Volume 15 | Issue 20 | Number 5 | Article ID 5079 | Oct 15, 2017

The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus

Spies on Campus: The CIA and the FBI from the Indochina
Wars to the “War on Terror”

Daniel Golden

On the crisp autumn afternoon of November The honor recognized Spanier’s dedication to
26, 2007, a black car picked up Graham alerting college administrators to the threat of
Spanier, then president of Pennsylvania State human and cyber-espionage, and to opening
University, at Dulles International Airport and doors for the agency at campuses nationwide. A
whisked him to CIA headquarters in Langley, former family therapist and television talk-show
Va. Using his identification card — embedded host with an unruffled, empathetic manner and
with a hologram and computer chip — he features — round face, white hair, blue
checked in at security and was greeted by the eyes—reminiscent of Phil Donahue, Spanier
chief of staff of the National Resources soothed many an academic’s anxieties about
Division, the CIA’s clandestine domestic dealing with the CIA and the FBI.
service. They proceeded to a conference room,
where about two dozen chiefs of station and Since the intelligence agencies were going to
other senior CIA intelligence officers awaited meddle anyway, Spanier reasoned, they should
them. do so with the knowledge and consent of
college presidents. “My feeling was, If there’s a
Spanier was expecting to brief them on the spy on my campus, a potential terrorist, or a
work of the National Security Higher Education visiting faculty member you believe is up to no
Advisory Board, an organization he chaired and good, I know you’ll be pursuing it,” he told me
had helped create, which fostered dialogue in April 2016. “Here’s the deal. Rather than
between intelligence agencies and universities. break into his office, come to me — I have top-
First, though, the CIA surprised him. In a brief secret clearance — show me your FISA
ceremony, it presented him with the Warren [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] order,
Medal, said to be the agency’s highest honor and I’ll have someone unlock the door.”
for nonemployees.
Spanier’s CIA medal, and a similar FBI award a
year later, symbolized a reconciliation between
the intelligence services and the academy. The
relationship has come full circle: from
chumminess in the 1940s and 1950s, to
animosity during the Vietnam War and civil-
rights era, and back to cooperation after the
September 11, 2001, attacks.

US Intelligence and the Universities

Their unequal partnership, though, tilts toward

the government. U.S. intelligence seized on the
Graham Spanier renewed goodwill, and the red carpet rolled out
by Spanier and other university administrators,

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to expand not only its public presence on

campus but also covert operations and
sponsoring of secret research. Federal
encroachment on academic prerogatives has
met only token resistance.

The two cultures are antithetical: Academe is

open and international, while intelligence
services are clandestine and nationalistic. Still,
after Islamic-fundamentalist terrorists toppled
the World Trade Center, colleges became part
of the national security apparatus. The new
recruiting booths at meetings of academic
associations were one telling indicator. The CIA
began exhibiting at the annual convention of
the American Council on the Teaching of
Foreign Languages in 2004, as did the FBI and
NSA around the same time. Since 2011 the FBI,
the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence, and the National Security Agency
have participated on a panel at the Modern
Language Association convention titled “Using
Your Language Proficiency and Cultural
Expertise in a Federal Government Career.”
Today universities routinely offer degrees in
homeland security and courses in espionage
and cyber-hacking. They vie for federal
designation as Intelligence Community Centers
for Academic Excellence and National Centers
of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations.
They obtain research grants from obscure
federal agencies such as Intelligence Advanced
Research Projects Activity. Established in 2006,
Iarpa sponsors “high-risk/high payoff research
that has the potential to provide our nation
with an overwhelming intelligence advantage,”
according to its website. To date, it has funded
teams with researchers representing more than
175 academic institutions, mostly in the United
States.

While almost all Iarpa projects are unclassified,

colleges increasingly carry out secret but
lucrative government research at well-guarded
facilities. Two years after the 9/11 attacks, the
University of Maryland established a center
that conducts classified research on language

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for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. university’s Class of 1943. A Yale assistant
Edward Snowden worked there in 2005 as a professor, under cover of acquiring
security guard, eight years before he joined the manuscripts for the university library, became
government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton OSS chief in Istanbul.
Inc. and leaked classified files on NSA
surveillance. When the CIA was established, in 1947, the Ivy
influence carried over. Skip Walz, the Yale
The center is located off-campus. Like many crew coach, doubled as a CIA recruiter,
universities, Maryland forbids secret research drawing a salary of $10,000 a year from each
on campus, but its transparency stops at the far employer. Every three weeks he supplied
side of its neatly trimmed lawns. names of Yale athletes with the right academic
and social credentials to a CIA agent whom he
Other universities have no such compunctions.
met at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, in
“Classified research on campuses, once highly
Washington. Although the agency gradually
controversial, is making a comeback,” VICE
expanded hiring from other universities, 26
News reported in 2015. The National Security
percent of college graduates whom it employed
Agency in 2013 awarded $60 million to North
during the Nixon administration had Ivy
Carolina State University in Raleigh, the
League degrees. The agency helped establish
largest research grant in the university’s
think tanks and research centers at several top
history, to create an on-campus laboratory for
universities, such as MIT’s Center for
data analysis. Virginia Tech established a
International Studies in 1952.
private nonprofit corporation in December
2009 to “perform classified and highly
Almost from its inception, the CIA cultivated
classified work” in intelligence, cybersecurity,
foreign students, recognizing their value as
and national security. Two years later, the
informants and future government officials in
university planted its flag on prime
their homelands. It learned about them not only
intelligence-community turf. It opened a
through their professors but also through the
research center in Ballston, a neighborhood in
CIA-funded National Student Association, the
Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from
largest student group in the United States.
Washington, brimming with CIA and Pentagon
With only 26,433 international students in the
contractors. The center features facilities for,
United States in 1950, less than 3 percent of
according to the university, “conducting
today’s total, the CIA relied on the association
sensitive research on behalf of the national
to identify potential informants at home and
security community.”
abroad.
The Origins of the Relationship Between
Intelligence and the Universities The agency, which supported the student
association as a non-Communist alternative to
Academe was present at the CIA’s creation. Its Soviet-backed student organizations, meddled
precursor, the Office of Strategic Services, in the group’s election of officers and sent its
founded in 1942, was “half cops-and-robbers activists, including the future feminist Gloria
and half faculty meeting,” according to Steinem, to disrupt international youth
McGeorge Bundy, an intelligence officer during festivals. “In the CIA, I finally found a group of
World War II and later national security adviser people who understood how important it was to
to the presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon represent the diversity of our government’s
B. Johnson. The OSS was largely an Ivy League ideas at Communist festivals,” Steinem told
bastion. It attracted 13 Yale professors in its Newsweek in 1967. “If I had the choice, I would
first year, along with 42 students from the do it again.” With an assist from the CIA, the

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number of foreign students in the United States warrantless searches — expanded under
almost doubled from 1950 to 1960. President Richard Nixon but failed to turn up
evidence of foreign funding.
The Relationship Unravels
The government’s crackdown on its campus
Then it all unraveled. Ramparts, a monthly critics, along with CIA blunders such as the
magazine that opposed the Vietnam War, disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, in
reported in 1966 that a Michigan State 1961, fractured the camaraderie between
University program to train the South intelligence agencies and academe. In 1968
Vietnamese police had five CIA agents on its alone, there were 77 instances of picketing, sit-
payroll. A year later, Ramparts revealed the ins, and other student protests against CIA
CIA’s involvement in the National Student recruiters.
Association, stirring a national outcry. The
Johnson administration responded by banning The disaffection was mutual. Just as Ivy League
covert federal funding of “any of the nation’s graduates began having doubts about joining
educational or private voluntary organizations” the CIA, so older alumni who devoted their
— though not of their individual members or careers to intelligence agencies bridled at the
employees. antiestablishment campus mood. “It is not true
that universities rejected the intelligence
community: that community rejected
universities at least as early,” the Yale historian
Robin Winks wrote.

Hostility between the intelligence services and

universities peaked with the 1976 report of the
Senate Select Committee to Study
Governmental Operations with Respect to
Intelligence Activities, usually known as the
Church Committee, after its chairman, Senator
Frank Church of Idaho. In the most
comprehensive investigation ever of U.S.
intelligence agencies, the committee
documented an appalling litany of abuses, some
undertaken by presidential order and others
rogue. The CIA, it found, had tested LSD and
other drugs on prisoners and students; opened
215,820 letters passing through a New York
City postal facility over two decades; and tried
to assassinate the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro
and other foreign leaders. The FBI, for its part,
had harassed civil-rights and anti-Vietnam War
protesters by wiretapping them and smearing
them in anonymous letters to parents,
Privately, Johnson saw the hand of world neighbors, and employers.
Communism in both the Ramparts exposé and
the antiwar protests, and ordered the CIA and The committee also exposed clandestine
FBI to prove it. FBI penetration and connections between the CIA and higher
surveillance — including illegal wiretaps and education. The agency was using “several

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hundred academics” at more than a hundred believes that it is the responsibility of private
U.S. colleges for, among other purposes, institutions and particularly the American
“providing leads and, on occasion, making academic community to set the professional
introductions for intelligence purposes,” and ethical standards of its members.” That
typically without anyone else on campus being sentence sent him on a quest to persuade
“aware of the CIA link.” colleges to stand up to U.S. intelligence
agencies and curb covert activity on their
Bowing to the CIA’s insistence on protecting its campuses. His mission would provoke an
agents, the committee didn’t name the unprecedented confrontation between the CIA
professors or the colleges where they taught. and the country’s most famous university. Its
Typically, the academics helped with recruiting outcome would shape the relationship between
foreign students. A professor would invite an U.S. intelligence and academe and still has
international student — often from a Soviet- repercussions today.
bloc country, or perhaps Iran — to his office to
get acquainted. Flattered by the attention, the Halperin had Ivy League credentials as
student would have no clue he was being impeccable as any CIA recruit’s: a bachelor’s
assessed as a potential CIA informant. The degree from Columbia and a Yale doctorate,
professor would then arrange for the student to followed by six years on the Harvard faculty. A
meet a wealthy “friend” in publishing or former White House wunderkind who’d taken a
investing. The friend would buy the student top Pentagon post under President Johnson
dinner and pay him generously for an essay before turning 30 and then joined the National
about his country or his research specialty. Security Council staff under President Nixon,
Halperin had himself become a target of the
Unaware he was being compromised, the
government’s covert operations, largely
grateful student would compose one well-
because of his misgivings about the Vietnam
compensated paper after another. By the time
War. With the approval of his mentor, Henry
the professor’s friend admitted that he was a
Kissinger, then national-security adviser, the
CIA agent, and asked him to spy, the student
Nixon administration tapped Halperin’s home
had little choice but to agree. He couldn’t
phone in 1969, suspecting him of leaking
report the overture to his own government,
information about the secret bombing of
because his acceptance of CIA money would
jeopardize his reputation in his homeland, if not
Cambodia to reporters. It also placed him near
his freedom. the top of Nixon’s notorious “enemies list.”

The Church Committee and the Attempt to As director of the Center for National Security
Control CIA Activity on Campus Studies, a project of the American Civil
Liberties Union, Halperin had lobbied Congress
Morton Halperin knew about this deception to create the Church Committee. He attended
and found it “completely inappropriate.” He its hearings and testified before it, urging a ban
intended to end it once and for all. The Church on clandestine operations because they bypass
Committee’s report showed him the way. congressional and public oversight and are
incompatible with democratic values.
From a bookshelf in his office at the Open
Society Foundations in Washington, where he Armed with the committee’s recommendation,
is a senior adviser, Halperin extracts the first he approached Harvard and asked it to set
volume of the committee report. He opens the rules for secret CIA activity on campus. He
thumb-worn paperback to a passage he had expected that any restrictions placed by the
underlined 40 years before: “The Committee nation’s most prominent university would

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spread throughout academe. government, should take the lead in curtailing

covert operations. They agreed.
Morton Halperin, Harvard and the CIA
"The integrity of the institutions required it,"
Harvard General Counsel Daniel Steiner, whom Miller said in a 2015 interview. "It could not be
Halperin contacted first, was sympathetic, and imposed from outside."
urged President Derek Bok to take up the issue.
As it happened, Bok was already familiar with Bok appointed four sages to set standards.
the Church Committee. Its chief counsel, They included Steiner and Harvard law
Frederick A.O. ("Fritz") Schwarz Jr., was a professor Archibald Cox, who had become
family friend and former law student of Bok, famous during the 1973 “Saturday Night
who admired his political activism, especially Massacre,” when President Nixon fired him as
on civil rights. As a third-year Harvard law special prosecutor for the Watergate scandal.
student in 1960, Schwarz had organized a Steiner met with top CIA officials, including
protest in Cambridge to support a sit-in by Cord Meyer Jr., who had overseen the agency’s
blacks at the lunch counter of a Woolworth's hidden role in the National Student
department store in Greensboro, North Association. Based on their discussions, Steiner
Carolina, that refused to serve them. wrote to Meyer, “I would conclude that the CIA
feels it is appropriate to use, on a compensated
"I can still remember walking into Harvard or uncompensated basis, faculty members and
Square on a rainy day," Bok said in a 2015 administrators for operational purposes,
interview. "There in front of Woolworth's were including the gathering of intelligence as
Schwarz and another student picketing over requested by the CIA, and as covert recruiters
Woolworth's refusal to serve Negroes in the on campus.”
South."
The Harvard wise men disagreed. Their 1977
Bok had also met with Church Committee guidelines prohibited students and faculty
member Charles Mathias, a Republican senator members from undertaking “intelligence
from Maryland, and staff director William operations” for the CIA, although they could be
Miller, to discuss whether the committee debriefed about foreign travels after returning
should call for a federal law banning covert home. “The use of the academic profession and
intelligence gathering on campus. Bok knew scholarly enterprises to provide a ‘cover’ for
both of them slightly. Miller had been a intelligence activities is likely to corrupt the
graduate student in Renaissance literature at academic process and lead to a loss of public
Harvard, while Bok had lobbied Mathias in respect for academic enterprises,” they wrote.
1970 against G. Harrold Carswell, whom Nixon
had nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court Also forbidden was helping the CIA “in
despite an indifferent reputation as a federal obtaining the unwitting services of another
district court judge. Mathias had impressed member of the Harvard community” — in other
Bok by carefully reviewing Carswell's record words, recruiting foreign students under false
and then bucking a president from his own pretenses. To Bok and his advisers, this
party and voting against the nomination, which perverted the trust between professor and
was defeated 51-45. student on which higher education is built.
Posing as a mentor, a professor might seek a
Universities typically oppose any extension of foreign student’s views on international affairs,
federal power over academic decisions. or ask about his financial situation, not to guide
Reflecting this view, Bok told Mathias and him but to help the CIA evaluate and enlist him.
Miller at their meeting that colleges, not the And, once it snared the student, the agency

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might ask him to break the laws of his home services contracts and other continuing
country — a request that Harvard couldn’t be a relationships with individual full-time staff and
party to. faculty members.” The CIA would “suggest”
that the staff or faculty member alert a senior
“Many of these students are highly vulnerable,” university official, “unless security
Bok told the Senate in 1978. “They are considerations preclude such a disclosure or
frequently young and inexperienced, often the individual objects.”
short of funds and away from their homelands
for the first time. Is it appropriate for faculty Harvard and the CIA bickered with one eye on
members, who supposedly are acting in the the audience they wanted to impress: the rest
best interests of the students, to be part of a of academe. One university, no matter how
process of recruiting such students to engage prestigious, couldn’t stare down the CIA. But if
in activities that may be hazardous and other universities lined up behind Harvard, the
probably illegal under the laws of their home agency would be hard-pressed to resist.
countries? I think not.”
Halperin set out like Johnny Appleseed to sow
The Harvard committee acknowledged that its the Harvard guidelines across the country. To
new rules made the CIA’s job harder. “This loss his shock, the soil was barren. Other
is one that a free society should be willing to universities were reluctant to follow Harvard’s
suffer,” it said. lead without documented evidence of covert
CIA-faculty relationships, which the Church
Admiral Stansfield Turner saw no reason to Committee had suppressed. University
suffer. CIA director from 1977 to 1981, he presidents wrote to the CIA, asking for
believed that the agency should take advantage particulars about cooperating faculty members,
of the presence of foreign students on U.S. soil. which the agency declined to provide. Some
Since recruiting foreigners in totalitarian professors complained that Harvard’s rules
countries is difficult, “it would be foolish not to would infringe on their academic freedom.
attempt to identify sympathetic people when
they are in our country,” he wrote in his Only 10 colleges adopted Harvard’s policy even
autobiography. Turner rejected Harvard’s in diluted form.
guidelines — as well as a Church Committee
recommendation that the agency tell university Forty years later, Halperin remains perplexed.
presidents about clandestine relationships on “I thought once Harvard did it, everybody else
their campuses — and made clear that the would follow,” he says. “Nobody did. It was a
agency had no intention of following them. big disappointment. If we had been able to
make it the norm on major campuses, it would
If professors want to help the CIA, Turner have had impact. I was befuddled, bewildered,
argued in correspondence with Bok, it’s their and frustrated. Finally, I just gave up.”
right as American citizens. Harvard’s policy, he
concluded, “deprives academics of all freedom CIA moves to mend the breach with the
of choice in relation to involvement in universities
intelligence activities.”
The CIA moved to mend the breach with
The CIA promulgated its own “Regulation on academe. In 1977 it started a “scholars-in-
Relationships with the U.S. Academic residence” program in which professors on
Community,” which remains in effect today. sabbatical from their universities were given
The one-page regulation ratified the status quo, contracts to advise CIA analysts and made
permitting the agency to “enter into personal “privy to information that would never be

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available to them on campus.” In 1985 the ask for less selective colleges. “We sent an
agency added an “officers-in-residence” awful lot of Arabs” to state universities in the
component, which placed intelligence officers Southwest, an ex-officer recalls. “They all
nearing retirement at universities at CIA wanted to study petroleum engineering. Those
expense. schools had a huge Arab population, and they
fit right in.”
The effectiveness of the officers-in-residence
program was “very mixed,” said the former CIA A generational shift underlies the increasing
analyst Brian Latell, who ran it from 1994 to ties between the intelligence community and
1998. Before he took over, he said, “we were academe. Baby-boomer professors who grew up
sending Dagwood Bumsteads who should have protesting the CIA-aided misadventures of the
been forced into retirement.” Some were just 1960s began to retire, replaced by those
hanging around campus with nothing to do. shaped by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,
Latell set standards; the officers must have the first Gulf War, and 9/11. Younger faculty
advanced degrees and be allowed to teach. At members are more likely to regard the
its peak, the program had officers in residence collecting and sifting of intelligence as a vital
at more than a dozen universities. tool for a nation under threat and a patriotic
duty compatible with — even desirable for —
The CIA supplied not only teachers but also academic research.
students, intervening in a cherished academic
bailiwick: admissions. In some cases it Barbara Walter considers it a public service to
arranged schooling for valuable foreign educate the CIA. The political scientist at the
informants who were in danger and had to flee University of California at San Diego gives
to the United States. unpaid presentations at think tanks fronting for
the agency, sometimes for audiences whose
In other instances, the CIA compensated name tags carry only their first names. When
foreign agents by arranging their children’s or CIA recruiters have visited UCSD, she has
grandchildren’s admission to an American helped them organize daylong simulations of
college and paying their tuition, typically foreign-policy crises to measure graduate
through a front organization. “When you’re students’ analytic abilities — and even role-
recruiting a foreigner, you look at, ‘What can I played a CIA official.
do for this guy?’ Sometimes a guy will say, ‘I
want my daughter to go to a good American She’s aware that some older faculty colleagues
school,’ ” says Gene Coyle, who went to Indiana frown on those activities. “My more senior
University as a CIA officer in residence. He colleagues would absolutely not be comfortable
retired from the agency in 2006 and is now a consulting with the CIA or intelligence
professor of practice at Indiana. agencies,” she says. “Anybody who remembers
or had exposure to the Vietnam War has this
“The answer may be, ‘We may be able to line visceral reaction.”
her up with a scholarship from the Aardvark
Society of Boston.’ Instead of giving Daddy cold Graham Spanier was the exception to Walter’s
hard cash, when he has to explain where he dictum. The Vietnam War didn’t prejudice him
gets it, his daughter gets the Aardvark Society against intelligence agencies. As an
second-born scholarship for people from undergraduate and graduate student at Iowa
Uzbekistan.” State University, he told me, he had been an
“establishment radical.” Spanier, who had
While the CIA can pull strings at top student and medical deferments and so didn’t
universities when it needs to, some informants serve in the war, led peaceful, law-abiding

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demonstrations against it but disapproved of said to them is, ‘If there is a significant
confrontational tactics, such as taking over national-security or law-enforcement issue on
administration buildings. Once, when a march my campus, you can trust me. I understand the
threatened to turn unruly, he borrowed a police importance and sensitivity of such matters. I
loudspeaker to urge calm. would like you to feel comfortable coming to
me to talk about it, rather than sneaking
“I had the greatest respect for law around behind my back.’ ”
enforcement,” he said. “I was always in the
forefront of change, but I believed in working They agreed to stay in touch. From then on, an
through the system. I wanted to be at the table, FBI or CIA agent — usually both — would drop
making change, rather than outside the by once a month to brief him or ask his advice,
building, yelling and having no effect.” typically about counterintelligence or
cybersecurity issues involving foreign students
As he advanced in his career, gaining a seat at or visitors. In 2002, David W. Szady became the
the table of administrators who hammered out FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence.
academic policy, he paid little heed to the A quarter-century before, he had gone
Church Committee or to CIA and FBI activities. undercover at the University of Pittsburgh,
Then, in 1995, he was appointed president of posing as a chemist to befriend Soviet students.
Penn State. Because the university conducts Now, like Spanier, he wanted to smooth
classified research at its Applied Research relations between intelligence agencies and
Laboratory, Spanier needed a security academe. Soon, FBI and CIA officials asked
clearance. While he was being vetted, he read Spanier to expand the Penn State experiment
newspaper accounts linking a University of nationwide.
South Florida professor, Sami Al-Arian, and an
adjunct instructor, Ramadan Shallah, to
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed
terrorist group. Spanier was struck by USF
President Betty Castor’s lament that she’d had
no idea of Al-Arian’s alleged fund-raising for
terrorists and that the FBI had not given her
“one iota” of information.

The soft-spoken Shallah had been named head

of Islamic Jihad and vowed war against Israel.
The director of the international-studies center
at USF was quoted as saying, “We couldn’t be
more surprised.”

Spanier made his own vow: Never be surprised.

As a university president, he thought, “I want The result was the National Security Higher
to be the first to know, not the last.” Education Advisory Board (NSHEAB),
established in 2005 with Spanier as its
He convened a meeting in his conference room chairman. It consisted, then as now, of 20 to 25
of every government agency that might conduct university presidents and higher-education
an investigation at Penn State, from the FBI leaders, though some initially were nervous
and CIA to the Naval Criminal Investigative about their membership becoming public,
Service (the university does Navy research) and fearing a campus backlash that never
state and local police departments. “What I materialized. Spanier, conferring with the FBI

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and CIA, chose the members, primarily from that the FBI had changed since J. Edgar
prestigious research universities. At the FBI, Hoover’s henchmen snooped in student files.
Szady says, “nobody thought we could get it up
and running,” because academe was perceived He also acted as a go-between for the CIA with
as hostile turf. university leaders who weren’t on the national-
security board: “What a CIA person can’t do is
Board members receive security clearances call the president’s office, and when the
and go to FBI and CIA offices periodically for secretary answers, say, ‘I’m from the CIA, and I
classified briefings. The agenda for an October want an appointment.’ It doesn’t work, and it’s
2013 meeting at FBI headquarters, for not credible.
example, included the investigation of Edward
Snowden for leaking classified National “Before anybody would do that, I would call the
Security Agency documents; the Boston president,” Spanier continued. “The presidents
Marathon bombing; Russian threats to all knew me. They would take my call. … I
laboratories and research; and Department of would say, ‘Someone from the CIA would like to
Defense-funded students abroad “being come. There’s no issue on your campus now’ —
aggressively targeted” by Iranian intelligence. occasionally there was an issue; most often it
Afterward the FBI hosted a dinner for board was a get-acquainted meeting. Sometimes I
members at a gourmet Italian restaurant in would just give the first name. ‘Someone will
downtown Washington. call your assistant; it’s Bob.’ … That worked
100 percent of the time.”
“There’s a real tension between what the FBI
and CIA want to do and our valid and necessary Spanier facilitated CIA introductions to the
international openness,” says one board presidents of both Carnegie Mellon and Ohio
member, Rice University’s president, David State. A Pittsburgh-based CIA officer began
Leebron. “But we don’t want to wake up one visiting Jared Cohon, Carnegie Mellon’s
morning and find out that there are people on president from 1997 to 2013, once or twice a
campus stealing our trade secrets or putting year. “I know there was direct activity with
our country in danger. We might be uneasy selected faculty,” Cohon says. “They were
bedfellows, but we’ve got to find an interested in what the faculty might have
accommodation.” observed when they went to foreign
conferences. My impression, what I heard from
Spanier, the FBI and the CIA the CIA, was that it was more defensive than
offensive. Trying to make sure those faculty
The FBI and Spanier reached an understanding weren’t recruited by a foreign power.
that it would notify him or the board about
investigations at U.S. universities. In return for “I was uneasy about it, and I am uneasy,” he
being kept in the loop, Spanier opened doors adds. “I’m a kid of the ’60s, and I remember all
for the FBI throughout academe. He gave FBI- the protests on campus. The idea of the CIA
sponsored seminars for administrators at MIT, being on campus would have turned people
Michigan State, Stanford, and other crazy. Things have changed dramatically in
universities, as well as for national associations that regard.”
of higher-education trustees and lawyers. Many
of them arrived at his talks “with a healthy Spanier frequently traveled abroad, visiting
degree of skepticism,” he told me. Displaying China, Cuba, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other
his American Civil Liberties Union membership countries of interest to the CIA. On his return,
card to prove that he shared their devotion to the agency would debrief him. “I have been in
academic freedom, Spanier would assure them the company of presidents, prime ministers,

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corporate chief executives, and eminent Freeh’s 2012 report portrayed Spanier quite
scientists,” he told me. “That’s a level of life differently. It accused him and others of
experience and exposure you don’t have as a concealing the child-sex-abuse allegations from
case officer or even a State Department trustees and authorities and exhibiting “a
employee.” striking lack of empathy” for victims. Spanier
denied the allegations and sued Freeh and
I asked if U.S. intelligence had ever instructed Penn State separately, contending that they
him to gather specific information — in other were scapegoatingd him. The university
words, if he had ever acted as an intelligence countersued. In March a jury convicted Spanier
agent. He smiled and said, “I can’t talk about of one misdemeanor count of child
it.” endangerment for failing to report the abuse.
In June he was sentenced to two months in jail,
His lofty contacts enabled Spanier to steer followed by at least two months of house arrest.
federal research funds to universities in
general and Penn State in particular. When The CIA and FBI on Campus since 9.11
Robert Gates, who as president of Texas A&M
University had been Spanier’s “close colleague” Thanks to Spanier, CIA and FBI agents could
on the higher-education-advisory board, now stride onto campus through the main gate,
became U.S. secretary of defense, in December with university presidents personally arranging
2006, they brainstormed about academe’s role their appointments with faculty members and
in national defense. The result was the students. But, except possibly at Penn State,
Pentagon-funded Minerva Initiative, which they still slipped in through the back door
supports social-science research on regions of whenever it suited them, ignoring their pact
strategic importance to U.S. security. with Spanier that they would inform university
leaders of their campus investigations.
At meetings with the CIA’s chief scientist or the
head of the FBI’s science-and-technology For example, the FBI didn’t notify universities
branch, Spanier invariably asked, “What’s your during the 2011 Arab Spring, when it
greatest need?” He rarely heard the answer questioned Libyan students nationwide,
without thinking, We can do that at Penn State. including Mohamed Farhat, a graduate student
Then he would approach the director of the at Binghamton University, of the State
appropriate Penn State laboratory, explain University of New York.
what the CIA or FBI wanted, and say, “Why
don’t you go and talk to them?” “I’m a talkative guy,” Farhat told me. “I am
very truthful. I don’t like hiding.” Married with
Spanier resigned as Penn State president in three children — the eldest, a daughter, born in
2011 and as chairman of the National Security Libya, and two sons born in the United States
Higher Education Advisory Board soon — Farhat grew up in Zliten, a town about 100
afterward, during a firestorm over child sex miles east of Tripoli. He studied electrical
abuse by Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant engineering at a technical college, but it bored
football coach. University trustees hired Louis him, and he discovered that he had an aptitude
Freeh to investigate. He and Spanier had been for English. Within a few years he was teaching
friendly for years. Freeh was FBI director when English at every level from middle school to
Spanier welcomed the bureau to Penn State. In college.
2005, Freeh inscribed a copy of his memoir, My
FBI, to Spanier with “warm wishes and When Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the dictator
appreciation for your leadership, vision and Muammar Gaddafi, decreed that the Libyan
integrity.” government would provide 5,000 scholarships

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for study abroad, Farhat seized the off-campus, without alerting professors or
opportunity. He arrived in the United States in administrators. To protect informants from
December 2008 and, after a year of English exposure, the bureau wanted to be as discreet
language study in Pittsburgh, enrolled at as possible.
Binghamton.
An agent knocked on the door of Farhat’s
As democratic uprisings sprouted throughout apartment in a three-story brick building west
the Arab world in 2011, Farhat canceled his of campus, showed identification, and said he
classes for the semester and joined wanted to schedule a time to talk with him. It
cybergroups opposing the Gaddafi regime. never occurred to Farhat to refuse.
There were about 1,500 Libyan students in the
United States, and Farhat knew many of them. “I have no idea about rights,” he says. “This is
Soon friends began calling to let him know that not part of our culture. To me, the FBI are the
the FBI had interviewed them, and that he, too, ultimate power.”
should expect a visit.
Two agents showed up on the appointed
A worried Farhat contacted Ellen Badger, then morning. They sat at his kitchen table and
director of Binghamton’s international-students unfolded a black-and-white map of Libya,
office. She was accustomed to rebuffing FBI asking where he was from. It was the first of
inquiries. When a university admits a foreign five visits from the FBI, each lasting more than
student or visiting scholar, it issues him or her an hour, over a period of two months. The same
a document required for a visa. It transmits the local agent came every time, accompanied by
same information electronically to the one of two agents with experience abroad; one
departments of State and Homeland Security, spoke a little Arabic. At the initial interview,
but not to the FBI, which, unlike the other two they explained that they wanted to make sure
agencies, has no regulatory authority over this that he wasn’t threatening, or threatened by,
population. Unless the FBI had a subpoena, any pro-Gaddafi Libyans.
under the federal Family Educational Rights
and Privacy Act she could provide only That mission reflected the bureau’s concern
“directory information,” which includes basic that, since most Libyan students in the United
student data, such as dates of attendance, States were on government scholarships, some
degrees and awards, and field of study. might be loyal to Gaddafi — and planning acts
of terror against the United States for
“There was a clear understanding they [the supporting the revolution against him. That
FBI] were going to chat with me in the worry turned out to be misplaced. “The
friendliest way and would be happy with any students hated Gaddafi,” the insider recalled. “I
information I could give,” Badger says. “I would don’t want to say it was a waste of time, but we
respond in the friendliest way and give them satisfied ourselves that there was no threat
nothing. That’s how the dance went.” from the Libyans.”

She reassured Farhat: The FBI would probably The agents proceeded to their other purpose:
come to her first, and she would take care of it. gathering intelligence. They asked Farhat
Instead, the FBI bypassed Badger. Because the about Libyan society and customs and his life
CIA was “somewhat blind” regarding on-the- from secondary school on. What disturbed him
ground intelligence in Libya, the FBI had been most were the questions about his and his
assigned to question students about the wife’s friends and relatives, from other Libyan
situation there, one insider told me. Agents students to his uncles in the military. The
were instructed to interview Libyan students agents wanted names, email addresses, phone

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numbers. Because they told him that they knew Farhat didn’t tell Badger about the agents until
his email address and Facebook affiliations, he afterward. “My reaction was regret,” she says.
coughed up his most-frequent contacts, “What you want to do in a situation like this is
figuring that the bureau could track them make sure students are informed of their
anyway. rights. They don’t have to answer any
questions. They can decline a visit. They can
By the fourth visit, Farhat says, “I was set terms: ‘I want the director of the
annoyed.” The next time, he decided, would be international office there.’ ‘I want a faculty
member there.’ They have control.
the last. “I will tell them, ‘No more,’ ” he
promised himself. As it turned out, he never “I never got to give that little speech.”
had to muster the courage to defy them,
because on the fifth session they wrapped up, This is an expanded version of an article that
then never returned. appeared in The Chronicle Review.

Daniel Golden is an American writer. A senior editor for ProPublica, he is a former writer for
The Wall Street Journal and a managing editor for Bloomberg News. His series on Corporate
Tax Inversions won Bloomberg’s first Pulitzer Prize in 2015. He is the author of The Price of
Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way Into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left
Outside the Gate. His most recent book is Spy Schools: How the CIA, FBI, and Foreign
Intelligence Secretly Exploit America's Universities.

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