---
aliases:
- GWU
- George Washington University Law School
- The George Washington University
category: Private Organization
created: 2026-10-15
location: Washington, D.C.
relations:
- end: 1969
  fn: 3
  role: operated the Human Resources Research Office under Army contract DA 44-188-ARO-2
  start: 1951
  type: contractor_to
  with: '[[U.S. Army]]'
- fn: 50
  role: university partner listed in the March 2025 DHS fact sheet
  start: 2025
  type: partner_of
  with: '[[NCITE]]'
- fn: 37
  reverse: true
  role: law professor, George Washington University National Law Center
  start: 1994
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Jonathan Turley]]'
- fn: 36
  reverse: true
  role: counsel for plaintiffs in Kasza v. Browner
  start: 1997
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Joan Manley]]'
- fn: 31
  reverse: true
  role: journalism professor
  start: 2022
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Mark Feldstein]]'
- fn: 16
  reverse: true
  role: professor of law and forensic sciences, George Washington University law school
  start: 1992
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[James E. Starrs]]'
- fn: 49
  reverse: true
  role: deputy director of the Program on Extremism from its founding
  start: 2015
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Seamus Hughes]]'
summary: A Washington, D.C. university whose Army contract ran the Human Resources
  Research Office from 1951 to 1969, whose Gelman Library houses the National Security
  Archive, and whose alumni and faculty recur in the record.
tags:
- Organization
- AcademicInstitution
- HumRRO
- MilitaryPsychology
- PsychologicalWarfare
- SensoryDeprivation
- Interrogation
- NationalSecurityArchive
- OlsonExhumation
- MKULTRA
- JackAnderson
- Scientology
- Area51
- ProgramOnExtremism
- NCITE
- JEdgarHoover
- ReaganShooting
- Casolaro
- Hammarskjold
title: George Washington University
updated: 2026-10-15
---

The George Washington University is a university in Washington, D.C.[^1] Its Gelman Library houses the [National Security Archive](/organizations/national-security-archive/), which was founded in 1985.[^1][^2] The university was also the contracting body for the [HumRRO](/organizations/humrro/) behavioral science laboratory from 1951 to 1969, and it is the institution through which forensic pathologist James E. Starrs examined the remains of [Frank Olson](/people/frank-olson/) in 1994, as the university affiliation of two counsel in [Area 51](/places/area-51/) environmental litigation, as the host of the [GWU Program on Extremism](/organizations/gwu-program-on-extremism/), and as a partner in the [NCITE](/organizations/ncite/) consortium. The record also places the university's law school in the education of J. Edgar Hoover and John Foster Dulles, its M.B.A. program in the education of Colin Powell, its professor of law and forensic sciences in a 1992 review of the autopsy of Danny Casolaro, and its hospital at the center of the events of March 30, 1981.

### Human Resources Research Office

The Human Resources Research Office was organized in 1951 as a unit of the university under a contract with the [U.S. Army](/organizations/us-army/).[^3] A HumRRO bibliography published in 1966 describes the office as a nongovernmental agency of the university, operating under Army contract DA 44-188-ARO-2.[^3] The 1966 bibliography gives the mission more narrowly, as studies and research in the fields of training, motivation and leadership.[^3] A 1963 HumRRO report gives the office's mission, as stated in Army Regulation 70-8, as studies and research in training, motivation, leadership and man-weapons system analysis.[^4]

A 1973 study of the office prepared by CONSAD Research Corporation for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare records the sequence. A staff study titled "An Integrated Program in Human Resources Research," approved by the Under Secretary of the Army on June 21, 1951, recommended that a major contract be awarded to a recognized educational institution to form a Human Resources Research Office with primary responsibility for research on training methods, motivation and morale, and psychological warfare techniques. The study is credited to Harry Harlow, then chief of the Army's Human Resources Research Program on leave from the University of Wisconsin. The contract between the Army and the university was executed on July 27, 1951.[^5] The CONSAD study states that the office was created by the university at the specific request of the Department of the Army, and that responsibility for psychological warfare was transferred after 1955 to the Special Operations Research Office at American University.[^5] The office's director reported both to the university's vice president for academic affairs and to the Army's Office of the Chief of Research and Development, and the contracts provided that the civilian director had to be acceptable to both the university and the Army.[^5]

According to Peter Watson, the university affiliation gave HumRRO academic cover and access to research networks.[^6] Watson wrote that the relationship ended in October 1969 after student demonstrations over the university's connections to military research.[^6] He also wrote that campus opposition to the Vietnam War led universities to disentangle themselves from visibly military-sponsored social science, and he placed the university-based HumRRO alongside the Operations Research Office in that pattern.[^6] Watson's figures give the office's output as about 35 technical reports a year, of which about 3 percent was classified.[^6] After the separation, the office reorganized as an independent nonprofit with its headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.[^6]

The CONSAD study records the separation in different terms. It states that in 1969 the office severed its ties with the university; that although the office had become self-sufficient in research administration, library resources and data processing, all formal, legal and fiscal transactions had been conducted by the university; and it quotes one participant: "The most visible effect was that the color of the checks changed." The office then became the Human Resources Research Organization, governed by a board of trustees.[^5] The office's president, Meredith P. Crawford, wrote that in 1969, "again with the full concurrence of the Army," the office left the university and began operations as an independent nonprofit corporation, and the study dates the new corporation from September 1, 1969.[^5] The study adds that the office had moved to Alexandria, Virginia in 1963, six years before the formal severance.[^5] The organization's own history states that it parted company with the university in 1969 and incorporated independently that year, and that its status as a federal contract research center ended at the end of 1975.[^7]

Watson also names two researchers who moved from HumRRO to the Special Operations Research Office at American University in the early 1960s, Theodore Vallance and Charles Windle, and describes that office as the principal Army contractor for counterinsurgency social science in those years.[^6] Watson's account distinguishes HumRRO's emphasis on individual and unit performance from the population-level psychological and political analysis for counterinsurgency that SORO and its successor, [CRESS](/organizations/cress/), pursued. He describes all three bodies as drawing mainly on Army funding and sharing access to the classified psychological warfare literature of the period.[^6]

### Psychological warfare and interrogation studies

A study titled Task PSYJOB, prepared by the HumRRO Psychological Warfare Division, evaluated psychological warfare job requirements against the curriculum of the Army Psychological Warfare School. The report was written by Lawrence Schlesinger and Harriet Beckwitt, with a research team that included Alvin G. Edge and Lloyd Rogler, and was approved in June 1956 by Joseph R. Hochstim, director of research for the division.[^8] The findings, as the report states them, were that the 105 school topics, rated by experienced psychological warfare personnel in the Far East, drew little agreement among four job groups (plans and policy, intelligence, propaganda preparation, and operations), and that the operations group differed most sharply from the others. About 57 percent of the curriculum was classified as background (34 percent) or organizational (23 percent) information rather than as directly job-related, and the report judged that the Soviet Union area study occupied more of the program than was justified.[^8] The title page of the August 1956 report identifies the office as operating under contract with the Department of the Army, and states that the research was conducted while Carleton F. Scofield was director of research for the division.[^8]

A tactical interrogation study followed in the early 1960s. Its preface states that the investigation began on July 1, 1961, in response to a request from the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence for research on collecting information through tactical interrogation. The task was jointly sponsored by the Continental Army Command and that office, and its initial exploratory work was reported in a Task QUIZ research memorandum dated May 1962.[^9] The experiment tested three ways of screening enlisted sources for later interrogation: individually, in groups of four, and in groups of twelve. The 286 sources were enlisted men from the Combat Developments Experimentation Center, and four trained interrogators conducted the screening.[^9] The report concluded that screening was most efficient when sources were handled in groups of four, on the basis of a time advantage and the equivalence of the three procedures for accuracy, and it restricted that conclusion to cooperative enlisted sources.[^9]

Hilton Bialek was task leader during the planning phase of the interrogation study, and John E. Taylor was acting task leader during its execution and writing. The research team included three other members.[^9] The report describes the Leadership Human Research Unit, which conducted the work, as operating under the command of the Continental Army Command, with the Human Resources Research Office providing technical supervision.[^4] The report judged the accuracy of the interrogators' screening satisfactory, although it found substantial variation among them.[^9]

### Sensory deprivation research

The office also ran a long series of studies on confinement in a dark, quiet cubicle. A HumRRO Technical Report issued in June 1966, under Contract DA 44-188 ARO-2 and written by Thomas Myers, Donald B. Murphy, Seward Smith and S. James Goffard, states that the pilot studies began in 1956 with the confinement of research personnel, that full-scale experimentation began in 1959, and that data were collected through June 1961.[^10] The subjects were successive groups of enlisted men, 551 in total, brought to the laboratory immediately after completing Advanced Individual Training. Of the 401 who volunteered for the cubicle, 176 were chosen at random for cubicle treatment, and an equal number served as controls on normal treatment.[^10] They were described as above the Army average in intelligence and as having been screened for physical and psychiatric deficiencies.[^10]

The report's research problem statement names as its primary stimulus a series of reports, issuing first from the laboratory of [Donald Hebb](/people/do-hebb/), on sensory deprivation and social isolation. It states that interest in these phenomena was heightened by reports about American prisoners of war in Korea who were reputedly subjected to similar conditions.[^10] The report lists among its concerns the ability to "maintain independence of judgment in the face of propaganda and group pressure," and it describes investigations of the effects of isolation, of concurrent stimulation, and of the subjects' own reactions to controlled isolation.[^10] The report states that subjects could request release from the cubicle at any time.[^10] It was prepared by HumRRO Division No. 3 (Recruit Training) and distributed under the Department of the Army's Office of the Chief of Research and Development.[^10] Its measures included vigilance tests, reaction times, a test of lever-pulling under unpleasant noise, conformity scores, and reported visual sensations, and the tables include an analysis of conformity scores for cubicle and control subjects.[^10]

The report's conclusions list the effects it attributed to four days of sensory deprivation and social isolation: subjective stress, severe boredom and restlessness, disorientation in time, a blurring of the boundaries of sleep and reality, unrealistic fears, alterations of the body schema, frequent and complex visual sensations, some impairment of intellectual functioning in complex tasks, "increased susceptibility to influence," and a greater desire to hear information even when it was contrary to initial belief.[^10] The scheduled isolation was four days (96 hours), and the control subjects led a normal, only slightly restricted life at the Presidio of Monterey.[^10]

### Operations Research Office and the Korean War studies

HumRRO was one of several Army-funded behavioral research bodies of the Korean War period. The [Operations Research Office](/organizations/oro-rac/) was established at [Johns Hopkins University](/organizations/johns-hopkins-university/) and conducted early psychological studies of combat performance in Korea.[^11] A 1995 congressional history of federally funded research centers records that the Army's interest in psychological warfare in Korea led to the creation of HumRRO in 1951 under a contract administered by the university, and that most of the Operations Research Office's human factors work then passed to HumRRO and, later, to the Special Operations Research Office.[^11]

The Operations Research Office was dissolved in June 1961, and the [Research Analysis Corporation](/organizations/oro-rac/) replaced it under a new Army contract that took effect September 1, 1961.[^11] The 1995 history records that the change was made so that the Army could remove the office's director, and that Johns Hopkins University declined to remove him under Army pressure, which led to the termination of the contract.[^11]

### Frank Olson and the 1994 forensic examination

The university's most documented connection to the intelligence record of the period is the 1994 examination of Frank Olson. Olson's son arranged the exhumation of his father's body, and the forensic examination was led by James E. Starrs of the university.[^12] Starrs found a hematoma on the left side of Olson's skull and injuries to the cheekbone that he regarded as inconsistent with a fall through a window. He classified the death as a homicide by unknown means.[^12]

The Olson death is connected in the record to [Sidney Gottlieb](/people/sidney-gottlieb/), who directed the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/)'s MKULTRA program from the agency's Technical Services Division. Gottlieb died in March 1999.[^13] The New York County District Attorney reopened the case as a possible homicide, and no prosecution followed.[^12] H. P. Albarelli's 2009 book on the death reports that Gottlieb had been under investigation for the death at the time of his death.[^14]

The Washington Post reported on August 27, 1977 that the university had received documents from the CIA about its role in MKULTRA and had refused to release them, and that it was among the universities that had publicly acknowledged receiving similar letters from the agency.[^15]

### Danny Casolaro autopsy review

The university's forensic law professor appears in a second death investigation. The 1993 report of Special Counsel [Nicholas J. Bua](/people/nicholas-j-bua/) on the [INSLAW](/organizations/inslaw/) allegations records that several months after the August 1991 autopsy of the journalist [Danny Casolaro](/people/danny-casolaro/), a group of journalists in Washington asked Professor James E. Starrs, described as a noted forensic pathology expert at the university's law school, to review the autopsy report of the pathologist who had examined Casolaro. Starrs agreed to do so.[^16] In an interview with the Washington Business Journal in November 1992, as the report summarizes it, Starrs stated that he agreed that Casolaro's wounds had been self-inflicted, doubted that additional scientific techniques would have changed the outcome of the autopsy, and agreed that the small contusions on the body were caused by embalming fluid, although he criticized the West Virginia authorities for embalming the body so quickly. The report also records that he noted the suicide note was typical in being unsigned and in apologizing to the family, and quotes him: "[I]f this was a homicide, it would be the most singularly remarkable murder on record, either in fiction or nonfiction."[^16] The report's conclusion cites the review as an independent opinion that "reportedly has arrived at the same opinion as that expressed in this report," and prints the name as James E. Starr.[^17]

### National Security Archive

The National Security Archive is a nongovernmental research institute and library whose public address is Suite 700 of the Gelman Library at the university, at 2130 H Street, NW.[^1] The archive's legal entity is the National Security Archive Fund, Inc., a District of Columbia nonprofit, and its founding director was Scott Armstrong.[^2]

The archive publishes electronic briefing books. Its copy of the CIA's KUBARK counterintelligence interrogation manual, of July 1963 and declassified in 1997 with portions redacted, is posted as Electronic Briefing Book No. 122.[^18] The declassified version was released with approximately fifteen pages still redacted.[^18] The archive's Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," was posted June 21, 2007 and updated June 26, 2007.[^19] Its October 30, 2025 posting on the top secret testimony of the MKULTRA chief, fifty years after the testimony, is posted in the same series.[^20] Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1964 Brazilian coup, reproduces an excerpt of a White House meeting tape of October 7, 1963 as Document 9. The briefing book was edited by James G. Hershberg, whom the briefing book identifies as a George Washington University historian. Participants in the meeting, as listed for Document 9, include [Lincoln Gordon](/people/lincoln-gordon/).[^21]

The archive's connection to the [Dag Hammarskjöld](/people/dag-hammarskjöld/) inquiry is documented in the report of the Commission of Jurists, transmitted by the Secretary-General on March 21, 2014. The commission recorded its assistance from "the National Security Archive at George Washington University, DC," in focusing its search, and noted that its request for disclosure of what it regarded as critical intercept records was still pending.[^22] The report describes a listening post near Nicosia, Cyprus, operated by the [National Security Agency](/organizations/nsa/), which occupied the upper floor of a building whose ground floor the CIA occupied, the two organizations not exchanging information.[^22] A witness named Southall, who worked there, recalled that about 9 p.m. on September 17, 1961 he was telephoned at home by the communications watch officer, who told him "Get yourself out here tonight. Something interesting is going to happen," and that shortly after midnight a recording was played back of a voice saying "I see a transport plane coming low. All the lights are on" and, after the sound of cannon fire, "I've hit it. There are flames. It's going down. It's crashing."[^23] The commission wrote that the narrative was not inconsistent with an accidental shooting-down, and listed among the features of the surrounding evidence the National Security Agency's apparent foreknowledge of the event.[^23]

The commission concluded that, from the evidence of a physical United States presence at Ndola airport with radio monitoring equipment and from the National Security Agency's worldwide monitoring in about 1961, it was highly likely that the entirety of the local and regional Ndola radio traffic on the night of September 17 and 18, 1961 was tracked and recorded by the National Security Agency, and possibly also by the CIA.[^24] If the suggested attack or threat had occurred, the report continues, the cockpit narrative and the Ndola control tower dialogue should in the ordinary course have been monitored, recorded, logged and archived by that agency.[^24] The Freedom of Information Act requests that the National Security Archive made on the commission's behalf sought any recording or transcription of radio traffic intercepted by the National Security Agency at its Cyprus station on the night of September 17 and 18, 1961, and any message it intercepted between 2130 GMT on September 17 and 0030 GMT on September 18 concerning the landing or approach of an aircraft at Ndola.[^25] The National Security Agency's initial response indicated that two of the three responsive documents appeared exempt from disclosure under "top secret" classification on national security grounds. On July 19, 2013, Dr. Mary Curry, the Archive's public service coordinator, wrote to the commission that, according to the Archive's CIA expert, John Prados, intercepts of the National Security Agency had always been highly guarded by declassifiers, and that an appeal had been lodged.[^25] The commission added that it understood the documents to be subject to a qualified 50-year rule, and recommended that the United Nations reopen its 1961 to 1962 inquiry for the purpose of confirming or refuting the attack evidence from intercept records, which appeared to be held, if anywhere, in the United States.[^25]

### Jack Anderson papers

The columnist [Jack Anderson](/people/jack-anderson/) died in December 2005.[^26] After his death, the Federal Bureau of Investigation told the family that the Bureau wished to review his files and remove any documents it judged classified before they were opened to the public.[^27] On April 20, 2006, an FBI assistant director, John Miller, told NPR that the Bureau wanted access before the archive was made public. NPR reported that FBI agents had told the family the papers included a document that could bear on a current espionage case involving pro-Israel lobbyists, and that 188 boxes were held by the university.[^27]

A letter dated November 30, 2006 from Acting Associate Attorney General James H. Clinger to Senator Arlen Specter stated: "At this time, the FBI is not seeking to reclaim any documents."[^28] The Associated Press reported that the family then arranged for the papers to go to the university for archiving.[^29] The university's University Archivist, Sylvia Augusteijn, had been working since April 2006 to categorize and re-file the documents in 186 boxes bequeathed by the Anderson family. The student newspaper's October 2008 report on the collection was headed "Gelman Library to receive FBI files on columnist Jack Anderson."[^30]

Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at the university, wrote in a March 25, 2022 article for the Washington Post, reprinted by Stars and Stripes, about a March 1972 conversation between Charles Colson and [E. Howard Hunt](/people/howard-hunt/) concerning Anderson.[^31] The same episode, and Feldstein's 2010 book on the Nixon White House's campaign against Anderson, were reported by NBC News in September 2010.[^32] Anderson's own Washington Post columns of January 9, February 5 and March 30, 1981, on psychic weapons and Pentagon and CIA psychic programs, survive in CIA reading room copies.[^33][^34][^35]

### Groom Lake litigation

The Ninth Circuit's decision in Kasza v. Browner, decided January 8, 1998 after argument on November 5, 1997, arose from two citizen suits under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The plaintiffs in Kasza, the widow of a former worker and others who had worked at a classified operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada, sued the Environmental Protection Agency. The companion case, Frost v. Perry, was brought against the Air Force, and the Secretary of the Air Force invoked the military and state secrets privilege.[^36] The district court granted summary judgment for the Air Force in Frost.[^36] The Ninth Circuit's opinion names the plaintiffs' counsel as Jonathan Turley and Joan Manley, of the university, and the government's counsel as lawyers of the [Department of Justice](/organizations/department-of-justice/). The concurrence discusses the government's claim of privilege over what it called security sensitive environmental data.[^36] A 1994 report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, drawn from a Cox News Service dispatch, described Turley as a law professor at the university's National Law Center who had sued the agency over the Groom Lake site.[^37]

### J. Edgar Hoover

[J. Edgar Hoover](/people/j-edgar-hoover/) was born in Washington, D.C. on January 1, 1895. After high school he worked at the Library of Congress and attended night classes at the university's law school, and in 1916 he was awarded his LL.B. and in 1917 his LL.M.[^38] A university interview with the historian Andrew Simpson, author of a 2009 article on Hoover's legal education in the journal Intelligencer, states that Hoover entered the law school in fall 1913, that the school required a college education for admission from 1909 but did not enforce the requirement until 1920, that he passed the bar examination on July 25, 1917, and that he began work at the Department of Justice the next day.[^39] The [Federal Bureau of Investigation](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/) biography states that he entered on duty with the Department of Justice on July 26, 1917, was named assistant to the attorney general in November 1918, and in 1919 led the department's General Intelligence Division.[^38] Simpson states that in 1917, at age 22, Hoover headed the department's Alien Enemy Bureau.[^39] He directed the Bureau from May 10, 1924 until his death on May 2, 1972.[^38]

### George Washington University Hospital and March 30, 1981

On March 30, 1981 John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots outside the Washington Hilton Hotel at [Ronald Reagan](/people/ronald-reagan/), who had just addressed the national conference of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO. The first bullet hit the press secretary, James Brady; the second a District of Columbia police officer, Thomas Delahanty; the fourth Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy; and the sixth ricocheted off the presidential limousine into Reagan. Secret Service agent Jerry Parr first directed the driver toward the White House and, on learning that Reagan had been shot, redirected the motorcade to George Washington University Hospital, where surgeons Benjamin Aaron and Joseph Giordano removed a bullet from the left lung.[^40] The White House press office issued the daily medical reports through Dr. Dennis O'Leary, dean for clinical affairs at the hospital. His evening briefing on March 30 stated that the president was in the recovery room, awake and stable, "at no time in any serious danger," that he had been in the operating room for about two hours, and that the single bullet had entered below the left armpit, traversed about three inches of chest wall, ricocheted off the seventh rib and lodged about three inches into the left lower lobe of the lung.[^41] O'Leary reported that McCarthy's bullet had passed through the liver, that blood in the abdominal cavity had required a drain, and that Brady was still in surgery in critical condition.[^41] The statement of [George H.W. Bush](/people/george-hw-bush/), the vice president, issued that evening on his return from Texas, summarized the same briefing.[^42]

The Reagan Library holds the FBI collection on Hinckley, which includes photographs of the emergency room of George Washington University Hospital made on April 3 and April 4, 1981.[^43] The Houston Post reported that Neil Bush, a son of the vice president, had been scheduled to have dinner the day after the shooting with Scott Hinckley, the brother of the gunman, and Neil Bush acknowledged at a press conference that Scott Hinckley had been at his house at a surprise birthday party a couple of months earlier.[^44]

### Colin Powell

Colin Powell earned an M.B.A. from the university in 1971 and received an honorary Doctor of Public Service from the university in 1990, according to the university's alumni office.[^45] The biography issued by the administration of [George W. Bush](/people/george-w-bush/) while Powell was Secretary of State states that his further academic achievements included a Master of Business Administration degree from the university.[^46]

### Program on Extremism and NCITE

The GWU Program on Extremism was established at the university in June 2015, and Lorenzo Vidino has led it since then.[^47] A December 17, 2015 newsletter of the program, among Department of Homeland Security records released to the American Civil Liberties Union, describes the program as part of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at the university, and reports that Hughes had testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security on July 15 of that year.[^48] The same newsletter reports that the program released its report on the Islamic State in the United States, "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa," on December 1, 2015, and describes the program's collaborations with several government agencies, think tanks and study centers.[^48] Seamus Hughes, who had been the program's deputy director from its founding, later became a senior research faculty member and policy associate at the [National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center](/organizations/ncite/), the consortium.[^49]

A March 2025 fact sheet of the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate describes the center as a consortium led by the University of Nebraska at Omaha, with more than 40 university and industry partners, and lists the George Washington University among its university partners.[^50] In December 2025, the program's analysts Luke Baumgartner and Barry Jonas argued in Just Security that the Justice Department was prosecuting networks such as 764 under a statute traditionally reserved for international terrorism.[^51] The program hosted a panel on December 18, 2025, titled "Holding 764 Accountable," at which [Justin Sher](/people/justin-sher/) described the group's stated objective.[^52]

In 2024, Farid Hafez, identified in press reports as a former senior researcher at the University of Salzburg, sued Vidino, the university and the program. The Intercept reported the suit under the headline "Lawsuit Links Wild UAE-Financed Smear Campaign to George Washington University," and the allegations are those of the plaintiff.[^53]

### Degree holders and affiliates

[John Foster Dulles](/people/john-foster-dulles/) took a year of philosophy and international law at the Sorbonne after graduating from Princeton, then attended the George Washington University Law School and earned his LL.B. in 1911. He joined [Sullivan and Cromwell](/organizations/sullivan-cromwell/) the same year and worked there from 1911 to 1949, rising to senior partner.[^54] In 1907 he had attended the Second Hague Peace Conference as secretary to his grandfather, John Watson Foster.[^54]

[Hank Brown](/people/hank-brown/) received a J.D. from the University of Colorado in 1969 and an M.L. in tax from the university in 1986.[^55] He had served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1962 to 1966 and was admitted to the Colorado bar in 1969.[^55] [Raymond Banoun](/people/raymond-banoun/) took a J.D. with honors from the university's law school in 1968, clerked for Harold H. Greene, and served for three years as a special assistant to the United States Attorney.[^56] [Anthony Moscato](/people/anthony-moscato/) took a law degree from the university in 1970 and joined the Justice Department's Tax Division as a trial attorney in 1976.[^57] [Lee Rawls](/people/lee-rawls/) took a law degree from the university and was chief of staff to Senator Pete Domenici by 1975.[^58]

[Nick Szabo](/people/nick-szabo/) studied computer science at the University of Washington and later took a law degree from the university.[^59] In 1996 he published "Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets," an essay on agreements whose terms are written into code.[^60] [Ward Boston](/people/ward-boston/) did graduate law studies at the university after the Korean War began, when he returned to active duty in the regular Navy as a Judge Advocate.[^61] [C.B. Scott Jones](/people/cb-scott-jones/) held an A.B. in government from the university in 1961 before serving about fifteen years in naval intelligence.[^62] [Richard Secord](/people/richard-secord/) attended a one-year George Washington University graduate program at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, from 1971 to 1972, as one of 16 Air Force officers in the program.[^63] [Brendan Bordelon](/people/brendan-bordelon/) holds a master's degree from the university.[^64]

### L. Ron Hubbard's claimed degree

[L. Ron Hubbard](/people/l-ron-hubbard/) claimed to have studied at the university from 1930 to 1932. The Victorian Board of Enquiry into Scientology, chaired by Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C., recorded that Hubbard "claims to have studied engineering" there, and that he had claimed a graduate qualification in civil engineering, using the letters "B.S." and "C.E." to convey that he had so graduated. The inquiry concluded: "In fact, he has no such qualification."[^65]

[^1]: National Security Archive, "About the National Security Archive," address block (Suite 700, Gelman Library, The George Washington University, 2130 H Street, NW, Washington, D.C.). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about
[^2]: National Security Archive, "The National Security Archive 1985 to 2025," anniversary booklet with founders, founding funders, board chairs and executive directors. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2025-12/Celebrating%20%2040%20YEARS%20%288c%29.pdf
[^3]: Human Resources Research Office, *Bibliography of Publications as of 30 June 1966* (Alexandria, Va.: HumRRO, September 1966), introductory statement on the office's status as a nongovernmental agency of The George Washington University. DTIC AD0643761. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0643761
[^4]: U.S. Army Leadership Human Research Unit, report on screening procedures for tactical interrogation, May 1963, front matter (AR 70-8 mission statement; Leadership Human Research Unit under the Continental Army Command). DTIC AD0487576. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0487576
[^5]: Human Resources Research Office history, in *Institutional Funding for Applied Research: The Case of HumRRO and the U.S. Army*, CONSAD Research Corporation for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, May 24, 1973, ERIC ED097560, chapters I and II (quoting William A. McClelland, Professional Paper 30-68; Meredith P. Crawford, *A Perspective on the Development of HumRRO*, 1967). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED097560.pdf
[^6]: Peter Watson, *War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology* (Basic Books, 1978), pp. 462-468 (App. II).
[^7]: HumRRO, "Our History." https://www.humrro.org/who-we-are/our-history/
[^8]: Lawrence Schlesinger and Harriet Beckwitt, *Psychological Warfare Job Requirements and Training: An Evaluation of the Psychological Warfare School Curriculum*, HumRRO Psychological Warfare Division, Task PSYJOB, August 1956, title page and approval page. DTIC AD0484337. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0484337
[^9]: U.S. Army Leadership Human Research Unit, report on screening procedures for tactical interrogation (Task QUIZ), May 1963, preface, summary, and composition of the research team. DTIC AD0487576. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0487576
[^10]: Thomas Myers, Donald B. Murphy, Seward Smith and S. James Goffard, *Experimental Studies of Sensory Deprivation and Social Isolation*, HumRRO Technical Report 66-8, June 1966, Contract DA 44-188 ARO-2, summary and research procedure. DTIC AD0636478. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0636478
[^11]: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, "A History of the Department of Defense Federally Funded Research and Development Centers," OTA-BP-ISS-157, June 1995, pp. 20-21 (ORO in Korea, HumRRO 1951, SORO, ORO dissolved June 1961, RAC contract). https://web.archive.org/web/2016id_/https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1995/9501/950106.PDF
[^12]: James E. Starrs, report of forensic examination, Olson exhumation, 1994, held in the New York County District Attorney investigation files (partial public record).
[^13]: Stephen Kinzer, *Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control* (Henry Holt, 2019).
[^14]: H. P. Albarelli, *A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments* (Trine Day, 2009).
[^15]: John Jacobs, "Dialogue Sought With Professor in CIA Probe," The Washington Post, August 27, 1977, CIA reading room copy at archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300020003-7.
[^16]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, March 1993, p. 126 and note 4 (Washington Business Journal, week of November 9-15, 1992, p. 13). https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.*, March 1993, pp. 248-250 (conclusion on the death of Danny Casolaro). https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^18]: CIA, *KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation*, July 1963 (declassified 1997, portions redacted), National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 122.
[^19]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," posted June 21, 2007, updated June 26, 2007. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm
[^20]: National Security Archive, "The Top Secret Testimony of CIA's MKULTRA Chief, 50 Years Later," October 30, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2025-10-30/top-secret-testimony-cias-mkultra-chief-50-years-later
[^21]: National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh, posted April 2, 2014, text and Document 9, "Excerpt from White House meeting tape, October 7, 1963." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB465/
[^22]: United Nations, Commission of Jurists, Inquiry into the Death of Dag Hammarskjöld, report transmitted by the Secretary-General, A/68/800 (March 21, 2014), paragraphs 11.2 and 13.24. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf
[^23]: United Nations, Commission of Jurists, A/68/800 (March 21, 2014), paragraphs 13.24 to 13.28 and the list following paragraph 13.50. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf
[^24]: United Nations, Commission of Jurists, A/68/800 (March 21, 2014), paragraphs 15.7 and 15.8. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf
[^25]: United Nations, Commission of Jurists, A/68/800 (March 21, 2014), paragraphs 15.11 to 15.14. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=A%2F68%2F800&l=en&t=pdf
[^26]: Patricia Sullivan, "Obituary: Jack Anderson was Pulitzer winning columnist," *The Washington Post*, December 18, 2005.
[^27]: David Folkenflik, "FBI Defends Request for Columnist's Papers," NPR, *All Things Considered*, April 20, 2006. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/5353604
[^28]: "FBI Abandons Its Effort to Obtain Jack Anderson's Files," Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, January 4, 2007, quoting the letter of Acting Associate Attorney General James H. Clinger to Senator Arlen Specter dated November 30, 2006. https://rcfp.org/?p=39395
[^29]: "FBI Drops Demands For Jack Anderson Papers," Associated Press, January 4, 2007. https://cbsnews.com/news/fbi-drops-demands-for-jack-anderson-papers
[^30]: Lauren French, "Gelman Library to receive FBI files on columnist Jack Anderson," *The GW Hatchet*, October 27, 2008 (quoting University Archivist Sylvia Augusteijn on the 186 boxes). https://www.gwhatchet.com/2008/10/27/gelman-library-to-receive-fbi-files-on-columnist-jack-anderson/
[^31]: Mark Feldstein, "50 years ago: Nixon White House plotted to assassinate journalist," *The Washington Post*, March 25, 2022, reprinted in *Stars and Stripes*. https://www.stripes.com/history/2022-03-25/50-years-ago-nixon-white-house-plotted-assassinate-journalist-5477284.html
[^32]: Michael Isikoff, "Nixon plot against newspaper columnist detailed," NBC News, September 13, 2010, reporting on Mark Feldstein, *Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture* (2010).
[^33]: Jack Anderson, "Pentagon Invades Buck Rogers' Turf," *The Washington Post*, January 9, 1981, p. D16, CIA Reading Room copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3
[^34]: Jack Anderson, "Yes, Psychic Warfare Is Part of the Game," *The Washington Post*, February 5, 1981, p. DC11, CIA Reading Room copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3
[^35]: Jack Anderson, "CIA Toys with Extrasensory Weapons," *The Washington Post*, March 30, 1981, p. B13, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00788r001700360003-3
[^36]: *Kasza v. Browner*, 133 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. Jan. 8, 1998), counsel listing and concurrence. https://static.case.law/f3d/133/cases/1159-01.json
[^37]: "EPA Sued On Secret Air Base / Agency Didn't Shield Workers, Suit Says," Cox News Service, *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, August 16, 1994, p. 2B. https://www.newspapers.com/image/142561425/
[^38]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, "J. Edgar Hoover, May 10, 1924 - May 2, 1972," Directors, Then and Now. https://www.fbi.gov/history/directors/j-edgar-hoover
[^39]: "J. Edgar Hoover's GW Years" (interview with Andrew Simpson), *GW Today*, December 11, 2011. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/j-edgar-hoovers-gw-years
[^40]: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, "Assassination Attempt on Reagan." https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/reagans/reagan-administration/assassination-attempt-reagan
[^41]: "Digest of Other White House Announcements," March 30, 1981, quoting the medical report of Dr. Dennis O'Leary, George Washington University Hospital, *The American Presidency Project*. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/digest-other-white-house-announcements-9127
[^42]: "Statement by the Vice President About the Attempted Assassination of the President," March 30, 1981, *The American Presidency Project*. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-vice-president-about-the-attempted-assassination-the-president
[^43]: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, John Hinckley Jr. (FBI) Collection, folders JHJ-74 and JHJ-75 (emergency room, George Washington University Hospital, April 3 and 4, 1981). https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/john-hinckley-jr-collection
[^44]: WhoWhatWhy, "Bush Angle to Reagan Shooting Still Unresolved as Hinckley Walks," August 16, 2016, reporting the *Houston Post* story and Neil Bush's press conference. https://whowhatwhy.org/2016/08/16/bush-angle-reagan-shooting-still-unresolved-hinckley-walks/
[^45]: George Washington University Alumni Relations, "Colin L. Powell" (M.B.A. '71, Honorary Doctor of Public Service '90); "In Memoriam: Colin Powell," *GW Today*, October 2021. https://alumni.gwu.edu/colin-l-powell
[^46]: "Secretary of State Colin L. Powell," biography, White House archive of the George W. Bush administration. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/powell-bio.html
[^47]: "Program on Extremism Launches at GW," GW Today, June 22, 2015. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/program-extremism-launches-gw (leadership by Lorenzo Vidino).
[^48]: Program on Extremism newsletter, "2015 No. 1," December 17, 2015, in Department of Homeland Security records (NPPD 001896 to 001899) released to the American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/Emails-re-GWU-Program-on-Extremism-1896-1939.pdf
[^49]: NCITE, "Seamus Hughes," staff biography, University of Nebraska Omaha. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/about-ncite/staff-directory/seamus-hughes.php
[^50]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, "National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE)," fact sheet, March 2025, university partners list. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-03/25_0331_st_ncite_fact_sheet.pdf
[^51]: Luke Baumgartner and Barry Jonas, "How the DOJ is Prosecuting Nihilistic Violent Extremism as Domestic Terrorism," *Just Security*, December 9, 2025. https://www.justsecurity.org/126226/prosecuting-nihilistic-violent-extremism-domestic-terrorism/
[^52]: GWU Program on Extremism panel, "Holding 764 Accountable," December 18, 2025.
[^53]: The Intercept, "Lawsuit Links Wild UAE-Financed Smear Campaign to George Washington University," April 20, 2024.
[^54]: *Princeton University Library, John Foster Dulles papers*, Mudd Manuscript Library, finding aid MC016, biographical note (LL.B., George Washington University Law School, 1911; Sullivan and Cromwell, 1911 to 1949). https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC016
[^55]: "BROWN, George Hanks (Hank)," *Biographical Directory of the United States Congress*, U.S. House of Representatives, History, Art and Archives (J.D., University of Colorado, 1969; M.L. (tax), George Washington University, 1986). https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/9967
[^56]: Banoun Law LLC, biography of Raymond Banoun. https://sites.google.com/site/banounlaw
[^57]: "Anthony (Tony) Charles Moscato," obituary, Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home, June 2026. https://www.fairfaxmemorialfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Anthony-Charles-Moscato?obId=48707990
[^58]: "W. Lee Rawls, Justice Department official and Senate aide," obituary, *The Washington Post*, December 2010; Princeton Alumni Weekly memorial, Class of 1966.
[^59]: "Notable Crypto Personalities: Nick Szabo," *The Block*, profile. https://www.theblock.co/profile/350036/nick-szabo
[^60]: Nick Szabo, "Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets," 1996.
[^61]: Ward Boston Jr., obituary, *Connection Newspapers*, June 17, 2008. https://connectionnewspapers.com/news/2008/jun/17/obituary-captain-ward-boston-jr-dies-june-12
[^62]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers," COU:4004, biographical note. https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346
[^63]: Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1987, "Secord: A Specialist in Covert Deals," CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP90-00965R000201700001-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000201700001-4
[^64]: Chris Roush, "National Journal hires Bordelon as tech reporter," *Talking Biz News*, March 20, 2017. https://talkingbiznews.com/they-talk-biz-news/national-journal-hires-bordelon-as-tech-reporter/
[^65]: Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C., *Report of the Board of Enquiry into Scientology* (Melbourne: Government of Victoria, 1965), passage on Hubbard's claimed study at the university, 1930 to 1932, and his claimed degrees. https://archive.org/details/AndersonReportReportOfTheBoardOfEnquiryIntoScientology


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