Robert Keenan

Colonel Robert Keenan was the commanding officer of the Systems Exploitation Detachment (SED) under the command of United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). In this role (July 1978 - May 1980¹), he was responsible for overseeing the activities and personnel within the detachment. When Frederick Atwater proposed the idea of forming a remote viewing team within the Army, it was Keenan who had the authority to approve or reject the proposal.

Keenan ultimately approved Atwater's proposal, which led to the establishment of the remote viewing program in 1977. This decision marked a significant step in the Army's exploration of paranormal phenomena for intelligence gathering purposes.

The Documents

The memorandum of September 25, 1978, gives Robert E. Keenan as a lieutenant colonel in the Security Support Detachment of the 902d Military Intelligence Group at Fort Meade (the accounts above, from published sources, call him a colonel commanding the Systems Exploitation Detachment), the INSCOM element that had run the Gondola Wish program on the Soviet "psychoenergetic" threat since September 1977. His memorandum of September 25, 1978, "Grill Flame," addressed through Colonel Littlefield to Brigadier General Smith, records that "COL Littlefield and LTC Keenan met with COL Capps, DAMI-ISH, to discuss the 902d's participation in the development of a training program in Para-Psychology Phenomena." Capps told them that the 902d's concept, Gondola Wish, was being cancelled; that the Monroe Institute was "not cleared"; that a training contract "must be cleared through an office at HEW"; that DARCOM, the Army's materiel command, had a contract with SRI to which the training could be attached, with 15,000 dollars from the assistant chief of staff for intelligence and 50,000 from INSCOM; that SRI would write the protocol for selecting subjects; that a Defense Department working group would be formed; and that the commander of INSCOM, Major General William Rolya, "briefed and approved all of the above." Published accounts by participants describe Keenan as the officer to whom Lieutenant Frederick Atwater first proposed the Army unit.²³