Robert Gates

Robert Gates is an American government official who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1991 to 1993. He was also an analyst on loan to the NSC from the CIA during the Cold War¹².

Gates was known to be a vocal adversary of the psychoenergetic phenomena programs within the Pentagon. He expressed skepticism about the Remote Viewing program, particularly after Joe McMoneagle's remote viewing of the Typhoon class submarine, which Gates initially dismissed as defying logic².

In 1986, Gates noted a significant buildup in advanced technology weapons facilities in both the United States and the Soviet Union, particularly in areas like laser, particle beam, kinetic energy, and microwave technologies applicable to strategic weapons².

Gates revealed details about the Moscow Signal in his 1997 memoir, From the Shadows. He described how the CIA detected a new and more powerful set of Soviet microwave beams aimed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1973, code-named MUTS-2. He noted that these signals were regarded as posing a greater health hazard due to their duration and peculiar characteristics².

On November 28, 1995, Gates appeared on Nightline with Ted Koppel to discuss the Stargate program, where he downplayed the significance of the government's psychic research².

Remote Viewing

On ABC's Nightline of November 28, 1995, the night the AIR evaluation of the remote-viewing program was released, Gates said that after the mid-1970s "CIA basically monitored the activities of other government agencies and what was going on in the academic community and then in mid 1980s, then-deputy director John McMahon formalized that. So, CIA really during that period had a very limited role"; that "I don't know of a single instance where it is documented that this kind of activity contributed in any significant way to a policy decision or even to informing policy makers about important information"; that "most intelligence professionals have been pretty skeptical of this. We got into it, I think, mainly because we heard the Soviets were involved and also because the Congress, individual members of the Congress and some staff pushed us into it"; and that "this is a pretty low priority for the intelligence community, and it's better done on the outside."³

Publications

• From the Shadows (1997)