War Without End

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The Origins of Clandestinism and the CIA

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The Central Intelligence Agency has had a brief existence in American history. It was a special product of the early years of the Cold War, a fact reflected in its mode of operation and its organization. During World War II U.S. intelligence was fragmented into a variety of different agencies and armed force branches. The White House sought coordination of these sometimes competing operations. At the same time, the political objectives of U.S. intelligence had shifted from defeating the fascists to "all means short of war" to "induce a retraction of the Kremlin's control and influence" and to "foster the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system", according to a "Top Secret" National Security Council report (NSC - 68) dated April 14, 1950, and released in the spring of 1975. The CIA was created for these ends. Among its first moves was the absorption of "the remarkable Russian anti-Soviet network of General Reinhardt Gehlen, who had offered to serve the Americans at the end of the war as faithfully as he had served Hitler," writes London Daily Mail assistant editor, Stewart Steven, in Operation Splinter Factor. Gehlen had been head of the Nazis' intelligence operations on the Eastern Front during the war; his alliance with the CIA was an indication of the political drift in the late forties.

The CIA did not develop its independent nature by chance. Its clandestinism is too tied to its bureaucratic integrity, engineered by Allen Dulles. That story and its legal ramifications is the subject of L. Fletcher Prouty's article. Prouty, the former liaison officer for the Defense Department in its contacts with the CIA in all matters pertaining to military support of clandestine operations, is the author of The Secret Team.

The dust of the atomic clouds scarcely had settled over Hiroshima and Nagasaki when President Harry S. Truman disbanded the Office of Strategic Services, led by the flamboyant General William "Wild Bill" Donovan. It was 1946 and the world had no use for clandestine services. One world was what we had sought in World War II, and, after all, that was the way it was going to be. The victorious military services were being disbanded so fast that air force units charged with flying the men home did not have enough maintenance personnel to keep the planes airworthy. The war was over - things were settled and we were going to turn our backs on all of that.

But disturbing questions were still unanswered: "What had really happened at Pearl Harbor?" "Were we really so poorly informed that we could be caught totally unaware by a huge flotilla floating in from Tokyo?" Charges flew back and forth and it became evident that something had to be done about the structure of the national defense establishment. Congress began to debate how the armed forces should be organized. It became clear that there should be a single department over all the armed forces. Instead of the traditional War Department and Navy Department, Congress came to the conclusion that there should be a Department of Defense and that the Secretary of Defense, a civilian, should have the ultimate authority over all forces in peacetime and that the President as Commander-in-Chief should have full authority in time of war.

This brought up another sore spot. During World War II it became apparent that the biggest bang in the military forces had been delivered by the bombers of the air force. Proponents of that new military arm believed that it should be independent and no longer part of the army; if there was going to be a Department of Defense then let there be one that had three equal forces, the army, the navy and the independent air force. A bitter fight ensued.

While all of this was going on, other voices proposed that the United States should have a central intelligence authority. In order to preserve the "assets (undercover agents and their apparatus)" created by the OSS during World War II, President Truman had, by executive order, established a Central Intelligence Group. Some members of the old OSS had escaped this group and its uncertain future by burying themselves in the intelligence section of the Department of State. But there was no long-range plan.

The arguments became heated. Almost every major commander of war-fame declared that intelligence in general had been very poor during the war. It was not so much that adequate intelligence did not exist. The problem was that it had not been properly coordinated and evaluated in order for top commanders from the President on down to know what was actually going on. In Europe, there had been a wide variety of intelligence organizations. Most of them were in some way connected with the Supreme Allied Commander. Yet General Donovan and his OSS had operated with a certain amount of independence because Bill Donovan was disdainful of intelligence as such. He loved the "fun and games" of the clandestine services, which did not interfere or compete with routine intelligence.

In the Western Hemisphere, "Wild Bill" had run up against J. Edgar Hoover, of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Hoover had convinced Roosevelt that anything happening in the Western Hemisphere was more related to domestic affairs than it was to the war and that the FBI should control these operations. To the consternation of Donovan and the OSS, President Roosevelt granted Hoover what he had requested.

Then Donovan turned to the Pacific. Out there General Douglas MacArthur, general of the army in charge of all land operations in the Pacific war theater, ruled with an iron fist, and Donovan and his OSS could not get to first base. The OSS therefore was restricted to the European theater.

In the Pacific, General MacArthur and his navy counterpart had about as much love for each other as they shared with Donovan; whatever intelligence they shared was purely accidental. This led to a firm conviction on the part of everyone with even a little experience that the intelligence community, loose-knit as it was, badly needed coordination more than anything else.

Congress mulled this over as they made big plans for the future of the U.S. military. Behind the scenes, Donovan and his disciples preached the doctrine of the clandestine services' indispensability. They did not care so much about intelligence itself although they felt that the clandestine services were essential. They would not have won many adherents to their side if it had not been for the atomic bomb.

The atomic bomb created a situation unparalleled in the history of warfare. Never before had the spectrum of warfare been broadened so spectacularly as it had been by the terrible power of the atomic bomb. One weapon from one aircraft could annihilate a full division, sink a battleship and a carrier, and wipe out an entire city. The nuclear physicists said that this was only the beginning. They already knew how to make a bomb a hundred times larger and thought they knew how to make a hydrogen bomb as well.

While Congress debated what this meant for the future of the armed forces, the "clandestine services" crowd argued that if they were not turned loose soon, the Soviet Union, China, or another country might develop the terrible weapon - if we could not find this out, how could we defend ourselves? This was a strong argument coming as it did right in the middle of the new "Red scare." The Soviet Union had been our ally during World War II, but as soon as the war ended it began to be viewed as a deadly enemy. What made the transformation of opinion complete was the fear that the Soviets would have the atom bomb.

Other figures in the debate argued that our military forces had the bomb and the means to deliver it, which had been demonstrated over Japan, and that this was all that was needed for America to maintain its strength. The best intelligence, it was argued, came from a proper blending of the intelligence capability already in existence. We had the army intelligence, navy intelligence, a good unit in the State Department and in the Treasury, as well as the FBI. All that was required was leadership and coordination.

Then, on September 8, 1947, the National Security Act was signed into law by President Truman. That law established the Department of Defense much as it is today, creating a single civilian head of the peacetime military forces and three equal services - the army, the navy, and the new air force. At the top of these it created the National Security Council, the highest-level body consisting of the President, the Vice-President (at the President's discretion}, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense. These were the primary members; others could be added to the council with the consent of Congress.

The law also created the Central Intelligence Agency to serve under the direction of the National Security Council. In a seldom-noticed section of the law the office of the director, Central Intelligence, was established. This office is actually separate from the CIA because its incumbent is the senior intelligence officer over all intelligence organizations; in addition, he is the senior officer over the CIA as well. The distinction is worth noting. For example, the CIA frequently cites the fact that it is charged by law with the protection of its "sources and methods" as a reason for not releasing certain documents. Many intense battles have been fought over that phrase and the CIA always wins them because the opposition rarely recalls that it is not the CIA which is charged with protecting "sources and methods" but the director. This is a neat distinction. As the senior official over all intelligence, the director is responsible for seeing that "sources and methods" of one agency do not uncover or confuse those of another. This practical stipulation was not intended to be used as it has been.

It is important to see exactly what Congress intended when it created the CIA. Despite the millions of words that have been written about it, Congress set forth the duty of that agency in clear and simple terms. Under the heading "Powers and Duties", Congress said, and the President signed into law, the following:

For the purpose of coordinating the intelligence activities of the several Government departments and agencies in the interest of national security, it shall be duty of the Agency, under the direction of the National Security Council -

1. to advise the National Security Council in matters concerning such intelligence activities of the Government departments and agencies as relate to national security;

2. to make recommendations to the National Security Council for the coordination of such intelligence activities of the departments and agencies of the Government as relate to the national security;

3. to correlate and evaluate intelligence relating to the national security and provide for the appropriate dissemination of such intelligence within the Government using, where appropriate, existing agencies and facilities: provided, that the Agency shall have no police, subpoena, law-enforcement powers, or internal-security functions: provided further, that the departments and other agencies of the Government shall continue to collect, evaluate, correlate, and disseminate departmental intelligence: and provided further, that the Director of Central Intelligence shall be responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure;

4. to perform, for the benefit of the existing intelligence agencies, such additional services of common concern as the National Security Council determines can be more efficiently accomplished centrally;

5. to perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.

Now that is all that the law says about the "powers and duties" of the CIA and there is no other law conflicting with, amending, adding to, or otherwise broadening this very explicit statement. To put it another way - all other activities in which the CIA becomes engaged are unlawful.

Those who do not know the agency and the law do not understand this. If that is all the law says, then how can it be that the CIA has admittedly become involved in so many other projects? The CIA encourages people to believe that there is a secret charter. The agency would like the public to believe that somewhere there must be some law that says the CIA can do all of these things that it has been doing, admittedly, which seem unlawful. In fact, there is no secret charter. The secret charter syndrome is an invention of the CIA. Unfortunately, no one has chosen to challenge the agency on the simple basis of the law.

Note well that the law says, under the prime subject heading of "coordination," that the CIA may do such things as the NSC may direct from "time to time." Setting down on paper some directives for use on more than one occasion is hardly "time to time," no matter what the subject is. So even the "Non-Skids" have dubious validity. Stated simply and directly: there is no secret charter. The law stipulates all of the "powers and duties" of the CIA. All the rest of its activities are unlawful.

It is worthwhile to examine this law in closer detail. The primary stipulation of the law is that the CIA is created for the purpose (the sole purpose) of coordinating the intelligence activities of other departments and agencies of the government. The CIA, therefore, is to "coordinate" the intelligence of agencies and departments which already existed and which had intelligence units of their own. Nothing in the law says that the CIA is to be, or is to set up, another intelligence agency. The idea that the CIA is a legal intelligence agency is its biggest cover story. Meanwhile, it continues to act as this government's clandestine service.

Did Congress move precipitously in setting up the CIA? All of our World War II experience told us that we had more than enough intelligence, but a failure of coordination. And to underscore this reasonable conclusion note how Congress set up the agency. The fledgling CIA was placed under the "direction" of a committee - the National Security Council. Obviously, Congress and the President supposed that they were not creating an operational organization. This "co-ordinating" authority was even carefully placed under a controlling committee.

A key word in the law is the word "direction". The CIA must act under the direction of the National Security Council. The men on that council are the top-ranking men in government. It should stand to reason that they would be the most responsible. Therefore, the CIA was located under their direction. Consider, however, the role of Allen W. Dulles, CIA director from 1953 through 1961. He persuaded his brother, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, to allow the NSC to establish a lesser CIA oversight committee. Immediately, this move twice violated the law. This subcommittee - sometimes called the 10/2 Committee, the 5412 Committee, the 303 Committee, the 40 Committee - was not the NSC. It did not carry the legal weight of the NSC, and did not have the legal authority to "direct" the CIA. Nevertheless, this is what it did. Furthermore, once the committee had been established, Allen Dulles periodically appeared before it with proposals for "approval." This too is unlawful. "Approval and "direction" are not the same. Congress and President Truman did not intend for some subcommittee to grant "approval" in lieu of NSC "direction".

Much has been said about the five sub-paragraphs following the statement of duty of the CIA. No matter what those sub-paragraphs say, it must be kept in mind that they are sub-paragraphs and are substantively subordinate to the main paragraph which deals with "coordination" and nothing else. Thus, when the first sub-paragraph states that the CIA should "advise" the NSC, it means that the CIA should advise the NSC, drawing its advice from the "coordinated" intelligence of the government. It does not mean "advise" in any other context. When the sub-paragraph says that the CIA should "make recommendations", this also means that those recommendations are to be derived from the "coordinated" intelligence of the rest of the government.

The same applies to the next two sub-paragraphs. But when Allen Dulles broke out of the strictures of the law, he made liberal use of the next sub-paragraph. When it says that the CIA will "perform such other functions duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the NSC may from time to time direct" that too means that duties and functions will also be limited to those within the meaning of "coordination". If Congress had intended the fifth sub-paragraph to be an escape clause, which CIA apologist have made it seem to be, Congress would have articulated its intention in a separate paragraph free from the "coordinating" one. Any parliamentarian, lawyer or scholar knows that, but think of the millions misled by the CIA.

It is pertinent to note, while we are dealing with these duties, that the word "collect" appears in only one usage. It is used with mention of the other intelligence agencies in the fourth sub-paragraph. Congress did not overlook the essential function of intelligence "collection." Congress wanted collection to remain with other departments and agencies and it did not intend the CIA to become involved in it. This, too, is one of the most powerful stipulations of the law.

It might be said that the first big clandestine action of the CIA was to make the American government and people believe that it had been created for purposes for which there had never been any intention of creating it in the first place. How did this happen? By 1948, President Truman wanted to know how the fledgling agency was progressing. He established a three-man committee to study the CIA and report back to him, making recommendations. For reasons that are obscure, Truman appointed former OSS man Allen Welsh Dulles to that committee. The top intelligence expert in the country, William H. Jackson, and a third man, Mathias Correa, were also named. The Jackson-Dulles-Correa committee set out to review intelligence and to write their report. Allen Dulles was the best writer of the trio so he assumed most of the writing burden. What Truman may not have know when he appointed Allen Dulles to this crucial job was that Dulles was the principal speechwriter for Truman's rival for the presidency in 1948 - Thomas E. Dewey. Like most political observers, Dulles was certain that Dewey would beat Truman in the election and that he, Dulles, would step from his committee job to become director of Central Intelligence. Needless to say, he worked hard on the committee report and did not waste much time reading the past record of the CIA. Instead, he wrote a brief for the new CIA of the clandestine services.

Harry Truman, as we know, upset Dewey and his cohorts. As the ballots were being counted, Dulles-Jackson-Correa could do little more than finish their report and submit it to the victorious Truman. This report was very critical of the CIA and its military-oriented leadership. Dated January 1, 1949, the report was handed to the President twenty days before his inaugural. But Truman had little time for the report and he gave it to the very men Dulles had criticized; from there it went into the files.

The Dulles-Jackson-Correa report made the case for the CIA as a fully operation intelligence agency. Truman, on the other hand, felt that the CIA should be no more than the informational arm of the presidency. He believed the CIA, at his request, should provide the information he wanted. In other words, the traditional view of the utilization of intelligence which sees it as a staff service.

The opposing view is that the intelligence agency should put out its feelers, agents, spies, technical gadgets to gather information, prepare reports, and present them to the President. Intelligence works this way most of the time, but the method is fraught with danger. It takes a very strong system to control such an organization. It is only logical that such an organization would eventually want to "operate" itself through its agents and operative in the field. The Dulles report supported the idea that the CIA should broadcast its agents to all fronts, collect vital information and establish hot contacts, and authorize operational activity. Let us see how this works.

An agent learns that a small cell in a certain country believes it must overthrow the ruler and that it has the strength to do so. However, they do not want to run afoul of the United States if they do so, or more importantly, they do not want to run the risk of having Soviet agents on their backs. They then make a contact with a "State Department" man, or a "military" man to see if they can win approval. Immediately, this agent, operating under the cover of "State" or the military, reports directly to the CIA. Without delay he is told to go ahead. He is equipped with what he needs, including arms, ammunition, aircraft - whatever it takes. This was the method of operation propounded by Dulles's report. If approved, it would make the CIA the strongest arm of the government of the United States on the international scene.

The Dulles report was vehemently opposed by a number of top leaders who understood what it would lead to. But then came the Korean War. As has happened so many times before and since, the CIA missed the prediction of this war, failing to provide the President with a warning about the immediate possibility of armed conflict. In his direct manner, Truman acted. He removed the incumbent director of Central Intelligence and prevailed upon an old and trusted friend, General Dwight Eisenhower's former wartime chief of staff in Europe and the recently returned ambassador from Moscow, General Walter B. Smith, to take over.

Smith began to clean house. The first call he made was to an old friend, William H. Jackson. He asked Jackson to serve as his deputy director. Jackson, in turn, called Allen Dulles to Washington from his position in the corporate law firm of Sullivan, Cromwell in New York, placing him in charge of clandestine operations. This put the wolf right in the chicken house. Jackson then dusted off the Dulles report and briefed General Smith. Smith gave Jackson and Dulles the green light and they began the reorganization of the CIA. Slowly but surely, the clandestine services became the operational "side of the house" and intelligence - the other "side of the house" - became little more than a keeper of the cover story. Someone, the deputy director, in fact, had to act as though the agency was working on intelligence.

As all of this was underway, Truman's term ended. Eisenhower accepted the Republican nomination and was elected President. John Foster Dulles was selected to be his Secretary of State and Eisenhower prevailed upon old friend Smith to move over to the State Department, becoming Foster Dulles's deputy. At the same time, William H. Jackson concluded that he wanted to return to his old law practice; he tendered his resignation as deputy director of Central Intelligence to President Eisenhower. The two positions above Allen Dulles were therefore unoccupied. Eisenhower and Foster Dulles discussed this and decided on the obvious choice for CIA director. The Allen Dulles era began.

It is unfortunate that Congress and the American people have never been able to lay their hands on the Dulles-Jackson-Correa report. Few documents in history have been seen by so few and influenced so many. It prepared the ascendancy of the CIA as the single most powerful, feared organization in our government and significantly contributed to holocausts like the war in Indochina. From the "fun and games" days of the OSS and World War II some of the boys whipped themselves into shape for the CIA in the guerrilla skirmishes of Greece in the late 1940's. They created an infrastructure of special forces in the air force and army in the late 1940's as well, and exercised this force during the Korean War. Then from Korea, the CIA moved its appreciable forces from one nightmare to another. They rustled up trouble in Indonesia, in Laos, and Cuba. After their disastrous mission in Cuba, the CIA moved much of its assets to Indochina. Allen Dulles, of course, had first moved his clandestine forces, under the guise of the Saigon Military Mission, into Vietnam early in 1954; by the time his larger forces were moved in from the Laotian and Cuban debacles the ground work had already been prepared for future events.

Books will be written about all of these events. Many have been written to date. This is no place to duplicate them. But it is worthwhile to explain the working principle behind the CIA.

In the late forties Professor Ross Ashby wrote a small book entitled, "Design for a Brain". In his book, Ashby finds that it is entirely possible to create a huge "master brain" network from a mix of human beings. The resulting bureaucracy has the capability of receiving inputs of all kinds and responding by itself. The key element is that the "brain" can operate efficiently, without leadership. Punch it and it will respond; yet, because its elements are human, it will respond in superhuman fashion. In brief, there can be a vast "brain machine," composed of humans performing superhuman or nonhuman functions, without leadership.

Norbert Wiener in his book "The Human Use of Human Beings" elaborated on the Ashby machine. Wiener, a mathematician at M.I.T. and leading expert in electronic data processing, knew about Ashby and his idea. Wiener coined the word "cybernetics," arguing that vast computers could be constructed which would perform almost any task man could, except that which might generically be termed "bluff". Wiener pointed out that a vast bureaucracy designed like a computer, programmed properly could perform any function more efficiently and thoroughly than a computer. All it would take to make it work would be inputs from the bottom. It would not require leadership. When Allen Dulles assumed command of the CIA, he created the equivalent, an Ashby "machine". The first measure he took was to abolish the function controlled by the position called the Deputy Director, Administration. Dulles sensed that if he turned his agents loose, the last thing he wanted was to keep records. Consider the problems the recent House and Senate probes have been having searching for agency records. They will never find the records because there never were records in the first place. The CIA is embarrassed now to admit it has no records; it has prevailed upon the White house to cover for it by saying that Congress does not have the authority to ask for them.

With all administration banished, except for that retained in each subordinate station, it became possible for each station chief and agent to free-wheel. Every time they came up with anything, all they had to do was call in to Washington to receive support before proceeding on a secret mission. Clandestine operations became so easy and were so invisible that on many occasions it was unclear they were underway until a situation reached the point of general conflagration. With limitless funds and iron-clad secrecy the CIA operated everywhere. It used to ask for permission; it used to brief top echelons until it discovered this was unnecessary etiquette.

The heart of the clandestine services today is a huge Ashby "machine," a vast bureaucratic machine made up of thousands of able operatives with an extraordinary amount of money and power. It will never let up on its own. The clandestine services will continue to exist unless Congress shuts off the flow of funds. If Congress neglects to take this step, democracy will flow down the drain.

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Holy War: Evangelical Marines Prepare to Battle Barbarians

NEAR FALLUJAH - With US forces massing outside Fallujah, 35 marines swayed to Christian rock music and asked Jesus Christ to protect them in what could be the biggest battle since American troops invaded Iraq last year.

Men with buzzcuts and clad in their camouflage waved their hands in the air, M-16 assault rifles beside them, and chanted heavy metal-flavoured lyrics in praise of Christ late on Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.

They counted among thousands of troops surrounding the city of Fallujah, seeking solace as they awaited Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's decision on whether or not to invade Fallujah.

"You are the sovereign. You're name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb," a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.

The US military, with many soldiers coming from the conservative American south and midwest, has deep Christian roots.

Comforting

In times that fighting looms, many soldiers draw on their evangelical or born-again heritage to help them face the battle.

"It's always comforting. Church attendance is always up before the big push," said first sergeant Miles Thatford.

"Sometimes, all you've got is God."

Between the service's electric guitar religious tunes, marines stepped up on the chapel's small stage and recited a verse of scripture, meant to fortify them for war.

One spoke of their Old Testament hero, a shepherd who would become Israel's king, battling the Philistines 3 000 years ago.

"Thus David prevailed over the Philistines," the marine said, reading from scripture, and the marines shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using their signature grunt of approval.

The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.

"Victory belongs to the Lord," another young marine read.

Their chaplain, named Horne, told the worshippers they were stationed outside Fallujah to bring the Iraqis "freedom from oppression, rape, torture and murder ... We ask you God to bless us in that effort."

Holy oil

The marines then lined up and their chaplain blessed them with holy oil to protect them.

"God's people would be anointed with oil," the chaplain said, as he lightly dabbed oil on the marines' foreheads.

The crowd then followed him outside their small auditorium for a baptism of about a half-dozen marines who had just found Christ.

The young men lined up and at least three of them stripped down to their shorts.

The three laid down in a rubber dinghy filled with water and the chaplain's assistant, navy corpsman Richard Vaughn, plunged their heads beneath the surface.

Smiling, Vaughn baptised them "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Dripping wet, corporal Keith Arguelles beamed after his baptism.

"I just wanted to make sure I did this before I headed into the fight," he said on the military base not far from the city of Fallujah.

© Copyright 2004 AFP

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CIA'S POWER GRAB IN THE MIDDLE EAST
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"....Around the world there is a fine web of clandestine corporate structure. Some of these companies are coming in from the cold, like the spies they serve, and they are being acquired by major legitimate corporations, like E-Systems, Boeing, Continental Airlines, Lockheed, Textron and many others...".

The last great vision of the seer Nostradamus was that a "great bird would rise out of Persia and destroy the world". We are now able to see the monster growing, nurtured by controls that this country, our government, and our industry have over the countries of the Middle East. As we see more of the mechanism we begin to understand better the real significance of the energy-petroleum crisis that, to use Henry Kissinger's famous words, is bringing about the strangulation of the industrial world. We are all subject to this strangulation brought about not by an energy shortage, or even by a petroleum shortage, but by greed, ignorance and avarice - not of Arabs; but of Americans.

In the Washington Post of February 9th, it was reported that the Vinnell Corporation of Los Angeles has a $77-million contract with the United States Department of Defense, for the purpose of "training Saudi Arabian troops". Vinnell has recruited several hundred former United States Special Forces soldiers of noncom and officer caliber to provide this training in Arabia. The Washington Post reported that the company said this was "the first [such contract] ever given to a private American company to train a foreign army". The Post also reports that these "troops are primarily responsible for guarding the country's oil fields and the petroleum export facilities. They also provide the key bodyguard units for the Saudi Arabian royal family". And there it is! These elite troops of the Saudi Arabian National Guard are being trained by American civilian mercenaries to keep King Faisal and his family alive. Those who control the guns of the Palace Guard control the king.

Far from being the first such contract, American civilian contract mercenaries have, for example, trained the body-guards of King Hussein of Jordan for years. The difference is that the men who have been doing this in Jordan work for the Central Intelligence Agency and they operate under the "cover" of a military assistance program. The CIA requires that these elite guards get paratrooper training in the United States Air Force C-130 aircraft and that they get combat and riot control training from the United States Army. On many occasions, the frequently endangered King Hussein has been saved because his guard possesses superior armaments, they are better trained than his army or police, and can call upon weaponry and special communications not available to the less-favored of his forces. The price Hussein pays for this protection is an almost total dependence upon the United States via the CIA.

This same heavy handed paternalism is evident in Iran. There, the Shah is a creature of the same process. Although he claims descent from Cyrus the Great, the Shah is the son of an illiterate Persian Army Colonel who overthrew the Qajar dynasty in 1921. In 1953, the CIA supported a palace coup against the aging Premier Mossadeq and hurriedly returned the young Shah to Teheran and placed him on the throne. Since then the CIA has done everything possible to protect him and keep him there and to strengthen his grip on the Iranian throne. When the Shah wanted a national airline to rival those of other countries, the CIA called upon its own airline, Air America, to provide pilots, mechanics, management, and training programs. Air America has kept Air Iran in operation and has operated in the Middle East as a major charter service, especially for such important activities as flying thousands of devout Moslems to Mecca and Medina.

Because Iran borders the Soviet Union, it has been loaded down with sophisticated radar and other electronic spying gear. Iranians do not know how to operate such things, so the United States military assistance program and thousands of American contract civilians have been manning and training selected Iranians for a generation. The method of selection is very "enlightened". On the staff of the American Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) there will be one or two key individuals who speak the language and know the country well. These are CIA agents assigned to Teheran under military cover and not true United States Army personnel.

The MAAG personnel defer to these "experts" and let them select the Iranians who will go to such schools as the United States Air Force Electronics school at Keesler Field in Biloxi, Mississippi. These agents select Iranian youths from important families, regardless of whether they know anything about radar, and send them to the United States for a long paid vacation and orientation. Under the cover of MAAG trainees, these Iranians - with their CIA interpreters and guides - find that military aircraft are put at their disposal almost every weekend and they visit factories, Washington, and such other educational facilities as are to be found in Las Vegas. When these men are ready to return to Iran they are given an opportunity to purchase new cars at low diplomatic rates and are given an elaborate send-off.

This has been going on for a generation and these key Iranians from influential families are all part of the CIA's apparatus of key personnel in Iran and they are constantly reminded of the importance of their benevolent CIA contacts. Thus the CIA has a very strong network throughout the country and a strong cadre in Teheran beginning with the Shah himself. He, too, has an elite guard trained by the United States military and his "Special Forces" are operated as a dreaded Secret Police. This is the reason why the appointment of former CIA Director Richard Helms to Iran will prove to have been the single most important appointment of Richard Nixon's years in office. Helms grew up in this apparatus since the formative days of the Greek rebellion in the late 1940's and he has known every one of the CIA's Iranian Station Chiefs for the past twenty years and is a longtime confidant of the Shah.

The United States military and the CIA, hand in hand with big business, come close to having absolute and effective control via the elite guard training system and others like it in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, and Morocco, and to a great degree, in Turkey and Greece - to name the key spots of influence in the Middle East.

Not to be outdone by the CIA and the military, the United States Department of Commerce is stepping up its activities in that area. The Secretary of Commerce, Fred Dent, is doing everything he and his department can to encourage businessmen to go to Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the countries in the area. Commerce-supported trade missions have already been there to update contacts and now the department is putting out bulletins as fast as possible in every trade trying to get American businessmen to go after the "$62-billion" that the Commerce Department says the Arabs have to spend for American goods.

Iran already has spent about $6 billion for arms purchases during the last two years. Saudi Arabia is coming right along with major weapons purchases of its own. Israel has received more than $2-billion since the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and even such small countries as Oman are buying sophisticated weapons.

It becomes even clearer that American military-industrial control over these Arab countries is growing rapidly. The Vinnell deal is just part of the action. As we reported in this magazine last September, the Logistics Support Corps, which is supposed to be a part of the Boeing Aircraft Corporation, has been advertising for qualified United States Air Force veterans who have had experience in the Boeing-built C-135 in-flight refueling tanker. The advertisement that has appeared in Air Force Magazine states that the applicants will receive high pay and overseas bonuses and that the contract is for duty in Iran for a period of three years.

Like the Vinnell apparatus, this is a unique deal. Now that Iran is equipped with first-line American fighter and fighter-bomber aircraft, all of them capable of delivering nuclear weapons, what targets does the Shah have in mind that warrant the existence of C-135 in-flight refueling aircraft in his air force? All of those supersonic fighters with in-flight refueling capability can strike any capital or other target in all of the Middle East, in most of Africa, in all of Europe (including Moscow), and as far east as the Shah may wish to go. Just what targets is this Logistics Support Corporation preparing the Shah's air force for? Or is the Shah just buying this top-flight air power for kicks?

Now that the CIA is being investigated closely by the White House and by both houses of Congress, we may find that these investigators are going to find that the stable is bare and that it is too late to lock the door. Once it was thought that only the CIA set up clandestine proprietary companies to perform what used to be undercover assignments destined to control foreign governments. Now industry sets up its own operations, or buys CIA companies.

Only a few years ago the CIA sold off Southern Airways, one of its largest undercover airlines, and we have learned from the Wall Street Journal that another huge defense contractor, E-Systems Inc., a spin-off from the giant LTV corporate structure, has announced the acquisition of Air Asia Company, a unit of Air America Inc. The Wall Street Journal, which should know better, goes on to say that Air America is "a privately held Washington, D.C. based concern". This is not so.

Air America is a Delaware corporation wholly owned by the Pacific Corporation, which is a commercial euphemism for the CIA. Back when I used to keep the book on such things, the Pacific Corporation or its parent corporation consisted of something in excess of one hundred corporate entities, all belonging to and operating for the CIA. At one time Air Asia had as many as 4,000 employees in two bases in the Far East. According to E-Systems, Air Asia is reported to produce sales of about $12 million a year. If this is true, it is down considerably since the halcyon days of the war in Vietnam. Air Asia is based in Taiwan and is an aircraft modification, maintenance, remanufacturing, and servicing concern serving United States and Taiwan military customers, private companies and commercial airlines. E-Systems produces electronic and aerospace systems.

The description of Air Asia is typical of the "cover" descriptions of so many other clandestine proprietary companies. Air Asia, for example, not only serves the Far East but it ranges to the whole of South Asia, is the major support organization for Laos and Vietnam, is the parent supporting company for Air Iran, Air Jordan, and Air Ethiopia, all of which are linked to the CIA.

There is practically no end to these interlocking corporate cover units. Now that they have boldly moved into the everyday business arena, there may be no way to tell which is government, which is military, and which is CIA.

One thing the Wall Street Journal neglected to report was the sale price of Air Asia. Since that company has always been wholly owned by the CIA, to whom did E-Systems pay the money due for that acquisition? Did the CIA receive that huge sum of money, and if so, did the CIA turn it over to the United States Treasury? Or has the CIA stashed it away in some account in Mexico, waiting for the day when another Charles Colson and another E. Howard Hunt may need some "laundered" funds?

Actually the answer is simpler than this. The CIA has so many money problems, it acquires so much revenue from its many fake proprietaries ("because a good spook outfit can't be permitted to go broke or even to appear to have no visible means of support"), that it has made arrangements to trade through a "street name" partnership called "Suydam and Co". This street name outfit buys and sells large blocks of stock for the CIA in what must certainly be a most interesting bit of fund management. "Suydam and Co". is a partnership registered with Manufacturers Hanover Bank in New York City. The partners are CIA operatives in Washington.

So around the world there is a fine web of clandestine corporate structure. Some of these companies are coming in from the cold, like the spies they serve, and they are being acquired by major legitimate corporations, like E-Systems, Boeing, Continental Airlines, Lockheed, Textron, and many others. What this will mean in terms of the control by our government of clandestine operations throughout the world is anybody's guess. Perhaps this is some sort of backlash revenge for the fact that they were all forced home from the lucrative Vietnam War.

As the CIA and the military-industrial complex apply these special talents to the Middle East, where money is so plentiful and where control over governments is so easy, we are going to see tremendous arms acquisitions and military buildup along with the growing expansion of sales of other American-made products. The rationalization is that "now that the Arabs have taken all of our money, the truly patriotic thing to do is to go over there and bring it back". But this isn’t exactly how it is all going to work.

The money which the Arabs have is yours and mine, and it has been stolen from us at every gas pump, in our heating and light bills, and everywhere else that we have been overcharged for that 16 cents-per-barrel-of-oil for which we are now paying $10.20. This heist of tens of billions of dollars in oil money creates, or is at least the basis for, our staggering rate of inflation. Our savings and our income are being bled from us along with the oil money. Meanwhile, the military-industrial complex is pushing the biggest military budget ever here and tacking on tens of billions more for the Middle East and South Asia. It's a good racket. It beats the former system called "Foreign Aid" or "Military Aid". This way they just take our money away from us at the gas pump and they don't even have to call it "Raising Taxes".

The joker in the deck is that all of this is being done "to contain the Communist threat". "We hate to see these costs go up, but can you think of any other way to stop the Russians from getting into those oil fields?" is the common line.

And the Russians sit over there on the other side of the Caucasian Mountains thinking about Nostradamus and tossing crumbs to this precocious bird. When the United States has been returned to the ranks of the undeveloped by its own greed and crazy pursuit of "anti-Communism", that big bird will rise out of Persia and we shall have to fight like never before for our very existence. The bird will be of our own creation and the Russians will just sit there and watch. Remember, Marx and Lenin said capitalism would kill itself.

gchq

REPORT ON THE "MONGOOSE" CYCLE...NOV 1961 - OCT 1962
by L. Fletcher Prouty
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GENERAL STATEMENT RE: THE "MONGOOSE" POTENTIAL

"WHO WILL RID ME OF THIS MAN?" KING HENRY II

By using "MONGOOSE" as an example as a framework of how things are done in the world of clandestine operations, we shall examine the pressures, the means, and the processes that produce such events as the assassination of a president by those who possess the incentives of a great goal, i.e., that of taking over the power structure of the United States of America. "They" cared not at all about killing a man: "They" were re-capturing the reins of the Presidency that they had lost in Nov. 1960. In other words, despite their strenuous opposition and the enormous pressures that had been building up from Nov. 1960 to mid-1963, JFK's skill in the exploitation of Government funds, his growing popularity and independence was changing the course of the ship of state. It had become clear to them by early 1963 that JFK would be re-elected easily in 1964. They could not accept the inevitable Kennedy Dynasty. That is what had to be stopped. "They" had no other choice than to "rid themselves" of JFK and permit the mantle of governmental power to fall on a more tractable LBJ.

At the same time, LBJ was made to be more pliable by the fact that those bullets in Dallas were still ringing in his ears. In a most unusual bit of planning the Vice President had been placed in the same procession with the President (a Secret Service violation) and only two cars behind, i.e., directly beneath some of the bullets that were fired into the Presidential vehicle. We may be sure that LBJ never forgot the sound of that warning.

The truth becomes evident - such things are not new. This is an ancient process. "MONGOOSE" was a simple project, based upon ancient intrigue, that stirred up these moldy thoughts in those who contemplated the awesomeness of its potential, to wit: During the "MONGOOSE" portion of the Senate Hearings of 1975on "Alleged Assassination Ploys Involving Foreign Leaders", Senator Mathias' thoughts went back to November 22, 1963, when he said:

"Let me draw an example from history. When Thomas Becket (Saint Thomas A. Becket, 1118-1170) was proving to be an annoyance, as Castro; the King said "'Who will rid me of this man?". "He didn't say to somebody, "go out and murder him". He said, "who will rid me of this man", and let it go at that." (As you will recall, Thomas A. Becket's threat was not against the king, it was against the way the King wanted to run the government.)With no explicit orders, and with no more authority than that, four of King Henry's knights, found and killed "this man", Saint Thomas A. Becket inside of his church. That simple statement...no more than a wish floating in air... proved to be all the orders they needed. Then, with that great historical event in mind, Senator Mathias went on to say:

"...that is typical of the kind of thing which might be said, which might be taken by the Director (CIA) or by anybody else as Presidential authorization to go forward you felt that some spark had been transmitted..."

To this Senator Helms added: "Yes, and if he had disappeared from the scene they would not have been unhappy."

There's the point! Once a power structure, a "MONGOOSE" or similar project exists, and the psychological atmosphere has been prepared, nothing more has to be said than that which ignites that "spark" of an assumed "authorization to go forward."

Note: In another of these reviews, I am going to discuss the subject "Camelot". During 1962-1964, there was an Army-funded project with the American University on the general subject of, I believe...if I remember accurately, counterinsurgency, and the way that type of warfare was being handled by the Kennedy clan. This positively "Anti-Kennedy" project was, in a derogatory manner, named "Camelot". More on that later.

While I have diversed a bit let me add another item. On p. 141 of the enclosed Senate Report on "Alleged Assassinations" there is a footnote with a list of those attending a "MONGOOSE" meeting in the office of Bobby Kennedy, Jan. 19, 1962. They were: Bobby Kennedy, Ed Lansdale, McManus (CIA-Dick Helms, Exec. Asst.), Gen. Wm. Craig, U. S. Army and the first Chief of the new JCS office, Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA), Don Wilson of USIA, Major James K. Patchell of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, (This is a strange bird. He shows up at that time as assigned to the Office of the General Council of the Army, that is Joe Califano, and that is where Alexander Haig worked when he was in my "CIA Support" network. Oddly, the Pentagon Telephone that lists Patchell in Califano's office does not list either Haig or Califano in that office. "Mistakes" are never made in the Pentagon telephone book except for a reason.), and Frank Hand of the CIA. This is the Frank Hand who was Lansdale's shadow for years. He was "of the CIA" all right; but his office had been in the Office of Special Operations with Lansdale -- for years. The note adds that "DDP Helms" may have been present.

Such notes as this are sometimes most important. Bobby Kennedy had convened an early and important "MONGOOSE" meeting with men he believed were "Military". All of these men were, like Lansdale, either totally CIA, or very close to CIA. I wrote an article about Frank Hand in which I named him as the most important agent the CIA ever had.

I think you will see, by the above, that even as close to the president as Bobby was, he was unable to assemble a group of experts that were actually what he thought them to be. This was bound to have ominous connotations, especially since it occurred as early as Jan. 1962.

There is another thing that this review of the covert operation or assassination structure tells us. There can be no covert action without the "Cover Story" or "Deception". "Covert action" and "Deception" must always go together. They are professionally inseparable. This is most important. The few, faceless, nameless, "mechanics" who actually do the job are never able to provide the cover story. In fact, they would never be told the cover story. To be explicit, the "mechanics" who shot JFK would never know Oswald, Ruby, or any of the other "patsies". They don't even know why they are doing what they are ordered to do, and do not know actually who ordered them to do it. All they know is that acted on the word of a "Go Between" whom they know and trust.

To be explicit...no Oswald, no Castro, no Roselli, no Krushchev could have committed that crime and then have been in a position to run this exceedingly effective 27-year long cover story also. Turn this fact around. The great power behind the JFK murder has been the power sufficient to maintain the cover story, i.e., "Oswald did it" and not the minimum, surgical strike required to kill him. The "hit" takes nothing but intent: the "cover story" takes infinite power. The power that only the new ruler can provide. Power sufficient to control absolutely the media structure of the world, not simply that of the USA.

This is why we are reviewing this business of the structural framework essential to assassination. In order for a "power center" to "rid itself of this man" it requires an organization, in being, such as "MONGOOSE", or the "MONGOOSE"-type residuals that continue to exist even to this day. That's why we can't stop "Aid to El Salvador" or some other covert activity, for example. This structure must exist for day-to-day exigencies. King Henry's wish is a living fact of life.

Keep in mind, it was President Lyndon Johnson who told his old friend, the reporter Leo Janos, ATLANTIC Monthly July 1973, "...that the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy. I never believed that Oswald acted alone...we had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean". In LBJ's mind "MONGOOSE" and Murder Inc. were synonymous. Consider what those words by LBJ really mean when we know that it was LBJ who forced the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, among others, to "serve" on the Warren Commission. Someone had given LBJ orders that neither he, nor his associates, could disregard. (Of the list of men given to LBJ for this duty was the name of General Lauris Norstad. Norstad, an Air Force General, had been Supreme Allied Commander-Europe and was an intimate associate of Prince Bernhart of Belgium, creator of the "Graduated Deterrence" nuclear strategy and founder (if I recall correctly) of the Bildeberger Society. Norstad was the only one on that list who was able to extricate himself from that odious duty.)

We need to think about the impact of the chronology of our story at this point. These Senate Hearings which I cite were being held during the summer of 1975. They were ostensibly concerned with "Alleged assassinations" in general. But...the atmosphere on Capitol Hill during that summer of 1975 was rife with a rising public demand to re-investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. This burden weighed heavily on the minds of the Senators who were investigating the CIA's assassination technology and assets. We should recall that when JFK signed NSAM #55, he also had NSAM #56 issued. This directive ordered an "inventory" of counterinsurgency assets. Whereas, NSAM #55 was assigned to me; NSAM #56 had been assigned to General Lansdale. Lansdale knew more about these "assets" than anyone else with the possible exception of Dick Helms.

This must not be over-looked. Congressman Downing of VA was demanding that the House of Representatives create a committee to get back into JFK data. His son, a college student in VA, had heard a lecture on the inconsistencies of the Warren Commission Report. His son had discussed this with his father who stated that, as an experienced WW II veteran, he never did believe the story of the single sharpshooter killing the President from a sixth story window. Downing was adamantly opposed to the findings of the Warren Commission... as were other members of Congress.

Furthermore, Congr. Henry Gonzales of TX had joined Downing in this demand. Gonzales is an important figure in this business (Later you ought to interview him by yourself, or with me.) Henry was in the Presidential procession at Dealey Plaza when JFK was killed. He got to the Parkland Hospital before the President's car. He was in the room with few others while they worked to save the President's life. He had a camera. He used that camera. He knows a lot. He wanted to Chair the House Committee but he was outmaneuvered in a very hard-hitting bit of infighting led by the "Cover-up" team. Neither Downing nor Gonzales were permitted to serve on the committee they fought to have created.

During 1975 Downing and Gonzales, among many others of us (My big article "The Guns of Dallas" was written then and appeared in GALLERY, Oct. 1975-about 650,000 circulation then), had stirred up considerable interest and feeling about the JFK murder. I bring this up here so that we can evaluate properly the atmosphere of that summer of 1975 when this significant discussion of "Alleged assassinations" took place. It was not simply a Senate affair.

At this point a major factor arises. The apparatus, a "MONGOOSE" project or other, may have a stated target, and may be primed for that target; but in such an atmosphere it has the unique characteristic of being capable of use to direct its thrust in any direction, i.e., it can be exploited to hit the President, while appearing to target Castro. In fact it makes an ideal cover arrangement for just such a purpose. Think of the by-play of Jack Ruby running guns to Cuba, and all the "fun and games" Jim Garrisson has uncovered in New Orleans at that time. Even in the original "Bay of Pigs" days the CIA, and my office, had put quite a bit of activity in the Lake Ponchartrain area near New Orleans. For some reason, that was done again during "MONGOOSE" All it takes is the atmosphere and the "spark," and everything else just seems to happen.

It takes a certain atmosphere in which such a "spark" can be ignited, perhaps among those business moguls gamboling under the canopy of Bohemian Grove or sipping martinis in the "Member's Lounge" of the Metropolitan Club in the shadows of the White House. All it takes is the existing structure, a "bag-man" of master intrigue...perhaps a Lansdale...who weaves those invisible strings between the parties involved and the experienced "mechanics" who are always prepared to do the job. They are simply professionals who believe the act to be just as essential as did those four Knights of history when they stole into the great Cathedral and "rid" the King of Thomas A. Becket.

In the end, when St. Thomas had disappeared from the scene, those knights knew that their King "...would not have been unhappy". This ancient ritual is timeless, faceless and blameless...just as the Warren Commission has so indelibly confirmed. These thoughts and ominous phrases from a dark page of history were in the minds of those Senators as they studied alleged Castro assassination schemes, during that summer of 1975 and while they carried the burden of President John F. Kennedy's death in their minds. That was 1975. The burden is no lighter today...1990. The murder remains unsolved, and this nation is in the hands of that same cabal that willed those guns to do the job in 1963.

Note: "MONGOOSE" was a little known, almost impotent project at the time it was active, 1961-1962. During that post-Bay of Pigs and post-NSAM #55 period the whole business of clandestine activity was in serious disarray. With respect to its stated objective to eliminate Castro it accomplished almost nothing at all. It was no more than an organizational framework supported by a minimum staff...about 400 in all. Public awareness of "MONGOOSE" is now, for the most part, limited by the "Cover Story" and several items of obfuscation. In actuality, the "33 Tasks" proposed by Lansdale to the SGA, Jan 1962, were almost identical with the original "Tasks" proposed for the Bay of Pigs enterprise during mid-1960 before it was ever thought of as an "Invasion." In other words, Lansdale's proposals were no more than casual window dressing. As you will note, the SGA did not approve them anyhow. I'll demonstrate that below.

The Archives still tell us that this project has not yet been down-graded. Be that as it may: I knew the project, I knew many people in it, and I have considerable file data of my own. I'm sending you some. I hope to be able to put together enough from that which is available, and that which I know, to provide you with valuable and significant coverage with an insider's overview.

There is an important procedural factor to be understood. "MONGOOSE" and projects like it are "Infrastructures" and not so much simple "Projects" with discrete objectives. In such highly secret activities it is most important to have this structure, like a canopy, that is more or less known to the public, e.g., to eliminate Castro. This focuses a bit of attention in one direction, i.e., upon the presumed objective, and permits the system to be used for other far more important objectives or targets of opportunity. This is how "MONGOOSE" was used.

For example: The "Cuban Exile Training" work in Panama and Guatemala in 1960-1961 - as the prelude to the Bay of Pigs operation - included a force of B-26 bombers. Quite secretly, these bombers were used one day with American pilots to put down a major coup d'etat effort in Guatemala during this "training" period. This was not an "anti-Castro" objective. It was a peripheral mission, i.e., that government of Guatemala was important to us. Very few people have ever heard of this collateral mission of the "Bay of Pigs" forces. The "MONGOOSE" structure was always available for use that way too. End Note.

In its time, late 1961 and 1962, "MONGOOSE" was the latest of a type of covert activity that dated back to the period when the CIA was just beginning. (I am enclosing a two-page article I wrote on this subject some years ago, "THE FOURTH FORCE"...just for background.)

After President Truman had disbanded the OSS immediately following WW II, (September 20, 1945), the business of clandestine operations was held together by a makeshift organization, Office of policy Coordination (OPC), under Allen Dulles' key protege of OSS days, Frank Wisner. At the same time the U. S. Armed Forces were attempting to incorporate the new Atomic Bomb weapon system into the War Plan. Both were classic endeavors. OPC was the framework for covert operations of that era even before the CIA had been created by law.

Beginning with the premise that the methodology of warfare of WW II represented the epitome of military strategy and tactics with conventional weaponry, military planners all over the world were working feverishly to move "The Art of War" from the strategy of conventional weapons to a totally new form in which nuclear weapons would become dominant. It was as though all of the wars from those fought with clubs and stones to WW II with its tanks, artillery, aircraft carriers and strategic bombers ranged on a scale of one to one thousand and all of a sudden these new weapons extended that scale almost to infinity.

This was essential work. The War Plan is the principle document that is used by the military departments to establish their force structure and for the preparation of the military budget based upon that structure. At the same time the Army and Navy were undergoing a transformation that took effect in late 1947. The National Security Council (NSC), was established then along with a Department of Defense (DOD). Within the DOD there was to be a Joint Chiefs of Staff organization and three services: Army, Navy and Air Force. The Air Force was newly independent. The Act also provided for the creation of the CIA to "Coordinate Intelligence" under the direction of the NSC.

Within this structure the process of War Planning began to encompass a completely novel strategy of warfare in the Nuclear Age. It was accepted, early on, that after a nuclear exchange an enemy, e.g., the USSR, would be a shambles and disorganized. Its governmental, financial, transport and communications structure would have been demolished. As a result a new concept of the role of military force came into being, i.e., there would have to be some sort of Fourth Force, distinct from the Army, Navy and Air Force that would be ready to move into the USSR immediately following this nuclear exchange.

This force would have prepared itself during Peacetime with an "on-site" indigenous agent network in each potentially hostile country; and would have trained itself and equipped itself to provide a Command structure as the nucleus around which a new government in that devastated land, Russian or otherwise, would be formed.

Both the Army and Navy had had experience during WW II with this function of "Civil Affairs and Military Government". This experience was to be used to provide the conceptual base upon which the Fourth Force was to be structured. This requirement gave birth to the original concept of Army Special Forces. This "Post Strike" War Plan mission for a "Special Force" of the Army was a far cry from what the "Green Berets" became during the Vietnam years, but this is the way it all started.

In Headquarters, U. S. Armed Forces Europe, the CIA was invited to place men within the War Plans staff for the purpose of assisting with this infrastructure that the CIA would create during Peacetime. The CIA was delighted with this role and as my "Fourth Force" paper explains, they began the task of building a network of agents in Eastern Europe and, to the extent possible, within the USSR. This is where the Gehlen organization, and Frank Wisner's OPC organizational framework played important roles during these post-WW II years.

It became inevitable that this Fourth Force structure would demand the incorporation of the U. S. Army Special Forces personnel and equipment within the CIA organization who would serve under the Operational Control of the CIA. Before long the CIA not only had threaded together an important new peacetime role; but it had discovered a way to obtain the arms, equipment, communications and man-power to flesh it out, all at no cost to the Agency, i.e., War Plans personnel and equipment are supported directly by the Congress via the military budget. (Years later Gen. Secord and Lt. Col. North demonstrated how this works and how the process can be made into a profitable "enterprise.")

As a result of this significant chain of development, the CIA began to take part in frequent European War Games and other military exercises under NATO Command. (The role of the Air Resupply and Communications Wings, of the U. S. Air Force, belongs in here; but it will be omitted for this review. These were large organizations and were used in support of the CIA. The Special Forces example of the U. S. Army will serve.)

With these considerable assets the CIA began to reach out into other fields. At the same time the U. S. Army Special Forces organization began to enjoy its new role and became an active and most willing participant with the CIA. With the emergence of the Eisenhower/Dulles era, NSC Directive 5412 was issued to define clandestine operations and to recognize the role of the Department of Defense, among other departments and agencies of the Government, in the covert arena.

This was a major development in an important year. The CIA and, to a lesser degree, the U.S. military had been involved in combat support activities in Southeast Asia since the end of WW II; but it was not organized. Early in 1954, Allen Dulles obtained permission to place a "Saigon Military Mission" in Vietnam. This might be said to have been an early "MONGOOSE".It was the kind of unit that permitted the CIA to do almost anything it wanted in Southeast Asia under the cover of a reasonably legitimate "Military" organization.

During 1955, Hq. U. S. Air Force planned to establish its own infrastructure to carry out the provisions of NSC 5412. I was directed to create that office, i.e., "Team B" of the Directorate of Plans, and the global network,in being prepared and equipped to provide this support of the clandestine activities of the CIA. I completed that staff work in early 1956 and was sent around the world by Allen Dulles to meet his Chiefs of Station in about 40 countries. Army and Navy initiated similar projects with a rather loose arrangement between our offices and the Office of Special Operations within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Prior to 1954, the CIA had a strong and most active team working in the Philippines with the objective of over-throwing the administration of President Querino. This team operated under the command of Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale with men from U.S. Army and Air Force Special Forces units. It was augmented by selected Pilipinos, both military and civilian, who had active underground experience during WW II.

The top Pilipino Special Forces leader was Col. Valeriano, and their front man was Ramon Magsaysay. Lansdale had a "blank" check book, provided by Allen Dulles, that made it possible for him to underwrite the overthrow of the Querino Government. Furthermore, this Lansdale project was specifically exempted from any relationship with the CIA organizational structure except at the level of Alien Dulles' office. The CIA Station Chief in Manila, George Aurell, did not even know what Lansdale was doing. This should be kept in mind when studying the parallels between this early "Magsaysay" project and the "Dealey Plaza" mechanism. The success of that gambit led CIA to attempt to duplicate it in Vietnam. Lansdale's Manila team was transferred to Saigon along with the experienced Filipinos.(At that time I was the Commander of an Air Force Military Air Transport Squadron that served southeast Asia. I just happened to have been the pilot of the Air Force transport plane that flew Lansdale and his people from Manila to Saigon, and met them many times later on similar flights. I got to know some of them quite well.)

Their job was to support the "Diem" Presidency, and to try to make a nation out of that disorganized bit of real estate later to be known as South Vietnam. Their operations were relatively massive and from 1954 to 1965 they were in control of almost all underground activity in Vietnam.

There is little on the historical record about what they did; but some of the things they caused to happen were stupendous. The Saigon Military Mission got the U. S. Navy to transport some 660,000 northern Vietnamese natives from the Tonkin region to the Saigon area. For a people who had lived on ancestral land holdings for centuries this was an unbelievable dislocation. Lansdale's men were able to get this done by a clever PsyWar intimidation program based upon their Catholicism. In addition, about 300,000 more natives were flown by CIA's "CAT" airline to the south, again under Saigon's Military Mission (SMM) auspices. Some years later, John Foster Dulles reported that more than one million natives had been transported from the north to the south. They were penny- less, property-less and strangers. To over-simplify, they became the reason for the inevitable banditry, i.e., "insurgency," in the south. They fought for a home, for food, for water...to live. This is banditry for basic survival. The "Camelot" era called it "Counterinsurgency."

Looked at from the particular point of view of the CIA, this massive movement of more than one million strangers into the southern part of a brand new "Nation" was a true success. This is how it was done, and this was the true nature of the Lansdale- designed infrastructure under the SMM aegis...all with CIA leadership augmented by the encouragement and support of the U. S. military.

After its experience in the Philippines and Vietnam, in 1958, the CIA mounted a major rebellion in Indonesia in which a special force of U. S. military personnel played a major role. (Lee H. Oswald was one of the U. S. Marines involved in support of this Indonesian rebellion. He traveled from Atsugi to the Philippines. We do not know whether his Marine unit took part in any of the action on Indonesia.) This was the largest military- type operation carried out by the CIA since its creation in 1947. The CIA supported an Indonesian force of great size. A single air-drop of arms, in 1958, consisted of 42,000 U. S. rifles plus other equipment. Old WW II Pacific island air bases were re-opened by the CIA, and the U. S. Air Force rehabilitated and modified a number of WW II fighter and bomber aircraft for this "mercenary" air force. It was one of the few times that U.S. Navy equipment, including submarines for over-the-beach and support work, was involved in covert operations. This rebellion failed and its CIA leader, Frank Wisner, was fired summarily by vice President, Richard Nixon.

With the failure of the Indonesian rebellion, the CIA withdrew all of its aircraft and other military equipment from the Philippines. I had set up an air base for them in the middle of the big Eglin Air Force Base complex in Florida. They pulled in aircraft and crews, except for the world-wide "Air America" system, to this base at Eglin. Some of the Indonesian aircraft were used in Vietnam, and some were used for the big program in Tibet in 1959-1960. By that time the CIA had become an enormous military force. All the time building this capability of men and equipment under various project names. Finally they got into the anti-Castro campaign in early 1960. That project had several code names, and the name "Bay of Pigs" actually is quite misleading. President Eisenhower who approved the original "Tasks" would never have approved an "invasion" by a mere 1,200 man Brigade.

We've done a lot on this "Anti-Castro" program and I will not repeat it. With the failure of the Bay of Pigs operations there were new calls for the elimination of Castro. This is what led to the creation of the SGA and its project "MONGOOSE" But even more important was the fact that men like General Maxwell Taylor, who had written the NSAM #55 document, and his important new friend Bobby Kennedy, believed that the SGA was going to develop into something like Taylor's original concept of the Strategic Resources Group (SRG) that was outlined in NSAM #57. As you will see, this did not happen. They were outmaneuvered by Lansdale and his associates in the CIA and its invisible network within the government...the Gold Key Club. Recall my note re P. 141, above.

I am enclosing a copy of the "Interim Report" of the Senate Hearings of November 1975. KO'd will find it interesting especially if you consider it as a dual-purpose document. I believe they were all thinking of the JFK Assassination as they pondered these other mysteries.

I believe these Senators, along with many others thought by that time that CIA's assassination "Murder Inc." may have had something to with Kennedy's death.

I am also enclosing a most valuable and important copy of an article that appeared in the Washington STAR, July 3, 1975, about one week earlier than the hearings. This article, derived basically from an interview with Lansdale, is most significant because the writer, Jeremiah O'Leary was a known CIA asset and collaborator and he had interviewed outstanding experts on assassinations... among other things. Together they were putting on the record some advanced views about assassinations before the Senate could put the record in concrete...if that was possible.

Let's look at this O'Leary/Lansdale masterpiece:

a) They all but say that Robert Kennedy directed Lansdale to arrange for the assassination of Castro. Note,p. 155 Senate Report, Lansdale says, "I am very certain Senator, that such a discussion (to assassinate Castro) never came up...neither with the Atty. General nor the President." This is a pretty direct reversal in the space of five days. (Five days later he said the opposite to the Senate Committee.) The significance is that the public will have read, and will remember the newspaper story; and few will ever have seen the Senate Report. Both knew that.

b) You will see also that Lansdale uses this interview to confuse the NSAM #55 issues. He is CIA and he says Bobby gave him the project; yet NSAM #55 directed such projects be given to the military. I am not sure that the Kennedys ever realized that Lansdale was always a CIA career man masquerading in Air Force blue.

c) Note this clever insert, "Lansdale...wanted to know if the United States had any such capabilities." That is, to dispose of Castro. In other words Lansdale is saying he wanted to know, in 1962, if the CIA really had assassins, or a Murder Inc. This is a powerful idea coming from Lansdale, in 1975.

Note: Here is something you will not have heard.

I have been to a small resort-like community in a beautiful part of another country where the "mechanics" live and are trained. These specialists live in pleasant homes with their families. They have several identities and all kinds of duplicate records. They can be Argentineans or Australians. Some are native Polish or Chinese. They have learned all the details of their "lives" from birth to the present and can repeat them and document them as required. Some are excellent aircraft pilots. Others have other trades. All are superior marksmen and all are trained in exotic weapons we have never heard of. They are truly high-tech professionals and to them a murder is a job not unlike that of the great toreador Cordobes, or Litri. The "kill" is their trade. They do it with style.

Think about that. Lansdale said he wanted to find out about the existence or availability of such an asset...as though he did not know in 1962. Of course he already knew that. I did. He must have known. Because he brings this up this way in 1975. I believe he is creating an elaborate cover story that says, "Gee this guy Lansdale didn't even know about "Murder Inc" in 1962.

d) In another place Lansdale said, "I was often in conversation with President Kennedy and his brother."

Yet on p. 155, Senate Report, he says, "And I am very certain Senator, that such a discussion never came up...neither with the Attorney General nor with the President." (7/8/75) (The quote does not quite match the question but it gives an idea of the subject.)

It would serve no purpose to go through every line of the STAR article; but there are some valuable things there. In one place O'Leary writes that there were "five attempts to kill Castro from 1960 through 1963."

On page 152, Dick Helms said,"...I do not recall ever having been convinced that any attempt was really made on Castro's life."

Dick Helms (a man I worked with on a frequent basis) is the guy who called me one day to set up a special flight with a special aircraft, L-28 Helio "Courier" to Cuba that night to deliver two assassins who were equipped to kill Castro. I cite this because it is personal knowledge and it reinforces my belief that the differences between the often quoted O'Leary article (especially in the Lansdale biography by Currey) and the Senate Report were carefully planned for the clear purpose of obfuscation.

In closing my comments about the STAR article of July 3,1975, I wish to point out a major discrepancy that plays havoc with the Kennedy "1,000 Days" chronology. This article makes it appear that Kennedy had "MONGOOSE" and the SGA established, i.e., "formed in August 1962, much later than the true date of Nov. 1961. This creates a blank period between the NSAM #55 action and the SGA of about one year.

Let's take a look at this important chronology

a) Jan. 1961...JFK Inaugural and Lansdale "Vietnam"briefing.

b) Apr. 1961...Bay of Pigs and "downfall" of CIA, including Lansdale.

c May 1961...Investigation (B/P) and Taylor "Letter."

d) June 1961...NSAM series. Followed by an enormous internal struggle by the CIA vs. Military and White House. White House inexperience created its own problems.

e) Nov. 1961...Creation of SGA and "MONGOOSE"

f) Oct. 1962...apparent end of "MONGOOSE"

g) Oct. 1963...NSAM 263, 1,000 home by Christmas, and all Americans out of Vietnam by end of 1965.

Now we'll review some of the important items of the Senate Report of Nov 1975:

a) P. 139..."0peration "MONGOOSE" resulted in important organizational changes. Although the Senate does not say much about this, they may be recognizing the fact that "MONGOOSE" was "supposed" to have been put into the hands of the Pentagon, i.e., Lansdale, Craig, Patchell, et al. in accordance with NSAM #55. This shows how little these Senators really knew about the system for the administration of covert operations.

b) P. 140...The make-up of the SGA ought to signal the troubles JFK was creating for himself: McGeorge Bundy, Alexis Johnson, Roswell Gilpatric, John McCone, Gen Lemnitzer, Bobby Kennedy and Max Taylor with McNamara and Rusk. A totally inexperienced group with strong inside CIA strength.

c) P. 140..."President Kennedy distrusted the CIA" and then, "President Kennedy gave General Edward Lansdale the task of coordinating the CIA's "MONGOOSE" operations...) JFK gave the cat the canary, to put it mildly. Later it says "JFK appointed General Taylor Chairman of the SGA...and Bobby played an active role in the "MONGOOSE" operation." Nice guys; but babes in the woods.

d) P. 143...At the SGA approved Lansdale's 33 tasks for planning purposes."

e) P. 144..."Lansdale's 33 plans were never approved for implementation by the SGA."

Note: The above are almost diametrically opposed. During this period I saw much of Lansdale in the Pentagon. He was frustrated and angry. He hated the treatment he was getting and this "nominal" Cuban task. End Note

f) P. 149..."Helms stated that this pressure intensified during the period of Operation "MONGOOSE" and continued through much of 1963." This was the pressure to over-throw Castro. Helms testimony is odd and interesting. He is obfuscating the record for some definite reason. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis was in late 1962. There was no pressure on Castro after that. What pressure was Helms signaling?

Note: There is something interesting here. During the Cuban Missile crisis, JFK ordered the Pentagon to build-up an enormous Air and Ground force in the area of Tampa (McDill Air Force Base), Florida and a huge naval force under Atlantic Fleet Headquarters in Norfolk. Tampa was also the Headquarters of a major joint combat force, U.S. STRIKE Command, under the most able and experienced, General Paul Adams. Had he chosen to use this force, JFK could have obliterated Cuba in short order. Few historians ever refer to that build-up and its great power. Rather they comment about the "Blockade" strategy.

I cite this because, if JFK had really wanted to rid himself of Castro as much as some people say he did, he could easily have done it then.

I was the person sent by General Lemnitzer to Tampa to speak directly with Gen. Adams and then go to Norfolk to speak to Admiral Wright. I was traveling between Tampa and Norfolk when I heard the President's speech as I transited the Atlanta terminal. I am the only one, or one of the few who knew what those two Major Force commanders were told that night. JFK could have had Castro on a platter. With that in mind, why have these witnesses and historians made so much of changing the facts of the case? End Note

g) P. 151..."Helms testified that he had never told Atty. General Robert Kennedy about any assassination activity."

h) P. 151...There's a small but interesting point here in the Note attributed to Helms... "I can't imagine any Cabinet officer wanting to sign off on something like that." This is precisely my own view about those so-called "Naval Intell." notes located by Ricky White. No true ONI authority would ever "sign off" on something like that. It's not the way things are done. Think of my own trip to Tampa and Norfolk. Why did Lemnitzer send me there in person to speak verbally to those men. Why didn't he just give me a note? These are important items about true processes.

i) p. 155...It is significant to note that General Maxwell Taylor, then the Kennedy favorite, became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in November 1962, right after the Cuban Missile Crisis. I used to attend many JCS meetings in those days. Something interesting took place then. When Lemnitzer was Chairman all the

meetings among the other military "Chiefs" were open, jovial, cordial and productive. Under Taylor, the man who had quit as Army Chief of Staff under Eisenhower, the meetings were quiet, somber, no discussion, cold, and brief. Taylor may have been the Kennedy's favorite but he was not the old-line military favorite. This may have been a factor later in the Military/Industry Complex rise against JFK. To me it was certainly evident. Despite this personal feeling, General Taylor awarded me one of the first Joint Staff Commendation Medals ever given to anyone.

j) p.159...1 find the Gilpatric comment that appears in the Note #1, p.159 very strange, "When Gilpatric was first interviewed by the Committee staff on July 7, 1975, he did not recall the Operation "MONGOOSE" designation and what it referenced. Nor did he recall that General Lansdale was Chief of Operations for the project, even though Gilpatric had previous recommended Lansdale for promotion to Brigadier General...etc."

This is strange. After General Erskine had retired and his office OSO, where Lansdale and I both had worked had been disbanded, Lansdale had no definite job assignment in McNamara's office; yet he continued to be very active with McNamara's Deputy Secretary Roswell Gilpatric. Their relationship was very close.

During that same period, I was newly assigned to the Joint Staff, and quite frankly I did not know that Lansdale was actually assigned to "MONGOOSE". I knew my boss, Gen Craig was; but reference to Lansdale was always quite informal. There is still something strange about the "MONGOOSE" personnel structure. As I now look back through the years, It was strange that Lansdale sought me out one day in the pentagon and asked me if I would like to have a "fully paid vacation at the South Pole". First of all I did not expect Lansdale to have the slightest interest in the South Pole and even less than that, any interest in having me go. After all I was busy and I was working then for his chief antagonist Gen Krulak. I said I'd go.

Lansdale took care of all the details even to having the Antarctica people request my services from Krulak. I left for Hawaii, New Zealand, McMurdo Sound and the South Pole on about Nov. 10, 1963. I was at the Heritage in the NZ Alps on Nov. 23rd (NZ calendar) when I learned of JFK's death. I returned to Christchurch immediately and purchased a copy of the first extra published by the local newspaper. As soon as I read it (I still have that copy) I knew the murder was a set-up.

At that time of the first paper when news was fragmentary, the paper carried a long and detailed story about Oswald. At that time the police had not even charged him with the crime. The paper said JFK was killed by "Automatic Gunfire".

Years later, after Bud Fensterwald had selected me for no apparent reason to become a member of his CIA committee, we were having lunch together. He said...out of the blue... "Fletch did you ever wonder why you were selected to go to the South Pole?" Good question. At about the same time, I saw the "Tramps" series of pictures ingood glossy copy for the first time. I knew immediately that the man in the first "Tramps" picture was Ed Lansdale...a man I had known well since 1952. I knew him; but of course I did not know what he was doing there in Dallas in front of the Texas School Book Building that day.

Shortly after that day, I wrote to an old friend. A man who was a senior government official in 1963. In a guarded manner I asked him if he recognized the man in the picture. His return letter was most affirmative and added information I had not thought about. I have retained my letter and his signed letter.

There is much I could add here; but this ought to be enough for the present and for the purposes of this study.

gchq

New Chief Sets Off Turmoil Within the C.I.A.
By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: November 14, 2004

New York Times

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - Deep, unresolved tensions between new leaders and senior career officers at the Central Intelligence Agency threaten to set off a rebellion within the agency's clandestine service, according to current and former intelligence officials.

The tensions pit the new intelligence chief, Porter J. Goss, against the C.I.A.'s directorate of operations, the most powerful and secretive part of the agency. Winning allegiance from the career spies within the clandestine service is widely regarded as essential to the success of any intelligence chief.

For now, former intelligence officials say, many career C.I.A. officers do not know whether to regard Mr. Goss as someone dispatched by the White House to punish the agency for past failures, or to rebuild its capabilities to make it stronger.

The officials said discontent had reached a point not seen at the C.I.A. for more than 25 years, and they expressed concern that an atmosphere of ill will and apprehension could distract the agency from its work in the fight against terrorism.

The tensions have become particularly acute within the agency's directorate of operations, which is responsible for global covert operations, the officials said. Mr. Goss has described the directorate as dysfunctional, but after seven weeks on the job, he has not yet announced personnel changes or set a clear new course, the former intelligence officials said.

Among those at the center of the storm, the officials said, are Steven R. Kappes, who as deputy director of operations is the most senior official still in place from the team at the agency before George J. Tenet resigned as director, and Patrick Murray, a former House Republican aide who is Mr. Goss's new chief of staff.

John E. McLaughlin, the agency's No. 2 official, announced his retirement on Friday afternoon. Mr. McLaughlin had long been expected to step down, and he described his departure as a "purely personal decision." But a former intelligence officials said that Mr. McLaughlin had also warned Mr. Goss on Friday that the tensions had reached a dangerous point, and that Mr. Kappes was threatening to resign, in part because he regards Mr. Murray as undermining his authority.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Mr. Kappes had submitted a letter of resignation but had agreed to delay any decision until Monday. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment.

Current C.I.A. officials are prohibited from talking to reporters without explicit authorization. The former intelligence officials who agreed to discuss the matter in recent days and weeks would do so only on the condition of anonymity, saying that they did not want to inflame the situation further by speaking for the record. The former officials included both supporters and critics of Mr. Goss's work.

Among those who expressed sympathy with Mr. Goss, several described his task of bringing change to the operations directorate without provoking a rebellion as an enormous challenge. These officials said they believed that Mr. Goss had been thrown off course by an early misstep, when he named an aide, Michael J. Kostiw, as agency's No. 3 official. Mr. Kostiw quickly withdrew from consideration after former intelligence officials mentioned that he had resigned from the C.I.A. in the early 1980's after an administrative leave in connection with a shoplifting case.

"Goss really needs to go in there and clean house," one former official said. "But he can only do that if it's clear that the White House is behind him."

But Mr. Goss's critics among the former officials said that his failure to forge alliances among career officials and to enlist them in setting a new direction for the agency had been highly detrimental. "You can make changes and cast them in the right way, and people will salute and go along with you," one former C.I.A. official said. "It doesn't look like that is happening."

A second former C.I.A. official said: "There's no clear direction from Goss. Does he want people to go west, south, east or west? Nobody knows."

Cowboy · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 11:56 pm Post subject:

Yes, the Democratic leaning political veterans in the CIA are plying their trade with their manipulation of the story. The fact is that those ineffective government lifers are getting purged, so they are fighting back the only way available - by spinning their story to the liberal media in the US.

No big surprise.

Flush 'em away, W!

gchq

SECRET U.S. MILITARY OPERATIONS; PAST AND PRESENT
By Col. L. Fletcher Prouty
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the middle of 1943 the tide of war was beginning to turn in favor of the allies: Great Britain, China, the United States and the Soviet Union. The Axis powers were beginning to pull back on all fronts as the weight of the Allied might was felt around the world. The time was right for a grand strategy meeting of the chiefs of the Allied Powers. The problem was how to get them together, when and where.

It is not a simple thing to bring the Chiefs of State of such widely contrasting governments together. All of them were actively engaged in the prosecution of the day to day tasks of the war. It was decided that they would meet in Cairo. Stalin would have preferred to limit his trip to Teheran, just across the border in Iran, and there was the delicate problem of the combatant status of the various powers. For such reasons it was decided to hold the first sessions in Cairo with Churchill, Chiang Kai-Shek and Roosevelt in attendance; and the second series of talks in Teheran with Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. It was announced publicly that Chiang Kai-shek and his party would not attend these sessions in Teheran. This was not exactly the way it happened.

I was the Chief Pilot of the huge Air Transport Command base at John B. Payne air base, in the desert east of Cairo. Because of the danger of an air attack on Cairo while these world leaders were assembled there, the conference began in great secrecy and the entire area was guarded with anti-aircraft guns and a large contingent of fighter aircraft. All other aircraft were either grounded or prohibited from the area. I had at my disposal a twin-engine Lockheed Lodestar that had been fixed up for VIP flights. and this plane was designated to be one of the few that would be cleared to fly in and out of Cairo along specified corridors.

On November 27,1943 I had been told to ready the Lodestar for a flight to Teheran to fly a special party there for the second phase of that series of meetings. This decision to make this flight and to carry this particular group of passengers had been made during the first days in Cairo. We were to leave early that morning before any newsmen would be around, and as far as I have ever been able to discover the news of this flight and its purpose have never been made public

From the beginning of the Cairo Conference the US and British groups had wanted to sit down together to work on plans for the invasion of Europe, plans that they knew they would have to have ready for Joe Stalin during the subsequent meetings in Teheran. But, they were all at war with Japan. The USSR was not-at that time, and it was imperative that they meet with Chiang Kai Shek to discuss that part of the war. Chiang was invited, and he and his party were the first to show up in Cairo.

There was a delicate strategic matter that involved Chiang and his embattled forces that was peculiar to his share of the war.

China had been fighting the Japanese for years even before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7,1941. At the same time Chiang's army had his age-old foe Mao Tse-tung on his rear putting pressure there and ready to attack at any time. This kept Chiang from being able to concentrate his forces on the Japanese; yet he was being urged by his American and British allies to increase that pressure in order that the war in the Pacific could be extended to the China mainland...at least for the purpose of positioning a new bomber force there.

A new bomber, the biggest in the world at the time, the B-29, had been rushed into production and it was decided that it should be based, quite secretly, in China, in order that squadrons of them could commence the bombardment of the Japanese home islands. Chiang was being urged to seize the territory required for bases close enough to Japan to make such attacks feasible. Chiang had to make the facts of his politico-military situation clear to Roosevelt and Churchill. Then he had to rely on their personal assistance to set up a most secret and confidential meeting with Marshall Stalin. They listened to him, understood his situation and the rare complexity of his case and agreed to assist. That much was settled in Cairo.

When I arrived at my plane that morning of Nov. 27th, I had been told that I was going to Teheran where I had flown many times before and that I would have more VIP passengers. I got to the plane early and was greeted, again, by an upset crew chief. He pointed into the cabin area and there I saw three or four large cardboard cartons stacked up against that nice comfortable bed. The Chief wanted to have some one throw them off. The Conference Protocol Officer would not permit that. He said that those boxes were there on the express order of President Roosevelt. So they remained right where they were.

A big black sedan arrived and five Chinese officials got out and the Major from Protocol escorted them into our plane. I fired up the engines and we were on the way over the Suez, across Palestine and the Dead Sea and along the pipe line route that cuts across the desert to Iraq and the military landing field at Habbaniya.

As we were flying along I looked back to see how our Chinese gentlemen, all of whom spoke English, were doing. It was then that I found out why we had those big boxes in the plane. They had ripped one of them open and every one was sitting there with a big box of Corn Flakes under his arm, pop corn style, enjoying dry breakfast cereal...courtesy of their thoughtful friend Franklin D. Roosevelt who happened to know how much the Chinese liked that old staple of the American diet.

We had no sooner landed at Habbaniya than in came another plane with an old friend, Leon Gray, at the controls and Elliot Roosevelt, the President's son in the co-pilot seat. Elliot was a Lt. Col. stationed in North Africa with a Reconnaissance unit at the time

We both took off, crossed the Tigris River near Baghdad and then climbed over the high mountains to Teheran. As we and our Chinese group were being driven into the city we caught up with the British delegation ahead. They had been stopped at a roadblock by Russian guards. Even though Churchill had his ever-present cigar in his mouth, had his one-piece jump suit on and his floppy hat he did not have an ordinary military ID. The Russian soldiers had been told to check ID's and that was that. The Chinese laughed but were quite impressed with the Soviet intransigence.

This is no place to go into details of the Teheran Conference except to say that the quiet, clandestine meeting with Stalin took place and he was persuaded to speak to his comrade Mao Tse-tung and it was not to many months before Chiang's armies had moved forward and the B-29s began operations directly against Japan from Chinese air fields. It might be said quite correctly that the day in Teheran when the Chinese had the opportunity to meet with Joe Stalin did as much as anything else to hasten the day of the Japanese surrender.

I have never read that any Chinese had attended the conference in Teheran. In fact most accounts of that meeting state specifically that the Chinese had remained in Cairo and then had gone back directly to Asia. This was a wartime secret operation at its best, and as we know from the results of the B29 operations it played an important part in the progress of the war.

I couldn't help think, as I saw these top leaders in their finest hours, what war really is and how it is planned and waged. Here were Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin...all fathers, and all had children in the war. Elliot was there with his father, Churchill's daughter Sarah was there in the British contingent. Stalin's son was with the Russian Air Force. Did these men, who were so evidently the leaders of their nations, actually have control of the war? Did it concern them that their own children were taking an active part in it? I must say that as a result of my being there at this series of Conferences that I came away with the feeling that they all had "Masters" who were not evident on the scene. Intimate friends of Churchill's sometimes speak of his casual references to the "High Cabal" in the sense that the Cabal was well above his own mean state. That is an interesting concept to think about for a while. The subject of the existence of an all-powerful, world-wide "High Cabal" has been the topic discussed in many circles where men have shared experiences in high places.

Later, during August 1945, I was on Okinawa when the Japanese surrendered. This time I was flying the Douglas DC-4, a four engine transport, and we were ready to fly into Japan as soon as initial arrangements had been worked out for the purpose of bringing in the Marine guards for the new Military Occupation Headquarters in Tokyo, and flying out as many US Prisoners of war as we could find.

We were delayed by a terrible typhoon that hit the area, and on September 2nd we took-off from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa bound for the Atsugi Air Base outside of Yokohama. We arrived on the only Japanese airfield that had not been bombed to bits and found it surrounded by tens of thousands of Japanese who had come to see the dreaded Americans arrive. It was an eerie feeling to climb out of our airplane, in the face of that mob that had been our enemy only a few days earlier. There were only two other aircraft there, where we amounted to about 150 Americans in that sea of Japanese. Their Emperor had said the war was over, and that was it for the Japanese. For them it was such an accepted fact that hundreds of men came over and helped the Marines unload our aircraft.

Back in the air I could not resist flying low over Tokyo. It had been so terribly burned out that we could see, miles away across the city, trolley cars running because there were no buildings standing to block them from view.

We flew to the south, hugging the coastline and staying no more than 1,000 feet high. We saw city after city blasted and burned. Then we came over a small coastal plain and saw the most unusual sight of the war. I had seen Russian cities bombed and destroyed by massed artillery. I had seen Naples in shambles. I had seen Manila after the downtown had been given the Mac Arthur treatment with heavy artillery. But nothing, not one of them compared with Hiroshima.

The remains of that city looked like the remains of a campfire that someone had extinguished with a fire hose. It looked as though everything that had once been a big city had been blown away like mere ashes. The direction of the blast was clearly discernible from our height of 1,000 feet. It did not take long to realize that the greatest leap forward in the entire evolution of warfare had taken place and that war as a total, unrestrained effort would never be the same again. It remained for the development of the enormous power of the Hydrogen Bomb to write the final chapter on war.

Warfare, true unrestrained, all-out warfare will never again be possible. True, there may be grisly mistakes. There may be accidents, and...there may be global suicide; but none of them are WARFARE in the true sense. Most importantly WAR can no longer be an instrument of Grand Strategy. In the ultimate sense war has now become an unmanageable instrument that can not be used to gain objectives and to achieve victory.

I made several more trips to and from Japan in the next several days. Each time we were able to bring out men who had been in the prison camps for years. Gradually the fact that WW II was over began to sink in. We were going to be able to go home and to get out of the Army. But a small forecast of things to come was evident in some of the activities taking place around us.

Okinawa, a relatively small island, had been packed, two and three stories high, with countless thousands of tons of brand new war materiel: guns, artillery, ammunition, Jeeps, tanks, ambulances, radios, food, and all of those things needed to wage war. This enormous stockpile had been created there in order to supply the forces that were to have been used to storm the beaches of Japan. More of this vast mountain of equipment was still on board American transport vessels at sea. Now all of this was "War Surplus". What do you do when You have been fighting major war for years and you have to keep war materiel pouring out of the factories and on the ships at sea and all of a sudden the war stops? First of all, nobody wants that stuff back. I noticed some strange activity on Okinawa.

Trucks were plowing through the battle-churned mud and all of those crates were moving back to the makeshift docks and to the transport ships. I asked a senior official what was going on. Where was all that equipment going? His response was startling. Half of it was going to Korea to be turned over to a man called Synghman Rhee. The other half was on its way to the OSS in Indochina to be turned over by a U.S. Army General there who, in turn, would hand it over--lock-stock-and-barrel--to a man named Ho Chi Minh and his military leader Col. Giap. The amount bound for each of these recipients was, in army terms, a "145,000 man pack" of arms. That was enough in terms of weapons, ammunition, food, etc. to sustain an army of that size for an extended campaign. As we look back over the years we realize now that someone had made that strategic decision to provide the materiel essential as the source of military power essential to permit the creation of new governments in those countries under the leadership of Synghman Rhee and Ho Chi Minh, and, as we look back across the intervening decades we see now that we ourselves became involved in military action in both of those countries in later years - much to our dismay - and in each case without victory.

This is the way things are done. They happen without public statement and out of sight of the press and other writers. They happen in fleeting scenes that are, for the most part, never interpreted for what they are, and yet--historically they are the substance of major events to come.

Who made these strategic decisions? For pieces such as these are all part of a true grand strategy. I have wondered who saw the wisdom of staging that complex Cairo and Teheran Conference facade to create an environment in which to make it possible for the Russians and Chinese to get together quite unobserved.

Who, knowing full well that the Japanese home islands had already been reduced to rubble, and that the Japanese could no longer put up any significant resistance against an allied invasion, had seen the necessity to put before the world the shocking reality of the Atomic Bomb?

And then, who, if anyone, had the wisdom to understand that classical, all-out warfare had ended in August 1945 and that one of its substitutes was going to have to be the maelstrom that we have witnessed in Korea and Indochina. From now on warfare would move into the realm of the clandestine world and would become the business of special, secret operations. These secret operations, many of them quite modest endeavors at the start, have become the stuff of major conflagrations. To the point the clandestine operators have found it necessary to give way to the regular military leaders who do then what they can to "normalize" the situation. So we have seen in both Korea and Indochina, this is impossible as they have become entangled in a "no-win", objectiveless, victory-less slaughter. Despite the irregularities of the situation, this is the Cold War and has become WW III--arranged as it may be when compared to more traditional international conflicts of major proportions.

It was Clauzewitz who described war as a "instrument" of broader Political...meaning ... Grand Strategy...values. If this is what war is all about, can the modern Nation-State do without war, or the threat of war? That is the paramount question of this post WW II century. Can a nation exist in a situation of continuing and certain peace?

During the Kennedy administration a Special Study Group was established for the purpose of studying that question. That Group was asked, "What are the real functions of war in modern societies?"

They soon realized that "War itself is the basic social system. It is the system which governs most human societies of record, as it is today." "Wars are not caused by international conflicts of interest...war-making societies requires and thus bring about--such conflicts. The capacity of a nation to make war expresses the greatest social power it can exercise; war-making, active or contemplated, is a matter of life and death on the greatest scale subject to social control. War-readiness is the dominant force in our societies."

This Special Study Group came up with truths that I shall enumerate in sequence:

a) "The existence of any form of weaponry insures its use".

b) "War is virtually synonymous with nationhood ".

c) "The elimination of war implies the inevitable elimination of national sovereignty and the traditional nation-state."

d) "War provides the sense of external necessity without which no government can long remain in power."

e) "The organization of a society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer."

f) "The basic authority of a modern state over its people resides in its war powers."

Despite the truth of all this, a recent issue of The New York Times quoted President Ronald Reagan, one of the greatest thespians the world has ever known, as saying:

"My mission, stated simply, is a mission for peace."

To better understand these things let's go back to the end of WW II and consider some of the things that have taken place that have not always been well understood.

Those experienced in the problems and issues of WW II realized that, although we had reasonably good intelligence within the various resources of the government, we did not have good coordinated intelligence and much of that which had been done was kept in private files by the agents concerned, or was used only by that department that had come up with it. The need, so they said, was for a central agency empowered, and competent to coordinate all intelligence for the government.

As the Congress debated the unification of the armed forces into a single Department of Defense and a Joint Chiefs of Staff organization, it also worked on the structure of a central intelligence agency. The old-time, traditional intelligence organizations of the Army and the Navy fought this new development and did not want to give up their powers and their assets to some new instrumentality of the government. After much argument and discussion the Congress came up with the National Security Act of 1947. When signed by President Truman it became law and the present Department of Defense, the National Security Council and the CIA were created by this act

In this Act. the "Powers and Duties" of the new CIA were carefully stated:

"For the purpose of coordinating the intelligence activities of the several Government departments and agencies in the interest of national security, it shall be the duty of the Agency, under the direction of the National Security Council".

l) to advise the National Security Council in matters concerning such intelligence activities of the Government departments and agencies as relate to national security;

2) to make recommendations to the National Security Council for the coordination of such intelligence activities of the departments and agencies of the Government as national security;

3) to correlate and evaluate intelligence relating to the national security, and provide for the appropriate dissemination of such intelligence within the Government using where appropriate existing agencies and facilities: provided, that the Agency shall have no police, subpoena, law-enforcement powers, or internal-security functions:

Provided further: That the departments and other agencies of the Government shall continue to collect, evaluate, correlate, and disseminate departmental intelligence: And provided further, that the Director of Central Intelligence shall be responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure;

4) to perform, for the benefit of the existing intelligence agencies, such additional services of common concern as the National Security Council determines can be more efficiently accomplished centrally;

5) to perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security and the National Security Council may from time to time direct.

(To save time and space here, the above will be discussed extemporaneously to show special meaning and special application of the above. This discussion will explain how the CIA has taken liberties with this Charter until now it has been stretched beyond all original bounds.)

This is where it all began. The CIA got underway and by the time of the Korean War it was ready to spread its wings. It began special operations, with the Air Force, by working with the Air Resupply and Communications Wings making some paradrops and leaflet missions.

With the European Command it had become a "Fourth Force" in the War Planning process. In brief, this meant that it was made responsible for "lines" into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union on the assumption that with the start of a Nuclear War there would be considerable devastation in those countries and that it would be essential for the United States to move in immediately and set up some alternative government.

With this in mind, the CIA made annual requests, in the War Planning process, for more and more military materiel on the claim that it would need to have such materiel on hand as soon as war started, and that its people would have to become familiar with the tactical use of such items of equipment during NATO military exercises.

This was a clever action. Soon the CIA had warehouses full of military equipment that it used sparingly and the urge to do more became strong.

In 1958, an agent made contact with an officer from the Military Attaches office of the Indonesian Government. During cocktail-hour pleasantries he got the idea this official was saying that many people in his country would like to see the present Government over-thrown. This ignited a spark of an idea.

This agent discussed the idea with his superior and was encouraged to become better acquainted with that Indonesian official and to draw out more on that subject. This led, in due course, to a visit to Indonesia by the CIA agent and he was introduced to friends of the official he had met in Washington. During this visit they discussed the concept of a coup d'etat engineered by Sukarno's political foes and heavily supported by the CIA.

Over a period of time this idea grew. The Indonesians pledged the support of no less than 42,000 rebels along with competent leadership. The CIA took the plan to the NSC where it was given approval. This included the right to obtain arms, equipment, aircraft, shipping, and all from the Department of Defense, with a stringent stipulation that no active duty U.S military personnel were to become involved. The Navy provided submarines for over-the-beach operations. The Army provided the weapons and tactical training for selected Indonesian personnel (performed in the Philippines). The Air Force hastily modified a number of B-26 bombers and P-51 fighters, ostensibly to be flown by "stateless" mercenaries. A large, heavy air transport organization was put together--along with the reactivation of a WW II Southwest Pacific island airfield--by the CIA aviation proprietary organization known as Air America. This was a huge operation in a country of more than 100 million people and half-way around the world. It failed.

More of Sukarno's military personnel were loyal to him than the CIA had estimated. They crushed the revolution everywhere. The clincher came when a "Rebel" B-26 was downed and the pilot was found to have been an active duty U.S. Air Force officer operating under a thinly disguised cover.

The CIA leader of the entire campaign, operating from Singapore, was summarily fired. All the "assets" of the operation were rounded up and placed in secret stockpiles in Taiwan and Vietnam. The whole thing was closed and hushed up as quickly as possible.

It just happens that most of those modified B-26 bombers were later used by the exile Cuban Air Force in support of the Bay of Pigs program, and that some of the converted transport aircraft were those first used to spray Agent Orange in Vietnam.

During 1959 the CIA mounted a highly specialized operation that was successful in bringing the Dalai Lama out of Tibet just before it was over-run by the Chinese Communist armies. Following his departure the CIA supported thousands of Tibetan nationalists against the Chinese invaders. Hundreds of these Tibetans who could not stand lower altitude activity were flown to the US and trained in the mountains of Colorado. Then in some of the longest over-flight missions ever flown, they were dropped in the far out-back of China in the area of Lake Koko Nor.

It was during this period, in the spring of 1960 that President Eisenhower was making plans with Nikita Khrushchev for the "Ultimate Summit Conference" in Paris to be held in mid-May. Because of these plans, I was ordered to close down these over-flights into Tibet. The same orders had gone out to my counterparts in the U-2 Program. Despite this, on May 1, 1960, a U2 spy-plane enroute from Pakistan to Norway over the breadth of Russia came down in Sverdlovsk with its pilot Gary Powers. Khrushchev, to up-hold the honor of his Air Defense force, claimed that the Soviets had shot down the U-2. This was not so. It had come down because of a mechanical failure. As a result of this fiasco the Summit Conference failed as well. I have never been able to understand why that U-2 had been ordered out that day after those of us responsible for over-flight programs had been told specifically not to fly them.

During that same spring of 1960 the NSC authorized the creation of an anti-Castro project. It began with a number of Cuban exiles in a training program concealed at a US military base in Panama. Soon another, and much larger one was in Guatemala and we had an air base in Nicaragua . The initial plan was for over-the-beach operations from US Naval vessels, and paradrop flights from aircraft supplied by the CIA/Air America airline and flown by Cuban exile pilots.

Just after the election of John F. Kennedy to the office of President the plan was expanded into the concept of a full fledged invasion. Eisenhower would never have approved such a scheme.

Kennedy reluctantly agreed to the landings, on Sunday P.M. April 16,1961, and at the same time agreed to a final bombing raid by a flight of four B-26's to be flown by Cuban exile pilots from the CIA bass at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. This important raid was planned to destroy the only combat-capable aircraft--three T-33 trainer jets--Castro's air force had left. They had been located by U-2 photograph at a small airfield near Santiago. With no combat aircraft Castro could not have attacked the beach, and American air cover would not have been needed.

At 9:30, that same Sunday night, for reasons that none of us have been able to discover, a member of the White House staff called Gen. Cabell, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence [Allen Dulles, the Director, had unaccountably decided to take the week-end off] and ordered him not to permit the operation of that final bombing raid on the three Jets at Santiago.

I received a call, at about 1:00am. from the CIA air operations director at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua asking me to help him get authority to release the B-26s for that strike. He was desperate. I could hear the engines running in the background. I called the CIA "Bay of Pigs" office in the old Temporary Quarters buildings on the Mall in Washington and was told that Gen. Cabell was doing all he could to get permission to reinstate that raid from Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. He didnot, and the rest is history.

Special Operations hang on such slender threads.

Much of what happened during the thirty years of the warlike activity we call the Vietnam War had begun as Special operations. From 1945 to 1965 the OSS and the CIA were the operating agencies in Vietnam. By 1965 the small fires the CIA had ignited had become a major conflagration and on March 8, 1965 the U.S.Marines, under the command of Marine Corps officers, landed on the beach at DaNang. It was not long before we had 550,000 ground troops, an Air Force that had dropped more tonnage of bombs than in all of WW II on the people of Indochina, and a Naval force, the Seventh Fleet...as powerful as any on Earth, all in action in and around Indochina. This was the new style war. It is costly and it is winless.

The net cost of this action in Vietnam was $220 billion, plus 58,000 American lives in addition to the loss of two to three million Indochinese lives and the devastation of that once beautiful land.

The characteristic of special operations, as distinct from all-out declared warfare is unique. It is a reactive effort. Its goal is the defeat or suppression of that force that has been labeled the enemy. As was said during the Kennedy era. Special Operations was a counterinsurgency activity. It was put in place in an attempt to "Counter" enemy action that war called "Insurgency".

In Central America today the USA is doing the same thing by creating a "contra" force in an attempt to counter the action of those who have been declared the enemy... In this case the elected government of Nicaragua. Today this is not called "Counterinsurgency": rather it is called " Low Intensity Warfare" and it is directed by some of the same people who used to work with me in Special Operations.

This business of waging a proxy war of reaction is wrong by definition. A major power should act on its own initiative to achieve its own objectives. There were no obtainable military objectives in Korea, and none in Vietnam. There are none now in Central America. This is the danger of such operations. They create something that is bottomless. Why then do we become involved in such pursuits?

To over simplify, it is because we do not face the facts and realities. We have no Grand Strategy today that encompasses the utilization of War, itself, as an instrument of national policy. That has become impossible. This Cold War is A grisly substitute.

In his great book, "Critical Path", R. Buckminister Fuller has written:

"With a twenty-minute lag between rocket blast-off and landing bang-off we have a twenty minute radar lead. That means that both sides have the time to get away all of their H-bombs, gases, germs, and death rays before the Big Bang, thus producing the first war in history in which both sides and all their allies would lose. To be a survivor of such a war would be worse than being killed by it."

Many of us know that. Our leaders know that. They have to know it. No one wants to face it, because not only have we lost our ability to go to war but we have lost that most essential ingredient that constitutes the fabric of the international balance of power: National Sovereignty. It no longer exists anywhere.

Despite all the wisdom, education and experience we have in this great country, it is amazing how little thought-in public-is given to these basic ideas. We seldom, if ever, hear anyone discuss State Sovereignty, at least not in modern dress.

According to Hobbes, "Sovereignty is the basic attribute of the State. It combines supreme power at home with independence abroad. " It creates the National State under whose banner the world has moved, for good or evil, during the past three centuries.

Fuller finds a better explanation for the rise of this important concept. When the world population lived comfortably in what they perceived to be a "flat" or two dimensional world, there was always some place to go, i.e.: further off "out there". However, with the age of exploration and the general recognition that Earth was a finite sphere that is heavily populated, it all of a sudden became understood that there was no more "out there". Earth space is finite. Thus borders, thus States, thus the necessity of sovereignty... and the rise of armed nations

It was a French writer, Jean Bodin, who gave the name "Sovereignty" to that power "which legally commands and is not commanded by others." Bodin declared "Sovereignty is what distinguishes the State from any other kind of human association." Neither size nor might counts on the international plane: a State remains a State as long as it is sovereign. Under this concept the State is the supreme arbiter of human life. There is no power on Earth that compares with it.

It is the grievous clash between these two enormous facts, the H-bomb on the one hand, and the end of sovereignty on the other, that accounts for conditions today, especially those we call "Terrorism". A small group can defy the greatest power on Earth and there is little the great powers can do about it, as we have seen.

It may not have been noted at the time; but it is this same fact that makes a Machiavellian joke of the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative. Even if SDI proves to operate at 100 percent of expectations all it will ever be able to do, at best, is to knock out rocket propelled war-heads and such devices. To that there are many alternatives. The "terrorist" will say, "So what" as he and his organization place H-bombs in commercial garages deep under the heart of fifteen or twenty of the major cities in this country or any other. "Star Wars" and any other militarized defense system can do nothing about that.

I see these as the facts of our time. To others, such major changes that impact upon the greatest center of Power on Earth come as a surprise, and they are contemplated with deepest gloom and pessimism. I choose to use this situation quite differently. After no less than two millennia of the "Necessity of War" syndrome, I believe the time has come for man to make use of his energies, his abilities and his tremendous resources toward a totally different cast of goals in order to build a better world. That is the challenge, and I believe it can be achieved by intelligent and dedicated human beings.

gchq

Shake Up at CIA Headquarters Continues
Two More Top Officials Resign After Clashing With Goss's Chief of Staff

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 15, 2004; 12:08 PM

The two top officials running the CIA's clandestine service resigned this morning, following a series of clashes with Director Porter J. Goss's chief of staff.

Stephen R. Kappes, the deputy director of operations, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, announced their resignations at a senior staff meeting, according to former CIA officials.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment, but another intelligence official confirmed that the departures had occurred.

Kappes, 53, whose long career included a stint as station chief in Moscow, was President Bush's envoy to Moammar Gaddafi this year. He is credited with helping to convince Gaddafi to renounce weapons of mass destruction and he briefed the president on the meetings.

Sulick, whose career includes overseas assignments in South America, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, headed the agency's counterintelligence center until becoming Kappes's deputy.

Both men are highly regarded by their clandestine service colleagues, said 10 former CIA officials who have worked with them.

A CIA spokesman had no comment on their departure but has described personnel changes as a normal part of a transition between directors.

Goss has said he wanted to make changes in the clandestine service and had criticized it in the past as being "dysfunctional." At the same time, Bush has lauded overseas operators for the work in Afghanistan and in capturing or killing 75 percent of the pre-Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda leadership.

Soon after Goss, a former CIA case officer and chairman of the House intelligence committee, took over as director in September, he installed four former Hill aides known for their gruff management style. Three of them were former mid-level CIA officers whom Republican and Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill said had idiosyncratic views of the agency's problems and never undertook a thorough study of the clandestine service in their roles as congressional overseers.

Kappes's and Sulick's resignations follow a series of confrontations with Goss's new chief of staff, Patrick Murray, the former intelligence committee staff director and a Justice Department official. Sulick complained vigorously to Murray on Nov. 5 about the way he was treating other CIA officials. Murray demanded that Kappes fire Sulick, and Kappes refused.

Also last week, Goss's deputy, John MacLaughlin, retired.

Former CIA director George Tenet appointed Kappes in June to succeeded James Pavitt. Kappes had served as Pavitt's deputy since June 2002. He joined the CIA in 1981 after serving as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1976 to 1981. He has held a variety of operational and managerial assignments at CIA headquarters and overseas, including the Near East, South Asia and Europe.

He also served as chief of the counterintelligence center and associate deputy director for operations for counterintelligence.

gchq · Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:26 am Post subject: The CIA's Biggest Goof

The CIA's Biggest Goof
February 1976

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What you are about to read is a true account of one of the most bizarre events of the Cold War. It took place in May, 1959. It was the Air Force version of the "Pueblo Affair". I have written many things about CIA activities and readers have asked for an example of just how the CIA works - for good and bad. This is an ideal narrative for that purpose. During the time of this incident I was the liaison officer between the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The crew chief was taking pictures of a lone, snow-streaked peak, Mt. Ararat, as the luxury airliner drifted lazily from billowing cloud to cloud on a beautiful Saturday morning. Below, in scattered sunlight, lay the high plains of eastern Turkey. The flight from Germany via Cyprus and Adana had that uneventful quality known only to those who have had the pleasure of carefree flying. Up front, the pilot and navigator were watching for Lake Van. There they would turn to the right towards their next landing in Teheran, Iran.

To the casual observer this was an American Air Force transport flight with cargo only. The cargo, however, was "top secret", and the plane actually belonged to the CIA. There were no passengers aboard and the "Air Force" designation was for cover purposes only. The cargo was bound for Pakistan.

While lining up his next picture, the crew chief saw two jet fighters standing off on the rear quarter. The fighters slid effortlessly in close to the wing. The pilots, their helmets glistening in the reflected sun, were so close that they were identifiable; so close that the plain red stars on the characteristically high rudders of the Russian Migs were undeniable.

The co-pilot, Col. Dale Brannon, saw those Migs at about the same time. One Mig pilot, no more than twenty or thirty feet off the wing tip, motioned for him to descend. The second Mig had dropped behind and slightly below the unarmed transport. He was ready for action. All that pilot had to do was shoot and the big cargo plane would explode into bits. There was no time to recheck location, no time to radio for help. The international signal for "I surrender" is to lower the plane's landing gear. The pilot slowed the plane and gave the crew chief the signal to drop the gear. However, out of instinct, he went into a turn, in order to look below and estimate his chance to duck into a cloud. That little maneuver cost him his craft.

As the left wing dropped he felt the plane shudder. He saw chunks of metal fly out of the left inboard engine. The second Mig had fired. The engine burst into flames. He slowed the plane more, felt out the controls cautiously to make sure everything worked. The engineer and copilot did all they could to stem the raging fire. They killed the No. 2 engine, cut off the fuel supply, and pulled the emergency fire control line to suppress the flames. And then they waited. The Migs floated beside them.

All nine men aboard were CIA. They were transporting a highly classified briefcase as well as equipment for the then super-secret U-2 spy plane program. That material was stowed in the rear of the plane and they knew there was no chance to do anything about it. The wing would burst into flames the moment the fire ate through to the main fuel tank.

As the pilot held the plane on as steady a course as possible, the rest of the crew went to the rear and piled out the jump door. This very special transport aircraft, a Douglas DC-6, was one of two VIP "plush" planes that belonged to the CIA. It was assigned to Allen W. Dulles, at that time Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Although it was used primarily as a VIP transport plane, it was loaded with sophisticated spy gadgetry, and it had a "jump" door for clandestine paradrop missions. That's why this crew had parachutes - Air Force air transport crews don't usually carry them. That fact was not lost on the Russians when, later, they began putting all the pieces together and judged what kind of prize they had captured.

Five men bailed out immediately, trusting their fate to nylon shroud lines and the winds. Two of the men were badly burned by molten metal droplets as they jumped through the flaming slipstream behind the No. 2 engine. The pilot, the crew chief, and two others chose to stay with the plane, at least until it broke up. As the craft settled slowly, herded by the Migs, the pilot saw a huge body of water (the Caspian Sea) off to his right front. Looming to his left front was a towering range of mountains (the Caucasus). Below him were lush fields of spring grain - the breadbasket of Armenia. Then he spotted what looked like a small unfinished airstrip, no larger than a cleared section of a farm. It was about two thirds blacktop; the rest was gravel. He nursed the burning plane down and towards the strip. He had to make a tough decision: if he let the plane down too fast he would fan the flames until the main spar melted; yet if the plane went down too slowly, the fire would reach the main fuel tank. While these thoughts were going through his head he also knew that the two Migs drifting alongside him were ready for the kill.

All too late, he noticed that the long green grass was leaning with him and that he was landing hot - downwind. The short, rough runway shot behind him as he drove the tires on to it for the brakes to grab. The gear held and after the first thousand feet the plane slipped sideways, hit the gravel, and stopped. Flames, dust, and smoke engulfed the cockpit area instantly. Automatically, the crew cut all switches and ran to the door. One of the men freed the escape rope and they dropped to the ground.

As they watched the big plane melt, the Migs circled overhead. Those Migs and the flames guided the Russian rural police through the fields. The four crewmen who had come down with the plane were picked up by the police. The pilots who had parachuted were collected by farmers. As they rode off in a police van to an unknown destination, the men could see the charred hulk of the plane standing high on its landing gear with only the floor and the high tail section still intact. They wondered if those "top-secret" papers had been consumed in the heat, knowing that the heavy bundle of papers in the thick leather briefcase would be hard to destroy. Yet, if it had not burned, the U-2 program, its operations, crews, and locations would be uncovered by the Russians. One year later, a U-2 with Francis Gary Powers aboard would be brought down in Sverdlovsk, the heart of the Soviet Union. The Russians would have advance knowledge that would help them spot that plane.

What Happened in Washington?

The Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of Defense, Neil McElroy, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Allen Dulles, all told President Eisenhower that the aircraft the Russians had claimed to have shot down in flames over their territory did not belong to any department, agency, or private company of the United States. This denial to the President and to the press was repeated for more than eighteen hours. Pictures of the downed American plane were shown in the Soviet press. Obviously, the Russians were right and the Secretaries of State and Defense, as well as the head of the CIA, were wrong. Eisenhower was angry, and McElroy and the Dulles brothers were embarrassed. The Soviets did not misinterpret this strange American behavior. When a plane is lost and the crew is in Russian hands while the United States vehemently denies any knowledge, it becomes evident to any intelligence analyst that they must indeed have captured something special. This was not a Gary Powers and his U-2 that had been brought down in the Soviet Union.

This was not a border flying ELINT aircraft on a spy mission that "blew off course'' and was brought down. This was Allen Dulles' own VIP plane that had been shot down and the CIA director did not even know that it was on a mission. When he learned that it was his DC-6, his first reaction was total shock, because he believed that his deputy, Gen. Charles P. Cabell was on board. As hard as this may be to believe, the all-powerful Director of Central Intelligence did not know the whereabouts of either his deputy or his plane.

Because so little information was made public about this most unusual incident, it has gone unnoticed. The press and public generally believed that the aircraft was no more than what it was reported to have been - an Air Force transport plane on a routine mission. However, few incidents have had a greater impact upon intelligence operations of this country than this unfortunate flight. Within hours the Russians discovered that the men on the plane were working for the CIA and that they were on an Air Force cover mission.

The crew was carrying top secret U-2 information, which the Russians recovered intact. They soon broke the entire U-2 cover apparatus. CIA operations in Germany, Norway, Cyprus, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan -to name the obvious ones - were exposed. And most importantly, from that time on, the Russians could prove that the CIA used the United States military for operational top-secret cover. All efforts by the United States to disclaim the plausibility of such a connection were now ludicrous. This made all American military aircraft, transport and combat, on any mission throughout the world suspect as a CIA cover operation. Allen Dulles' right-hand man told me recently that "this incident was one of the most crucial events of the era".

Another View of the Operation

In May, 1959, Gen. Charles P. Cabell, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, had flown to Frankfurt, Germany, on an official visit to CIA offices in Europe. Once he arrived in Germany, he no longer needed the CIA's VIP plane. A team of CIA officials borrowed it for what they thought would be a quick trip to various U-2 installations including the operational base in Pakistan. The senior CIA representative on board was a U.S. Air Force Colonel on long-time CIA assignment. He was the Commander of the CIA European Air Operations organization that was clandestinely assigned to the Wiesbaden Air Force Base in Germany. Eight other Air Force men on CIA assignment were on board.

This kind of CIA duty requires that the men become salaried members of the CIA. Their Air Force service records are "blanked" as though they had resigned and new records are established for them in the CIA. Proof of their new status is evidenced by their CIA pay.

In keeping with CIA secrecy, this plane did not follow normal Air Force flight procedures, and its flight clearance had not been put in the file for routine processing. This was to play an important part in its "disappearance" later. En route to Pakistan, the plane had landed in Cyprus at a CIA base and from there continued to Adana, Turkey, where there was a U-2 support organization. After leaving Adana, the pilot headed east along normal, international airways to Teheran.

In eastern Turkey, on the shore of Lake Van, is a navigational beacon. However, during certain times of the year Lake Van almost dries up and to a pilot unfamiliar with that part of the world it looks more like a mud flat than a lake. On this flight, neither pilot nor navigator knew the terrain. Either they did not see or recognize the lake or they were not using their electronic navigational equipment. Adding to their confusion was the fact that Lake Van and Lake Urmia in Iran bear a strong geographical similarity to Lake Sevan in Armenia and the Caspian Sea. Hence, after missing Lake Van, where they should have made a turn to the right, they continued on, inadvertently crossing the nearby Russian border. A few hours after the downing of the plane, Soviet officials in Moscow informed the U.S. embassy that an Air Force aircraft had penetrated Russian airspace and that when it resisted attempts to force it to land, it was shot down by a Russian Mig. The embassy was informed that all crew members were safe and in custody.

The Merry-Go-Round in Washington

It was early Saturday morning, Washington time, when a strange series of events took place. The Secretary of Defense checked out the report with the Air Force. General Thomas D. White, then Air Force Chief of Staff, replied that no Air Force planes were missing. The Navy gave the same reply and possibilities were double-checked to determine if some oddball operation might have lost a plane. Commercial operators were also questioned. Finally, the State and Defense Departments reported to the White House that the Russians must have either made an error or they were playing some new kind of international game, because no American aircraft were missing. This continued for more than eighteen hours. Then, someone thought to check with the CIA, because the agency has hundreds of aircraft using all kinds of cover. But Allen Dulles' office responded that none of its aircraft was missing. His office believed that the DC-6 which General Cabell had in Europe was not being used and that it was on the ground in Wiesbaden.

About 9 P.M. on Saturday I received a call from Allen Dulles' executive officer. He told me there was a problem about a missing aircraft and asked that I go immediately to Allen Dulles' house in Georgetown. When I arrived, Dulles was waiting with Dick Bissell, the Deputy Director (Plans). After a quick briefing they asked me for ideas. I knew where most of their aircraft were, and I knew also where to check if any planes were on special missions.

Just before midnight, I drove to the Pentagon's Air Force Command Center. (The Air Force has one of the best communications facilities in the world.) Playing some hunches, I made a few calls. One was to the home of an agency officer in Germany. In response to my question he confirmed that the "old man's" DC-6 with about nine men aboard was indeed on a trip. I told him to get to his office and to call me back immediately on the scrambler phone.

When he called about twenty minutes later, we were able to put most of the pieces together. He confirmed that Colonel Brannon and eight others had left for Teheran in the VIP DC-6. I drove back to Allen Dulles' house. It was now 2 A.M. on Sunday. I told him that we had cleared things up pretty well, that General Cabell was not aboard but that nine of his men from European Air Operations were. I gave him details, such as the registry number the plane was using that day, so that he could put something on the wire to the embassy in Moscow. As a matter of practice, CIA aircraft carry different identifying serial numbers on different flights. For example, when they fly under Air Force insignia, an Air Force number is used that matches other Air Force planes of that type. Usually, the number was of an Air Force C-118 that had crashed or was not flying for some other reason. If the CIA used the plane as a civilian craft, all of the identifying Air Force paint would be removed and the plane would be repainted in the style of whatever airline was chosen. The serial number would match a civilian DC-6. At times a plane was flown "sterilized", meaning it would have no number, paint, or insignia. Occasionally these transformations occurred so frequently that "Scotch Tape" insignia and numbers were used. (All this is part of the CIA's big game. I doubt that it ever fooled anyone, or at least anyone who really wanted to know.)

After listening to the new information, Allen Dulles asked me to meet with him, his brother John Foster Dulles, Neil McElroy, and Gen. Thomas D. White, the Air Force Chief of Staff, at nine that same morning. At about 8:30 A.M. I drove up Allen Dulles' driveway. Dulles came out of his house and got in my car. We drove to his brothers house. McElroy was already there and General White came a bit later. The immediate concerns were to come up with a plan to get the crew back, what to tell the press, and what to tell the President. It seemed to me that things ranked in that order with the Dulles brothers.

As soon as the Air Force Chief of Staff arrived there was a general discussion about how a plane like that could have been lost for eighteen hours without anyone knowing about it except the Russians, and what kind of a plausible cover story could be invented. The general explained that all Air Force planes are monitored from the time they take off until the time they land, and if one is late a search is initiated no later than one hour after the time of its expected arrival. But on this CIA flight, the plan had been filed away or destroyed by the CIA personnel involved, and Teheran, the base of their destination, was not even aware of the mission.

This plane, however, flew under Air Force cover and now that it had been captured, the Air Force had no alternative but to claim it as its own, along with the crew, and accept the blame. After the fact, it would not be identified in any other way. So here we were, having denied the loss of the plane for eighteen hours, and suddenly we were forced to admit to error and lying.

In effect, this mission contravened an important and basic National Security Council Intelligence Directive requiring that any clandestine operation must be carried out in such a manner that in the event of exposure for any reason the participation of the U.S. Government can be plausibly disclaimed. It was a staggering goof. All that could be done in John Foster Dulles' study was to make plans to "lie like hell, to stick with it, and to hope for the best". The only hope was that the Russians were the stupidest people in the world and would really believe that this was an "Air Force transport plane on a routine transport mission".

Hopefully, most American newsmen and congressmen familiar with Air Force procedures would blame the Air Force for sheer stupidity and worse. The cover story would go over better here than in the Soviet Union. And that is precisely what happened. Only a few media people realized something unusual had happened. The story we worked out and released to the press made these points: A C-118 Air Force transport was a military air transport service plane on a routine cargo flight. The crew consisted of Air Force men. There were no passengers. The plane had departed from Frankfurt, Germany, and was bound for Teheran, Iran, via Adana, Turkey. En route, in the vicinity of Lake Van, it had run into bad weather and high winds and was blown off course. Soviet Migs had intercepted the unarmed transport while it was still over Turkish territory and forced it to land in Armenia near Yerevan.

When the story was outlined, John Foster Dulles picked up a plain white telephone. All he said was, "Get me the Boss." In a few moments President Eisenhower answered. "Good morning, Boss. How did your game go? Just fine. How's Mamie? Fine. Boss, Allen and Neil are here with me along with Tommy White and we have been talking about that plane that the Russians forced down yesterday. Yes, we have found out all about it. It was one of Allen's. A special plane. The crew is all right. We have a release prepared and we are trying to see what we can do to get that crew and the plane back. We'll keep you informed. Sorry to bother you. Good-bye."

It was clear from that conversation and others like it that the Dulles brothers dominated the inner workings of the Eisenhower Administration. They knew what they were going to do and they knew exactly what Ike would agree to. He was called more as a courtesy than for specific authorizations or advice. In this case it was evident that they were exceedingly concerned, because they had been unable to tell him about the plane earlier. But their concern was more personal than official. The loss of this CIA plane and its crew was one of the strangest episodes of the Eisenhower era. It led to things that made an impact on history, yet it has been forgotten by all but a few.

Beginning with that Sunday morning, Dulles did everything possible to expedite the release of the crew and to make the world believe that they were nothing more than "Air Force". We soon learned that the crew was in custody in Baku and that the plane had been burned beyond repair and consequently could not be flown out. The Russians released pictures of the plane, showing it up on its landing gear with the wing and fuselage gutted by fire. But very significantly, the big, high tail was intact.

About a week later we learned through secret channels that the crew would be released at the Soviet-Iranian border near the town of Astara, on the Caspian Sea. An Air Force crew from the Wiesbaden base was dispatched to Teheran and instructed to be ready to pick up the prisoners as soon as they were released. In the recovery crew we placed a CIA man from Washington whose job it was to look after CIA interests. On the ninth or tenth day, the crew was transported by Soviet authorities to Astara and permitted to cross the border.

The men were flown to Wiesbaden, and save for a perfunctory interview with the press designed to reassure everyone that they were safe and in good health, the men said very little. Then they went into "hospitalization" in Wiesbaden. This was a euphemism for a period of interrogation. It was crucial to find out what had occurred and what the men might have inadvertently revealed to the Soviets. The interrogations in Germany were under the control of the Air Force with the CIA participating. As the interrogation proceeded, we in Washington became concerned that the questioning was not getting to important matters. General White directed that we reinterrogate the entire crew upon their arrival in Washington, but to say nothing about our intention to do so. Next, orders were issued to the Air Force to have the crew returned as soon as possible. By this time, some friction had developed between the Air Force and the CIA. To ease it, the Air Force invited the CIA to participate in every step of the planned interrogation. I talked with Allen Dulles about this and asked him to assign a CIA man to work with us. He introduced me to James McCord (of future Watergate fame); he was then an assistant in the CIA's Office of Security, before which he had been an FBI agent. Dulles assured me that McCord was his best man on interrogations and that he would work with us until the job was done. Under his guidance careful plans were made for simultaneous interrogation of all nine crewmen. McCord trained all of the interrogators and we took over an entire building at the Naval Meteorological Center in nearby Maryland.We devised a system of standard questions and a method of timing so that the same questions would be asked of all men at about the same time. We set up a team of "medics" and other disguised assistants to control the progress of questioning. It was critical to work with the crewmen across the board without them being aware of it. Whenever there was some kind of a break with one man in one room, we wanted to immediately test the others in the other rooms. McCord devised a big chart that would be used in each room. Using this aid the interrogator would ask each man where he was at each phase of the attack, capture, and so on. For example, we asked each man where he was just before the Migs came. Next, where was he when he saw a Mig for the first time? Then we asked where everyone else was at that moment. This method was carried through in a similar manner, step by step, day by day, until the men had told the narrative of how they had worked their way back to the border at Astara.*

During the interrogation, all of which was recorded, there were many breaks. For example, one of the interrogators questioned the young assistant crew chief who had been in the back of the plane taking pictures of a big mountain. He described the mountain quite clearly as being all by itself, taller than the others, and unusual. In that entire area there is only one very high, lone mountain, and that is Ararat. Then, when we had asked that same man where he had been in the aircraft, he had stated that he had been in the right front seat in the cabin area. In other words he was looking over the right wing. Others corroborated his position in the plane. Therefore when he took pictures of that mountain out of the right window from a plane on an easterly heading, he was taking pictures to the south. He also said that the mountain was rather far away. Without doubt this placed the plane far to the left and north of where it should have been. We now clearly understood why the crew did not see Lake Van. The lake they saw ahead of them was Lake Sevan in Armenia, and what they thought was the big lake, Lake Urmia in Iran, was really the shore of the Caspian Sea. Since the Russian border at that point runs from the southeast to the northwest, the plane entered the Soviet Union much sooner than its crew thought, and with Mt. Ararat behind them, they were well into Armenia when they were shot down.

This kind of questioning was used in connection with the top-secret briefcase. Each man was asked to put a mark on his aircraft diagram where he believed the briefcase was when he last saw it. It was determined without doubt that the critical item was on the floor, further back than the main door. Then we asked each man what the plane looked like the last time he saw it. Again the consensus was that the tail end had not burned. (Since the plane landed in a strong tailwind, flames would have been blown to the front and the fire would have gone out without consuming the practically empty tail end.) Thus we felt certain that the briefcase had not been consumed by fire and that the Soviets now had it. Since only the CIA knew what was in that briefcase, only they were able to evaluate the precise damage done by this revelation.

In retrospect, it is not difficult to speculate that the loss of Gary Powers in his U-2 one year later was made easier by the availability of that briefcase. But at the time we had no way of knowing. In all of this interrogating we developed another interesting point that proved conclusively the value the Soviets had placed on the captured plane. We asked each man how he was interrogated. Eight of the men were queried by the Russians in a thorough, effective, yet seemingly pedestrian manner. But the ninth man, Colonel Brannon, told us a different story. After a day or two of captivity, someone came to his room and said, "Colonel, since you are the senior officer of this group, and since it is now quite obvious that you were no more than a transport crew inadvertently lost, we have no need to question you any further. How would you like to see our countryside and make the best of your visit while we get the routine things done?"

The colonel was led outside and taken to Baku, where he was introduced to a school teacher who spoke passable English. Brannon learned that this man had been stationed in Washington during World War II as a member of the Soviet Mission that was handling Lend Lease transfers to the Soviet Union during the darkest days of the war. Now he was a teacher in Baku and he had been given a few days off to escort Brannon. They went picnicking and fishing and passed a few leisurely days around Baku. In the conversation the teacher asked routine questions and he seemed to know quite a bit about the United States. Brannon cleverly decided to flood him with talk about transport work and so much irrelevant data that if he were reporting to someone he would have a difficult time remembering all of the small talk. It all seemed innocent enough, yet Brannon had some reservations about the teacher.

He and McCord went deeper and deeper into that subject. Finally McCord suggested that an artist be brought over from the Bureau and that an attempt be made to make a sketch bearing a reasonable likeness of this schoolteacher, very much like the teacher. McCord showed me the drawing. The next morning he returned with a manila folder jammed with 8x10 glossy photographs. He spread them on my desk and said, "Watch Brannon when I show him this". Pointing to one of the photos, McCord added, "He is going to put his finger on that picture. I'll tell you who that is later." We called Brannon in and spread the photos on the table. Almost immediately, the colonel picked the one McCord had pointed to earlier. The man who had posed as the "teacher" was no less than the second-highest man in Soviet Intelligence. It was true that he had been with the mission in Washington and, indeed, he did know a lot about the United States. In fact, he is likely to be the best informed Russian on America. Now, if the Russians had really believed our simple story about an ordinary transport plane why would they have bothered to fly such an important intelligence officer to Baku? The answer is simple. They didn't believe a word and within forty-eight hours they knew that they had caught a very big prize.

About a month after this interrogation was over and the crew had been dispersed, McCord called me. He asked me to look at a certain picture in the New York Times. There was a high-ranking Soviet group on its way here to attend a meeting at the United Nations. The head of that party was Frol Koslov, a high-ranking Soviet official. The picture was taken in Paris. Just behind Koslov, posing as a member of his official party, was none other than the "schoolteacher". We discussed what might be done to let the "teacher" know that we had discovered his role. I sent for Brannon and we had him go to New York City and register in the same hotel where the Koslov party was staying. We suggested that he stay in the lobby and make himself evident in the hope that at some time or other the "teacher" might pass by. We suggested that Brannon do no more than catch the eye of the "teacher". Unfortunately this never happened.

The interrogation proved that the loss of that plane was a disastrous one. It proved that supporting CIA operations, no matter what kind, are always serious business and that they are subject to serious pitfalls. The year 1959 proved to be a year of many changes. Castro came to power in Cuba. The war in Laos became a disaster, and Tibet was lost. The seeds of Vietnam were planted, and Eisenhower's great "Crusade for Peace" was underway. However, the next CIA plane that was lost in the Soviet Union (Gary Powers' U-2 on May 1, 1960) forever killed Eisenhower's dream. But when his dream went up in smoke it was already too late. The first flames of the fire were those of that lost DC-6 in 1959.

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* Jim McCord set up most of this highly innovative and productive procedure. I couldn't help but recall it during those fumbling days of the Sam Ervin Committee during the Watergate hearings. Just think how effective it would have been if the entire Watergate gang had been interrogated simultaneously. Each one would suspect that the other was getting a better deal than he was, and each one would think that the other was spilling the whole story. It could have broken the Watergate "stonewalling" in a few days and then have been used against the cover-up gang. Can you imagine Jim McCord using this technique to open up the cover-up case against such men as Mitchell, Stans, Halderman and Ehrlichman? It was too bad McCord happened to be on the other side.

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The Secret Team - The CIA and its allies in control.. - page 7