Grill Flame

Grill Flame was the unclassified nickname that the Army's intelligence staff assigned in July 1978 to its parapsychology work. The name covered a remote-viewing program that the DIA and the Army ran as a jointly funded effort from 1979 to 1982, and it is the name under which the Army's share of the Stargate Project was known. The Army's operations were run by INSCOM from Fort Meade, Maryland, and the joint program bought its remote-viewing research from SRI. Congress curtailed the Army's funding in the National Foreign Intelligence Program, and the unit continued under Center Lane from December 3, 1982.

From Gondola Wish to the July 1978 nickname

The Army's first form of this work was Gondola Wish, run from September 1977 by the CI Studies Section of the OPSEC Support Division of the 902d Military Intelligence Group. The group's assessment of August 25, 1978 states that its office "has been investigating the intelligence threat posed by Soviet state-of-the-art parapsychology since September 1977," and describes the program as the training of military intelligence personnel in out-of-the-body experience so that they could mimic Soviet collectors in an operations security support effort.¹ The assessment selected the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences at Afton, Virginia, as trainer. Robert Monroe, its executive director, was interviewed on April 6, 1978, and on May 3, 1978 agreed to train three military intelligence personnel in October and November 1978 for $2,000. Brigadier General John A. Smith Jr., Deputy Commander for Security of INSCOM, approved the fee on July 19, 1978.¹² The assessment records that Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff told DIA they knew Monroe personally and believed him credible.¹ Second Lieutenant Frederick H. Atwater of the CI Studies Section reported on May 18, 1978 that the institute had interviewed the selected trainee volunteers on May 17, and signed as project officer a July 31, 1978 report on a seminar given by Charles Tart on July 29.³⁴

The plan was cancelled in late September 1978. A 902d memorandum of September 25, 1978, signed by Robert Keenan, states that "the 902d's concept, unclassified title GONDOLA WISH, is cancelled," and it lists "Monroe Institute not cleared" among the reasons.⁵ A memorandum of September 26, 1978, addressed to Brigadier General Smith, gives a second objection: "It was felt that this training could be categorized as experimenting with the human mind. If so, under recent legislation, it would have to be cleared through an office at HEW."⁶ The same memorandum records the replacement: "ongoing contract in this general area with SRI, California which is not encumbered by possible legalities," and "A total of $65,000.00 ($15,000.00 from ACSI) has been provided to DARCOM for training."⁶ An information paper of October 27, 1978, signed by Major General E. R. Thompson, states that the institute "was briefly considered earlier this year to train three or four INSCOM Subjects" and "was rejected as a training possibility," and lists as grounds the institute's use of sensory deprivation and rhythmic sounds to induce an "altered state of consciousness," the subject's interrogation in that state, CIA's refusal to let its people train there, the federal statute on experimentation on human beings and the absence of any clearance.⁷

The nickname followed. A message from Headquarters, Department of the Army (DAMI-ISH) to DIA, DARCOM, AMSAA and the Missile Intelligence Agency, under the subject line "ISSUANCE OF UNCLASSIFIED NICKNAME" and the nickname GRILL FLAME, states that "THE UNCLASSIFIED NICKNAME GRILL FLAME WILL REPLACE ANY OPEN REFERENCE TO US ARMY INVOLVEMENT IN PY/RV RESEARCH, EXPERIMENTS, APPLICATION, ETC." and that "A STRICT NEED-TO-KNOW CAVEAT IS NOW OPERATIVE IN ANY SITUATION INVOLVING PY/RV."⁸ A DAMI-ISH message to INSCOM's chief of staff retransmitting it states that Dr. LaBerge, the Under Secretary of the Army, was personally involved, and asks INSCOM to hold in abeyance any planned execution with outside agencies of projects of this nature.⁹ The AMSAA interim note of July 1979 records that "In July 1978 the unclassified code name GRILL FLAME was issued to replace any open reference to US Army involvement in parapsychology," and session reports carry the classification line "MSG, DAMI-ISH 051630Z JUL 78"; the AMSAA documents give the message's date as July 7, 1978.¹⁰¹¹ The INSCOM chronology lists "Establishment of GRILL FLAME" under July 13, 1978.¹² INSCOM's chronology gives the tasking as "ACSI directed all Army Parapsychology/Remote Viewing research, experiments, application, etc. be protected by unclassified nickname GRILL FLAME (TAB A). HQ INSCOM never received written tasking on this subject."¹² The chronology dates the appointment of Major Murray Watt as project manager to October 27, 1978.¹² An INSCOM progress report of February 21, 1979 records that Colonel A. W. Hamel of INSCOM's operations staff was tasked in October 1978 to provide a project officer, that Watt was selected and "on 27 October 1978 was so notified," and that INSCOM was tasked verbally, adding "There exists no written tasking between OACSI and HQ, INSCOM." Its TAB A is the revised statement of work for SRI's training of three INSCOM personnel.¹³ The Army's own April 1984 record of Center Lane approvals dates the Army staff's lead responsibility earlier: "In May 1978, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI), Department of the Army (DA) accepted lead responsibility for GRILL FLAME activities within the DA."¹⁴

Committees and oversight, 1978 to 1979

Defense-level coordination began under DIA's Jack Vorona. The minutes of a DoD Grill Flame Committee meeting held on November 28, 1978, at the DIA conference room in Pomponio Plaza, record that Vorona "cautioned the Committee to maintain a low profile with minimal fanfare."¹⁵ The same minutes name the oversight group as Vorona of DIA, MG E. R. Thompson of the Army ACSI, RADM S. Shapiro of the NIC, Maj Gen J. L. Brown of the Air Force ACSI and Dr. Lowell Dailey, USDR&E representative. Its members "are responsible for insuring that research and experiments fall within the legal guidelines established by the DoD and the Services."¹⁵ The working group was to be Dale Graff of the Foreign Technology Division, Dr. Bill Mehuron of the Navy, Major William Stoner, and Major Watt of INSCOM, and the next meeting was set for February 13, 1979.¹⁵

Minutes of the February 14, 1979 meeting list the attendees as Vorona, Major Stoner of ACSI, Mr. John Kramar of AMSAA, Colonel De Prospero, Mr. Graff of the Air Force's Foreign Technology Division, Major Watt of INSCOM, Mr. Green of MIRADCOM and Mr. Dailey of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.¹⁶ A master list of representatives attached to those minutes includes Lieutenant Frederick Atwater of INSCOM as Watt's alternate.¹⁶ The same minutes record funding: "Up through 31 March 1979, the following monies have been allocated": "$100K from FTD," "$115K from AMSAA," and "$ 20K from DIA." They also note "optimum funding levels for SRI (400-500K/year)."¹⁶

Congress was part of the record from the start. An Army information paper of April 13, 1979 states that "Under the coordination of an OSD oversight committee established by Dr. Ruth Davis, the DIA, Army, and Air Force are initiating low level efforts," and it cites "written interest by Congressman Rose," a reference to Charlie Rose.¹⁷

Human-use rulings

The Army's approval record lists February 15, 1979 as the date of Army General Counsel legal guidance on the program, and April 2, 1979 as the date on which the Human Subjects Research Review Board treated the remote-viewing protocols as technology transfer.¹⁴ The chronology records that the Army General Counsel advised the ACSI on February 15, 1979 that Grill Flame constituted human use, and that on March 26, 1979 the Surgeon General's Human Use Subjects Research Review Board concluded that Grill Flame was "not human use"; it records under November 20, 1979 the statement "Remote Viewing is human use."¹² The approval record gives January 11, 1980 as the date of a finding that the efforts "did involve human experimentation, and that human use procedures and directives had to be followed."¹⁴ The approval record and the chronology give different dates for the board's 1979 action, and each stands as written. An INSCOM request to Brigadier General Garrison Rapmund, chairman of the Human Use Committee of the MIIA, states that the office had been "conducting remote viewing sessions under the approved AMSAA GRILL FLAME Protocol since March 1979" and was operating "under the provisions of the INSCOM GRILL FLAME Protocol dated 1 June 1981," and asks for administrative review of adding Monroe Institute relaxation tapes to paragraph 6a(3) of that protocol.¹⁸

The restriction on the program came from William Perry. The chronology dates it to February 6, 1980 and quotes it: "Not appropriate for Army to fund technology programs aimed at scientific demonstration of parapsychology."¹² An undated INSCOM paper on the Army's interest in psychoenergetics dates the order to March 1980, and says that Perry "posed no objection to continuance of non-R&D intelligence applications efforts."¹⁹

The 1981 joint program and its memorandum of understanding

The Army's approval record states that "Under Secretary of the Army approved continuation of GRILL FLAME activities" on January 14, 1981. From that date INSCOM "became the only active operational GRILL FLAME element in the Army," and program management passed to the INSCOM commander on February 11, 1981.¹⁴

A DIA action memorandum of December 11, 1981, addressed to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, states that "In FY 1981, a Memorandum of Understanding (enclosure 1) established a jointly funded Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and U.S. Army three-year contractual effort known as GRILL FLAME." It asks for approval to "proceed with those portions of the joint DIA/Army GRILL FLAME program determined to constitute human experimentation" under "Procedure 18" of the DoD directive.²⁰

The memorandum of understanding attached to that memo divides the work. DIA was to chair the GRILL FLAME Committee and to provide the primary contract monitor, and the first-year joint contracts were to be funded through "MIPR funds to DIA." Committee meetings were to be held "on a rotating basis," and the committee was to consist of "two voting members from each organization." The FY 1981 figures are given as "Army/INSCOM: $150K" and DIA $300K.²⁰

INSCOM's undated paper on the Army's interest in psychoenergetics describes the 1981 arrangement: "ALSO IN 1981, A JOINT SERVICES GRILL FLAME COMMITTEE, CONSISTING OF DIA. THE AIR FORCE AND ARMY WAS FORMED. THE NAVY EXPRESSED NO INTEREST IN PARTICIPATING IN ANY DISCUSSIONS, AND LATER THE AIR FORCE CHIEF OF STAFF DIRECTED THAT THE AIR FORCE WITHDRAW FROM THE COMMITTEE AND ALL PSYCHOENERGETIC PROGRAMS."¹⁹²¹ The same paper describes the DIA side as "R&D ORIENTED," and the INSCOM side as the use of remote viewing "AS AN OPERATIONAL TECHNIQUE TO COLLECT INTELLIGENCE," and asks whether the method could be learned by professional intelligence personnel who were not established psychics.¹⁹

Contracts with SRI

SRI's remote-viewing work for the Army began under the Army Materiel Development and Readiness Command. An undated Army paper states that in September 1978 AMSAA, using Program VI funds, "contracted with SRI to do a number of tactically oriented Remote Viewing tasks" for $100 thousand, that the contract was extended in 1979 to April 1980 for $120 thousand, that the Missile Research and Development Command at Redstone Arsenal had held an $80 thousand SRI contract from August 1977 to August 1978 on psychokinesis ("now called Remote Perturbation"), and that INSCOM had $75 thousand under contract to SRI "to train and familiarize the team members in Remote Viewing techniques and experimental procedure."²² The sponsoring element was the Missile Intelligence Agency, described in the same paper as a GDIP unit whose interest was in psychokinesis.²³ The September 26, 1978 memorandum places the ACSI and INSCOM money on a DARCOM contract with SRI.⁶ A cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, DAAK11-79-C-0057, issued to SRI International by the Armament Research and Development Command at Edgewood Arsenal in April 1979 under the title "Special Training Techniques," required SRI to select six individuals from a group of 10 to 15 government personnel for a one-month remote viewing familiarization program and to conduct ten sessions of 25 trials with each on the Ten-Choice Numerical Training Facility.²⁴ SRI's work for DIA ran separately under Defense Nuclear Agency contract DNA001-78-C-0274, SRI Project 7560.²⁵ The four members of the AMSAA Grill Flame core group visited SRI on August 21 and 22, 1979 to meet the SRI staff and Hella Hammid, who a memorandum of September 19, 1979 states had taken part in SRI's remote-viewing program for five to six years, originally as a "control subject" as a favor to Targ, and who worked almost exclusively with Targ as her interviewer.²⁶ The Scientific Evaluation Committee's report recommended that replications use "the same experienced Subjects (e.g., Swann or Hammid)."²⁷

A June 1978 memorandum to Major William Stoner gives the Missile Intelligence Agency's background in the SRI work as contractual involvement on Soviet strategic defensive missile technologies. It states that the agency learned of Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ's SRI work in mid-1976, invited them to Redstone Arsenal for discussions in late 1976 and early 1977, and implemented an SRI task in August 1977 under contract DAAK40-77-C-0170, using research and development funds of about $60,000, whose statement of work was titled "Investigation of Unconventional Discrimination Techniques."²⁸ The Scientific Evaluation Committee's December 1979 report dates the agency's first informal interest to 1976 and describes the August 1977 contract as a one-year $80 thousand MICOM contract directed at Soviet man-machine interface work, such as radar operators who continued to guide antiaircraft missiles to the target while the screen images were obscured by chaff.²⁹

On May 3, 1979 Charles Carter of the Missile Intelligence Agency briefed the Grill Flame committee on efforts at Redstone Arsenal.³⁰ A memorandum for record of the November 28, 1978 meeting at DARCOM headquarters states that the Missile Intelligence Agency had no current contract but was interested in the psychokinesis aspects.³¹ The protocol that followed, "Remote Perturbation Techniques: Project Description and Experimental Protocol," is dated November 7, 1979 and was prepared by the USAMICOM Grill Flame Oversight Committee at Redstone Arsenal, with approval blocks for William C. McCorkle and Richard L. Hartman of the US Army Missile Laboratory and Rankin A. Clinton Jr., deputy director of the US Army Missile Intelligence Agency. Its principal investigator is listed as Dr. B. Z. Jenkins of the MICOM Systems Simulation and Development Directorate. The protocol called for an identical experiment at SRI, run with separately acquired equipment, and a MICOM experiment in Building 7770 at Redstone Arsenal, with a six-month second phase and no more than nine experienced remote viewers.³²

Air Force contract F33657-80-C-0207, administered by the Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, carried a research completion date of October 31, 1980. In a letter of January 29, 1981, SRI's senior contract administrator wrote that on September 17, 1980 senior SRI program staff had met Major General E. R. Thompson, the Army ACSI, about a task for the ACSI with end-of-year funds; that Thompson decided in favor of the program and released $50K, which was sent by MIPR to the Foreign Technology Division, and SRI was told on September 29, 1980 that the MIPR had been effected; and that "ACSI representatives Col. White and Lt. Col. Murray B. Watt" visited SRI on December 8, 1980 to discuss progress. SRI asked that the effort in Request for Proposal F33657-81-R-0157 be awarded as a supplemental agreement to the contract rather than as a new contract.³³

The later numbered contracts followed. A November 1981 visit request for Robert Jachim, an INSCOM officer, lists the government contract as MDA903-81-C-0292, and gives the purpose as "Technical discussions & client liaison."³⁴ A supplemental agreement effective September 30, 1981, administered by DCASMA San Francisco, replaced that number: "Delete any and all references to Contract No. MDA903-81-C-0292 and substitute therefor Contract No. MDA908-81-C-0004." Its task 2.1.10 reads "Continue development and evaluation of CRV training program."³⁵

After the 1982 cut, a final report dated November 1984 and prepared for DIA by Hal Puthoff, May and Beverly Humphrey names its contract as "CONTRACT DAMD17-83-C-3106" and its program as "SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM FOR GRILL FLAME." It covers October 1983 to October 1984 under SRI Project 7408-13.³⁶

Funding

A briefing slide headed "GRILL FLAME" and titled "Current Issues" lists annual amounts by fiscal year.³⁷

An information paper of March 7, 1985 gives INSCOM's own totals, which differ from the slide for 1980. The total cost for "INSCOM's use of psychoenergetics for intelligence purposes, less personnel salaries for FYs 1979 through 1983 was $686K." In 1979 the total cost to INSCOM was $87K, "$75K of which went to SRI-International for orientation training." In 1980 INSCOM's costs were "only $32K and there were no external contracts." In 1981 INSCOM spent $205K, of which $190K went to external contracts with SRI. In 1982 the total was $242K, of which $125K supported the joint effort and $99K bought equipment. The $121K for fiscal 1983 included $36K for coordinate remote-viewing work at SRI, $24.4K for the Monroe Institute and $40K for equipment.³⁸

DIA's Grill Flame Project Report of October 19, 1983, on the three-year program that ended with fiscal 1983, states that funding for the SRI contract "was provided jointly by DIA and the Army Intelligence Security Command with a small portion also provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency," averaging $492K a year. Its funding appendix lists $418.5K for fiscal 1981, $518K for 1982 and $539K for 1983, a total of $1,475.5K; by source, $962K from DIA, $313.5K from Army INSCOM and $200K from DARPA; and by task, $575K for remote-viewing enhancement training, $287K for intelligence studies, $168K for data base management, $99K for countermeasures, $97.5K for administration, $70K for audio analysis, $54K for targeting, $45K for search methodology, $40K for remote-viewing operations and $40K for remote-viewing evaluation. The report states that the Army INSCOM viewers "have detected the remote site successfully in 50 percent of their projects (89 sites)."³⁹

Operations and taskings

The chronology dates the first operational remote-viewing session to September 4, 1979.¹² A session report on a search for an aircraft states that the aircraft "had gone down between 28 and 30 August 1979 somewhere in Virginia between Lynchburg and the Pennsylvania border," and that the viewer "would be given as little information as possible about the probable location of the aircraft."⁴⁰

INSCOM told the Secretary of the Army in an October 5, 1983 briefing: "DURING 1979, WE CONDUCTED 79 OPERATIONAL MISSIONS, 43 OF WHICH WERE DEDICATED TO ASSISTING THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY DURING THE IRANIAN HOSTAGE CRISIS." For 1980 the script gives "386 OPERATIONAL MISSIONS, 154 OF WHICH WERE STILL DEDICATED TO IRAN," and for 1981 "ONLY 6 DEDICATED TO IRAN HOSTAGE REQUIREMENTS," with a sharp decline in the last half of 1981 after personnel losses and 47 missions in the first nine months of 1983. It gives the Iran project as one that "REQUIRED OVER 200 OPERATIONAL MISSIONS" and the five-year total as "MORE THAN 700 OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION MISSIONS." The projects behind those missions numbered 7 for four sponsor agencies in 1979, 41 for six sponsors in 1980, 20 for five sponsors in 1981 and 11 in 1982.²¹

The same script describes the 1979 staffing: "CG INSCOM FORMED A TASK FORCE CONSISTING OF 5 PERSONNEL: A PROJECT MANAGER, AN OPERATIONS/TRAINING OFFICER, A SECRETARY, AND TWO SOURCES (RVERS)."²¹

The Center Lane information papers of March 7, 1985 count 106 projects from September 1, 1979 to September 28, 1984. Of these, 53 were rated as having intelligence value, 28 as having none, 2 as unverifiable, 8 as not evaluated and 15 as cancelled.³⁸

The AMSAA protocol, headed "GRILL FLAME PROTOCOL" and "AMSAA APPLIED REMOTE VIEWING PROTOCOL," names John W. Kramar as project officer, selects each target from a pool of 50 to 100 geographic coordinates held by a target pool selector who does not communicate with the viewer or the interviewer, and provides that "No drugs, hypnosis, special sensory (visual, auditory or olfactory) or proprioceptive stimuli, liminal or subliminal, electrical or electromagnetic stimulus will be used in this RV protocol." It records that the commander of DARCOM approved AMSAA's involvement in principle in April 1978 and that the ACSI accepted lead responsibility in May 1978.⁴¹ The session reports carry the protocol's name in their classification block.⁴⁰ The reports note that the material "have not been subjected to any intermediate analysis, evaluation or collation."⁴²

The Iran hostage taskings

Session reports from the Iran series answer a request from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The first report read states: "This report documents a Remote Viewing (RV) Session conducted in compliance with a request from SOD, J3, OJCS, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. The purpose of the session was to provide information relevant to the hostage situation in the U.S. Embassy compound in Teheran, Iran."⁴³ Their internal dates cluster in 1980.⁴⁴

In the collection, 147 documents contain the phrase "hostage situation in" and 120 carry the request line to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.⁴⁴ The reports state that "Interpretation and use of the information provided is the responsibility of the requestor."⁴³

The Dozier kidnapping, 1981 to 1982

A 1983 INSCOM briefing states: "AS YOU MAY RECALL, GENERAL DOZIER WAS KIDNAPPED THE EVENING OF 17 DECEMBER 1981." The kidnapped officer was Brigadier General James L. Dozier, seized in Italy. The briefing records the first session on December 18, and states that a drawing from it was sent to Italy, where a DIA analyst used it and a partial map of Italy as the basis for briefing the commander of SETAF that "THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL DOZIER SHOULD BE CONCENTRATED IN THE PADUA AREA," a briefing that "WAS DONE TWO DAYS PRIOR TO GENERAL DOZIER'S ACTUAL RESCUE."⁴⁵

The same briefing says that the drawing from the third session, held on January 20, 1982, carried "NOTE THE NAME PADUA," and that "THIS DRAWING, HOWEVER, WAS NOT FORWARDED TO ITALY." It gives as the reason that the Italian police were "having difficulty with information they were getting from psychics all over the world."⁴⁵ The January 20, 1982 transcript is session 849, and the viewer states "an old name. Padua. Very old. 300 years."⁴⁶ An INSCOM summary of completed projects states: "We reported the city name Padua eight days prior to his rescue."⁴⁷

A DIA information memorandum to the Secretary of Defense, dated December 1981, describes the data as provided "to aid in their search for BG James L. Dozier," and calls the program a "jointly funded effort known as Project GRILL FLAME." It adds: "We can not at this time attest to the method's accuracy or usefulness of the derived data."⁴⁸ A DIA staff summary bearing Vorona's name records a December 18, 1981 request: "was requested by COL C.F. Scanlon, the Deputy Chief of Staff: Operations, Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center, INSCOM to assist in providing GRILL FLAME derived data to U.S. authorities in Europe concerning the search for BG Dozier."⁴⁹

A staff memorandum titled "SA Query re GRILL FLAME" states that "A preliminary analysis reveals that Army GRILL FLAME data did not play a direct and immediate role in BG Dozier's release." It promises a later memorandum on "the specific role played by Army GRILL FLAME information."⁵⁰

On February 9, 1982, Dozier was briefed on the program. A memorandum of February 22, 1982 by Robert Jachim records "On 9 February 1982, from 0930 to 1015 hours, at the Command SCIF (Bldg 4554), BG Dozier was briefed on the GRILL FLAME Program," and that he was asked "to review sketches and narratives generated during GRILL FLAME sessions for any correlation to places or events surrounding his kidnapping."⁵¹ A March 23, 1982 memorandum by Jachim states that the material "was provided to BG Dozier in the same sequence as the sessions were conducted."⁵² A press report datelined Rome, February 2, 1982, stated that police confirmed a 22-year-old from Verona had revealed Dozier's place of captivity, an apartment above a grocery store in Padua.⁵³

The 1982 cut and the Center Lane name

The 1983 INSCOM briefing states that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Senator Malcolm Wallop) "CURTAILED ALL PSYCHOENERGETIC OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES CONDUCTED BY THE ARMY IN THE NATIONAL FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM," and that "THE CONGRESSIONAL CONFEREES AGREED, HOWEVER, TO LET DIA COMPLETE THE THIRD YEAR OF THEIR EFFORT."²¹ The chronology lists October 1, 1982 as the date that National Foreign Intelligence Program funding ended.¹² The March 1985 papers show $315K for S&IA in fiscal 1984.³⁸

The name changed on December 3, 1982. The Army's approval record says "The effective implementation date of CENTER LANE was 3 December 1982," and the chronology records the change on that date.¹²¹⁴ An INSCOM information paper of February 21, 1983 explains the new name: "the new Army name is for security purposes in light of the exposure generated during the BG Dozier project."⁵⁴ The chronology records that the Secretary of the Army approved the Center Lane special access program on June 15, 1983.¹²

Press disclosure, 1984 to 1985

Jack Anderson's columns of 1984 brought the nickname into print. A memorandum for record of May 17, 1984, titled "Recent Jack Anderson 'GRILL FLAME' Articles," recorded that Representative Charlie Rose had told Ingo Swann on May 16, 1984 that Dale Van Atta, an associate of Anderson, had said that he and Anderson had recently been under the influence of McRae but that this was no longer the case, and that a series of favorable articles would follow.⁵⁵ A briefing memorandum of December 12, 1985, prepared for Brigadier General Soyster, stated that the year before Anderson had published the project nickname Grill Flame and linked psychic research with the Army.⁵⁶ The Washington Post column of April 24, 1984, "'Voodoo Gap' Looms as Latest Weapons Crisis," had earlier recalled Anderson's reports on secret projects to adapt psychic phenomena to military purposes.⁵⁷

Named personnel in official roles

Major Murray Watt was notified on October 27, 1978 that he was INSCOM's project manager.¹² He was on the working group named in November 1978 and attended the February 1979 meeting,¹⁵¹⁶ and a letter of January 29, 1981 gives his rank as lieutenant colonel in December 1980.³³ The chronology records that Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jachim assumed project manager duties in October 1981.¹²

Second Lieutenant Frederick Atwater signed as the Gondola Wish project officer in 1978 and was named as Watt's alternate in February 1979.⁴¹⁶ The chronology records that Captain Frederick Atwater assumed duties as acting project manager on July 7, 1983 and that Lieutenant Colonel Brian Buzby assumed duties as project manager on August 15, 1983.¹² As Captain Fred Atwater, he briefed the Secretary of the Army in October 1983.²¹

Melvin C. Riley signed a Grill Flame volunteer security agreement dated February 8, 1979 as an E-6 of the 902d Military Intelligence Group with the position "Senior Image Interpreter"; the Grill Flame project officer at HQ INSCOM witnessed it, and a second security agreement of the same date carries a continuation page witnessed by Atwater.⁵⁹⁶⁰ On April 20, 1979 he signed an acknowledgment of the "Information About Remote Viewing for Participants," which states that a viewer may be asked to perform at most two sessions per day and no more than three per week and that "There is no evidence of any adverse physical, psychological and/or social effects on the remote viewer from participation in this activity."⁶¹ A volunteer consent statement in his name is witnessed by Watt.⁶² An undated draft INSCOM protocol for Applied Remote Map Sensing is signed "Melvin C. Riley, SFC," as "Grill Flame Training NCO."⁶³ He was one of three full-time viewers, with Ken Bell and Joe McMoneagle, in Schnabel's account of the unit's reorganization in late 1978.⁶⁴

Chief Warrant Officer McMoneagle appears on the agenda of a May 1982 memorandum as the presenter of completed evaluated projects.⁵⁸

Dale Graff attended the February 1979 meeting for the Air Force's Foreign Technology Division and sat on the working group named in November 1978.¹⁵¹⁶

Vorona of DIA is the first-named member of the November 1978 oversight group, and the first-listed attendee in February 1979.¹⁵¹⁶ The chronology records a 1983 briefing of Vice President George Bush by Vorona.¹²

Other officials in the record include Ruth Davis, who is named in the April 1979 paper as establishing the OSD oversight committee,¹⁷ and MG Edmund Thompson, the Army ACSI, who is named on the November 1978 oversight group.¹⁵ Manfred Gale chaired the Scientific Evaluation Committee.²⁷