Center for International Studies

The Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, known as CENIS, emerged from Project Troy, the 1950 study of Soviet jamming and political warfare. Its first director was the economist Max Millikan, who had taken leave from MIT in 1951 to serve as assistant director of research and reports at the Central Intelligence Agency.¹²³ The CIA funded the center until spring 1966, according to a 1967 report in Time, and the center's research through the 1960s covered Soviet and communist affairs, economic development and international communication.⁴

Origins in Project Troy

Daniel Bessner writes that CENIS "emerged from Project TROY."¹ James Killian, the MIT president who convened the Troy group, was pleased with its outcome and organized a second phase of four research initiatives. One of them concerned a State Department-funded institute similar to the one Donald Marquis had recommended in Annex 11 of the Troy report.¹

A CIA historian's note of an interview with Millikan on March 5, 1952, titled "Origin of PSB," records Millikan's account that the Troy study flowed directly into the creation of the Psychological Strategy Board in early 1951. The note's abstract describes his recollections as emphasizing the importance of the "Troy Report," and records him as saying that "the best way into the problem proved to be through the 'defectors.'"⁵

Founding and CIA support, 1951 to 1952

The Church Committee report on CIA relations with private institutions, Book I of the final report, states: "The CIA assisted in the establishment in 1951 and the funding for over a decade of a research institute at a major American university." The report says the assistance came at the request of Under Secretary of State James E. Webb to General Walter Bedell Smith, then Director of the CIA, and that Webb proposed the center "be supported by the CIA in the interest of the entire intelligence community." The report does not name the institute.⁶

In 1977 Patrick Oster of the Chicago Sun-Times reported in the Washington Post that the center was "set up in 1951 with CIA money."⁷ Oster named the center's first director as Millikan, "a former assistant director of the agency."⁷

Millikan took leave from MIT in January 1951 to head the agency's Office of Research and Reports, and in a letter stamped January 30, 1951, he wrote of the office's mission and of the agency's request that he survey work in the field.³ MIT's archival note for his papers dates the center's establishment to January 1952 and says it "continued the contract work undertaken for the government under Project TROY."⁸ The center's own history gives 1951 as the founding year and states that it "was founded in 1951 in response to the Cold War struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union."²

Bessner writes that CENIS "began operating in the fall of 1951," and that in February 1952 Millikan, "an economics professor who had spent a year at the CIA," accepted the offer to serve as its first director. Soon after moving to the center, Millikan asked H. Rowan Gaither of the Ford Foundation for money.¹ Bessner's account of the founding draws on Donald L. M. Blackmer, whose institutional history, The MIT Center for International Studies: The Founding Years, 1951 to 1969, was published in 2002 for the center's fiftieth anniversary.¹

Ford Foundation grants

Bessner writes that Hans Speier visited Millikan in February 1952, when Millikan was "reticent" about a center for research in international communication, and that Speier "convinced him otherwise." Bessner writes that the Ford trustees granted CENIS $875,000 in the spring of 1952 to found a research program in international communication.⁹

The Ford Foundation's annual report for 1954 describes a program of research in economic development and political stability, carried on by the center, that "also received long-term Foundation support," research "mainly in India, Indonesia and Italy." The grant list, under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, carries four columns (unpaid December 31, 1953; grants in 1954; payments in 1954; unpaid September 30, 1954). "Completion of field project in Indonesia by Center for International Studies" shows 50,000 dollars unpaid at the end of 1953 and paid in 1954. "Research in economic and political development by Center for International Studies" shows 175,000 dollars unpaid at the end of 1953 and paid in 1954, and a new grant of 750,000 dollars in 1954 unpaid at September 30, 1954. A further MIT entry, "Research on international communications," shows 500,000 dollars unpaid at both dates, and "Research on international affairs" 5,000 dollars unpaid at the end of 1953.¹⁰¹¹

A 1956 Ford Foundation grant to MIT established two chairs in the behavioral sciences. The first went to Daniel Lerner, named in December 1957 to a professorship in international communication. The institute's release said he would "apply research findings of the Center for International Studies to a new teaching program on international communication."¹²

Research programs

The communications program. The planning committee's June 1953 report, Research in International Communication, was prepared by Speier and by Jerome Bruner, Wallace Carroll, Harold Lasswell, Paul Lazarsfeld, Edward Shils and Ithiel de Sola Pool. Its opening sentence, as Bessner quotes it, reads: "in this age of insecurity we know too little about the forces which move man as an individual and society as a whole." The committee recommended that the program study "communications to and from the wielders of power and influence."¹ Pool became the program's research director after Speier turned the post down. The staff included Raymond Bauer, Lerner, Harold Isaacs, Howard Perlmutter and Eric Lenneberg.¹ A progress memorandum from Pool to the planning committee, dated February 28, 1955, is titled "Progress of the International Communications Program."¹³

Political games. Bessner writes that Paul Kecskemeti, who had played in the Rand Corporation games, visited MIT in 1957 to help Lincoln P. Bloomfield, a former State Department official, design a political game. The most important of the games for senior government officials took place in 1960, when the center hosted a game termed POLEX II, which focused on a regional crisis in the Middle East. Bessner writes that its results reached Defense Department officials through Henry Rowen.¹⁴

Defense and arms control. The center's history states that in 1958 Millikan headed a committee on the future of social science teaching and research at MIT, one of whose recommendations was that the Institute take on defense and arms control initiatives. It also states that in 1960 Bloomfield organized graduate seminars on the use of military force, conventional weapons transfers and arms control.²

The Soviet bloc. The 1953 book The Dynamics of Soviet Society was credited to "W. W. Rostow in collaboration with Alfred Levin, and with the assistance of others at the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology," and carried a preface by Millikan as the center's director.¹⁵ A CIA reading-room item titled "Review and Consideration of the CENIS Project, Communist Takeover and 'Economic Reshaping' of Eastern Europe by Nicolas Spulber" concerns a CENIS study of Eastern Europe by Nicolas Spulber. The copy is undated.¹⁶ A press item in agency files reports that the center was also at work evaluating Russian education methods, including the quality of Russian textbooks.¹⁷

Latin America. A CIA Office of Legislative Counsel memorandum, signed by its chief, records that Ernest Halperin of MIT had proposed a book entitled "The National Liberation Movements in Latin America," and that a paper by him on the same subject had been written in June 1969 for the center.¹⁸

Agency funding

A CIA document titled "Principles Governing Budgetary Relationships Between CENIS and CIA" describes an annual contract under which research projects were "mutually agreed upon case by case" between the two parties, within an annual authorization of $500,000. The document is undated.¹⁹

A CIA list of recipients of Office of Research and Reports unclassified studies names Max Millikan, Walt Rostow, Wilfred Malenbaum, Everett Hagen, Evsey Domar and Thomas Schelling, each listed under the Center for International Studies.²⁰

A CIA memorandum of February 16, 1959 from the Assistant to the Director forwards the text of an item in the National Review Bulletin. The item reads: "Bissell and his favored CIA teammate, Robert Amory, lean ideologically on CIA's outriding auxiliary at MIT, the Center for International Studies. They have been particularly influenced by the neo-Marxian theories of W. W. Rostow, director of the Center."²¹ The item names Richard Bissell and Robert Amory. Millikan held the directorship: Allen W. Dulles addressed him as director of the center in 1961, the MIT President's report for 1962 to 1963 refers to "Max F. Millikan, Director of the Center for International Studies," and the center's section of the 1963 to 1964 report is signed by him.²²²³²⁴ The 1958 to 1959 President's report lists Rostow and Elspeth Davies Rostow on leave at Cambridge, England.²⁵

In a letter of February 27, 1961, Dulles wrote to Millikan, as director of the center, that he was "very deeply interested in the proposal in your letter of January 23," and that he expected to attend part of the meetings of May 18 to 21, 1961, at which Millikan would review the center's first ten years.²²

A CIA Office of Security memorandum of April 11, 1958 records that Rostow was approved as a consultant to the agency's Office of Research and Reports in March 1951, that the status was extended to June 1953, and that his contract as a consultant was not renewed after it expired in June 1953. The same memorandum records that Alfred Kohlberg, in a letter to Senator Styles Bridges as late as October 1957, "criticized the Agency for supporting CENIS and particularly, criticized Walt Rostow."²⁶ In a letter of November 26, 1951 Millikan, then at the agency, wrote to a person whose name is redacted that Rostow at the center had asked for his help in finding someone to assist with research.²⁷

In June 1955 Nelson Rockefeller arranged meetings at Quantico, Virginia, of a panel of eleven consultants. The panel's report of June 10, 1955 lists Millikan and Rostow, each with the Center of International Studies, MIT, Rostow as panel chairman.²⁸

Andreas Lowenfeld, then of the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Internal Security Subcommittee that he had been connected with the center in 1951 and 1952, and that "they had some kind of contract with the CIA." Asked whether he knew it was a CIA operation, he said: "I was never formally told, but it became apparent." Asked whether Rostow was in charge, he said Rostow was acting and that Millikan came afterward.²⁹

Oster reported that a 1958 and 1959 study by Anthony J. Wiener, then affiliated with the center, on "what criteria can be developed in spotting and assessing" Soviet scientists as potential agent recruits, was financed through the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology at a total of $12,000. Oster placed the study under Project MKUltra.⁷ A CIA memorandum of November 18, 1958, states that MKULTRA Subproject 90 has been approved and that $12,000 of the project's funds has been obligated to cover its expenses. The memorandum does not name the institution.³⁰

Philip G. Strong of the agency's Office of Scientific Intelligence wrote a memorandum for the record, dated December 3, 1952 and titled "Flying Saucers," on a meeting the previous morning at 1100 with "Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Executive Vice President and Provost of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dr. Max Millikan, Director of CENIS." Strong briefed them on new sighting reports and on developments "since our previous discussion of the subject in August." He wrote: "Dr. Stratton reiterated his earlier position that this is a subject which must be investigated and he said that probably the best means of getting a thoroughly competent review of the problem would be through Project LINCOLN." Stratton said that acceptance by Lincoln must rest on Air Force concurrence or on an independent proposal from one of the other services, and that "Alfred Hill would be the best man to head the group." Princeton and the California Institute of Technology were explored as alternatives, and Stratton "felt very strongly that Cal Tech would be the better of the two." Strong's conclusion was that "it will probably be necessary to secure the full backing of DCI in order that a scientific review of this problem may be laid on."³¹ On October 2, 1952 H. Marshall Chadwell had written to the Director of Central Intelligence that "Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Vice President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has indicated to CIA that such a group could be constituted at that Institute," and on January 27, 1953 Chadwell wrote to Stratton, as Provost, to report on the panel convened in January.³²³³ The memorandum is cited in the notes to Gerald K. Haines's history of the agency's role in UFO study.³⁴

The issue of Time dated February 24, 1967 refers to "$300,000 to finance M.I.T.'s topflight Center for International Studies" and states: "Until last spring, M.I.T. continued to accept agency funds, then terminated the contract 'for practical, not moral reasons.'" It quotes Millikan, "the sage director of M.I.T.'s International Center," as saying: "The number of my friends around here who have swallowed this 'invisible government' line is disturbing."⁴

The end of the contracts, 1966 and 1967

A clipping in agency files from the Philadelphia Inquirer, headlined "Penn Denies Campus Has CIA Agents," reports that the University of Pennsylvania said it "has no knowledge" of any CIA people on its campus or faculty in answer to a charge by Representative Adam Clayton Powell. Powell said he had received "unverified information" that CIA personnel were associated with the university and with MIT. The clipping states: "On April 26, Dr. Max Millikan, director of the MIT Center of International Studies, said the college would reluctantly drop research contracts with the CIA because they were 'subject to misinterpretation.'" It quotes Millikan, "There never was a secret" about the contracts, and states that the contracts were for research on international developments, particularly Communism, and China.³⁵

A CIA Office of Legislative Counsel journal entry of March 3, 1967 records that "the Agency has Senator Fulbright's letter concerning a Center for International Studies, MIT, and is preparing a response."³⁶

A letter of April 21, 1971, on the center's letterhead at 30 Wadsworth Street, Cambridge, was sent to Richard Helms by a writer whose name is redacted in the copy. It reads: "some years ago our Center for International Studies cancelled contracts with the CIA on the grounds that it was improper for a university to conceal, not only what it was doing, but also who was paying the bill." The writer states that MIT "adopted a policy that rejected the extremists demands to refuse contracts from intelligence agencies, but which did insist that any such contracts be overt and avowed," and continues: "It was the CIA and not the university which declined to continue relations on such terms." The writer also states that MIT "properly acted four or five years ago when it adopted the present guidelines."³⁷

Protests, the Cambridge Project and the Review Panel, 1969 to 1971

The MIT Dean of Humanities and Social Science reported that the center's offices on the fourth floor of the Hermann Building received a mass visit in early October 1969, of perhaps two hundred people, "students, a few staff members, and a substantial but uncertain number of persons without any M.I.T. affiliation," protesting MIT's "alleged complicity in the waging of the Viet Nam war and the conduct of U.S. foreign policy." The visit was described as peaceable. The Hermann Building was closed temporarily before the November Action of that year. The Department of Economics reported demonstrations and confrontations, "many directed at the Center for International Studies." In 1970 to 1971 the Dean reported that the center, "though still the target of a small group of vocal critics," had an essentially peaceful year.³⁸³⁹ The Tech of October 21, 1969 dates the demonstration at the center to October 10 and reports that Dean Robert L. Bishop was speaking to staff members of the center "to determine whether disciplinary action should be taken against those involved in the peaceful work stoppage at CIS." Everett E. Hagen wrote in a letter printed in the same issue that if any building were entered again with obstructionist intent or effect, he trusted the faculty and students would understand the importance of promptly suspending the students and hauling all participants into court. Another letter under the heading "Two CIS Replies" states: "They really believe that the Center for International Studies does secret work for the Department of Defense. They really believe that Project Cambridge will record information about dissenters."⁴⁰

In 1969 MIT President Howard W. Johnson formed a Review Panel on Special Laboratories, chaired by William F. Pounds, Dean of the Sloan School, to examine the relationship between MIT and the Lincoln Laboratory and the Instrumentation Laboratory. Johnson's letter asked the panel "to evaluate the implications that the laboratories have for the Institute in its prime responsibility for education and research and in its responsibility for service to the nation." The panel's first report of May 31, 1969 recommended a standing committee on the special laboratories and concluded "that the Poseidon program at this stage of its development is inappropriate for M.I.T. sponsorship." Its final report was due in October 1969.⁴¹⁴²

The Cambridge Project, a program of computer methods for the behavioral sciences organized by behavioral and computer scientists at MIT and Harvard University, began in June 1969. The MIT Provost's report states that it "has been funded by the Behavioral Sciences Branch of ARPA through the Defense Supply Service of the Army" and that Project MAC contributed to its planning.⁴³ The 1969 to 1970 report states that the project was "supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under a contract in which Professor Joseph C. R. Licklider is principal investigator," and that "During the summer and fall of 1969, the project was the subject of much controversy" at both universities. It lists Pool, who directed the center's communications work, as starting a program called the General Implicator, and Rosemarie S. Rogers and William E. Griffith, both of the center, as testing procedures by which a computer can categorize policy documents.⁴⁴

The center's annual report for 1968 to 1969 describes four areas of work: economic and political development, international communication, military and foreign policy, and communism, revisionism and revolution. It lists a joint project with Chile's Oficina de Planificacion Nacional under Millikan, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan and Richard Eckaus; a 1968 seminar on Title IX of the Foreign Assistance Act organized "at the request of the Agency for International Development" and chaired by Millikan and Lucian Pye; Pool's simulations of Soviet communications patterns; political-military exercises by Bloomfield; and a book in progress on communism and guerrilla warfare in Latin America by Halperin.⁴⁵ The 1969 to 1970 report lists a study by Daniel Ellsberg of the process by which American foreign policy is formulated in periods of crisis, begun in late April 1970, and the 1970 to 1971 report lists work by William Bundy on "the events that led to the 1965 decision on Vietnam."⁴⁶⁴⁷

Directors

Millikan directed the center from 1952. The MIT President's report for 1969 to 1970 states that he was "Director of the Center since a few months after its founding in 1952" and died on December 14, 1969, aged 56; MIT's archival note for his papers gives February 1, 1952 as the start of his directorship.⁸⁴⁶ The center's history states that during his more than fifteen years as director he urged faculty members to become "social science entrepreneurs."²

The President's report for 1970 to 1971 states that the center worked "under the directorship of Professor Everett E. Hagen," and the Department of Economics report for the same year states that "Professor Everett E. Hagen has become Director of the Center for International Studies."⁴⁷⁴⁸ The report for 1971 to 1972 records that Hagen became Professor Emeritus at the end of the academic year and that Eugene Skolnikoff, head of the Department of Political Science since the fall of 1970, was appointed director to replace him, and that the center ceased to be part of the School of Humanities and Social Science and became "an inter-School center reporting directly to the Provost."⁴⁹ The reports for 1972 to 1973 and 1973 to 1974 describe the center as under Skolnikoff's directorship, with a program on technology and international relations.⁵⁰⁵¹

From 1972 to 1987 the director was Skolnikoff, a political scientist who had studied engineering and who, according to the center's history, laid the groundwork for further science-related projects on international issues.² In 2002 the center's associate director was Stephen Van Evera, and a symposium marking the center's fiftieth anniversary described Walt Rostow as "co-founder of CIS in 1951."⁵²

A letter of November 1, 1951 from Gordon Gray, director of the Psychological Strategy Board, to Allen W. Dulles of the Central Intelligence Agency calls Julius A. Stratton "Provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the Center of International Studies," and says he would present the Center's program to the Board and its staff on November 7, 1951.⁵³