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My spritual teacher, Lama Tashi Namgyal, was once named Micheal Wood. He had always talked of his history as a political activist, when he was younger. He had even told us, cryptically, that he had in some way exposed the CIA.

Finally while we were on retreat, a few of us finally asked him to tell us the whole story. Then we sat there with slack jaws as he finally broke it all down. In 1967, the National Student Association was being secretly funded by the CIA, to the tune of $400,000 a year, which was a lot in 1967. In addition, the CIA was influencing the elections process in order to influence international student politics.

Micheal Wood, at 23, broke this story to Ramparts magazine, setting the big dogs of journalism, like the New York Times, on an investigative frenzy that did indeed put the CIA in an embarassing position:

"It was an SDS member, Michael Wood, who took the story to Ramparts magazine after being told of the relationship in 1966 by then NSA president Phil Sherburne. In telling Wood, Sherburne was hoping to forestall Wood's imminent resignation brought on by other officers who had refused to provide him with information regarding NSA funding sources. The exposure led to a year-long series of revelations alleging CIA financing of the American Newspaper Guild, the AFL-CIO, and the American Federation of Teachers, among others."

Read the whole story in the Rampart article that broke the story. (Skip to part III for the juicy stuff.) One cool thing about the full story, is that it talks about the tricky CIA lingo that was used, which the Lama told us about in great detail.

Another good article is this Campus Watch article about the story, that breaks it down well, and in less words.

And one last story is the story in the United States Student Association website. Skip down to "The CIA Connection Exposed" for the story.

Good Job, Lama!