B-School Officer Doubts CIA Aid

An Official of the International Marketing Institute, a private group that holds summer seminars at the Business School, said yesterday he doubted that it had received money from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Edward C. Bursk, professor of Business Administration and IMI's educational director, confirmed published reports that his organization had received money from the Independence Foundation, which served to channel CIA funds to the National Student Association.

But, said Bursk, "Anything we got I suspect came from other contributors" to the Independence Foundation. "How much came from where is all pretty murky, but we had no indication of anything whatsoever expect that they [the Foundation] thought we were doing a good thing."

Bursk described the IMI, which has its offices in the Commander Hotel, as "a non-profit institute for research and education in marketing." He said the sevenyear old organization had brought 700 foreign businessmen from 60 countries to the U.S. to study American business practices.

"I am sure if I were the CIA, I would approve of what we're doing," he said. "We're trying to get the idea of free enterprise understood around the world." But he said that the IMI had never done any work for the CIA, had never made any reports to the CIA, and had not, until the NSA controversy erupted, known that the Independence Foundation had any connection with the CIA. He noted that contributors to the Independence Foundation included Mobile Oil and "a number of other respectable businesses."