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17
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Edmund Thompson.md
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@ -4,19 +4,20 @@ aliases:
- Edmund Thompson
- Edmund R. Thompson
- Ed Thompson
- E. R. Thompson
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-18
updated: 2026-09-21
category: "Key Figures"
tags:
- Person
- Stargate
- Military
- ArmyIntelligence
summary: "Major General Edmund R. Thompson served as U.S. Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) from 1977 to 1981 and was the key early supporter of the Grill Flame remote viewing program, approving the Fort Meade unit, augmenting its budget, and personally participating in remote viewing sessions."
summary: "Army assistant chief of staff for intelligence from 1977 to 1981 who cancelled Gondola Wish in 1978, put the Army's psychic work under the code name Grill Flame, and ordered INSCOM to build a remote-viewing unit."
location: "Washington, D.C."
---
Major General Edmund R. "Ed" Thompson served as the [[U.S. Army]] Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) from 1977 to 1981. He was a key figure in the establishment and early support of the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Stargate Project]], then codenamed [[STARGATE PROJECT|Gondola Wish]] and later [[STARGATE PROJECT|Grill Flame]], having developed a personal interest in [[Psi|psi]] phenomena after reading [[Arthur Koestler]]'s pro-paranormal book *The Roots of Coincidence*.[^1]
Major General Edmund R. "Ed" Thompson served as the [[U.S. Army]] Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) from 1977 to 1981. He was a key figure in the establishment and early support of the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Stargate Project]], then codenamed Gondola Wish and later Grill Flame, having developed a personal interest in [[Psi|psi]] phenomena after reading [[Arthur Koestler]]'s pro-paranormal book *The Roots of Coincidence*.[^1]
Thompson approved [[Frederick Atwater|Skip Atwater]]'s proposal to assemble a remote viewing team at [[Fort Meade]], seeing it as an opportunity to involve the Army in psychic spying without relying too heavily on the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] or [[Stanford Research Institute]]. He provided initial funding, assigned Major [[Murray Watt|Scotty Watt]] to lead the unit alongside Atwater, and later augmented the unit's resources by increasing the budget and allocating positions for three full-time remote viewers. His support was crucial in the project's early survival despite the skepticism of many within the military and intelligence communities, including his successor [[William Odom]].[^1]
@ -24,6 +25,16 @@ Thompson participated in a remote viewing session himself, attempting to remote-
Later in his career Thompson expressed concerns about [[Albert Stubblebine]]'s management of [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]].[^1]
### The Documents
Major General Edmund R. Thompson was the [[United States Army|Army]]'s assistant chief of staff for intelligence from 1977 to 1981. By the spring of 1978 he "concluded there was sufficient evidence to warrant the development of a comprehensive program" in remote viewing; he "cancelled the Gondola Wish effort, placed a complete security envelope over Army's interest in psychoenergetics, and implemented a new program directed towards intelligence collection using remote viewing," and in October 1978 tasked INSCOM to build it, verbally. He told a British television series: "I had one or more briefings by SRI and was impressed. The decision I made was to set up a small, in-house, low-cost effort in remote viewing." He sat on the Grill Flame oversight committee formed on November 28, 1978, with Jack Vorona of DIA, Rear Admiral S. Shapiro, commander of the Naval Intelligence Command, Major General J. L. Brown of Air Force intelligence, and Lowell Dailey for the under secretary for research, "responsible for insuring that research and experiments fall within the legal guidelines."[^2][^3]
His eyes-only memorandum on the steering committee warned that Representative Charles Rose had an "oft-repeated desire to be kept up to date on a continuing basis" and that "a situation as before in which the last briefing was done at his instigation, forcing us to be reactors rather than action takers, should be avoided." By January 1980 he "has briefed the DDO on the INSCOM program." On April 16, 1981, he sat with Lieutenant Colonel Murray Watt to brief Rose, assuring him that the Army wished to keep working with SRI, and on May 8, 1981, asked the Secretary of the Army to approve work with civilian contractors under Procedure 18 of the Defense Department's rules on human subjects, granted on May 27 on condition that it serve "an important foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose." In 1981 his office transferred management of the project to INSCOM.[^4][^5]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
[^2]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "Briefing - Project Center Lane," c. 1984, CIA-RDP96-00789R002100180002-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Puthoff, H. E. "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, quoting the Channel 4 series *Equinox*.
[^3]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," February 21, 1979, with enclosures, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^4]: Thompson, E. R., Major General, memorandum "GRILL FLAME Steering Committee" to Dr. La Berge, eyes only, undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250013-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Defense Intelligence Agency, minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee, November 28, 1978 (enclosed in Progress Report #1), July 12, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130008-9), November 27, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1), and January 10, 1980 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Watt, Murray B., memorandum for the record, "INSCOM GRILL FLAME Briefing for Congressman Rose, 16 April 1981," April 17, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100190007-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^5]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Grill Flame - Action Memorandum," December 11, 1981, with the memorandum of Major General E. R. Thompson of May 8, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100240001-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.

12
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Jack Vorona.md
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@ -16,18 +16,24 @@ Jack Vorona was the Assistant Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence
In 1981, Vorona contacted [[Dale Graff]] and brought him to Washington, D.C., to help run a classified program called [[Psychoenergetics]]. The main goals of this project were "to evaluate the threat that foreign psychoenergetics achievements might pose to US national security, and to explore the potential of psychoenergetics for use in US intelligence collection"[^2]. Vorona believed that with the resources of the DIA, genuine progress could be made toward a general theory of [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]] and [[Psychokinesis|PK]][^2].
Vorona oversaw the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Grill Flame]] program and later the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Sun Streak]] program, which aimed to train military personnel in [[Remote Viewing]]. He made administrative changes, converting the branch chief and operations officer positions from military to civilian, and reducing training time[^2].
Vorona oversaw the Grill Flame program and later the Sun Streak program, which aimed to train military personnel in [[Remote Viewing]]. He made administrative changes, converting the branch chief and operations officer positions from military to civilian, and reducing training time[^2].
He was also involved in high-priority operational tasks, such as the effort to locate [[William Richard Higgins]], a Marine Lieutenant Colonel abducted in [[Lebanon]], and the tracking of [[Muammar Qaddafi]]'s alleged chemical weapons stockpile. In the latter case, Vorona sat with [[Angela Dellafiora]] in the viewing room at [[Fort Meade]], demonstrating the high-level attention given to her abilities[^2].
Vorona chaired the Remote Viewing Tasking Group for Sun Streak, which included representatives from the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]], [[NSA|NSA]], [[State Department]], and various military and intelligence agencies. This group handled targets such as underground tunnels in [[Korea]], [[Silkworm Missile]] launch facilities in [[Iran]], and the errant nuclear-powered [[Cosmos 1900]] satellite[^2].
Vorona chaired the Remote Viewing Tasking Group for Sun Streak, which included representatives from the CIA, [[NSA|NSA]], [[State Department]], and various military and intelligence agencies. This group handled targets such as underground tunnels in [[Korea]], [[Silkworm Missile]] launch facilities in [[Iran]], and the errant nuclear-powered [[Cosmos 1900]] satellite[^2].
He received [[Hal Puthoff]]'s sixty-page classified report, "Psychoenergetics Research in the People’s Republic of China (1982)," which confirmed the extensive research into [[Extraordinary Human Body Function|EHBF]] and its military applications in [[China]], driven by [[Qian Xuesen|H. S. Tsien]][^2].
Vorona, along with General [[Edmund Thompson]], briefed Congressman [[Charlie Rose]] on the Grill Flame program in the late 1970s. He accompanied Rose on tours of the remote viewing facilities at both [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] and [[Fort Meade]], and was a staunch supporter of the program, despite the skepticism it faced[^1].
Vorona, along with General [[Edmund Thompson]], briefed Congressman [[Charlie Rose]] on the Grill Flame program in the late 1970s. He accompanied Rose on tours of the remote viewing facilities at both [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] and Fort Meade, and was a staunch supporter of the program, despite the skepticism it faced[^1].
Jack Vorona retired after twenty-five years of service at DIA and was inducted into the DIA's Torch Bearers Hall in 2011[^2].
### The Committee
Vorona chaired the Defense Department's Grill Flame committee from its first meeting at DIA on November 28, 1978, where he "cautioned the Committee to maintain a low profile with minimal fanfare," "urged the development of experimental protocol and methods for validating experiments," and saw it agree "that all documents originating as a result of the GRILL FLAME program would undergo downgrading review only after 20 years." He missed the meeting of July 12, 1979, because he "was briefing Congressman Rose on DoD efforts and interest in parapsychology." In November 1979 the committee asked him to demand sight of the "Gale Committee's" outside report before anyone else saw it, the working group holding it "misleading and inadequate." INSCOM's chronology records that on August 3, 1983, "the Honorable [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]], Vice President of the United States, was briefed for thirty minutes concerning CENTER LANE related activities by Dr. Vorona, DIA," "Adm. Murphy, C/S," and "Mr. Gregg, Assistant to the Vice President, National Security Affairs," present: "The briefing was well received and the Vice President was interested and impressed."[^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
[^2]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
[^3]: Defense Intelligence Agency, minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee, November 28, 1978 (enclosed in Progress Report #1), July 12, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130008-9), November 27, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1), and January 10, 1980 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.

23
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Jessica Utts.md
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@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
---
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-09-21
title: Jessica Utts
aliases:
- Jessica Utts
@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ tags:
- 1990s
- 2000s
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
summary: "Jessica Utts is a statistician at the University of California, Davis, who wrote the pro-psi half of the 1995 American Institutes for Research evaluation of the STAR GATE program, concluding that the remote viewing data showed a statistically significant and replicable anomalous effect warranting serious scientific investigation."
summary: "Statistician at the University of California, Davis, whose 1995 review for the American Institutes for Research concluded that psychic functioning had been well established, against Ray Hyman's dissent."
born: 1952-01-01
location: "Davis, California"
---
@ -28,25 +28,14 @@ Utts became involved in parapsychology research assessment through her statistic
### 1995 AIR Evaluation
When the CIA commissioned the AIR to evaluate STAR GATE, AIR project director Edwin May provided Utts and Hyman with the program's experimental database - the accumulated laboratory remote viewing sessions from the program's SRI and SAIC phases, including the work of [[Edwin May]]'s Cognitive Sciences Laboratory at SAIC.
Utts concluded in her assessment that the data showed "a genuine anomalous transfer of information" with an effect size large enough to be meaningful and replicable across independent laboratories. She calculated that the probability of obtaining the observed results by chance was less than one in a billion. She argued that the program's laboratory effect was real and that further scientific investigation was warranted, while acknowledging that the mechanism was unknown and the operational application was a separate question from the laboratory finding.
Her assessment explicitly compared the remote viewing effect size to other accepted but unexplained phenomena and argued that the scientific standard for accepting or rejecting the data should be the same as in any other field of inquiry.[^2]
In June 1995 the CIA contracted the American Institutes for Research to review the DIA's Star Gate program, and AIR engaged Utts, then statistical editor of the *Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research*, and Ray Hyman as its two research reviewers, with Lincoln Moses of Stanford advising on statistics. The CIA supplied about 80 publications; the principal investigator, [[Edwin May]], was asked to name the studies he thought strongest. Utts's report of September 1, 1995, concluded: "Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world." She placed the effect "in the range between what social scientists call a small and medium effect," explained that with five-choice rank-order judging "the effect size for a series of remote viewings is (3.0 - average rank)/2," cited the 1988 analysis of 154 SRI experiments and 26,000 trials with a p-value below 10^-20, tabulated May's ten SAIC experiments (Entropy II: 90 trials, effect size 0.550), and compared novice and experienced viewers at SRI (0.164 and 0.385) with the ganzfeld results at the [[Psychophysical Research Laboratories]] (0.17 and 0.35). "It is recommended that future experiments focus on understanding how this phenomenon works," she wrote; "there is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof."[^2]
### Hyman Disagreement
Ray Hyman's independent assessment reached opposite conclusions from the same data. Hyman acknowledged that the results could not be explained by chance, but argued that methodological issues - primarily potential experimenter effects, inadequate controls against sensory leakage, and inadequate blind conditions - provided alternative explanations that precluded accepting the data as evidence for remote viewing.
The AIR's final report, drawing on both assessments, found no demonstrated practical intelligence utility and recommended termination. Utts disputed the operational conclusions, maintaining that the laboratory evidence was real and had been overshadowed by the question of whether operational military applications had been demonstrated.
Both assessments were subsequently published in the [[Journal of Scientific Exploration]] in 1996, where they have served as reference papers for the psi debate.[^2]
### Significance
Utts's 1995 AIR assessment is frequently cited in parapsychology literature as the most rigorous statistician's endorsement of a psi effect in a government-funded context. Critics, including Hyman, maintain that her analysis did not adequately account for methodological confounds; supporters cite her credentials and statistical methodology as making her conclusions difficult to dismiss on purely methodological grounds. The exchange between Utts and Hyman in the Journal of Scientific Exploration remains the most focused technical debate over the STAR GATE experimental data.[^2]
Hyman's report of September 11 agreed that the SAIC experiments "were free of the methodological weaknesses that plagued the early SRI research" and that their effect sizes were "too large and consistent to be dismissed as statistical flukes," but answered no to whether they established anomalous cognition, whether flaws had been eliminated, and whether they matched other laboratories, "ten experiments, especially from one laboratory," being "far too few." Utts's reply cited the psychologist Sybo Schouten's estimate that all parapsychology funding since 1882 "is at best equivalent to the expenditures devoted to fewer than two months of research in conventional psychology in the United States," and the Physicians Health Study of aspirin: "had it been conducted on only 2,200 men with the same reduction in heart attacks, it would not have achieved statistical significance." AIR's own synthesis found that "the two reviewers agreed far more than they disagreed," and that the significant results rested on "the same remote viewers, the same judge, the same target set, and the same scoring procedures." The report of September 29 recommended against continuing the operational program. Both reviews were published in the *Journal of Scientific Exploration* in 1996.[^3]
### 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]: Utts, Jessica. "An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning." *Journal of Scientific Exploration* 10, no. 1 (1996): 3-30. Hyman, Ray. "Evaluation of a Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena." *Journal of Scientific Exploration* 10, no. 1 (1996): 31-58.
[^2]: Utts, Jessica. "An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning," September 1, 1995, reproduced in the AIR report, pp. 3-2 to 3-40, and published in *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 3-30. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB438/docs/doc_57.pdf
[^3]: Hyman, Ray. "Evaluation of Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena," September 11, 1995, reproduced in the AIR report, pp. 3-41 to 3-75, and published in *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 31-58. Mumford, Michael D., Andrew M. Rose, and David A. Goslin. *An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications.* American Institutes for Research, September 29, 1995, pp. 3-76 to 3-84.

21
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Michael Townley.md
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@ -32,6 +32,8 @@ He was born in Waterloo, [[Iowa]], first worked in Chile in the early 1960s as a
In a sworn statement of March 29, 1978, in the file of the military prosecutor [[Héctor Orozco]] in Santiago, Townley gave his profession as electronics technician and expert in hydraulic mechanics and said that on joining DINA he had met "then-Major Eduardo Iturriaga": "we first tried to coordinate the information I had on anti-Castro organizations in the US, and then look at how to use this information and my contacts to expand them and build a coherent network of informants and sub-informants." In late January or early February 1975, in Iturriaga's office, "he received a phone call in connection with which he asked me if I knew [[Orlando Bosch]], [[Guillermo Novo]] and [[Jose Dionisio Suarez|Dionisio Suárez]]. I told him I only knew of Orlando Bosch by reference and that I didn't like him," because "his group had been infiltrated by the CIA, the FBI, and specifically by a certain 'Mono' [[Ricardo Morales Navarrete|Navarrete]]. My final recommendation was that the service not make contact with this group." He had obtained an American passport as Kenneth Enyart in October 1973 "to return safely to Chile" after the Concepción affair; the real Enyart, a memorandum of the American prosecutors recorded, "knew Michael Townley only because Enyart took his car to be repaired at the shop where Mr. Townley worked in 1973" and did not know Townley had briefly taken his driver's license. In December 1974 Townley went to the United States as Enyart "to explore the possibility of acquiring electronic countermeasure equipment"; [[Jack Holcomb]] of [[Audio Intelligence Devices]] identified his photograph to American investigators as the "Enyart" who had presented a purchase authorization "purportedly signed by Enrique Montero" and given the name of General Washington Carrasco as a reference. Callejas testified that she had seen the document in her husband's office "bearing stamps and a signature but otherwise blank," meant "for purchasing electronic equipment whose sale in the US was restricted to governments and their security departments," and had helped him fill it in. Of September 1976 he said he met Novo, "whose nom de guerre is Santiago Otero," at the restaurant La Estrella in Union City, and that the movement's directorate asked "What can you give us in Chile," wanting "a quiet place, preferably in the countryside," to train; his conversation with [[Felipe Rivero]] "was short and quite cold," his contacts with [[Ignacio Novo]] in Miami "very friendly." Contreras told the same prosecutor: "I know this individual as Andrés Wilson and only recently learned from the press that he had this other name. Wilson was a good informant of my Service and acted as an informant to one of my Officers."[^4]
A CNI secretary, Alejandra Damiani, who had joined DINA on May 1, 1976, described him as "a paid DINA informant, whose duties, though secondary, consisted of listening to shortwave and longwave radio, as well as monitoring ham radio operators," and said that on visiting his house at Vía Naranja 4925 she saw only his wife, "who devoted herself to literary activities." [[Eugenio Berríos]], who worked with him on boldine and plastics, said the nickname Hermes "was simply the jocular result of a conversation with Michael Townley, in which we spoke of him being Andrés [the name is read uncertainly in the scan], which struck me as odd, that someone would have two names, and I would then be Hermes, referring to the great god of Alchemy," and "that under these conditions we would both come to dominate the world." An army intelligence memorandum of March 1978 from Valdivia reported a salesman who said he had known "Williams Rose," the name on Townley's Paraguayan passport, in Valdivia from 1971 to 1973, when he had a yacht built at his brother's shipyard, and had seen in 1972 a passport in a name the scan renders as "Maik Tolowy"; the man thought "Chile should try to help Williams Rose, since he did a lot for Chile during the Unidad Popular, if he really is involved in that assassination."[^5]
### Prats
In June 1974 Pinochet ordered the DINA director, Colonel [[Manuel Contreras]], to eliminate Prats, his predecessor as army commander, who was living in exile in Buenos Aires under restrictions the CIA reported he had "faithfully carried out." The DINA station chief in [[Argentina]], [[Enrique Arancibia Clavel]], failed to arrange it through Argentine paramilitaries, and Contreras's deputy, Colonel [[Pedro Espinoza]], turned to Townley. "It was a patriotic request," Townley told an Argentine judge in 1999. "So, I did it." He and Callejas arrived on September 10, 1974. He followed Prats into a park and decided against shooting him because "there were too many people around." On September 29 he entered the garage of the general's building and fixed two cartridges of C4 to the chassis of his Fiat 125. Four days before the killing the Chilean foreign ministry told its consul that it would be "inconvenient" to issue the couple passports to leave for [[Brazil]]. Prats and [[Sofía Cuthbert]] returned from visiting friends just after midnight on September 30. Callejas pressed the detonator, "but it did not function," Townley said. "I took it from her, pressed it, and it worked."[^2]
@ -46,11 +48,11 @@ DINA gave Townley 30,000 dollars for missions in [[Mexico]] and Europe, with whi
Under a project codenamed ANDREA Townley manufactured [[sarin]] in his basement and planned to make soman and tabun. He recorded that it was used to kill a DINA employee who had been arrested for car theft and had talked to the police, and who was taken from custody to the [[Clínica Londres]], a DINA medical facility, where he died "almost instantaneously," and to kill [[René León Zenteno]], a property registrar who had refused to transfer titles illegally to DINA. Townley suggested that the body be exhumed and tested. The Spanish [[United Nations]] official [[Carmelo Soria]] was beaten to death by Mulchén Brigade agents in Townley's front yard.[^1]
The equipment for the laboratory, a large microwave oven and gas canisters, was bought in Miami and paid for from an account of a fictitious DINA company, Prosin Ltd., at the Southeast First National Bank. The chemist [[Eugenio Berríos]], code name Hermes, worked with him. An FBI report states that the nerve gas "was to be utilized against Argentina and [[Peru]] in the event of hostilities," that members of the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]] who were shown the laboratory "requested that the Cuban Nationalist Movement be furnished a supply of nerve gas to utilize in their terrorist activities," and that Townley carried a quantity to the United States on a LAN-Chile flight in a Chanel No. 5 bottle.[^3]
The equipment for the laboratory, a large microwave oven and gas canisters, was bought in Miami and paid for from an account of a fictitious DINA company, Prosin Ltd., at the Southeast First National Bank. The chemist Eugenio Berríos, code name Hermes, worked with him. An FBI report states that the nerve gas "was to be utilized against Argentina and [[Peru]] in the event of hostilities," that members of the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]] who were shown the laboratory "requested that the Cuban Nationalist Movement be furnished a supply of nerve gas to utilize in their terrorist activities," and that Townley carried a quantity to the United States on a LAN-Chile flight in a Chanel No. 5 bottle.[^3]
### Letelier
Townley wrote that Espinoza's orders were explicit: "Find Letelier's home and workplace and contact the Cuban group to eliminate him, or use SARIN gas, or orchestrate an accident, or in the end by whatever method, but the government of Chile wanted Letelier dead." He first went to [[Paraguay]] for false documents and American visas, which the United States canceled. He entered the United States on September 9, 1976, and met the leaders of the Cuban Nationalist Movement in a hotel room in [[New Jersey]] the next day: Guillermo Novo, [[Alvin Ross Díaz|Alvin Ross]], [[Virgilio Paz]], and [[José Dionisio Suárez]]. Novo told him the group would cooperate but insisted that Townley take part in person. Townley, Paz, and Suárez assembled the device in Washington, and at midnight on September 18 Townley taped it to the cross member under the driver's seat of Letelier's car. It was detonated by remote control at [[Sheridan Circle]] on September 21.[^1][^5]
Townley wrote that Espinoza's orders were explicit: "Find Letelier's home and workplace and contact the Cuban group to eliminate him, or use SARIN gas, or orchestrate an accident, or in the end by whatever method, but the government of Chile wanted Letelier dead." He first went to [[Paraguay]] for false documents and American visas, which the United States canceled. He entered the United States on September 9, 1976, and met the leaders of the Cuban Nationalist Movement in a hotel room in [[New Jersey]] the next day: Guillermo Novo, [[Alvin Ross Díaz|Alvin Ross]], [[Virgilio Paz]], and [[José Dionisio Suárez]]. Novo told him the group would cooperate but insisted that Townley take part in person. Townley, Paz, and Suárez assembled the device in Washington, and at midnight on September 18 Townley taped it to the cross member under the driver's seat of Letelier's car. It was detonated by remote control at [[Sheridan Circle]] on September 21.[^1][^6]
### The Insurance File
@ -58,13 +60,13 @@ In March 1978, after the American and Chilean press had named him, Townley wrote
### Trials
Novo and Ross were convicted of murder in 1979 and Novo's brother Ignacio of lying to the grand jury. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|court of appeals]] reversed all three convictions in 1980, because the government had used the testimony of jailhouse informants, one of whom said Ross had told him he was involved in the murder "together with generals in DINA." At the retrial in May 1981 Townley, "now serving 3½ to 10 years," admitted on the stand that he had lied to a Chilean military investigator and given a false statement of innocence to [[El Mercurio]]. In 1983 the Prats daughters came to Washington to support an Argentine request for his extradition. A federal judge ruled that his plea agreement barred it. The Argentine judge [[María Servini de Cubría|María Servini]] deposed him in the United States in 1999. Chilean courts convicted Contreras and Espinoza of the Letelier murder in 1993 and of the Prats murders in June 2010. Arancibia Clavel was imprisoned in Argentina for almost two decades.[^1][^2][^5][^6]
Novo and Ross were convicted of murder in 1979 and Novo's brother Ignacio of lying to the grand jury. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|court of appeals]] reversed all three convictions in 1980, because the government had used the testimony of jailhouse informants, one of whom said Ross had told him he was involved in the murder "together with generals in DINA." At the retrial in May 1981 Townley, "now serving 3½ to 10 years," admitted on the stand that he had lied to a Chilean military investigator and given a false statement of innocence to [[El Mercurio]]. In 1983 the Prats daughters came to Washington to support an Argentine request for his extradition. A federal judge ruled that his plea agreement barred it. The Argentine judge [[María Servini de Cubría|María Servini]] deposed him in the United States in 1999. Chilean courts convicted Contreras and Espinoza of the Letelier murder in 1993 and of the Prats murders in June 2010. Arancibia Clavel was imprisoned in Argentina for almost two decades.[^1][^2][^6][^7]
### The Telephone
During the trial persons connected with the Cuban defendants gave reporters a cassette, brought from Chile by [[Sergio Miranda Carrington]], the lawyer for Contreras, of a call Townley had made on January 30, 1979, from the office of the prosecutor [[Eugene Propper]] to Gustavo Etchepare in Santiago, "a former member of 'Patria y Libertad'" with "connections with DINA." Interviewed by [[Robert Scherrer]] and [[Carter Cornick]] on February 6, 8, and 16, Townley denied threatening Judge [[Barrington Parker]] or asking anyone to, and denied that any agent had suggested it. He said he had made the call without authorization, by direct dialing from Propper's desk while the prosecutors were in court, and that Propper on returning "ordered him to terminate his conversation." He had made other calls to Chile from the same office with Propper's or [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|Barcella]]'s consent, to Etchepare for information on the extradition proceedings against Contreras, Espinoza, and Fernández, and to his Chilean lawyer Manuel Acuña about his property and the civil suit brought by Letelier's widow, reimbursing the government for the personal ones, since the marshals' safe house could not dial Chile direct. He recalled telling Etchepare that Miranda Carrington's actions on Contreras's behalf might be read in Washington as an attempt by the Chilean government to discredit him for the Cubans' benefit, and that "Contreras' free-wheeling activities had to be curtailed," since they "would severely damage the credibility and image of the Chilean Government." The defendants' appeal quoted his own account of the tape: "That was one of the things that was talked about confidentially with people from the FBI ... how many friends we all had who could ... make threatening phone calls to the judge to get him to withdraw from the case."[^7]
During the trial persons connected with the Cuban defendants gave reporters a cassette, brought from Chile by [[Sergio Miranda Carrington]], the lawyer for Contreras, of a call Townley had made on January 30, 1979, from the office of the prosecutor [[Eugene Propper]] to Gustavo Etchepare in Santiago, "a former member of 'Patria y Libertad'" with "connections with DINA." Interviewed by [[Robert Scherrer]] and [[Carter Cornick]] on February 6, 8, and 16, Townley denied threatening Judge [[Barrington Parker]] or asking anyone to, and denied that any agent had suggested it. He said he had made the call without authorization, by direct dialing from Propper's desk while the prosecutors were in court, and that Propper on returning "ordered him to terminate his conversation." He had made other calls to Chile from the same office with Propper's or [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|Barcella]]'s consent, to Etchepare for information on the extradition proceedings against Contreras, Espinoza, and Fernández, and to his Chilean lawyer Manuel Acuña about his property and the civil suit brought by Letelier's widow, reimbursing the government for the personal ones, since the marshals' safe house could not dial Chile direct. He recalled telling Etchepare that Miranda Carrington's actions on Contreras's behalf might be read in Washington as an attempt by the Chilean government to discredit him for the Cubans' benefit, and that "Contreras' free-wheeling activities had to be curtailed," since they "would severely damage the credibility and image of the Chilean Government." The defendants' appeal quoted his own account of the tape: "That was one of the things that was talked about confidentially with people from the FBI ... how many friends we all had who could ... make threatening phone calls to the judge to get him to withdraw from the case."[^8]
In its brief on appeal the government gave its account of his dealings with the CIA: before leaving for Chile in late 1970 "he called the public office of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Miami," an employee came to his workplace, Townley offered to supply information, and "he heard nothing further"; in 1973, in Miami between March and September, he called again "at the request of people he had been working with in Chile who wanted CIA help in their opposition to Allende," and "no further relationship developed." The defense had argued from discovery material that he "had been given 'operational status.'"[^8]
In its brief on appeal the government gave its account of his dealings with the CIA: before leaving for Chile in late 1970 "he called the public office of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Miami," an employee came to his workplace, Townley offered to supply information, and "he heard nothing further"; in 1973, in Miami between March and September, he called again "at the request of people he had been working with in Chile who wanted CIA help in their opposition to Allende," and "no further relationship developed." The defense had argued from discovery material that he "had been given 'operational status.'"[^9]
### Footnotes
@ -72,7 +74,8 @@ In its brief on appeal the government gave its account of his dealings with the
[^2]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert," National Security Archive, October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia
[^3]: Kornbluh, Peter. *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability*. New Press, 2003, pp. 167-171, 195-196.
[^4]: Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78 (fiscal Héctor Orozco), as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* ministro instructor Adolfo Bañados, tomo 1, scan at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, declaraciones of Michael Vernon Townley Welch (March 29, 1978), Mariana Callejas (April 4, 1978), and Manuel Contreras (March 22, 1978); Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78, as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* tomo 2, scan at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991-2.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, memorandum of Eugene M. Propper and E. Lawrence Barcella, June 5, 1978.
[^5]: United States v. Novo Sampol, 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980).
[^6]: Kiernan, Laura A. "Townley Admits Lying to Chilean Questioners," *The Washington Post,* May 17, 1981, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000606730006-5.
[^7]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington field office, file 185-425, reports of interviews of Michael Vernon Townley by Special Agents Robert W. Scherrer and L. Carter Cornick, February 6, 8, and 16, 1979, https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-townley-phone.pdf; Brief for Appellants, *United States v. Sampol,* Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir. 1979), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-appeal.pdf, citing appendix 3 and trial transcript pp. 5072-5077.
[^8]: Brief for Appellee, *United States v. Sampol,* Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir. 1979), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-brief-appellee.pdf, citing trial transcript pp. 1584-1590; Brief for Appellants, *United States v. Sampol,* Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir. 1979), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-appeal.pdf.
[^5]: Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78, as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* ministro instructor Adolfo Bañados, tomo 1, scan at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, declaraciones of Alejandra Damiani Serrano (March 27, 1978) and Eugenio Antonio Berríos Sagredo (June 1, 1978); memorandum of the IV División, Valdivia, March 23, 1978, on Fernando Roberto Lara Larreta, the name on the passport read uncertainly in the scan.
[^6]: United States v. Novo Sampol, 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980).
[^7]: Kiernan, Laura A. "Townley Admits Lying to Chilean Questioners," *The Washington Post,* May 17, 1981, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000606730006-5.
[^8]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington field office, file 185-425, reports of interviews of Michael Vernon Townley by Special Agents Robert W. Scherrer and L. Carter Cornick, February 6, 8, and 16, 1979, https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-townley-phone.pdf; Brief for Appellants, *United States v. Sampol,* Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir. 1979), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-appeal.pdf, citing appendix 3 and trial transcript pp. 5072-5077.
[^9]: Brief for Appellee, *United States v. Sampol,* Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir. 1979), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-brief-appellee.pdf, citing trial transcript pp. 1584-1590; Brief for Appellants, *United States v. Sampol,* Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir. 1979), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-appeal.pdf.

17
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Murray Watt.md
View file

@ -6,10 +6,12 @@ tags:
- Military
- Stargate
summary: "Watt, along with Atwater, was responsible for selecting and training the initial remote viewers for the program."
alias:
- Murray B. Watt
- Scotty Watt
---
Murray B. "Scotty" Watt was a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and the first commander of the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Gondola Wish]] (later [[STARGATE PROJECT|Grill Flame]]) remote viewing unit. He was two decades older than [[Frederick Atwater|Skip Atwater]], described as a tall and husky man with a bulbous nose and a Boston accent. Watt had a reputation for a volcanic temper, which was said to have hindered his career progression after an incident in Panama where he struck a fellow officer. He was chosen for this obscure and potentially controversial assignment because it was felt he had "little to lose."[^1]
Murray B. "Scotty" Watt was a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and the first commander of the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Gondola Wish]] (later Grill Flame) remote viewing unit. He was two decades older than [[Frederick Atwater|Skip Atwater]], described as a tall and husky man with a bulbous nose and a Boston accent. Watt had a reputation for a volcanic temper, which was said to have hindered his career progression after an incident in Panama where he struck a fellow officer. He was chosen for this obscure and potentially controversial assignment because it was felt he had "little to lose."[^1]
Watt, along with Atwater, was responsible for selecting and training the initial remote viewers for the program. He handled the bureaucratic aspects of the unit, maintaining contact with the network of Grill Flame customers and ensuring the unit's operations adhered to necessary protocols. He was concerned about maintaining the appearance of scientific rigor and avoiding any perception of cheating within the program.[^1]
@ -18,4 +20,15 @@ Watt was present during many key remote viewing sessions, including the initial
Despite his initial lack of interest in the paranormal, Watt was instrumental in the establishment and early operations of the Army's psychic spying program. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel during his tenure with the unit. He eventually transferred out of the unit, but not before helping to establish it on a firm footing.[^1]
### The Documents
Murray B. Watt, called Scotty, was a major of military intelligence in the human intelligence office of [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] at [[Fort Meade]]. "Sometime during the month of October 1978, Colonel A. W. Hamel, ADCSOPS-HUMINT, INSCOM, was tasked by the DCSOPS, INSCOM, to provide a Project Officer for a new program that INSCOM was becoming involved in at the direction of the ACSI. Major Murray B. Watt was selected to be the INSCOM Project Manager (PM) and on 27 October 1978 was so notified." The tasking was verbal: "There exists no written tasking between OACSI and HQ, INSCOM." His first progress report, of February 21, 1979, records his visits to [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] on November 15 to 17, 1978, where he met [[Hal Puthoff]], [[Russell Targ]], the psychologist [[Charles Tart]], and [[Edwin May]], and on December 12 to 15, where he met Puthoff and [[Ingo Swann]]; the first meeting of the Defense Department's Grill Flame committee on November 28, 1978, at which he joined the working groups on objectives and on protocols; the visit with Lieutenant Frederick Atwater to [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]] on January 12, 1979; and the screening of INSCOM personnel for viewers, 251 considered and 117 interviewed, unit by unit.[^2]
Watt briefed the committee on "INSCOM training and operational application of the remote viewing phenomenon" on November 27, 1979, and, as a lieutenant colonel, briefed Representative [[Charlie Rose|Charles Rose]] with General [[Edmund Thompson]] on April 16, 1981, writing the record of it. On June 30, 1981, as "outgoing project manager," he gave the first Grill Flame briefing to the new commander of INSCOM, [[Albert Stubblebine]], alongside his successor, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jachim.[^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
[^2]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," February 21, 1979, with enclosures, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^3]: Defense Intelligence Agency, minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee, November 28, 1978 (enclosed in Progress Report #1), July 12, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130008-9), November 27, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1), and January 10, 1980 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Watt, Murray B., memorandum for the record, "INSCOM GRILL FLAME Briefing for Congressman Rose, 16 April 1981," April 17, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100190007-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Buzby, Brian, memoranda for the record, "Initial Grill Flame Briefing to MG Stubblebine as CG, INSCOM, 30 June 1981" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220001-0), "Meeting With MG Stubblebine on 30 November 1983" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220010-0), and "Meeting with MG Stubblebine on 6 January 1984" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220009-2). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.

4
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Vernon Walters.md
View file

@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ tags:
- LatinAmerica
- Watergate
- ColdWar
summary: The US military attaché in Brazil whose personal relationships with coup-plotting generals helped ensure the 1964 overthrow of Joao Goulart succeeded, and who went on to become Deputy Director of the CIA under Nixon.
summary: "US military attaché in Brazil whose personal relationships with coup-plotting generals helped ensure the 1964 overthrow of João Goulart, and who went on to become deputy director of the CIA under Nixon."
born: 1917-01-03
died: 2002-02-10
location: New York, NY / Washington, DC / Rio de Janeiro
@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ In June 1976 Walters went to [[Paraguay]] to remove the CIA station chief, who h
One of the two, Captain René Riveros Valderrama, gave a sworn statement in Santiago on March 22, 1978, to the Chilean court investigating Contreras and Espinoza. He and Captain Rolando Mosqueira Jarpa had left for Washington on August 21, 1976, on official passports in the names Juan Williams Rose and Alejandro Romeral Jara, prepared by DINA's passport section, on a mission given them by Contreras "to make contact with the North American General Don Vernon Walters in order to receive certain information relating to the names of certain persons." They could not reach him: he was handing over his post and on leave, and "finally a CIA secretary whom we could not identify told us that General Walters no longer worked at that intelligence agency." They then called on a Chilean general Mosqueira knew, giving their real names and ranks but not their errand, and when every approach failed telephoned Espinoza, DINA's chief of operations, who authorized them to return.[^21]
Contreras told the Chilean military prosecutor on March 22, 1978, that "around June or early July 1976, CIA Chile informed me that the Deputy Director of the CIA, General Vernon Walters, needed a contact in the US to give us a list of lobbyists and people who could cooperate with Chile before the US Senate and also for the UN's forthcoming session that year." Espinoza testified on April 24 that Contreras ordered him to designate an agent for the mission with a companion fluent in English; he chose Fernández Larios, and "the name of the second man was suggested by then-Major [[Raúl Iturriaga Neumann|Iturriaga]], under the name Andrés Wilson," who "turned out to be the same person I had known since November or December 1974 as Michael Townley." Fernández Larios said he was told "once in the US I had to speak with a CIA chief named Vernon Walters, because he was going to give me a list of people sympathetic to Chile for purposes of presenting the Chilean position before the United Nations." The second pair, Captains [[René Riveros]] and [[Rolando Mosqueira]], could not find him. The FBI interviewed Walters on June 14, 1978, at the Chilean prosecutor's request. "When told that several DINA officials were claiming that their trip to the US in August of 1976 was to see him, the General laughed and dismissed the idea as being ludicrous on its face, saying it was impossible since he had retired during the previous month." He said his trip to Paraguay "had been completely unrelated to the Letelier assassination," that "at no time had he discussed with any Paraguayan officials the issuance of false passports," that his only contact with Contreras had been the 1975 visit, and he "offered to take a polygraph examination." Propper added: "I have been advised by the CIA that General Vernon Walters retired from the CIA on July 2, 1976. He was no longer there at the time either mission to the United States by DINA personnel took place."[^22]
Contreras told the Chilean military prosecutor on March 22, 1978, that "around June or early July 1976, CIA Chile informed me that the Deputy Director of the CIA, General Vernon Walters, needed a contact in the US to give us a list of lobbyists and people who could cooperate with Chile before the US Senate and also for the UN's forthcoming session that year." Espinoza testified on April 24 that Contreras ordered him to designate an agent for the mission with a companion fluent in English; he chose Fernández Larios, and "the name of the second man was suggested by then-Major [[Raúl Iturriaga Neumann|Iturriaga]], under the name Andrés Wilson," who "turned out to be the same person I had known since November or December 1974 as Michael Townley." Fernández Larios said he was told "once in the US I had to speak with a CIA chief named Vernon Walters, because he was going to give me a list of people sympathetic to Chile for purposes of presenting the Chilean position before the United Nations." The second pair, Captains [[René Riveros]] and [[Rolando Mosqueira]], could not find him; General [[Nilo Floody]] of the Chilean military mission, who had known Walters since 1974, had his secretary telephone Walters's office and was told "that he was out of town, that he no longer belonged to the CIA, and that upon his return he would presumably rejoin the Army." The FBI interviewed Walters on June 14, 1978, at the Chilean prosecutor's request. "When told that several DINA officials were claiming that their trip to the US in August of 1976 was to see him, the General laughed and dismissed the idea as being ludicrous on its face, saying it was impossible since he had retired during the previous month." He said his trip to Paraguay "had been completely unrelated to the Letelier assassination," that "at no time had he discussed with any Paraguayan officials the issuance of false passports," that his only contact with Contreras had been the 1975 visit, and he "offered to take a polygraph examination." Propper added: "I have been advised by the CIA that General Vernon Walters retired from the CIA on July 2, 1976. He was no longer there at the time either mission to the United States by DINA personnel took place."[^22]
As ambassador at large for President [[Ronald Reagan]], Walters visited Pinochet in February 1981. "We spoke as old friends," he reported. "He offered full support and said he would do anything we wanted to help us in the Salvadoran situation." He told a congressional committee that the Letelier bombing had been "a mistake," like [[Napoleon]]'s execution of the Duke of Enghien: "You can't rub their noses in it forever."[^19]