An informational meeting held by a representative of the Central Intelligence Agency at SU attracted two audiences looking for answers. Most about possible jobs, but some about the CIA’s past.

The differing agendas met with heated exchanges and pleas in Eggers Hall on Thursday. Alan More, the deputy chief of the analytical hiring division recruitment center, spoke about possible job opportunities students could have in the CIA as operatives, information officers, financial officers and other fields.

Before he began his presentation, More said he would not address substantive questions about current operations. This did not deter a group of several students — who earlier handed out flyers concerning the history of CIA involvement in Latin America and the Middle East. Several students posed questions based on the sheet to More.

Sam Alcoff, a junior history major, said the CIA supported a coup in Chile in 1973 that replaced a democratically elected government in the country.

In response, More again said he would not answer any substantive questions.

“As I said before, I am here to talk about careers in the CIA,” he said. “I suggest you talk to your congressman.”

More then provided the students with the phone number for the public affairs office of the CIA to call about their complaints.

After another student asked More a substantive question, Jennifer Potter Hayes, director of career and alumni services at SU, asked that the students let the presentation continue for other students in the audience and that the protesting students save their questions until the end and realize the parameters that were set before the program started.

More continued his explanation of some of the possible opportunities in the CIA until Kate Simmer, 24, a Syracuse native who heard about the presentation from friends who are SU students spoke of “numerous” accounts of the CIA replacing democratically elected governments with dictatorships.

“If you are really considering work in the CIA, you need to look at what is underneath,” she said.

At several points during the presentation, students who were interested in working for the CIA, including Satrajit Sardar, a graduate student in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, turned to those who were there to protest CIA recruitment on campus and asked that the group let More continue with what he was doing and finish his presentation.

Alcoff said he and others were there to protest the CIA recruitment on campus because of Operation Chaos, a CIA program that allowed covert operations to gain information on citizens and domestic groups, and other programs in the CIA’s past.

“The questions we offered today, he can’t answer,” Alcoff said.

Hayes said she was surprised that protesting students did not go to the meeting More held Wednesday in Schine for undergraduate students who were thinking about a career in the CIA. She said she was happy students came out, however, and expressed their views about the CIA, both good and bad.

Sardar said he did not think it was right for the students to protest in the meeting and that the protesting students should have realized that every organization has made mistakes, and they can’t be taken back but, instead, turned into something constructive.

“The protesters did not have any constructive criticisms,” he said. “They could be more constructive by becoming actively involved in changing things.”

Published on February 20, 2003 at 12:00 pm