CIA Lifts Some Secrecy, Discloses It Funds Major Project at Harvard

BOSTON — The CIA has agreed to lift some of the secrecy surrounding programs it funds at universities by acknowledging for the first time it is financing a major project at a Harvard institute, officials said Friday.

And, also for the first time, the agency will permit unrestricted publishing of results.

The $1.2-million project at the John F. Kennedy School of Government will begin Dec. 14, associate dean Peter Zimmerman said.

It will try to bridge “the large gap between the assessments of foreign situations done by the intelligence analysts . . . and the foreign policy decision makers,” project member Richard E. Neustadt said.

Agency spokesman Bill Devine confirmed that the CIA had never before agreed to go public with news of university research or allowed free publishing of program conclusions.

It took more than eight months of negotiations for the two sides to agree on the program, officials said.

“The reason it took so long was because . . . we are not in the habit of having such open contracts,” Devine said. “Most of our work is done on contracts that are kept secret, and that’s the way it’s been done for years.”

Deputy CIA Director Robert Gates approved the project, he said.