The keynote of education at Carleton College was the pursuit of excellence and instilling the virtues of 'the American way of life.'

These were goals also being pursued by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After it was founded in 1947, the CIA recruited from two major sources — wartime intelligence and the academic world. The latter became known as the 'Ivy-Leaguers.'

During the 1950s and 60s the CIA funneled millions of dollars into universities across America. The aim was to recruit agents and to win 'hearts and minds' in the covert war against 'the communist threat.'

Although the CIA's charter specifically forbade domestic operations (that is the province of the Federal Bureau of Investigation), President Johnson ordered the CIA to undertake 'Operation Chaos' in July 1968.

This included penetration of the anti-Vietnam, Peace and anti-draft movements, and bugging of journalists' telephones, 'black bag jobs' (burglaries) on political opponents of the government and drug experiments on military personnel and civilians.

The lid was lifted on the CIA's campus operations by the publication in December 1976 of the findings of the Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence chaired by Senator Frank Church.

Chapter 10 of the 'Church Report' is entitled: 'The domestic impact of foreign clandestine operations: The CIA and academic institutions, the media and religious institutions.'

It states:

'Although its operational arena is outside the United States, CIA clandestine operations make use of American citizens as individuals or through American institutions.

'Clandestine activities that touch American institutions and individuals have taken many forms and are affected through a wide variety of means: university officials and professors provide leads and make introductions for intelligence purposes; scholars and journalists collect intelligence; journalists devise and place propaganda; United States publications provide cover for CIA agents abroad.

'These forms of clandestine cooperation had their origins in the early Cold War period when most Americans perceived a real threat of communist imperium and were prepared to assist their government to counter that threat.

'As the communists pressed to influence and to control international organizations and movements, mass communications and cultural institutions, the United States responded by involving American private institutions and individuals in the secret struggle over minds, institutions and ideas.'

One battleground for that secret warfare was Carleton College.

The 'Church Report' explained how the CIA operations were conducted. 'The CIA has long-developed clandestine relationships with the American academic community, which range from academics making introductions for intelligence purposes to intelligence collecting while abroad to academic research and writing where CIA sponsorship is hidden.'

'The agency has funded the activities of American private organizations around the world when those activities purported — or could be convinced to support — American foreign policy objectives.

'Until 1967 the agency also maintained covert ties to American foundations in order to pass funds secretly to private groups whose work the CIA supported.

'The relationships have varied according to whether made with an institution or an individual, whether the relationship is paid or unpaid, or whether the individuals are 'witting' — i.e., aware — of CIA involvement.

'In some cases, covert involvement provided the CIA with little or no operational control of the institutions involved; funding was primarily a way to enable people to do the things they wanted to do. In other cases, influence was exerted.

'Nor was the nature of these relationships necessarily static; in the case of some individuals support turned into influence, and finally even to operational use.'

One of the biggest CIA efforts was funding private foundations. In the year 1967, for example, when the Langley slush fund was at its peak, $3 million was earmarked for youth and students programs and $6 million for trade unions.

The Church committee said: 'The use of philanthropic organizations was a convenient way to pass funds, in that large amounts could be transferred rapidly, and in a form that need not alert unwitting officers of the recipient organization to their source.

'In addition, foundation grants bestowed upon the recipient the apparent 'blessing' of the foundation. The funding pattern involved a mixture of bona fide charitable foundations, devised foundations and funds, 'front men' drawn from a list of America's most prominent citizens, and lawyers representing undisclosed clients.

'The CIA's intrusion into the foundation field in the 1960s can only be described as massive. Excluding grants from the 'Big Three' — Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie — of the 700 grants over $10,000 given by 164 other foundations during the period 1963-1966, at least 108 involved partial or complete CIA funding.

'Most importantly, CIA funding was involved in nearly half (their emphasis) the grants the non-'Big Three' foundations made during this period in the field of international activities.

'In the same period more than one-third of the grants awarded by non-'Big Three' in the physical, life and social sciences also involved CIA funds.'

The Senate committee explained the pure cynicism of the CIA operation: 'Bona fide foundations, rather than those controlled by the CIA, were considered the best and more plausible kind of funding cover for certain kinds of operations.

'A 1966 CIA study explained the use of legitimate foundations was the most effective way of concealing the CIA's hand as well as reassuring members of the funded organizations that the organization was in fact supported by private funds.

'The agency contended that this technique was 'particularly effective for democratically-run membership organizations, which need to assure their own unwitting members and collaborators, as well as their hostile critics, that they have genuine, respectable, private sources of income.''

The committee gave a detailed account of the CIA's most celebrated campus operation — the secret funding of the National Student Association (NSA) which was the subject of an investigation by under-Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach in 1967.

It showed that more than 250 US students were sponsored by the CIA to attend youth festivals in Moscow, Vienna and Helsinki to report 'on Soviet and Third

World personalities or observing Soviet security practices.

Here it is necessary to interpose an historic footnote. The NSA figures very prominently in the split carried out the International Committee of the Fourth International against the French anti-Marxist group, the Organization Communiste Internationaliste (OCI).

The OCI invited the NSA to attend a West European Youth Rally held in Essen, West Germany, in July 1971. The OCI leaders then made a thoroughly unprincipled and reactionary bloc with the NSA to oppose and vote down an amendment to the main resolution proposed by the Socialist Labour League, forerunner of the Workers Revolutionary Party.

The SLL amendment, supported by a majority of International Committee sections — Greece, Canada, Ceylon and Ireland — called on revolutionary youth to devote themselves to the study of Marxist theory.

When the OCI teamed up with the NSA and the Spanish POUM delegates to defeat this amendment, the die was cast for the eventual split with the OCI in October 1971.

Katzenbach's report and new guidelines brought changes in the CIA's covert action programs and methods. The Church committee noted that while the CIA cut its funding ties with some foundations 'it moved rapidly to shelter certain high-priority operations from the Katzenbach prohibitions and to devise more secure funding mechanisms.'

Defining the present-day campus-CIA collaboration the Church report said:

'The CIA relationships with the academic community are extensive and serve many purposes, including providing leads and making introductions for intelligence purposes, collaboration in research and analysis, intelligence collection abroad, and preparation of books and other propaganda material.'

But whereas Katzenbach had focused on institutional spy activities, Church said the real question was individuals.

The instruction which is still in force today is that the CIA's Operations Directorate can only use 'any consenting adult' for espionage purposes.

'While all members of the American academic community, including students, certainly qualify as 'consenting adults,'' the CIA since 1967 has been particularly sensitive to the risks associated with their use.

'In order to control and confine contacts with American academics, the handling of relationships with individuals associated with universities is largely confined to two CIA divisions of the Directorate of Operations — the Domestic Collection Division and the Foreign Resources Division.

'The Domestic Collection Division (DCD) is the point of contact with large numbers of American academics who travel abroad or who are otherwise consulted on the subject of their expertise. The Foreign Resources Division (FRD), on the other hand, is the purely operational arm of the CIA in dealing with American academics.

'Altogether, DCD and FRD are currently in contact — ranging from the occasional debriefing to a continuing operational relationship — with many thousands of United States academics at hundreds of US academic institutions.

'The CIA's Office of Personnel also maintains relationships with university administrators, sometimes in the placement office. These relationships, which are usually contractual, enable the CIA to approach suitable United States students for CIA employment.'

Coming to its findings about the CIA's campus penetration, the Church Committee said:

'The CIA is now using several hundreds of American academics, who in addition to providing leads and, on occasion, making introductions for intelligence purposes, occasionally write books and other material to be used for propaganda purposes abroad. Beyond these, an additional few score are used in an unwitting manner for minor activities.'

'These academics are located in over 100 American colleges, universities and related institutes. At the majority of institutions, no one other than the individual concerned is aware of the CIA link.'

'At the others, at least one university official is aware of the operational use made of academics on his campus. In addition, there are several American academics abroad who serve operational purposes, primarily the collection of intelligence.'

Just how important are these agents to the CIA? The report gives this answer:

'The CIA considers these operational relationships with the United States academic community as perhaps its most sensitive domestic area and has strict controls governing these operations.'

This is a clear acknowledgement of the lengths to which the CIA will go to protect the identity of its campus agents.

It explains why the former US Attorney General Griffin Bell was prepared to place himself in contempt of court and risk going to jail in order to suppress the names of the agents in the SWP leadership.

Bell's decision — the first time in history that the attorney general has breached a court's order — was taken at Camp David at a meeting of President Carter's cabinet as well as National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner.