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.