American Notes The CIA

To college students looking for jobs, the ads in newspapers across the country offering starting salaries as high as $25,000 are hard to resist. Thousands are lining up to interview for employment as "case officers in human intelligence" for the once reviled "Company" known as the CIA. Yet even as the recruiting figures are rising--the rate of job inquiries has more than doubled since the early 1970s--so are protests over the presence of CIA representatives on campus. Last week 450 demonstrators were arrested at the University of Colorado in Boulder as they attempted to disrupt the interviews.

Unlike the often violent demonstrations of the 1960s, the recent anti-CIA protests have been relatively restrained. Although police at the University of Wisconsin in Madison sprayed Mace on 15 protesters who tried to stop recruitment efforts last week, other demonstrations have been peaceful. In Boulder, where university police and protest leaders met in advance to set ground rules (say your piece, present yourself for arrest), the local district attorney said that no one would be fined or jailed. The publicity seems to have worked in favor of the recruiters. During the protest the agency interviewed 140 students, in contrast to 65 last fall.