the federal government, including the military. Harman was put in
charge of SRI’s Educational Policy Research Center, with a mandate to
envision education’s future. LSD by now was illegal but still very much in
use in the community of engineers and academics in and around
Stanford.
Hubbard, who by now was broke, was hired as a part-time “special
investigative agent,” ostensibly to keep tabs on the use of drugs in the
student movement. Harman’s letter of employment to Hubbard is both
obscure and suggestive: “Our investigations of some of the current social
movements affecting education indicate that the drug use prevalent
among student members of the New Left is not entirely undesigned.
Some of it appears to be present as a deliberate weapon aimed at political
change. We are concerned with assessing the significance of this as it
impacts on matters of long-range educational policy. In this connection it
would be advantageous to have you considered in the capacity of a special
investigative agent who might have access to relevant data which is not
ordinarily available.” Though not mentioned in the letter, Hubbard’s
services to SRI also included using his extensive government contacts to
keep contracts flowing. So Al Hubbard once again donned his khaki
security-guard uniform, complete with gold badge, sidearm, and a belt
studded with bullets, and got back to work.
But the uniform and the “special agent” title were all a cover, and an
audacious one at that.
As a vocal enemy of the rising counterculture, it’s entirely possible
Hubbard did investigate illegal drug use on campus for SRI (or others*),
but if he did, he was once again working both sides of the street. For
though the legal status of LSD had changed by 1968, Hubbard and
Harman’s mission—“to provide the [LSD] experience to political and
intellectual leaders around the world”—apparently had not. The work
might well have continued, just more quietly and beneath a cover story.
For as Willis Harman told Todd Brendan Fahey in a 1990 interview and
as a former SRI employee confirmed, “Al never did anything resembling
security work.
“Al’s job was to run the special sessions for us.”
That former SRI employee is Peter Schwartz, an engineer who became
a leading futurist; he is currently senior vice president for government
relations and strategic planning at Salesforce.com. In 1973, Schwartz
frankie
(Frankie)
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