13. The military continued to pursue uses of telepathy and ESP
In June 1960, the New York Journal American published an article by Ruth Montgomery, “Spying by Mind-Reading!”. It described research and experimentation conducted by the US Army Intelligence Service into the use of mental telepathy. The article speculated the Army envisioned reading the thoughts of Soviets as far away as the Kremlin, using agents trained for the purpose. Apparently, it caught the eye of J. Edgar Hoover. A memorandum from Alan Belmont in the file states Hoover asked, “Is there anything to this?” The memorandum summarizes the Foos investigation years earlier as evidence that there was little to the subject of value to the FBI. It also states the FBI’s famed Laboratory experts claimed, “…informed scientific opinion at the present time is that there is no basis in science for the validity of extrasensory perception as described in this article”.
Another memorandum addresses Hoover’s interest in ESP experiments conducted at Duke University. Research and experiments in the field had been conducted at Duke since 1934, making them one of the world’s leading authorities in the field. According to the memorandum, dated June 28, 1960, “Belief in ESP has gained little acceptance among psychologists and fails test of common experience”. Nonetheless, Hoover’s interest continued, leading FBI investigations into the field to go on. The FBI continued to monitor the CIA and defense intelligence agencies as to their interest in the field of parapsychology, as well as the increasingly suspect William Foos. FBI files indicate that foreign police agencies, including those of London and the Netherlands, were queried over their opinion of the usefulness of ESP and clairvoyants during the early 1960s.
