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Intelligence & Government |
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Robert Gates is an American government official who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1991 to 1993. | 1943-09-25 | Wichita, Kansas |
Robert Gates is an American government official who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1991 to 1993. He was also an analyst on loan to the National Security Council from the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War12.
Gates was known to be a vocal adversary of the Psychoenergetics programs within the Pentagon. He expressed skepticism about the Remote Viewing program, particularly after Joe McMoneagle's remote viewing of the Typhoon Submarine class submarine, which Gates initially dismissed as defying logic2.
In 1986, Gates noted a significant buildup in advanced technology weapons facilities in both the United States and the Soviet Union, particularly in areas like laser, particle beam, kinetic energy, and microwave technologies applicable to strategic weapons2.
Gates revealed details about the Moscow Signal in his 1997 memoir, From the Shadows. He described how the CIA detected a new and more powerful set of Soviet microwave beams aimed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1973, code-named MUTS-2. He noted that these signals were regarded as posing a greater health hazard due to their duration and peculiar characteristics2.
On November 28, 1995, Gates appeared on Nightline with Ted Koppel to discuss the Stargate Project, where he downplayed the significance of the government's psychic research2.
Remote Viewing
On ABC's Nightline of November 28, 1995, the night the 1995 AIR evaluation of Star Gate of the remote-viewing program was released, Gates said that after the mid-1970s "CIA basically monitored the activities of other government agencies and what was going on in the academic community and then in mid 1980s, then-deputy director John McMahon formalized that. So, CIA really during that period had a very limited role"; that "I don't know of a single instance where it is documented that this kind of activity contributed in any significant way to a policy decision or even to informing policy makers about important information"; that "most intelligence professionals have been pretty skeptical of this. We got into it, I think, mainly because we heard the Soviets were involved and also because the Congress, individual members of the Congress and some staff pushed us into it"; and that "this is a pretty low priority for the intelligence community, and it's better done on the outside."3
Senate inquiry into Cardoen Industries, 1991
In its October 24, 1991 report on Gates's nomination, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence recorded that Richard Babayan alleged in news reporting and other forums that Gates had assisted an individual named M. K. Moss in a covert CIA operation to supply arms to Iraq, had sought to transfer cluster bomb technology to Carlos Cardoen, and had been aware that a Lancaster, Pennsylvania company was supplying arms to Iraq through South Africa.4 The report records a July 16, 1991 letter from Cardoen to the United States ambassador in Chile denying that he had met Gates and denying that he had worked with Gates and the CIA to deliver weapons to Iraq. Gates's calendar and travel records were reviewed for the dates of the alleged meetings, and the committee wrote that "No credible evidence has been presented to the Committee to support these allegations." At his confirmation hearing Gates denied Babayan's allegations.4
The committee also reported that, while investigating relationships between Gates and Cardoen, it received information about a relationship between Industrias Cardoen and a former part-time senior CIA employee, James D. Theberge. The report states that "There is no evidence that the nominee, Mr. Gates, participated in either his recruitment or selection" to the Senior Review Panel. In written answers printed in the report, Gates said that he had moved the panel's organization from the Directorate of Intelligence to the Director's area when he became deputy director for intelligence in January 1982, that decisions on panel members were made by the Director, and that "I do not recall meeting Ambassador Theberge prior to his joining the SRP." He wrote that he was "unaware of his [Theberge's] relationships, his connection to the SWISSCO Management Group, or any connection to the Carlos Cardoen Group."4
Publications
- From the Shadows (1997)
Footnotes
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Schnabel, Jim. Remote Viewers. Dell, 1997. ↩︎
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Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩︎
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"Psychic Spies: Cold War Whimsy or Secret Weapon?," ABC News Nightline, November 28, 1995, Radio TV Reports transcript for the CIA Public Affairs Staff, CIA-RDP99-01448R000402140001-7, read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room. ↩︎
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U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, Nomination of Robert M. Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence, S. Exec. Rept. 102-19, 102d Cong., 1st sess., October 24, 1991, section 5, PDF pages 186 to 188. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-filesations-10219.pdf ↩︎