giuffre later said she did not witness a helicopter flight she had earlier described, and she made no allegation of wrongdoing by Clinton. Reporting on the January 2024 release noted that the documents did not implicate any previously unnamed person and contained no accusation of a crime by Clinton. A judge in the Maxwell litigation had previously denied a request to depose Clinton.[^13][^14]
Materials released in 2025 by the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] and the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] included flight records, estate documents, and a "birthday book" assembled by Maxwell for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. The committee made the contents public in September 2025, and the panel released more than 33,000 pages from the Justice Department on September 2, 2025. The book contained an entry attributed to Clinton, the wording of which, as released by the committee, included the line "It's reassuring isn't it, to have lasted as long, across all the years of learning and knowing, adventures and [illegible], and also to have your childlike curiosity, the drive to make a difference and the solace of friends," signed "Bill Clinton." Outlets reporting on the documents noted that the materials did not implicate Clinton in any crime.[^9][^10]
Materials released in 2025 by the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] and the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] included flight records, estate documents, and a "birthday book" assembled by Maxwell for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. The committee made the contents public in September 2025, and the panel released more than 33,000 pages from the Justice Department on September 2, 2025. The book contained an entry attributed to Clinton, the wording of which, as released by the committee, included the line "It's reassuring isn't it, to have lasted as long, across all the years of learning and knowing, adventures and [illegible], and also to have your childlike curiosity, the drive to make a difference and the solace of friends," signed "Bill Clinton." Outlets reporting on the documents noted that the materials did not implicate Clinton in any crime.[^15][^16]
On December 19, 2025, in accordance with the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]], which set that date as the deadline for Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]] to publish the unclassified federal records, the Justice Department released several hundred thousand documents, many heavily redacted. Across the 2025 and 2026 releases, totaling more than 60,000 pages by late 2025, no document established a criminal allegation against Clinton, and reporting consistently noted that his name appeared in connection with the flight logs, social contacts, and the birthday book rather than any accusation by a survivor.[^10][^14]
On December 19, 2025, in accordance with the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]], which set that date as the deadline for Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]] to publish the unclassified federal records, the Justice Department released several hundred thousand documents, many heavily redacted. Across the 2025 and 2026 releases, totaling more than 60,000 pages by late 2025, no document established a criminal allegation against Clinton, and reporting consistently noted that his name appeared in connection with the flight logs, social contacts, and the birthday book rather than any accusation by a survivor.[^12][^16]
### Chinasat-8 waiver, 1998
On February 18, 1998, Clinton made a "national interest" determination that allowed the launch of the Chinasat-8 satellite, built by [[Space Systems/Loral]], on a Chinese rocket. The Cox Committee counted twelve such determinations between 1989 and the start of 1998, three by President [[George H. W. Bush]] and nine by Clinton, including determinations dated June 23, July 9, November 19 and November 23, 1996.[^17]
A decision memorandum for the President dated February 12, 1998, from [[Samuel Berger]], [[Larry Stein]] and [[Daniel Tarullo]], stated: "We believe that the advantages of this project outweigh the risk, and that we can effectively rebut criticism of the waiver."[^18] A transmittal memorandum dated February 18, 1998 from [[Phil Caplan]] relayed a note from White House counsel [[Charles Ruff]] and stated: "The Department [of Justice] realizes the potential adverse impact on a potential criminal prosecution but has chosen not to oppose the waiver."[^18] In a December 1998 interview, [[Robert Litt]], a Justice Department official, recalled that "Certainly the Department was put on notice that there was a waiver application," and said: "I didn't believe that we were being asked for our views on whether or not the waiver should be granted as a matter of policy."[^18] The Commerce Department issued the Chinasat-8 license on March 23, 1998.[^18]
The New York Times reported on April 13, 1998 that Clinton had approved the waiver despite an ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation of Loral's alleged earlier unauthorized transfer of missile guidance technology to China.[^19] A June 1, 1998 account by [[Jeff Gerth]] and [[John M. Broder]] reported that Justice Department prosecutors had warned that the deal "could jeopardize possible prosecution of the company for an earlier unauthorized technology transfer to Beijing," that the February decision "was treated as an urgent matter not because of its importance to the national security, but because the company was facing heavy fines for delay," and that Clinton approved the waiver six days after the February 12 memorandum. The account quoted Ruff's note of February 13 that "the Department had every opportunity to weigh in against the waiver at the highest levels and elected not to do so," and noted that Justice Department officials said Ruff, in his discussion with Litt, asked only about the impact of the waiver on possible prosecution. It reported that [[Bernard L. Schwartz]], the chairman of Loral, "donated $100,000 to the Democratic Party four weeks before the waiver application was approved in early July 1996 by Clinton."[^20]
A Mother Jones profile of May 1, 1997 reported that Schwartz celebrated his 71st birthday in December 1996 with an "intimate White House dinner with the president."[^21] In October 2000 Representative [[Henry Waxman]] placed in the Congressional Record excerpts of August 1998 Justice Department memoranda, including a statement by [[Lee Radek]], chief of the public integrity section, that "there is not a scintilla of evidence or information that the President was corruptly influenced by Bernard Schwartz," in answer to Representative [[Curt Weldon]]'s May 1998 statement that the matter "involves potential treason."[^22] Senator [[Arlen Specter]] stated on May 2, 2000 that a memorandum by [[Charles LaBella]] of the Justice Department's campaign finance task force had recommended an independent prosecutor in the Loral matter, which the Los Angeles Times of May 23, 2000 reported to be a mistaken impression.[^22][^23]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Timeline: Bill Clinton's interactions with Jeffrey Epstein," *ABC News,* 2025. https://abcnews.com/US/timeline-bill-clintons-interactions-jeffrey-epstein/story?id=130567229
[^2]: "Flight logs show Bill Clinton flew on sex offender's jet much more than previously known," *Fox News,* 2016. https://www.foxnews.com/us/flight-logs-show-bill-clinton-flew-on-sex-offenders-jet-much-more-than-previously-known
[^3]: "Report: Bill Clinton Flew on Disgraced Donor's Jet 26 Times," *Roll Call,* 2016. https://rollcall.com/2016/05/13/report-bill-clinton-flew-on-disgraced-donors-jet-26-times/
[^4]: "How well did Bill Clinton know Jeffrey Epstein?," *ABC News,* 2025. https://abcnews.com/Politics/bill-clinton-jeffrey-epstein/story?id=127629827
[^5]: "Kevin Spacey admits to flying with Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton and a group of young girls," *AOL,* 2025. https://www.aol.com/kevin-spacey-admits-flying-jeffrey-195850925.html
[^6]: "Bill Clinton denies visiting Epstein island in new memoir and wishes he 'had never met him'," *Fox News,* 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/us/bill-clinton-denies-visiting-epstein-island-new-memoir-wishes-he-had-never-met-him
[^7]: "The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein's Unsealed Documents," *Time,* 2024. https://time.com/6552063/jeffrey-epsteins-unsealed-court-documents/
[^8]: Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), unsealed exhibits, January 2024. https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/Giuffre%20v.%20Maxwell,%20No.%20115-cv-07433%20(S.D.N.Y.%202015)/
[^9]: "Bill Clinton letter in Epstein 'birthday book' among new files released by House Oversight Committee," *Fox News,* 2025. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-clinton-letter-epstein-birthday-book-among-new-files-released-house-oversight-committee.amp
[^10]: "Epstein files totaling more than 60,000 pages have already been released this year. Here's what we've seen so far," *CBS News,* 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epstein-files-released-2025-so-far/
[^11]: "The Epstein Connections Fueling Conspiracy Theories," *FactCheck.org,* 2019, counting six trips and 26 flights, February 2002 to November 2003. https://www.factcheck.org/2019/08/the-epstein-connections-fueling-conspiracy-theories/
[^12]: "The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein's Unsealed Documents," *Time,* 2024, on the Maxwell deposition statement about the island. https://time.com/6552063/jeffrey-epsteins-unsealed-court-documents/
[^13]: "Bill Clinton defends himself at House deposition on Epstein: 'I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,'" *CBS News,* 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-clinton-epstein-house-oversight-committee-deposition/
[^14]: "Videos of Clinton depositions in Epstein investigation released," *The Washington Post,* 2026. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/02/bill-hillary-clinton-deposition-videos/
[^15]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies.* Dell, 1997, on the 1995 declassification and termination of the Stargate remote-viewing program and William Perry's earlier funding role.
[^16]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 7, on the Mena airport operations, Barry Seal, Danny Ray Lasater, and the Arkansas trooper testimony.
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 7, on the Mena airport operations, Barry Seal, Danny Ray Lasater, and the Arkansas trooper testimony.
[^4]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies.* Dell, 1997, on the 1995 declassification and termination of the Stargate remote-viewing program and William Perry's earlier funding role.
[^5]: "Report: Bill Clinton Flew on Disgraced Donor's Jet 26 Times," *Roll Call,* 2016. https://rollcall.com/2016/05/13/report-bill-clinton-flew-on-disgraced-donors-jet-26-times/
[^6]: "The Epstein Connections Fueling Conspiracy Theories," *FactCheck.org,* 2019, counting six trips and 26 flights, February 2002 to November 2003. https://www.factcheck.org/2019/08/the-epstein-connections-fueling-conspiracy-theories/
[^7]: "The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein's Unsealed Documents," *Time,* 2024, on the Maxwell deposition statement about the island. https://time.com/6552063/jeffrey-epsteins-unsealed-court-documents/
[^8]: "How well did Bill Clinton know Jeffrey Epstein?," *ABC News,* 2025. https://abcnews.com/Politics/bill-clinton-jeffrey-epstein/story?id=127629827
[^9]: "Kevin Spacey admits to flying with Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton and a group of young girls," *AOL,* 2025. https://www.aol.com/kevin-spacey-admits-flying-jeffrey-195850925.html
[^10]: "Bill Clinton denies visiting Epstein island in new memoir and wishes he 'had never met him'," *Fox News,* 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/us/bill-clinton-denies-visiting-epstein-island-new-memoir-wishes-he-had-never-met-him
[^11]: "Bill Clinton defends himself at House deposition on Epstein: 'I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,'" *CBS News,* 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-clinton-epstein-house-oversight-committee-deposition/
[^12]: "Videos of Clinton depositions in Epstein investigation released," *The Washington Post,* 2026. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/02/bill-hillary-clinton-deposition-videos/
[^13]: "The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein's Unsealed Documents," *Time,* 2024. https://time.com/6552063/jeffrey-epsteins-unsealed-court-documents/
[^14]: Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), unsealed exhibits, January 2024. https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/Giuffre%20v.%20Maxwell,%20No.%20115-cv-07433%20(S.D.N.Y.%202015)/
[^15]: "Bill Clinton letter in Epstein 'birthday book' among new files released by House Oversight Committee," *Fox News,* 2025. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-clinton-letter-epstein-birthday-book-among-new-files-released-house-oversight-committee.amp
[^16]: "Epstein files totaling more than 60,000 pages have already been released this year. Here's what we've seen so far," *CBS News,* 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epstein-files-released-2025-so-far/
[^17]: U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, Report (H. Rept. 105-851), vol. III, ch. 9, p. 50 (national-interest determinations from 1989 to 1998; the February 18, 1998 determination for Chinasat-8), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/pdf/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851.pdf
[^18]: Cox Report, vol. III, ch. 9, pp. 51 to 52 and p. 185, note 169 (decision memorandum of February 12, 1998; Caplan transmittal of February 18, 1998; Litt's account, interview of December 8, 1998, printed in the notes as "1988"; Commerce license of March 23, 1998), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/pdf/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851.pdf
[^19]: The New York Times, April 13, 1998, as reported in U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, Report (H. Rept. 105-851), vol. III, ch. 9, p. 51, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/pdf/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851.pdf
[^20]: Jeff Gerth and John M. Broder, "The White House Dismissed Warnings on China Satellite Deal," The New York Times, June 1, 1998, reprinted in the Congressional Record, House, June 18, 1998, pp. H4758 to H4760, https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/china/1998/h980618-prc7.htm
[^21]: Dave Eisenstadt, "Orbiter of Power," Mother Jones, May 1, 1997, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1997/05/orbiter-power/
[^22]: Henry A. Waxman, extension of remarks, Congressional Record, October 28, 2000, p. E1991 (quoting Radek's memorandum of August 5, 1998, LaBella's of August 12, 1998, and the Los Angeles Times of May 23, 2000), https://www.govinfo.gov/link/crec/146/E/1991 The statement is Waxman's characterization, made in a dispute with Weldon.
[^23]: Shirley A. Kan, Congressional Research Service Report 98-485, updated March 27, 2003, pp. 7 to 9, https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20030327_98-485_ee468327e241c908e7fe19dc62e4d7f02279db65.html

17
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dwight D. Eisenhower.md
View file

@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ aliases:
- President Eisenhower
- Dwight David Eisenhower
created: 2026-05-14
updated: 2026-10-05
updated: 2026-10-09
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
- KeyFigure
@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ The journalist [[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that Eisenhower had been concerned about
The published Eisenhower Library and National Archives record, assembled by the [[National Security Archive]] and the Wilson Center, dates the administration's discovery to the last months of 1960. In late July 1960 embassy officials in Tel Aviv learned from an American Machine and Foundry employee that French personnel were building what he described as a 60 megawatt power reactor near Beersheba; Professor Henry Gomberg of the [[University of Michigan]], a consultant to the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, reported on December 1, 1960 that Israel was building a large secret project; and Special National Intelligence Estimate 100-8-60, issued on December 8, 1960, determined that the complex included a reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. The January 1961 CIA post-mortem stated that "information was available to some elements of the intelligence community as early as April 1958" and that information from "special intelligence sources in mid 1959" had been discounted. The Wilson Center editors wrote that it "is still a puzzle whether, and to what extent, U-2 overhead photographs were especially telling or whether they were being distributed within the intelligence community."[^6]
On December 8, 1960, with Eisenhower presiding, the National Security Council heard [[Allen Dulles]] report that Israel was building with French assistance a complex including a reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, and passed around photographs taken by the United States Army attaché; Secretary of State [[Christian A. Herter]] said the Arab reaction would be "severe," and Under Secretary of the Treasury Fred Scribner suggested that "Jewish charitable organizations in the U.S." with tax-deductible contributions might have been a funding source. On December 19, 1960, after press reports partly based on leaks by Atomic Energy Commission chairman [[John McCone]], Eisenhower met Herter, Dulles, McCone, [[Thomas S. Gates]] (Secretary of Defense), the science adviser [[George Kistiakowsky]] and Gray. Gates said "our information is that the plant is not for peaceful uses"; McCone said his people believed there was a chemical separation plant; Herter said the plant had been built "through diversions from private and public [U.S.] aid to Israel"; and Eisenhower said "we had evidence" the cost was between $100 and $200 million and that "we do not know where they have obtained the funds." Eisenhower agreed that the American public statement should call on Israel, as an IAEA member, to allow inspection, said a visit to the site by the United States would be unnecessary if the agency inspected it, and the meeting ended with the decision that the State Department rather than the White House would handle the matter. Portions of the December 8 and December 19 records remained classified, and the editors noted that the classified portions of the December 8 record were the subject of a mandatory declassification review request filed in 2014.[^6]
On December 8, 1960, with Eisenhower presiding, the National Security Council heard Allen Dulles report that Israel was building with French assistance a complex including a reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, and passed around photographs taken by the United States Army attaché; Secretary of State [[Christian A. Herter]] said the Arab reaction would be "severe," and Under Secretary of the Treasury Fred Scribner suggested that "Jewish charitable organizations in the U.S." with tax-deductible contributions might have been a funding source. On December 19, 1960, after press reports partly based on leaks by Atomic Energy Commission chairman [[John McCone]], Eisenhower met Herter, Dulles, McCone, [[Thomas S. Gates]] (Secretary of Defense), the science adviser [[George Kistiakowsky]] and Gray. Gates said "our information is that the plant is not for peaceful uses"; McCone said his people believed there was a chemical separation plant; Herter said the plant had been built "through diversions from private and public [U.S.] aid to Israel"; and Eisenhower said "we had evidence" the cost was between $100 and $200 million and that "we do not know where they have obtained the funds." Eisenhower agreed that the American public statement should call on Israel, as an IAEA member, to allow inspection, said a visit to the site by the United States would be unnecessary if the agency inspected it, and the meeting ended with the decision that the State Department rather than the White House would handle the matter. Portions of the December 8 and December 19 records remained classified, and the editors noted that the classified portions of the December 8 record were the subject of a mandatory declassification review request filed in 2014.[^6]
On January 19, 1961 the State Department told the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy that Israel and France had given "unequivocal" official statements as to the non-military character of the Israeli program, that Israel had given "formal assurance that visitors from the United States or another friendly country will be received when the present intense public interest in the question has subsided," and that the Department would "take any feasible measures to damp down speculation."[^7]
@ -87,11 +87,15 @@ On January 19, 1961 the State Department told the Joint Committee on Atomic Ener
A document headed "Briefing Document: Operation Majestic 12 Prepared for President-Elect Dwight D. Eisenhower (Eyes Only), 18 November 1952," and a memorandum dated July 14, 1954 from the presidential assistant [[Robert Cutler]] to General [[Nathan Twining]] referring to an "NSC/MJ-12 Special Studies Project" and a briefing on July 16, 1954, are the two documents on which the Majestic-12 claims connect to Eisenhower; see [[Majestic-12]] and [[Cutler-Twining memorandum]].
The National Archives' Military Reference Branch recorded on July 22, 1987, in a reference report signed by Jo Anne Williamson, that the Cutler memorandum in Record Group 341 lacks the top secret register number the series requires, is the only item in its folder about "NSC/MJ-12," carries a marking, "Top Secret Restricted Information," that the National Security Council and the Eisenhower Library said was not used in the Eisenhower administration, and bears no eagle watermark of the kind found on all Cutler documents in the Library's collection; that a search of National Security Council meeting minutes found no meeting on July 16, 1954 and no mention of MJ-12 or Majestic; and that a folder titled "Special Meeting July 16, 1954" held a notice that NSC members would be called to a civil defense exercise. The Eisenhower Library wrote on July 16, 1987 that the President's appointment books contain no entry for a special meeting on July 16, 1954, that Cutler was visiting overseas military installations on July 14, 1954 at Eisenhower's direction (a report to the President dated July 20, 1954 refers to visits between July 3 and 15), and that the NSC's declassification office had no record of declassification of the memorandum.[^8] The researchers who published the documents, [[William L. Moore]] and [[Jaime Shandera]], and later commentators including [[Stanton T. Friedman]] took positions on authenticity that are recorded on the [[Majestic-12]] page.
The National Archives' Military Reference Branch recorded on July 22, 1987, in a reference report signed by Jo Anne Williamson, that the Cutler memorandum in Record Group 341 lacks the top secret register number the series requires, is the only item in its folder about "NSC/MJ-12," carries a marking, "Top Secret Restricted Information," that the National Security Council and the Eisenhower Library said was not used in the Eisenhower administration, and bears no eagle watermark of the kind found on all Cutler documents in the Library's collection; that a search of National Security Council meeting minutes found no meeting on July 16, 1954 and no mention of MJ-12 or Majestic; and that a folder titled "Special Meeting July 16, 1954" held a notice that NSC members would be called to a civil defense exercise. The Eisenhower Library wrote on July 16, 1987 that the President's appointment books contain no entry for a special meeting on July 16, 1954, that Cutler was visiting overseas military installations on July 14, 1954 at Eisenhower's direction (a report to the President dated July 20, 1954 refers to visits between July 3 and 15), and that the NSC's declassification office had no record of declassification of the memorandum.[^8] The researchers who published the documents, [[William L. Moore]] and [[Jaime Shandera]], and later commentators including [[Stanton T. Friedman]] took positions on authenticity that are recorded on the Majestic-12 page.
### Wilhelm Reich and weather control
[[Wilhelm Reich]]'s journal CORE (July 1954) states that "the legislative procedures of the Eisenhower administration which tended to secure safety in weather control were greatly appreciated," reproduces a New York Times report of July 11, 1953 of Eisenhower's remarks on drought, and records Army planes over Orgonon on July 8, 1953.[^9] Reich's Contact with Space states that Mr. Douglas of Tucson, described as a member of "President Eisenhower's advisory board," wrote in late 1954 requesting a personal discussion.[^10] On March 21, 1957 [[William Moise]] wrote to Senator [[Margaret Chase Smith]] that he faced the decision whether to use orgone energy "to storm and flood portions of the U.S.A." and that the responsibility for such a decision rests with "the few genuinely responsible government persons such as yourself and the President"; the Senator's administrative assistant gave the letter to the FBI on March 25, 1957.[^11]
### Farewell address, January 17, 1961
In his farewell radio and television address on January 17, 1961, Eisenhower said: "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government." He continued: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." On research he said that "a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity" and warned "that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."[^9]
In his farewell radio and television address on January 17, 1961, Eisenhower said: "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government." He continued: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." On research he said that "a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity" and warned "that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."[^12]
### Footnotes
@ -103,4 +107,7 @@ In his farewell radio and television address on January 17, 1961, Eisenhower sai
[^6]: "The U.S. Discovery of Israel's Secret Nuclear Project," sections "The Eisenhower Administration and the Discovery of Dimona," Documents 1 to 14, including the post-mortem on SNIE 100-8-60, the National Security Council meeting of December 8, 1960 and the meeting of December 19, 1960 (Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Christian Herter Papers; White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, International Series, box 8, Israel (3)); also National Security Archive, "Israel and the Bomb: Dimona Revealed." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/israel/documents/reveal/
[^7]: Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations William B. Macomber, Jr., to Executive Director of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, January 19, 1961, with enclosed summary of January 17, 1961, *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963*, Volume XVII, Near East 1961-1962, Document 3. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v17/d3
[^8]: National Archives and Records Administration, Military Reference Branch, "Reference Report on MJ-12," July 22, 1987 (Jo Anne Williamson, Chief), quoting the Eisenhower Library letter of July 16, 1987 to NNMR; text as transcribed at https://mirror.cyberbits.eu/textfiles.com/ufo/UFOBBS/2000/2437.ufo
[^9]: Eisenhower, Dwight D. "Farewell Radio and Television Address to the American People," January 17, 1961, Public Papers of the Presidents. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/farewell-radio-and-television-address-the-american-people
[^9]: Wilhelm Reich, CORE vol. 6 nos. 1 to 4 (July 1954), https://archive.org/details/contact-from-space-by-wilhelm-reich.
[^10]: Wilhelm Reich, Contact with Space: Oranur Second Report, 1951-1956 (Core Pilot Press, 1957), p. 132, https://archive.org/details/wilhelm-reich-contact-with-space. Sole source.
[^11]: Moise to Smith, March 21, 1957, and Nease to Tolson, March 25, 1957, Wilhelm Reich FBI file, Part 6, https://archive.org/details/WilhelmReichFBI.
[^12]: Eisenhower, Dwight D. "Farewell Radio and Television Address to the American People," January 17, 1961, Public Papers of the Presidents. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/farewell-radio-and-television-address-the-american-people

16
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Eileen Garrett.md
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@ -8,6 +8,15 @@ summary: "Eileen Garrett was an Irish medium who was well-known in New York City
born: 1893-03-17
died: 1970-09-15
location: "Beauparc, County Meath, Ireland"
updated: 2026-10-09
relations:
- type: reported_to
with: "[[Martin Ebon]]"
reverse: true
role: "administrative secretary to the founder of the Parapsychology Foundation"
start: 1953
end: 1965
fn: 2
---
@ -15,6 +24,11 @@ Eileen Garrett was an Irish medium who was well-known in New York City parapsych
Garrett's psychic abilities were tested in a [[Faraday cage]] using Zener cards. According to Puharich, her ESP scores were significantly higher inside the cage, which suggested that electronic shielding had a positive impact on psychic functioning.[^1]
---
[[Martin Ebon]] was administrative secretary of the [[Parapsychology Foundation]], which Garrett founded, from 1953 to 1965 according to the Skeptical Inquirer's biography of him; another biography dates the post from 1954.[^2] Ebon's masthead roles at the magazine Tomorrow are documented: volume 4 (1956) lists Garrett as editor-publisher, Ebon as managing editor, Lenore Davison as assistant to the publisher and Lester Buckland as circulation and business manager, Garrett Publications, 500 Fifth Avenue; volume 9 (1961) lists Phoebe Moss as associate editor and Gorham Munson as consulting editor, with Ebon identified as managing editor of Tomorrow and administrative secretary of the Parapsychology Foundation.[^3] Ebon is listed among participants (U.S.A.) at the Foundation's First International Conference of Parapsychological Studies, Utrecht, July 1953, with Miss I. Jephson, Dr. Henry Margenau and Dr. Louis Mars.[^3] The New School Archives hold an "Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship, 1975" file regarding a scholarship to take a New School course in parapsychology.[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
[^2]: Skeptical Inquirer, "Martin Ebon," author biography (administrative secretary of the Parapsychology Foundation, 1953 to 1965). https://skepticalinquirer.org/authors/martin-ebon/
[^3]: Tomorrow, vol. 4 (1956), p. 122, https://books.google.com/books?id=OHUPAQAAIAAJ ; vol. 9 (1961), https://books.google.com/books?id=8HAPAQAAIAAJ
[^4]: New School Archives and Special Collections, Adult Division Office of the Dean records (NS-02-01-01), Series 5, Box 7, Folder 43, "Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship, 1975." https://findingaids.archives.newschool.edu/repositories/3

18
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jeffrey Epstein.md
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@ -185,8 +185,14 @@ relations:
with: "[[Mark Epstein]]"
role: "brother"
fn: 94
- type: funded
with: "[[New School for Social Research]]"
start: 2014
end: 2019
role: "tuition and transfers paid from Epstein accounts, as recorded in Deutsche Bank statements and a Deutsche Bank exhibit"
fn: 153
created: 2026-06-18
updated: 2026-10-08
updated: 2026-10-09
---
Jeffrey Epstein (January 20, 1953 to August 10, 2019) was an American financier and convicted sex offender who, with his companion [[Ghislaine Maxwell]], ran a sex-trafficking operation that recruited and abused dozens of underage girls across his residences in [[Manhattan]], [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]], [[New Mexico]], the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]], and [[Paris]]. He built a social and financial network that encompassed technology billionaires ([[Peter Thiel]], [[Bill Gates]], [[Elon Musk]], [[Reid Hoffman]], [[Mark Zuckerberg]]), heads of state and politicians ([[Bill Clinton]], [[Ehud Barak]], [[Prince Andrew]], [[Donald Trump]]), diplomats and intelligence officials ([[William Burns]], [[Vitaly Churkin]]), financiers and executives ([[Leslie Wexner]], [[Leon Black]], [[Tom Pritzker]], [[Howard Lutnick]]), and prominent scientists ([[Martin Nowak]], [[Marvin Minsky]], [[George Church]], [[Stephen Hawking]]) brokered through the literary agent [[John Brockman]]. The source of his fortune was never satisfactorily explained, his long association with [[Robert Maxwell|Robert Maxwell's]] daughter raised documented intelligence questions, and his death in federal custody in 2019 was ruled a suicide over disputes that have not been resolved.[^1][^2][^3]
@ -361,6 +367,12 @@ Deutsche Bank informally designated Epstein an "Honorary PEP," or politically ex
The post-death litigation produced large settlements. In 2022 Epstein's estate agreed to pay the U.S. Virgin Islands more than 105 million dollars, plus the repayment of 80,576,236 dollars in tax benefits and half the proceeds of Little St. James. In 2023 JPMorgan paid 290 million dollars to victims and 75 million dollars to the Virgin Islands, and Deutsche Bank paid 75 million dollars to victims. Staley, who managed the Epstein banking relationship at JPMorgan before becoming chief executive of Barclays, was banned from senior UK financial roles and fined by the [[Financial Conduct Authority]] in a decision dated May 30, 2023 and published that October, which the Upper Tribunal upheld in June 2025 while reducing the penalty to 1,107,306.92 pounds; the ban took effect with the Authority's Final Notice of July 23, 2025. The [[Epstein Victims' Compensation Program]]'s administrator, [[Jordana Feldman]], announced in 2021 nearly 125 million dollars in payments to 150 eligible claimants; the co-executors' lawyers later put it at 121 million dollars to 136 claimants, and the estate separately settled with 58 women for about 48 million dollars.[^11][^20][^104][^106][^107][^108]
### Payments to The New School
Deutsche Bank statements for Epstein's account record payments to [[New School for Social Research|The New School]]. The August 2015 statement lists an outgoing transfer on August 6 of $16,083.00 to a Bank of America account with the beneficiary line "E NEW SCHOOL OPERATING ACCOUNT."[^150] The October 2016 statement lists a preauthorized debit dated October 27 of $17,030.00 described as "TUITION THE NEW SCHOOL."[^151] The May 2017 statement lists a preauthorized debit dated May 10 of $10,856.00 described as "TUITION THE NEW SCHOOL"; the same page lists an outgoing transfer on May 11 of $3,589.00 through [[Sterling National Bank]] with the beneficiary line "FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY," and, on May 19, an American Express payment of $89,103.78.[^152]
A Deutsche Bank presentation to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, dated September 12, 2019, lists nine payments to The New School from Epstein accounts in an exhibit titled "Tuition Payments on Behalf of Children / Women": $29,025 (February 4, 2014), $15,704 (January 5, 2015), $4,730 (June 12, 2015), $16,083 (August 6, 2015), $16,656 (December 9, 2015), $4,420 (June 14, 2016), $16,850 (July 8, 2016), $3,756 (January 13, 2017) and $8,790 (January 10, 2019). The beneficiary is redacted; the exhibit's background column describes the redacted beneficiary as one who "appears to be a Russian model" and as "listed as a beneficiary of the Butterfly Trust." The exhibit's only [[New York Film Academy]] entry is $3,442 on March 10, 2017.[^153]
### The Virgin Islands Government
According to JPMorgan's 2023 filings in the territory's suit against the bank, Epstein's local affairs were managed by [[Cecile de Jongh]], the office manager of Southern Trust and the wife of Governor [[John de Jongh]] (in office 2007 to 2015), who helped Epstein shape legislation affecting sex-offender monitoring and the Economic Development Commission benefits while Epstein-linked entities paid family expenses. On the day the commission's certificate for Southern Trust was dated, January 24, 2014, Cecile de Jongh asked Epstein to match 15,000 dollars for her husband's final State of the Territory reception and asked Richard Kahn to make out a check to the "Governor's Special Events Fund." The commission's general counsel from 2007 to 2014 was [[Stacey Plaskett]], later the territory's delegate to Congress, who acknowledged receiving about 30,000 dollars in campaign contributions from Epstein and his employees. Epstein's office also handled requests from the Mapp-Potter inaugural committee (10,000 dollars from Southern Trust, December 2014), a Mapp super PAC (75,000 dollars, September 2016), and the Bryan/Roach inaugural committee (25,000 dollars requested, December 2018; payment not shown).[^11][^109][^110]
@ -564,3 +576,7 @@ The 2025 and 2026 releases produced resignations and removals without prosecutio
[^147]: "Summers Resigns From OpenAI Board Amid Backlash Over Epstein Emails." *The Harvard Crimson,* November 19, 2025. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/19/summers-resigns-open-ai/ ; "Larry Summers banned for life from American Economic Association." Associated Press via *Fortune,* December 3, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/12/03/larry-summers-banned-for-life-from-american-economic-association
[^148]: Chapman, Michelle. "Thomas Pritzker steps down from Hyatt board, saying he deeply regrets association with Epstein." Associated Press via *PBS NewsHour,* February 17, 2026. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/thomas-pritzker-steps-down-from-hyatt-board-saying-he-deeply-regrets-association-with-epstein
[^149]: *CBS News,* February 2026, on Ruemmler's resignation as Goldman Sachs general counsel. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kathryn-ruemmler-resigning-from-goldman-sachs-epstein-files/
[^150]: DOJ Epstein Library, file EFTA01285659, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas statement for Jeffrey Epstein, August 1 to 31, 2015, page 1 of 5: "08-06 Outgoing Money Trnsf TO BANK OF AMERICA A/C [redacted] TH E NEW SCHOOL OPERATING ACCOUNT (16,083.00)."
[^151]: DOJ Epstein Library, file EFTA01286417 (Bates EFTA01286419), Deutsche Bank statement for October 1 to 31, 2016, page 3 of 5: "10-27 Preauthorized Debit ... TUITION THE NEW SCHOOL (17,030.00)."
[^152]: DOJ Epstein Library, file EFTA01299344 (Bates EFTA01299345), Deutsche Bank statement for May 1 to 31, 2017, page 2 of 5: "05-10 Preauthorized Debit ... TUITION THE NEW SCHOOL (10,856.00)"; "05-11 Outgoing Money Trnsf TO STERLING NATIONAL BANK A/C [redacted] FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (3,589.00)"; "05-19 Preauthorized Debit ... ACH PMT AMEX EPAYMENT (89,103.78)."
[^153]: DOJ Epstein Library, file EFTA01681865, page marked EFTA01681912 (printed page 49), Deutsche Bank presentation to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, September 12, 2019, Exhibit R, "Tuition Payments on Behalf of Children / Women."

23
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John Gittinger.md
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@ -11,7 +11,13 @@ born: 1909
died: 2003
location: Washington, D.C.
created: 2026-06-03
updated: 2026-06-03
updated: 2026-10-09
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology]]"
start: 1957
role: "field representative, per the 1957 annual report"
fn: 3
---
John Gittinger was a heavy-set, goateed native of [[Oklahoma]] who in his later years came to resemble actor Walter Slezak, looking more like someone's kindly grandfather than a calculating theoretician. He had an almost insatiable curiosity about personality and spent most of his waking hours tinkering with and trying to perfect his [[Personality Assessment System]] (PAS). So obsessed did he become that he always had the feeling, even after other researchers had verified large chunks of it, that the whole thing was "a kind of paranoid delusion." Top Agency officials were so impressed that they gave the PAS a place in most agent-connected activities. During the [[Cuban missile crisis|Cuban Missile Crisis]], it was Gittinger who was summoned to the [[White House]] to advise on how [[Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev]] would react to American pressure.[^1][^2]
@ -25,6 +31,16 @@ Gittinger built an office within the Agency that refined both [[Henry Murray]]'s
In 1962 Gittinger and his coworkers moved to [[Psychological Assessment Associates]], a CIA proprietary company in Washington. He served as president and personally opened a branch office in Tokyo, later moved to [[Hong Kong]]. The Washington staff grew to about 15 professionals. Gittinger patiently taught his system to colleagues but was never able to show anyone how to use it as skillfully as he did. His system was full of interrelations and variables he instinctively understood but had not articulated. Even after Agency officials spent a fortune trying to computerize the PAS, the machine "couldn't tie down all the variables" that Gittinger carried in his head.[^2]
### Human Ecology Records
The 1957 annual report of the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology lists John W. Gittinger as field representative, under president [[Harold Wolff]] and executive secretary [[James Monroe]].[^3] The report states that in October 1957 the Society made funds available to the [[Educational Testing Service]] "for the investigation of the interrelationships between two broad theories of personality: The John Gittinger Theory and the Isabel Briggs Myers Theory," and that the Service was administering the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to the same group of people, with the objective "to unify the Gittinger-Myers theories into a larger coherent picture." The project is listed under "Personality Studies" with Dr. [[David R. Saunders]].[^3] Marks writes that the Society gave about $140,000 to Saunders, "who knew about the Agency's involvement."[^4]
A CIA memorandum of June 9, 1961 on MKULTRA Subproject 134, a $22,000 body-typing study, states: "This work fits into our indirect assessment requirement and will contribute to the Wechsler-Bellevue work in which Dr." [redacted] "is engaging."[^5] A memorandum of August 24, 1961 on Subproject 137, a $2,000 graphology lexicon, states that the Technical Services Division "continues to approach the problem of handwriting identification and analysis in a number of ways" in support of its "general requirement to further the Agency's capability for the indirect assessment of personality."[^6]
Marks writes that "At Gittinger's urging, other Human Ecology grantees gave the Wechsler battery to their experimental subjects and sent him the scores," and, of the Society's graphology work, that it "wound up funding handwriting research and a publication in West Germany" and sponsored a comparison of handwriting analyses with Wechsler scores of actors, psychotherapy patients, criminal psychopaths and fashion models, after which "Gittinger went on to hire a resident graphologist."[^4]
At the August 3, 1977 hearing Gittinger testified: "The Agency in effect provided the money. They did not direct the projects," that "there are a lot of innocent people who received the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology money which I know for a fact they were never asked to do anything for the CIA," and, asked over what period this took place: "As far as I was concerned, it was the period of time ending in 1961. I believe the Human Ecology fund finally phased out in 1965, but I was not involved in this phasing out." He estimated the budget at "about $150,000 a year, but don't hold me to that."[^7] A February 1963 CIA memorandum on Subproject 137 refers to "The Fund."[^6]
### Operational Applications
The TSS assessment staff used the PAS to recommend recruitment strategies and exploitation methods for agents. They contributed to psychological profiles of world leaders, continuing the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] tradition of analyzing figures like Hitler. The system helped identify "soft spots" for approaching targets. "I've heard John say there's always something that someone wants," a former colleague said. "And with the PAS you can find out what it is. It's not necessarily sex or booze. Sometimes it's status or recognition or security." Gittinger himself journeyed to the West Coast to test homosexuals, lesbians, and prostitutes under [[George White]]'s auspices in the San Francisco safehouse. In 1966, Gittinger personally took part in selecting members of an anti-terrorist police unit in Uruguay.[^2]
@ -39,3 +55,8 @@ In 1973 Gittinger and associate John Winne published a description of the PAS in
[^1]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*, Chapter 1.
[^2]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*, Chapter 10.
[^3]: Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, 1957 Annual Report (officers and staff; Review of Projects, "Educational Testing Service, Two Theories of Personality"). Wayback Machine capture of https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21090820/1957-annual-report-society-human-ecology.pdf
[^4]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate* (Times Books, 1979), chapter 10, pp. 168 (Saunders grant), 170 (Wechsler scores), 171 n. (graphology).
[^5]: MKULTRA Subproject 134, CIA release DOC_0000017393, memorandum of June 9, 1961. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017393
[^6]: MKULTRA Subproject 137, CIA release DOC_0000017396, memorandum for the record of August 24, 1961 and accounting memorandum of February 1963. https://archive.org/details/DOC_0000017396
[^7]: *Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification*, Joint Hearing, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, 95th Congress, 1st Session, August 3, 1977, testimony of John Gittinger.

239
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Martin Ebon.md Normal file
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@ -0,0 +1,239 @@
---
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
- Parapsychology
- Psi
- SovietAffairs
- ColdWar
- InformationAgency
- VoiceOfAmerica
- ParapsychologyFoundation
- PsychicWarfare
- SurvivalResearch
- NewSchool
created: 2026-10-09
updated: 2026-10-09
aliases:
- Martin Ebon
- Hans Martin Schwarz
- Hans Martin Schwartz
- Ebon, Martin
summary: "Martin Ebon, a wartime and Voice of America information officer, became administrative secretary of the Parapsychology Foundation and wrote Psychic Warfare (1983)."
born: 1917-05-27
died: 2006-02-11
location: "Hamburg, Germany"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Overseas News Agency]]"
role: "Managing editor, Foreign Language Division"
start: 1943
end: 1943
fn: 4
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Office of War Information]]"
role: "Staff member; chief, Foreign News Section, Overseas News and Features Bureau"
start: 1943
end: 1945
fn: 4
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Voice of America]]"
role: "Radio information specialist (GS-11); chief, Pakistan unit (GS-13); director of Vietnamese, Indonesian, Hindi and Urdu language units"
start: 1950
end: 1953
fn: 9
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Hill and Knowlton]]"
role: "Account executive"
start: 1952
end: 1953
fn: 15
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Parapsychology Foundation]]"
role: "Administrative secretary"
start: 1953
end: 1965
fn: 17
- type: reported_to
with: "[[Eileen Garrett]]"
role: "Administrative secretary to the founder"
start: 1953
end: 1965
fn: 16
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Tomorrow (magazine)]]"
role: "Managing editor"
start: 1955
fn: 20
- type: employed_by
with: "[[New School for Social Research]]"
role: "Lecturer, Division of Social Sciences; lecture series Parapsychology: From Magic to Science"
start: 1966
end: 1968
fn: 24
- type: director_of
with: "[[Survival Research Foundation]]"
role: "Chairman"
start: 1971
fn: 28
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]]"
role: "Panelist, Psychic Arms Race session, Stanford University conference"
start: 1984
end: 1984
fn: 41
---
Martin Ebon was the pen name of Hans Martin Schwarz, a journalist and author born in [[Hamburg]] on May 27, 1917.[^1] He served in the [[Office of War Information]] and the [[United States Department of State]] information program, directed language units of the [[Voice of America]] in New York in 1950 and after, and from 1953 was administrative secretary of the [[Parapsychology Foundation]] under [[Eileen Garrett]]. He wrote books on Soviet affairs and on parapsychology, among them *Psychic Warfare: Threat or Illusion?* (1983).[^2]
### Early life and emigration
Schwarz wrote for German-Jewish periodicals during the 1930s, chiefly the [[Israelitisches Familienblatt]], and the [[Leo Baeck Institute]] holds clippings of his articles from 1934 to 1938 and reviews of two of his books.[^1] A 1948 biographical entry gives his birth in Hamburg to Julius and Martha Ebon, study at the University of Hamburg and at the Hochschule fuer Politik in Berlin, and a journalistic apprenticeship in Berlin in 1934.[^3] A reference work on emigrants lists his father Julius as a manufacturer, his mother as Martha Ludwig, and a sibling named Ellie, with the parents arriving in the United States in 1941 and Ellie in 1940.[^4]
He emigrated to the United States in 1938 and was naturalized in 1945.[^3] The 1948 entry lists him as unmarried.[^3] In 1949 he married [[Chariklia S. Baltazzi]]; their son was Andrew Richard.[^4]
### Overseas News Agency, Office of War Information and Department of State
In 1941 and 1942 Ebon was a contributing correspondent of the [[Christian Science Monitor]].[^3] The 1948 entry lists him as managing editor of the Foreign Language Division of the [[Overseas News Agency]] in 1943, and a 1945 contributor note in *Free World* describes him as a staff member of that agency who also acted as managing editor of its Foreign Language Division.[^3][^5] The emigrant reference work gives the same post.[^4]
From 1943 to 1945 he was on the staff of the Office of War Information, as chief of its basic news intelligence desk in 1943 and then as chief of the Foreign News Section of its Overseas News and Features Bureau.[^3] Contributor notes of 1946 and 1948 describe him as having served with the Department of State as an information officer, and as a staff member of the [[Foreign Policy Association]].[^6] His 1948 entry gives his office address as the [[Partisan Review]], 1545 Broadway, New York.[^3]
In 1948 [[Whittlesey House]], the trade imprint of [[McGraw-Hill]], published his *World Communism Today*, a country-by-country reference work; its acknowledgment states that data had been obtained from government officials and from functionaries of Communist parties in all parts of the world.[^7] Two 1948 articles, "World Communism Has Passed Its Peak" and "The New Communist Internationals," appeared under his name.[^3] The *American Mercury* note for the second describes him as the author of *World Communism Today* and as having worked for the State Department, the Office of War Information and the Foreign Policy Association.[^8] A 1948 contributor note in the *Middle East Journal* describes him as a member of the faculty of the [[New School for Social Research]].[^9]
### Voice of America
The Department of State's *Biographic Register* records that Ebon, born May 27, 1917, was appointed radio information specialist (GS-11) in the Department of State on August 31, 1950, and became chief of the Pakistan unit (GS-13) on June 10, 1951; the entry in the supplement of April 1, 1952 carries the office symbol IBS, the International Broadcasting Service that operated the Voice of America.[^9][^10]
Ebon's own account places him in the fall of 1950 "in a half-empty office at the Voice of America in New York," surrounded by books, files and clippings on Indochina, newly appointed to direct the new Vietnamese-language unit of the agency's short-wave and medium-wave broadcasts. He had earlier directed the agency's broadcasts to Indonesia and later was put in charge of the Hindi and Urdu units, which transmitted to India and Pakistan. His research on Vietnamese religious tendencies led him to the Cao Dai movement and to its veneration of [[Victor Hugo]] among its saints, which became the subject of his introduction to a later edition of Hugo's table-rapping transcripts.[^11]
The biographical notes in Ebon's books state that he served with the Office of War Information in World War II, was subsequently on the staff of the Foreign Policy Association, and was with the [[United States Information Agency]] during the Korean War.[^12] A directory entry lists him as information officer of the United States Information Agency from 1950 to 1952.[^13] His *Malenkov: Stalin's Successor* (McGraw-Hill, 1953), a study of [[Georgy Malenkov]] with an introduction by [[Harry Schwartz]], acknowledges the research report on Malenkov by [[Lazar Pistrak]] of the Voice of America staff and is dedicated to 23,000 Greek children abducted by Communist guerrillas in 1948.[^14]
In the 1953 House Appropriations hearings on a supplemental bill, a section titled "Reduction in force in New York broadcasting office" reproduces a table headed "Name, Title, Grade, Salary, Reason" for the New York offices of the International Broadcasting Service, with reasons that include reduction in force, resignation and death. Martin Ebon is among the names listed for the service.[^15]
### Hill and Knowlton
The emigrant reference work lists Ebon as an account executive of the public relations firm [[Hill and Knowlton]] from 1950 to 1952, and a writers' directory lists the same post for 1952 to 1953.[^4][^13] The latter places his administrative secretaryship at the Parapsychology Foundation from 1953.[^13]
### Parapsychology Foundation
Records differ on the dates of Ebon's work for the Parapsychology Foundation. The [[Skeptical Inquirer]] biography gives administrative secretary from 1953 to 1965.[^16] The emigrant reference work gives administrative secretary and editor from 1953 to 1965, with the managing editorship of *Tomorrow* from 1953 to 1962 and a place on the editorial board of *International Reports* from 1959 to 1965.[^4] A book biography of 1974 gives administrative secretary from 1953 to 1962, managing editor of *Tomorrow* from 1953 to 1965 and of the *International Journal of Parapsychology* from 1959 to 1962.[^17] A 1998 edition of Hugo's transcripts describes him as having served for twelve years as administrative secretary.[^11] A writers' directory gives administrative secretary from 1953 to 1959 and executive editor of the *International Journal of Parapsychology* from 1959 to 1965, a member of the editorial board of *International Reports* from 1960 to 1967, president of Lombard Associates, Inc. of New York from 1962 to 1982, and consulting editor of the [[New American Library]] from 1966 to 1985.[^13] The Occult World biography dates the post from 1954 and describes him as working with the founder, Eileen Garrett.[^18]
[[H. P. Albarelli Jr.]] wrote that one former CIA official had reported that the writings of Ebon on parapsychology and the paranormal were of special interest to the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], and that many of Ebon's books originated in studies conducted by the CIA's Security Research Staff and Technical Services Staff; the official is not named.[^19]
### Tomorrow magazine
The summer 1955 issue of *Tomorrow*, a quarterly review of psychical research published in New York by Garrett Publications, names Garrett as editor-publisher and Ebon as managing editor.[^20] The masthead of volume 4 (1956) lists Garrett as editor-publisher, Ebon as managing editor, Lenore Davison as assistant to the publisher and Lester Buckland as circulation and business manager, at 500 Fifth Avenue, New York.[^21] The masthead of volume 9 (1961) lists Ebon as managing editor with Garrett as editor.[^22]
### New School for Social Research
A directory of writers lists Ebon as lecturer in the Division of Social Sciences of the New School for Social Research in 1949 and 1950, 1955 and 1956, and 1967.[^13] The jacket notes of his 1967 *Beyond Space and Time* and the Associated Press and newspaper notices of his *Svetlana* in 1967 describe him as a member of the faculty.[^23] The biography in *Psychic Exploration* (1974) states that he conducted a lecture series at the school titled "Parapsychology: From Magic to Science" from 1966 to 1968.[^24] The school's own archives hold, in the records of the Adult Division Office of the Dean, a 1975 file titled "Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship," regarding a scholarship to take a New School course in parapsychology.[^25]
A 1975 directory of parapsychology research and teaching lists under the New School an entry naming [[Robert M. Brier]], Ebon and [[Gilbert Roller]], with the address 66 West 12th Street, New York; it lists Brier in the philosophy department of [[C.W. Post College]].[^26] The school's *Bulletin* for the spring 1975 semester (volume 32, number 5, dated December 27, 1974) lists a course "Experimental Parapsychology," taught by Bob Brier on Wednesdays from February 5, and a course "Paramechanics: A Study of Paranormal Psychical Phenomena," taught by Gilbert Roller on Tuesdays from February 4, each at $90.[^27] The bulletin's faculty biography of Brier gives a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, a research fellowship at the [[Institute for Parapsychology]], an associate professorship of philosophy at C.W. Post College, membership in the Parapsychological Association, and editorship with [[J. B. Rhine]] of *Parapsychology Today*.[^27] The bulletin's index does not list Ebon.[^27]
The same bulletin's faculty biography of Gilbert Roller states that he conducted investigations into paranormal phenomena, particularly physical manifestations, and was a faculty member of the Fashion Institute of Technology, president of Hepworth Films Corp. and of IFE Corp., a director of Opti-Sound Corp., and a member of the [[American Society for Psychical Research]] and the American Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine.[^27] *Parapsychology Review* reported in 1973 that Gilbert Roller was teaching a course introducing the most controversial aspects of paranormal phenomena, among them telekinesis, poltergeists and ectoplasmia.[^28] A Gilbert Roller, described as a retired television producer and writer, was with [[Leonard Lauer]] one of the core members of the [[Bindelof séance circle]] that began in 1929 and produced table movement, levitations and raps; that Roller later worked as an artist, writer, filmmaker and television producer and died in 2004 aged 89.[^29] The records found do not state in one document that the New School's Gilbert Roller and the Bindelof circle's Gilbert Roller are the same man.
### Survival Research Foundation
In September 1971 the psychic and author [[Susy Smith]] established the [[Survival Research Foundation]] in [[Tucson, Arizona]], with Ebon as chairman and eleven other trustees. The foundation's stated aim was to conduct, subsidize and assist in procuring scientific evidence of conscious survival of the human soul or spirit after death.[^30] The index of *Parapsychology Review* records "Survival Research Foundation established" in the first issue of its volume, at page 28, and a report in the same volume of a lecture by Ebon titled "Can $300,000 Prove Life after Death," which took as its starting point the will of the gold prospector [[James Kidd]].[^31]
### Psychic Warfare: Threat or Illusion?
McGraw-Hill published *Psychic Warfare: Threat or Illusion?* in New York in 1983.[^2] The book has nineteen chapters: "Moscow, June 11, 1977" (page 1), "Would Marx Approve?" (12), "The Great Nautilus Hoax" (22), "Amplified Mind Power" (33), "The Tragedy of Edward Naumov" (45), "If Thoughts Can Kill" (63), "Code by Telepathy" (79), "The Skin Readers" (88), "They Call It Psychotronics" (98), "Secrets, Rumors, Speculations" (110), "Boosting the Human Brain" (121), "The Novosibirsk Connection" (132), "Dzhuna the Healer" (141), "The KGB Takes Control" (151), "An Astronaut Speaks Out" (165), "The View from Menlo Park" (176), "Washington's Dilemma" (188), "Threat or Illusion?" (199) and "The Century of Fear." Appendixes follow, one of them an "Outline of CIA Project on ESP" reprinted at pages 256 to 260, with a bibliography of English-language literature on Soviet and United States government efforts in parapsychology compiled by [[Marcello Truzzi]].[^32]
Chapter 3 reports the 1960 French story of telepathy experiments with the nuclear submarine [[The Nautilus (Telepathy Project)|Nautilus]], with a 1980 conversation with Gérard Messadié of *Science et Vie* and an account of [[Jacques Bergier]] (pages 22 to 31), and states that the Navy and Westinghouse statements on the reports were published in the newsletter of the Parapsychology Foundation.[^33] In the book's account the Soviet drive in parapsychology followed the Nautilus reports.[^33]
Chapter 17 reports the congressional report on parapsychology (pages 188 to 190); a *Fate* article of July 1981 by [[Randy Fitzgerald]] on CIA memoranda on ESP obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, including a document of April 9, 1952 on whether ESP capabilities are affected by drugs, and Fitzgerald's reference to Project Artichoke and MKULTRA (page 191); and the statements of [[Victor Marchetti]] that the agency had become "involved with mediums" and that "They began to contact our own dead agents, as well as dead agents from the other side," with [[Oleg Penkovsky]] as the example (pages 193 and 194).[^34] Ebon wrote that the CIA could not openly back major parapsychology research for fear of the accusation of financing "a bunch of psychic kooks," and that the agency had ordered and received a status report on Soviet parapsychology from a private California corporation (page 210).[^35] The book's appendix reprints an "Outline of CIA Project on ESP," introduced as text "released by the Central Intelligence Agency under the Freedom of Information Act" in 1981 that deals with a twofold project to examine the potential use of extrasensory perception for "practical problems of intelligence"; Ebon notes that there are "no indications whether the project was actually undertaken" (pages 257 to 260).[^36]
Ebon's chapter on the Soviet microwave bombardment of the United States embassy in [[Moscow]] states two hypotheses, one that the beams served to defeat Soviet listening devices or jam American electronic eavesdropping, and another that they were used to change minds; he wrote that the possibility of [[Jimmy Carter]] having been subjected to some esoteric form of mind manipulation at the Vienna summit with Leonid Brezhnev on [[SALT II]] could not be ruled out (pages 118, 119 and 129).[^37] Chapter 16 reports the remote-viewing experiments of [[Hal Puthoff]], [[Russell Targ]] and [[Edwin May]] at [[SRI International]], including trials with [[Hella Hammid]] (pages 176 to 187); chapter 15 reports the Apollo 14 ESP experiment of Capt. [[Edgar Mitchell]] (pages 172 to 174), and the book quotes at length the appendix "The New Mental Battlefield" by Lt. Col. [[John B. Alexander]] to a 1981 Army study (pages 15 and 108).[^38]
### Reception in the military and intelligence record
The Associated Press reported on November 6, 1983 that a U.S. Army study had found "significant progress" by the Soviet Union toward psychic weapons, as disclosed in Ebon's book, and described him as a New York-based professional writer specializing in Soviet affairs.[^39] The *New York Times* of January 10, 1984 reviewed the book among three reports on Pentagon psychic research and reported that, by one of them, President Carter ordered the CIA in 1977 to review psychic research behind the Iron Curtain.[^40] A review of the book by Michael S. Evancevich, U.S. Army, Retired, in *Military Intelligence* states that it contains strong evidence that the military, scientific and intelligence communities of both superpowers had been making zealous attempts to harness the mind, and summarizes Ebon's account of CIA experiments using persons with keen psychic gifts to contact agents who had died on operational missions, citing Penkovsky.[^41]
In the "Psychic Arms Race" session at the conference of the [[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]] at [[Stanford University]] on November 9 and 10, 1984, Ebon took part; he also wrote "Psychic Studies: The Soviet Dilemma" for the *Skeptical Inquirer* (winter 1985/1986).[^16] On the *MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour* of November 13, 1984 he appeared from San Francisco opposite [[Paul Kurtz]], was introduced as the only "true believer" to emerge from the conference, and said of the remote-viewing hypothesis that "I think that is much more fundamentally correct" and of the phrase psychic arms race that it was "a sort of tabloid sensationalism."[^42] An [[ABC]] *Nightline* segment of February 15, 1984 identified him as a "Soviet specialist" and presented him on the 1960 Nautilus story as a hoax, after a quotation from a 1952 CIA memorandum on using high-ESP individuals on intelligence problems; a Science Applications International Corporation video log lists Ebon, Kurtz and Hammid among the segment's speakers.[^43]
The Air War College research report "Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier" (May 1988) states that Capt. Mitchell commented in an early 1980s interview with Ebon, and that Ebon cites the Defense Intelligence Agency report *Controlled Offensive Behavior: USSR*, which McKelvy states was declassified eight years ahead of schedule.[^44] A 1992 Defense Intelligence College thesis by Michael E. Zarbo cites the book for the microwave hypothesis, the Carter passage, a comparison with Alexander's views on remote viewing, and the sentence on page 219.[^45]
### After Psychic Warfare
On August 5, 1984 Ebon wrote to John McMahon, Deputy Director of the CIA, enclosing the outline of his projected book *The Soviet Propaganda Machine*, for McGraw-Hill, listing his earlier books (*The Andropov File* and *Psychic Warfare* the year before, *World Communism Today* "after leaving the Office of War Information," *Malenkov*, biographies of Svetlana and Lin Piao, and *Che: The Making of a Legend*), stating that he would not request material under the Freedom of Information Act, and asking whether the interagency committee on Soviet "active measures" could provide guidance. On August 16, 1984 [[George V. Lauder]], the CIA's Director of Public Affairs, replied that the agency had no unclassified material beyond what was available at the United States Information Agency or the Department of State, and referred him to [[Herbert Romerstein]], Assistant to the Associate Director for Plans at the United States Information Agency.[^46]
*The Andropov File* (McGraw-Hill, 1983) concerned [[Yuri Andropov]]; *The Soviet Propaganda Machine* (McGraw-Hill, 1987) was published and later cited in U.S. Army professional journals on Soviet active measures; a book on [[Nikita Khrushchev]] appeared in 1986, and *KGB: Death and Rebirth* in 1994.[^47] *Svetlana: The Story of Stalin's Daughter* (New American Library, 1967) was excerpted in newspapers; in 1967 an AP dispatch from Moscow reported a Soviet magazine's charge that the CIA ghost-wrote the memoirs of Svetlana Alliluyeva, and added that those memoirs were not to be confused with Ebon's book.[^48] *Lin Piao: The Life and Writings of China's New Ruler* was published by [[Stein and Day]] in 1970.[^49]
Ebon edited *The Signet Handbook of Parapsychology* (New American Library, 1978), whose chapters, among them Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ on remote viewing and [[Montague Ullman]] and [[Stanley Krippner]] on experimental dream studies, were cited in later Defense Department and Army research reports.[^50] His New American Library paperbacks run from *Beyond Time and Space* (1967) through *Witchcraft Today* (1971) and include *Test Your ESP*, *They Knew the Unknown* and *Psychic Discoveries of the Russians* (1971).[^51]
### Writing on Soviet and Chinese parapsychology
Two Ebon articles in the *Parapsychology Review*, "Peking Journal Denounces Telepathy Studies" (November-December 1975) and "Parapsychology in Contemporary China" (September-October 1981), are cited in a 1982 Defense Intelligence Agency-funded report on psychoenergetics research in the People's Republic of China.[^52] Marcello Truzzi called Ebon an "astute China watcher" in *Omni*.[^53]
A CIA summary of Soviet parapsychology cites Ebon's *Psi in the USSR: Religion Without a Cross*, which dates psi research in Russia to before the 1917 revolution and describes a telepathy experiment in [[Tashkent]] around 1870.[^54] Ebon was among those who congratulated [[Hans Bender]] on a bibliography of his writings published with a 1987 special issue marking Bender's eightieth birthday.[^55]
### Citations in the STARGATE record
Ebon's works recur in the bibliographies that Defense Intelligence Agency programs and their contractors compiled on psychic research. A 1990 DIA bibliographic database on psychoenergetics lists his 1974 chapter "A history of parapsychology," from *Psychic Exploration*.[^56] A 1991 anthology compiled by Science Applications International Corporation cites the same chapter and lists the New School for Social Research among the colleges and universities pursuing parapsychology.[^57] A 1991 report by Edwin May and S. LaBerge on anomalous cognition in lucid dreams cites the 1978 *Signet Handbook* chapter by Ullman and Krippner.[^58] The CREST file of the STARGATE collection also holds printouts of the Associated Press, *New York Times* and *MacNeil/Lehrer* items on *Psychic Warfare*.[^59]
### Later life and death
John Chambers, translator of Hugo's transcripts, thanks Ebon as mentor, benefactor and friend.[^60] Ebon died on February 11, 2006; the Leo Baeck Institute's note places his death in New York.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Leo Baeck Institute, "Hans Martin Schwarz Collection," AR 25064, biographical note and scope and content note, Center for Jewish History ArchivesSpace. https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/13647 (captured 2021 at https://web.archive.org/web/2021/https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/13647)
[^2]: Martin Ebon, *Psychic Warfare: Threat or Illusion?* (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), copyright page and contents. https://books.google.com/books?id=fdShyTnpk9gC
[^3]: *Who's Who in America*, 1948 edition, p. 178, entry "Ebon, Martin, author, lecturer on world affairs" (born May 27, 1917, Hamburg; son of Julius and Martha Ebon; Hochschule fuer Politik; came to America 1938, naturalized 1945; managing editor, Foreign Language Division, Overseas News Agency, 1943; staff of Office of War Information 1943-45; "World Communism Has Passed Its Peak" and "The New Communist Internationals," 1948; office, Partisan Review, 1545 Broadway). https://books.google.com/books?id=paYSAAAAIAAJ
[^4]: *Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933*, vol. 2, *The Arts, Sciences, and Literature* (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1983; reprint Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), p. 233, entry "Ebon, Martin." https://books.google.com/books?id=fNKJDwAAQBAJ
[^5]: *Free World* (New York), 1945, contributor note on Martin Ebon. https://books.google.com/books?id=gKe0AAAAMAAJ
[^6]: *Forum* (1946), contributor note (member of the staff of the Foreign Policy Association; served recently with the Department of State as an information officer and, during the war, as chief of the Foreign News Section of the Office of War Information). https://books.google.com/books?id=POsZAAAAMAAJ. *The Middle East Journal* (1948), contributor note to "Communist Tactics in Palestine" (member of the faculty of the New School of Social Research; chief of the Foreign News Section, Overseas News and Features Bureau, Office of War Information; since served with the Department of State). https://books.google.com/books?id=icIsAQAAIAAJ
[^7]: Martin Ebon, *World Communism Today* (New York: Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill, 1948), title page, copyright page and acknowledgment. https://archive.org/details/worldcommunismto00ebon
[^8]: *The American Mercury* (1948), contributor note to Martin Ebon, "The New Communist Internationals." https://books.google.com/books?id=N40qAAAAMAAJ
[^9]: *Middle East Journal*, 1948, contributor note, as cited in note 6. U.S. Department of State, *Biographic Register*, supplement of April 1, 1953 (Publication 5056), entry "Ebon, Martin." https://archive.org/details/biographicregist1953wash
[^10]: U.S. Department of State, *Biographic Register*, supplement of April 1, 1952, entry "Ebon, Martin ... app. radio info. specialist, GS-11, Dept. of State, Aug. 31, 1950; chief, Pakistan unit, GS-13, June 10, 1951.; office symbol IBS." https://archive.org/details/biographicregist1952wash
[^11]: John Chambers, *Conversations with Eternity: Victor Hugo's Forgotten Masterwork* (Boca Raton: New Paradigm Books, 1998), introduction by Martin Ebon, "Victor the Grandiose," as reprinted in *Victor Hugo's Conversations with the Spirit World* (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 2008) and in the Spanish edition *Conversaciones con la eternidad* (Editorial Diana, 2002), pp. 1-2 and author notes. https://books.google.com/books?id=hFwoDwAAQBAJ and https://archive.org/details/conversaciones-con-la-eternidad-victor-hugo.-introduccion-martin-ebon
[^12]: Martin Ebon, *The Andropov File* (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), "About the Author"; *The Soviet Propaganda Machine* (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987), "About the Author"; *KGB: Death and Rebirth* (1994), "About the Author." https://books.google.com/books?id=Y8IeAAAAMAAJ, https://books.google.com/books?id=5kIFAQAAIAAJ and https://books.google.com/books?id=UgoJAAAAMAAJ
[^13]: *The Writer's Directory, 1998-2000* (Detroit: St. James Press, 1995), p. 424, entry "Ebon, Martin." https://books.google.com/books?id=AKgKAB3ClvwC
[^14]: Martin Ebon, *Malenkov: Stalin's Successor* (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), dedication, preface, acknowledgment and introduction by Harry Schwartz. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.183698
[^15]: U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, *Supplemental Appropriation Bill, 1954*, hearings before subcommittees, 83d Cong., 1st sess. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1953), section "Reduction in Force in New York Broadcasting Office," pp. 656-665 (Ebon at p. 665). https://books.google.com/books?id=Lt3joDo0OXwC
[^16]: Skeptical Inquirer, "Martin Ebon," author biography. https://skepticalinquirer.org/authors/martin-ebon/
[^17]: John White, ed., *Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science* (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1974), contributor note on Martin Ebon. https://books.google.com/books?id=MbbxpH5RCaAC
[^18]: Occult World, "Martin Ebon," biography (captured 2021). https://web.archive.org/web/2021/https://occult-world.com/martin-ebon/
[^19]: H. P. Albarelli Jr., *A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments* (Walterville, Ore.: Trine Day, 2009), p. 495. Sole source for the passage so cited; the former CIA official is not named. https://books.google.com/books?id=rUOdEQAAQBAJ
[^20]: *Tomorrow: Quarterly Review of Psychical Research*, vol. 3, no. 4 (summer 1955), New York: Garrett Publications, editor-publisher Eileen J. Garrett, managing editor Martin Ebon. Eton College Collections, shelfmark Lee.4.12. https://catalogue.etoncollege.com/B21120
[^21]: *Tomorrow*, vol. 4, nos. 1-3 (1956), mastheads and statement of ownership. https://books.google.com/books?id=OHUPAQAAIAAJ
[^22]: *Tomorrow*, vol. 9, nos. 2-3 (1961), mastheads and statement of ownership. https://books.google.com/books?id=8HAPAQAAIAAJ
[^23]: Martin Ebon, *Beyond Space and Time: An ESP Casebook* (New York: New American Library, 1967), jacket note. https://books.google.com/books?id=lKGb7SLZtaIC. Associated Press dispatch, "Ghosted," Chicago Sun-Times, 1967, and the New American Library serial notice of *Svetlana*, CIA CREST, CIA-RDP88-01350R000200680022-6 and CIA-RDP75-00001R000400200004-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp88-01350r000200680022-6
[^24]: John White, ed., *Psychic Exploration*, contributor note, and Martin Ebon, "A History of Parapsychology" (the same volume, chapter 1). https://books.google.com/books?id=MbbxpH5RCaAC
[^25]: The New School Archives and Special Collections, NS-02-01-01, New School Adult Division Office of the Dean records, Series 5, Office files, Awards and scholarships, Box 7, Folder 43, "Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship, 1975." https://findingaids.archives.newschool.edu/
[^26]: Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff, *New Psychic Frontiers* (Minneapolis: Bolger Publications, 1975), chapter V, "Research, Investigation and Teaching: A Survey of the International Scene," p. 228 (C.W. Post College entry) and p. 229 (New School for Social Research entry). CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230018-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001200230018-6
[^27]: New School for Social Research, *New School Bulletin*, spring 1975, vol. 32, no. 5 (December 27, 1974), published as *Announcement of Courses of Study*: course 2750-0 and Brier biography (pp. 88 and 328), course 2755-3 and Roller biography (pp. 88 and 356), index (pp. 383, 396, 399). https://books.google.com/books?id=Ez07AAAAMAAJ
[^28]: *Parapsychology Review* (1973), news item on a course taught by Gilbert Roller, and volume index entry "Roller, Gilbert, 6:10." https://books.google.com/books?id=sH8YAQAAMAAJ
[^29]: *Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research* (2000), article on the Bindelof experience, list of participants. https://books.google.com/books?id=VndRAAAAYAAJ. Psi Encyclopedia, "Bindelof Phenomena," Society for Psychical Research. https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/bindelof-phenomena/, drawing on Rosemarie Pilkington, *The Spirit of Dr. Bindelof: The Enigma of Séance Phenomena* (San Antonio: Anomalist Books, 2006).
[^30]: Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff, *New Psychic Frontiers* (Minneapolis: Bolger Publications, 1975), p. 235, entry for the Survival Research Foundation. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230018-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001200230018-6
[^31]: *Parapsychology Review* (New York: Parapsychology Foundation), volume index and issues, entries "Survival Research Foundation established, 1:28" and the report of Ebon's lecture on the Kidd will. https://books.google.com/books?id=QXoYAQAAMAAJ
[^32]: Ebon, *Psychic Warfare*, contents, appendixes and bibliography (pp. 221-262). https://books.google.com/books?id=fdShyTnpk9gC
[^33]: Ebon, *Psychic Warfare*, chapter 3, "The Great Nautilus Hoax," pp. 22-31, and p. 208. https://books.google.com/books?id=fdShyTnpk9gC
[^34]: Ebon, *Psychic Warfare*, chapter 17, "Washington's Dilemma," pp. 188-197. https://books.google.com/books?id=fdShyTnpk9gC
[^35]: Ebon, *Psychic Warfare*, p. 210. https://books.google.com/books?id=fdShyTnpk9gC
[^36]: Ebon, *Psychic Warfare*, appendix "Outline of CIA Project on ESP," pp. 257-260 (introductory note on p. 257; the book's index lists the reprinted project outline at 257-260). https://books.google.com/books?id=fdShyTnpk9gC
[^37]: Ebon, *Psychic Warfare*, pp. 118-119 and 128-129. https://books.google.com/books?id=fdShyTnpk9gC
[^38]: Ebon, *Psychic Warfare*, pp. 15, 108, 172-174, 176-187. https://books.google.com/books?id=fdShyTnpk9gC
[^39]: Barton Reppert, "Study Cites Soviet Progress on Mind Weapons," Associated Press, November 6, 1983, and "U.S. Military Research: From War Games to Mind Games?", November 7, 1983. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200230033-6 and CIA-RDP96-00791R000200230030-9. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200230033-6
[^40]: William J. Broad, "Pentagon Is Said to Focus on ESP for Wartime Use," *New York Times*, January 10, 1984, sec. C, p. 1. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200230027-3. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200230027-3
[^41]: Michael S. Evancevich, review of Martin Ebon, *Psychic Warfare: Threat or Illusion?* (McGraw-Hill, 282 pages, $15.95), *Military Intelligence*. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200030002-5. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001200030002-5
[^42]: *The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour*, transcript no. 2382, November 13, 1984, segment "Psychic Warfare." CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200230022-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200230022-8
[^43]: *ABC News Nightline*, February 15, 1984, transcript. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540004-8 and CIA-RDP90-00806R000200970098-6. Science Applications International Corporation, letter of May 13, 1995 with video log entry "Night Line (ABC)," CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190060-1, which dates the entry "approximately 1983." https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00552r000606540004-8
[^44]: Dolan M. McKelvy, "Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier" (Air War College research report, Maxwell Air Force Base, May 1988). CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3
[^45]: Michael E. Zarbo, "Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?" (Defense Intelligence College thesis, November 1992), pp. 23-24 and 52 and notes 17, 22, 32, 33, 60, 85. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002600250001-6
[^46]: Martin Ebon to John McMahon, August 5, 1984, and George V. Lauder, Director, Public Affairs, CIA, to Martin Ebon, August 16, 1984. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP86M00886R001100080008-7. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp86m00886r001100080008-7
[^47]: Ebon, *The Andropov File* (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983); *The Soviet Propaganda Machine* (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987), cited in *Military Review* (1989); *Nikita Khrushchev* (1986); *KGB: Death and Rebirth* (1994). https://archive.org/details/andropovfilelife00ebon, https://archive.org/details/sovietpropaganda0000ebon, https://archive.org/details/nikitakhrushchev0000ebon and https://archive.org/details/kgbdeathrebirth00ebon
[^48]: Martin Ebon, *Svetlana: The Story of Stalin's Daughter* ([New York]: New American Library, 1967). https://archive.org/details/svetlanastoryofs00ebon. Associated Press, Moscow, "Ghosted," Chicago Sun-Times, 1967, CIA CREST, CIA-RDP88-01350R000200680022-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp88-01350r000200680022-6
[^49]: Martin Ebon, *Lin Piao: The Life and Writings of China's New Ruler* (New York: Stein and Day, 1970). https://archive.org/details/linpiaolifewriti00ebon
[^50]: Martin Ebon, ed., *The Signet Handbook of Parapsychology* (New York: New American Library, 1978). https://archive.org/details/signethandbookof00ebon. Chapter citations: Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, "Remote Viewing: A New Research Frontier," and Montague Ullman and Stanley Krippner, "Experimental Dream Studies," pp. 409-422, as cited in Puthoff and Edwin C. May, *DoD Psychoenergetics Program: Replication Studies*, SRI/GF-0260 (February 1984), CIA CREST CIA-RDP96-00792R000600310001-7, and in the John Palmer report for the European Research Office, CIA CREST CIA-RDP96-00789R003800360001-1.
[^51]: Ebon titles as listed in the references of CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230018-6, pp. 252-253: *Beyond Time and Space* (New American Library, 1967), *Prophecy in Our Time* (1969), *The Psychic Reader* (1970), *Reincarnation in the Twentieth Century* (1970), *Test Your ESP* (1971), *They Knew the Unknown* (1972), *True Experiences in Communicating With the Dead* (1968), *True Experiences in Exotic ESP* (1968), *Witchcraft Today* (1971), and *Psychic Discoveries of the Russians* (1971).
[^52]: Harold E. Puthoff, *Psychoenergetics Research in the People's Republic of China (1982)*, final report, Defense Intelligence Agency contract MDA908-82-C-0034 (October 1982), reference list. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00792R000400320001-8. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000400320001-8
[^53]: Marcello Truzzi, "China's Psychic Savants," *Omni* (1984), corpus copy. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00792R000300420017-1. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000300420017-1
[^54]: "Parapsychology in the USSR," CIA CREST summary, CIA-RDP96-00792R000500210001-9, citing Ebon's "Psi in the USSR: Religion Without a Cross" (Appendix 1, reference literature). Sole source for the title and the Tashkent account as given here; publisher not identified in this record. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000500210001-9
[^55]: *Parapsychology Abstracts International*, 1988, reporting the special issue marking Hans Bender's eightieth birthday (5 February 1987), with a 207-item bibliography compiled by Eberhard Bauer and a list of congratulants that includes Martin Ebon. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00792R000700650003-7. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000700650003-7
[^56]: Defense Intelligence Agency, bibliographic database, "Psychoenergetics (U), Initial Report," 16 November 1990, entry for Ebon, "A history of parapsychology," in *Psychic Exploration*. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00789R002900060001-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002900060001-4
[^57]: Science Applications International Corporation, *Anomalous Mental Phenomena: Selected Papers* (24 June 1991), reference 1 and institutions roster. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00789R003100030001-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r003100030001-4
[^58]: Edwin C. May and S. LaBerge, "Anomalous Cognition in Lucid Dreams" (20 December 1991), references, citing Ullman and Krippner in Ebon (ed.), *The Signet Handbook of Parapsychology* (1978). CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r003100140001-2
[^59]: CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200230021-9, -0022-8, -0026-4, -0027-3, -0030-9, -0031-8, -0032-7 and -0033-6 (database-search printouts). https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200230027-3
[^60]: John Chambers, acknowledgments in *Victor Hugo's Conversations with the Spirit World* (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 2008). https://books.google.com/books?id=hFwoDwAAQBAJ

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---
created: 2026-10-09
updated: 2026-10-09
title: Max Ascoli
aliases:
- Max Ascoli
- Ascoli
- Max Raoul Ascoli
- Dr. Ascoli
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
- Person
- MaxAscoli
- TheReporter
- MazziniSociety
- AntiFascism
- NewSchool
- UniversityInExile
- AllenDulles
- AmericanCommitteeOnUnitedEurope
- Rosenwald
- CoordinatorOfInterAmericanAffairs
- FightForFreedom
- FortnightlyCorporation
summary: "Italian anti-fascist exile, dean of the New School's Graduate Faculty (1940), president of the Mazzini Society, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs official, and editor and co-owner of The Reporter (1949 to 1968)."
born: 1898
died: 1978
location: "Ferrara, Italy; New York, New York"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[New School for Social Research]]"
start: 1933
role: "Graduate Faculty member from late 1933; dean of the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science from 1940"
fn: 5
- type: head_of
with: "[[The Reporter]]"
start: 1949
end: 1968
role: "editor and publisher"
fn: 16
- type: owned
with: "[[Fortnightly Corporation]]"
role: "stockholder with Marion Rosenwald Ascoli and Nathan W. Levin (1963 application record)"
fn: 25
- type: owned
with: "[[Northern West Virginia Television Broadcasting Company]]"
start: 1963
role: "vice president and director; owned through Fortnightly Corporation (WBOY-TV, Clarksburg, West Virginia)"
fn: 25
- type: spouse_of
with: "[[Marion Rosenwald Ascoli]]"
start: 1940
fn: 11
- type: relative_of
with: "[[Julius Rosenwald]]"
role: "father-in-law (wife's father)"
fn: 11
- type: head_of
with: "[[Mazzini Society]]"
start: 1940
role: "first president (the end of the term is stated as 1941 and as 1943 by different sources)"
fn: 10
- type: funded
with: "[[Fight for Freedom]]"
start: 1941
role: "donor described by Mark Chadwin as particularly generous, as reported by Thomas Mahl"
fn: 12
- type: funded
with: "[[Rockefeller Foundation]]"
reverse: true
start: 1931
role: "fellowship that brought him to the United States"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]]"
start: 1942
role: "listed as Associate Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in a February 18, 1942 Coordinator of Information memorandum; associate director of cultural relations per Fermi"
fn: 14
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Interdepartmental Committee on Foreign Nationality Problems]]"
start: 1942
end: 1942
role: "CIAA representative at the Committee's meetings"
fn: 14
- type: member_of
with: "[[American Committee on United Europe]]"
role: "listed among the mass-media members of the 1950 membership in a secondary account drawn from the Rebattet thesis"
fn: 22
---
Max Ascoli (1898 to 1978) was an Italian anti-fascist jurist and political philosopher who left Italy in 1931 on a [[Rockefeller Foundation]] fellowship, joined the [[University in Exile]] at the [[New School for Social Research]], and served as dean of its Graduate Faculty. He was the first president of the [[Mazzini Society]], held a post in the [[Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]] under [[Nelson Rockefeller]] in 1942, and from 1949 to 1968 was editor and, with his wife [[Marion Rosenwald Ascoli]], owner of the biweekly [[The Reporter]].[^1][^2]
### Birth, arrest and exile, 1898 to 1931
Max Raoul Ascoli was born in [[Ferrara]] on June 25, 1898, the son of Enrico Ascoli, a surveyor who became a merchant, and Adriana Finzi. He graduated in law at the [[University of Ferrara]] in July 1920 with a thesis on the legal philosophy of [[Benedetto Croce]], studied in [[Rome]] under [[Giorgio Del Vecchio]], and in 1925 joined [[Gaetano Salvemini]] and [[Carlo Rosselli]] in the clandestine sheet [[Non mollare]]. His first teaching post was in philosophy of law and international law at the [[University of Camerino]] in 1926 to 1927.[^1] He later called Ferrara the "cradle of Fascism."[^2]
The accounts of his arrest differ. The Senate archive biography by [[Renato Camurri]] places it in April 1928, in an investigation into the group [[Giovane Italia]], and says the admonition measure had to be revoked before he could sit the examination for the libera docenza, after which he taught public law at the [[University of Cagliari]] in 1929 to 1930.[^1] A [[Boston University]] profile states that he was arrested in 1928 after his name was found in the address book of another intellectual charged with clandestine political activities.[^2] Ascoli's own account, written in 1954, gives the date as April 30, 1928, says he and other Italian anti-fascist university professors were arrested "for no other reason than a summons to repent or else," that he was held about three weeks, and that on release he was asked to write a letter to [[Benito Mussolini]] announcing his conversion to the Fascist faith. He wrote that he refused, was kept under strict police supervision until he left Italy in September 1931, and that in the spring of 1931, as the only remaining member of his university who refused to join the Fascist Association of University Teachers, he was offered a Rockefeller fellowship by the Foundation's representative in Italy, [[Luigi Einaudi]].[^3] Camurri gives the arrival in New York as October 1931, with a research project on the crisis of democracy in America, and records that the fellowship was extended through 1932, with five months at [[Harvard University]], where he formed close ties with [[Felix Frankfurter]].[^1]
[[Isabelle Richet]], reviewing the intellectual biography by [[Davide Grippa]] for the [[Primo Levi Center]], places his early activism among the circle of [[Piero Gobetti]], Salvemini and Rosselli, describes his break with Rosselli's movement [[Giustizia e Libertà]] in the early 1930s, and writes that he was very close to Frankfurter and [[Louis Brandeis]], who became his mentors and introduced him to influential Jewish networks in the United States.[^4]
### University in Exile, 1933 to 1949
Camurri writes that Frankfurter put Ascoli in touch with [[Alvin Johnson]], and that documents in the Rockefeller Foundation archives show Johnson had already read Ascoli's work and been impressed; Johnson placed him on the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science.[^1] [[Peter Rutkoff]] and [[William Scott]] write that Johnson recruited "two additional Rockefeller scholars, Italian political scientist Max Ascoli and Austrian Erich Hula," and that Ascoli joined the University in Exile in late 1933.[^5] [[Daniel Bessner]] records that Johnson hoped to bring over Ascoli, [[Rudolf Littauer]] and [[Werner Hegemann]], and that all three joined the New School; Ascoli's article "Realism versus the Constitution" appeared in the first volume of [[Social Research]] in 1934.[^6] The [[Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars]] kept a file on him in its non-grantee series, for the applicants it did not aid, for 1933 to 1935 and for 1939 to 1943.[^7]
Camurri lists his books of the period as *Intelligence in Politics* (1936), *Political and Economic Democracy* (1937, edited with [[Fritz Lehmann]]) and *Fascism for Whom?* (written with [[Arthur Feiler]]), and states that he was the only Italian given significant responsibilities on the Graduate Faculty and in Social Research.[^1] Richet gives 1940 as the year of his United States citizenship.[^4]
*School and Society* reported on March 16, 1940 that Ascoli had been elected dean of the graduate faculty of political and social science at the New School, "succeeding Frieda Wunderlich, whose term expires next fall."[^8] The *American Teacher* of May 1941 describes him as the dean of the Graduate Faculty.[^9] In 1954 he wrote that he joined the Graduate Faculty two years after the fellowship and "Later I became Dean of the Faculty."[^3] [[Laura Fermi]] writes that he had been a professor at the New School since 1933 and that [[Franco Modigliani]] obtained a fellowship with his help.[^10] Camurri writes that he gave up the academic career in 1949 to devote himself to The Reporter.[^1]
### Marriage to Marion Rosenwald
In 1940 Ascoli married Marion Rosenwald Stern, a daughter of [[Julius Rosenwald]], chairman of [[Sears, Roebuck and Company]]. She had been married to [[Alfred K. Stern]], a housing specialist, and they were divorced in 1936.[^11] Camurri writes that the marriage gave him contacts at the highest levels of the political and administrative establishment.[^1]
### Mazzini Society
Camurri names Ascoli among the founders of the Mazzini Society in 1939, with [[Roberto Bolaffio]], [[Renato Poggioli]], [[Michele Cantarella]], Salvemini and [[Lionello Venturi]], and gives his presidency as 1940 to 1943, adding that Ascoli and his family contributed substantially to the support of the organization.[^1] Fermi dates the society's creation to 1940 and writes that Ascoli was appointed its first president and Salvemini its honorary president; that in early 1941 it was broadcasting from Boston to Italy; that it began the weekly *Nazioni Unite* in March 1942; and that its political contacts with the American government "were not extensive and, at least at the beginning, limited to the Intelligence Service." She also writes that he was named president in 1940 and "the following year resigned" because the society was in New York while his wartime duties required him in Washington.[^10] Richet, summarizing Grippa, calls him one of the leaders of the society and an agent of the [[United States Department of State|State Department]] during the war.[^4]
[[Thomas E. Mahl]] reports that the secret "BSC Account" of [[British Security Coordination]] stated that BSC had close ties with the Italian-American Mazzini Society headed by Ascoli, and quotes a July 1941 report by [[Sydney Morrell]] of the [[Special Operations Executive]] that a subsidy had been paid to the Mazzini Society for Italian broadcasts from the Boston radio station [[WRUL]].[^12] Mahl also writes that Ascoli was one of the donors listed by [[Mark Chadwin]] as particularly generous to [[Fight for Freedom]], a committee Mahl describes as a British intelligence front, and that Ascoli "was also working for British intelligence through his Italian-American Mazzini Society."[^12] The [[Princeton University]] finding aid for the Fight for Freedom, Inc. records lists a correspondence folder "Ascoli, Max, 1941."[^13]
### Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, 1942
Camurri lists among Ascoli's institutional affiliations of the late 1930s and early 1940s the Bureau of Latin America Relations, the Inter-American Affairs office of Nelson Rockefeller, the [[Council on Foreign Relations]], the [[Council for Democracy]] and the [[Committee for a National Trade Policy]].[^1] Fermi states that at the time of his resignation from the Mazzini presidency he was associate director of cultural relations in the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.[^10]
Released minutes and memoranda of the [[Interdepartmental Committee on Foreign Nationality Problems]], filed in the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] reading room under an [[Office of Strategic Services]] heading, record Ascoli at the committee's weekly meetings, convened by [[Adolf Berle|Adolf A. Berle]], Assistant Secretary of State, at the State Department from February to April 1942. A memorandum of the [[Coordinator of Information]] (the predecessor agency of the OSS) by [[DeWitt C. Poole]] to [[John C. Wiley]], dated February 11, 1942, names "Mr. Nelson Rockefeller, Dr. Max Ascoli and Mr. Wallace K. Harrison of the Office of the Coordinator for Latin American Relations" among those present, and Poole's memorandum of February 18, 1942 lists "Dr. Ascoli, Associate Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs." Berle's letter of February 27, 1942 to the Secretary of War gives the CIAA members as "Mr. N. A Rockefeller; Mr. Wallace K. Harrison; Dr. Ascoli." The minutes list him as CIAA representative at the sixth meeting (March 11, with Rockefeller and Harrison), the seventh (March 18), the ninth (April 15) and the tenth (April 29).[^14]
The March 11 minutes record that Ascoli reported, on information from "Mr. Romualdi, a representative of the Mazzini Society just returned from South America," that perhaps 1,500 anti-Fascist Italians might be recruited there for an anti-Fascist Italian legion, that interest was most intense in Uruguay, and that a cable be sent to the embassy in Montevideo about a "Garibaldi Legion" recruiting in Uruguay and Argentina. A Coordinator of Information memorandum to Colonel [[William J. Donovan]] of the same date lists Rockefeller, Ascoli and Harrison among those present, and the same memorandum records Ascoli describing Salvemini's skepticism about the number of probable recruits for an Italian legion as "undoubtedly excessive" and suggesting that a small Italian cadre be formed in the United States and sent to Africa as "missionaries." At the April 15 meeting, "Dr. Ascoli for CIAA" referred to the problem of Mexicans in the southwest and offered the assistance of his organization, and Berle suggested that Cramer of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice and Ascoli meet with [[Jonathan Daniels]] of the [[Office of Civilian Defense]] to work out plans on the "color" problem.[^14]
[[Hugh Wilford]] writes that during the war Ascoli "worked alongside Nelson Rockefeller, John Hay Whitney, and C. D. Jackson," although Jackson never warmed to him.[^15]
### The Reporter, 1949 to 1968
The June 21, 1949 issue of The Reporter lists Ascoli as "Editor & Publisher," says the magazine was published every other Tuesday by [[Fortnightly Publishing Company]], a limited partnership, and lists [[Douglass Cater]] on the staff.[^16] By December 1955 the masthead gives Ascoli as editor and [[Harlan Cleveland]] as publisher, with [[The Reporter Magazine Company]] at 136 East 57th Street; in 1961 he is "Editor and Publisher," with Cater as Washington editor, and the company at 660 Madison Avenue.[^17][^18] Fermi writes that Ascoli wrote an editorial for each issue, decided policy and chose authors, and that the magazine's existence depended on "the never-sufficiently-eulogized assistance of American money."[^10]
Wilford writes that The Reporter had "intimate ties to the U.S. intelligence community," that there is no evidence Ascoli received covert payments "in the same manner as" the editor of The New Leader, "although this is perhaps not surprising, given the apparent destruction of The Reporter's financial records," and that Ascoli had "conspicuous access to wealth" through his wife. Wilford identifies [[Philip Horton]] and Douglass Cater as ex-OSS officers who kept their intelligence connections, states that Horton served briefly as the CIA's first station chief in Paris before joining Time and then The Reporter as Ascoli's second in command, and that Horton used contacts with Donovan, [[Allen Dulles]] and [[James Jesus Angleton]] to enhance foreign coverage. Wilford adds that Cater helped found the [[United States National Student Association]] and later served in the [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] White House, and that The Reporter had ties to the [[Congress for Cultural Freedom]], the American Committee on United Europe, the [[National Committee for a Free Europe]] and the Vietnam Lobby.[^15]
A CIA memorandum dated March 19, 1952 concerns "The China Lobby" by [[Charles Christian Wertenbaker]], written for The Reporter. Its author, an assistant to the Director, reports that Wertenbaker invited him to review the piece before publication, and that the text would go to Philip Horton, assistant editor, who would edit it. The memorandum says the piece ran to 30,000 to 35,000 words in two installments beginning in early April 1952, and that the magazine "presumably" was building a promotional campaign around it. Wertenbaker had notified Ascoli, "editor and publisher," that he could not devote any more time to the piece.[^19]
[[Hans Renders]], reviewing [[Elke van Cassel]]'s history of the magazine, writes that the Reporter, against the prevailing anticommunism of the period, attacked the witch hunt of [[Joseph McCarthy]], and that it kept alive the American tradition of investigative journalism through the conformist 1950s.[^20]
### Senator Bridges, 1954
On August 19, 1954 Senator [[Styles Bridges]] attacked The Reporter in a Senate speech (Congressional Record, pages 14472 to 14480) after the magazine's July 20 article "Senator Styles Bridges and His Far-flung Constituents." Ascoli's reply, inserted in the Congressional Record of September 3 by Senator [[Herbert H. Lehman]] (pages A6583 to A6585), states that Bridges accused him of ingratitude to the country that gave him refuge and questioned his financial honesty, and that Bridges said he had been "several times jailed" in Italy for "socialistic activities." Ascoli answered that he had been jailed once, in 1928. On the financial charge, Bridges had referred to a loan of $4,600,000 from the [[Export-Import Bank]]; Ascoli replied that at the end of 1944 he had started a nonprofit corporation, Handicraft Development, Inc., to help Italian handicraft producers export to the United States, that the Bank then offered the Italian government a loan administered by a company, the Compagnia Nazionale Artigiana, and that [[William McChesney Martin]], chairman of the Bank, wrote him on December 3, 1947 that Handicraft Development should subscribe part of the company's capital and be represented on its board. The reply adds that Senators [[Lyndon Johnson]] and [[Richard Russell]] had expressed sympathy with Bridges when he attacked the magazine.[^3]
### Allen Dulles and the American Committee on United Europe
[[Richard Aldrich]] describes the [[American Committee on United Europe]] (ACUE) as formed to support [[Winston Churchill]] and the [[European Movement]], and as officially incorporated in February 1949. William J. Donovan was its chairman, Dulles its vice-chairman, and [[Thomas W. Braden]], a former OSS officer, its executive director, with day-to-day administration in Braden's hands. Aldrich reports Braden's assertion in the 1980s that ACUE funds originated with the CIA, and writes that the 1962 Oxford thesis of [[F. X. Rebattet]], son of the European Movement's secretary-general [[George Rebattet]], "confirms that most ACUE funds originated with the CIA."[^21]
[[David Barnby]], drawing on that 1962 Oxford thesis on the European Movement, writes that ACUE had a membership of 380 in 1950 and lists, among 29 media figures, "Dr. Max Ascoli, publisher of (The Reporter)."[^22] Wilford lists the American Committee on United Europe among the Agency fronts with which The Reporter had ties.[^15]
A copy of a February 7, 1958 letter from the chairman of the President's Committee on Scientists and Engineers to Dulles, then Director of Central Intelligence, thanks him for addressing the Conference on America's Human Resources at [[Yale University]] and encloses the list of participants, which includes "Mr. Max Ascoli, Editor and Publisher, The Reporter."[^23] The 1968 closing file of The Reporter in the Ascoli papers indexes a photocopy of a typed letter from Dulles, dated May 27, among letters from friends of Ascoli expressing regret at the closing.[^24]
### Fortnightly Corporation and the Clarksburg television station, 1959 to 1963
In an application filed with the [[Federal Communications Commission]] on March 21, 1963 for assignment of the license of television station WBOY-TV, Clarksburg, West Virginia, from Rust Craft Broadcasting Company to Northern West Virginia Television Broadcasting Company, the published notice lists the officers of the purchaser as including Max Ascoli, vice president and director, and Marion R. Ascoli, vice president and director, with Nathan W. Levin as president, treasurer and director. It states that [[Fortnightly Corporation]] was the sole stockholder of the purchaser, that Max Ascoli and Marion R. Ascoli were vice presidents and directors of Fortnightly, and that "The stockholders of Fortnightly Corporation are: Max Ascoli, Marion R. Ascoli, and Nathan W. Levin."[^25]
The brief of the appellants, the Citizens TV Protest Committee and Clarksburg Publishing Company, in their appeal to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] against the Commission's approval, states that Fortnightly owned and operated community antenna (cable) systems in Clarksburg and Fairmont, West Virginia; that in March 1959 it had bought the stock of Schwager-Wood Corporation of Portland, Oregon, a manufacturer of electrical switches used mainly by public utilities, which became a division of Fortnightly and was later divested; and that Fortnightly urged approval of the sale on the grounds that it was familiar with the area, that pending litigation between Rust Craft and Fortnightly would be resolved, and that acquisition of WBOY "would give Fortnightly, owner and publisher of the Reporter Magazine, an additional medium for public discussion of national affairs."[^25]
### Closing, 1968
In April 1968 the [[Wall Street Journal]] reported that The Reporter would cease publication with its June 13 issue. Circulation had risen to 210,000 in the final half of 1967, from 172,000 five years earlier, while advertising had fallen to 401 pages in 1967 from 843 pages in 1963. The magazine had run a deficit in each of its nineteen years, and the deficits "have been met by" Ascoli and his wife Marion, "who are sole owners." The Journal described the magazine as having drifted rightward and as one of a handful of national magazines with a hawkish stand on the Vietnam war. Some features and two of its 54 employees were taken over by [[Harper's Magazine]], and Ascoli was to contribute an essay each month to Harper's.[^26]
The index of names for the 1968 closing letters includes [[McGeorge Bundy]], [[Henry Kissinger]], Adolf Berle, [[Walt Whitman Rostow]], [[Theodore H. White]], [[William Rosenwald]], [[Paul Douglas]] and [[John Dos Passos]], as well as Dulles.[^24] Ascoli died in New York on January 1, 1978.[^1]
### Papers
Ascoli's papers are held at the [[Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center]] at Boston University, whose Special Collections keep the editorial files of The Reporter.[^2] The Italian Senate's historical archive holds a federated description of a "Max Ascoli Collections" fonds with the Gotlieb Center as custodian, listed at 209 boxes. Its Reporter series includes a historical file of 1947 to 1950, editorial correspondence from 1949 to about 1968, killed manuscripts, libel files, letters to the editor and a closing file. Its personal series contains correspondence from 1934 to 1978 and thematic files on institutions with which Ascoli worked.[^27]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Renato Camurri, biographical note, "Max Ascoli 1898 - 1978," in Senato della Repubblica, Archivio storico, federated fonds Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Max Ascoli, https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/inventario/howard-gotlieb-archival-research-center/max-ascoli (Italian; translated). Sole source for the Giovane Italia investigation as the reason for the 1928 arrest, the Camerino and Cagliari teaching posts, the Frankfurter introduction to Johnson, the Mazzini Society presidency of 1940 to 1943, the list of institutional affiliations, the 1949 end of the academic career and the death on January 1, 1978.
[^2]: Boston University, Bridge, "Connections," November 23, 2001, https://www.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2001/11-23/connections.htm. Sole source for the address-book account of the 1928 arrest, the "cradle of Fascism" phrase and the Gotlieb Center holdings.
[^3]: "The Reporter's Notes," *The Reporter*, September 23, 1954 (Vol. 11, No. 5), pp. 2-6, https://archive.org/details/sim_reporter_1954-09-23_11_5, excerpting Max Ascoli's reply to Senator Bridges (Congressional Record, September 3, 1954, pp. A6583-A6585) and citing Bridges's speech of August 19, 1954 (Congressional Record, pp. 14472-14480). Sole source for Ascoli's own account of the 1928 arrest, the Einaudi fellowship offer and Handicraft Development, Inc.
[^4]: Isabelle Richet, review of Davide Grippa, *Un antifascista tra Italia e Stati Uniti. Democrazia e identità nazionale nel pensiero di Max Ascoli (1898-1947)*, Primo Levi Center, November 24, 2014, https://primolevicenter.org/printed-matter/an-antifascist-between-italy-and-the-united-states/. Sole source for the Grippa biography's account of the Mazzini Society and State Department service, as reported by the reviewer, and for the mentorship, *Intelligence in Politics* (1936) and the citizenship in 1940.
[^5]: Peter M. Rutkoff and William B. Scott, *New School: A History of the New School for Social Research* (New York: Free Press, 1986), pp. 102 and 118.
[^6]: Daniel Bessner, "The Night Watchman: Hans Speier and the Making of the American National Security State" (PhD dissertation, Duke University, 2013), note 21 and note 116, https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/232a76ac-f2d8-4827-99fe-50b3b109fa6c/content.
[^7]: New York Public Library, Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars records, MssCol 922, Series I.B (Non-Grantees), box 38, folder 46, "Ascoli, Max 1933-1935, 1939-1943," https://archives.nypl.org/mss/922.
[^8]: "Educational Notes and News," *School and Society* 51, no. 1316 (March 16, 1940), https://archive.org/details/sim_usa-today_1940-03-16_51_1316.
[^9]: "Contributors to this Issue," *The American Teacher* 25, no. 9 (May 1941), https://archive.org/details/sim_american-teacher_1941-05_25_9.
[^10]: Laura Fermi, *Illustrious Immigrants: The Intellectual Migration from Europe, 1930-41* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 118-119 (Mazzini Society; "Political contacts" sentence at p. 119) and pp. 283-284 (The Reporter; the 1940 presidency, resignation and CIAA position at p. 284), p. 336 (Modigliani), https://archive.org/details/illustriousimmig0000unse.
[^11]: Glenn Fowler, "Marion Rosenwald Ascoli, 88, Longtime Advocate for Children," *New York Times*, October 2, 1990, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/02/obituaries/marion-rosenwald-ascoli-88-longtime-advocate-for-children.html. The obituary states that Marion was a daughter of Julius Rosenwald, that she married Alfred K. Stern and was divorced in 1936, that she married Dr. Ascoli in 1940, and that he died in 1978.
[^12]: Thomas E. Mahl, *Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-44* (Washington: Brassey's, 1998), pp. 24 and 31 and the biographical entry for Ascoli at p. 190 (index: Ascoli, 24, 31, 190); the Morrell quotation appears in the chapter on front groups. Mahl cites Mark Lincoln Chadwin, *The Warhawks* (1968) for the donor list.
[^13]: Princeton University Library, Fight for Freedom, Inc. Records (MC025), Series 1 Correspondence, folder "Ascoli, Max, 1941," https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC025_c00024.
[^14]: CIA reading room, "OSS: Memoranda on meetings of the Interdepartmental Committee on Foreign Nationality Problems," CIA-RDP13X00001R000100370009-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp13x00001r000100370009-5: pp. 39-41 (Poole to Wiley, February 11, 1942), p. 34 (Poole to Wiley, February 18, 1942), pp. 29-30 (Berle to the Secretary of War, February 27, 1942, postscript listing members), pp. 17-18 (minutes of the sixth meeting, March 11, 1942), p. 12 (seventh meeting, March 18), pp. 22-24 (memorandum to Colonel Donovan, March 11), pp. 72-75 (ninth meeting, April 15) and p. 5 (tenth meeting, April 29). The minutes give the abbreviation as CIAA; the March 11 and 18 lists print it as OCIAA.
[^15]: Hugh Wilford, *The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America* (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 230-231, with endnotes citing the C. D. Jackson Papers and the Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Papers.
[^16]: *The Reporter*, June 21, 1949 (Vol. 1, No. 5), masthead, https://archive.org/details/sim_reporter_1949-06-21_1_5_0.
[^17]: *The Reporter*, December 15, 1955 (Vol. 13, No. 10), masthead, https://archive.org/details/sim_reporter_1955-12-15_13_10_0.
[^18]: *The Reporter*, November 23, 1961 (Vol. 25, No. 9), masthead, https://archive.org/details/sim_reporter_1961-11-23_25_9.
[^19]: CIA memorandum for the Director, "Magazine Piece: 'The China Lobby' by Charles Christian Wertenbaker (for Reporter magazine)," March 19, 1952, CIA-RDP57-00384R000200090021-0, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp57-00384r000200090021-0. The memorandum's author is redacted in the released copy. Sole source for the pre-publication contact.
[^20]: Hans Renders, review of Elke van Cassel, *A Cold War Magazine of Causes: A Critical History of The Reporter, 1949-1968* (self-published, 573 pp.), "Culturele propaganda," *Media Facts* (2007), p. 45, https://hansrendersarchive.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Elke-van-Cassel-A-cold-war-magazine-History-of-the-reporter-Media-Facts-1020074.pdf. Dutch-language review, translated. Sole source for the magazine's position on McCarthy.
[^21]: Richard J. Aldrich, "OSS, CIA and European Unity: The American Committee on United Europe, 1948-60," *Diplomacy & Statecraft* 8, no. 1 (1997), pp. 184-227, at pp. 192 (leadership) and 211-212 (Braden's assertion; the Rabattet passage), DOI 10.1080/09592299708406035, https://text.www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/aldrich/publications/oss_cia_united_europe_eec_eu.pdf. The quoted sentence is Aldrich's account of Rabattet's conclusion.
[^22]: David Barnby, *The EU: A Corporatist Racket* (Orinoco Standard, 2014), pp. 85-88, citing F. X. Rebattet, "The European Movement 1945-1953" (thesis, 1962, Bodleian Library, Oxford). Self-published secondary account; the names are stated there to be taken from the thesis.
[^23]: Howard L. Bevis to Allen W. Dulles, February 7, 1958, with program and participant list, "Conference on America's Human Resources," CIA-RDP80B01676R003800020106-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r003800020106-4.
[^24]: Senato della Repubblica, Archivio storico, Max Ascoli fonds, sottofascicolo 15, "Letters expressing regrets upon closing of The Reporter from personal friends of Max Ascoli, 1968," index of names, https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/inventario/scheda/max-ascoli/IT-AFS-005-002785/letters-expressing-regrets-upon-closing-of-the-reporter-from-personal-friends-of-max-ascoli-1968. The index lists "Dulles Allen W., photocopy TL May 27" among letters with carbon replies from Ascoli.
[^25]: *Citizens TV Protest Committee and Clarksburg Publishing Company v. Federal Communications Commission*, No. 18,738 (D.C. Cir.), brief for appellants and transcript of record (statement of questions presented and statement of facts, including the published notice of the March 1963 application), https://archive.org/details/dc_circ_1964_18738_citizens_tv_protest_comm_et_al_v_fed_comm_commn.
[^26]: "Reporter Magazine To Stop Publication With June 13 Issue," *Wall Street Journal*, April 10, 1968 (stamped copy in the CIA reading room, CIA-RDP88-01314R000100620020-5), https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000100620020-5. The article is credited to a Wall Street Journal staff reporter and names Ascoli and his wife Marion as the magazine's sole owners.
[^27]: Senato della Repubblica, Archivio storico, "Max Ascoli" fonds, introduction ("Introduzione archivistica"), https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/inventario/howard-gotlieb-archival-research-center/max-ascoli/introduzione.

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---
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
tags:
- Parapsychology
- Psi
- Philosophy
- Egyptology
- InstituteForParapsychology
- NewSchool
created: 2026-10-09
updated: 2026-10-09
aliases:
- Robert M. Brier
- Robert Brier
- Dr. Robert M. Brier
summary: "Robert M. Brier was a research fellow at the Institute for Parapsychology, later a philosophy professor at C.W. Post College, and then an Egyptologist at the Webb Institute."
relations:
- type: participant_in
with: "[[New School for Social Research]]"
role: "Graduate student, studies in psychology and phenomenology"
start: 1964
end: 1966
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[New School for Social Research]]"
role: "taught the course Experimental Parapsychology, spring 1975"
start: 1975
end: 1975
fn: 6
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Institute for Parapsychology]]"
role: "Research fellow"
start: 1966
end: 1970
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[C.W. Post College]]"
role: "Assistant professor, associate professor, professor; chairman of the philosophy department 1980 to 1996"
start: 1971
end: 2003
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Webb Institute]]"
role: "Adjunct assistant professor (Egyptology)"
start: 2012
fn: 1
---
Robert M. Brier was a research fellow at the [[Institute for Parapsychology]] in Durham, North Carolina, in the late 1960s, taught philosophy at [[C.W. Post College]] of [[Long Island University]] for three decades, and later joined the faculty of the [[Webb Institute]] as an Egyptologist.[^1]
### Education
Brier received an A.B. from [[Hunter College]] in 1964 and studied psychology and phenomenology at the graduate school of the [[New School for Social Research]] from 1964 to 1966.[^1] A Ph.D. dated 1970 is recorded for him, with the institution printed as "University of North Caroline."[^1]
### Parapsychology research, 1966 to 1970
Brier was a research fellow at the Institute for Parapsychology, formerly the [[Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory]], in Durham from 1966 to 1970.[^1] A 1975 bibliography of parapsychology lists [[Joseph B. Rhine]]'s *Parapsychology Today* (New York: Citadel Press, 1968) as co-written with Robert Brier.[^2]
With [[S. R. Feather]], Brier published "The possible effect of the checker in precognition tests" in the *Journal of Parapsychology* in 1968.[^3] The March 1971 issue of the *Journal of Parapsychology* carries an article on repetitions of the French precognition experiments with mice, in which the authors state that Dr. Robert Brier made important contributions at several points.[^4]
### C.W. Post College and Long Island University
A 1975 directory lists "Dr. Robert M. Brier" in the philosophy department of C.W. Post College (Long Island University).[^5] His career there is recorded as an assistant professorship from 1971 to 1974, an associate professorship from 1974 to 1980, a professorship from 1980 to 2003, and the chairmanship of the philosophy department from 1980 to 1996. From 2003 he is recorded as a senior research fellow there.[^1]
### New School listing
The 1975 directory also lists Brier under the New School for Social Research, at 66 West 12th Street, together with [[Martin Ebon]] and [[Gilbert Roller]] and others.[^5] The school's *Bulletin* for spring 1975 lists the course "Experimental Parapsychology," taught by Bob Brier on Wednesdays from February 5 and covering telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition and "a history of the development of parapsychology from magic to science," and a course on Egyptian culture; its faculty biography reads "Bob Brier, Ph.D., University of North Carolina; Research Fellow, Institute for Parapsychology. Associate Professor of Philosophy, C. W. Post College. Member, Parapsychological Association. Editor, with J. B. Rhine, Parapsychology Today; author, Precognition and the Philosophy of Science."[^6]
### Egyptology and publications
From 2012 Brier is recorded as an adjunct assistant professor of Egyptology at the Webb Institute.[^1] His publications include *Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs* (New York: Macmillan, 2013), *Secret of the Great Pyramid*, with [[Jean-Pierre Houdin]] (Smithsonian, 2008), and "Return to the Great Pyramid," *Archaeology* (July-August 2009). His listed honors include a Fulbright fellowship to Turkey (1985), a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in Islamic science at Columbia University (1986), and the David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching (1988).[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb Institute, faculty profile, "Robert M. Brier," curriculum vitae as posted. https://www.webb.edu/academics/faculty/robert-m-brier/
[^2]: CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230018-6, references list of Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff, *New Psychic Frontiers* (Minneapolis: Bolger Publications, 1975): "Rhine, Joseph B. (with Robert Brier), Parapsychology Today, Citadel Press, New York (1968)." https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001200230018-6
[^3]: S. R. Feather and R. Brier, "The possible effect of the checker in precognition tests," *Journal of Parapsychology* 32 (1968): 167-175, as listed in the bibliography of CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200410001-2. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r002200410001-2
[^4]: Walter J. Levy, Jr., L. Allen Mayo, Jr., et al., "Repetition of the French Precognition Experiments with Mice," *Journal of Parapsychology* 35, no. 1 (March 1971), acknowledgment, CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100021-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000400100021-6
[^5]: Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff, *New Psychic Frontiers* (Minneapolis: Bolger Publications, 1975), chapter V, pp. 228-229 (C.W. Post College and New School for Social Research entries). CIA CREST, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230018-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001200230018-6
[^6]: New School for Social Research, *New School Bulletin*, spring 1975, vol. 32, no. 5 (December 27, 1974), course 2750-0 (p. 88), Egyptian culture course (p. 82), faculty biography (p. 328). https://books.google.com/books?id=Ez07AAAAMAAJ