Claiborne Pell

Claiborne Pell (1918-2009) was a powerful Democratic Senator from Rhode Island and a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A former Foreign Service officer who had worked behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Hungary, Pell was a firm supporter and proponent of extrasensory perception and the Remote Viewing program¹.

Pell actively lobbied for the program's survival, reaching out personally to Dale Graff to offer his support. His interest stemmed from a belief in the potential operational value of psychic abilities for military intelligence¹.

In 1987, Pell asked Uri Geller to come to Washington for a classified meeting on Capitol Hill. The meeting, which took place in the Capitol building's Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, involved Geller demonstrating his abilities, including telepathy and spoon bending, to senators and other officials¹.

Pell also played a role in the 1987 Geneva disarmament talks. He was present at a reception where Geller was instructed to try and influence Yuli M. Vorontsov, Russia's first deputy foreign minister and lead Soviet arms negotiator, to sign the INF treaty. Seven days later, Ronald Reagan announced that the Soviet Union had offered to move ahead with an agreement to cut longer-range INF missiles¹.

The Briefing of September 29, 1982

From five to six that afternoon, in his office at the Capitol, Pell received "a GRILL FLAME information briefing" arranged by Jack Vorona of the DIA and given with Major Gerald Fox of the Army staff and representatives of INSCOM, whose project manager, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jachim, wrote the record, with two of his aides present; "although Senator Pell had invited 8 members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to attend the briefing none were present." The Army's part covered the history of its involvement, "how remote viewing is used for intelligence collection," and four projects whose names are redacted. "The briefing was well received. Senator Pell had had previous briefings concerning parapsychology from Dr. Vorona. He was also acquainted with the work of Dr. Robert Jahn, Dean, College of Engineering, Princeton University. Senator Pell stated that while he could not assist in FY83, he offered to try to help in the future." Two days later the Army's operations lost their funding in the National Foreign Intelligence Program. In November 1983 INSCOM's chief of staff "asked for a status report on the Senator Pell project," and the Center Lane manager answered "that we were developing an operational plan to support the project, but as yet we had not collected any information."²

The chief of staff who asked Buzby for the status report on November 30, 1983, was Colonel Partridge; no later record in Buzby's memoranda names the project again. An undated DIA letter to Pell, S-22,600/DTI-S, refers to "your recent visit to DIA," at which "you raised the issue of the accuracy and reliability of certain journalistic claims regarding the possible existence of Russian psychoenergetic devices," and encloses "Psychoenergetics Devices: A Review and Assessment," with "a list of possible options and recommendations for your consideration" should "the journalist decide to go public with his allegations."⁹⁰¹