ASSOCIATED PRESS ARTICLE, FROM DATA BASE SEARCH. 'STUDY CITES SOVIET PROGRESS ON MIND WEAPONS'

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 The Associated Press
 The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
 materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The
 Associated Press.
 November 6, 1983, Sunday, AM cycle
 SECTION: Washington Dateline
 LENGTH:  1112 words
 HEADLINE:  Study Cites Soviet Progress on Mind Weapons
 BYLINE: By BARTON REPPERT,  Associated Press Writer
 DATELINE: WASHINGTON
 BODY:
 The Soviet Union has achieved "significant progress" toward developing
 mind-control weapons, according to a U.S. Army study disclosed in a new book
 focusing on military uses of psychic phenomena.
 Author Martin Ebon contends that mind-altering effects or "remote monitoring
 of brain wave activity" are among possible reasons behind the Soviet microwave
 bombardment of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
 "Soviet scientists view the brain as an apparatus available for probing and
 manipulation," Ebon says.  "They are well aware that perfected techniques in ESP
 and other phenomena would make effective wartime strategies."
 Publication of Ebon's book,  "Psychic Warfare: Threat or Illusion?" comes amid
 increased interest in parapsychology research on Capitol Hill as well as within
 the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.
 A report prepared recently by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of
 the Library of Congress, concluded that "psi phenomena" could be applied in
 fields such as education, medicine, geological exploration, and business
 management.
 Mind-control techniques also may prove useful for "military intelligence and
 police work" along with "crime, persuasion, mischief and disinformation," it
 said.
 Psi phenomena include various forms of extrasensory perception, for example
 telepathy and "remote viewing" of distant locations. Another form is
 "psychokinesis," the ability to move or bend solid objects with the mind.
 Critics of parapsychology, however, charge that much of the research on those
 effects is either scientifically unsound or fraudulent. Other skeptics argue
 that even if the phenomena exist, they are too weak and unpredictable to have
 military value.
 Congressional supporters of psi research include Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I.,
 ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said he had
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 discussed the parapsychology field with Soviet researchers during a visit to the
 Soviet Union in August.
 "I personally have never experienced or seen a psychic event," Pell said in a
 recent interview.  "But it seems to me there have been adequate scientific
 articles written that would indicate that they do occur."
 The 1981 Army study, quoted at length in Ebon's book, analyzed the potential
 impact of psychic warfare tactics, as well as other battlefield factors, on the
 stamina and performance of U.S. artillery forces.
 It used the word "psychotronics" to describe the "projection or transmission
 of mental energy by individual or collective mental discipline and control, or
 by an energy-emitting device  a kind of mind jammer."
 The report cited "the significant amount of research that has been completed
 by Warsaw Pact countries during the past decade in the area of psychic
 phenomena, of which psychotronics is one element."
 "The Soviet Union,  in particular, appears to have made significant progress
 toward developing psychotronic weapons," said the Army study, entitled "Fire
 Support Mission Area Analysis."
 To counter that potential threat,  it said, the United States should develop
 special defensive tactics and begin to explore the use of its own mind-control
 weapons.
 The Central Intelligence Agency scaled down its involvement with psychic
 research during the mid-1970s, when the agency was under intense criticism and
 scrutiny on Capitol Hill.
 But a U.S. government official familiar with the parapsychology field, who
 spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said that currently "there
 seems to be somewhat renewed interest at the CIA in psi phenomena, particularly
 (psychokinetic) metal-bending."
 Pentagon units said to be interested in psychic research include the Defense
 Intelligence Agency and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
 Pell headed a delegation of nine Senate Democrats who met with President Yuri
 V. Andropov and other Kremlin officials during their Aug. 17-21 visit to Moscow.
 In his private discussions with Soviet parapsychologists, Pell said he had
 been unable to get a "firm handle" on the overall scope of scientific resources
 Moscow is devoting to this area.  "I was just there for too short a time to go
 into anything in any depth," he said.
 The senator said he has been particularly impressed by psychokinesis and
 remote-viewing research being conducted by Robert G. Jahn, dean of the School of
 Engineering-Applied Science at Princeton University.
 Jahn's laboratory has carried out an intensive series of about 300
 remote-perception trials, over geographical distances of up to 11,000 miles.
 Also, the Princeton researchers are studying possible psychokinetic effects on
 batches of 9,000 plastic spheres tumbling through a "random mechanical
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 The Congressional Research Service report said Soviet annual spending on psi
 research has been "speculated to amount to tens of millions of dollars."
 By contrast, total funding for parapsychology studies in the United States
 "probably does not greatly exceed $500,000" a year currently, with most of the
 money coming from foundations and other private sources, it said.
 The study, prepared by Christopher H. Dodge of CRS' Science Policy Research
 Division, said recent experimental results suggest that some mind-control
 phenomena can be repeated "fairly reliably,  if less than ideally," under
 controlled conditions.
 The CRS report was criticized by Paul Kurtz, chairman of the Committee for
 the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, a group which is
 skeptical about parapsychology.
 "In no sense is this an adequate account of the status of research, because
 the whole parapsychological area is rife with controversy," said Kurtz, a
 philosphy professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
 He said that "this particularly focuses on the issue of replication. It is
 very difficult to find experiments in which you get results in other
 laboratories  it's very elusive."
 Ebon, a New York-based professional writer specializing in Soviet affairs,
 asserted in his book that there was already considerable "circumstantial
 evidence" pointing to the Soviet KGB's "unorthodox use of electronic means" in
 an effort to influence human behavior.
 Speculation over possible purposes behind the Soviet microwave bombardment of
 the Moscow embassy  believed to have begun as early as 1953  has centered
 largely on use of the beams for eavesdropping or to try to jam U.S. electronic
 intelligence-gathering equipment.
 However, Ebon said that "another hypothesis is Soviet use of radiation to
 effect mind-changes in embassy personnel."
 An additional possibility, he wrote,  is that the beams may have been "used to
 'read minds' by tuning microwaves to the level of brain waves."
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