Festinger 10.27.22

To Whom It May Concern:

You are receiving this correspondence as a request under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. subsection 552. I am requesting the following:

Copies of all Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) records, documents, and communications responsive to interactions between Dr. Leon Festinger (May 8, 1919 - February 11, 1989) and the Ford Foundation from 1950 through 1959. Dr. Festinger worked in the field of social psychology, notably co-authoring a book on the concept of cognitive dissonance, "When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World", in 1956. In the acknowledgements to this book, Dr. Festinger thanks the Ford Foundation for grant funding supporting his work on the project. During the period of Dr. Festinger’s research and writing, the CIA maintained a relationship with the Ford Foundation, occasionally seeking covert funding for projects of Agency interest. This relationship has been documented in Agency publications, such as in volume 26, issue number 1 of "Studies in Intelligence", a journal published by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, where Thomas M. Troy, Jr., writing a review of Frances Stonor Saunders's book "The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters", states: "[Stonor Saunders] also does a fine job in recounting the intriguing story of how the CIA worked with existing institutions, such as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and established numerous 'bogus' foundations to 'hide' its funding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom and its other covert activities." Mr. Troy worked, for a time, as the CIA's official historian; as an example, Troy penned a monograph, "Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency", on behalf of the Center for Intelligence Studies in 1981. As such, Troy's statement that the CIA worked with the Ford Foundation in an Agency-run publication can be considered an acknowledgment of this relationship by the Agency.

Additionally, archival material pertaining to individuals associated with the CIA confirms a relationship between the Agency and the Ford Foundation. John J. McCloy, the United States Assistant Secretary of War between 1942 and 1945, assisted William J. Donovan in establishing the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA. Mr. McCloy's professional correspondence and personal writings are stored at Amherst College, and among the documents in this collection are letters confirming that McCloy, acting on behalf of the CIA, sought funding for covert projects through the Ford Foundation. A letter in this archive, from McCloy to the Foundation, dated December 31, 1951, requests it continue to "carry on certain operations which the Embassy may find difficult to continue, but which are of great significance to United States objectives in Germany." Further, Mr. McCloy later served as a trustee and as chairman on the Ford Foundation's board of directors; in an interview with writer Kai Bird for the biography "The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment", McCloy acknowledged a relationship between both parties (please see: Mr. Bird's writing on the subject on pages 426 and 427 and the end notes on pages 719 and 720). This can also be considered verification of the relationship between the CIA and the Ford Foundation.

Finally, Dr. Festinger's work on cognitive dissonance has been cited in a number of documents produced by the CIA. A 1976 report on the establishment of the Center for the Study of Intelligence, in the CIA's Electronic Reading Room, lists Festinger among its footnotes on page 61 (see: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79-00498A000700070007-0.pdf); and a separate 1988 report from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a CIA open-source intelligence project running from 1941 to 2005, summarizes Festinger's work on cognitive dissonance under a subheading about academic research on propaganda on page 5 (see: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP92-01361R000100110047-8.pdf). These references confirm that CIA analysts or employees were familiar with Dr. Festinger's work on cognitive dissonance.

There is no expectation of a violation of Dr. Festinger's privacy, as he passed away in 1989. I have attached a reproduction of Dr. Festinger's obituary, published in The New York Times on February 12, 1989.

I am asking you waive any fees associated with this request. I am a member of the news media, with bylines including Covert Action Magazine, Janata Weekly, and Philly Voice. Please take note of the Office of Management and Budget guidelines published March 27, 1987 (52 FR 10012) that include electronic publications and other nontraditional publishers as representatives of the news media.

This request is not being made for commercial purposes. All documents will be provided to the general public without charge.

In the event that there are fees, I am willing to pay up to $100. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

I look forward to your response within 20 working days, as the statute requires. If access to the records I am requesting will take longer, please contact me with information about when I might expect copies or the ability to inspect the requested records.

If you deny any or all of this request, please cite each specific exemption you feel justifies the refusal to release the information and notify me of the appeal procedures available to me under the law.

Sincerely,

Robert Skvarla, Jr.