American Institutes for Research

The American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonprofit behavioral and social science research organization founded in 1946, headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area. It conducts applied research in education, health, workforce development, and related fields under government and private contracts. AIR's primary relevance to intelligence history is its 1995 evaluation of the STAR GATE program, the classified remote viewing research effort that had operated under various designations since 1978 under Army and Defense Intelligence Agency sponsorship, and passed to the CIA in 1995.¹

Cold War Classified Military Psychology Work

Long before the STAR GATE evaluation, AIR appeared in the classified military-psychology record. Peter Watson's survey of the field documents four AIR projects between 1951 and 1966: a 1951 study on the detection of malingering, a 1952 Korean War survey-research study related to the prisoner-collaboration work, a 1965 study of psychological phenomena applicable to the development of psychological weapons (under Air Force contract AF 08(635)-4238, authored by Clifford P. Hahn), and a 1966 study of psychological reactions to weapons. The 1965 weapons study placed AIR directly in psychological-weapons development rather than the personnel and assessment research for which it was publicly known. After the Project Camelot scandal forced SORO's reorganization into CRESS, AIR formed an organizational relationship with CRESS, joining the institutional network through which the Army channeled counterinsurgency social-science research.²

The 1995 STAR GATE Evaluation

In June 1995 the CIA's Office of Research and Development, having taken custody of the DIA's Star Gate program at the direction of Congress and declassified its own 1970s parapsychology work "to facilitate a new, external review," contracted AIR to evaluate the program's research and operations (1995 AIR evaluation of Star Gate). Michael Mumford and Andrew Rose of AIR conducted the operational review, interviewing seven customer representatives, three viewers, and the program manager; David Goslin, AIR's president, coordinated; the research review went to Jessica Utts and Ray Hyman, with Lincoln Moses of Stanford as statistical adviser. One program document stayed classified during the review and Mumford summarized it for the panel. The report, "An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications," was delivered on September 29, 1995. It found "a statistically significant 'anomaly'" in the laboratory work, no "convincing demonstration that a paranormal ability is involved," and that remote viewing "has not been shown to have value in intelligence operations"; the customer ratings of forty viewings from 1994 and 1995 averaged 3.0 on a six-point accuracy scale and 3.5 on a five-point value scale. Its last conclusion read: "Continued support for the operational component of the current program is not justified." The report was released publicly on November 28, 1995.³