TAB H

     Staff Memorandum: Central Intelligence Agency
     Participation in Planning of Department of
     Defense Experiments




MEMORANDUM

                           DISCLAIMER

The following is a staff memorandum or other working document 
prepared for the members of the Advisory Committee on Human
Radiation Experiments.  It should not be construed as representing
the final conclusions of fact or interpretation of the issues. 
All staff memoranda are subject to revision based on further 
information and analysis.  For conclusions and recommendations of
the Advisory Committee, readers are advised to consult the Final
Report to be published in 1995.
UM

TO:       Members of the Advisory Committee on Human        
     	  Radiation Experiments

FROM:     Advisory Committee Staff

DATE:     September 1, 1994

RE:       Central Intelligence Agency Participation in      
     	  Planning of Department of Defense Experiments

     At the first Advisory Committee meeting on April 22,
1994, the CIA representative stated that the agency had found
no evidence that it had conducted any human radiation
experiments.  In response to Committee questioning, he stated
further that it had found no information on "what other
agencies were doing in this area."1 {1 Statement of David Gries, 
Director of the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence before 
the Advisory Committee on April 22, 1994.}The staff has now 
received documents from the Department of Defense and the 
Department of Energy showing that the CIA was a member of the 
DOD Committee on Medical Sciences and that it participated in the 
activities of the Joint Panel on the Medical Aspects of Atomic 
Warfare. The Joint panel, created in 1949, reported to the Committee 
on Medical Sciences.  As reported elsewhere, the Joint Panel was
evidently the center for information gathering and planning
for experimentation, including human experimentation, relating
to atomic warfare.2 {2 Basic Joint Panel documentation appears at
Tab O of Briefing Book IV; documentation of planning relating to 
atomic weapons tests appears in this volume at Tab F.} This 
planning included the consideration of human experiments in 
connection with atomic bomb tests.

     The following is a description of the key documents:

1.   The transcripts of the Committee on Medical Sciences
reveal that the CIA attended those meetings from the
beginning.  The roster of the first meeting, dated April 28,
1948, lists "Mr. Frank Campbell, CIA."  Campbell is also shown
as attending the third, fourth, and fifth meetings.  The
transcript of the seventeenth meeting, dated October 30, 1952,
states that "Dr. Yaeger [sic] from the Central Intelligence
Agency" was introduced as a new member. Yet Yaeger is listed
as attending the tenth, thirteenth, and fourteenth meetings as
well.  (Transcripts were not available for the sixth, ninth,

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and sixteenth meetings.)  One item discussed at the 17th
meeting was distribution of the program guidance of the Joint
Panel on Medical Aspects of Atomic Warfare.  In addition to
going to the members of the Joint Panel and the Committee on
Medical Sciences, "four copies went to Army G-3 [Army
Operations], one copy to Army G-4 [Army Logistics], six to the
Army War College, one to CIA, and one to WSEG [Weapons Systems
Evaluation Group]."3{3 Transcript of the Seventeenth Meeting of 
the Committee on Medical Sciences, Oct. 30-31, 1952, at 48 
(emphasis added).}  Also discussed at this meeting was
recommendation from the Joint Panel of "a trial of an atomic
explosion with operational flying into the cloud to study
conditions in the cloud and to see whether such a procedure is
safe."4 {4 Id. at 46}. (Attachment A.)

2.   Among its tasks, the Joint Panel on the Medical Aspects
of Atomic Warfare was charged with obtaining medical
intelligence; its founding directive states that the panel
shall obtain "[n]ecessary information concerning United States
and foreign progress, programs, plans, and budgets in the
field of medical aspects of atomic warfare."  The minutes of
the Joint Panel reveal that "a representative of an
intelligence agency" (presumably the CIA) briefed the panel at
its Eighth Meeting in September 1951 on the collection of
medical intelligence and solicited "requirements for medical
intelligence in the field of interest of the Panel."
(Attachment B)

3.   The CIA appears on the security list of persons from the
Committee on Medical Sciences authorized to attend the
February 24, 1952 meeting of the Joint Panel, which was held
at Oak Ridge. (Attachment C)

     The staff has presented these documents to the CIA.  Upon
receipt of the new documents and a related staff memorandum
(Attachment D), the CIA has refocused its search.

     The CIA has informed the staff that Dr. Campbell and Dr.
Yaeger were division chiefs of the Office of Scientific
Intelligence (Yaeger was Chief of the Medical Division; we do
not know of which one Campbell was).  Among its functions,
this Office chaired the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence
Committee (JAEIC),5 {5 Also known as the Joint Nuclear 
Intelligence Committee (JNIC), this inter-agency committee 
tracked developments in the Soviet and other nations' nuclear 
weapons programs.} and oversaw the CIA's human behavior
experiments that preceded MKULTRA.  Known as Projects BLUEBIRD
and ARTICHOKE, these early projects focused primarily on
"special interrogation" techniques using drugs, hypnosis,
shock, etc.  In addition, the CIA has provided the Committee
with documents that apparently identify Fr. Yaeger's
involvement with aspects of the agency's human behavior
programs.6 {6 These documents were previously released under the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and were sent to the Committee 
with the FOIA redactions, which are mostly of individual's names.}


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These documents also make cryptic references to the
Atomic Energy Commission and the Pentagon's Research and
Development Board, the parent organization to the Committee on
Medical Sciences and the Joint Panel on the Medical Aspects of 
Atomic Warfare.  There is presently no evidence that these 
projects dealt with ionizing radiation.

     The CIA has also located documents concerning Soviet
atomic energy activities, including a Feb. 23, 1950 report on
radiological warfare that was prepared for the Ad Hoc
Committee on CEBAR (Chemical, Biological, and Radiological
Warfare) of the Secretary of Defense. (Attachment E)  The CIA
briefed this ad hoc committee on Soviet  developments in all
three areas, and the committee issued a report to the
Secretary of Defense on June 30, 1050.

     In sum, these documents make clear that the CIA was a
party to Defense Department activities dealing with the actual
and potential human experiments, particularly in relation to
atomic warfare.  The precise extent of the CIA's involvement
remains to be seen.  The staff expects the CIA files contain
further, and otherwise unavailable, information on human
experimentation sponsored by the Defense Department (or other
agencies), the documents raise several interesting questions,
such as:

1)   What was the CIA's actual role in these activities?

2)   What was the relationship between the development of   
the MKULTRA program, which, according to the CIA,      
gestated in the 1951-52 period, and the simultaneous   
development of human experiments elsewhere in the      
government?

3)   What influence did the 1953 Secretary of Defense Wilson
     policy memo on the Nuremburg Code have on the CIA's    
human behavior experiments (given that the Committee on     
Medical Sciences was an important participant in the   debate
that led to the Wilson memo and the CIA was  represented on
that Committee)?


				


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