CIA Infiltrates Pomona College
Author's Name Withheld
Contributing Writer

On Tuesday February 25th the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) succeeded in infiltrating Pomona College. The CIA's agent within the college was the Career Development Office (CDO) who sponsored the event and facilitated the meeting of recruiters and students of the Claremont Colleges. This latest effort by the CIA is part of an ongoing operation at many leading colleges and universities across the United States. This particular operation, you may be relieved to know, was not designed to gather intelligence on radical student organizing or teaching at the 5-C - but don't let your guard down, because the CIA might already have someone tracking you. This time they want to recruit people to work for them, so they came here.

Two guys, in Men In Black-type suits, represented the CIA, but they only gave their first names. Maybe they were trying to be casual and friendly by not revealing their last names. The one who called himself "George" (what a nice all-American name! Our president's name is George, too!) told the audience that the CIA provided more than just a job, they provided a lifestyle. George also said that while it was hard work, the "benefits of the lifestyle far outweigh the sacrifices you have to make." Later, when George also claimed that the job was very rewarding, I asked him if 200,000 dead Guatemalan peasants as a result of a 1954 CIA coup was what he meant by "rewarding." George didn't deny this charge, but he said that he was too young to be part of that 1954 coup against democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz. He also claimed that "times have changed."

"Times have changed?" CIA coups did not stop in the 1950s. In 1961, for example, the CIA overthrew Patrice Lumumba the democratically elected president of Congo. In 1973, it overthrew democratically elected Salvador Allende of Chile. All through the 1980s it funded the Contras to fight Nicaragua's popular Sandinista government. The CIA continues to work with Latin American militaries that train at Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), formerly known as School of the Americas (SOA). These militaries are notorious for their brutal torture across the continent. But when one audience member asked about CIA's involvement in this school, George mysteriously said, "I doubt that's likely."

So, the CIA has jobs for you as a spy overseas or as an analyst working at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. They're going to have to brainwash you but according to the other CIA recruiter, if you don't really care whether the CIA completely takes over your mind and runs your life, then it's not a problem.

However, if you pass the "intrusive and painful" (according to the two recruiters) polygraph test and investigation, you're going to have to be really secretive about your job. "You can't tell people that you work for the CIA," said George. He couldn't even tell us about the details of available jobs. He told us to look at the website, and then said that the website wouldn't give much information either. Those with secrets must have something to hide.

There were about 40 students from CMC, Pomona, Scripps, and CGU present. Most were very enthusiastic about working as saboteurs of democratic governments around the world. They clapped and laughed at the recruiters' corny jokes and eagerly crowded around them to get more information. They also asked deep, intellectual questions about Tom Clancy, James Bond, and the availability of eligible marriage partners in the agency. If you see these exemplary students walking around the Claremont Colleges remember to say "Hi" and congratulate them. After all, they might be the next secret agents helping brutal dictators like Congo's Mobutu or Chile's Pinochet maintain power and murder their countries' people.

What better place for the CIA to recruit agents for US domination than the Claremont Colleges? And, for a student, what better job to use the skills of creative thinking and understanding the world's people, than at the CIA, where you can topple democratically elected governments in favor of military dictators? For starters, you could work with admirable individuals like Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and Manuel Noriega. You could help them rise to power and then if they begin paying more attention to their own issues rather than the interests of the United States, you can report back to headquarters to take them out.

But will moral issues actually come into play when working at the CIA? One student asked the recruiters, "Do either of you find problems with representing an organization that is known worldwide for imperialism and human rights abuses?" Their answer, in unison, was "No."