" The Agency also began to form alternative youth and student organizations at local and international level. The two international bodies constructed to rival those sponsored by the Soviet Union were the Coordinating Secretariat of National Unions of Students ( COSEC, later known as the International Student Conference or ISC ), with headquarters in Leyden, and the World Assembly of Youth ( WAY ) situated in Brussels. Headquarters' planning, guidance and operational functions in the CIA youth and student organizations are centralized in the International Organizations Division of the DDP.
Both COSEC and WAY promote travel, cultural activities, and welfare, but both also work as propaganda agencies for the CIA - particularly in underdeveloped countries. They also have consultative status as non-governmental institutions with United Nations agencies such as UNESCO and they participate in the U.N. special agencies' programs.
One very important function of the CIA youth and student operations is the spotting, assessing and recruiting of student and youth leaders as long-term agents, both in the FI and PP fields. The organizations sponsored or affected by the Agency are obvious recruiting grounds for these and, indeed, for other CIA operations. It is particularly the case in the underdeveloped world that both COSEC and WAY programs lead to the recruitment of young agents who can be relied on to continue CIA policies and remain under CIA control long after they have moved up their political or professional ladders.
Apart from working through COSEC and WAY the Agency is also able to mount specific operations through Catholic national and international student and youth bodies ( Pax Romana and the International Catholic Youth Federation ) and through the Christian democratic and non-communist socialist organizations as well. In some countries, particularly those in which there are groups with strong communist or radical leadership, the Catholic or Christian Democratic student and youth organizations are the main forces guided by the Agency."
- Youth and Student Operations, Camp Peary, Virginia - April 1960
From Inside The Company : CIA Diary by Philip Agee.
