Jack Vorona

Jack Vorona was the Assistant Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and served as the overall manager of the Grill Flame program. He played a crucial role in the continuation and restructuring of the U.S. government's psychic research programs after the CIA scaled back its involvement¹².

In 1981, Vorona contacted Dale Graff and brought him to Washington, D.C., to help run a classified program called Psychoenergetics. The main goals of this project were "to evaluate the threat that foreign psychoenergetics achievements might pose to US national security, and to explore the potential of psychoenergetics for use in US intelligence collection"². Vorona believed that with the resources of the DIA, genuine progress could be made toward a general theory of ESP and PK².

Vorona oversaw the Grill Flame program and later the Sun Streak program, which aimed to train military personnel in Remote Viewing. He made administrative changes, converting the branch chief and operations officer positions from military to civilian, and reducing training time².

He was also involved in high-priority operational tasks, such as the effort to locate William Richard Higgins, a Marine Lieutenant Colonel abducted in Lebanon, and the tracking of Muammar Qaddafi's alleged chemical weapons stockpile. In the latter case, Vorona sat with Angela Dellafiora in the viewing room at Fort Meade, demonstrating the high-level attention given to her abilities².

Vorona chaired the Remote Viewing Tasking Group for Sun Streak, which included representatives from the CIA, NSA, State Department, and various military and intelligence agencies. This group handled targets such as underground tunnels in Korea, Silkworm Missile launch facilities in Iran, and the errant nuclear-powered Cosmos 1900 satellite².

He received Hal Puthoff's sixty-page classified report, "Psychoenergetics Research in the People’s Republic of China (1982)," which confirmed the extensive research into EHBF and its military applications in China, driven by H. S. Tsien².

Vorona, along with General Edmund Thompson, briefed Congressman Charlie Rose on the Grill Flame program in the late 1970s. He accompanied Rose on tours of the remote viewing facilities at both SRI and Fort Meade, and was a staunch supporter of the program, despite the skepticism it faced¹.

Jack Vorona retired after twenty-five years of service at DIA and was inducted into the DIA's Torch Bearers Hall in 2011².

The Committee

Vorona chaired the Defense Department's Grill Flame committee, which grew out of the meeting he held in his conference room on August 24, 1978, from its meeting at DIA on November 28, 1978, where he "cautioned the Committee to maintain a low profile with minimal fanfare," "urged the development of experimental protocol and methods for validating experiments," and saw it agree "that all documents originating as a result of the GRILL FLAME program would undergo downgrading review only after 20 years." He missed the meeting of July 12, 1979, because he "was briefing Congressman Rose on DoD efforts and interest in parapsychology." In November 1979 the committee asked him to demand sight of the "Gale Committee's" outside report before anyone else saw it, the working group holding it "misleading and inadequate." INSCOM's chronology records that in 1983 (the chronology's date reads as March 31 or August 3), "the Honorable George Bush, Vice President of the United States, was briefed for thirty minutes concerning CENTER LANE related activities by Dr. Vorona, DIA," "Adm. Murphy, C/S," and "Mr. Gregg, Assistant to the Vice President, National Security Affairs," present: "The briefing was well received and the Vice President was interested and impressed."³

Vorona arranged the briefing of Senator Claiborne Pell on September 29, 1982, two days before Congress ended the Army's funding; "Senator Pell had had previous briefings concerning parapsychology from Dr. Vorona." On October 5, 1983, with Hal Puthoff and the Center Lane officers, he briefed Senator Malcolm Wallop, "the individual who was responsible for the project being eliminated," and asked him "to insert language in the Congressional Conference Report that would permit the program to be included in the FY 85 GDIP submission"; Wallop "replied that he is only one person." On October 7 the committees' staff asked "what is the benefit of placing the program back in the NFIP since DIA has Program 6 (P-6) money," and when he answered "security," told him "that there was no security in the NFIP, and since P-6 money is available, it could be dangerous to reintroduce the subject to the Congressional Committees. Dr. Vorona did not continue the debate and terminated the briefing." As chairman of the working group he had answered the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee's report of December 1979 with a memorandum supporting its finding that "unexplained observations of human capabilities to generate data of potential utility to intelligence have been documented" and objecting that "many of the difficulties in the report, especially those of fact and incompleteness, could have been avoided if the report had been collectively reviewed in draft."⁴

In the report of the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee, "in August 1978, Dr. Vorona, DIA, chaired a meeting to develop a coordinated DOD program," and he sat at the first meeting of the Grill Flame steering committee on February 13, 1979, "standing in for LTG Tighe." The committee visited him at DIA on September 26, 1979. On November 27, 1979, his working group moved that he "contact Mr. Gale and inform him of the working group's desire and need to see and be briefed on the Gale Committee's report prior to it being given to any other party or group," a discussion held "while the committee chairman was not present," after which "consultation with him reveals that his view of the Committee's goal and function is not one of oversight but one of coordination and liaison." His minutes of January 10, 1980, record that Gale's briefing "was not received favorably" and that the report was "misleading and inadequate"; according to Major William Stoner, he wrote to Tighe on January 11 urging him "to intercede with Dr LaBerge on the report" so that it "be put on hold until the Working Group, as part of its responsibilities, could provide a clear analysis of what the report says." His signed comments as chairman of the working group followed.⁹⁰⁰

The minutes of the meeting of August 24, 1978, in his conference room record him opening "with comments about the extreme sensitivity of the subject," that "the program will be established specifically to investigate the remote viewing phenomenon and the extraordinary collection potential it offers," and his decision "against the establishment of a restricted access list and a special codeword for the program, since this would only generate more paperwork"; his letters of September 6 to the service intelligence chiefs asked for "funding levels you might be able to sustain over the next five years."⁹⁰¹

Career in the Documents

A "Project Contacts" list of August 1, 1995, in the CIA's files, its author redacted: "From 1975 to his retirement from DIA as DDS&TI in 1990, Jack had principal responsibility for the operational use of the phenomena. He has a list of contacts both active and retired of end-users who have already testified to a number of important governmental committees as to the utility of anomalous cognition. Since 1991, Jack has served as the chair of our Policy Oversight Committee." A "Key Players" list gives him as "Dr. Jack Vorona (GS-18)"; an oversight roster as "Jack Vorona, Ph.D."; his title is printed variously as Deputy Director, Assistant Vice Director and Assistant Deputy Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, office symbol DT. He testified to the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee on April 12, 1983, in a GDIP budget overview. At an Army meeting of April 13, 1982, "it was decided that Dr. Vorona would be the 'point person' in defending the GRILL FLAME Program to Congress"; Lincoln Faurer of NSA "had been exposed to GRILL FLAME some time ago by Dr. Jack Vorona, DIA, who knew LTG Faurer when he was assigned at DIA"; Edwin May wrote in 1995 that "Senator Cohen first learned of the program from Jack Vorona." He signed the DIA information memorandum of December 22, 1981, on "Special Intelligence Support Relating to the Kidnapping of BG Dozier." In February 1983 he "has either obtained or received commitment for $200K from DARPA," "the amount that Dr Vorona stated was needed to keep SRI intact for FY 83," and after briefing Richard De Lauer on October 3, 1983, "received $600,000 Program 6 money to continue his program."⁹⁰⁰

On August 27, 1981, he met Brigadier General Garrison Rapmund of the Army Medical Research and Development Command, who "stated that as long as the Perry letter... remained as DoD policy, R&D funds could not be spent in the field of parapsychology," and "solicited BG Rapmund's assistance in getting the Perry letter rescinded." Visiting the Center Lane office on August 31, 1984, he "said that he would like to see psychoenergetics turn into a major discipline. He envisions expanding the current program in a manner similar to that of the disciplines of ELINT, SIGINT, COMINT, etc.," "would like to expand the current program to include PK and medical/psychological assessment," and reported that he and Rapmund "has signed an MOU" under which Rapmund "will provide one million dollars during FY85, two million during FY86, and four million during FY87," besides "TIARA funds and another $600K of P6 funds"; "he will be the central manager of the program under DIA and we will work for him." On March 11, 1985, four days after the DIA memorandum of agreement, "Dr. Vorona granted approval to continue with the training," an approval that fell to him "because of the human use implications" once the project was DIA's. The Sun Streak Oversight Panel met first in January 1986 with "Mr. D. Latham (Asst SecDef, C3I)" as chairman, "Lt Gen L. Perroots" of DIA as member, and "Dr. J. Vorona (DIA/DT), advisory member"; the unit's training reports and annual reports of 1985 to 1988 are addressed "TO: DT (Dr. Vorona)."⁹⁰⁰