Page 4-Friday, May 12, 1978-The Michigan Daily
~michigen DAILY
Eighty-eight Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI. 48109
Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 7-S News Phone: 764-0552
Friday, May 12, 1978
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
$5 tickets won't ease
A 2parking problems
J OHN ROBBINS, director of Streets Traffic
and Parking, has recommended raising the
cost of the expired meter parking ticket from $2 to
$5, in order to encourage drivers to put money into
the meters. Robbins explains that since it now
costs $2.25 to feed the meters for an eight hour
period many people simply risk a ticket, knowing
that even that will cost less than pumping coins in-
to the meter.
CIA ties with academics:
Dangerous implications
Robbins' argument
makes sense, but it fails
to account for the fact
that many people don't
pay their ticket now.
Mayor Louis . Belcher
noted that there are
some "professional
ticket people in town
with $10,000 to $12,000 in
outstanding tickets." In
addition, there is a high
proportion of out-of-
state drivers many of
whom never pay
parking tickets because,
"They'll never extradite
me for parking tickets."
It won't make much dif-
ference if fines are
hiked to $5 or even $10 if
no one pays them.
a
K
F
r
45,00
By Rene Becker
The final report of the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence Activities renders many startling
revelations about the operations of U.S. intelligence
agencies.
In one brief passage, the committee reports:
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is now using several
hundred American academics, who in addition to providing
teads and sometimes making introductions for inteltigence
purposes, occasionally write books and other materiat to be
used for propaganda purposes abroad.
These academics are located in over /00 American
coleges, universities, and other related institutes. At the
tnajority of institutions, no one other than the individual
acaderic concerned is aware of te CIA link.
The above paragraphs appear in a subsection en-
titled "Covert Use of the U.S. Academic Com-
munity." The section, heavily censored by the CIA,
takes up only one of several thousand pages in the
final report of the Select Committee.
DOCUMENTS RECENTLY released by the CIA
indicate that this University is among many where
the CIA is using academics. Some of the professors,
administrators or graduate students who have CIA
ties are fully aware of the extent of their in-
volvement. Others believe they are cooperating
with the Agency out of patriotism or civic duty and
are unaware of the implications of their connection
with the CIA.
Whatever the nature of these relationships with
the CIA, either paid or unpaid, witting or unwitting,
they have far-reaching effects on everyone within
the academic world.
For example, the recently released CIA documen-
ts concerning the University show that some
professors were filling "Agency request" for em-
ployees or helped the Agency in "spotting can-
didates" for recruitment.
WHEN THE CIA asks a professor to "spot" a
candidate, the Agency is actually asking the
professor to set up a student for an intensive secret
investigation.
Gary Weissman was a student at the University of
Wisconsin in the late 1950s. He served as president
of the Wisconsin Student Association in 1959 and, af-
ter graduation, was mildly active in the anti-war
movement.
Weissman learned recently that he was the sub-
ject of a five-year CIA investigation to determine
his eligibility for the Agency's clandestine service.
The CIA considered using Weissman as a covert
CIA agent at the Seventh World Youth Festival in
Vienna in 1959.
THE MOST NOTEWORTHY aspect of this in-
vestigation is the fact that Weissman never applied
for CIA employment and was not aware that he was
being investigated. Weissman was never contacted
by the Agency.
Weissman learned of the CIA's interest in him
through documents received as aresult of a
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Although the CIA has forked over 44 documents
concerning Weissman it is still withholding 26 ad-
ditional reports. Weissman is pressing a lawsuit
against the CIA to affect the disclosure of the
remaining documents which the Agency has
refused to release on the basis of "national
security."
Just like countless others, Weissman was "spot-
ted" by an Agency contact on the University of
Wisconsin campus. The contact gave the name of a
student to the CIA, without the student's knowledge,
then the CIA investigated the student's past and
followed the student or as long as two or three
years.
AFTER EXTENSIVE files were created on the
student and after his movements had been recorded
and analyzed by Agency personnel, a decision
would be finally made by the cia to approach the
student or move on to someone else.
But recruiting agents for either the research or
clandestine offices of the CIA is only one aspect of
the Agency's relationship with academics.
The CIA documents which have been released to
wminubm~
THESE SCHOLARS received among other things
reference materials usually concerning China or
the USSR from the government and perhaps the
world's best intelligence source.
The CIA also held closed seminars where a few
select scholars were invited to discuss international
relations with Agency analystys and other top
government officials. The groups were generally
not larger than 15 including Agency personnel. But
if the CIA is the world's leading intelligence
organization questions arise about who benefitted
most from these seminars.,
In a May 9, 1974 memorandum, VIA Coordinator
for Academic Relations Harold Ford wrote that
these seminars profitted the Agency immensely. He
wrote that the Agency also picked up some nw per-
spectives on "key questions of U.S.-Soviet detente,
and of the interplay of Soviet-Chinese-U.S. relation-
ships."
BUT FORD also described in length the third
benefit the CIA derived from the seminars. He
summerzed by writing that "these outings depend
on friendships with existing contacts and expanded
friendships to additional professors whom we had
not previously met."
Several professors who have admitted to atten-
ding these seminars, have said they were in-
valuable learning experiences. These professors,
who attended the seminars also received the CIA
reference materials which, although not officially
classified, were not available to all scholars.
These professors interviewed, who said they
received CIA reference materials were surprised to
learn they were part of a small group of American
scholars-no more than 100-earmarked for CIA
benefits.
How the CIA selected scholars for seminars or for
other research benefits os not clear from the
documents received thus far. But it is generally
believed that those scholars who cooperated with
the Agency in other respects-spotting candidates,
writing propaganda, spying for the Agency on trips
abroad, and making introductions for intelligency
purposes-were held in the Agency's favor.
One professor who although approached by the
CIA but did not cooperate, expressed concern about
the Agency's influence on academic competition
and the genuine search for truth in the scholarly
world.
The professor said those few scholars who are
cooperating with the CIA have an unfair advantage
over those who don't. Once privy to such infor-
mation the scholar would think twice before doing
anything which might stop the flow from the Agen-
cy, they said.
AN INTERESTING note about the
seminars-most of the CIA seminars were held
between 1967 and 1973. Precisely between those
years the CIA ran PROJECT RESISTANCE-a
counterintelligence program during the most
violent anti-war years on college campuses.
Through documents released just three weeks ago
to the Campaign to Stop Government Spying, a
coalition of more than 80 religious and social in-
terest groups, it is now known that the Agency used
its campus contacts to spy on the student
population-specifically those issueing opposition to
government foreign policy, or the Vietnam War.
'This Monday the Faculty Senate will begin to ad-
dress the issue of guidelines for relationships bet-
ween academics and intelligency agencies.
Although many have charged that such guidelines
are an infringement on a professor's academic
freedom it would be naive to ignore not only
student's academic freedom but the right of all
Americans to privacy and life without fear of
government repression for political thoughts.
political thoughts.
The Faculty Senate should be aware of the war-
ning from the Senate Select Committee before
deciding on guidelines with respect to intelligency
agencies.
The Committee is concerned, however, that American
academics involved in such activities may undermine public
confidence that qtose whoetriqour y , re upho/dg
ideals, indep hetvj rNJq i u
But Mayor Belcher
has a better plan. He
has suggested a $4 fine that would be reduced to $2
if paid within the first 24 hours of the violation. In
effect, this would keep the parking fine at only $2,
but would increase the penalty for late payment.
But the root of the parking problem goes much
deeper. First, there simply isn't enough parking
available in Ann Arbor. Anyone who owns a car in
this city has had the frustrating experience of
driving around the block over and over searching
for a single spot. By the time you park you are
either too angry or too late to bother with puttiing
money in the meter. And when you receive the
inevitable ticket you curse the city and police
department, and tear it up. Another problem is
that most meters have a one or two hour limit,
which is extremely inconvenient for working per-
sons. Perhaps, if one could simply pump $2 worth
of change into the meter at one time, more per-
sons would pay the meter rates.
But regardless of whether or not parking fines
are increased, the city will retaini ts paring and
its fine collection problems, until someone in city
government realizes that adequate parking is a
necessity, a
simnlvbreak'
aslpsy rx lv 7#5
and 4elpful to a small, privileged group of scholars. s