Did U.S. intelligence assets kill Antioch College?

[MinM]

Did U.S. intelligence assets kill Antioch College?

At the time of its announced closure, Antioch College, perhaps America’s most progressive and well-known peace college, had a few visible capitalist hawks on its board of trustees.

Bruce P. Bedford, one of only three trustees not a former alum, had been appointed to the board of Arlington, Virginia, company GlobeSecNine in 2005. The company is described by a representative of investment corporation Bear Sterns as having "a unique set of experiences in special forces, classified operations, transportation security and military operations." One can only speculate why the nation’s longest-standing anti-imperialist education institution would appoint a trustee with extensive ties to the military and security industrial complexes.

Business Wire on May 4, 2005, described GlobeSecNine as follows: "GlobeSecNine invests in companies providing U.S. defense, security, global trade management and supply chain solutions to the public and private sectors, and has a strategic alliance with The Scowcroft Group, a business advisory firm headed by former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft."

Bedford served on the GlobeSecNine Board of Advisors with Scowcroft and co-founder of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center Fred Turco. Others affiliated with the company are tied directly to the prison industrial complex and the anti-liberal "war on drugs," for example Jack Lawn, former administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who serves on the board of directors.

On July 3, 2007, Michael Alexander’s name was removed from the list of Antioch trustees. Two days earlier, he had been sworn in as president of Lasell College in Newton, Massachusetts. There has been speculation that Antioch’s campus would make a great retirement community, much like the one at Lasell, known as Lasell Village, "a state-of-the-art eldercare community with the first-of-its-kind built in educational component."

In 1998 Alexander founded AverStar, where he served as chairman and chief executive officer, and did business primarily with NASA and the Defense Department. In 2000, Alexander’s AverStar defense company merged with the Titan Corporation.

In March 2005, Titan pleaded guilty and paid the largest penalty under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in history for bribery and filing false tax returns.

L-3 Communications acquired the Titan Corporation on July 29, 2005. As their corporate website described the company, it "is a leading provider of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems, secure communications systems, aircraft modernization, training and government services. The company is a leading merchant supplier of a broad array of high technology products, including guidance and navigation, sensors, scanners, fuzes, data links, propulsion systems, simulators, avionics, electro optics, satellite communications, electrical power equipment, encryption, signal intelligence, antennas and microwave components. L-3 also supports a variety of Homeland Security initiatives with products and services. Its customers include the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, selected U.S. Government intelligence agencies and aerospace prime contractors."

The L-3 Communications Titan Group brags that 8,000 of its 10,000 employees have "security clearances" and that they are a leading provider of C4ISR, Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance -- "developing and supporting the systems of today and tomorrow for the United States and Allied Militaries and defense-related agencies in order for them to carry out their assigned missions," according to their website.

While Anitoch board members Bedford and Alexander cozied up with U.S. intelligence and Homeland Security, students at the university sponsored a national teach-in to expose the atrocities of Guantanamo Bay on October 5, 2006.

How a college targeted by the FBI and its notorious COINTELPRO operation during the Cold War as a "vanguard of the New Left" managed to place two "spook"-connected trustees on their board is a mystery worth exploring.

Antioch resides in the shadow of Wright Patterson Air Force Base and its legendary Foreign Technologies Division that reverse engineers weapons systems from other nations. Its larger neighbor to the west, Ohio State University, has long been tied up with the CIA’s favorite nonprofit institution, Battelle, and was one of the 30 or so universities involved in the MK Ultra mind control LSD experiments in the 1960s.

The Dayton Daily News is reporting that a $5 million accounting error caused the radical college to close. Others have pointed to the long-standing rumors of intelligence ties to the Antioch Europe in Transition study program.

If the CIA or U.S. intelligence services were involved in the subversion of America’s most anti-imperialist and pro-peace college, it wouldn’t be the first time that the progressive college campuses have been infiltrated. The CIA subverted the National Student Association in the late 50s and early 60s. The agency also has been accused of subverting everything from fraternities to Fullbright scholars to Peace Corps workers.

The role of these trustees must be heavily scrutinized. Antioch alumni should be ashamed to allow their college to die until they get to the bottom of this spooky mystery.

Antioch College in Ohio holds last commencement for a while
Antioch College May Shut its Books Forever

[dipsydoodle]

1. Nice place Yellow Springs

I was there back in 2002 touring around on holiday between OH and the bottom of KY with a huge family with whom I'm close. At the time Yellow Springs had the lowest crime rate in OH - probably still have. It's like a grown up hippy community who gathered in one place and have managed with good local organisation to keep developers at bay - pretty little town. It's also the last time I recall seeing a psychedelic VW camper. :)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Oh, man......

I'm an Antioch alum. Since I was off the airwaves for 2007 and just recently surfaced, this is the first I've heard of its closing.

Two hundred students? That's all that were left.

When I was there, in the sixties, we boasted of the first black dorm; we protested, we marched, we sang, and I married a faculty member in our college-owned house on West Davis Street.

The biggest mistake, I think, that was made was the satellite program, with "Antioch College" extensions sprouting up wherever a faculty member decided he or she wanted to live. This "Antioch University" nonsense was nothing but an early death knell for the college.

Yellow Springs, Ohio, aka "YSO," is one of the loveliest little villages in the States. It was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and, with the closing of the college, loses its single industry.

This is heartbreaking.

[marylanddem]

3. Antioch alumnus here...

But I have very mixed feelings about the college I dropped out of & highly doubt anyone "killed" Antioch besides its own inflated self-image & overpriced tuition fees.

Yet I LOVED my "Antioch Experience" in the 60's and would not trade those memories for anything.
And I agree all that expansion probably did it in...

[kestrel91316]

4. I know Antioch and Yellow Springs. I went to Beavercreek HS

near Xenia. Tornado and all that.......

[freeplessinseattle]

5. My beloved Antioch!

I had read that there was a lot of bitterness involved in the financial resolution discussions, but this is a whole crazy new level. what the hell was going on at the top level there and how was it allowed to get to this point? I am furious. Antioch is a priceless treasure, and this is an outright attack by the repugs to squelch progressivism. I hope they don't get away with this.

[madrchsod]

7. shimer moved to the chicago area

i see it is still in business and i hope the tradition still lives on

[madrchsod]

6. talk about a 60`s flash back......

shimer in mt carrol illinois and antioch were the most liberal colleges in america at that time. out of 1000 students at shimer less than 5 did`t do any form of drugs. one of the major drug suppliers of both shimer and antioch went to shimer..a kid who was 17 at the time. we spent many a night doing deals of one sort or another .....

the most interesting thing that happened was the tip of a drug bust...i was at my friends house when he received a call--from the fbi. the agent informed him that a major drug bust was coming to shimer with in the week. the major hash supplier was the son of a very well connected politician in washington. we tipped him and the other supplier off and sure enough the next week end the college was raided.

so the fbi tipped off my friend who was a dealer to have him tip off certain people at shimer that the feds and locals were going to bust the college...shit you never knew who`s side anyone was on.

time magazine had an article about antioch and shimer during the 60`s

[Joanne98]

8. Lynn Cheney is after all of them.

[Beam Me Up]

9. I was a student at "The University Without Walls -- Berkeley"

in the mad/late 1970s. UWW was a mostly independent study extension of Antioch which included students such as Angela Davis. The way the program was ultimately run aground financially indicated to me (although I can't prove this) that it was a victim of a cointelpro - type operation.

So, anyway, wouldn't surprise me.

[Peace Patriot]

10. A $5 million 'accounting error'? That does sound fishy.

"The Dayton Daily News is reporting that a $5 million accounting error caused the radical college to close. --the OP

I hope Antioch alums, donors, students and teachers fight back, get to the bottom of this, and save Antioch. What a bad day for democracy, peace and social justice it will be, if Antioch closes.

[MinM]

11. The L-3 Communications Titan Group

Apparently L-3 is killing more than a college:

CorpWatch: Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq -- A CorpWatch Report on L-3/Titan

CorpWatch Managing Editor Pratap Chatterjee has just returned from Iraq where he was embedded with the US military and investigating the outsourcing of both military logistics and intelligence gathering. A new Corpwatch report offers a scathing assessment of intelligence contractors L-3 and Titan. We also speak to Marwan Mawiri, who worked in Iraq as a translator with Titan in 2003 and 2004...

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/30/corpwatchs_pratap_chatterjee_and_ex_titan