it Appr Re'lkase 2601 rut MT.Tbe New York Times Company $1,00 i5ey.11d 50-mile zone from New York CRY. 7-NEW YORK, SUNDAY, JUNE 19,1977 Higher in W delivery cities. Em- igte Tells of Research- in Soviet n arapsycholo f 'r Milita Use gy ry _t_?@ 41: -2y FLORA LEWIS SPedal to The New York Timew PARIS, June 18-An emigre Soviet some Soviet work- appeared aimed at physicist says that the Soviet Union has developing . psychological warf are been doing secret work in parapsycholo- methods.] gy, for what appear',to be military and' The Toj@ -incident'had the earmarks police purposes., of @n entrapment, in -the view of somel The -Soviet emigre, August Stem, who diplomats. There is na sign that the 25 now lives in Paris, spent three years in page do@cument on parapsychology.. hand- a secret Sibpriari laboratory in the late ed to hi im on the street just before heL IqWs, ti@ind to find a physical basis f(kr was seized' contained important informa-i psychic energy, or "psi particles," as they tion. Jmlowever@ there, is a record of Soviet are call6d.'1- sensitivity and, August Stem's informa. interest- in., the subject was tion indicates at paTap ych I is >Ioscow' th s 6 ogy a demonstrated in the, I case of Robert C. matter of concern to the authorities. Toth,. a colTespondent of The Los Angeles ' Mr. Stern is. a son of Dr. Mikhail Stern,'' Times, who was interrogated this week an endocrinologisf who was imprisoned I in Moscow by the XG.B.0 the security. before'being allowed to,.Ieave.the Soviet, police, and was accused of having re- Union 1- n March. August Stern said he ceived, "state "secrets" about parapsy- Was told,before leaving the. Soviet Union chology. He was allowed to leave, for -two years ago that an even more seezi-t home after protests by the United States laboratory than the one he knew in Sib@- Government- ria: had been set up in Moscow under [In Washingtiori, officials said the in- I the directionof the K.G.B. telligence , community was aware of A French scientist 'and former intelli- Soviet research in parapsychology, but gence agent, Jacques Bergier, has written added that American specialists did not a book saying that. extrasensory percep- believe the Russians had made any unusual discoveries. One official said Continued on Page 20, Colurnzi I Continued From PaFe I lion,,one of the theories studled by parap- SYch,0110U, may be used in espionage, tbought control, surveillance and as a. form of weapon. Parapsychology covers four specific fields of nonphysical phenomena. They are ion telepathy (transmissi- of thought without use of the senses), ext@aspnsory perception, telekinesis (transmission of motion without any evident use of physi- cad energy) and clairvoyance (the ability to see distant or future events without physical intervention)' - Most scientists remain skeptical that such phenomena actually exist, but there.. are researchers throughout the world dedicated to proving and, if possibl..e, ex- plaining them. Formal, officially subsidized Soviet I re- search in the field has goneon for years, sometimes publicly vaunted and at other times denounced and even denied. U.S. Navy Was Interested in 1950's At one time -in the late 1950's and early 1960's, the United States Navy and the Stanford Research Institute did experi- ments in telepathy to see whether it could provide -an undetectable Means Of Corn- municating with submarines. So far as fa"ed. But is; known, the experiments owrd of them reached Mosicow and appar, ently provoked high-level interest in the subjeet. Approved For Release 2001/03/26 CIA-RDP96-00.787ROO0200080032-9 Associated Press Robert C. Toth, Los Angeles Times correspondent, in London yesterday. THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 19,1977 Emigre Reports on Soviet Research'in Parapsychol for Military Uses', ogy C4 In 1975 some Soviet parapsychologists C2vere persecuted and the whole subject a &as publicly attacked. Eduard Naurnov, Coa researcher with no evident connection (Dwith the military or police, was triedon Ckq. charge of accepting fees for lectures Q @@out permission, and was sentenced -4 .two years in labor camp. His ccd-' eagues were disn-Assed from their, jobs (-,and otherwise harassed. At the trial, Wnuch was made of the fact that he had 1--contacts with western parapsychologists. 00 Later, on June 13 , 1975, Leonid L 1@-Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, urged the (Dunited States to agree on a ban of r- 9search and development of new. kinds of (Dweapons "more terrible" .than anything (Dthe world has known. American arms (Lcontrol negotiators have tried to find out Clfrom their Soviet counterparts what he I Whad in mind, but they have not learned ,@anything more than that he meant "some -kind of rays," according to United States ()officials. Vascillating Treatment Noted At first, American intelligence thought.. Qhe might have been referring to laser M beam, or some way of focusing cosmic C Q&rays, but they no longer believe this to- v-Je the case. They say that they are baf- 8Ced by the reference. There is no evidence that. Mr.Brezhnev C*4 d_J A,was referring to something in the flel of parapsychology. But it is a possibility that has occurred to some observers, es- pecially because of the vascillating treat- ment oi parapsychologists, the evident involvement of the K.G.B. with the sub- ject, and what some regard as a tradition 3 al Russian interest in mysticism. LL After his initial detention a week ago, Mr. Toth was reported to have quoted from a statement made by an employee of th& Academy of Sciences wfio had been rities to examine the called 'by the autho documents in his possession. The state ent referred to "psi particles" and said' s ws "this material is secret and kind of work done in some clos= scit tific institutes of our state." I Last year, the Paris newspaper Le Monde published a letter by a Russian -ing a previ named Vladimir Lvov denounr ous letter by a French professor, Henri Gastaut, and denying that parapsycholo- 9Y research was officially supported in, the Soviet Unio@n. Mr. Lvov' was identified by Le Monde as a "Soviet scientific writer in Lenin- grad," but Western sources said they be- lieved he was connected with the K.G.B. The French professor had simply men- tioned, in the course of a plea for support of parapsychology resea7ch, that the Rus i sians were engaged in it. The reply, titled "Myths and Realities in the Soviet Union," and published on Aug. 4,1976, Mr. Lvov said: .'The truth is simple. There is parap- sy no chOlou as a legitimate and officially recognized branch of Soviet science. No institute or scientific research center in the U. S. S. R. is occupied with telepathy, psychokinesis, etc. But there are a few groups of amateurs. . . who look into the 'paranormal' with the aid of some journalists without scruples of scieriffic exactitude." Yet, soon after the trial of Mr. Naumov, the Soviet parapsychologist, a report to The Times of London said the Soviet Academy of Pedagogical Sciences had de- clared the ftudy of psychic phenomena a subject fit for scientific study, and therefore not a permissable field for unof- ficial researchers. Mr. Stern's reminiscenses of the labor-a- torY where he worked and -the way it was finally shut down only add to the - public record. The laboratory was in No vosibirsk's Science City, a complex be- longing to the Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences. It was in a separate building, and the door could be opened only by a coded lock with the code changed every week- It was known as "Special Department No. 8" and was re ferred to-as a branch of the Institute of Automation and Electrometry. Headed by a Navy Officer The head was Vitaly Perov, a navy in 1966, Mr. .1 ffi- cer, who opened it 3 toe rn said. @T.e recalledthat Mr. Perov showed deference to t1wo visitors who came in the early days to check on theinstalla- tion. Mr. Stem believed the visitors to be K.G.B. men. Workers were recruited from around the country until there were about 60 persons at the laboratory. The scientists among them were given virtually unlimited funds for elaborate equipment. "It cost many millions," Mr. Stern said. His own work was in theoretical physics. His view was that there might be an orderly system in which all kinds of energy could be charted, similar to Mendeleyev's periodic table of chemical elements. As a result o fthe periodic table, which originally left some blank space@, -unknown elements system. If such a chart could be discovered for energy, Mr. Stern thought, it@ too, might be found to have blank spaces that might lead to physical identification of, particles to explain the mystery of psy- chic energy, the "psi particles." He worked for two years and found'. nothing. Other experiments at the labora' tory involved applying electric shocks to newly-born kittens to see whether their mothers, three floors upstairs, registered tal con- any reaction through some ment nection; television surveillance of people in a room to see whether they responded to attempts by others several rooms away. to send them telepathic' orders; studies I involving monkeys and electromagnetic fields. There were also experiments with on waves, in which frogs' eyes w@re phot 'used as a more sensitive istrument than a machine. in ba e n c 0 two slIs putt g w r fa i he a a disease could late to see t be tran mittend through the glass. It was ea ed tha his d be done, it r son t if t coul would show that photons-light particles -were accounted for some inexplicable forms of communication. Suddenly, in 1969, the laboratory was shut down. Mr. Stern 'said he did not the reason and did not think it @@aow s really.the team's lack of success or of its science,'as official the poor quality ly suggested at the time, but a change of attitude or power balance in the Krem- lin. Leningrad Project Was Canceled(D He was back in Moscow by thenr4fe heard that the military, and particuMly the navy, was conducting parapsychcG@& research in Leningrad. A friend of his, a Leningrad scie@st named Gennadi Sergeyev, told hinChe was receiving permission and fund0to Open anew I laboratory and offered%m a job. But the @roject was canceled i I ; 'Later, friends told Mr. Stem that8he work done in Novosibirsk and plaWd in Leningrad had been combined in aWw laboratory in Moscow under the auspes, of the K.G.B. He never, learned any more about it.- I @ : C@ @ By the time he left in _1V4,'he%S told that all p@rapsychology work d been curtailed except for the s et K.G.B.' laboratory. He said rd r . he had rumors that something "important, ry t'l' dangerous" had been discovered, e b commented- I never believed it. How can the XZB. do effective research? They need (Aal ntists." sci "His experience in Novosibirsk had(&n- vinced him that many researchers c4th official sponsorship were poorly qua@4ed or *even quacks and their claims c&Wd not be substantiated. Hi& own reSE=ph papers were confiscated beforo he &i- grated. U) C9 0 LL > 0 L_ CL CL