- HONOLULU (Reuters) - The Central Intelligence Agency pushed the University
of Hawaii to dump the head of a CIA-funded study that found scant chance
of a quick ethnic break-up in China, according to CIA documents and interviews
with university personnel. In an incident with local, national and international
implications, the CIA pressed the university to oust a noted geography
professor as head of a $245,000 study on potential ethnic flashpoints in
Asia, a major focus of U.S. intelligence gathering. The university bowed
to CIA pressure to replace the professor, Gary Fuller, without holding
a hearing or advising him of its action. The school restored him to the
job only after Fuller, a veteran CIA consultant, threatened to sue over
alleged violation of his contractual right to noninterference with scholarly
research. By blackballing Fuller without giving a reason, the spy agency
has stirred concerns on campus that it might be trying to slant a major
academic study to match its views on China. A U.S. intelligence official
familiar with the CIA's analysis dismissed these concerns as ``utterly
ridiculous.'' ``While there are ethnic tensions in China it is simply not
the CIA's view that such tensions will lead to an ethnic breakup of China,''
said the official, who declined to be identified.
The episode has raised questions about alleged high-level university kowtowing
to a government agency that funds some of its projects. The study Fuller
headed found little chance of an ethnic breakup in China along the lines
that split the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. At issue is the
fate of Fuller, a geographer specializing in population studies. A consultant
to the CIA for 13 years and one-time scholar-in-residence at CIA headquarters
in Langley, Virginia, Fuller was tapped last year to head the study on
potential Asian ethic ``fracture zones.'' The CIA's Office of Transnational
Issues, which contracted for the study, was interested in gauging whether
China might ''pop its cork'' any time soon, Fuller said in interviews with
Reuters this week. Citing former colleagues at Langley, he said CIA in-house
analysts, stung by lapses in predicting the Soviet and Yugoslav collapses,
apparently had begun leaning toward a view that ethnic nationalism could
split China with the right spark. ``The CIA wanted our report to back what
appears to be their new company line on a possible breakup of China,''
he said. ''And when my colleagues and I weren't willing to say what they
wanted to hear, that's when the trouble exploded.'' Although the CIA declined
official comment on the study and its reasons for blackballing Fuller,
it has praised his work in the past. ``He has been instrumental in our
efforts to identify problems of the next century before they assume crisis
proportions,'' Richard Stakem, then-director of the CIA's Office of Resources,
Trade and Technology, wrote in a Sept. 18, 1990, reference on Fuller's
behalf. ``For this reason, his works are read with great interest not only
by intelligence officers, but also by officials throughout the government,''
he added in a letter to Brian Murton, then chairman of the University of
Hawaii Geography Department which was considering Fuller's full professorship.
CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher said the agency routinely dealt with academics
and the private sector ``to challenge conventional wisdom and engage in
healthy debate.'' Such outside review of CIA strategic analysis has been
mandated ``to sharpen our thinking, to position us better to deal with
collection gaps and to improve our products for policymakers,'' she said.
-
- Fuller's final report, dated Aug. 15,
1998, cited Xinjiang province, or the ``Western Muslim fracture zone,''
as China's chief potential ethnic trouble spot over the next three years.
The area is home to Sunni Muslim Uygurs and Kazaks as well as to two groups
mainly concentrated outside China -- the Uzbeks and Tajiks. ``While it
is not inconceivable that a portion of China might break off some day,
we are convinced this will not occur within the three-year time horizon
of this study,'' said the report prepared by Fuller and four other top
geographers from around the country. ``A more general breakup seems ever
more remote,'' the study concluded. Fuller's team briefed CIA managers
early this year on preliminary China findings that may have fallen short
of what the CIA wanted to hear. Shortly afterward, the CIA told the University
of Hawaii that it wanted Fuller scrapped as project manager and would not
answer any questions about its reasons. ``This letter confirms the government's
request for the removal of Dr. Gary Fuller from the above-referenced contract,''
a CIA contracts officer, Michael Bergeron, said in a March 3 letter to
the university's Office of Research Services, which tracks outside contracts
and grants.
-
- Richard Dubanoski, the dean of the school
of social sciences who dealt with the CIA, bowed to the request, taking
over as the contract ``liaison'' himself in what he said was the hope of
a finding a solution to satisfy the CIA and Fuller. Dubanoski, in an interview,
said he later determined that the CIA had treated Fuller ``unfairly.''
He cited an April 2 letter from Cyril Sartor, the CIA branch chief responsible
for the contract, saying the change at the top reflected badly on no one's
work ``save Gary's.'' Fuller said the CIA's refusal to say why it wanted
him out showed that it had no valid reason. ``If there had been something
legitimate, why wouldn't they spell it out?'' he asked. Meantime, Fuller
filed two grievances with the university and hired a lawyer to handle any
litigation arising from his ouster as ``principal investigator'' of the
Ethnic Fracture Zone project. ``The university buckled immediately to the
CIA without a hearing or notice to Fuller that he'd been removed,'' Fuller's
lawyer, Anthony Locricchio, said in an interview. ``Now, the CIA and the
university appear to be continuing to conspire against him to try to undermine
his credibility.''
-
- Last Friday, a panel of the University
of Hawaii's faculty union urged the union's board to take Fuller's second
grievance to arbitration. That grievance claims the university retaliated
against Fuller by depriving him of his election as Geography Department
chairman by his colleagues. As part of a settlement of his first grievance,
the university wrote to the CIA Aug. 10, five days before the final report
was due, to say Fuller had been restored to his ``full status'' as chief
investigator. ^REUTERS@
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