The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Research and Development (CIA).md

created	updated	title	tags	description	category	summary	start	location	relations
2025-07-22	2026-10-09	Office of Research and Development (CIA)	organization intelligence CIA research	The Office of Research and Development (ORD) was a more scientifically oriented office within the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, involved in funding psi research.	U.S. Government	The Office of Research and Development (CIA) (ORD) was a more scientifically oriented office within the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology.	1962	Langley, Virginia	type with start end role fn funded Stanford Research Institute 1973-02 1976-02 joint ORD and OTS funding of SRI parapsychology work; ORD officers judged the research unproductive and support was dropped 3

The Office of Research and Development (CIA) (ORD) was a more scientifically oriented office within the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology. Along with the Office of Technical Service (OTS), ORD jointly handled the funding and contract management for the CIA's psi research, including the Stargate Project at Stanford Research Institute.¹

ORD's share of the joint program is recorded in a 1973 memorandum from the Deputy Director for Science and Technology, Carl E. Duckett, to the Director of Central Intelligence, recommending that the paranormal perception investigation at SRI be jointly funded and monitored by ORD and OTS at an estimated cost of $149,555. The DCI version proposed about 50 percent of the effort for the operational use of "gifted" individuals; its approval block is for William Colby as Director, and its first page is stamped December 5, 1973. An undated companion version over the signatures of Sayre Stevens, Director of ORD, and John N. McMahon, Director of OTS, addressed to the Deputy Director for Science and Technology, described the work as a tightly directed advanced research project. In 1967 ORD and the Edgewood Arsenal Research Laboratories began the OFTEN and CHICKWIT drug research program, described in material the CIA supplied for the record of the Senate hearing of August 3, 1977.² Kenneth A. Kress wrote that ORD sent new project officers to SRI in February 1973 and then asked for an increase in the scope of the effort and transferred funds to OTS, that a jointly funded ORD and OTS program began in February 1974, and that ORD project officers later judged the research "not productive or even competent," which led to the dropping of research support to SRI. The OTS chronology of 1977 records that in February 1973 ORD renewed its interest and the project became a joint OTS and ORD effort, and that for the 1974 program ORD was to concentrate on identifying and measuring the phenomena while OTS evaluated their operational usefulness. The OTS Director's memorandum of February 20, 1976 records the termination of OTS support.³

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1. Schnabel, Jim. Remote Viewers. Dell, 1997. ↩︎

2. Joint hearing, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, August 3, 1977, "Material for the Record: MKSEARCH. OFTEN/CHICKWIT," p. 169. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf ↩︎

3. Memorandum, DD/S&T 3697-73, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200210003-6; companion version CIA-RDP96-00787R000200200031-6. Kress, Kenneth A., "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," Studies in Intelligence, vol. 21, no. 4, Winter 1977, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0. Brandwein memorandum, February 20, 1976, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090005-8. OTS/BAB Memo #287-77 chronology, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500170001-0. ↩︎