The JASON Group is another good example of how ISGP has been able to effectively take away the mystery of previously "secret" groups. In 2005 this site published a list of virtually all historical JASON members, and based on their biographies pieced together a pretty coherent history. As happened with most other groups on this website, within a couple of months readers copied the names and basic information to Wikipedia, making it seem as if this information has been available forever. Links to ISGP, also in good fashion, were eventually removed from Wikipedia. However, individuals that oversee the JASON Group appear to not have liked it that an unknown Dutchman pieced together the basic JASON Group story from readily available sources. Shortly after the original ISGP article on the JASONs was published, this author ended up on the email list of a JASON member and received a PDF in which it was described how nuclear power plants could be protected from terrorist attacks. About a week later that email mysteriously disappeared again from my inbox. Also, a surprisingly high number of ISGP visitors from the Washington, D.C. area and a number of defense-related institutes have taken a specific interest in the JASON Group. Thinking about the email in hindsight, it may not have been an accident or even a mild form of intimidation at all that I received it. I couldn't have been on their contact list, as there's never been any email correspondence between me and a member of the JASONs. I also didn't recognize the names on the email list. But the one thing this email did accomplish was turn me into a potential national security threat, making it perfectly legal to tap my phone, mail and email (which all three appear to have happened, although part of it might be related to Le Cercle). What also happened within a year of having put out the initial article and membership list of the JASONs was the publication of the first officially-sanctioned book about this group, written by science author Ann Finkbeiner. Apparently the book was aimed at the conspiracy community, as Finkbeiner was allowed to talk to a crowd of millions on conspiracy disinformation show Coast to Coast AM. I distinctly remember receiving an email reply from radio host Ian Punnett, thanking me for a list of penetrating questions related to the JASONs that he could ask Finkbeiner. However, during the two-hour interview Punnett didn't ask one single critical question. All she did was dictate the JASON Group's official history and off she went. To this day it remains a curious episode to me, even for Coast to Coast AM. The following article once was exclusively about the JASON Group, but today it has been expanded to include a discussion on the MITRE Corporation, which has overseen the JASON Group for decades. And as the reader will find out, when MITRE is discussed, also the network of defense corporations and intelligence agencies that it is part of has to be given attention. In a nutshell, the JASON scholars are a select group of scientists who conduct studies for different parts of the U.S. government. The group is referred to as the JASON Defense Advisory Group or simply the JASON Group. Today their headquarters is located at the JASON Program Office at the MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit federally funded research and development company. JASON was founded in 1958-1959 by scientists as Sidney Drell, Kenneth Watson, John Wheeler, Charles Townes and Marvin Goldberger. It was created as a special part-time division within the newly-established Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a federally-funded academic think tank that acted as a counterweight to research done by the different military branches, private corporations and the CIA - despite the fact that it is not unusual for the institute to be ran by a retired general or senior CIA officer. According to the official history of IDA: "IDA traces its roots to 1947, when Secretary of Defense James Forrestal established the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) to provide technical analyses of weapons systems and programs. In the mid-1950s, the Secretary of Defense [Charles E. Wilson] and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [likely Admiral Radford] asked the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to form a civilian, nonprofit research institute. The Institute would operate under the auspices of a university consortium to attract highly qualified scientists to assist WSEG in addressing the nation's most challenging security problems... IDA only works for the government... IDA does not work directly for the military departments... IDA does not work for private industry." To provide a bit more detail: In 1956, James R. Killian Jr., president of the MIT Corporation and a close associate of Vannevar Bush, suggested to Eisenhower that the country's best scientific talents should be brought together in an effort to break all Russian encryption systems. In response, Eisenhower appointed Bell Labs president of research, Dr. William O. Baker, as head of a commission to see what could be done with Killian's proposal. In February 1957, the Baker Commission announced its support for Killian and one of the responses of Eisenhower and his secretary of defense, Charles E. Wilson, was to ask Killian, as president of MIT, to set up the Institute for Defense Analyses, which was to be done in cooperation with such universities as Caltech, Columbia and Stanford. Vannevar Bush, who used to be vice president of MIT before the war, briefly returned to MIT to take the chairmanship, from 1957 to 1959. The purpose of IDA was to take over WSEG from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to supply it with new ideas and technology concepts. Killian became chairman of the board of trustees of IDA. Other early members of the think tank were Eric A. Walker, mainly associated with the Office of Naval Research, and later JASON scholar Charles H. Townes, who had recently co-invented the maser, the predecessor of the laser. Both became leading officers of IDA, just as General Maxwell D. Taylor, the CIA's Richard M. Bissell, Jr. and today, Suzanne Woolsey, wife of former CIA director James Woolsey (the latter three were presidents of IDA). Someone like Admiral Harry Train also became involved with IDA after his retirement, although only as an ordinary trustee. The official history of IDA continues as follows: "In 1958, at the request of the Secretary of Defense, IDA established a division to support the newly created Advanced Research Projects Agency. Shortly thereafter, the mandate of this division was broadened to include scientific and technical studies for all offices of the Director of Defense, Research and Engineering. Subsequent divisions were established to provide cost analyses, computer software and engineering, strategy and force assessments, and operational test and evaluation... Throughout its history, IDA also has assisted other federal agencies." Although several subsidiary groups were created within IDA, it is almost certain that the newly created division to support the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA; later DARPA) was the JASON Group. ARPA appears on JASON documents under the heading 'Controlling Office Name' and JASON was created in the same 1958-1959 time period. IDA also talks about the mandate of the division expanding to perform studies for the DoD and such, which is also what happened with the JASON Group. Over time, the organization JASON was part of changed: in the late 1960s it was incorporated within IDA; in the late 1970s it had been moved to Stanford Research Institute International (SRI); and in the late 1980s the JASONs had become part of the MITRE Corporation. Most studies were commissioned by DARPA, but other contractors have been the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army Research Office, the NRO, and a few other organizations. James Killian was the most central player in the creation of all these civilian research institutions under Eisenhower. He not only founded IDA in 1957, but also the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), and became chairman of both. In 1958, he established ARPA and as head of IDA, he approved the proposal to create the JASON Group. In 1958, Killian was also asked to create the Communications Research Division (CRD) within IDA, a Princeton-located top secret think tank for the NSA. Then, in 1959, Killian oversaw the creation of MITRE. He became a trustee of MITRE in 1960 and from 1967 to 1969 he was chairman of the board of trustees of this think tank, which was very similar to IDA and RAND. He remained on the board until 1982. In 1960, together with William O. Baker and JASON scholars Richard Garwin and Sidney Drell, Killian was a co-founder of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an intelligence agency that remained secret for about a decade - although its existence was only announced officially after the Cold War had ended. Back in 1957, Vannevar Bush is said to have suggested Killian as the follow-up to defense secretary Charles E. Wilson, but Eisenhower selected Neil McElroy instead. Most JASON studies have to do with the development of new cutting edge technology concepts for the electronic battlefield. The contractors evaluate the papers written by JASON members and then decide whether or not to do something with it. Many other studies have to do with the nuclear weapons arsenal. In the early 1990s, a couple of studies were done on climate change; in the mid 1990s studies started into the human genome; and still a couple of years later this science was combined with nanotechnology. Almost all studies are conducted to see if these technologies can be used to maintain a military advantage over whatever enemies the United States may have. Recent studies have also involved the concept of Homeland Security. A good example of this is the 2002-2003 study 'Biodetection Architectures'. Since a lot of JASONs are university professors, most studies are conducted in the summer months when students are on leave. It is believed that each year about 15 studies are conducted, half of them classified. A study can be done by as little as two or three JASON members to as many as 17 or 18. In the JASON membership list you will find 11 Nobel prize winners, usually received for achievements in physics. The vast majority of JASONs have Ph.D.'s in this field although some have chosen to specialize in electrical engineering, mathematics, oceanography, chemistry or biological sciences. Generally, JASONs, especially the older ones, are very well rounded and can be involved in a wide variety of studies spanning multiple decades. One of its founders, Sidney Drell, was still active in 2003. Freeman Dyson is another member whose career with the JASONs spans four decades. Some other long-time members are Stanley Flatte, Richard Garwin, Curtis Callan and Alvin Despain. These were active since the 1970s or the early eighties and were still performing studies at the beginning of the 21st century. According to different sources, JASON consisted of about 45 to 50 members at any given time. Breakdown of university affiliations (where 119 JASON members have been employed): - Universities of California: 50% - Princeton, Princeton (NJ): 14% - Stanford, Silicon Valley (CA): 13% - Harvard, Boston: 8% - MIT, Boston: 8% - Columbia, New York: 7% - Chicago: 5% - Cornell, Ithaca (NY): 4% - Texas: 4% - Maryland: 4% - Michigan: 4% - Washington: 3% - Rockefeller, New York: 2% - Yale, New Haven: 1% - Dartmouth, Hanover (NH): 1% Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Caltech, the Scripps Institution for Oceanography, and a bunch of faculties in the Los Angeles area are all managed by the University of California. This is one reason for the large amount JASONs affiliated with this university. A second reason is that Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore are the most important labs in the United States for research in nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, which has always been a primary occupation of JASON members. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and Princeton's physics lab also hosted many key veteran members such as Curtis Callan, Freeman Dyson, Francis Perkins, and John Wheeler. Most JASONs never played any significant role in politics. There are a few exceptions of course and these exceptions tend to be members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Of the 119 individuals in the membership list, only 11 are members of the CFR. These 11 are the ones who usually chair all kinds of national science committees, advise presidents on scientific matters, and work for a variety of large corporations. Non-CFR JASONs often have impressive biographies too, but they tend to focus on other things than Washington politics or Wall Street business. Selected prominent JASON members and their backgrounds: - Luis W. Alvarez (1960s-1970s): Developed detonators for 'Fat Man' during the Manhattan Project; on board the Enola Gay; pushed for thermonuclear weapons. Member of the Jan. 1953 Durant Panel Report debunking UFOs. Involved with IDA and MITRE. Analyzed Zapruder film in 1967 (concluded Kennedy headshot was from behind). Nobel Prize in Physics (1968). Published dinosaur asteroid extinction theory in 1980. Served on NAS 1982 Committee on Ballistic Acoustics and a 1979 Los Alamos committee investigating Indian Ocean nuclear flashes. - Lewis M. Branscomb (1960s): Vannevar Bush Award and Rockefeller Public Service Award recipient. VP and chief scientist of IBM. PSAC member 1964-1968. Director of Mobil, RAND, MITRE, Lord Corp, Draper Labs, Arcturus Pharmaceutical, and American Ditchley Foundation. - Sidney D. Drell (1960s-2000s): CFR and PSAC member; co-founder of NRO and JASON; worked with CIA; NSC member. Influential in nuclear arsenal policy. Trustee of Institute for Advanced Studies (1990s-present) and advisory council of Israel Democracy Institute. Close associate of MITRE chairman James Schlesinger. - Richard L. Garwin (1960s-2000s): Co-founder of NRO; CFR Director of Science and Technology; PSAC member (chaired panels on Military Aircraft, Anti-submarine/Naval Warfare). Advised Henry Kissinger; expert in electromagnetic weaponry; NAS 1982 Committee on Ballistic Acoustics. - Murray Gell-Mann (1960s-1980s): Nobel Prize in Physics 1969 ('standard model'). Co-chairman Santa Fe Institute Science Board; member of CFR, Royal Society of London; trustee World Conservation Society. - Joshua Lederberg (1980s): CFR member; president of Rockefeller University (1978-1990); chairman of President's Cancer Panel (1979); head of 1994 Defense Science Board Task Force on Persian Gulf War Health Effects. - Gordon J.F. MacDonald (1970s-1990s): CFR member; consultant to NASA; PSAC member; specialist in weather control and geophysics warfare. - William A. Nierenberg (1970s-1990s): CFR member; Director Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1965-1986); SEPP science advisor; science advisor to NATO and State Dept; chaired 1983-1984 NAS study on climate change. As the JASONs have been operating under the wing of the MITRE Corporation since the late 1970s, it is relevant to look at this federally-funded company. Annual reports list only two top staff members, one being the "Director, JASON Program Office." MITRE trustees show extensive overlap with the CIA, NSA, NRO, and defense corporations: - Dr. Cindy L. Williams (pre-1996): Director of Scowcroft Institute, Pentagon official. - Martin C. Faga (1996-present): CIA engineer, Air Force R&D, Director of NRO (1989-1993), President/CEO of MITRE (2000-2006), AFIO member, GeoEye director. - Jane F. Garvey (2004-present): Director Logan Airport (1988-1991), FAA Administrator (1997-2002), MITRE trustee, JPMorgan Chase manager. - Adm. David Jeremiah (1999-2008): Advisory board ManTech; JINSA trustee; Defense Science Board; Defense Policy Board on 9/11; In-Q-Tel director; Wackenhut (G4S) chairman; Northrop Grumman advisory board. - Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, Jr. (2009-present): CIA assistant; Vice Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff (2005-2007); director of SRA International, QinetiQ, Boeing, and Atlantic Council. - Gen. Paul F. Gorman (1996-2002): CIA national intelligence officer; Commander U.S. Southern Command (1983-1985); founder Virginia Neurological Institute; General Atomics advisory board; IDA/DSB consultant. - John J. Hamre (2001-present): Deputy Secretary of Defense (1997-2000); President/CEO of CSIS (2000-present); Chairman Defense Policy Board (2007-present). - Richard J. Kerr (1994-2008): CIA Deputy Director (1989-1992); ManTech board chairman; NSA scientific advisory board; BAE Systems director; In-Q-Tel voting member. - Donald M. Kerr (2009-2012): Director Los Alamos (1979-1985); President EG&G (1989-1992); SAIC EVP (1993-1996); FBI Lab Division head (1997-2001); CIA Deputy Director for S&T (2001-2005); NRO Director (2005-2007); Principal Deputy DNI (2007-2009). - Gen. Montgomery Meigs (2003-present): Commander U.S. Army Europe; CEO Business Executives for National Security. - John P. Stenbit (2005-present): VP of TRW (1977-2001); Assistant Secretary of Defense (2001-2004); chair CIA Science and Technology Advisory Panel; director at Lockheed Martin, Loral, Cogent, Technology Partners. The most connected person at MITRE is former CIA director and Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, trustee since 1985 and chairman of trustees from 1987 onward, who connects MITRE to RAND, CSIS, CFR, Center for the National Interest, Homeland Security Advisory Council, Center for Security Policy, OSS Society, AFIO, and Defense Policy Board. A detailed review of 15 high-level CIA directors, deputy directors, and executive directors shows extensive ties to defense contractors and high-tech institutes: - William Raborn (CIA Director 1965-66): E-Systems, SAIC, Wackenhut. - James Schlesinger (CIA Director 1973): MITRE, Sandia National Laboratory. - George H. W. Bush (CIA Director 1976-77): Carlyle Group. - Frank Carlucci (Deputy CIA Director 1978-81): Wackenhut, Carlyle Group, General Dynamics, Frontier Group, Neurogen, Nortel. - Norman Augustine (CIA Advisor/In-Q-Tel): Defense Science Board, Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin, Frontier Group. - Bobby Ray Inman (Deputy CIA Director 1981-82): ONI, NSA Director, SAIC, Caltech JPL oversight committee, Fluor. - Richard J. Kerr (Deputy CIA Director 1989-92): MITRE, ManTech, Aegis Research, NSA, BAE Systems, Los Alamos, Sandia, Lawrence Livermore. - Donald M. Kerr: Los Alamos, EG&G, Draper Lab, SAIC, MITRE, CIA S&T, NRO, ODNI. - Robert Gates (CIA Director 1991-93): SAIC, TRW, Draper Lab, Virginia Neurological Institute. - Gen. Paul Gorman: Virginia Neurological Institute, General Atomics. - Adm. Bill Studeman (Deputy CIA Director 1992-95): ONI, NSA Director, TRW. - James Woolsey (CIA Director 1993-95): Fairchild, Aerospace Corp, DynCorp, Martin Marietta, British Aerospace, SAIC, Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas, Titan, Carlyle Group. - Suzanne Woolsey: NAS/NRC, Neurogen, Fluor, Caltech/JPL, IDA (trustee & chairman). - John Deutch (CIA Director 1995-96): SAIC, Raytheon, Sun Catalytix. - Buzzy Krongard (CIA Executive Director 2001-04): In-Q-Tel founder, Alex Brown & Co., Iridium, Blackwater advisory board. Corporate cross-representation counts among these intelligence leaders include: SAIC (4), MITRE (3), Martin Marietta/Lockheed Martin (3), TRW (2), EG&G (2), E-Systems (2), Wackenhut (2), Fluor (2), Neurogen (2), Nortel (2), Draper Lab (2), BAE Systems (2), Caltech JPL (2), and Carlyle Group (2). High technology and defense contracting remain strongly intertwined with the CIA and Pentagon leadership, while these same figures frequently hold memberships in liberal establishment policy networks such as the CFR and Atlantic Council. During World War II, Vannevar Bush ran the National Defense Research Council (NDRC) and the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), controlling deep scientific secrets including the Manhattan Project. Post-war, civilian scientists oversaw the Research and Development Board, Sandia National Laboratories, ONR, NSF, NRC, and presidential science advisory bodies. In 1951, the Science Advisory Committee of the Office of Defense Mobilization was established under Charles E. Wilson to oversee top secret atomic and defense research. Founding chairman Dr. Oliver E. Buckley (Bell Labs president, Truman science advisor) was joined by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Detlev Bronk (Johns Hopkins/Rockefeller University), James Conant (Harvard), Lee DuBridge (Caltech), James Killian (MIT), Alan Waterman (NSF), Hugh Dryden (NACA/NSF), Robert Loeb (Columbia), William Webster, and Charles Thomas (Monsanto). In 1957, Killian reorganized this body into the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). Key national laboratory management shifted from university operations (like Caltech) to defense/corporate contractors, such as AT&T/Bell Labs running Sandia from 1949 to 1993 before transferring to Lockheed Martin. Secrecy levels in the U.S. national security apparatus operate across multiple tiers: 1. Additional levels of Compartmentalization: USAPs hidden behind another SAP or USAP, combined with private industry legal protections. 2. Waived Unacknowledged Special Access Programs (deep black programs): Existence is only orally briefed to select congressional leaders. 3. Unacknowledged Special Access Programs (black programs): Congressional committees notified on paper. 4. Acknowledged Special Access Programs. 5. Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS-SCI). 6. Basic Secrecy Levels: Top Secret (NATO Cosmic Top Secret), Secret (NATO Secret), Confidential (NATO Confidential). 7. Public or semi-public: For Official Use Only (NATO Restricted), Unclassified (NATO Unclassified). The permanent civilian-defense network encompassing former agency directors, major corporations, and elite foundations effectively retains overarching visibility and control over long-term strategic and black research programs. Most JASON scholars do not have extensive military, intelligence, or defense corporation directorship backgrounds; they are primarily elite academic researchers. However, the governing oversight body above them—specifically the board of trustees of the MITRE Corporation—is deeply integrated with the CIA, NSA, ONI, NRO, and top defense contractors. Ultimate strategic control over national security science resides with the senior intelligence, Pentagon, and corporate leadership who sit atop organizations like MITRE.