Newsletter of AFIO National Opinions, PERISCOPE Events, Plans & News

Association of Former Intelligence Officers Double Issue — Vol. XXVI, No 2; Vol. XXVII, No. 1, 2005

AFIO Celebrates Thirty Years of Service to the U.S. Intelligence Community

hirty years ago David Atlee Phillips, a CIA officer concerned over the Tstinging Pike and Church Committee hearings which condemned intelligence operations—operations AFIO 30th Anniversary Symposium/Convention conducted at the behest of U.S. Presidents—took at FBI Headquarters & Sheraton-Premiere Hotel early retirement and formed the Association 28–30 October 2005 of Retired Intelligence Officers. His mission: to explain to Congress, the ven before the issuance of reports seminating for the intelligence commu- Press, and the American by several post-9/11 Commissions, nity, law enforcement, and national and people, the important role cautiously FBI Director Robert Mueller was international government agencies. weighed and sourced intelligence col- E making major changes to fight the grow- With the creation by Congress of a lection and analysis plays in a nation’s ing worldwide terrorist threat. The Bureau Director of National Intelligence [DNI], security. Two years later, the Association shifted resources, promoted new counter- the realignment of duties and responsi- was renamed the Association of Former terrorism executives, moved to give them bilities between the various intelligence Intelligence Officers when its headquar- enhanced investigative powers through the agencies is in flux. A new National Security ters moved to Whittier Ave in McLean, VA USA PATRIOT Act and other procedural Service, to be housed at the Bureau but run where it remains today. streamlining, and created an entire new jointly with the DNI and FBI, has been One of the first goals of the Associa- division—the Office of Intelligence—to approved and is hiring staff and aligning tion was to educate Congress, and it did collect, analyze and disseminate intel- missions with existing Bureau compo- so through testimony at hearings and in ligence. nents. One thing is certain, the Federal personal visits with various committees. The Intelligence Directorate estab- Bureau of Investigation has a bigger and In 2005, however, much has changed. lished basic definitions and requirements crucial role—and new tools to detect the Congress and their staffs are knowl- for the Intelligence Program, and included subtle actions of an enemy – from abroad edgeable, but the American public, in an the ramping up of production and analysis and especially from within – seeking understandable mood to place blame for of new products the Bureau will be dis- to attack American institutions. Those

AFIO Early Years, continues on Page 14 FBI & Symposium continue on page 9 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page  word “former” no longer fits as it did in years past. With these findings in mind, the Board periscope will start 2006 with exploration of a small Chairman’s proposed change in the name of the associa- ISSN 1044-3819 in 2005 tion. Mindful that the acronym AFIO has wide is published twice per year by the Message recognition [just try typing that, alone, in Association of Former Intelligence Officers your web browser] and is our “brand” of some 6723 Whittier Avenue, Suite 303A, McLean, VA 22101-4533 thirty years—we would keep the abbreviation Voice: 703-790-0320; Fax:703-991-1278; Peter Earnest but change its meaning to the Association For e-mail: [email protected] Chairman Intelligence Officers. Web: www.afio.com want to take this opportunity to thank all Please mail or email me [earnest@afio. Editors— Managing: Elizabeth Bancroft those Life Members for the large number com] your thoughts on this. I will take to the Mary Lynne McElroy of replies, donations, and thoughtful com- meeting a better sense of where our members Contributing: Dwayne Anderson Iments we received to my Life Member Appeal. stand. Should the Board then move that the Joseph Goulden While Life Membership is no longer offered in name change be adopted, it would go before the Susan Huck lieu of annual dues (to better enable the Asso- membership as part of a proposed amendment Hayden B. Peake Ward W. Warren ciation to grow), these members were the origi- to our bylaws, needing your vote. Copy: Janet E. Murphy nal seed that sustained the Association during Speaking of voting, I hope all of you will its early years, and continue to be a vital part of © 2005, AFIO, All Rights Reserved have voted for the new group of impressive can- its activities and historical underpinning. didates proposed for the 2006 Board. The ballot A F I O P u b l i c a t io n s As expressed in my note, your sustained appears on the back cover of this issue, but was WINs – Weekly Intelligence Notes—News, Issues, Commentar- commitment to the Association and its mission ies, Book Reviews, delivered by e-mail. also sent to all with email addresses. is valuable to us, and you showed it with that Website – www.afio.com – Fast-Breaking National and Foreign I look forward to greeting each of you at impressive response. We thank you! News, Events, Scholarships, Legislation, WINs, Careers, AFIO’s upcoming 30th Anniversary celebra- Store...and more. Updated daily. Like the Intelligence Community it tion, part of the October 28-30 Symposium at Periscope – AFIO Newsletter for National and Chapter news serves, the composition of AFIO membership and internal Association issues and policies of interest FBI Headquarters in downtown Washington, to members and donors. 2x/year. has greatly changed, as the chart on page and at the Sheraton-Premier Hotel in Tyson’s Intelligencer – Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies—AFIO’s 14 reveals. We now have the majority of our Corner, VA. While much needs to be done to flagship publication—substantive articles ranging from members currently working in active intelli- advance our mission, we have many reasons to historic surveys of intelligence practices, to current gence roles, either in their first career assign- celebrate our 30 years of activity.  cutting-edge concerns and directions. Includes book ments, or back on long-term contracts. The reviews, essays, reprints and columnists. 2x/year.

C O N T E N T S painting of it as a well-planned withdrawal. Is that to be how the world sees us leave Baghdad? National FBI Intelligence Symposium 1 Thirtieth Year Celebration 1 How easy is it to predict, this late in the game, Message from the Chairman with so much at stake to depart gracefully? — Peter Earnest 2 In This What is certain while in the heat of the Message from the Executive Director — Elizabeth Bancroft 2 Issue moment, or even years later in recall, often can Intelligence Analysis Paralysis still be clouded by the “fog of war.” Much of — Gene Poteat 3 Share Missions, Not Just Information human experience faces this clouding, and his- — Frederick Harrison 7 Elizabeth Bancroft torical accounts vehemently differ as a result. Symposium Agenda 9 Executive Director After several important lead articles by Of This and That — Dwayne Anderson 10 AFIO National Events in 2005 12 Poteat, Harrison, Anderson, Wheeler and Le Composition of AFIO Membership 14 ur 2005 Symposium is being held, for Gallo, we present a collection of fascinating Members of the AFIO Board of Directors 14 the first time, at the FBI at the moment first-hand accounts on precisely those mo- Current AFIO Chapters 15 it undergoes significant transforma- ments in Saigon—thirty years ago on April Chapter Activities in Recent Months 17 O 29—when many of the same decisions had to tion. The tentative agenda [all agendas are “ten- Donors in 2004 20 tative” in this field of the unexpected] appears be made. CIA Chief of Station [Vietnam] Tom Lingering WWII Mystery: Leslie Howard Story — Douglas L. Wheeler 22 on page 9. If you have not sent in your forms Polgar tells of the increasing sense of doom and The Fall of Saigon — Tom Polgar 23 from the mailing that went out separately, we the inability by some to accept the situation, the The Fall of Saigon - Marine Perspective hope you will do so with the form with this urgency required and the difficulty conveying — Col. Steve Hasty 28 it to a government unwilling to embrace the A CIA Officer in Saigon — Richard W. Hale 30 issue. The Symposium will be a look at an “We were playing God, kicking back people” otherwise very closed Bureau that is normally facts until it was nearly too late to depart. An — Suzanne Goldenberg 34 hesitant to talk on these topics—so this is a account by U.S. Marines guarding the embassy, Covert Action — Andre Le Gallo 38 followed by a totally different recall of the situ- rare event not to miss. Profile: Derrin R. Smith, Ph.D. 40 ation by Henry Kissinger, shows how fear, em- Profile: Art Lindberg 42 This issue of Periscope touches on a barrassment and distance impacts the assess- Professional Reading - Intelligence Omnibus number of sensitive topics. The main one being — Joseph C. Goulden 45 ment of fast-breaking, emotionally charged A Job of Cutting — Sue Huck, Ph.D. 52 where we are heading in Iraq. How and when life-changing events. Richard Hale gives a Intelligence Bookshelf Candidates will we depart? How will we leave it—better — Hayden B. Peake 53 view from a different perch, followed by three off, or worse for our arrival? Often, these past haunting accounts presented in The Guardian Incoming — Ward Warren 60 months, I’ve heard people on all sides of the Forthcoming Books — Elizabeth Bancroft 63 [UK] from others who were present. issue cite our departure from Saigon as a wor- Ballot for Board of Directors 2006 68 Enjoy these articles and the large collec- risome moment in history when we appeared to tion of book reviews of professional titles. flee in haste—a highly public retreat despite the  page  • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 sis; so, they do what they can with what diplomatic code and revealed the contents they have—make the best possible esti- of the infamous Zimmermann Telegram to Opinions mate. Their institutional estimate for top the U.S., and then lured the U.S. into the officials is called a National Intelligence war on its side, the U.S. had no intelligence Estimate, or NIE, which is nothing more capabilities. President Woodrow Wilson than a thoughtful, cautiously delineated, said that if the U.S. needed intelligence, best judgment based on their intelligence we would simply get it from our allies, the tempered by their expertise. The word British and French. With the Armistice in INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS “Estimate” says it all. Yet, even the realm 1918, Wilson found himself ill-prepared to PARALYSIS of estimates contains pitfalls; the primary enter the Paris Peace negotiations. He had one is the trap of mirror-imaging…of no idea what the Europeans were likely to assessing situations from the particular want out of the peace negotiations. S. Eugene Poteat perspective of an American, far from the [email protected] One of Wilson’s advisors suggested values, views, beliefs, and objectives of the he create a group of experts who knew targets of interest. something about Europeans, their aspira- Self-flagellation: A practice that No other nation’s intelligence ser- tions, and especially their desires in nego- Shia Muslims and Americans have vices are so preoccupied with analysis tiations. The group, called the Inquiry, a in common; the Shia engage in it from internal sources and personal hastily assembled group of scholars and for religious reasons, affirming their assessments—other countries focus on investigative reporters, was this country’s faith and demonstrating their piety, collecting their adversary’s secrets directly. first attempt at providing strategic or the Americans engage in it for social Stalin, for example, didn’t bother with national intelligence to policy makers, in reasons, affirming their innocence and analysis. He told his intelligence people this case to support President Wilson and demonstrating their victimization. to just get the secrets in the Americans’ his entourage at the Paris Peace Confer- safes—no analysis was necessary. He ence. Although the Inquiry’s scholars, e now have U.S. media wringing valued raw, first-hand intelligence. There mostly historians, put together in short their hands over the personnel is no question that Soviet agents’ collection order a notable effort, it was ignored by Wshuffles at CIA in a manner was successful and Stalin’s conclusions Wilson’s policy makers from the State that caters to America’s appetite for the were correct. Department, who saw no need for an follies and foibles of actors, athletes and The Soviets stole America’s greatest independent intelligence assessment, i.e., other celebrities. No other nation dares secret of WWII—the atomic bomb—with research and analysis from anyone other push its intelligence services through the the result that Stalin knew of the bomb than the State Department, with the result public sieve as do we. before Truman did. Earlier, Soviet agents that Wilson was far out of his depth with One cannot appre- had completely infiltrated the Roosevelt the Europeans in the peace negotiations. ciate what is going administration. Their NKVD and GRU Although Wilson never understood the on at CIA without agents were in the White House, the Con- value intelligence had for policy making, some understanding gress, State Department, Treasury, Justice he finally came to realize that intelligence of how its present Department, OSS and the U.S.’s code- was needed not only to plan and win wars, intelligence analysis breaking operation; they had our secrets but also to insure peace. Nevertheless, came to be. in their pockets. By many estimates, their subsequent administrations continued The current intelligence collection successes in many to lack an understanding of the value of congressional and public outcry stems fields—economic, political, military, intelligence and to disdain its methods. from purported CIA and FBI intelligence technological—kept the flawed Soviet An egregious and notorious, later example failures to foresee the 9/11 terrorist attacks, system alive 30 years beyond what oth- of this naiveté was Congress’s passage of and the intelligence analysis that got right erwise would have been a swifter death the Communications Act of 1934, possibly Iraq’s know-how and capability to develop from the unreality and untenability of under the influence of the State Depart- Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), but their economy. The CIA did not have a ment, which made it illegal to listen in then got wrong the conclusion—incountry single case officer inside the Soviet Union to others’ communications, including boasts to the contrary—that ergo propter hoc until well after Francis Gary Power’s U-2 those of the enemy. Notwithstanding this there must be large stockpiles of WMDs was downed in 1960. The reason for this legislative prohibition, the Office of Naval secretly stashed. This major intelligence negligence was that the U.S. ambassador Intelligence proceeded to break the law by failure, according to Silberman-Robb to the U.S.S.R., Llewellyn Thompson, was continuing to master the art of code break- WMD Commission, was due to the Intel- afraid that the “dirty business” of spying ing and to read the Japanese codes—just ligence Community’s inability to collect could jeopardize his sensitive diplomatic in time to save the day in WWII. Walter the hard evidence the analysts needed to mission. The paucity of collection contrib- Lippmann had been a member of the get it right. uted to the poverty of the analysis. Inquiry, and his later writings in the New Analysts are often in the position How did we get into this situation? York Times reflected these early concepts of having to make do without the hard The story begins during WWI. When of strategic intelligence analysis to support evidence (intelligence collection) which is British intelligence broke the German policy making. Wilson, Lippmann and the needed to turn out perfect, on-target analy- Inquiry were the beginning of the eastern 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page  liberal establishment’s foothold in strate- To obtain that guidance, Kent advocated honest ones seeing through the sophistry gic intelligence. that, “Intelligence must be close enough of Communist ideology and the smoke of The idea of inde- to policy, plans, and operations to have the Soviet propaganda. This background led pendent intelligence greatest amount of guidance, and not so Kendall, who clearly understood the Soviet research was resusci- close that it loses its objectivity and integ- threat, to think in terms of America’s need tated during WWII in rity of judgment.” To resolve this difficulty, for intelligence on which to act—including the Office of Strategic Kent urged analysts to, “…keep trying every intelligence to sustain “the big job—the Services’s Research and known device to make the users familiar carving out of United States’ destiny in Analysis Branch. One of with the producers’ organizations, and the the world as a whole.” Kendall harshly producers with the user’s organization.” criticized Kent for a “crassly empirical con- Sherman Kent, 1903 - 1986 the analysts in the OSS was Sherman Kent, an He concluded his work with the admoni- ception of the research process.” Kendall, academic. Kent knew of America’s earliest tion to policy makers not to turn their in contrast, expressed the view that “an involvement in analysis at the end of WWI, backs “on the two instruments by which intelligence operation built upon a concep- and he was familiar with Lippmann’s Western man has, since Aristotle, steadily tion of the process in the social sciences thought and work. Kent, one of the found- enlarged his horizon of knowledge—the that assigns due weight to ‘theory’ as it is ing fathers of the CIA in 1947, carried instruments of reason and the scientific understood in economics and sociology, over Lippmann’s concept of intelligence method.” and increasingly one hopes, in politics…” analysis, institutionalizing it in the CIA’s K e n t ’ s would result therefore in a more accurate Office of National Estimates—eventu- tome remains and valuable intelligence picture. Here ally becoming its chief. Thus, America’s widely accepted we have the essence of Kendall’s views of overdependence on analysis goes back to as the “bible” of intelligence analysis, i.e., that intelligence the beginning of the CIA in 1947. By 1949, strategic intel- research should be steeped in knowledge Kent was the accepted national authority ligence analy- of the social sciences, the foundation for on intelligence research and analysis and sis by those in understanding the “otherness” of adver- Willmoore Kendall the guardian of its producers’ relationships the intelligence saries. Kendall, in essence, was simply with its consumers, i.e., the President and analysis business. But then, a small voice reminding Kent of Sun Tzu’s words 2500 the country’s other top policy and decision was heard that not only challenged the years ago, “know your enemy.” makers, such as those in the Department precepts of Kent’s bible, but turned out to of Defense. Kent codified his understand- be prophetic. Willmoore Kendall, writing ing of this esoteric subject in 1949 in his in World Politics in July 1949, challenged seminal book Strategic Intelligence for Kent’s shibboleths and charged that Kent American World Policy. had missed the boat—entirely. Kendall Depicting strategic intelligence as essentially cried out that the emperor had something produced independently by a no clothes. A Rhodes Scholar, Ph.D. in permanent bureaucratic group of scholars Political Science from the University of and experts, Kent proposed that they would Illinois, a tenured professor at Yale, and deliver volumes of encyclopedic expertise a life-long student of politics, Kendall about the external world that could be wrote that Kent’s doctrine of strategic drawn upon by the policy makers when intelligence was born out of wartime needed. In his Strategic Intelligence, he expediency and was absolutely unsuited characterized the relationship between for a peacetime world wherein the United “producers and consumers of intelligence” States found itself in competition with the as “one of utmost delicacy” and “wished Soviet Union. “Since it is American policy above all else to have its findings prove on which the future of the free world seems Willmoore Kendall useful in making of decisions.” Kent often to depend, it is high time for the public Kendall was a difficult person, a used the words “objective scholarship” debate to commence.” Kendall said that man who had little tolerance for mortals regarding his analysis unit to emphasize— Kent’s approach to strategic intelligence of lesser intelligence and for bureaucra- and also to remind practitioners of analy- was wrongly preoccupied—as appealing as cies—obviously, not one to fit into the sis—that getting too close to the consumer airy conjecture might be—with predicting CIA establishment. When Kent’s NIEs, in of intelligence might cause the analysts the future, rather than being responsive to 1962 on Soviet intentions to place offensive to slant or color their analyses to accom- urgent, present needs. missiles in Cuba, in 1975 on Soviet strategic modate the consumer’s wishes—avoidable Although Kendall had early leftist missile forces, and in 1979 on the fall of the only by keeping a wide gap between the leanings and might have been a Trotsky- Shah of Iran, seriously missed the mark two—a practice that supposedly continues ite, he became staunchly anti-Communist again and again, it became clear that the to this day. To insure the analysts’ products after a stint in Spain during the Spanish Kent model for strategic intelligence was had value to their consumers, Kent argued Civil War. He turned conservative in the not up to the job—as seemed to have been that analysts should “bend every effort to 1940s. This was a common conversion predicted by Kendall. Much has been said obtain guidance from their customer.” among many intellectuals of that era—the and written about the Kent-Kendall debate, page  • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 but the poor showing after the debate by assets—and open sources—the analysis that implicated the Agency in the Kennedy the Office of National Estimates seemed to can be based on rock solid evidence. Intel- assassination. Later, the KGB circulated a have tipped the scales in favor of Kendall. ligence analysis is, perforce, based on the falsehood that the CIA was in cahoots with Though Kendall often shot from the hip, he inputs it receives from various sources, the kidnappers of babies in South America displayed a deadly accuracy. The past and including the secrets the DO is able to pilfer to obtain their organs for transplants to current failures of analysis underscore the from reliable and clean-hands sources, and people in the U.S. For good measure, the validity of Kendall’s model for intelligence the additional research and judgments of KGB propagandists threw in additional analysis, a methodology based on knowing the analysts. Every computer geek knows piffle that CIA was pushing drugs in Watts, one’s enemy, how he thinks and what he GIGO (garbage in, garbage out)—good Los Angeles. One has to hand it to the wants, a model that is even still applicable intelligence operates under the same law: Soviet writers—stirring the pot with all in today’s war against terrorists. good collection in, good analysis out. the right ingredients for a naïve U.S. audi- The fundamental problem is the ence was their specialty. U.S. newspapers DO’s inability to collect urgently needed were filled with outrage, which spilled into …intelligence research should be intelligence from a new type of enemy, Congress, demanding that all CIA activities be investigated and reined in. steeped in knowledge transnational and ubiquitous, but one whose whereabouts are unknown and The constraints on the DO began of the social sciences, whose communications are undetectable. further limiting its ability to provide the foundation for understanding Mission impossible? Seemingly so. This analysts with needed data. The DO’s the “otherness” of adversaries. vacuum of raw material has hampered inputs to the analysts declined further intelligence analysts, leaving them (and when Jimmy Carter—the first President to the nation) open to policy mistakes and politicize the DCI’s position—displayed But Kendall’s admonition to get misstatements. How and why did the his discomfiture with CIA and the “dirty under the skin and into the mind of one’s Directorate of Operations get into a posi- business of spying,” with a number of adversaries was not adopted. The Kent tion where in its reduced size and capabili- appointments that echoed the view that model of intelligence analysis prevailed ties do not and can not produce the needed “gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s and underpinned other critical errors of intelligence? Start with waves of Executive mail.” Carter bought into the idea that the analytical judgment, e.g., the 1950s bomber branch investigations and Congressional unpleasant necessities of human spying and missile gap, a contention dispelled by attacks beginning four decades ago.. The could be avoided …that technology could the U-2’s flights which showed that there Church and Pike Committees led to con- do it all, and leave one with clean hands: was no gap. While analysts, in 1973, were straints on what the DO could do, whom no more recruitment of and disreputable struggling at their desks with the technical it could recruit, and how quickly it could intercourse with shady, unsavory, disaf- issues of whether the Soviets could covertly respond to national threats, and shackled fected, and disloyal foreigners—diplo- convert their SA-5 anti-aircraft missile the slightest initiative. mats, scientists, soldiers, and unspeak- into an anti-ballistic missile to skirt the The CIA was not the only organi- able spies—to supply stacks of stolen and ABM Treaty or whether they would simply zation attacked by the Church and Pike cheat on the treaty, the CIA’s technologists Committees. The FBI’s counterintelligence went into the field and intercepted the budget was cut by twenty-five percent and GIGO—garbage in, garbage SA-5’s radar signals that confirmed that their CI agents were transferred to pursue out—good intelligence operates the Soviets were cheating on the treaty by crimes that had already been committed under the same law: good testing their SA-5 in an ABM mode. Better rather than remaining assigned to prevent collection in, good analysis out. collection—not better analysis—solved espionage and terrorism, thereby leaving the problem. When Henry Kissinger during Soviet spies more operating room. The treaty negotiations confronted the Soviets Defense Department’s human intelligence suspect secrets. Carter appointed Admiral over their behavior, they ceased their cheat- collectors suffered the same fate. These Stansfield Turner Director of Central Intel- ing. Unfortunately, the analytical failures two committees seemed to make the work ligence with the specific charge to turn the continue, the most recent and notorious of of the KGB and the GRU easier. The Soviet Agency away from the dirty “agent” side which are the failure to anticipate 9/11 and KGB exacerbated the self-inflicted damage of the business and to focus on technical the assertion that the Iraqis had stockpiled to U.S. intelligence by waging a deception means of collection. Turner’s belief in weapons of mass destruction. campaign that helped to poison the minds techno-wizardry was rock solid. Although What is not so well known, and does of Americans and friendly foreigners he knew that it was no panacea for intel- not get into the news, is that intelligence against the CIA and its DO by planting false ligence collection, yet he went along with analysts have many successes to their stories about it around the globe. Carter’s view since collection by technical credit. There is a clear correlation between Buying into one of these old propa- means could, and did, have some positive good intelligence collection and good ganda lies, Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, using benefits. The problem with technical col- intelligence analysis. When analysts have Jim Garrison’s absurd interpretation of lection, by such means as satellites, is that good information provided by the CIA’s the New Orleans trial of Clay Shaw, were their capabilities are not a secret, and so clandestine collectors in its Directorate both based on an oft-cited KGB false story they are vulnerable to countermeasures of Operations and technical collection planted in an Italian Communist magazine and deception. Carter’s anti-HUMINT

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page  bias resulted in the emasculation of agent system that increasingly produces feckless, WMD Commissions, other than signaling recruitment by the Agency’s DO. flawed, or flimsy analyses. Few appreciate the public that attention has been drawn to This over-reliance on technology and what Goss is doing since he isn’t perform- the problem, are unlikely to result in better the inability to understand the need for the ing in public and has chosen not to appear collection and analysis. Nor will the Con- patient development of human sources, on the TV news talk shows to explain why gressional and administration mandated including unsavory and infamous per- he seems to be focusing on changes in the changes in management superstructure, sons, gained further unfortunate footing Directorate of Operations. The close and reshuffled budget authorities, and who with Clinton’s selection of John Deutch as essential connection between collectors briefs the President address the problem. DCI. Deutch, responding to the demands and analysts seems to be too arcane for Not only are these changes—that are at of Congress, the White House, and the pundits and the public to comprehend. best marginally related to the problem— public, wiped out the DO’s ability to col- After all, if analysts got it wrong, why are unlikely to improve intelligence collection lect the secrets that the analysts needed, collectors the ones being asked to take and analysis, they have the potential for restricting its clandestine collectors from retirement? Many claim that this is throw- making matters worse. For example, fur- dealing with “unsavory” characters— ing out the baby with the bathwater, but ther restricting the dialogue between the sending out new requirements that only there is historical precedence. President President and the DCI—the only one in the “nice people” who had secrets to sell be Roosevelt did the same after Pearl Harbor, chain of command with first-hand, inside recruited. When valuable raw intelligence skipping over top generals and admirals to knowledge of clandestine operations and vanished because there were not enough put younger ones in charge. And he won the responsibility for improving intel- “nice” people who were unhappy with the war. ligence collection and analysis—could unstable and or dangerous countries, had The intelligence analysis process deny the President the benefits that access to these countries’ secrets, and demands the best of raw intelligence come only from face-to-face exchanges were willing to take the risks of passing inputs from both technical and human between policy and intelligence. While their information to the U.S., American sources. The orders for the cutbacks in the resolution of who in the Intelligence intelligence analysts were left to their own human sources that are essential to good Community will do what in information local resources, mostly open sources, in analysis came from the same Congressio- sharing, analysis, and reporting is needed, composing critical NIE’s. No wonder they nal panels and policy makers who now are only better intelligence collection from missed the boat on 9/11, or as others have demanding that the intelligence problem reinvigorated clandestine sources and put it, didn’t have enough dots to connect. be fixed by doing better, more objective technical services can provide the basis for One of the old-line DO operatives from analysis. To rescue American intelligence, improved analysis. How successful Goss the days before the Congress tied CIA’s the DO—the very foundation of the intel- will be in restoring collection inputs into hands put it another way, “Estimating is ligence structure—needs to be rebuilt; intelligence analysis depends on whether what you do when you don’t know and hence, the need for a number of replace- the Congress, White House, and especially can’t find out.” ments. Goss, with his wealth of experience the public—all informed and understand- The complex diffi- as a DO clandestine case officer and as ing—demand that changes be made that culty of fixing the collec- Chairman of the House Permanent Select support rather than destroy the possibility tion-analysis problem is Committee on Intelligence, knows what of improvement. Indeed no intelligence, apparent daily as newspa- has to be done, and he has moved quickly counterintelligence, counterterrorism or pers report with surprise to reinvigorate the DO. He expects to see law enforcement organization will ever at the departures of some the pay-off in terms of better analysis from be effective at eliminating the threats to senior CIA officials. Are the Directorate of Intelligence; analysis our way of life without the trust and sup- Goss we making things worse that lives up to the standards that Will- port from a well informed and educated with these rapid and sweeping changes? moore Kendall urged decades ago—solid, public—which is AFIO’s mission  The loyalty of insiders clouds the issue. reliable assessments based on the knowl- Many unhappy voices are merely stating edge, understanding, and interpretation of the foreign targets’ interests, not on solidarity with colleagues whose careers © 2 0 0 5 , S . E u g e n e P o t ea t are cut short by the sweeping changes. Anx- the mindset of desk-bound Americans believing that their open-source material The writer is a retired CIA intelligence offi- iety over their own security compounds the cer, and serves as President of the Associa- din. Many are wary of the forced Congres- and personal view points have it right. tion of Former Intelligence Officers. sional solution to reorganize intelligence, Certainly, there are those within the DO particularly because reorganization as the ranks who know terrorism and know how sole solution was sold to the public with to work against terrorists. Goss’s challenge great fanfare through an impressive public is to articulate and communicate his mis- relations campaign before its content was sion and objectives to these mid-ranking released and without being subjected to officers, to remove restrictions on their “Nations get on with one another, any study and debate. work, and to increase their reliance on not by telling the truth, but by lying deep, non-official cover rather than rely Others recognize that the current gracefully.” —H.L. Mencken DirCIA, Porter Goss, may be making on liaison services. necessary, yet painful, changes to fix a The recommendations of the 9/11 and page  • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 What makes effective intelligence analysis and support so difficult is that available hard data is rarely sufficient to permit high con- fidence determination as to what’s going to happen (if anything), who’s going to do it, where and when. In Share Missions, the good old Cold War days, we could watch the massive Not Just Information Soviet military establishment with our national techni- Frederick Harrison cal means, and know when [email protected] something might be afoot. In the current era, we are dealing with single or small numbers of individuals skulk- he danger in today’s intense focus ing around the world using on improving information sharing the weave of our social and in homeland security protection is economic fabric for cover. T The upshot is that it is much that the term will be taken too literally. The number of organizations engaged and harder to tell whether or not a the volume of information generated is so piece of information obtained great that providing more data to more by one or another intelligence people, in the interest of better “informa- or enforcement organization tion sharing,” will not resolve underlying is significant enough to war- sharing issues, and is likely to make them rant sharing and with whom worse. Compounding the volume problem to share it. Automatic sharing is the largely vertical orientation of home- of everything with everybody land security components, each guided by is clearly not the answer; that its own chain-of-command, established would simply make the hay- missions, and interest-driven imperatives. stack much larger, without The seams between them are the prover- making the needles more bial cracks into which observed anomalies apparent, particularly when can fall enroute to becoming intelligence there is often no universal failures. They are also barriers to the agreement as to what the constant and focused interaction needed needles look like. to prevent those cracks from defining the The combination of intelligence process. fragmentary, ambiguous It is much too simplistic to ascribe information and the noise our information sharing weaknesses to introduced by an enormous failures of dissemination: that if only a intelligence-enforcement report available to Person or Organiza- infrastructure that processes tion A had gotten in time to Person or and reacts to it creates a per- Organization B action could have been fect storm. Unfortunately, it taken to avoid catastrophe. Often, perhaps is unrealistic to believe that more often, the indicative information was we will one day be able to available to key people who were not able completely eliminate either to recognize its portent, chose to discount of these problems. Homeland it, or simply never got to it. To a significant security will always involve extent, their lapses reflect the limitations large numbers of diverse imposed, often unconsciously, by the organizations generating and operational contexts in which they work, sifting enormous volumes where competing priorities, objectives, of data, very little of which and expectations will unavoidably color of is of agreed significance evaluation of information received and the and indisputably actionable. situation at hand. What we can do, however, is to mitigate the storm’s 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page  centrifugal forces that make cooperation foster active working relationships local agencies. In fact, however, security more difficult. among analysts, law enforcement protection features incorporated in the A mission-centric approach to struc- officers, and management deci- proposed virtual community architecture turing the operating relationships among sionmakers across organizational would be at least equal to those currently intelligence support and law enforcement boundaries. operative in comparable DoD, Intelligence components offers a promising way to Pooling analytical resources across Community, and Homeland Security net- transcend organizational stovepipes. organizational boundaries should yield worked systems. They would provide for Implementation would occur in the virtual important synergistic benefits. No orga- centralized administration of internet- environment of secure digital networks nization disseminates all of the informa- work accesses, personal authentication of and state-of-the-art information technol- tion it collects, partly because of time individual users, monitoring and record- ogy that now exist or are already under and expense, but mostly because the ing of member online activity. The services development in the national homeland information’s significance (if any) and facility that supported these functions security infrastructure. operational value are not apparent or would also provide for the maintenance Information sharing communities cannot be determined. Much of it, there- of data bases relevant to a community’s would be structured to reflect operational fore, is known only to people within the interests and serve as a secure portal for targets or missions rather than participat- organization that acquired it. Providing its interaction with outside entities and ing organizations. The targets/missions, convenient and secure facilities for those sources of new information. large and small, permanent and transitory, individuals to share insights and infor- Mission-centric virtual communi- would mirror the operational responsibili- mation, as well as to collectively address ties are not new, either in concept or ties and concerns of the homeland security observed anomalies, can yield more useful implementation. The National Counter community. One community might focus, analysis of situational ambiguities and Terrorist Center, itself a mission-centric for example, on security of the Mexican potential developments. Including in the community, has created an on-line adjunct. border, another on container shipments community both intelligence analysts and The Department of Defense, in prosecut- into East Coast ports, a third on narcotics operational managers should provide the ing and supporting military operations trafficking into the Detroit area. latter better support in determining the in Afghanistan and Iraq, makes remark- nature and timing of action to be taken. able use of such communities in tactical • A mission-centric information shar- command and control, surveillance and ing community would comprise There are two concerns likely to be intelligence operations. Several years ago, those people, across the spectrum of raised in connection with mission-centric two junior Army officers created civilian participating organizations, whose information sharing communities. The Internet websites called Companycom- expertise, duties, and insights could first has to do with the potential for man- mand.com and Platoonleader.org. They are contribute to effective performance agement failure, improper actions, or plain successful, mission-centric communities, of the designated mission. Relation- confusion caused by the apparent blurring their mission being to provide a forum in ships would extend beyond the Fed- of organizational boundaries and chains- which young officers can help one another eral arena to encompass appropriate of-command, particularly where operating be better company commanders and pla- state and local organizations. authorities and intelligence support per- sonnel are interacting in the same context. toon leaders. • Each active community would be An obvious deterrent to such occurrences These examples reflect operating coordinated by the organization(s) would be a strict regulation precluding models that differ in specifics from one bearing statutory or operational use of an information sharing medium for another, and from the concept discussed responsibility for the target or mis- transmission, by anybody, of operational in this article, because their missions and sion it covers. Participating orga- taskings or assignments. In endorsing underlying contexts vary. What they have in nizations would assign to it their the concept, the leaders of the Homeland common is that they make their users and sub-elements and personnel most Security and Intelligence Communities participants more effective by enabling appropriate to that coverage and would have to decide that the benefits them to work together in an environment to its own responsibilities. Every of mission-centric information sharing driven by common missions and objec- community would have direct par- substantially outweighs its potential pit- tives rather than by a rigid organizational ticipation by both enforcement and falls. Their continuing support would be system.  intelligence support agencies. needed to prevent the gradual imposition • Mission-centric communities would of restrictions that could ultimately render FREDERICK HARRISON has had an be realized as distinct virtual entities the communities useless. extensive Intelligence Community career, devoted principally to multi- supported by an array of collaborative The second major area of concern agency information sharing initia- interaction tools that would enable will be security: the protection of ongo- tives. He holds ONI’s Neilsen Award, members to exchange information ing investigative and enforcement opera- NSA’s Rowlett Trophy, CIA’s Career and views, in a variety of media, on tions and of intelligence sources and Medal, the Vice President’s Hammer a one-to-one or one-to-many basis. Award, and the National Intelligence methods. The communities’ transverse Medal of Achievement. Participating individuals, identified membership structure and information by name, would be assigned to their flow patterns will raise flags, particularly communities on a long term basis to given the proposed inclusion of state and page  • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 Symposium—continued from page 1 cells already within our borders, hidden or using the cloak of religious tolerance and freedom, are counting on America’s openness and diversity to blind us to their intentions to seek the annihiliation of all “infidels” or nonbelievers, while publicly downplaying these ideas to the trusting American public, hesitant to speak ill of religious-appearing groups with political agendas.

A F I O N A T IO N A L I n t E l l I G E n c E s y MPO S I U M A n d C O N VE n t IO N 2 0 0 5 1100 -1135 - Gary M. Bald, Direc- 0930-1015 - “Steps to Defeat Global The NEW Federal Bureau of Investiga- tor, National Security Service, Terror” - Panelists: Jennifer Sims, tion—Its new National Security Service, Office of the DNI/FBI - “Coun- Burton Gerber, James Gosler, Intelligence Directorate and Counterter- terterrorism, Intelligence, and others [confirmed] rorism Division the National Security Service.” Break Buffet Stand-up/Courtyard 1035-1140 - “Trust But Identify: Lunch Biometrics Identification Sys- F r i d a y , O c t o b e r 2 8 , 2 0 0 5 1315 -1415 - Willie Hulon, Assis- tems” - John D. Woodward, Jr., tant Director, Counterter- Rand Corp., former Director of Hosted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation - rorism Division, “Interna- US DoD Biometrics Management Headquarters—Robert S. Mueller, III, Director tional Terrorism, Human Office. Washington, DC Intelligence, and National SPEAKER LUNCHEON and on... Security” 1145-1300 - Luncheon with Paul Sperry, Saturday and Sunday, October 29 and 30 at the 1420 - 1520 - “Islamic Extremists, ‘Muslim Ter- Sheraton Premiere Hotel, 8661 Leesburg Pike David W. Szady, Assistant Direc- rorists’ and Political Correctness in Vienna, VA 22182 tor, Counterintelligence Division, America” [invited] FBI - “New Counterintelligence Techniques for the Expanded 1300 -1450 - Intelligence Books Panel - Convention/Symposium Co-Chairmen: Bureau Roles” Hayden Peake, Judith Pearson, Stephen Budian- Peter Earnest, AFIO Chairman sky, Ann Blackman, Nigel West [confirmed] Break S. Eugene Poteat, AFIO President Break 1540 -1610 - John Pistole, Deputy Director, FBI 1510 - 1700 - Intelligence Panel on Intelligence, - “In Summary - Counterter- Internal Security, and America’s Own MI5. T h u r s d a y , 2 7 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 5 rorism / Counterintelligence at Stephen Marrin the FBI - Overview of Many New Reception and Awards Banquet The Sheraton Premiere Hotel, Vienna, VA Directions” 1900 - 2000 - Chairman’s Reception - (1) Registration from 1600 to 2000 hours All Day- FBI Recreation Association 2000 - 2200 - AFIO Annual Awards Banquet [dark (2) Hospitality Suite - informal get-together in Main Store will have satellite outlet at the meeting business attire] Lobby. Appetizers. All Day - World Trade Center Private Exhibit - just General Richard Stilwell Chairman’s Award opened; unavailable to the general public David Atlee Phillips Founder’s Award Optional Evening Reception.... Keynote Speaker: [TBD] Departure for International Spy Museum - Zola F r i d a y , 2 8 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 5 Restaurant [For those who have selected the Lifetime Achievement Award Spy Museum Reception] FBI HQ, Charles J. Bonaparte Auditorium 1645 - 1930 - Chairman’s Reception at the Inter- national Spy Museum. AFIO Chairman [Spy 0700 - 0800 - Buses depart Sheraton-Premiere Museum Executive Director] Peter Earnest S u n d a y , 3 0 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 5 Hotel host. Conference Center, Sheraton-Premiere Hotel 0815 - 0900 - FBI Security/Registration - Bonaparte Auditorium, FBI HQ International Spy Museum Reception 0830 - 1000 General Membership Meeting - Presi- dent, Sr. VP & Executive Director 0905 - 0915 - FBI Security Briefing includes hors d’oeuvres in private recep- tion room of Zola’s Restaurant. Museum’s Break 0915 - 0925 - Introductions - AFIO President Eugene large gift shop will remain open the first Poteat, AFIO Chairman Peter Earnest 1015 - 1200 - Chapter Workshop – restricted to cur- hour. Will NOT include tour of Museum. rent and prospective Chapter representatives, 0925-1005 - Robert S. Mueller III - FBI Director; “FBI: conducted by AFIO VP for Chapters Emerson Intelligence, Terrorism, and the New Bureau.” Cooper. No cost, but must register. Break S a t u r d a y , 2 9 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 5 END OF SYMPOSIUM and CONVENTION 1020-1100 - Arthur Cummings, Special Agent/Deputy  Conference Hall, Sheraton-Premiere Hotel Director, National Counterterrorism Center - “Countering International Terrorism Opera- 0845-0930 - Registration at Conference Hall - Main tions” Lobby 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page  Church Committee. It climbed back gradu- ally and then with a rush in the 1990s as it endorsed openness and had good roles in TV series and movies. Subsequently, NATIONAL LEADERSHIP FORUM it dropped a few points with the Ames Upcoming Conference case but was helped by the popularity of cigar smoking, good guy, Director Tenet, soared to new heights during the Afghan Of This and That campaign, and maintained a good level

Register Early until deep into the Iraq operations when th and Save $200! Annual See inside for 4 details… Dwayne S. Anderson it slowly became apparently the Saddam China Forum [email protected] did not have big stocks of nerve agents, biological weapons, or any kind of a viable relude: These are interesting times nuclear weapons program. for those that follow the twists and Although the Iraq estimate was an turns of our intelligence policies. P IC judgement, CIA took the image hits for Every day brings new developments. Yester- the unhappy estimate. It more lost ground Learn the Secrets of Doing Business in Today’s China day, for example the Negropointe/Hayden Risk Assessments from American Intelligence Professionals when Tenet’s “Slam Dunk” statement nominations were approved, with Hayden • Learn about the newest trends and was widely publicized, and drooped more October 14, 2005 opportunities…and potential pitfalls giving some insights on what went wrong AMA Executive Conference Center • Discover how to cultivate contacts and Chicago, Illinois partnerships points with the publication of the Septem- • Find out about the requirements, on the Iraq estimate. Also yesterday, the restrictions and risks ber 11 Committee report. At the moment, • Get the inside story from intelligence President’s Commission on Intelligence experts and world affairs specialists it doesn’t look like a good investment as • Share knowledge and ideas with colleagues and speakers criticized the CIA and FBI plans to retool various newspaper columnists point out Co-sponsored by and improve their organizations. What National Leadership Forum on Global Challenges the morale is low, and that Director Goss will tomorrow bring? Interesting but hard has politicized the Agency by bringing REGISTER TODAY! on the poor columnist, like myself, who 1-800-262-9699 www.amanet.org/events over a batch of politically oriented per- finds that anything he writes, becomes sonnel from Congress and putting them quickly dated unless it is written five min- October 14, 2005 - in senior positions while ousting many of utes before publication. AMA Executive Conference Center the old time professionals. Also, the new One question that occurs to me is: if Director of National Intelligence is said Chicago, IL all current and projected changes to the Fourth Annual China Update Program to be eating CIA lunch by taking over the intelligence community had been in place and Registration daily briefing of the President, taking over before the Iraq Estimate, would that esti- Current Issues Full-day Forum. estimates, and reportedly, is about to hire mate have been more accurate? Unlikely, a couple thousand analysts. With Defense in my view. Creating more superstructure apparently getting into clandestine opera- Learn the Secrets of Doing doesn’t necessarily create better analysis tions in a bigger way, and the FBI moving and new sounder information. Business in Today’s China into overseas operations. CIA may be at a IC Market Report: Just read an item market low. Expert speakers from U.S. diplomatic called “Cold Cases,” by Dennis Drabele But not all the news is bad for the and intelligence communities offer in the book review section of the Sunday Agency, and it may hold it market value insights and perspectives on establishing 6 March 2005, Washington Post in which at a steady though lower level. It is doing he wrote or expanding well budget wise and has been ordered The reputation of polar explorers is so business relationships in China. to hire more analysts and operations variable that it may help to think of them officers. Only time will tell how it works http://www.amanet.org/events/china as stocks. Judging by a pair of new books, Scott is up, Peary has fallen to a new out, and it may do quite well as Director Event co-sponsored by the low, and Cook, once thought of as all but Goss, an experienced intelligence hand, National Leadership Forum on Global Challenges. worthless, is rallying. AMA Executive Conference Center. now relieved of many of the onerous daily It struck me that may be a good way AMA Members $995, Nonmembers $1,195. duties, can concentrate, especially, on to look at the US intelligence community Call 1-800-262-9699 to register. strengthening clandestine operations. (IC). One might say that it is a bull market Market Advice: Reduce holdings. Online registration at for the agencies, especially for growth, The Bureau: FBI (until recently, pri- and we have two major mergers afoot. http://www.amanet.org/events/ marily a law enforcement agency) has cer- CIA, DIA, FBI and NSA might equate to tainly had its ups and downs too. Glorified big board stocks (NYSE) and the others to Meeting #3890-00005 in its early years by bringing down famous NASDAQ equities. gangsters (and by adroit public affairs) its The Agency: CIA had a good, though stock set a new high right from the start. much shrouded public image in its early Recent years were less kind as the Hanson years, then reached a low point later, case, the failure of a costly computer perhaps bottoming out at the time of the page 10 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 system, and the failure to prevent the 11 I’ll leave the NASDAQ agencies for warming trend, glaciers in Iceland are September attacks have lowered the stock another time although they all appear growing). value. It too has expanded its asset base and capable of some upward movement. Classification: I note that DCI Porter has diversified. Market Advice: Hold. New Offering: One IPO is coming Goss once voiced his concern over clas- Defense Intelligence: DIA has, wisely upthe Office of the Director for National sification, namely (I don’t remember his in my view, largely managed to stay out of Intelligence. This organization will face exact words) that it was badly done, and the limelight from its inception, a policy enormous turf battles, budget battles, and over done. I believe that almost everyone in inaugurated by its first Director, LTG infighting. It will need strong White House the intelligence community has long ago Carroll. It had to tread lightly at first as it and Congressional support to function come to the same conclusion. I mention was created over objections and resistance well. Despite these problems, there is a “almost” everyone because I recall one from the Services. Avoiding criticism and strong possibility of upward movement guardian of compartment documents who building it asset base with its large, fairly here. This looks like a solid investment as firmly believed that no one, even cleared new headquarters, improved communi- a growth stock. Market Advice: Buy! personnel should have access to this mate- cations and computerization, and better Disclaimer: This market analysis was rial. If no one saw, it read it, handled it, it training it has shown, up until now, a written on 23 March. Stocks might rise or was secure. The fact that it was then use- solid, steady growtha good dividend fall further depending on developments less, despite having been gathered at great issue. Gradually, however, the Office of that transpire between now and the pub- cost, made no impression on him. Security the Secretary of Defense increasingly got lication date. was the first, foremost and sole objective. into the intelligence business, moving Predicting: The Intelligence reorga- Doubtless there were or are others of the sideways into the game through C3 (Com- nization bill requires CIA to build several same persuasion. mand, Control, Communication) and then checks into its analysis proceduresto Otherwise, it is generally agreed that more directly as it established intelligence avoid forecasts such as the one on weap- too much is classified and too much is clas- offices and currently ending up with an ons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now sified at higher levels than is warranted. Undersecretary for Intelligence with, of (mid-December 2004) there are some During my years in the Office of the Sec- course, a substantial staff. Moreover, it Congressional pressures to extend these retary of Defense, there were many times was announced yesterday that the Penta- requirements to the entire Intelligence I and my colleagues did not use compart- gon wants to consolidate all eight of its Community. Several of these measures mented intelligence because an answer intelligence agencies under one four star may be useful, however, some of the pro- was needed “now” and getting the special generala Super Defense Intelligence cedures were already established since documents with, perhaps, useful data, Organization (this was sort of what was 9-11, such as Red Team analyses. Others, would take far too long. It would arrive far intended for DIA in the first place). What such as a quality control office, might be too late. Time and inconvenience greatly with the new DNI, a Defense Undersecre- superfluous or even a step backward. Too limited its use. To a lesser degree, this was tary for Intelligence, plus a Deputy Under- many checks, balances, and rechecks, also true of all classified information. On secretary, and possibly a four star Chief of could slow down the process of evaluating occasion, under time pressure, I added Defense Intelligence, DIA’s stock appears intelligence, refining it, and getting it out sections to the Secretary’s briefing books to be slipping. Market Advice: Sell! to consumers. from open sources, even though Secret or No Such Agency: NSA managed to Determining the current situation Top Secret material on these sections were get by with virtually no public image at all is difficult enough, given a secretive and availablesomewhere if one had the time until recent years. Now we have Glavnost big security-minded target, but predicting the to find itand likely were more extensive or time at the Agency. Deep into retooling to future, as estimates must do, will always more detailed. I’ve had to do this even with cope with burgeoning communications be chancy business and 100 percent accu- such items as a foreign country’s order traffic, one might consider it a growth racies can rarely be achieved. Consider of battle (on two occasions for the Vice stock, but there some questions. First off, that, in the 1970s, climatologists who had President’s books). One of the issues here its CEO is leaving after doing a credible job, enormous quantities of solid data available was that, even though action officers in and moving to become number two at the to them, were worried about global cool- OSD were cleared for the special material, Office of National Intelligence (or whatever ing. For thirty years, these data showed our safes were not and thus the material it will be called). Having an expert on NSA that world temperatures had slowly but had to be picked up each day and returned matters at the right hand of the DNI might steadily dropped and scientists were saying each evening. Not handy at all when one be good, but perhaps, not so good for that something must be done or we would was gyrating at top speed. NSA’s in house ability to make and carry enter another ice age. Their predictions, One basic problem affecting over out its own decisions. More critical, is the according to many and perhaps most pres- classification is a system whereby an extremely difficult job of trying to monitor ent climatologists, were 180 degrees off analyst, case officer, or desk officer is the worlds communication without get- course and global warming, not cooling, never reprimanded for over classifying ting buried under by the massive increases is the dire threat (On 23 December 2004, a report but could be in hot water from in trafficnot to mention all the wide band shortly after I wrote the above, George Will under classifying one. So, when even the fibre optic cables, which to this writer, discussed those global cooling predic- slightest doubt exists, use the higher clas- appear to pose formidable problems. tions at some length. He also mentioned sification. Market Advice: Limited buy. that, contrary to the other evidence of a The over classification problem can

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 11 never be completely resolved, but there are some measures that can be taken to reduce it. First and foremost, security officers should to be charged with, not just oversee- ing the security of various information but also briefed on, charged with, and graded on fitness reports on ensuring that unclas- sified information is not uncritically and automatically stamped with various clas- sifications, and if stamped, it is not done at AFIO National 2005 a higher level than necessary. After all, the The behemoth .50 Beowulf dwarfs the .223 cartridge shown for less classified matter there is in circulation, comparison. It’s hard to believe these cartridges function in guns Special Events and the better it is likely to be protected. that are not all that different in design. Note the rebated rim of the .50 Beowulf cartridge. Speaker Programs The second measure is that new compartments of classified data should course). So the Special Forces have a wide in brief be extremely limited and previously com- selection. The last two, I understand, are parted information put into regular chan- powerful (334-grain bullets for the .50), nels whenever feasible. Thus, Top Secret shorter range cartridges primarily for use Codeword would become Top Secret and in carbines. Needless to say, there are many more available to users. new optical and other attachments that A F I O a t T a n g l e w oo d 1 3 A u g u s t 0 5 Special Forces and the AR: First off, I make the AR even more effective. There are had best establish that I really don’t know two articles in the March 05 Guns&Ammo In the beautiful Berkshire Hills of whether Special Forces should be consid- magazine for those interested in learning Western Massachusetts, the Boston Sym- ered part of the intelligence framework. In more about AR developments. phony Orches- fact I stopped trying to define intelligence While on the subject of weapons, tra held their long ago. I do know that some fifteen agen- here’s one more note for our many read- well-known cies make up the formal intelligence com- ers who are interested in arming the case annual con- munity and various and sundry mavens in officer. Kahr Arms, a firm that has spe- c er t wh ich this field name up to twenty-one agencies included an that belong under this rubric. Maybe the A l l-Mo z a r t Library of Congress should be number Program and an evening of All That Jazz twenty two. Anyhow, US Special Forces conducted by Keith Lockhart. Family, do carry out many activities that are best friends and AFIO colleagues of Boston- defined as covert action. Because of the based AFIO Board Director Albano Ponte nature of these actions, the rifle/carbine arrived from New England and New York to has become a more important part of their celebrate this purely social engagement. armament than it generally is with regular forces where artillery, mortars, missiles, and rockets, cause many enemy casualties. P45, Black polymer frame, matte stainless slide S u mme r L u n c h eo n - 2 8 J u l y 0 5 In any case, the venerable M-16/AR-15 has cialized in small lightweight, concealed M i k e S c h e u e r a n d S t eve C o l l greatly improved over the years (remem- carry pistol, is producing a new polymer ber when we heard of how it broke down, .45 (the KP4543) that weighs 17 oz. and “Between Iraq and a Hard Place — the misfired, jammed and other horror stories has a match grade barrel and a six round CIA, Islamic Militants, and the problematic during the Vietnam War, and how some magazine. Sounds like a good weapon for Middle East” was the theme of the well-sub- of our troops preferred to use captured anyone desiring a lightweight weapon in a scribed summer luncheon. The turnout, AK-47s) becoming heavy caliber. One caution, because of the in fact, was so large—almost 300—that it a highly reliable low weight, it might be a tad difficult to required the hotel to move another group weapon. Recently is control when loosing off several rounds. to other quarters, to allow us to have three has been improved I have looked at other Kahr models (never contiguous large rooms – and even those even more and now fired one) and they seem to me to be well were crowded. comes in a variety of made.  Speaking first, in a spirited ‘take-no- calibers including prisoners’ presentation, was former CIA heavier 5.56 cali- officer and now un-”anonymous” Michael 334 grain FMJ Rainier bullet ber bullets and the A tyrant…is always stirring up F. Scheuer, former head of CIA’s Osama newer 6.5 Grendal, 6.8 SPC, .448 SOCOM, some war or other, in order that bin Laden unit until 1999 and author of and .50 Beowulf (someone in the ammuni- the people may require a leader. IMPERIAL HUBRIS: Why the West Is tion business must have been impressed — Plato Losing the War on Terror. He provided a by their freshman English Literature needed eye-opening examination of what page 12 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 Charles S. Robb’s talk. Robb, Co-Chair- man, WMD Commission [Silberman-Robb Commission] also explained why the report devotes little time on what intelli- gence did right, and focused on 9/11 as an “intelligence failure” rather than a failure of policy to accept and act on numerous warnings given to it by several agencies. I. C. Smith, former Special-Agent-In-Charge, FBI, discussed material from his new book: Spies, Lies, and Bureaucratic Bungling Inside Al Ponte and Gary Wass celebrate the successful event the FBI. Thaddeus Holt, lawyer and former Deputy Undersecretary of the Army, spoke Ponte, and teammate Gary on Military Deception in WWII. His book, Wass arranged and hosted The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the the event for local Boston Second World War, received unusually strong and New England members able to attend praise by U.K. and U.S. reviewers. this upbeat, spirited outing. Thank you Al and Gary!

– W i n t e r L u n c h eo n – 1 4 J a n u a r y 2 0 0 5 Mike Scheuer, top photo, signs books. Journalist Steve Coll, bottom, – S p r i n g L u n c h eo n – answers questions as AFIO Chairman Peter Earnest looks on.. P h i l ip Z e l i k o w 2 9 A p r i l 2 0 0 5 a n d G eo r g e F r ie d ma n is wrong in the way we are approaching H o n . C h a r l e s S . R o b b , the al Qaeda/Taliban issues–and how the I. C . S mi t h , “ T h e funding and tasking was–and might still a n d T h a d d e u s H o l t Political Tug- be done–in the community. of-War over “Inside the new WMD Report - And What Money and Following lunch, Steve Coll - Pulitzer Isn’t In It, and Why” was the topic of the Hon. prize winning author, associate editor of Power - The the Washington Post - spoke on his years Intelligence of tours, activities and research for his Communit y prize-winning book: GHOST WARS: The Re s t r uc t ure Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, Battle” was and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion t he t heme to September 10, 2001 which won a 2005 of Philip D. Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. The Z e l i k o w ’s book used numerous interviews with Mike [Execut ive Scheuer, Gary Schroen, and other Agency Director, 9/11 officers who worked on Afghanistan and/ Commission or Iraq operations. Top: Senator - National Robb speaks Philip D. Zelikow, top photo. Commission For the first time, AFIO released with Peter Dr. George Friedman, bottom photo. streaming audio of the program online Earnest. on Terrorist for all members to enjoy. It can be found Middle: FBI Attacks Upon the United States] talk to a at: http://www.afio.com/sections/event_sched- CI expert I.C. standing-room-only crowd. He laid out the Smith speaks myriad problems the Commission faces ule/05_july_28_luncheon_audio.htm on his years in the Bureau. Bottom: AFIO President with adoption of its findings and what he Gene Poteat with author foresees in a restructuring of the intel- Thaddeus Holt ligence community. Earlier that morning, A F I O A T t h E P O P S Dr. George Friedman, Founder/Chairman 1 1 J u n e 2 0 0 5 - T h i r d A n n u a l of Stratfor, Strategic Forecasting, Inc., AFIO/ B o s t o n P op s E ve n i n g author of the riveting America’s Secret War: “ R e d , W h i t e a n d B l u e ” The Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between the United States and Its Enemies discussed On Saturday June 11th Boston-area “Islamic Terrorist Extremism - Abroad AFIO members and friends gathered again and Within - Europe’s Late Awakening.” at Boston’s Symphony Hall to hear the He displayed an unusual clarity in picking Boston Pops Orchestra perform a medley out the salient sources that have given his of patriotic songs under the direction of reports uncanny accuracy and coinage in Keith Lockhart. AFIO Board Member Al Washington circles.  2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 13 9/11, has joined the chant that this was give hope that some of these policies will career advice, internships, and referrals, an “intelligence failure.” A mantra many be reversed to counter growing dangers the Association continues its role where repeat with conviction but little under- we face. AFIO’s role remains the advising the needs are greatest…as a beacon and standing of its falsehood. and encouragement of young students conduit for the intelligence officers of As Dave Phillips said of similar anticipating careers in this field, and in tomorrow, meeting the career officials of claims in 1975, and as AFIO says today, the explaining of current and historical today. We welcome those who join to learn, it was not an “intelligence failure.” 9/11 intelligence issues told from the rare to educate, and to encourage others who was a failure of intelligence “policy”–a viewpoint of the actual intelligence prac- wish to serve the country in this crucial but policy set by Congress, by courts, and titioner. Through publications, seminars, frequently misunderstood field.  various Administrations. The decades of 8/14/2005 such policies brought layer upon layer of The Composition of Current AFIO Membership as of 1 August 2005 legislative restrictions, hand-tying limita- Intelligence Affiliations - Full Members, Only tions, inappropriate political or economic Army CIA 18.0% correctness, and odd skittishness over 24.7% offending those blatantly intending to do us harm. Examples of this came out in NRO 0.1% Unspecified post-9/11 hearings—from the protection 9.7% of Saudi co-conspirators, letting them slip OSS - Historic quietly out of the country, to the inability to 0.1% cut through legal restrictions to examine NGIA the laptop of terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, 0.0% Media 0.2% Air Force to the insistence that Iraq was linked to al 9.7% Congress Qaeda despite no evidence. These policies 0.1% effectively suffocate risk-taking, creativity, DOE and imagination…traits that became risky 0.5% Navy career breakers in the 1980s and ‘90s, yet Academic 8.0% 0.6% expected by the post-9/11 committees. State Dept Marine Corps The USA PATRIOT Act and new Visa 0.9% 6.6% Homeland Security / Law Corporate Intel DOJ & FBI Enforcement and Passport requirements, and – let’s 3.5% NSA DIA 4.6% 6.0% hope – serious protection of our borders, 3.2% 3.2%

c u r r E n t M E M B E r s of t h e A F I O B oa r d of D i r e c t o r s a n d S pe c ia l A d vi s o r s

HONORARY BOARD Mr. Brian Latell Membership Administration Co-Chairmen ConfidentialJohn Lenczowski, Ph.D. Ms. Mary Lynne McElroy AFIO Membership Office Hon. George H. W. Bush Mr. David G. Major Ms. Janet A. Murphy Hon. Gerald R. Ford John L. Martin, Esq. RADM Don H. McDowell, USN (Ret) Legal Counsel Hon. Shirley Temple Black Valerie J. McNevin, Esq. William Benteen Bailey, Esq Hon. Frank C. Carlucci Mr. C. Carson Morris Dr. Ruth M. Davis Mr. James L. Pavitt Financial Counsel Adm. Bobby R. Inman, USN (Ret) Mr. Albano F. Ponte John W. Balch, CPA Professor Ernest R. May Mr. S. Eugene Poteat Special Committees Mr. John Anson Smith C. Emerson Cooper - National-Chapter Liaison Hon. William H. Webster EMERITI RADM Don H. McDowell, USN (Ret) - Speaker Programs Hon. R. James Woolsey Mr. Charles A. Briggs Albano F. Ponte, Endowment Funds and Fund Raising RADM Donald P. Harvey, USN (Ret) Editors and Managers of Special Assignments BOARD OF DIRECTORS Maj. Gen. Jack E. Thomas, USAF (Ret) Dwayne Anderson - Founding Co-Editor, Intelligencer; Mr. E. Peter Earnest, Chairman Contributing Editor / Intelligencer & Periscope Lt. Gen. Edward J. Heinz, USAF(Ret), Vice Chairman OFFICERS Richard Gay - Special Historical Projects Mr. Ralph W. Adams President Joseph C. Goulden - Contributing Editor / Intelligencer James H. Babcock, Ph.D. Mr. S. Eugene Poteat & Periscope Ms. Elizabeth Bancroft, ex officio Sr. Vice President Dr. Susan Huck - Contributing Editor / Intelligencer & Periscope Mr. C. Emerson Cooper Mr. André Kesteloot Hayden Peake - Contributing Editor / Intelligencer & Mr. Jack G. Downing Executive Director / Secretary-Treasurer Periscope Mr. Martin C. Faga Ms. Elizabeth Bancroft Ward W. Warren - Contributing Editor / Intelligencer & Mr. Robert F. Grealy Periscope Mr. H. Frederick Hutchinson page 14 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 C U R R E N T A F I O  Florida—Miami  Nevada—Las Vegas Ted Shackley Miami Chapter Las Vegas Chapter CHAPTERS James Angleton Jr., President Richard Cohn, President 305.937.4476 702.295.0911 [email protected] [email protected] AFIO chapters are autonomous local groups granted permission to use the AFIO  Georgia—Atlanta  New Mexico—Santa Fe name, who form and thrive often based Shirley Bodie Findley Chapter New Mexico Tim Smith Chapter on the efforts and enthusiasms of a few Joel “Pat” Patterson, President Dick Callaghan, President dedicated, energetic local members. While 770.521.1006 505.992.1338 all members of chapters must be current [email protected] [email protected] members of the National association in Virginia, the local chapters set their own  Hawaii—Honolulu  New York—All NY Boroughs, E New Jersey, S Connecticut, SE NY dues and conduct their own programs. To Hawaii Chapter New York Metro Chapter remain certified, chapters must hold three or more meetings a year, elect officers C. Emerson Cooper, Acting under Reorg Jerry Goodwin, President annually, and every January supply to the 702.457.2530 212.308.1450 National Headquarters a list of current [email protected] [email protected] chapter officers and members. If no chapter is listed below for your area,  Illinois—Elgin  New York—Eastern Long Island, New York and you possess the drive to start one, Midwest Chapter Derek Lee Chapter our Vice President for National Chapters, Col. Angelo DiLiberti, President Don Milton, President Emerson Cooper, can guide you through 847.931.4184 516.621.5252 the assessment and formation process. [email protected] [email protected] He can be reached at [email protected]. net. Chapters need 15 to 20 seed members  Maine—Portland/Kennebunk  Ohio—Cleveland to begin the process. Many areas have that number or more [the National Office Maine Chapter Northern Ohio Chapter will search membership records by zip- Barbara Storer, President Capt. John Lengel, USA(Ret)/CIC, Contact Person codes], but lack that individual willing to 207.985.2392 440.826.0294 undertake the formation and maintenance [email protected] [email protected] duties. Those who have done so, however, will tell you that it is satisfying to see a  Massachusetts/Connecticut/Rhode Island/Vermont/New Hampshire  Pennsylvania—Erie chapter grow, and witness the favorable New England Chapter Presque Isle Chapter educational impact it can have on the Art Lindberg, President Robert J. Heibel, FBI(Ret), President local community curious to learn more about intelligence, counterterrorism, and 732.255.8021 814.824.2117 homeland security. [email protected] [email protected]  Montana—Bozeman  Texas—San Antonio  California—San Francisco Dick Grant Chapter Texas Alamo Chapter California Jim Quesada Chapter Gary Wanberg, President Henry Bussey, II, President Andre LeGallo, President 406.542.1484 210.490.5408 415.456.9255 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]  Nevada—Reno; Sierra Nevada Crest, in California: From Fresno,  Washington—Seattle  California—San Diego CA north to the Oregon border; East of Interstate 5 (I-5). Pacific Northwest Chapter San Diego Chapter In Nevada: From 38 Degrees north Latitude, north to the Oregon & George N. Knudtzon, President Darryl Thibault, President Idaho borders; West of the Nevada-Utah border. 360.698.1403 619.297.9959 Northern Sierra Chapter [email protected] [email protected] Gary Hipple, President [email protected]  Colorado—Denver/Boulder Rocky Mountain Chapter David McMichael, Acting President AFIO Chapters Across the U.S. 303.697.8745 [email protected]

 Florida—Jacksonville North Florida Chapter Capt. Ken Meyer, USAF(Ret), President 904.868.8339 [email protected]

 Florida—Palm Beach Palm Beach Chapter F. W. Rustmann, Jr., President 561.655.3111 [email protected]

 Florida—Cape Canaveral Satellite Chapter Barbara E. Keith, President 321.777.5561 [email protected]

 Florida—St. Petersburg Florida Suncoast Chapter H. Patrick Wheeler, President 727.934.8748 [email protected]

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page 16 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 by Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the 1978 of Germany’s surrender to the Allies and Jonestown Massacre in Guyana and the last month, August 2005, was the anni- U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1979. Bohning versary of Japan’s surrender to the Allies. has also written extensively about the Bay Security rules during WWII blocked the of Pigs and the attempts to remove Fidel flow of information, often appropriately, Castro from power in Cuba. A welcome but sometimes not. Looking back after was delivered by Jaime Suchlicki, Director 60-65 years permitted the reexamination of the Institute, and the Presenter was Juan of WWII’s past and to consider, among Tamayo, senior correspondent, Miami other issues, how the war and the enemy Herald. were understood in 1941-1945 and how US Chapters Activities policy was predicated on that sometimes in Recent Months flawed wartime understanding. Dr. Bern- The Florida Palm Beach Chapter will stein earned his PhD at Harvard University soon be reactivating and holding more and has been at Stanford since 1965. He The Rocky Mountain Chapter met events. If you are visiting or now live in has written six books, 135 essays, and has on July 21st at the Officers Club’s Falcon the area and haven’t joined, now might given over 800 lectures. He is an expert on Room, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado be the time to contact: F. W. Rustmann, 20th Century History, especially WWII, the Springs, Co. to hear Col. Stewart Pike, Jr., President, at 561.655.3111 or at fwr@ Atomic Bombings, early Cold War, Nuclear Special Forces Commander in the Horn of ctcintl.com. History and crises in International Rela- Africa for several years. tions, the Korean War, the Cuban Crisis On September 29th, the Rocky The Florida Satellite Chapter regu- and modern US Presidency. He is now Mountain Chapter met at the USAF Acad- larly hosts luncheons at Eau Gallie Yacht working on: Nuclear History and the End emy’s Officers Club’s to hear Captain[Ret] Club, Indian Harbour Beach, FL. Speakers of WWII, and his next work: Crisis in US Bill Fernow, USN who served as CO on vary. If you are in the area, please join them Foreign Policy. a nuclear submarine. Contact Richard for the social hour and luncheon. To reg- On September 13th the Jim Que- Durham, phone number 719-488-2884, or ister, contact Barbara E. Keith, President, sada Chapter hosted former KGB Officer e-mail at: [email protected] if you wish at [email protected]. Stanislav Levchenko at a Luncheon at the to join the chapter or hear more about their Basque Cultural Center. The topic was: upcoming programs. The Florida Suncoast Chapter is Soviet Politburo Machinery, which worked The new acting President of the scheduling new events. To hear more about against United States; “Active measures” Rocky Mountain Chapter is John W. McMi- their activities in the Tampa Bay area, against United States in Japan; Former chael at [email protected]. We welcome him to contact H. Patrick Wheeler, CIA (Ret), the enemy’s secret political war against United the new post. A profile appears in this issue chapter President, at lobhigh@tampabay. States. of a former Rocky Mountain President, Dr. rr.com. Levchenko was born in Moscow in Derrin Smith. 1941. Graduated special elite school with The Northern Florida Chapter out of intense learning of English. In 1964 gradu- The Florida Ted Shackley Miami Jacksonville always welcomes new mem- ated Moscow State University with degree Chapter had a Thursday, April 28th dinner bers. For details on joining this chapter or in Japanese language and Japanese history. in Coral Gables at Casa Bacardi / Olga- to hear of their upcoming events, contact Several years worked in the Soviet Peace Carlos Saladrigas Hall, Institute for Cuban Quiel Begonia at [email protected]. Committee and Soviet Afro-Asian Solidar- & Cuban-American Studies, University of ity Committee. Both organizations were Miami in conjunction with The Institute. active hands of the International Depart- The event feted Don Bohning, on his new The Jim Quesada San Francisco Bay ment of the Central Committee of the book, “The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Chapter hosted cocktails and luncheon CC CPSU. Its functions were: ideological Operations Against Cuba, 1959-1965.” Boh- on June 16th at the United Irish Cultural control over Soviet foreign policy, coordi- ning graduated from the Dakota Wesleyan Center. The featured speaker was Dr. nation of actions of the foreign Communist University in 1955. He spent two years in Barton Bernstein, Professor of History, parties, secret contacts and full support of the United States Army before attending Stanford University, on “Intelligence, the foreign “national liberation movements” , the American Institute for Foreign Trade A Bomb & the End of WWII.” Dr. Barton invitation its leaders to the Soviet Union for in Phoenix. He also did graduate work at Bernstein is an expert on Oppenheimer consultations on armed struggle against the University of Miami. and the Manhattan Project and focused “colonial” regimes mainly in countries in on the creation of the Atomic Bomb, the American sphere of influence. The most In 1959 Bohning joined the Miami A bomb’s role in ending WWII, and the Herald staff in 1959 as a reporter. Five active subversive actions were conducted role intelligence played in ending WWII. in the Middle East. The International years later he became a foreign correspon- Relying heavily on declassified materials, dent for the newspaper. Over the next 36 department had close ties with practically Bernstein analyzed selected aspects of the every Palestinian organization, providing years he reported from every independent WWII experience, including information country in the Western Hemisphere. This them with arms and money. In this respect little known or unknown in the US in 1941- International Department was even more included the overthrow of Salvador Allende 1945. May 2005 was the 60th anniversary

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 17 influential than KGB Intelligence. While The most active channel was Socialist and Gretchen Reed. To learn more about working in above mentioned organiza- Party of Japan, deeply penetrated by KGB. the chapter contact Howard or Veronica tions Levchenko personally took part in Being disgusted by the Soviet Politburo Flint at 440-338-4720, or write Capt. John meetings with Arafat and other prominent policy, in 1979 Levchenko defected to R. Lengel, USA[Ret]/CIC at silverfox1929@ “anticolonialist” leaders. United States. Author of two books. For aol.com. In 1971 Levchenko was recruited into information on joining this chapter or to First Chief Directorate of KGB (external hear about their future programs, contact The Nevada Las Vegas Chapter holds intelligence). After graduating from a one Rich Hanson, 1255 California St., #405, many meetings. One was on June 7th at year special school he worked in headquar- San Francisco, CA 94109, or call 415-776- Clark County Library Conference Room ters in the 7th department (Japan and most 3739. and featured Roger E. McCarthy, former of South-Eastern Asia). Central Intelligence Agency Operations In 1975 was dispatched to Japan as The Illinois Midwest Chapter held its Officer, Author, and fellow Chapter case officer under cover of correspondent 13th consecutive 2-day Fall Symposium at member. McCarthy spoke on his book, of the Soviet weekly magazine “New the Great Lakes Naval Base on 15-18 Sep- Our Republic in Peril, and his previous book, Times.” Was handling and recruiting tember, with briefings and presentations. Tears of the Lotus. Our Republic in Peril details agents - members of parliament, journal- Quarters were again at the Great Lakes the inadequacies of the mainstream media ists, businessmen. In almost all clandes- Naval Lodge. All meetings and meals in chronicling and covering news over the tine meetings had to spread anti-American were at the Port O’Call, the old Officer’s last 50 years and the damage it has done propaganda. In late 70s got military rank Club. For more information on joining to the country. To quote a five-star review of major and became deputy chief of “active this chapter or to hear about their upcom- on Amazon.com, “A worldview from one measures” section, which through secret ing programs, contact COL Angelo M. Di who’s been there, this is not your usual channels was spreading anti-American Liberti, President, at [email protected]. conservative book. McCarthy speaks with propaganda, “special” anti-American experience and authority on world affairs stories, created by KGB headquarters to The Northern Ohio Chapter out of in an engaging style and is sure to make compromise American policy and leaders, Cleveland held a picnic on September 11th waves. I’ve no idea how he got permission attempted to influence Japanese public. in Madison, OH at the home of Chuck from CIA legal beagles to tell all, but I’m

page 18 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 glad he did.” The Maine Chapter met on May 21st practice in New York City. McCarthy, the in Kennebunk to review a program on recipient of numerous awards, including Tears of the Lotus, published in 1997, the USA PATRIOT Act. A DVD entitled the Justice Department’s highest honors, summarizes the history of Tibet from her “Unconstitutional: The War On Our Civil spoke to a packed room of attendees. Irene earlier days through the XIVth Dalai Lama Liberties” was shown, followed by special Halligan, Former Chief of Protocol for escaping from occupied Lhasa to India in guest U.S. Attorney Paula Silsby who pre- the City of New York under Mayor Rudy 1959. The work includes accounts of the sented the case for the Act. Giuliani, led the Pledge of Allegiance; S. role of Tibetans who collaborated with Gene Poteat, AFIO’s President, spoke on the Chinese invaders, the resistance move- The Maine Chapter met on June “The Current State of American Intelli- ment, and how, despite the Dalai Lama’s 18th for a lecture entitled “The Search For gence and Counterintelligence”; and Julie lack of support for the movement, and Leslie Howard: a World War II Mystery” by Anderson, Adjunct Professor of Political the resistance, made it possible for him to Professor Douglas Wheeler [see the article Science, CUNY, AFIO Award Winner, and escape from Lhasa in 1959. in this issue based on this talk]. Wheeler explored the confidential mission Howard then Acting [now official] AFIO New York As a CIA Operations Officer, McCar- undertook to Spain and Portugal in 1943 Metropolitan Chapter VP/Treasurer, briefly thy trained the first group of six Tibetan and the unanswered questions surround- commented on her ground-breaking Ph.D. trainees on Saipan (1957) and was in charge ing the circumstances of his death. The dissertation on the Russian Intelligence of the program to provide assistance to meeting took place in Hank’s Room at Services. the Tibetan Freedom Fighters until late the Kennebunk Free Library in downtown The New York Metropolitan Chapter 1962. He has maintained contact with a Kennebunk. New members are always held an evening meeting on “Corporate number of the Tibetans since then, and in welcome. Espionage: Who is Stealing America’s 1999 had a long audience with His Holiness Secrets - Why and How They are Doing It” in Dharamsala in northern India…a very On September 17th, the Maine Chap- on Friday, 16 September 05. The speaker memorable experience. McCarthy pro- ter heard speaker Henry Precht, retired was David Hunt, retired senior officer of vided handouts to enable those attending Foreign Service Officer, talk on“Iran - Get- the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where to closely follow the presentation. ting It Wrong, Getting It Right.” The event took place at the Kennebunk Free Library in he served for 32 years. Hunt was posted to For more information on the many Kennebunk, ME. A graduate of the Fletcher many stations, and has particular exper- activities of this large chapter, contact School of Law and Diplomacy, Precht tise in Soviet operations, European affairs Chapter President Richard L. Cohn at afio- joined the Foreign Service in 1961, serving and counterintelligence. He was COS in [email protected]. mainly in the Middle East. During the Ira- New York City and Mogadishu, and holds nian Revolution and Hostage Crisis he was the Donovan Award for Excellence as well The David Atlee Phillips New England Officer in Charge of Iranian Affairs at the as the Agency’s Distinguished Intelligence Chapter met on 22-23 July in Northampton, State Department. A recipient of numerous Medal. The location for the meeting was MA at the Hotel Northampton. Nestled awards, Precht also taught international again the beautiful Society of Illustra- amongst Smith, Amherst, Hampshire and affairs at Case Western Reserve. Copies tors Building. Brief introductions were Mt. Holyoke Colleges and the University of Precht’s book, “A Diplomat’s Progress” provided by Gene Poteat, AFIO National of Massachusetts this area has become were available for signing. For questions President; and Elizabeth Bancroft, AFIO a delightful weekend destination for the or information to join this new chapter, National Executive Director. For more popular meetings this chapter hosts. The contact Barbara Storer, 9 Spiller Drive, information on the many activities by this morning speaker was AFIO’s own Burton Kennebunk, ME 04043. tel. 207.985-2392. new chapter, contact Chapter President Hersh who, after graduating from Harvard On October 15th the Maine Chapter Jerry Goodwin, AFIO - New York Metro- College with high honors, has had a long will present “Protecting Our Borders” with politan Chapter, 530 Park Ave 15B, New career as an independent writer. Follow- a representative from U. S. Border Patrol. York, NY 10021. or call him at 212-308-1450 ing a six-year stint as a Fulbright Scholar Royal Canadian Mounted Police are also or email [email protected].  and military translator in Germany, he invited to present a view from both sides returned to New York in the sixties to more of the border. The event starts at 2 p.m, at Good Guys Don’t Control All The than a decade as a successful magazine the Kennebunk Free Library, Kennebunk, Sensors Looking Down from Space article writer and author of many books. ME. Further details available from Barbara After lunch AFIO National President Storer at the number above. Gene Poteat spoke on “what’s behind the actions of Porter Goss at CIA - is it helping or hurting our counterterrorism The New York Metropolitan Chapter efforts?” To join this chapter or to learn met on March 11th at the Society of Illustra- more about their upcoming programs, tors Building, to hear Andrew McCarthy, contact Chapter President Art Lindberg the Federal Prosecutor for the Southern at (732) 255-8021. Also, read the profile of District of New York (1986 –2003) who led Lindberg’s heretofore secret undercover the successful prosecution against the jihad organization of Sheik Omar Abdel- Use Secure Phones activities in this issue of Periscope in the PhotoCourtesy National Aeronautics & Space Administration Rahman in the 1993 World Trade Center for All Classified “Profiles” section. Conversations! bombing, and is an attorney in private

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 19 Jay Lee JAROSLAV Walter J. ERB, Jr. Special Volunteers of DONORS TO AFIO Lockheed Martin (M&DS) Ronald M. GARRETT Time and Talent Midwest Research Institute Philip GINDI IN 2004 AFIO has a very small staff. The organization MITRE Corporation Philip G. HARRIS runs and thrives on the efforts of many volun- Northrop Grumman Corporation Lt Gen Edward J. HEINZ, USAF(Ret) teers who give of their time to keep our events fio gratefully ac- Oheka Management Corp Edward JACOBS running smoothly, our programs filled with knowledges the fol- the latest speakers, our office & finances in A PORTBLUE Corporation Dr. John & Cindy KULIG order, and our information channels, Agencies, lowing members who supported the Association Douglas R. PRICE Cameron J. La CLAIR, Jr. Corporate and Congressional connections strong. We thank… and the cause in 2004 with Raytheon, Inc. Lawrence K. LARKIN donations. These individu- Sandra Diane ROYAL Arthur E. LINDBERG Dwayne “Andy” ANDERSON als constitute the “AFIO SAIC Perry L. LYLE Bill BAILEY Legion of Merit,” working Security Service Specialists, Inc. Philip MADELL John BALCH together, and each in our C. Emerson COOPER own way, as a force for Sandra R. SMIEL Paul MARSTON enhancing public under- SPARTA, Inc. John NAVEAU Peter EARNEST standing of the role and STG, Inc. Robert A. NELSON Norman FORDE importance of U.S. Intelli- Taylor & Francis Books, Ltd Gary Wayne PREWITT Dick GAY gence for national security The TITAN Corporation Arthur F. REINHARDT Joe GOULDEN and world stability. A. Raymond TYE Joseph David RENO Donald P. HARVEY [Anonymous or restricted members — of which there are many — are never listed]† US Iinvestigations Services Inc Alfred J. ROBERTS Gary HARTER Verizon Federal Network Systems James E. RYLANDER Peter KESSLER DIAMOND $25,000 + The Wackenhut Corporation Ann SARKES, RN André KESTELOOT Mrs Maria L. RANSBURG Gary T. WASS Kenneth A. SAWKA Bill KVETKAS The Windermere Group Dr. William A. SAXTON Cameron LA CLAIR PLATINUM $15,000 - $24,999 Carl Otis SCHUSTER Mary E. McCAUSLAND Anonymous - 1 Thomas R. SPENCER, Jr., Esq. Don McDOWELL Albano Francis PONTE SILVER $500 - $999 Reynold F. STELLOH, III Hayden B. PEAKE Anonymous -7 Debbie Lyn TOOMEY Albano PONTE TITANIUM $5000 - $14,999 Richard CALLAGHAN Howard WAN Gene POTEAT Keith Coggins / VAREC, Inc. Shu Ngon CHAU Dershlung WANG Karen RICE Pauline J. CUCINOTTA Ward W. WARREN Michelle STINSON GOLD $1,000 - $4,999 - Hale Fellows H. Frederick HUTCHINSON, Jr. Jeffery W. WASS Lawrence SULC Anonymous - 4 Anne LEFAIVRE Jon A. WIANT Karen TEAL ANALEX Corporation Mei-Ling D. WONG Gary M. WILLIAMS Ward WARREN Dr. William H. ANDERSON, MD Robert WOLFE, Esq. Gary WASS Carol Ann M. BABCOCK PATRON $100 - $499 J. Ward WOODALL and all the spouses, partners, friends, chil- dren and ‘grands’ of the above, who lost James H. BABCOCK, PhD Anonymous - 17 Mila T. YAPOR Battelle Memorial Institute Mario F. ALFANO hours of time with these special people, Charles C. YEOMANS while they worked on AFIO projects to Michael T. ANTHONY Blue Tech, Inc. Ken C. YORK help the country, and to guide intelligence The Boeing Company Dane E. BAIRD Claudia ZWICK officers of tomorrow. Centre for Counterintelligence & Secu- Catherine C. BAKER rity Studies; Edward G. BOURGUIGNON, Jr. DONORS $10 - $99 Checkpoint Systems, Inc. David L. BRAFORD The Association thanks the Computer Sciences Corporation Dr. Joseph G. BREWER hundreds of donors who contributed Digitalnet Government Solutions Charles A. BRIGGS in this range, usually as part of their Discovery International Associates, Inc. Natalia BUKHANOVA dues renewals. Far too many to list DOCA National Defense Fund Committee Robert K. BURKE here in Periscope, but each one of General Dynamics them noted and appreciated. Your Barbara A. BURTON gifts will be used wisely to advance AFIO MEMBERS Dan L. HEARN Miss Ann Z. CARACRISTI AFIO programs and publications. We Your Mission J. Harold HYDE Terry L. N. CHIN, O.D. thank you. in 2006 I.D.C.S., Inc. Garrett COCHRAN    — Institute of World Politics C. Emerson COOPER Sponsor The International Spy Museum Gregory and Tracy COREY New Members Michael A. JACOBS Robert J. CRAIG James Deering Danielson Foundation John H. DEPEW page 20 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 CURRENT AFIO New Appointment Within AFIO Board, Effective 2006 CORPORATE SPONSERS

a s of A u g u s t 2 0 0 5

To replace Maj. Gen. Edward J. Heinz who is remaining on the Board but stepping down as Vice Chairman, is Dr. James H. Babcock. Babcock ACS Defense, Inc. was elected to the Board in 2004. From early 2003 to present, Babcock ANONYMOUS - 2 is responsible for concept definition and planning for a variety of tech- nical systems in the CIA/DST/System Engineering and Analysis Office Battelle Memorial Institute (SEAO). From 2001 to 2003 he was Vice President and Chief Scientist Blue Tech, Inc. at Aegis Research Corporation. He was responsible for technical leadership and the generation of secrecy strategies for a number of programs in the Intelligence Commu- The Boeing Company nity and Department of Defense. From 1994 to 2001 Babcock was a MITRE Fellow in Centre for Counterintelligence The MITRE Corporation. He was president of Integrated Concepts, Inc., from 1992 to 1994—dedicated to addressing difficult integration problems for the intelligence and & Security Studies C3 communities. Dr. Babcock established and managed the Washington intelligence Checkpoint Systems division of the MITRE Corporation from 1987 to 1992. His work grew from 65 people to several hundred, supporting every major Intelligence Community organization. Computer Sciences Corporation He managed MITRE technical activities located at every major US foreign command DCW & Associates, Inc. (CINCs), and NRO, CIA, DIA, NSA, and elements of what is now NGA. He served in Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1981 as Staff Specialist, Satellite Com- Digitalnet Government Solutions munications; Assistant Director, Systems; Director, National Intelligence Systems, and Discovery International Associates Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Intelligence. He was personally responsible for OSD for the FLTSAT, AFSAT, DSCS, and LES-8/9 satellite systems. He was employed DuPont Investment Bankers by the CIA from 1958 to 1975. The majority of his assignments were in the Office of Eagle Assets & Management, LLC Communications. He holds the Ph.D. from Stanford University, the MSEE from MIT, ENSCO, Inc. and a BSEE from the University of Iowa. He is a life member of AFIO and plays many active roles in its programs and governance. General Dynamics Carla B. Fai Hill & Associates (Americas) Institute of World Politics FBI, CIA turn t o co l l e g e s t o boo s t r a n k s International Spy Museum udging by the name, Carla B. Fai could be just Students learned the challenges they would face Jabout anyone, the cantankerous 89-year-old just to get hired at the national law enforcement Limited Brands, Inc. woman obsessed about the neighborhood cats or agency. a vibrant pig-tailed girl waiting for her dad to come Due to graduate in December with an MBA and Lockheed Martin (M&DS) home from work. fluent in three languages, Ahmad Yakzan, 24, still Midwest Research Institute But about 20 Stetson University students learned isn’t a likely candidate. Born in Lebanon, Yakzan she’s the acronym for the list of character traits isn’t an American citizen. He hoped to work part- Mitre Corporation FBI recruiters screen for new applicants: charac- time as a translator for the FBI’s Tampa office while ter, associates, reputation, loyalty, ability, bias, attending law school next year. “I can’t, although I Northrop Grumman Space finances, alcohol abuse and illegal drug use. have a lot of assets they want,” Yakzan said. Changes in the Bureau forced by the Sept. 11 terror- To get hired at Bureau, there’s a short application, & Mission Systems ist attacks were also part of the afternoon lecture then a long application followed by background conducted by Ron Rothwell, a special agent from checks beginning with elementary school years. Oheka Management Corp. the Orlando office. Candidates need a bachelor’s degree and three The FBI and CIA are two of more than 20 companies years’ work experience, although some master’s Phillips International, Inc. hunting for future employees through seminars degrees can count toward work experience. The on campus this semester, said Ann Marie Cooper, process, including 17 weeks of training at the FBI PORTBLUE Corporation director of Stetson’s career management office. Academy in Quantico, Va., where scores of less than Other companies grant on-campus job interviews 85 percent are not acceptable, can take up to two Raytheon, Inc. at career fairs. years, Rothwell said. Bank robbery and white-collar crime investigations, Braden Curran, 22, said he’s already applied for a Security Service Specialists, Inc. once among the FBI’s top priorities, have taken job at the National Security Agency. It was the FBI’s a back seat to preventing terrorist attacks in the demand for three years of work experience that SPARTA, Inc. United States. Curran found most daunting. It would prevent him from starting in his chosen field after graduation. STG, Inc. “We can’t do everything. We can’t do what we did He’s determined to find a job in the intelligence- before,” said Rothwell, adding resource shifts have Taylor & Francis Books, Ltd. drawn agents from across the country into the gathering field eventually. “I’m not really a military squads dedicated to fighting terrorism. type of guy, but it’s my way to be patriotic and give back to the country,” said Curran, who graduates U.S. Investigations Services, Inc. For college students, the good news is the changes this year with a bachelor of arts degree. have increased demand for people with advanced Verizon Federal Network Systems language and computer skills, but that doesn’t — from West Volusia News-Journal. by Christine Girardin, Staff Writer mean it’s any easier to join the FBI. The Wackenhut Corporation

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 21 Portugal, an intelligence agent; and services including the Atomic Energy G. Maclean, an inspector-general of Commission (Arnold Kramish), Naval embassies, who was misidentified Intelligence (Charles Weishar) and the CIA by the Germans as a military general (Garrett Cochran, Virginia Cori and Scott due possibly to a mistranslation of Breckinridge). Maclean’s title from the purloined T h i s passenger list. explanation The disputed history of the cir- of what hap- Lingering World War II cumstances of this tragedy is not a new pened was Mystery story but an important and compelling not found one which now has been illuminated by i n pre v i- The Leslie Howard Story intriguing new evidence. This fresh infor- ous public mation, recently collected from retired a c c o u n t s Douglas L. Wheeler officers who shared Communications that implied intelligence training experiences, has t h a t t h e “I shall be back…We shall all be back.” revised hope that at last lingering ques- plane may - Leslie Howard’s final words in the anti-Nazi tions long asked by the victims’ families have been film,Pimpernel Smith (1941), in which he portrays a secret rescuer. may now be answered. shot down The new evidence helps to confirm because of at least the greater likelihood of what was a case of long alleged, often in garbled form in mistaken identity. This explanation was scattered printed sources since 1957: that encouraged by rumors after the event and the ULTRA secret, one of the top Allied the story contained in Churchill’s pub- secrets of the war, was somehow involved lished memoirs in 1951. According to this in the loss of Flight 777A. “ULTRA” was version, as passengers boarded the airliner the Allied codename for the secret intel- at Lisbon a German agent mistook a pas- ligence derived from decrypts of German senger named Alfred Chenhalls, Howard’s radio messages, which were generated accountant, for Churchill. An order was by ENIGMA, the German enciphering then dispatched to shoot down the airliner and deciphering machine. ULTRA was after it left Portugal. The origins of this “Churchill look-alike” story are obscure Headline, front page [mock-up], The New York Times, June 3, 1943. an important weapon in that war and its very existence remained an official secret but no more obscure than the ULTRA until 1974. training story’s original source. curious reference to an intelligence For more than two generations, the briefing in a book about the loss of a My research shows that for at least Howard family, the Sharp family and the passenger plane may help solve the fifteen years after the shoot-down of Flight A 777A, several generations of American, families of the other victims of Flight last great air mystery of World War II. Australian and British intelligence officers 777A have been unable to get access to The mystery: Why did eight Luft- were taught variations of the following the relevant government records. Ronald waffe planes shoot down Flight 777A, story about the flight: the British had Howard, Leslie Howard’s son, spent years an unarmed, unescorted, well-marked, intercepted a secret German radio mes- before he died trying to discover why and scheduled civil airliner as it flew from neu- sage before the flight which contained how his father’s plane was destroyed; he tral Portugal to Britain on June 1, 1943? As the passenger list, and this suggested that remained frustrated that he could not get far as is known, nothing of the plane or its the airliner would be a target for attack. In access to the relevant ULTRA records. 13 passengers and 4 Dutch crew was ever order to prevent the Germans from learn- With the new Freedom of Informa- found. On board were: ing that the British had ULTRA and to tion law in Britain, and now the evidence • Leslie Howard, a matinée idol, one of protect the life of Prime Minister Winston I have discovered which helps to confirm the most celebrated stage and film Churchill, who was visiting North Africa that intelligence services for 15 years stars of his day and a leading anti- at the time and had to make a dangerous taught new officers that the ULTRA secret Nazi filmmaker who had become return flight, the British did not warn, was involved in the loss of Flight 777A, it is a personal symbol of resistance to cancel or divert Flight 777A but let it take time to set the historical record straight. Nazi tyranny. off to its doom.  • Wilfrid Israel, who had visited Portugal The point of the lesson was that code- to help rescue Jewish orphans. cipher security in war is of vital importance Douglas L. Wheeler, a former St. and that sacrifices may have to be made Louisan who graduated from St.Louis • At least three other persons of extraor- to preserve such secrets. According to the Country Day School, is Professor dinary interest to the Nazis for Emeritus of History at the University recollections of several former Intelligence their war-related work: Ivan Sharp, of New Hampshire, where he taught a officers and staff, the lesson was taught to Britain’s top tungsten ore expert; course called Espionage and History. various persons in American intelligence He has been a consultant on Portugal T.Michael Shervington of Shell Oil in page 22 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 and Africa for various government agencies including the State Depart- 2005 is the 30th Anniversary of.... T H E F A l l O F S AI G O N ment and the CIA and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence At 4 a.m., Tuesday, April 29, 1975 Officers. in Saigon, I woke to the sound of explo- Reprinted with permission. Originally sions. Here we go again, I thought. The appeared as “Special to the St.Louis Post- airport was bombed yesterday, rockets hit Dispatch,” where it appeared online, 5 April 2005/NewsWatch. Douglas Wheeler downtown Saigon on Sunday. Intelligence is Professor of History Emeritus, University showed North Vietnamese heavy artillery of New Hampshire. He can be reached at: in range of Saigon. I called the duty officer [email protected] The Fall of Saigon at the Embassy. We always had two over- night. He reported the airport was under Tom Polgar sustained cannon fire, but had no damage assessment. he American War in Vietnam is a Clearly, a dramatic turn of events. long and complicated story. Enough With this much noise, there was bound to books were written about it to fill In his new book, Washington’s T be heavy damage. If the runways became our library. The best of them, in my view, Crossing, historian David Hackett unusable, the evacuation process that had is Vietnam for Dummies. I am not mentioned been going on for several weeks would be Fischer recounts how humane in it. halted. There treatment of prisoners was invented A l o n e , were t hou- by George Washington on the t he Fa l l of s a n d s o f battlefield in late 1776. Official Saigon is long people at the British policy was to let field and compli- airport ready commanders decide whether to put cated. Today t o b o a r d captured enemy soldiers “to the I write t his planes. Big sword” or to “give quarter” —to article mostly d e c i s i o n s keep captives alive in a barracks. about my last would have Hence the expression “give no day there, the to be made quarter,” which means to kill a longest and and quickly. I captive on the spot. Washington most traumatic knew my place of my life. wa s at t he wept, watching through a spyglass, as Marines defending the Walls of the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon Embassy. his troops, taken prisoner at the W h a t made it so traumatic? Because just two The weather was hot and muggy, disastrous Battle of New York that year earlier we believed we had won. The typical for Saigon. I put on slacks and a blue November, were then slaughtered. President of the United States wrote to shirt, without suspecting that I would wear After the first battle of Trenton, on congratulate me personally for helping this casual outfit on national television and December 26 and 27, where to achieve the honorable peace we fought for a week. Washington’s men captured several for. Leaving my bedroom, guided by hundred Hessian mercenaries, We had a victory parade in Saigon. some sixth sense, I stuck my passport Washington ordered his troops to President Nguyen Van Thieu of Vietnam led into a pocket and took a flight bag with treat the captives humanely. the show with his Chief of Staff, General my camera, prescription medicines and American soldiers risked their own Cao Van Vien. Both were invited to meet check book. It would be a rough day, but lives, ferrying Hessian prisoners back at the alternate White House in San Cle- I had no idea that I would never again see across the Delaware. The Hessians mente, California with President Richard my elegant French villa, my possessions “were amazed to be treated with Nixon, Secretary of State William Rogers or my family photos, among them the decency and even kindness,” Fischer and National Security Advisor Henry Kiss- pictures I took in 1938 in Paris and on the writes. “American leaders resolved inger. Also invited to the meeting were Royal Mail Ship Queen Mary on my way to the 79-year old American Ambassador in the United States. that the War of Independence would Saigon, Ellsworth Bunker, his designated Downstairs, the dining room was set be conducted with respect for human replacement Ambassador Graham Martin, rights, even of the enemy. This idea for a meal. The two servants also heard the Minister Counselor of Embassy Charles explosions. They assumed I would go to the grew stronger during the campaign Cooper and myself. office. They were ready to serve breakfast, of 1776–77, not weaker as is I did not yet know about the darken- dressed in the traditional wear of high class commonly the case.” ing cloud of the Watergate scandal. I was Vietnamese house servants: White pajama — Robert Kuttner’s observation at the top of my world. pants, with high collar white tunics. I was in a recent book review Then two years later… not hungry, but asked to talk about their future. Suppose this was the end for the

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 23 after you drop me off, take my car, would come to the Embassy immediately. go get your family. Ut was dubious. When he arrived, it was obvious he was This could be a difficult day. Surely not well. An untiring and selfless person, I would need him? As it turned he drove himself even harder than he did out, he did not leave the Embassy the people around him. I remember a call and I needed him, indeed, and he from him one day, around 1 a.m. “Is there performed magnificently. Much anything I should know before I go to later I learned that he had inde- sleep?” he asked me. pendent plans for his family, in On the morning of the 29th he was true Chinese style. This is a good mentally alert as ever, but he could hardly place to note that my experiences talk. I listened to his whispers and relayed with Vietnamese at a personal level his remarks to the Secretary of State, Henry were altogether positive. I hated to Kissinger, and to Admiral Noel Gayler, hear what American say about the Commander in Chief in the Pacific. slopes or the gooks. The substance: evacuation of non- At the Embassy, information essential personnel should be pushed to was fragmentary, but from the the utmost, but in the morning hours of the roof we could see the fires. Tele- 29th there was no word from Washington, phoned reports from military and or in Saigon, that the American Embassy CIA people at the airport pointed would cease to function later that day. to an inescapable conclusion. In the meanwhile American and local There would be enough damage employees were arriving in a steady stream. to make operations by fixed wing By 7 a.m. most were in their offices, put- aircraft questionable, to put it ting their papers in order and waiting for mildly. Two C-130’s — heavy trans- instructions. port aircraft — were undamaged Around 8 a.m., the Country Team on the ground. Two marines were — the top officers of the Embassy —met Americans in Saigon. What did they want killed. to do? The older lady, in her sixties, weigh- with the Ambassador. The two main Other bad news: Seven helicopters ing about 90 pounds, said she wanted to topics: the condition of the runways and of Air America — CIA’s own airline — were stay. Surely the communists would not North Vietnamese intentions regarding a destroyed. The loss of the choppers would harm an old woman? Who would consider continuing American presence in Saigon. reduce our capability to make roof-top her a threat? She had relatives in Saigon, We lacked clear information on the latter, pick-ups, an important ingredient of the she would move in with them. The younger but the Ambassador would go to the air- Embassy’s evacuation planning. woman, in her mid-twenties, speaking fair port to inspect the runways. A good place English, said her boyfriend was a soldier. I told the duty officer to activate to note that Ambassador Martin was also They wanted out of Vietnam. Could I help t h e c a l l i ng a retired colonel of them? Could she take off right now to find system to put the Air Force . her boyfriend? our people on While the top e m e r g e n c y Yes and Yes. I gave the old lady all brass was meet- duty and to get the money I had in the house and asked ing, two impor- ready to dis- her to stay near the phone. I was off to the t ant processes tribute travel Embassy. got underway and e n v e l o p e s , My faithful driver, ethnic Chinese gathered momen- each contain- tum: the Ameri- Ut, was ready, the six-year old Chevrolet ing 1,500 dol- polished to high gloss, as usual. At 5 a.m., cans were using all lars — worth a possible means to the streets were empty. A 24-hour curfew lot more at that was in effect. Another terrible decision advise their Viet- time — to be Amb. Graham Martin, Gen. Willard G. Wyman, Henry Kissinger namese contacts by a helpless government. On the way to speak with President Gerald Ford given to all of that they and their the Embassy I asked Ut what he wanted our people on the assumption that they to do? families should come to the Embassy or go might have to make their own way back to designated pick-up points. Meanwhile, He wanted to leave Vietnam, but to the United States from some corner of on their own, thousands, including foreign only with his family. His extended family. East Asia. diplomats, Vietnamese dignitaries and just How many? One wife, seven children, his Then I called the Ambassador, plain people came in through the Embassy parents, her parents, his brothers, their Graham Martin, 63, a habitual night gates, into the grounds, but not into the children. How many? He counted thirty- person and in bad health. He had emphy- building. The marines kept discipline. seven. Can you get them to the Embassy? sema and a bad case of bronchitis that No one could enter the building, unless Only by collecting them in person. Okay, morning. I summarized the news. He there was authorization to admit them. page 24 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 Throughout the morning I was with lives of many thousands of Vietnamese, but the Ambassador or at my desk, getting we had a multitude of spectacular solo per- reports, making decisions, a steady flow formances, not an orchestrated effort. of visitors and a barrage of telephone calls. Personnel not involved with moving To our surprise, the telephones worked Vietnamese were engaged in destruction of to the end, but all the news was bad. The files and other sensitive property, includ- South Vietnamese military were in disso- ing supervised burning of money. In the lution. The National Police disappeared. streets, conditions were still relatively Conditions bordering on anarchy were orderly. Some staff were taking advantage developing. Looting was reported. Gangs of the lull to return to their homes, pack a were breaking into abandoned residences. bag, pay off servants and to dispose of their I authorized special deals with groups of pets. The Navy made it clear they would not friendly officers who formed themselves accept dogs or cats on board. The wiser into commando units, willing to work people sent their pets out of country weeks their way out under our guidance. Our big- ago, but we still had lots of American pets gest risk: armed, individual soldiers who in Saigon. One of my deputies felt he had might interfere with the evacuation. no choice: He went back to his residence An ill, shaken Ambassador Graham Martin besieged by reporters Around mid-morning I had word and shot his two beloved boxers, a deed from South Vietnam’s new president, Gen- easier on the dogs than on their master. The atmosphere was tense, but orderly till eral “Big” Minh. He wanted all American about noon. Shortly before noon we got word military, note ‘military,’ out of Vietnam that President Ford ordered the Embassy We had cause for a quick chuckle. The within 24 hours. As a last favor to him, closed and all Americans out of Saigon by chief of staff of the Hungarian military would we evacuate his daughter and son- nightfall. With the runways at the airport delegation came to my office to ask that in-law? We agreed. unusable; Operation Frequent Wind was we rescue his comrades stranded at the At this juncture, operations at the commenced, the largest helicopter move- airport. They did not know the attack was American Embassy were not a 3-ring ment of people in history. coming, wanted to get to town, but the circus, but a 33-ring circus, without a ring- South Vietnamese stole all their vehicles. As the word came, we were still work- master. The Embassy was not organized It was not all that often that a communist ing on the 50-man station. Scrap all that. to handle control and communications official would come to CIA for help. I asked Now only one task remained: Get hold of in the type of chaos that was descending a deputy to organize a convoy and the Hun- Vietnamese associates and insert them into on us. Improvisations became the order garians were brought to town. the evacuation channel. Easier said than of the day. done. Saigon was a huge city — over four Around 9:30 a.m. the Ambassador The courage, initiative and resource- million people. Many Vietnamese had no told me that President Ford ordered a fulness of the individual officers—mili- telephones, the frequent curfews changed reduction of embassy staffing from 600 to tary, Foreign Service, CIA — saved the peoples’ living habits, many moved in with a hard core of 150, with the CIA to fill 50 positions. I was to work out a staffing pat- tern. I huddled with my staff. The problem was not simple: we had to find a proper mixture of operations officers, linguists, analysts, communicators and secretaries —there were no word processors then, or e-mail. We also had to consider the candi- dates’ health, emotional stability, sense of discipline, family situation and — indeed — courage, for activities in what would be an unfriendly environment. Frankly, I thought this exercise made no sense. I could not see the North Vietnamese permitting a large Ameri- can Embassy with a large CIA station in Saigon. Still, the Ambassador had his instructions from the President and I had mine. We would work on it. As events turned out, it would have been better to use this time and the atten- tion of senior officers for refining the evacuation process. Tom Polgar on roof of former U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam. The night he left in 1975, no one was taking pictures. In the background is the former British embassy. Photo taken January 1991. 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 25 used it to return to his residence, to pick the Embassy. up his ailing wife and his servants, and The adventures of these people bring them into the Embassy. The pressure as they wandered from one location to of the crowds against the gates was such another, through the streets of Saigon that the Marines did not dare to open them, over five hours, makes a separate story. for fear that they would be overwhelmed by One of them carried a large Samsonite onrushing hordes. suitcase, containing underwear and socks, I did not dare to leave my office. I sent to me by the maid. All of them made called home. I asked the older servant it to safety, the last after being lifted over to take care of my dog and my parrot. I the Embassy wall, or from the roof of an told her to take anything in the house she apartment house, as seen in one of the wanted. I told her it would be better if she most memorable pictures of the evacua- left the house before the North Vietnamese tion [see below]. All, but for the hero of arrived. the day, driver Ut. He was last seen near She informed me that a lot of people the Embassy wall. We could have lifted him were assembled in my residence. Some over, like so many others, but he would not came because they thought it was a good leave without his family. In due course, he place from which to get on a helicopter. It became one of the boat people who reached Taiwan, whence he contacted CIA. We gave The ladder was used to evacuate the Vietnamese and was not. The landing zone across the street, Americans during the Fall of Saigon 29-30 April 1975. This in a CIA logistics compound, was looted him an annuity for life. ladder is now at the Ford Library/Museum and overrun by mobs. Others remembered At the Embassy, people were venting relatives and last, but not least, word that earlier, nonspecific suggestions, that in their frustrations. One secretary ham- the Americans were leaving spread like case of trouble they should come to my mered away at the revolving cylinders of wildfire. The last fragments of military dis- home. Others simply had faith in the electric typewriters. She did not want the cipline disappeared, armed soldiers–many transcendental power of the CIA. Among communists to use them. Others broke of them deserters–spread fear and confu- the people there: a deputy prime minister, glass and were trampling on pictures of sion, crowds clogged the streets, overran himself a three star general; the Chief Kissinger and President Nixon. suspected helicopter landing points and of Vietnamese the Embassy was surrounded by an impen- communic a- etrable wall of people. tions intelli- My office remained functional. gence, trained Situation reports were sent to Washington. in the United Telephones were working but all the news States; the chief was bad. Key people, important contacts, of protocol; could not make their way to pick-up points. senior military Designated landing areas were overrun by and police offi- mobs at the sound of approaching chop- cers with their pers. By 3 p.m. it was impossible to get in families; the or out of the Embassy, except through a wife of a top secret door, installed for just such a pur- general— he pose, from our parking lot into the garden committed sui- of the French Embassy. The Ambassador cide later that day; Vietnam- ese employees of the Embassy; my maid and her boyfriend; This is an Air America helicopter pick up from the top of the elevator shaft of an apartment building in the center of Saigon — not the roof of the American Embassy, as many think. It was one of some two-dozen rooftop pick-up my dentist and sites designated in the Embassy’s evacuation plan, but the only one that could be used when the time arrived to her family; two leave. The person helping the people on the ladder is Mr. O.B. Harnage, Acting Chief of the CIA Station’s Air Branch children of a and an experienced helicopter pilot. dead general The execute order on the evacuation whose mother was in Europe, etc, etc. I felt was given at 11:38 Saigon time. The first a great responsibility for those people, but chopper arrived three hours later. The fleet what to do? I could not leave the Embassy. I was only 80 miles away. What happened? In consulted with Ut, my driver. He suggested an inexplicable oversight, Admiral Donald that he would climb over the walls, get to Whitmire, commander of the Navy’s the house and with the use of the other evacuation task force, was not alerted that car I had there, help guide the people to a decision to evacuate the Embassy was page 26 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 ful message I ever sent: “Must advise this will be final message from Saigon Sta- tion…” The flash of our explosive charge was widely reported as a mortar hitting the Embassy. The misreporting of events in Vietnam continued to the very end. We still had communications with the White House and Defense Depart- ment through an Airborne Command Post. Washington was insisting that the evacuation be terminated immediately, bringing out only Americans. Ambassador Martin kept fighting for time. As long as he remained, his top staff would remain. The evacuation could not be completed. The longer it went on, the more Vietnam- ese could be taken out. He talked himself past several presidential deadlines, but the intervals between helicopters kept getting longer. There were to be 20 more flights, we were told, then 14, with the Ambassador begging for more, a dozen more, six more. Around 4 a.m. Saigon time, Secretary Kissinger told a press conference that the evacuation would be terminated at 5 a.m. Shortly before then we lost commu- nications with the fleet, but the Airborne Command Post sent the decisive message to aircraft in the area: “The following is from the Presi- dent of the United States and should be passed by the first helicopter in contact with Ambassador Martin. Only 21 lifts pending. When he got word, the planes and beyond acceptable risk in darkness. remain. Americans only will be trans- pilots were not ready, and the marines for — Washington feared the possibility ported. Ambassador Martin will board the a ground security force were on different that the North Vietnamese would reach first available helicopter which, when it is ships than the helicopters. It took time to downtown Saigon and capture the remain- airborne, will broadcast ‘TIGER, TIGER, shuttle people around. Fortunately, the ing Americans. TIGER’ in the clear.” The order was passed to the Ambassador by Marine Corps Cap- weather was perfect, but the three hour As load after load took off from the tain Jerry Berry, pilot of Navy CH46 Lady delay cost us dearly. Lots of papers were Embassy, from the parking lot, and from Ace 09. written over the causes for the delay. the roof, there was little left for me to do. I skip the flight operations, handled We made sure all sensitive material was On receipt of that order, the Ambas- with great skill, but on our last day we destroyed. I wandered the halls, saying sador got up and without a word moved still had Americans dying, crashing into good-bye to people. I called my house toward the door. The rest of us, perhaps the sea. for the last time. The old As the evening turned into night, the servant was still there. I bitter truth emerged: repeated she should take — The North Vietnamese did not anything she wanted and interfere with the evacuation, but it would to leave before daylight. be impossible to take out all the people In the early hours who wanted to go; on Wednesday, April 30, I — The pilots had been awake and supervised the destruction flying for many hours. There were limits of our communications to their endurance. equipment. Just before we — Roof-top landings by the Air blew up our last machine, America choppers, hazardous at best, were I composed the most pain- CIA Director Bill Colby’s final cable to COS Polgar, as the evacuation began and Saigon fell

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 27 a dozen, followed. As we stepped up the employment with interim agency Strategic Services Unit on discharge from Army narrow metal stairs leading to the heli- and entered on duty with CIA when it was copter pad on the roof, we knew we were formed in 1947. Career intelligence officer leaving behind thousands of people in the for next 34 years, holding staff and com- mand positions with steadily increasing t H e F a l l of s A I g o n Embassy’s logistics compound. We were responsibilities in Europe, Latin America, — silent during the brief flight to theUSS Blue Vietnam and CIA Headquarters. Notewor- t H e M a r i n e P e r s p e c t i v e Ridge. We all knew how we felt, leaders of thy assignments included Chief of Base Frankfurt, Chief of Base Hamburg, Deputy a n d a defeated cause. Chief of Station Vienna, Austria; Chief of B ib l io g r aph y From the ship we could send mes- Station in Argentina, Mexico, Vietnam and sages to our families. Mine was simple: Germany. In CIA Headquarters served as Chief Intelligence Collection Staff Eastern “Left Saigon by helicopter. Now safe Europe and for Latin America. Chief of Colonel Steve Hasty, USMC onboard American warship. See you Personnel Management, Operations for the “Fall of Saigon Marine Association” soon.” Directorate. Held `supergrade’ rank for 18 years, including GS 18 and Executive Level At 7 a.m. on April 30 I found my Four for ten years. Decorations include two Historian’s Note: As illustrated in the assigned bunk and prepared to go to sleep. Distinguished Service Medals—Intelli- great Japanese movie director Kurosawa’s gence Star and Department of State Award My longest and saddest day had ended. My for Valor. Retired from CIA in December 1950 classic film Rashômon, different tour in Saigon was finished. So was the 1981. Subsequently served as consultant to people witnessing the same event from American presence, after 30 years of U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency 1982-1985 and different perspectives can produce wildly on staff of U.S. Senate Select Committee involvement in the affairs of Vietnam. on Iran/Contra. Consultant to private busi- different versions of the same story, A little footnote: Many years later I ness in United States and in Germany, but and all true from their standpoint. The never in areas related to defense or intel- challenge of historians, much like that saw Lady Ace 09 Pilot Jerry Berry again. By ligence. Lectured on intelligence topics at that time he was a retired Colonel living in Tufts University, John F. Kennedy School of detectives interviewing witnesses to Orlando. He had another chance at trans- of Government, Harvard University; reconstruct a crime scene, is to evaluate Smithsonian Institute’s Campus on the and incorporate the individuals’ stories porting high level passengers. When Mrs. Mall and Central Florida University. Author Elizabeth Dole came to Orlando during the of numerous articles on intelligence and into a coherent whole. The list of books 1996 presidential campaign, the driver of international affairs published in such below dealing with the fall of Saigon is a papers as Miami Herald, Washington Post, partial one, concentrating primarily on the her car was Colonel Berry. In retirement Orlando Sentinel, Boston Globe, American he also ran college preparatory classes Legion Magazine, International Journal of events leading up to the evacuations, and at Orlando Navy Base and I spoke to his Intelligence and German `Welt am Sonnta’ the circumstances immediately surround- group. I also met him at the Longwood (Sunday World). ing them. Many of these are memoirs by Rotary Club. Small world department.  eyewitnesses to different portions of the All photographs supplied by and property of the author. event; others are compilations done after Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1922. Aca- the fact, often using the memoirs as a basis demic gymnasium in Budapest, Gaines America will never be destroyed for the book. The eyewitness accounts College for Business Administration in New York City. Yale University international from the outside. of what an observer directly saw tend to studies (while in U.S. Army). On active If we falter, and lose our freedoms, be of most value; second-or-third-hand duty U.S. Army January 1943-May 1946. 2d it will be because accounts need to be evaluated against Lieutenant Military Intelligence. Assigned to OSS, (World War Two predecessor of we destroyed ourselves. primary sources. CIA) in 1944. Accepted civilian intelligence —Abraham Lincoln There are other works dealing with the aftermath of the fall of South Vietnam that are not included here, but are worth pursuing for a greater understanding of the conflict, just as there are many other works and memoirs dealing with the con- flict as a whole. Not generally included in our list here are works in which the fall of South Vietnam is but a portion of the book (e.g. the memoirs of Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford, among others). The memoirs below are those of bit players, caught in the riptide of history. To many, especially the younger generation born long after the events of 1975, the Vietnam War is as remote to them as the Peloponnesian Wars of Ancient Greece. For those in Vietnam who personally experienced the events of the spring of 1975, the memories may sometimes be repressed, but even 30 years page 28 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 later, are never wholly forgotten. Decent Interval by Frank Snepp (1977: A new schedule had to be established, and Perhaps the best overarching account Random House, NY) the operation started in earnest with a few of those days is the volume U.S. Marines * The Soldiers’ Story: Vietnam in Their hours delay. in Vietnam: The Bitter End 1973-1975, by Own Words by Ron Steinman (1999: As Americans were being lifted from George R. Dunham and David A. Quinlan TV Books, NY) the roof of the American Embassy during (1990: History and Museums Division, the morning of April 29 (Washington Gia Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Wash- time), President Ford, Defense Secretary Saigon by Tiziano Terzani (1976: St. ington DC). Part of the Marine Corps James Schlesinger and I briefed the con- Martin’s Press; NY) Operational Histories Series dealing with gressional leadership. After that, all was Vietnam, it is a well-researched volume silence. I sat alone in the National Security drawing on contemporary sources and Advisor’s corner office in the West Wing of provides an excellent overview in which to O ffic e of the White House, enveloped by the eerie place the other books below. The books are H e n r y k I s s i n g e r silence that sometimes attends momen- listed alphabetically by author, and partic- tous events. The White House National ularly noteworthy or recommended ones Security Council office was the Washing- Dear Master Sergeant Broussard: are annotated with an asterisk (*). Some of ton command center for the evacuation of these works are no longer published, but Dr Kissinger has written Vietnam even though the actual airlift was for those interested there are many book the enclosed piece about the Fall being conducted by the Pentagon. Neither search services (e.g. ABE.com; Amazon. of Saigon and about his activities Ford nor I could influence the outcome any com, etc.) from which out-of-print books and thoughts on that tragic day. longer; we had become spectators of the may be located and purchased. (BSH) He was glad to do it for you and final act. So we sat in our offices, freed of The Fall of Saigon by David Butler the Fall of Saigon Marine Associa- other duties yet unable to affect the ongo- (1985: Simon and Schuster: New tion. ing tragedy, suspended between a pain we could not still and a future we were not in York) I apologize for the delay in a position to shape. 55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam by getting it to you. As you can imag- Ours was, in fact, a command post Alan Dawson (1977: Prentice-Hall ine, recent events have occupied with essentially nothing to do. My Deputy, Inc; Englewood Cliffs, NJ) a good deal of his time. I know that his thoughts have often been Brent Scowcroft, kept track of the myriad * U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter turned to Vietnam, much as I am details with selfless dedication and ef- End 1973-1975, by George R. sure yours have been. With the ficiency. Robert C. “Bud” McFarland, later Dunham and David A. Quinlan Marines once again on the front President Reagan’s National Security Ad- (1990: History and Museums Divi- lines, we here join Dr. Kissinger visor, was in charge of the administration sion, Headquarters, U.S. Marine in hoping for their safe return, of my office. He had served in Vietnam Corps, Washington DC) (For sale and indeed for all our armed as a Marine and now, with tears in his through the Superintendent of Doc- forces. eyes, had to tend to the mechanics of the uments, U.S. Government Printing collapse. Many of his fellow Marines had Sincerely, Office, Washington DC 20402.) died to keep this tragedy from happening. Suzanne S. McFarland Bud was deeply moved, though he made a How We Won The War by Vo Nguyen Executive Assistant. Giap and Van Tien Dung (1976: valiant and nearly successful effort to try RECON Publications; Philadelphia, not to burden the rest of us with his sorrow. PA) Dr. Henry Kissinger’s There was an almost mystical stillness. By now it was early afternoon in Goodnight Saigon by Charles Hender- Washington, well after midnight in Sai- son (2005: A Berkley-Caliber Book; activities and thoughts gon. Despite his original inclination to Berkley Publishing Group, NY about the Fall of Saigon end the airlift at dusk in Vietnam, Ford * Peace With Honor? An American had ordered it to continue all night so that Reports on Vietnam 1973-1975 by the largest number of Vietnamese might Stuart A. Herrington (1983: Presidio t H e l A s t d A y be rescued—especially those still inside Press; Novato, CA) the embassy compound. Around 2:00 * Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam The Pentagon’s plan for implement- p.m., I learned that there were still 760 and Cambodia by Arnold R. Isaacs ing the final evacuation were far from people there and that, for whatever rea- (1983: The Johns Hopkins University precise. There was a glitch in communica- son, only one helicopter had landed in the Press; Baltimore MD and London) tions between the helicopters on aircraft previous two hours. I called Schlesinger to discuss how we could evacuate this * Escape With Honor: My Last Hours In carriers and the tactical air cover for them group completely. For it was clear that the Vietnam by Francis Terry McNamara based in Thailand, leading to a disagree- North Vietnamese would occupy Saigon with Adrian Hill (1997: Brasseys, ment among various commands about at daybreak. We computed that thirteen Inc.; Herndon, VA) when the operation should start, whether it was Greenwich Mean Time or local time. helicopters would do the trick. But for

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 29 safety, we agreed on a total of nineteen. never considered volunteering. My wife and U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin was to two children had always accompanied me be on the last helicopter. on previous tours, and I discussed it with At 3:48 p.m. Washington time (4:58 them. Unlike the standard military tour the next morning in Saigon) Martin left of one year in Vietnam, the usual overseas with nineteen on the last helicopter—or posting for the Foreign Service, the CIA what we thought was the last. He had done and several other agencies was two years, an extraordinary job. Over a two-week without any home leave. Vietnam during period, he had orchestrated the evacuation the war was an exception for civilians: of over fifty thousand South Vietnamese A CIA Officer in Saigon The tour was still two years, but families and six thousand Americans with only could not accompany the men, who were four casualties. And he had kept the situ- at least in theory given a couple of weeks’ ation sufficiently calm to allow another leave every six months. eighty thousand refugees to get out on That policy now had been modi- their own. t H e CIA struggled t o fied. The leave policy for men stayed the As soon as I thought the last heli- k e e p i t s op e r a t io n i n same, but wives could accompany their copter had left, I crossed the passageway v I e t n am g oi n g u n t i l t h e husbands, whereas children could not. between the White House and the Old v e r y fa l l of s A I g o n . Even if the wife accompanied him, the Executive Office Building to brief the press. husband was still permitted to visit his But on returning to my office, I found Richard W. Hale children periodically but the wife could that Vietnam still would not let go easily. [email protected] not, at least not at government expense. While Graham Martin and the remnants I had assumed that my wife would stay of the embassy staff had indeed departed with the children, but she considered that Richard W. Hale spent 30 years as an out of the question. The kids were miffed, a 4:58 a.m. Saigon time, elements of the Operations Officer with the CIA, half 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade which that time stationed in Africa, Asia and but agreed to share an apartment. We had protected the evacuation—comprising 129 the Middle East. His last overseas to promise they could visit, even though it Marines—had been left behind for some tour was in Saigon, from June 1973 would be at our expense. inexplicable reason. Huge credibility gaps until April 1975. He is retired and My wife and I arrived in Saigon on living in Florida. had been manufactured from far less then June 16, 1973. The agency had its own tran- this, but those of us in the White House have never quite decided whether I sient facility in Saigon, the Duc Hotel. It Situation Room had no time to worry should consider myself a Vietnam vet- had a dining room and a small swimming about public relations. The helicopter lift eran or not. On those occasions when pool on the roof. A few single people lived was resumed. It was 7:53 p.m. Washington I there full time, but the primary function I dress up, I proudly wear a miniature time (and already daylight in Saigon) when Combat Infantry Badge in my lapel. I did was temporary housing for arriving and the helicopter carrying the last Marines left spend 22 months in Vietnam, but the two departing employees, and for employees on the embassy roof. are not related. It was nearly 30 years ear- from the outlying bases coming in for con- Two hours later, North Vietnamese lier, in Burma, that I earned the badge, as sultation or a bit of R&R and shopping. tanks rolled into Saigon. a machine gunner with the 475th Infantry Anxious to get out of our tiny room For the sake of our long-term peace Regiment of the Mars Task Force. In Viet- over a busy street, we first accepted a two- of mind, we must some day undertake an nam I was a CIA officer stationed in Saigon bedroom apartment on the third floor assessment of why good men on all sides after the war was officially over. of a six-unit building. Unfortunately, the found no way to avoid this disaster and why To begin at the beginning, in early building was located at the intersection our domestic drama first paralyzed and 1973 I had been with the agency for 23 of two major thoroughfares, and from 6 then overwhelmed us. But, on the day the years, more than half of that overseas in a.m. until curfew at midnight the traffic last helicopter left the roof of the embassy, South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In noise was overwhelming. After a couple only a feeling of emptiness remained. 1971 I gave up a branch chief job to attend of months we moved to a house that was Those of us who had fought the battles to the Naval War College at Newport, R.I. The smaller than the apartment and in bad avoid the final disaster were too close to class consisted of 100 senior Navy officers condition, but was located on a cul de sac the tragedy to review the history of twenty and 100 Army, Air Force and Marine offi- with a high wall around it. My wife super- years of American involvement. cers, along with a dozen civilian intelli- vised a crew of Vietnamese workmen in the And now it was too late to alter the gence officers from the State Department, restoration process. the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency course of events.  The CIA head office in Vietnam was and the National Security Agency. the “station,” in the embassy building. When I came back to Langley, I was There were five subordinate “bases” in the killing time as a special assistant, waiting appropriate military regions (MRs), now impatiently for an appropriate opening in called administrative regions: Da Nang for Africa, when I was offered a job in Saigon. MR I, Nha Trang for MR II, Bien Hoa for I had followed events in Vietnam, but had MR III, Can Tho for MR IV and the Saigon page 30 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 base for the Saigon–Gia Dinh district. garian major started spouting that line, take over as XO. There were also subbases scattered around I blew up. I said it was no doubt possible Once the last of our POWs were the country. for the VC or NVA to impose that kind of released in March 1973 and all but 50 U.S. The Saigon base was located behind discipline on their people, but asked him: military attachés had been withdrawn, the embassy in what was called the Noro- Did he seriously think American troops Vietnam became old news. Americans dom Complex. That complex housed could be so concealed? Would Hungar- seemed oblivious to the fact that the ARVN the consulate, the military attachés and ian troops be able to tolerate the kind of lost an average of 1,000 troops per month the Saigon base. It had its own gate, and isolation it presupposed? Where were the in skirmishes with the VC in 1973 and 1974. a Marine guard in a booth controlled heavy-lift supply planes? How about swim- We would occasionally have dinner on the access. ming pools, commissaries, PXs, etc.? In roof of the Caravelle Hotel. From there, you I was assigned to the Saigon base. any case, since the ICCS had freedom to could watch the artillery duels going on out The base had two branches, designated travel anywhere in South Vietnam, why in the countryside. Liaison Operations and Internal Opera- did his delegation not expose this alleged When our son visited in the summer tions. “Bill J.,” the chief of base (COB), violation of the peace treaty? of 1974, we flew to Nha Trang to go snor- wanted me to head up a new external I got no answer except sputters, but keling. Just as we drove up to the consulate branch focused on a target of opportunity, the general in charge of the Hungarian guest house, a half-dozen VC B-40 rockets the Hungarian and Polish members of the delegation complained to Tom Polgar, the landed in the town. One of them came International Commission for Control and chief of station (COS), about me. When down in the street about 50 yards away, Supervision (ICCS). Tom mentioned it, I told him the story leaving a hole a foot deep and 2 feet across. At the time the peace treaty was with no apologies. He agreed that the Our son commented mildly that he thought signed in January 1973, the ICCS was Hungarian deserved it, and we dropped the war was supposed to be over. A friend established to monitor the truce, with two the matter. was stationed at one of the subbases in the Communist delegations and two neutral Which brings me to a point I should Central Highlands, together with a young delegations. When I arrived, the neutral have made earlier. Why would the Hun- case officer. One morning the young man delegations were Iranians and Indone- garians complain to Tom Polgar, who went out to fuel up their jeep. The jerrycan sians. Each delegation consisted of about probably everyone in Vietnam knew was he picked up had been booby-trapped with 200 members, all supposedly military the senior CIA man in the country? They a grenade. There were frequent incidents officers and enlisted men. just assumed I worked for Polgar, since of that sort. It seemed like an excellent oppor- our cover was paper thin. Oddly enough, In December 1974, the NVA made tunity to recruit some defectors in place, no one ever came out and accused us of their first serious probe, invading Phuoc prepared to report back to the agency being CIA. I guess that was the quid pro Loc province from Cambodia, and by Janu- after they returned home to Hungary and quo for not pointing out the AVH officers ary 7, 1975, they had captured the provin- Poland. We were not looking for outright we had identified. cial capital of Phuoc Binh, 100 miles from defections, and in fact refused more than I can sum up my one year in that job Saigon. Everyone on our side protested, but one. by saying that those of us not previously nothing else happened. I had five full-time case officers, exposed to the Poles discovered how lightly At about the same time, something and we began collecting biographic data the mantle of communism rested on their occurred that astonished us completely. immediately. We also began briefing other shoulders. We had so many volunteers that The embassy had been guarded by a pla- base, station and State Department officers we had to turn some away and could afford toon of Marines, under a captain. Now that to act as “spotters” for us, thus expanding to be selective. The Hungarians were a dif- guard force was reduced to a squad, under our reach considerably. I also visited the ferent matter. We eventually did have some a gunnery sergeant. bases at Nha Trang, Da Nang and Bien Hoa limited success, but I have to say those boys Next to go, on March 10, was Ban Me to brief the officers there. For some reason were for the most part dedicated Commu- Thuot, the capital of Darlac province, in the I never did get to Can Tho. nists. I have often wondered how they are middle of MR II. The NVA were thus in a fitting into the new post-Soviet reality. One of our better points of informal position to cut the South in two. Now the contact with our targets was on Sundays All of my previous overseas experi- NVA tanks came surging down Highway at the 50-meter, above-ground swimming ence had been as a COB, COS or deputy 1, heading for Hue. The 1st Infantry Divi- pool at Tan Son Nhut, which became a chief of station (DCOS) — and in each case sion, South Vietnam’s best, was well dug in gathering place for the ICCS officers. On the office was small, with a couple of case around Hue. President Nguyen Van Thieu one occasion at the pool I had a heated officers and a secretary — so the sheer size panicked and ordered it to retreat to Da argument with a Hungarian major, whom of our presence in Vietnam, the largest in Nang. Before the ARVN troops got there, we had already identified as a member of the world, took some getting used to. Bases Thieu changed his mind and ordered them the AVH, equivalent to the Soviet KGB. One were usually run by a COB, a deputy COB back to Hue, but it was too late. They were of the more absurd claims of Communist and a chief of operations. With the Saigon caught in the open and torn to pieces. propaganda asserted, “There are 10,000 base, the third man on the totem pole was Thieu next ordered a withdrawal U.S. troops at a hidden camp in the Delta, the executive officer (XO). At the end of my from the key Central Highlands city of ready to come out and help the ARVN if first year, the man holding that position Pleiku, the headquarters of MR II. The they get into difficulty.” When the Hun- completed his tour, and Bill J. asked me to commander was General Pham Van Phu,

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 31 an incompetent, corrupt and cowardly the South China Sea the rear cargo doors had an agent meeting in some place like man who held his position because of his blew open at 23,000 feet, damaging the Cholon. support of President Thieu. Phu withdrew, rear control surfaces. The pilot headed The Tet Offensive of 1968 was always all right: He loaded his family, even his back for Tan Son Nhut, but had to crash- hovering in the back of our minds, rein- household furniture, onto helicopters and land before he got there. The plane bellied forced by Radio Hanoi referring to a “popu- took off for Nha Trang. into a rice paddy, then skipped over a river lar uprising.” As the NVA surged south, we His senior subordinates followed before coming to a stop. The rescue opera- thought about the possibility of a repeat suit. The now-leaderless troops fled in tion was not helped when ARVN troops, performance. After my wife left, I started panic down bad roads toward the coast, who got there first, spent more time loot- carrying the .38 and extra ammo all the submerged in a flood of refugees, and ing than assisting. The death toll was put time. I had a .45 in my car, an M-2 carbine were cut to pieces by NVA artillery. There at 206, including the four American sec- at home, and more pistols and submachine were half a million troops and refugees on retaries from the Defense Attaché Office guns in a safe drawer in the office. Feel- this route, and only one in four made it to next door to the Saigon base. I knew all ing a little embarrassed about this, on the the coast. General Phu then decamped for four of them well. first morning I walked into Bill J.’s office Saigon. Just before the fall of the country, The next bit of excitement happened and lifted my shirttail to display the gun. he committed suicide. on Tuesday, April 8, when a VNAF F-5E Bill laughed and stood up, pulling a 9mm Since this is my story, I will interrupt fighter-bomber blasted down the street Browning Hi-Power from his pocket. this sad tale to explain what I was doing. outside our office and dropped two 500- Even stranger: I was the main point I was having a really bad feeling about the pound bombs in front of the nearby presi- of contact with the half-dozen Army, Navy situation. It seemed to me that the top dential palace. Realizing he had missed, and Air Force attachés who worked out brass in the embassy were far too sanguine the pilot came around again, which gave of the office across the courtyard from about it. I started to arrange early depar- me time to get outside for a cautious look at us. The Army attaché came to see me and ture orders for my wife, using the excuse what was going on. He came boring down asked if I could arrange for them to obtain that she wished to rejoin our children in the street at about 50 feet and dropped his some .45s. They were moving all over the northern Virginia. last two 500-pound bombs through the Saigon–Gia Din district to keep on top of Hue fell on March 25, and Da Nang, roof of the palace. The pilot’s objective was the situation, and were uncomfortable Vietnam’s second largest city, fell on April to kill President Thieu, but his early miss without some personal protection. I found 2. The South Vietnamese who escaped gave Thieu time to reach a bomb shelter. it hard to believe, but their main office out always claimed they could have held out if For 25 years I was under the impres- at Tan Son Nhut had no weapons to give the United States had provided them with sion that the pilot was simply fed up with them. I passed the request up to the COS, more equipment. I have a copy of Stars the incompetence of President Thieu. I who got the ambassador’s permission. and Stripes dated April 1, 1975, that lists recently learned that Lieutenant Nguyen Then I took the attachés down the hall to the equipment abandoned just at Hue and Thanh Trung was in fact a North Viet- our office of security, where they signed Da Nang: 60 M-48 tanks, 255 armored namese mole who had trained at Kessler for the required number of .45s and plenty personnel carriers, 150 105mm howitzers, Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. His orders of ammo. 60 155mm howitzers, 600 trucks and from the VC were to drop the first two The last two weeks I was there are hundreds of M-16s, machine guns and sub- bombs on the palace and the next two a bit of a blur, so I will not attempt to machine guns. The total cost of equipment on our embassy. The embassy building put exact dates on what took place. The abandoned in MR I and MR II was put at $1 was pretty sturdy, but the front building only battle the ARVN won in the whole billion and included half the Northrop F- of the Saigon base was a prefab, with the wretched affair was 40 miles up the road 5s, other aircraft and helicopters available structural integrity of a matchbox. At the from Saigon at Xuan Loc. It was a hollow to South Vietnam. time we did not know how lucky we were. and short-lived victory, as the troops would In the meantime, my wife’s travel Trung subsequently led the April 28 raid have been better employed in defending orders had been approved, but by then the on Tan Son Nhut by five captured Cessna the outskirts of Saigon. They held off the embassy was encouraging dependents to A-37 Dragonflys (jet trainers converted to NVA and VC for 10 days, and then the NVA leave and was issuing tickets on the spot. light bombers). As of this writing, Trung simply bypassed them. Cut off, the ARVN She left, protesting, on a Pan American is a senior pilot with Vietnamese National 18th Division plus 3,000 rangers and para- Airways flight on April 3. That evening I Airways. troopers — one-half the strategic reserve received a telephone query: The Air Force Old hands used to joke about the time for Saigon — were slowly destroyed. was providing a Lockheed C-5A to evacuate General William Westmoreland issued Back at the base, with the approval as many Vietnamese orphans as possible, an unclassified order that civilians were of the COB, I put out an order that all files and would my wife be willing to act as one not to carry weapons. They felt as if Westy were to be either destroyed (shredded and of the escorts? Fortunately, she was gone had painted a bull’s-eye on their backs, burned) or immediately shipped out to already. and the order was pretty widely ignored. Langley. Every case officer could keep one The C-5A took off the next day loaded During my time in Saigon, most of us did file folder no more than 1 inch thick for with 230 orphans plus three dozen Ameri- not carry pistols, though I tucked my .38- the most essential documents he needed can women, mostly Defense Attaché Office caliber snub-nosed Smith & Wesson into to keep doing his job. There were howls secretaries and embassy dependents. Over a belt holster under my bush shirt when I of protest, but I knew most case officers page 32 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 were pack rats, and there were a couple the same way. They went. flight out of Tan Son Nhut. The secretary of instances of African stations or bases At about the same time, all base and was beside herself with worry about her being overrun during civil wars and the station personnel living in outlying areas husband, but he came out safely on one of safes left full of classified material. Back were asked to move closer to the embassy. the helicopters. in the 1950s, we had thermite grenades There were a number of small apartments I spent two days in Hong Kong, bring- on hand in case of such an emergency, now available that had previously been ing friends at the consulate general up to but that seemed to have gone out of style. occupied by secretaries. Another officer date, then flew on to Honolulu, where our I was determined that if the NVA overran and I moved into a two-bedroom, one-bath son was enrolled in college. I waited there Saigon, they would not find any Saigon unit directly across the street from the back on the remote chance that the situation in base files. gate of the embassy. Vietnam would indeed stabilize, in which Most of the case officers complied, I drove my car across the street the case I intended to turn around and fly back. but on Sunday, April 13, one of them next morning and was greeted at the gate When Saigon fell, I sadly continued my squealed on another one. The guilty party by a Marine clad in fatigues and toting an journey to Washington.  was a police intelligence liaison officer. I M-16. He stopped me, came to port arms opened his safe, and the entire top drawer and asked, very formally, “Sir, are you Reprinted with permission of the author, was full. His files were as well organized carrying any photographic or recording an AFIO member. This article first appeared in Vietnam Magazine. as any I had ever seen, but they had to go. equipment, or any firearms?” He looked I got the man on the phone and told him about 15 years old, and I thought if I men- that if he had not destroyed or shipped tioned my mini-arsenal he might flip out, them by the next morning I would burn so I lied. I then asked where he had come them myself. He did. from, since I knew all the regulars, at least When the time came to leave, the by sight. It turned out that a full platoon of Saigon base was swept clean. Unfortu- Marines had flown in the night before from He and Gendron reserve nately, the same was not true of other Okinawa. Better late than never. much of their annoyance repositories, particularly the embassy. At this time a lot of the CIA people for the federal government, The ambassador would not let his staff who had evacuated Da Nang, Nha Trang which they say spends clean out their safes, since he was still and other points to the north were gath- billions of dollars on living in a dream world, hoping that some ered in Saigon, and I knew that many of accommodation could be reached with the them were carrying M-16s, Swedish K 9mm homeland security even as Communists. Even more important, the submachine guns, etc. As soon as I parked, the southern and northern South Vietnamese government’s police I hotfooted it to our office of security and borders remain sieves. and intelligence files were abandoned for told them what had happened to me at the Overheard (U.S. Immigration and the North Vietnamese to find. But that’s gate. The security officer swore, then ran Customs Enforcement, or ICE, another story. out to find the embassy security officer and The Saigon base had more than 50 get the Marines to stand down. estimates that 8 million illegal people, and in early April we began to thin Finally, on the evening of April 21, the immigrants live in the United out the ranks. Every evening, Bill J., his Saigon base was down to 15 people. Bill J. States; about 465,000 are fleeing deputy Monty L. and I would have a meet- looked at me and said: “OK, Dick, it’s your deportation orders.) “I just find it ing and decide who should be sent home turn. We have too many chiefs and not hard to believe that we spend next. It was then my job to call them into enough Indians. You leave tomorrow.” my office the next day and tell them it was billions of dollars on high-tech I almost objected, then laughed security stuff and then we let 8 time to go. Of course, most of the secretar- instead. In response to Bill and Monty’s ies were among the first. raised eyebrows, I reminded them of the million people come across our I had a problem with some of the objections I had been getting for two border illegally and say case officers, who came up with all sorts weeks, and that I had been on the verge of nothing,”Gendron said. “My son is of excuses as to why they could not leave doing the same thing. I said OK, wished with the Army in Iraq, and he says right away. My answer was always pretty them luck and went home to pack my one the biggest challenge is to tighten much the same: I said I had no faith in the small suitcase. embassy evacuation plan, which called So, despite my harping on the pos- the border. Why is it any different for civilian chartered airplanes out of Tan sibility of helicopter evacuation, the next here?” Son Nhut. I had been at Tan Son Nhut the morning one of the last remaining sec- day an NVA missile shot down a VNAF retaries, a case officer and I were driven —W. Garrett Chamberlain, the Police Chief of Douglas AC-47 gunship minutes after it New Ipswich, New Hampshire, quoted in The out to Tan Son Nhut by the secretary’s Washington Post Friday 10 June 05 in “New Tack took off, so it seemed to me likely that we husband. We carried our .45s in a brown Against Illegal Immigrants: Trespassing Charges” would be going out in helicopters, and I paper bag, just in case. When we got to by Michael Powell, who says Chamberlain and did not want one of the case officers to be other New England police chiefs are frustrated the airport we handed the bag to our that federal officials have declined to detain sitting in my seat. Very few of them could chauffeur and wished him luck. The three illegal immigrants. argue with that reasoning, since they felt of us then caught the last China Airlines

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 33 to the CIA. The gates, which had been sealed shut for more than three hours, opened a crack. Tuyet was shoved into the gate with so much force she could barely breathe; a photograph of her anguished face at the gates would appear on the cover of Newsweek magazine two weeks later. “I flew inside, I didn’t walk,” she says. “I Weekly was crying, and when I opened my eyes, I ‘We were playing God, saw I was already inside the gate. I call it Intelligence a miracle.” kicking people back’ In a way, it was. A friend of Toai’s had been clutching at his belt when the gates Notes Suzanne Goldenberg opened, but he did not make it inside. He [WINs] 28 April 2005 spent seven years in a re-education camp. Toai believes he could easily have faced the The gates were thronged same fate. A student activist, his stomach with desperate, pleading people. still bears the scar from a bullet wound w e e k l y i n t e l l i g e n c e The ambassador was locked in inflicted by a communist rival in 1967, and n o t e s his office, ripping up secret docu- his job at the South Vietnamese ministry of a r e s e n t t o a l l ments. Meanwhile, no one knew information made him a target. m e mb e r s b y e - mai l exactly how many rescue helicopters His wife Nghiem had no illusions were coming... This past April 29 about what was happening. At the Saigon If you have email and are not marks 30 years since the scrambled, Credit Bank where she worked, wealthy receiving them, please send customers were withdrawing large sums of a message to [email protected] asking humiliating evacuation of the US to be added to the list. If you or your embassy in Saigon that marked the money. “I was nervous. I told my husband, Internet Service Provider has anti-SPAM end of the Vietnam war. Suzanne and he said: ‘Oh, no, they [the US] cannot software running, you will need to indi- let us lose’.” cate you will accept mail from our two Goldenberg talks to some of those addresses. These are: [email protected] who were there Even so, Nghiem bought a small and [email protected] suitcase as a precaution, and the couple were relieved when they received a call Weekly Intelligence Notes (WINs) are from the US embassy. “They promised that written by journalist/editor DKR [Derk E v ac u a t e d 4 pm A p r i l 2 9 when it was the right time they would call Kinnane Roelofsma], based on his us and tell us where to get together.” But research and the input/suggestions of he Ngo family ascribe their pres- no call ever came, and by the morning of AFIO members. The WINs are sent to ence in the Virginia suburbs of April 29, the Ngos decided to take fate into AFIO members and WIN subscribers Washington DC to divine interven- their own hands. (The original evacuation on an opt-in basis, for non-profit educa- T tion. On the afternoon of April 29 1975, in plan, which, in the chaos, was never imple- tional use. They are a feature of mem- those dreadful last hours before the fall mented, was to broadcast coded messages bership and should not be reproduced or of Saigon to the North Vietnamese army, over the American radio service. A weather forwarded without permission. Toai Vuong Ngo, his wife Nghiem Lan Ngo, report would announce a temperature for and 18-year-old sister Tuyet Lan Ngo, found Saigon of “105 degrees and rising”, which CONTENTS of WINs themselves in the desperate crush outside would be followed by the first 30 seconds of SECTION I - Current Intelligence a side entrance to the US embassy, wedged I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.) SECTION II - Context and Precedence between the crowds and the locked arms They bundled into Toai’s green SECTION III - Cyber Intelligence of the marine guards at the gate. Datsun - with their friends, there were SECTION IV - Books, Sources and Issues They had been there for more than nine people inside - and raced through SECTION V - Careers, Notes, Letters, Queries from Authors Seeking Assistance, Corrections, three hours, Toai frantically trying to the streets of Saigon to the embassy (“We and Obituaries catch the attention of the marine guards dodged checkpoints like it was a racing SECTION VI - Event Announcements to show them his documents authorising car,” Toai says). The page count can run 13 his family’s departure on the US airlift. He Inside, the embassy was almost as to 20 pages, all of it topical began to despair. “I told my wife: ‘I want to crowded as outside, with the area around news in this field. Be sure to go home, and look for a car.’ My wife said, the pool teeming with people. Within sign up or explore samples ‘No - either you get in alone, or we wait here minutes, an embassy official handed Toai on the website at www.afio. till the last minute’.” a megaphone and asked him to calm the com.  Suddenly two jeeps pulled up car- crowd. He was asked to count off a group of rying a two-star general in the South 60 Vietnamese, who were to be loaded into Vietnamese army and a key liaison officer buses for transport to the port of Saigon page 34 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 and out of the country. When Toai was war. “He said: ‘I don’t believe you. I have E v ac u a t e d mi d n i g h t A p r i l almost finished, shortly before 4pm, the better intelligence.’ He cut off all military 2 9 official appeared again. “He told me: ‘OK, briefings. He refused to receive anything you get in,’” Toai says. “So we were the last that contradicted his wishful thinking,” to get in, and the first to get out.” Snepp recalls. Alan Carter, the director of the US Information Service in Saigon, had no idea As their bus sped towards the river, The consequence of Martin’s refusal on the morning of April 29 that it was to they were followed by a cavalcade of cars was chaos. That afternoon of April 29 saw be his last day in Vietnam. He had been and motorcycles, driven by Vietnamese. the ambassador closeted in his third floor woken at 4am by the thud of distant explo- They were to spend several days marooned office, ripping up sensitive material to sions. At 11am he was summoned from his on that barge, hungry and terrified, but avoid its capture by the North Vietnamese. offices at the American information centre they were safe. After stops in the Phil- Upstairs, marine guards used thermite to the separate embassy compound for lipines and Guam, they arrived at a refugee grenades to set fire to the communications a meeting of diplomatic staff. “I walked camp in Arkansas. room, and the CIA frantically shredded in and realised it wasn’t a meeting, it was classified material, sending classified The family did not stay there long, an evacuation. Safes were being blown, confetti wafting down into the makeshift relocating to Washington DC within the papers were being shredded.” Carter was helicopter pad in the compound. month. Toai’s early years were a struggle told he would be on the first helicopter out, - a succession of low-paid jobs - but he now Snepp spent the day hauling people leaving at about 1.30pm that afternoon. has a home in the Virginia suburbs with a up over the walls of the embassy. “Because But Carter, having seen four or five small American flag tacked on the front no planning had been done in any coher- colleagues on to the 1.30pm helicopter, door. His three grown children are thor- ent way, there was no prioritisation of any turned back, hoping to arrange the evacu- oughly American. Toai would like them to evacuees,” he says. “[We] were playing ation of about 200 Vietnamese: local staff, visit Vietnam. Now 58, he’s not interested God, kicking people back, separating journalists and employees of the Ministry in recrimination. “Everybody had a fault in children from their parents.” of Information who were counting on it. Anyone who was in power should take CIA personnel were ordered out Carter for a way out. some of the blame. Either they were not at 9.30pm or 10pm. As his helicopter He had already given up on the idea of clever enough, or their ambition was too rose above the embassy roof, Snepp saw bussing them into the embassy; no vehicle great,” he says. “But Vietnam after the war countless headlights moving towards the could get through the throng at the gates. deserves to have a better life.” city from the north. The helicopter began As he waited for his colleagues to depart, taking groundfire, and rose steeply to he telephoned through to the information avoid being shot down before making, centre, advising people to try to reach his like the other helicopters, for one of the US E v ac u a t e d 1 0 pm A p r i l 2 9 villa by foot; it was closer to the embassy navy vessels off the Vietnamese coast. - perhaps something could be arranged In 1977, Snepp was sued by the gov- Frank Snepp had seen the end from there. ernment for writing a scathing book about coming. Since the beginning of April, “I know after the fact they did get to America’s role in Vietnam. Although he he had tried repeatedly to convince the my villa, but that is the last I know. The had left the CIA, and the book contained ambassador, Graham Martin, that it was awful piece of knowledge I picked up later no classified material, the court ordered time to make an exit plan. The intelligence was that they called over to the embassy him to forfeit his royalties and imposed a arriving from one of the CIA’s best agents and talked to a marine guard, who said: lifetime ban on any writing without prior in the north did not vary: there was no ‘Carter and the others had taken off by authorisation. He now works as a television chance of a negotiated settlement. helicopter.’ So when I came back from the producer in California. Late on the night of April 28, when embassy roof, no one was answering the “The big message in the collapse of the troops of the North Vietnamese army phone at the US Information Service, or at Vietnam is this: a lot of Americans went had fanned out in a crescent on the edges my villa. That turned out for me to be enor- to Vietnam with all the answers and we of Saigon, the 28-year-old CIA analyst mously difficult - for them to think that I came away with nothing but questions, made one last attempt to get his message had just taken off.” He spent much of the and we haven’t answered them. How do through to the ambassador: there was day, until he finally left at midnight, trying you deal with insurgency? How do you deal not going to be a peaceful resolution to to trace them. He never did find any of the with a chaotic situation in which you have this war. people who had been relying on him. civilians mingling with fighters? Should After Saigon, Carter headed a Viet- That was not a message Martin could we even be there? For me, the collapse of namese refugee camp in Pennsylvania. He accept. In Snepp’s eyes, the ambassador Vietnam was a real watershed of the last retired in 1980 and now lives in Vermont. was an ageing cold warrior - “the next best century, and we have been left with the Like others who served in the US mission thing to a B-52”. Martin had been sent to consequences because we have never been at Saigon, he sees echoes in the war in Iraq. Saigon after the ceasefire with the task able to understand the questions that it “I’ve long been convinced that we have of convincing the South Vietnamese that bequeathed us.” the war was winnable. He also had deeply an almost missionary instinct to remake personal reasons for refusing to accept other countries in the world in our own defeat in Vietnam, having lost a son to the image.” In both cases, he argues, America

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 35 entered into war for the wrong reasons, 5am, another helicopter touched down for sympathetic US Marines, American staff- and pursued those wars in the wrong way. Lehmann and six of his staff. ers - I think there was a giant conspiracy And in both cases, “from my perspective “That ride out, nobody said a word. to help these people.” we got out badly. We haven’t been able to There was absolute silence. The only thing In the melee, it was impossible to get out of Iraq, and in the case of Vietnam you could hear was the sound of engines. It say how many in the crowd were official we got out as badly as we got into it.” was a mix of sadness and anger. I was angry evacuees, and how many had just seized at our own system because it created a situ- their chances. Herrington just focused ation that basically amounted to a betrayal on trying to maintain calm as the hours - a betrayal of the Vietnamese people and dragged on. Almost all of the available E v ac u a t e d 5 am A p r i l 3 0 basically of the 58,000 Americans killed in helicopters were being used to evacuate the Indochina commitment.” people from the airbase outside town. There were some in the US embassy In Lehmann’s view, America’s project On the embassy rooftop, only one or two in the spring of 1975 who openly said the in south-east Asia, and the government in touched down an hour. end was inevitable, and that it was time to South Vietnam, remained viable as late as “It got dark and it rained. We would extricate American personnel and the tens the summer of 1974 when impeachment get a helicopter every now and then, and of thousands of local people compromised proceedings began against then president people would start to panic that they would by their association with the government Richard Nixon. By the time Nixon resigned be left behind. We spent our time walking of the south. The US ambassador Graham on August 9, the anti-Vietnam lobby among them, saying: ‘Dung lo’ - ‘Don’t Martin and Wolfgang Lehmann, deputy - “useful idiots”, he calls them - were a worry, nobody is going to be left behind.’ chief of the mission to the embassy, were formidable force, and the US Congress was The crowds were close to panicking: push- not among them. It wasn’t blindness, in no mood to vote for more funds for the ing and shoving and using their suitcases Lehmann maintains, but steely common government in Saigon. “What Congress as battering rams.” sense. “All along we had to make sure did at the time was to give Hanoi a green things were done on time, but not before The crowds did not ease until late in light to go ahead, and opt for an all-out time,” he says. “If things were done too the day when the marines hacked down a military option,” he says. early, it would create a panic and every- giant tamarind tree in the embassy com- thing would go to hell.” Thirty years later, at the age of 83, pound to make way for a second helicopter Lehmann still finds it a shameful deci- pad. At midnight, the first of the heavy But by the morning of April 29 it sion. “It was a situation that could have lifters came in, landing in the embassy was clear that E-Day had arrived. Martin, easily been prevented had we mounted the grounds. The bigger Sea Stallion helicop- already feeling the effects of the emphy- national will to do so. It was a case of self- ters, which could take up to 90 people, but sema that would eventually kill him, imposed impotence whose consequences only if they dumped all their belongings, effectively left all decision-making to followed us for years.” were guided into the grounds by the head- Lehmann. lights of official sedan cars arranged in a In Lehmann’s memory, there were no circle around a makeshift helicopter pad. mob scenes, no panic-maddened Vietnam- There were about 420 Vietnamese left ese surrounding the walls of the embassy. E v ac u a t e d 5 . 3 0 am A p r i l 3 0 when Herrington’s commanding officer “It was generally very orderly except for a arrived to tell him there would be one few cases where some of the Vietnamese By the time Captain Stuart Her- more helicopter at the most, and that the wanted to take heavy bags,” he says. “Even rington, who worked in the defence captain would have to be on it. The order, at the end when it became clear that we had attache’s office at the embassy, arrived he was told, came directly from President to leave these people behind, well, there there on the morning of April 29, it was Gerald Ford. “It was a really, really stink- was weeping, but it was still orderly.” clear the day was not going according to ing situation and Americans, particularly At around 3am on April 30 he learned plan. His understanding had been that a embassy people and people like me, were there would be only 13 more helicopter limited number of helicopters would alight just suffering a terrible fit of conscience sorties in and out of the embassy. Together on the roof of the embassy to evacuate key for what we knew we were doing. All the with the ambassador, Lehmann entered staff. Others, including Vietnamese whose people left behind, and all the promises the control room to tap out a last cable, names appeared on official evacuation we made, all the grief and bloodshed, and advising Washington that the embassy lists, would be loaded on five or six buses all the years and years of promising these would be shut down by 4.30am. “Due to the and driven out to the airbase. people that we would not allow Saigon to necessity of destroying communications That tidy scenario was soon scrapped; be overrun at the point of a gun. And here gear this will be the last message from the the embassy was teeming with people, we were presiding over the very event we US embassy in Saigon,” it said. 3,000 in all. “Hordes of people, all of them promised them time and time again we Both men climbed up the outdoor with suitcases. They had all descended on would never allow to happen.” ladder leading from the embassy’s sixth the embassy based on the gut feeling that Herrington stayed at the heli-pad in floor to the helicopter pad. Martin climbed this was a safe place to be. We puzzled the grounds for a few minutes more, assur- aboard and Lehmann went to follow him, for years as to how they got in there, and ing the remaining Vietnamese their chop- but the pilot put up his hand - halt! - before it just seems very clear in hindsight that per would come. He then quietly crept into closing the door and taking off. Soon after Vietnamese employees of the embassy, nice the bushes, entering the embassy by a side page 36 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 door. To his enduring distress, things were pool was full of confiscated weapons from so chaotic that when his helicopter rose the fleeing South Vietnamese. The activity from the roof above the deserted streets had ended abruptly at around 4am when of Saigon at 5.30am, there were just four Kean learned that Washington had halted people aboard. the evacuation. “I got on the phone, and He stayed on in the military, rising I said: ‘General, there are still more than to the rank of a full colonel before retire- 400 people sitting down here on their lug- ment, and has advised the Pentagon at gage waiting for a line, the general said: Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. But that ‘The president directs ...’” The marines early-morning flight stands out in his had their orders. memory. “It was the only time in my 30- Valdez had then told his men to form year career and three different wars that I a semicircle and walk slowly backwards to ever felt ashamed.” the main embassy building, keeping their eyes on the crowd. He had then placed himself in the last batch - which would eventually dwindle to the forgotten 11. “As The E v ac u a t e d 7. 5 8 am A p r i l 3 0 we were getting closer to the embassy, the Vietnamese put two and two together, and International But Herrington’s helicopter would realised we were leaving,” he says. “We not prove to be the last to leave the embassy. had to pretty much fight our way into the Spy Somehow, 11 marines had been left behind embassy.” on the roof, among them Major James Kean Once inside, they slammed a huge log Museum and Sergeant John Valdez. A few hours against the embassy’s heavy teak gates, cut earlier, the last ambassador to Saigon, the electricity to the building’s lifts, and —Washington, D.C.— Graham Martin, had made his departure, locked the firedoors on each stairwell as with the stars and stripes folded under they climbed the six flights to the roof. kicks off… his arm. The code word “Tiger” went They had reached the fourth floor when out over the radio to the US navy ships someone rammed a water truck through waiting off the coast, and in Washington the heavy teak doors. The 400 abandoned Henry Kissinger went on national televi- Vietnamese were soon in hot pursuit. AFIO sion to announce that the evacuation was On the top floor of the building, the complete. APPRECIATION last few marines built a makeshift barri- “Given the nature of the war in Viet- cade with fire extinguishers and metal wall MONTH nam, 11 guys probably wouldn’t have made lockers. From the compound below, they much difference,” says Kean, now 63. “It could hear the comissary being looted, would have been one more thing in a long and the embassy’s fleet of white sedans. Every Sunday list of screw-ups. Most of us associate April By the time the rescue party appeared on in the month of October 30 1975 with retreat and defeat.” It would the horizon, the North Vietnamese were Between 1 p.m. and Museum take more than two hours to send a heli- thrusting deep into the capital. About an closing, an AFIO member copter sortie back to get them. hour after the last marines were airlifted presenting a current AFIO Valdez was the senior non-commis- from the embassy roof, a North Vietnam- membership card gets sioned officer in charge of the marine ese tank crashed through the gates of the free admission to the Museum security detachment at the embassy in presidential palace. Saigon had fallen. Saigon. Kean was in overall command for self Kean had long since lost his belief in and up to three guests. of the marine guards at 23 US embassies America’s mission in Vietnam by then. “It across Asia. Officially, their duties were to seems like there was mistake after mistake Join us in celebrating protect classified material, but by the late and it couldn’t be undone.” The outbreak afternoon of April 29 nobody was paying AFIO’s 30th Anniversary of the war in Iraq reinforced many of his by visiting the extensive much attention to official job descrip- convictions. “I told my wife: ‘Holy hell, tions. collections at the beautiful here we go.’ It’s utterly amazing to me how International Spy Museum At the embassy gates, marines were we can get committed to things like this,” on a Sunday this October. struggling to bring in a handful of Viet- he says. “There has got to be a better way namese who were eligible for evacuation than killing our young.”  without letting in more crowds. Inside 800 F Street NW Washington, DC 20004 the compound, the air was thick with ash Released Thursday, April 28, 2005 from incinerated classified material and Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited from US banknotes - more than $4m went 2005. Reprinted with permission. One block from the Gallery Place/ China Town Metrorail Station up in smoke that day - and the swimming

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 37 But, the news media normally uses agents in the United States.”4 the term “covert action” to mean just about CA can use shotgun or rifle meth- any government activity that is outside of odology. That is, it can try to manipulate diplomatic channels. Even the more initi- policies by influencing popular thinking ated use the term to refer to clandestine about an issue or it can focus on a single operation in general. As rightly noted in key official, or on a few key individuals. Foreign Affairs,2 the word “clandestine” Election operations tend to focus on refers to the operation itself. When Louis the voters, that is helping the supported XVI provided resources to the incipient candidate run an effective campaign, COVERT ACTION American forces early in the Revolution- either through more ample resources or ary War, that was covert action. But, when better ideas or both. Where elections are A VITAL OPTION George Washington was running his unknown, or controlled by the govern- IN U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY Culper ring of spies, the first organized ment already in power, trying to get close POLICY intelligence organization in the United to individuals with leverage makes more States, against the British military target sense. Where the decision maker has only in New York, those were clandestine one “Rasputin”-like key adviser, that is the Andre Le Gallo operations. person on whom to target. CA cannot by Andre Le Gallo, a retired senior Cen- Benjamin Franklin, an early and avid itself create a tide of public emotions to tral Intelligence Agency officer, ran propagandist, was also a pioneer in the use reverse national beliefs. Italy’s Christian clandestine operations (including of CA. For example, he was successful in Democrats in the late 1940s would have covert action) in South-East Asia, decreasing the number of Hessian mer- run their electoral campaigns anyway. But Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle cenaries under arms by “leaking” a letter CA assistance empowered them to beat the East, Western Europe and Latin America for three decades. He was from an imaginary German Count to the communist party at the polls. The Afghans the senior intelligence manager in commander of the Hessian troops fighting would have fought the Soviets even without four countries. He also served as the for Britain. Since the German Count was CIA assistance. But the CIA provided the National Intelligence Officer for Coun- paid a bounty for each Hessian killed in Mujahidin with the resources to be suc- terterrorism in 1988-89. He was a vice action, but not for the wounded, Franklin cessful - so successful that the CIA’s origi- president in an international energy company for five years and a Visiting had the German author recommend that nal goal, to make the Soviets pay for their Fellow at the Hoover Institution for Hessians, if wounded in battle, would be aggression, changed to kicking the Soviets two years. He is now the President better off dead than crippled. As a result, a out of Afghanistan, a goal reached in 1989 of the San Francisco chapter of the large percentage of the Hessian mercenar- when the last Soviet tanks crossed the Amu Association of Former Intelligence ies defected.3 Darya River. In each case, a popular but Officers and is a consultant to govern- ment and business. CA has had a controversial history impotent, base already existed. since the National Security Act of 1947 placed responsibility for covert action with t this time of high-risk international the CIA, newly created by the same Act. changes, the United States must use T H E C H A l l e n g e Over the years, various administrations all of our capabilities and to dust off O F R A D ICA L I s l AM A have directed the CIA to use this tool when the instruments of Covert Action (CA). CA diplomacy was too weak or military action can advance U.S. interests in the war on ter- too strong. CA first showed its value imme- CA in Italy and Afghanistan was rorism, in dealing with opposition to U.S. diately after WW II when it denied power within the West’s policy of containing policies overseas, and serve as a positive to the Communist Part of Italy (CPI). More Soviet Communism. Today, a new “ism” force in facilitating democratization. recently, in what was probably the largest must be faced. The United States and The Central Intelligence Agency CA program ever, the CIA led a coalition the West have been attacked by Islamic (CIA) is defined by its clandestine arm, the of countries in a covert program that Radicalism struggling to impose its will Directorate of Operation (DO). The DO, evicted Soviet forces out of Afghanistan. primarily against what it considers apos- the tip of the spear, has three basic port- These were major programs intended to tate rulers in areas formerly controlled by folios: Foreign Intelligence (FI), Counter have strategic impact. There have also the Muslim institution of the Caliphate, Intelligence (CI), and Covert Action. FI been many smaller CA operations aimed from Andalusia to Aceh. This adversary refers to the task of collecting (i.e. “steal- at influencing local opinion in support has been unsuccessful on its home turf so ing secrets”), and producing otherwise of various U.S. policies. They principally it has decided to take his rage on the road, unobtainable intelligence; CI focuses on used clandestine access to the local media, attacking the home base of what it per- preventing others from stealing secrets, or made use of “agents of influence.” Per- ceives to be the global source of a cultural and CA is defined in U.S. law as activity haps the best-known example of an agent cancer, the United States. The U.S. is in the meant “to influence political, economic, of influence operation by a hostile power crossfire between Muslim extremism and or military conditions abroad, where it was Harry Hopkins, described by former a passive Muslim mainstream. Like other is intended that the role of the United KGB London Rezident Oleg Gordievsky as weak movements led by true believers, this States Government will not be apparent “the most important of all Soviet wartime one is attempting to force societal changes or acknowledged publicly.”1 through fear and destruction, through page 38 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 terrorism. What has been called “the War is ideally suited to this task. mostly American and capitalist (dating on Terrorism” is a polite euphemism. The back to Cold War propaganda), origins contemporary adversary is not terrorism; and by an allegedly continuing Christian it is Radical Islam, obtaining its ideology crusade against Islam. This is a much from the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi d e v I S I n g A s t r A t e g y greater problem than CA alone can take movements and using terrorism as its on. However, when the Western message weapon of choice. The challenge is at several levels. is dead on arrival because of its U.S. origin, This enemy’s fanaticism is based One, the U.S. must convince its allies that then CA has a major role to play. The CIA, on a medieval dogma, preaching the they are also at risk and gain their full and other Western intelligence agencies reinvigoration of Islam to its previous cooperation on a less than grudging level. need to identify or create mechanisms to geopolitical importance. But its weapons And the appeal of Radical Islam in the support moderate Islamic elements are as modern as the Internet. The move- Developing World must be addressed. This One key area that needs to improve ment hides behind religion, but the goal part of the issue has religious, political and is education. The religious schools teach- is to gain power. Its leadership is wealthy, economic facets. The Islamists are at war ing the Qu’ran and hatred of the West are but the foot soldiers are recruited using with Western culture in more than they are manufacturing tomorrow’s suicide bomb- their own personal needs for validation at war with countries per se. Radical Islam ers. While shutting them down would be and hope. It has been at war for years but is out to change a Western culture that is counterproductive, making sure there the U.S. – and the world – noticed only on offensive to its fundamental tenets. The is a viable alternative to the Madrasas is 11 September 2001 (9/11). Fundamentalist disgust of western culture possible. As a precedent, American uni- was famously expressed by Sayd Qutb, a Washington’s response to 9/11 has versities have experience in setting up and member of the Egyptian Muslim Brother- been quick and effective, in the short run. running educational programs overseas. hood, following an educational stay in But, a better balance between the tacti- But the U.S. shouldn’t rely on American the United States: “All these Westerners cal and the strategic is necessary. Terror universities alone. Any institution, Ameri- are the same: a rotten conscience, a false attacks certainly need to be prevented. can or not but preferably local, willing to civilization. How I hate these Westerners, Tactically, that can be done only through teach useful topics like the three R’s, in how I despise all of them without excep- intelligence and special military opera- a frame work emphasizing the personal tion.”5 Usama bin Ladin’s early mentors tions, with an emphasis on the offense. freedoms and free enterprise, should be included Muhammad Qutb, Sayd’s brother, CA’s larger potential is on the strategic included. The U.S. government should and Abdullah Azzam, both members of the side. Can any person or country turn the make resources available, as should the Muslim Brotherhood.6 Theirs is truly a war dial to change the beliefs of an Usama bin international institutions, as should non- “sans frontières.” Ladin? Probably not, but an effort should government organizations (NGOs). And be made to separate the al Qai’da leader- CA is effective only if it supports where overt U.S. or Western sponsorship ship from its recruiting pool. The U.S. policy, and our policy seems to be lagging would negate the effectiveness of the pro- simply cannot continue to allow Islamists behind events. Difficult choices must be gram, then covert action resources should to spot, recruit and train terrorists unop- made. Professor Bernard Lewis, who has be made available. posed. An attempt must be made to change written extensively on Islam and the Arabs, Similarly, many moderate Muslims the conditions that drive the foot soldiers identifies two schools of thought among believe that a non-violent Islam fitting into al Qa’ida’s dead-end street, and to Muslims: one believes that they must revive into the modern world. But they have been change the perceptions of the U.S. and Islam as it was a thousand years ago, and too timid, or without resources, to make the other that Islam is capable of modern- the West. And here seemingly paradoxical 7 themselves heard. Covertly sponsoring priorities must be worked out since the Iraq izing itself to fit into the current century. private media outlets to reflect the voice war has undoubtedly added to bin Ladin’s Politically, a large part of the Arab street’s of moderate, mainstream Islam should pool of recruits. But success in Iraq would feelings about the United States is based not be out of the question. Admittedly, go a long way to deny foot soldiers for the on U.S. support to the dictatorial regimes some government radios and TV stations wannabee caliphs. The Iraqi conflict has that govern those same streets. The street (Al-Hurra and Sawa) are broadcasting to attracted fighters from other countries wants change while its government is the Middle East. Being U.S. government- like flies to flypaper. The argument has hanging on to the status quo, backed by sponsored, their music is more welcome been made that, if they weren’t in Iraq, other status quo countries such as France, than their message. Since known govern- they might be in New York or San Francisco as French writer Pascal Bruckuer charac- ment sponsorship negates the message, blowing up non-combatants. But two wars terizes that country. And economically, the CA needs to step in. U.S. must emphasize the priority of politi- must be fought. In the longer term, if the Do people in the Middle East really cal institutions and the rule of law prior to U.S. and its allies fail to deal with “root hate the United States as much as the showering any country with more millions causes” and focus their efforts only against media and the polls allege? Are the anti- or billions of dollars it cannot handle. today’s shooters, we are destined to fight U.S. demonstrations really aimed at the This means changing failed command forever while new terrorists are being America, or are they “faute de mieux” economies in failed dictatorships. It means spawned at a faster rate than we can lock safety valves. Most Middle East govern- reversing beliefs apparently accepted by them up or kill them. The requirement is ments, which have done little or nothing to mostly young, underemployed popula- for a longer-range weapon. Covert Action improve the quality of their citizens’ lives tions that their problems are of “foreign”,

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 39 censure criticism, unless it is directed at outside, typically toward the United States, MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Looking at former E n d n o t e s Rocky Mountain Chapter President the default setting. The “Arab street” takes Derrin R. Smith, Ph.D. its lead from two sources: its own govern- 1. Jennifer Kible, “The Rise of the Shadow War- riors,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2004, pp. ment and populist voices, often beyond 102-115. their borders. These two groups are both 2. Ibid., p.104 the West’s competition and its target audi- 3. Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, An American ence. A positive, and early, resolution to the Life (Simon & Schuster, 2003). Richard Helms Iraq war holds great potential to affect the and William Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder, A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (The Random conditions responsible for the so-called House, 2003). “root causes.” 4. Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets (Regnery Publishing, 2000). 5. Steven Emerson, American Jihad, The Terrorists University of Denver, Living Among Us (The Free Press, 2002 T A K I n g T H E L O n g V I e w 6. Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc. (Simon and Graduate School of Schuster, 2002). International Studies The solution to the problems foisted 7. Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East Professor Receives on the U.S. by a Radical Islam trying to (Perennial, 2002) fit into the 11th century rather than the Academic Fellowship 21st reaches beyond a military-only effort. Soldiers, together with the intelligence Bad Guys Love to Work Award officers, can give America time by shutting Under Cover of Darkness down the immediate threats. The longer view requires more complex solutions. The Marshall Plan worked after WW II. r. Derrin R. But, to stem a global war without front Smith, GSIS lines, against enemies with no addresses, p r o f e s s o r ,

Photo of Baltimore MD’s Inner Harbor by William L. Uttenweiler D motivated by religious/political motives, received an Academic Fellowship to partici- and hijacking the causes largely spawned We All Must Report to Police/Security 9 Attempts to Enter Off-Limits Areas pate in the Academic by bad governance, Washington and its 9 Suspicious Requests for Information 9 People Stealing Documents from Trash Fellows Program of allies must wake up to the size and com- 9 Unattended Packages in Crowded Public Places 9 Suspicious Surveillance of Homes or Public Areas the Foundation for the plexity of the challenge. Guns can give us 9 Anything Else That Seems “Suspicious” a short-term reprieve. Defense of Democ- racies in Tel Aviv, Israel. The overseas This time must be used by the West to program was May 28, 2005 and included structure and implement long-term solu- programs on counter-terrorism and tions. Translated into resource allocation, “A recent article in the New York intelligence issues in the Middle East. policy makers need to look beyond the Times plausibly estimated the Currently teaching graduate courses in needs of the military and focus also on prospective long-term cost of the Terrorism (INTS-4907), Emerging Security facilitating the transition of developing Iraq War at more than $1 trillion. Threats (INTS-4710), and Country Team countries into the modern world. Some If Iraqi politicians do finally agree Operations: Theory and Training (INTS- changes will happen with or without us. 4312/4313), Dr. Smith is well known for The process can’t be fully controlled. But, a draft constitution for their his conflict-zone field research in both over time, the West can try to manage and country today, only the world’s Afghanistan and Iraq, and this Fellow- guide that transition toward systems that greatest optimist can believe that ship complements his on-going research will be accountable to the people of the it will turn Iraq into a peaceful, activities in country team operations and countries where the changes are taking stable, democratic federal counter-terrorism. The fellowship award place. Eventually, democratization in local was announced on April 5, 2005 by Ms. variations is the inevitable outcome. An republic. Increasingly, the Islamic Gina Grandinetti, Senior Manager at the attempt must be mitigate the unavoidable Republic of Iran quietly calls the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. and concomitant destabilization. shots in the Shia south of Iraq. As This latest academic fellowship The task is monumental. In the short the Washington joke goes: award will contribute to an already busy run, the intelligence and the military tools the war is over, the Iranians won.” Spring for professor Smith, who also was can create time. In the long run, Covert featured as Keynote speaker at the NATO Action, in coordination with the overt —Timothy Garton Ash Studies Center counter-terrorism confer- instruments of policy, can give the West a in “Stagger on, weary Titan - ence in Bucharest, Romania on April 18, significant level of control on the levers to The US is reeling, like imperial Britain as well as participating in the Black Sea change in the Middle East. The alternative after the Boer war - but don’t gloat” in The Guardian, 8/25/05 regional security conference convened is endless terrorism.  during the period April 19-22 2005. page 40 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 Smith was the Keynote Speaker for During his career, he has been a senior the Black Sea Regional Security Confer- systems engineer on classified pro- ence on Counter-Terrorism and Intel- grams in the aerospace and defense industries; an investment banker ligence. He had two addresses to the for technology companies in emerg- Plenary session plus hosted and moderated ing markets; and was international the Black Sea Narco-Terror Exercise. His president of a specialized integrated presentation “Homeland Security Against circuit semiconductor company in Emerging Threats” included high tech- Hong Kong. Most recently, Dr. Smith conducted Relief Operations and nology pilot-program architectures and Reconstruction (“ROAR”) infrastruc- related information and Smith concluded ture assessments in Bosnia, worked with an assessment addressing Return Dr. Smith (kneeling) is concluding pre-flight checks with the Romanian with abandoned street children in Kiev on Security Investment. Event attendance intelligence unit on a Shadow 600 UAV surveillance drone at Blair Field, with an executive group, and contin- included approximately 150 senior officials Camp Delta near Al Kut, Iraq. ues to act as an advisor to Dr. Ioan Talpes, who is the National Security from twelve nations, including First and For further information on Derrin Counselor for President Iliescu of Second Secretaries, deputy-ministers, Romania. Dr. Smith worked in the Smith’s courses and activities, visit his web military attachés and representatives of Balkans during the Kosovo conflict. page at http://www.du.edu/gsis/fac- various security organizations for the ulty/smith _ d.html or contact him at Black Sea countries. [email protected].

Derrin Smith is a life member of AFIO, a member of our Academic Exchange Program, and is former President of the AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter.

Smith began his career in intelligence and international affairs over 25 years ago, beginning in the US Marine Corps with military occupational specialties in Tactical Intelligence (mos-0231) and Strategic Intelligence (mos-0241). He is a graduate of the strategic intel- GSIS professor Derrin Smith (left) in Afghanistan with interpreter in December 2004. ligence program at Fleet Intelligence Training Center Pacific, Air Force Air In February and March 2004, Dr. Intelligence Training Command and Smith (right, in body armor) makes friends in Wasit Province, Iraq while Smith was in Iraq conducting studies, other military and civilian schools. observations and technical assess- on patrol with the Psychological Operations Battalion immediately prior He was certified in Remote Sensor to the successful elections in January 2005. ments of coalition operations. He Employment for Reconnaissance and accompanied Romanian, Italian, STA Personnel, and also became a Polish, Ukrainian, British and U.S. subject matter expert on Devolution Smith was also invited by the Presi- units on remote field operations in of Nuclear Command and Control in the Multi-national Division Central dency Administration, National Security the People’s Republic of China while South and on the Iran/Iraq border. Dr. Department in Bucharest to participate working for a US national laboratory. Smith also supported remote sensor April 19-22 in the international confer- He has guest lectured at the National and reconnaissance operations for ence “Black Sea Area and Euro-Atlantic University of Defense Technology in sensitive site exploitation and other Changsha, Hunan Province, China missions. Security: Strategic Opportunities.” This and at the Institute of Opto-Electronic  event was sponsored by the George C. Technique Research in Tianjin. He Marshall European Center for Security spent five years as a civilian member Studies with additional support from the of a Rapid Emergency Response embassies of the United States, United team before teaching at the Graduate School of International Studies. Kingdom and Germany. Dr. Smith’s direct participation was initiated by the US Embassy Office of Defense Cooperation In addition to courses in International (ODC) and confirmed by State Counselor Terrorism and Emerging Security Threats, Dr. Smith has created cur- of Defense General Constantin Degeratu, riculum in Country Team Opera- also an expert in civil-military affairs and tions—Theory and Practice under the international security. Dr. Derrin Smith auspices of the Country Team–Studies discussed specific products and services and Operations Center, a non-profit You & I Are Part of that represent appropriate advanced entity that he directs. He continues His Support Team. to travel widely for both public and When We Protect technologies with direct and immediate private sponsors, and returned to Our Nation’s Secrets USMC Photo Harris T. E. Cpl by We Are Protecting Him! application for regional security programs central Asia and the Balkans this throughout the Black Sea region.” past June.

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 41 ment process. Still, he longed for more take on something new? What impact will MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: excitement.. it have on my family? What will it do to my Looking at AFIO New England Chapter President Art Lindberg On June 27, 1977, Lindberg’s desire life? Is there any benefit to me personally? became reality. After a series of meetings Why should I do it?” with Terry Tate of the Naval Investigative Late in the week, Lindberg came to Service (NIS), Lindberg accepted a poten- the realization that. just maybe he was tially deadly, top-secret assignment, sub- being called upon by a higher entity to sequently dubbed “Operation Lemonade.” serve his country. His life would change forever. “The Sunday before we left, I went to a small Methodist church where about 40 people were in attendance,” Lindberg says. “The only thing I heard throughout t H e r I g h t I n g r e d i e n t s Spy Saga the service was the preacher saying, `Seize Not Your Ordinary opportunities to serve God and your As procurement director, Lindberg country.’” had assumed the meetings initiated by Glass of Lemonade “It became a very critical clement of Tate in April were for contractual investiga- the entire operation,” says Lindberg. “I tions. “No need for alarm,” he thought. “I relied on it for strength. Once I heard it, Steve Carr was confident of my operation and knew From Mirage the decision to take the assignment was things were going well. I had no idea that University of New Mexico Alumni Magazine very simple.” Tate had `ulterior’ motives.” Lindberg never imagined nor could In May, Tate asked Lindberg if he he have dreamed what the results of his would consider an extremely dangerous e n t r a l t o a n s t i n g simple “yes” would be. At the time, he C F B I and sensitive assignment for his country. ope r a t io n , A r t L i n d b e r g , ‘ 5 8 knew nothing about five men—a Baptist, “All I knew was that. there would be B A , w e n t u n d e r c ove r t o h e l p three Jews, and a Ukrainian nationalist— no monetary reward. Because the opera- i d e n t if y a n d c ap t u r e t h r ee suffering the extreme hardships of captiv- tion was classified “Top Secret,” it could S ovie t s pie s i n O pe r a t io n ity in the Soviet Union’s gulag system with never be shared with friends, associates, L emo n a d e … no hope of release for at least 10 years. or family. And it could involve danger and y all accounts, Art Lindberg was travel to strange destinations,” says Lind- a quiet and modest man. He had berg. “Specifics of the assignment would been in the military for nearly 20 not be revealed until after I had agreed to S e c r e t I n g r e d i e n t Byears, since graduating with a geology accept the challenge.” degree from UNM. It was 1977 and Lind- Lindberg later learned what the FBI The plan was put into motion. Sud- berg now retired from a senior manage- already knew: the Soviets were using their denly Lindberg was living three lives, each ment position with Jersey Central Power United Nations mission in New York City “separated from the others by impen- & Light Company—was a US Navy lieu- as an espionage base, and the New York- etrable walls,” he recalls. Not, only was tenant com- New Jersey area was perfect spy territory. he a dutiful US Naval officer, he was also mander, serv- The FBI suspected a connection between a husband and father actively involved in ing as procure- the Soviet. Merchant Marine and the KGB, family activities, including picnics, scout- ment director using a vacation cruise ship as a floating ing, swim club, PTA, homework, church, at the Naval center for spies. The FBI had been look- and Sunday school. Air Engineer- ing for someone to serve as a go-between, His third life was just beginning— ing Center in offering to sell American classified infor- that of a clandestine agent. Meetings with L a k e h u r s t , mation to the KGB, and eventually trap- special agents from the FBI became mutual New Jersey. ping the Russians. Lindberg fit the bill. evaluation sessions. The secretive nature A t 4 1 , of the mission was reiterated as was the Lindberg was mantra: “no benefits, no money, possible b e c o m i n g travel, no sharing with anyone—not even R e a d i n g t h e R e cip e bored with his your wife—no one.” duty assign- ment. Retire- The official offer was made to Lind- ment was still berg minutes before he began a one-week two years off. vacation with his in-laws on the eastern S t i r r i n g t h e P o t The procure- shore of Virginia. The FBI gave him that ment department was functioning well. week to make up his mind. He cycled the In late July, after the FBI was satisfied He had been successful in incorporating same questions over and over again in his with his background and potential, the use of computers into the procure- head: “What am I accepting’? Why should I Lindberg bought a ticket at the New York page 42 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 office of the Soviet-run March Shipping for the final documents.” Line and boarded the MS Kazakhstan for a S e co n d s I P cruise to Bermuda. The plan was to entice the Russians into an espionage trap. A week later, he received the second phone call with more instructions from the G l a s s ma t e s “It was a very lonely cruise,” recalls Soviets. They told him to drive to a Sears Lindberg. “I didn’t get to interact with store in nearby Asbury Park. anyone. I was assigned my own cabin On October 15, 1977, Lindberg and sat for meals with three ladies—an Thirty minutes later he arrived and delivered classified information regarding older woman and her two daughters. They the phone rang. He was instructed to reach anti-submarine warfare and left it at a tolerated me and I tolerated them. under the shelf where he found a note specified drop point inside New Jersey’s inside a magnetic key case. Garden State Parkway. With his life on “The crew was aloof, standoffish, the line, Lindberg had a keen sense of his and didn’t interact. The main reason was surroundings, and was keeping an eye out because they were afraid someone would for any information at the drop-off points see them talking to a non-Soviet and non- that might help identify the Russians. Communist. They were on a short leash and very controlled. There was KGB on “Without being obvious, I was board, which is what we were trying to looking for plate numbers and descriptions find out.” of cars,” says Lindberg. “I would turn that information over to the Bureau.” Following the weeklong, uneventful cruise, Lindberg handed a note he had Lindberg likened the undertaking to written the night before to the last officer a James Bond operation: “I could press a on board before disembarking. In it he button giving me a flat tire in case I needed An FBI surveillance photo shows Art Lindberg, ‘58 BA, leaving a drop said he was an American naval officer to cause a delay. I used miniature cameras site he’d arranged with Soviet spies. Lindberg’s daring led to the mounted in my car grille and taillights to interested in making some additional Soviets’ arrest in 1978. money before retirement, and that he could take pictures of cars. The FBI anticipated provide information of interest. The note was extensive, containing communication spots so that we could instructions about their next point of record phone calls. This thing got to be BITING THE B AIT: A surveillance contact and a series of more than 30 kind of neat, in retrospect.” camera captured this photo of Soviet questions designed to size up Lindberg and spy Valdik Enger in 1978 as he pockets After the October 15 drop-off, his abilities. Did he have access to classified information left for him by Art Lindberg Lindberg told NIS and FBI agents about a information such as the Trident missile to the Soviets. The note contained a dark blue car with New York plates reading launched by submarine? Was he willing to telephone number, and a time and day to “XLT.” It turned out to be registered to deliver materials to the Soviets? Could he call. Lindberg signed it, “Ed.” Rudolf Chernyayev, a Soviet employed by take classified materials home from work? the United Nations as a personnel officer, Lindberg answered, convincingly. and one of the key players. By April 1978, NIS and FBI agents had F i r s t s I P identified two other Soviets: Valclik Enger, S w e e t e n i n g on staff at the UN Secretariat, and Vladimir On August 30, Lindberg pulled his Zinyakin, the Third Secretary of the Soviet Ford Maverick into the parking lot of mission to the UN. Over the next several months, a diner in central New Jersey with the the meetings and details became more designated outside pay phone. He was a involved as the stakes grew higher. The few minutes early and didn’t know if the camouflage for the notes ranged from Soviets would take the bait. At 11:45 a.m., B i g G u l p crushed Marlboro cigarette packs to the call came. Coca-Cola cans to Tropicana orange juice “Hello, Ed,” said an accented voice. On Saturday, May 20, 1978, the containers—stuff no one would bother to time arrived to catch the Soviets with “My name is Jim. We got your message pick up or give a thought to. Inside each and would very much like to meet with information that would lead to their container were messages and thousands arrest—information that could convict you. I’ll call you again—same time, same of dollars in $20 bills. number—a week from today.” them of conspiracy to steal military “I would disguise the containers secrets. They needed to be caught red- Operation Lemonade was on. with glued-on dirt, making them look like handed. Entrenched in carrying it out successfully, trash,” says Lindberg. “During this period The back of Lindberg’s car was gutted Lindberg headed back to the base at I got $20,000 from the Soviets, all of which Lakehurst. and replaced with peat-moss containers was turned over to the FBI. I saw later where filled with Styrofoam. Two FBI agents were they evaluated the information to be worth hidden in the trunk of his car. Teams of $30 million. The information I passed was agents on the ground were instructed by all Navy classified documents that had one of the agents in the trunk where the been declassified for this operation, except 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 43 C oo l i n g O ff Undercover Washington: Where Famous Spies Lived, Worked and Loved by Pamela Kessler. (Capital Books, paperback, 176 President Jimmy pp. $15.95) Carter later wrote in his memoirs that Operation Kessler, a former Washington Post L emon ade was t he reporter, knows the regional greatest humanitarian espionage landscape and takes the act of his presidency. It reader on a guided tour of drops, was the first and only safehouses, graveyards, mansions, time Soviet spies have museums, secure government offices b e e n s w a p p e d f o r and restaurants nationals, says Lindberg, used for ren- to whom Carter awarded dezvous in the the Legion of Merit for Washington area. Biting the Bait: A surveillance camera captures Soviet spy Valdik Enger in 1978 as he pockets his outstanding service If you want to find information left for him by Lindberg. to the country. the mailbox used “It broke the logjam by traitor Aldrich drop would transpire. on emigration from the Soviet Union,” says Ames to signal he Lindberg made the drop at the Lindberg. “It became easier for people to had something appointed time and spot, near a clearing leave. for the KGB, Kessler tells where to on a seldom-used service road. There he go. Ditto the Georgetown mansion I am extremely proud of having placed an orange juice carton with five, where Wild Bill Donovan held secret played a part in it.” seemingly plastic, 35 mm film containers. meetings during World War II. Also Because spies are known to carry acid with “Lemonade opened a whole new area the grotty Georgetown restaurant, them in order it destroy evidence, the film of interest to me,” says Lindberg, who is Au Pied de Cochon, from which Soviet containers were actually made of titanium, currently president of the Association of defector Vitaly Yurchenko walked out with reverse threads, sealed with epoxy. Former Intelligence Officers, northeast on his minders and strolled further After making the drop, Lindberg walked region. “It has given me a much greater up Wisconsin Avenue to the Soviet back to his car, got in, and drove off. appreciation of being an American and of embassy to re-defect. all the freedoms America stands for. Tied Shortly after leaving the site, Lindberg Accompanying this greatly updated in with that is a thankfulness for all that heard one of the agents in his trunk scream text which quickly sold out the last so many have done and continue to do into his walkie-talkie. “They got them!” time it appeared [warning] are more defending our freedoms.” the agent said.  than 60 photographs of secret opera- “They got them!” tives and the hangouts where they lived, worked, loved and sometimes LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCE: Almost three decades since he played died gruesome deaths. If you will be a pivotal role in capturing Soviet spies, Art Lindberg has found new visiting Washington Metro area for t H I r s t Q u e n ch e r interests in the Association of Former Intelligence Officers where he the AFIO Symposium, or for other serves as President of AFIO’s large David Atlee Phillips New England Chapter. He can be reached at (732) 255-8021. business events, or for pleasure, or The FBI had arrested Chernyayev, know people who will, this is an ideal Enger, and Zinyakin. Chernyayev and This article first appeared in M!RAGE, the Alumni Magazine for the gift or personal reference manual. University of New Mexico, in the Fall 2005, Volume 24, Number 1 issue. AFIO Chairman Peter Earnest says Enger were charged with conspiring to It is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved. AFIO thanks buy military secrets. They were convicted Steve Carr and Nick Layman for their work on this piece. about the book, “Fact-filled, rich and sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment. Photos are the property of Art Lindberg. in illustrations, and penned in her Zinyakin, with diplomatic immunity, was breezy style, Pam Kessler’s tour of deported. the spy capital is a fun and engaging Nearly a year after their arrest and way to delve into real spies and their months after their conviction, Chernyayev skullduggery.” —review by Derk Kin- and Eager were taken to Kennedy Airport in nane Roelofsma, editor, AFIO WINs New York and led to the front of a Russian Aeroflot while five Soviet dissidents—a Baptist, three Jews, and a Ukrainian nationalist -- were led out the rear. ““If there is no willingness to use force to defend civil society, it’s civil society that goes away, not force.” —Teresa Nielsen Hayden

page 44 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 English for the first time. In the first letter, its early victories had come with relative dated December 31, 1940, Hitler admitted ease, the Wehrmacht and its air arm were Professional what could not easily be concealed from near exhaustion. Soviet air reconnaissance and long-range In any event, the letters apparently Reading patrols: that indeed seventy German convinced Stalin to ignore literally scores divisions and supporting aircraft were of invasion warnings. (Murphy requires deployed in what he called the “Govern- three full pages to list each of them.) Not ment General,” the term for the portion of untypical was a report on June 17, 1941, Poland seized after the infamous 1939 pact. from Pavel Fitin, the chief of NKGB foreign He claimed he wished to keep them safe intelligence (predecessor of the latter-day from British bombers until the time came KGB). The source was sound: an intel- to invade England. Any talk of a German ligence officer in Herman Goring’s Air strike against the USSR were the result of Ministry. Further, the estimate was about rumors and “fabricated documents.” as direct as an intelligence report can be: Intelligence Omnibus “all preparations for an armed attack on the Soviet Union have been completed, and Joseph C. Goulden the blow can be expected at any time.” [email protected] With an angry scrawl in the margin, Stalin returned the report to Fitin’s chief: “Comrade Merkulov, you can send your ‘source’ from the headquarters of German W hat S ta l in K new : T he aviation to his [expletive deleted] mother. E ni g m a of B arbarossa This is not a ‘source’ but a dezinformator.” Five days later, German armor n the spring of 1941, with Europe trem- clanked into the USSR, followed by more bling with fears that Germany might The following May 14, Hitler again than 100 divisions of infantry, covered by prove invincible and seize the entire acknowledged the size of his forces along planes that smashed much of the Soviet I air force on the ground. Thus began a war continent, a gush of intelligence warnings the Soviet frontier but warned against flooded over the desk of Soviet dictator British disinformation and “rumors now that would result in the deaths of at least Joseph Stalin warning of an imminent circulating of a likely military conflict 20 million Soviet citizens. invasion of the USSR. The reports came between us.” Then, in a truly audacious Historians have long since estab- not only from his own agencies, notably statement, Hitler wrote, “I assure you, on lished Stalin’s unwillingness to accept the GRU, or Red Army intelligence, but my honor as a chief of state [emphasis added] hard intelligence of the imminent German from other European services that feared that this is not the case.” invasion. Previous books, both first-rate, a wider war, particularly the British, In the same letter, Hitler employed include Joseph Barros and Richard Gregor, who were reading German cable traffic what Murphy describes as “the final mas- Double Deception: Stalin, Hitler and the through the so-called ULTRA intercepts. terpiece in a gallery of disinformation.” Invasion of Russia, by Joseph Barros and Just why Stalin chose to ignore all these He “confided”in Stalin that some of his Richard Gregor (1995); and Barton Whaley, alerts – and indeed some persons who generals might launch an unauthorized Codeword Barbarossa (1973). continued passing them along were sum- provocative attack “in order to save Eng- Murphy was able to go a significant marily shot – remains one of the deeper land from its fate and spoil my plans.” step further by obtaining access to previ- mysteries of World War Two history. The He asked Stalin not to respond in kind by ously top-secret Soviet archives. Murphy is “conventional wisdom” is that Stalin wrote resisting any renegades who might enter a man uniquely qualified to tell the story. off the warnings as British disinformation the USSR. Murphy writes, “Hitler virtually He spent a distinguished CIA career on aimed at disrupting the Hitler-Stalin pact dictated the scenario Stalin followed in the Soviet operations, first as chief of station of August 1939. first hours after the invasion.” Not for days in Berlin and then as head of Soviet opera- Now comes the real reason, via a did the Red Army mobilize and try to fight tions at Langley. book that explores one of the more massive back the invaders. By that time, of course, One must admit to a twinge of sym- intelligence failures in history, David E. the Germans had struck deep into Soviet pathy for the men and women who risked Murphy, What Stalin Knew: The Enigma territory. their lives to gather information on the of Barbarossa, Yale University Press, 299 In Stalin’s defense—heavens, but looming war, only to have their cowed pages, $30. (Barbarossa was the German my fingers rebel at typing that phrase!—a intelligence superiors refuse to pass the code name for the invasion.) Hitler strike against the Soviet Union in the information to Stalin. The famed Rote Kap- What only a few members of Stalin’s summer of 1941 made no military sense pelle, or Red Orchestra, which lost dozens inner circle knew – men such as Marshal whatsoever. Why would Hitler open a sec- of Soviet agents to Nazi torture chambers, Georgy K. Zhukov – was that his confidence ond front, against an adversary historically had the full story; it was ignored. But most stemmed from two extraordinary letters he able to throw back invaders, when he had striking, perhaps, was the plight of Rich- had received from Hitler, published here in yet to deal with the British isles? Although ard Sorge, famed in books and films as a

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 45 Soviet agent who posed as a journalist to rather than on-the-ground case officers futile attempt to oust Fidel Castro. penetrate the German embassy in Tokyo. who ferret out secrets. Oddly, Shackley chose to remain Sorge’s accurate reporting on German The first part of Shackley’s memoir silent on the last part of his career, the intentions began in 1940 and continued is a sort of casebook on how to become years he spent running CIA’s Southeast through June 20, 1941, when he reported a Agency case officer. Shackley tells how Asia division. Shackley griped to me for that the German ambassador had told him he learned “the business” from one of the months before his final illness (he died that “war between Germany and the USSR more masterful CIA operatives of all time, in December 2002; co-author Finney, a was inevitable.” Stalin accused Sorge of Bill Harvey, with whom he served in Berlin. CIA retiree, died in 2004) that the CIA’s being “a little [expletive deleted] who has An example: Shackley soon realized the Publications Review Board “is giving me set himself up with some small factories futility of trying to run agents behind the a %&%#* fit” over some things he wished and brothels in Japan.” Another report Iron Curtain because of stringent security to include in the book. Presumably no was returned with the notation, “I ask you by the KGB and its adjuncts. So, at the one at Langley is prepared to reveal past not to send me any more of this German advice of an Austrian friend, he began operations concerning a Chinese regime disinformation.” utilizing commercial travelers, chiefly which it is cautiously courting. A pity, for When Sorge sat in prison awaiting German, who had free access to East colleagues who worked with Shackley on execution, Tokyo offered to swap him for Europe. The intelligence they garnered was the China brief said he was an extraordi- a Japanese military officer. Stalin replied, invaluable in assessing Soviet activities. narily capable director. To be sure, he was “Richard Sorge? I do not know a person of Shackley also not universally loved. He was better at the that name.” Sorge went to the gallows. As a learned the dark and spook business than most others, and sort of consolation prize, in the post-Stalin dirty side of his pro- he did not always bother to conceal his 1950s he was depicted on a Soviet postage fession. Intelligence superiority. Nonetheless, this is a good stamp as a “hero.” literature is replete read that deserves four cloaks and as many That Joseph Stalin was a paranoid with tales of KGB daggers. reclusive, unwilling to trust even his utilizing forgeries intimates, has been well established by to discredit U.S. offi- Bb biographers. David Murphy tells vividly cials. Shackley gave the price the Soviet people paid for having the communists tit-for-tat when he ran their country run by someone who truly operations against Czechoslovakia. He D enia l and D eception : qualifies as a madman. A first-rate read and colleague Warren Frank decided to A n I nsider ’ s V iew of the from a man who knows the intelligence ruffle the feathers of a “senior communist C I A F ro m I ran -C ontra business. official” who was a hard-liner for the Sovi- to 9 / 1 1 ets. He had been arrested by the Germany Bb Gestapo in 1941. CIA’s Technical Services A few weeks back, I heard former CIA Division (TSD) fabricated two letters: one case officer Melissa Boyle Mahle speak to from a Gestapo chief to headquarters stat- a group of some 220 persons, chiefly Old ing that the man had volunteered to serve S p y m aster : Boys from or friendly to CIA. The topic as an informant in the Slovakian under- M y l I F E in was her book, Denial and Deception: An ground; the other accepting his services. the C I A Insider’s View of the CIA From Iran-Contra TSD used papers, inks and “all the cachets, to 9/11, Nation Books, 403 pages, $26, a formats and bureaucratic language” from sharply critical view of how the Agency Ted Shackley the period. The package was given to the became “anorexic” because of inept lead- had a bias which Vienna newspaper Wochenpresse, ostensibly ership and political correctness. Among he states in the by a Slovak patriot who found the letters in other things, her scorn extended the odd- very first sentence post-war turmoil. “I don’t believe that this ball environmental requirements imposed of his memoir, operation was the sole cause of our victim’s on CIA during the Clinton-Gore years; as Spymaster: My eventual fall from grace,” Shackley writes, one point, she said in effect, “I will risk my Life in the CIA, “but I do think it was one more dab of life to fight terrorists, but I will not die for Potomac Books, 295 pp., $27.95, written grease that helped set the skids for him.” with Richard A. Finney: “I make no secret a rain forest.” The bulk of the book describes of the fact that I am a strong believer in So how did the CIA-friendly crowd Shackley’s role in what Congress and the HUMINT, collection of intelligence by a react? Seven persons sat at my table; six media still persist in calling “the CIA’s human source, in other words, by a spy.” of them went to the lobby and bought her secret war in Laos.” He takes particular Shackley was at once “best of breed” and book. (I was the seventh; I already had a umbrage at the late Sen. Stuart Symington probably also the “last of breed” in the review copy). To me, the lesson was clear: (D., Mo.), for piously professing ignorance CIA’s Clandestine Services, which he discontent with the intelligence commu- of activities he had witnessed personally. served for 28 years. Sadly, HUMINT has nity runs dangerously deep. He also deals with his stints in Vietnam been shoved into the shadows by a gen- and as head of the Kennedy-directed CIA If your eyes flickered over a crowd, eration which chooses to rely on overhead task force that worked from Miami in a Mahle —a slender and rather pretty blonde satellites and communications intercepts, page 46 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 in her early 40s — would be the last person something.” And here is why. During the to stand out as an intelligence operative. D e c e i v i n g t h e D e c e i v e r s period 1945-1950 the Western deterrent to However could this woman function in the Soviet expansion rested upon a supposed Middle East? Well, most importantly, she Consider, for a moment, a staggering American nuclear monopoly — if the USSR is fluent in Arabic, and, during her 14 years thesis that runs counter to conventional started trouble, Moscow would be obliter- in the Agency’s Clandestine Services, she wisdom concerning the so-called “Cam- ated with atomic bombs. had five tours in the Middle East, working bridge Three” — the Englishmen Harold But the truth is that the “nuclear the streets and running agents. Wearing “Kim” Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy deterrent” was non-existent. In early local clothes and draping a veil across her Burgess, three of the most notorious spy 1947, when David Lilienthal was named face enabled her to walk freely through figures of the 20th Century. The British chairman of the Atomic Energy Commis- markets. government long maintained that their sion, he went to Los Alamos to inspect the services on behalf of the USSR were not “arsenal.” As Lilienthal told the Cold War detected until 1951, just before the latter historian Greg Harkin, he was shown a two fled to Moscow. Philby followed in chicken wire enclosure that contained 1963. the entire stock of atomic weaponry: one Now we have an intriguing counter- bomb. “One of the saddest days” of his argument in S. J. Hamrick, Deceiving the life, Lilienthal lamented. The remaining Deceivers (Yale, $29.95, 297 pages). Mr. bombs had been disassembled after V-J Hamrick is a longtime Foreign Service Day. Putting them back together would officer, now resident in Rappahannock require days. Further, the U. S. had no County, Va., who wrote seven superb novels means of delivering the bombs on Soviet under the name W. T. Tyler. He argues that targets even had they existed. British intelligence realized the three were Thus commenced one of the grander traitors long before their exposure, and scams of the Cold War. The U.S. and Brit- that they were left in place so that (a) Philby ain decided to mount a black deception Much of Mahle’s work, understand- could be played back against the Soviets; operation to peddle the nuclear-superiority ably, was directed against terrorism. One and (b) the other two were shielded for myth to Moscow. Doing so, Mr. Hamrick episode, among many, reflects her frus- political purposes involving US-British writes, “required a suspected or known tration. In 1995 a “tidbit” of information relations. Soviet agent of proven credibility whose located Khalid Shaykh Muhammad in When word of Mr. Hamrick’s book long loyalty to Moscow and unique access Qatar. He was wanted for masterminding first circulated some weeks ago, many to official secrets amounted to verifica- a Philippines-based operation aimed at Old Boys, men long conversant with the tion. Was one available? Evidently he was” seizing dozens of airliners. Mahle argued Cambridge Three case, scoffed, calling his — Philby, of course. for a “snatch operation,” to lure Muham- theory daft and improbable. Perhaps. But Mr. Hamrick maintains that the mad out of Qatar and capture him as he let’s see what the man offers, in a summary Philby deception was solely a British traveled. But the FBI insisted on making a that of necessity must be terse. operation, and that documentary proof formal request to the Qatar government; The Philby matter is the most intrigu- of his thesis will never be revealed, even if during the dithering that followed, the ing. Mr. Hamrick postulates that suspicion it exists. Such is the nature of deception. man disappeared. He was finally caught fell on him in 1946 when a Soviet diplomat The only “verification” came in an off-hand in Pakistan in 2003 and handed over to the in Ankara tried to defect to the British remark by Gen. Edwin Sibert, longtime U.S.— years after a plot similar to the one embassy. He was urged to stay-in-place military intelligence officer, in an inter- he planned resulted in 9/11. as long as he could (accepted tradecraft) view with the British writer Anthony Cave Sadly, at the very time the Agency or at least until a ranking MI-6 officer Brown. But the chronology that Brown needed Arabic-speaking street operatives, could interview him. This turned out to be gave for what Sibert said had many incon- Mahle was forced out. Because of secrecy Philby, but by the time he arrived in Turkey, sistencies, Mr. Hamrick states. requirements, all she can say is that she the Soviet had been hauled to the airport The decision to conceal that Maclean made “an unauthorized contact” that was on a stretcher, his face showing signs of and Burgess were spies waspolitical. “not reported in a timely manner.” Despite a savage beating. He was never heard of Briefly, Great Britain was trying to work out determined snooping, I could find no again. This episode alone was not enough a deal with Washington to share nuclear details. But one of her former colleagues to finger Philby as a Soviet spy. But in ensu- secrets. London knew that revealing that told me, “For a male, this would have been ing years, more information dribbled out, two officials in its Washington embassy a parking ticket, not a capital case.” She chiefly through the so-called VENONA were Soviet agents would squelch any deal. and her husband and daughter now live in intercepts of cables from the KGB rezident Hence the silence until the 1950 identifica- Fairfax, where she works as a consultant in Washington to Moscow. tion of Klaus Fuchs as a Russian spy, which on Middle East affairs. But why leave a suspected agent in made continued protection of Maclean and Bb place? Here is where the Hamrick thesis Burgess moot. makes a reader scratch his head and think, Mr. Hamrick devotes considerable “You know, this fellow just might be onto space to a convincing debunking of the

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 47 media portrayal of Philby as a “master spy” across the frontier to talk with Dulles and And here is where I jump ship on Mr. who managed to deceive the all-powerful give him pilfered documents. His informa- Littell. In his telling, the mere assumption Central Intelligence Agency. He correctly tion was sweeping, from the Wehrmacht of a “legend” enables a CIA case officer to notes that the CIA in those years — 1947-49 order of battle and morale to sketches live and work in a variety of foreign envi- — was a tissue-paper tiger, ill-organized, of the location of Hitler’s bombproof ronments with very dangerous people. staffed by pass-along military officers underground hideout, and the railroad Persons in the business suggest that field unwanted by their own services, an inef- sidings where Himmler and Goering set life ain’t that simple, to say the least. In fectual laughing stock in the national up quarters. One of dozens of political any event, Littell does put his multi-per- security establishment. He maintains reports enabled the U.S. to bring pressure sonality character into a series of perilous that the “Philby myth” was created in on Ireland to stop helping the Germans. situations, and you are required to do some by journalists and others who delighted No wonder that the late Richard Helms mental scrambling when you face the pos- in tweaking CIA’s nose. And even if CIA called Kolbe’s information “the very best sibility that the Civil War expert actually was witting of how Philby had been used produced by any allied agent in World lived –or thinks he did, anyway – during against the Soviets, tradecraft demanded War II.” that period and got to know such persons that the secret be kept. I offer one quibble. In his prologue, as Walt Whitman. Now, be forewarned that “Deceiving Mr. Delattre writes that “the Germans But another bit of fantasy almost the Deceivers” is not an easy read, even had an informer in the entourage of . . . caused me to abandon my duty station in for someone familiar with the Cambridge Vice President Henry Wallace.” He offered mid-read. Odum’s own CIA, in the person Three case. But Mr. Hamrick should not nothing further. Curious, I queried Mr. of the head of the Clandestine Services, is be ignored. Delattre by e-mail. He replied that he had trying to have him killed to prevent him no source other than a single document in from revealing that the Agency master- Bb the National Archives, and a reference in minded the economic collapse of the Soviet an unclassified 1966 edition of the CIA’s Union. Here Littell hints at some reality in-house journal, “Studies in Intelligence.” that has yet to be fully explored, and had Given that the latter is unavailable to most he stopped there, without once again using A s P y a t t h e H e a r t laymen, I suggest that Mr. Delattre should the shop-worn device of turning CIA into of t h e C o l d w A r have printed what he had or otherwise a Murder, Inc., to borrow words from the ignored Wallace. Nonetheless, a good late President Johnson, he would have had One missing element in much non- read. a more plausible story. fiction espionage literature is an answer Now I used these pages a year or so to the question, “Just what information Bb ago to heap praise on Littell’s last book, did this agent actually obtain? And was it The Company, and I find my words as a of any value?” For obvious reasons, neither cover blurb on Legends, to wit: “...the Cold the spy’s masters nor his targets care to War might be over, but it still can produce reveal his “take.” Now we have a notable L e g e n d s : A n O v e l of good yarns” Intelligence remains a field exception the story of Fritz Kolbe, ably d I s s im u l a t io n where what really [italics] happens can told in Lucas Delattre, A Spy at the Heart seldom be matched by even a novelist of of the Cold War (Grove/Atlantic, $24, 206 Any reader with more than a cursory the talents of Robert Littell. pages, illus.). knowledge of intelligence has two choices with Robert Littell’s new novel, Legend, Bb Overlook Press, $25.95: Toss it across the room into the discard box for the next library sale, or, if you prefer, push reality away for a few hours and enjoy an interest- d I r e c t ac t io n ing if very fantastical read. I suggest the American language needs a new word to That said, one means of producing describe such books, and so I just made good spy fiction is to graft a novel onto one up. Call Littell’s novel “spy-fi.” actual happenings in the world of intel- Littell’s story involves a CIA opera- ligence. Such is the unique skill possessed The bare outlines of Kolbe’s remark- tive who might or might not be named by John Weisman, who gives us his third able story have been told in biographies of Martin Odum, who we meet in retirement novel in three years that keenly tracks Allen Dulles, the OSS officer to whom he (perhaps) working as a private detective some things that have been happening reported in Switzerland during World War in Brooklyn. In his agency career, Odum out at Langley. It is Direct Action, William II. Mr. Delattre, a French journalist, goes was also known as Dante Pippen, a bomb Morrow, 355 pages, $24.95. further, using Kolbe’s and OSS documents maker for the Irish Republican Army; and in the National Archives. Weisman is painful reading because Lincoln Dittman, a Civil War expert. Each much of what he describes actually hap- Kolbe, a Foreign Ministry official, of these guises required a carefully crafted pened in recent years at CIA commencing developed a keen hatred of the Nazis, so “legend” – that is real spookspeak for a (more or less) with the regime of John much so that he risked his life to sneak cover story to mask an assumed identity. page 48 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 Deutch as director of central intelli- Soviet Navy.” The paper found its way to the would rank high among places NOT to gence during the Clinton years. Weisman Naval Academy Library in Annapolis. have a first meeting with someone from describes how Deutch and his executive Now, the connect: In 1982, a young a rival intelligence service who is offering director, a woman named Nora Slatkin, insurance salesman in Southern Mary- to sell information. Too public, no easy essentially dismantled the CIA’s Clandes- land named Tom Clancy was seeking a egress – its limitations are many. tine Services, driving away “more than more interesting way to make a living. He Nonetheless, that exposed table 240 experienced case officers – 40 percent chanced upon Young’s paper, they cor- is where CIA renegade Aldrich Ames of those with more than 15 years of field responded, Clancy did some work on his launched his secret career of treason. experience.” The few who remained found own, and he published The Hunt for Red He did so at a 1985 meeting with Victor themselves forbidden to have contacts with October, a much-fictionalized account of Cherkashin, the head of KGB counterin- anyone who had been engaged in any type the mutiny that was the first of his many telligence in Washington. The story of of criminal or terrorist activity. Guess what bestsellers. how Cherkashin served as the handler for happened? CIA was caught blindfolded Now the true story is told by Young Ames and another traitor, Robert Hans- on 9/11. and Nate Braden in The Last Sentry: The sen of the FBI, is ably told in Spy Handler, Weisman’s story is how a former True Story That Inspired The Hunt for written with Gregory Feifer, Basic Books, case officer, now working for a private Red October, Naval Institute Press, 250 338 pages, $26, black-and-white photo- contractor, sets out to find and...ahem, pages, $28.95. graphs. neutralize...a bombmaker who is planning In real life, Sablyn sought to flee to Both treacheries been the subject of simultaneous attacks against the US and protest what he felt was an endangering of perhaps a dozen books. Now we hear the other Western countries. Suffice to say that the Communist system by Premier Leonid story from the KGB side. this operative is not bound by Deutch-era Brezhnev and his circle. Clancy shifted At Chadwick’s, Ames professed to be strictures. the action to a submarine rather than a a patriotic American, but one who felt that As in his previous works – he has destroyer and had the skipper defecting to CIA “was putting one over on Congress and written more than a dozen novels, incud- the West, rather than protesting betrayal the American people” by overestimating ing the Rogue Warrior series of best-sellers of red ideology. Soviet strengths. But his decision was a – Weisman has the knack of producing Young and Braden did commendable business one: he needed money. He asked as-it-really-is prose. In effect, he is writing detective work in finding and interviewing only that his identity be concealed from an in-progress history of the modern CIA members of Sablyn’s family who explained CIA sources within the KGB. Name them, that goes a long ways towards explaining the depth of his discontent. They also a surprised Cherkashin demanded. Where- why it is now so dysfunctional. obtained Soviet documents pertaining upon Ames pulled out a notepad and wrote to his trial and execution, as well as a a list of names. lengthy KGB report on the episode. Not a “That piece of paper,” Cherkashin T he l A S T S entr y: novel, to be sure, but a well-told account of marveled, “contained more information T he T rue S tor y T hat what happened during the Soviet military about CIA espionage than had ever before I nspired T he H unt during the period when the Evil Empire been presented in a single communica- for R ed O ctober was headed for a crack up. tion.” He also handed Cherkashin a plastic bag that “contained intelligence reports Bb disclosing even more about CIA opera- I must use a shoehorn to fit this tions. book into a piece about spy fiction, but do bear with me for a moment. In 1975-6, Six months later, Cherkashin scored reports circulated among Western mili- s P y H a n d l e r another big recruitment: that of Hans- tary attaches assigned to Moscow about sen. a Soviet naval officer who commandeered Chadwick’s is a smokey neighbor- Aside from the fresh details about a destroyer, the Storozhevay, and tried to hood saloon tucked in under the White- Ames and Hanssen, Cherashin’s book is a flee to another country. A massive fleet hurst Freeway at the primer on KGB tradecraft – for instance, and air mobilization was required to track foot of Wisconsin how he managed to elude omnipresent him down in the Baltic. The officer, Valery Avenue, the sort of FBI surveillance teams when he wished Sablyn, was executed. The Soviets, under- place where everyone to meet an agent in Washington. He also standably, did their best to suppress the seems to know every- has somewhat gossipy accounts of bureau- story of the mutiny. one else. The front cratic infighting in Moscow. In 1981, an American naval officer window table provides Now that the Cold War is no more, named Gregory D. Young decided to piece a splendid view of a Cherkashin enjoys professional friendships the story together while a student at the much-potholed stretch with many of the Americans with whom he Naval Postgraduate School. Drawing of K Street NW (which once jousted. (A photo shows him in a upon emigre reports and scattered news dead-ends within a boat in Russia with Milton Bearden, who accounts, he wrote a thesis, “Mutiny on the few yards) and a shabby fence enclosing a ran anti-Soviet operations for CIA.) Which Storozhevay: A Case Study of Dissent in the parking lot. In Espionage 101, Chadwick’s does not mean that Cherkashin has shared

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 49 containing $3 million in hundred dollar that were tantamount to organized sui- all his secrets. He teases that CIA and the bills (“all used and none in sequence... cide. Further, Schroen found that time FBI have yet to find yet another mole as packaged in bundles of $10,000...”) to be and again, persons back at headquarters valuable as Ames and Hanssen. Deliberate used to secure the support of and buy arms simply did not read their mail – that JAW- disinformation? Who knows? for the resistance fighters. BREAKER was asked to provide informa- Bb The first part of the operation went tion that had already been transmitted. smoothly. Working with NA officers he He was infuriated when a staff officer at knew from previous tours, Schroen set Langley demanded that he fly in a 1,000 up observation posts overlooking Taliban pound safe to secure his steadily mounting F i rst In: An Ins i d e r ’ s positions. Coordinates of the main resis- stacks of $100 bills that eventually topped A cco u n t of H o w t h e C I A tance points were plotted and sent to the $10 million. His most frightening moment, s P e a r h e a d e d t h e w A r o n officials planning air attacks. of many, came when an American drone T e r r o r i n A f g ha n i s t a n But things suddenly dipped down- aircraft spotted two figures in the open hill. To the dismay of Schroen and the and identified one of them as Osama bin- Given the abuse heaped on CIA in NA, the Pentagon chose not to attack what Laden. A frantic warning called off the recent months – some but surely not all of strike: the men were with JAWBREAKER. it deserved –- it is a pleasant diversion to Despite the many frustrations, JAW- read an account of an operation that actu- BREAKER succeeded. Massive air strikes, ally worked. Veteran case officer Gary C. followed by a flood of Special Forces troops Schroen led a team that went into Afghani- and other ground soldiers, blasted the Tal- stan in the days after 9/11 to prepare for the iban out of existence. But Schroen rightly U. S. Invasion that ousted the Taliban from concludes that much more is needed power. He gives us a true-life adventure – including a decision to obliterate terror- story in First In: An Insider’s Account of ist strongholds on the Afghan-Pakistan How the CIA Spearheaded the War on border. Otherwise, he fears, what is hap- Terror in Afghanistan (Ballantine Books, pening in Iraq is a mere sideshow. 379 pages, B&W photos, $25.95). they considered to A good and fast read that details Schroen, 59, was eleven days deep be most important CIA’s seldom-discussed paramilitary into CIA’s 90-day Retirement Transition targets – the artillery capabilities. A serious book, to be sure, Program, winding down a 35-year career in directly to the front – but one that also can be enjoyed as beach the Clandestine Services, at the time of the but concentrated on reading. attacks. He was immediately tasked with areas far to the rear. assembling a team to go into Afghanistan Here politics seemed Bb and establish contact with the Northern to be involved. The Alliance (NA), one of the main resistance planners of t he groups opposing the Taliban. Schroen had war did not wish to t H e C a s t r o O b s e s s io n spent years with the NA and other groups, permit the NA to seize power by conquer- so he eagerly took on what proved to be the ing Kabul and other cities before American most dangerous and challenging assign- troops were on the ground. Hence support ment of his career. of the NA was sparing. First In is a superb case study of how efficiently the CIA works when things go right: the ability to find and equip the needed experts (in communica- tions, weaponry, even medicine) and zip them halfway around the world on short notice. Need outdoors gear for the coming Afghanistan winter? Give each member of the seven-man team – codenamed JAW- Author Bohning, above, CIA Officer Sam Halpern at right BREAKER – $1,500 cash, and proceed to For decades a thick haze of hagiogra- an outdoor-equipment store near Agency CIA compound in Afghanistan phy has shouded the reputation of the Ken- headquarters in Northern Virginia. Buy Schroen is even more scathing in his nedy brothers, with friendly biographers dried foods (Power Bars, Tabasco sauce descriptions of the ineptitude of far-away such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., unwilling to spice up freeze-dry foods, saltines, strategists who planned helicopter-borne to address darker sides of the administra- cheese spreads) at the local supermarket. assaults on varied Taliban positions. The tion. A striking example is Cuba. For years And then clamber into transport planes distant planners seemingly had no con- I heard veteran CIA officers decry being crammed with computers, communica- cept of the terrain and altitudes involved, assigned blame for assorted schemes to tions gear – and three cardboard boxes and several times they ordered missions depose dictator Fidel Castro, ranging from page 50 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 organizing the Bay of Pigs invasion to an 1961, just as Lansdale was gearing up. Thus and not the Pentagon. Bohning sets the on-going campaign of sabotage and propa- he had an insider’s view of what drove the record straight. With an estimated annual ganda intended to destabilize his regime. administration. In one of many damning budget of $50 million (in 1960s dollars) To be truthful, I believed these people, for indictments related by Bohning – and Shackley ran the largest CIA facility out- many were close friends who had no par- which make his book a wicked delight side of headquarters at Langley, with 300 ticular reason to dissemble. But what was to read – Halpern years later questioned to 400 officers assigned to Miami alone. lacking was the documentary proof essen- what made the President and his brother The main office was a secluded building tial to a writer. Samuel Halpern, who had “so full of hysteria, paranoia and obses- on the University of Miami campus, under a long and distinguished career in CIA’s sion about Cuba....It seems to me to be the cover of “Zenith Technical Enterprises, Clandestine Services (he died a year ago), something more to this other....than they Inc.” Other properties, according to Boh- once lamented to me, “You are not going to got bloody noses at the Bay of Pigs....I ning, included “marinas, hunting camps, find the ‘smoking gun’ piece of paper about mean, to make Cuba merchant shipping, yers

Kennedy involvement. They were pretty the number-one pri- A airlines, a motel, leas-

lousy at the game of intelligence, both ority of the agency, at rad ing and transportation B of of them, but they did recognize the need the expense of every- firms, exile-operated for deniability,” that is, to put nothing on thing else, then to put publishing outfits,,,” ourtesy paper that could lead back to them, instead Bobby in charge of the C JMWAVE “ran the hoto issuing cryptic orders through friends of operations – and this P third largest navy in demonstrated discretion. – this boy, really, this the Caribbean, after Now the Kennedy veil on Cuba has hot-tempered boy – to Inconspicuously nestled in a wooded area next to what is now the the United States and been pierced, by the longtime Miami try and run it and do Metro Zoo, the CIA’s JM/WAVE headquarters had a sign on its door Cuba.” Shackley esti- Herald reporter and editor Don Bohning, the personal bidding that read: Zenith Technical Enterprises. Organizing and supplying the mated that up to 15,000 of his brother. Unbe- CIA’s secret war against Castro, it became the largest employer in Cuban exiles worked in The Castro Obsession. Potomac Books, South Florida. Run by veteran clandestine boss Theodore Shackley, Inc. 307 pages. $29.95, a work that is sure lievable.” At one early his chief of operations was David Morales. As head of propaganda for the agency, to one to infuriate the remaining Kennedy true- meeting, Bob Kennedy and psychological warfare activities, David Atlee Phillips [founder degree or another. believers still among us. Forget everything declared that Cuba of AFIO] was a frequent visitor who had all 300 Agency officers Looming over handling the anti-Castro Cuban groups reporting to him. else you might have read about Cuba and “carries the top pri- this mammoth enter- the Kennedys: Bohning has done the semi- ority in no uncertain prise was the hot-tem- nal book on the subject, drawing heavily on terms in the United States Government pered Bob Kennedy, who deemed to delight CIA documents – declassified, ironically, – all else is secondary – no time, money, in savaging career Agency officers. What as part of the revelation of government effort or manpower is to be spared.” frustrated field men were his contradic- files pertaining to the JFK assassination. What appalled veterans such as tions. On the one hand, he berated them (I suspect that CIA cheerfully tossed in the Halpern, Helms, and officers such as Ted for not being more aggressive in pushing Cuban stuff as a means of correcting the Shackley, who eventually ran CIA’s vast his pet sabotage schemes. But when the historical record.) Miami station, JMWAVE, was that Lans- Agency succeeded in one operation – the The very day after the Bay of Pigs dale insisted on planning covert operations blowing up of a culvert or transformer, failure – a disaster caused in large part without first doing the essential first step of “a minor thing,” according to Halperin, by the President’s withdrawal of prom- gathering intelligence on what could likely Kennedy was livid about the ensuing ised air support – Bob Kennedy wrote a be done inside Cuba. Consequently, writes publicity. He rang Bill Havey, a Miami memo to JFK urging a new campaign to Bohning, although some of the schemes operative. According to Halpern, “Bill deal with Castro. The national security were “creative, others [were] obviously gets chewed out by Bobby Kennedy on the apparatus moved quickly, with Defense unrealistic, unachievable, and even idi- phone. Harvey tells the attorney general Secretary Robert McNamara asking the otic.” In the latter category certainly fell an that people are going to talk about it, it’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to “develop a plan for episode related by Thomas A. Parrott: that going to be on the radio, it’s going to be on the overthrow of the Castro government word would be spread of a “second coming television....” Intelligence gathering can be by the application of US military might.” of Christ, who was anti-Castro,” and that an done quietly. But “boom and bang means Distrustful of CIA, the White House put the American submarine would send aloft star publicity, and you better be ready for it.” operation under the tutelage of Brig. Gen. shells off the coast of Cuba – “elimination That such a massive campaign could Edward Lansdale, who had run counter- by illumination,” agency wags called the be kept secret was laughable on its face. insurgency operations in the Philippines idea. Another screwball scheme coming MONGOOSE relied heavily on Cuban and Vietnam. The cryptonym chosen was from the Pentagon called for “airdropping exiles in the Miami area, dedicated patri- Operation MONGOOSE (although CIA [into Cuba] valid Pan American or KLM ots, to be sure, but congenitally unable to officer Richard Helms would comment one-way airline tickets good for passage to keep anything secret. Even more cruelly, wryly that MONGOOSE never quite lived Mexico City, Caracas, etc...” This suppos- the campaign gave Castro public justi- up to its dictionary definition as “an agile edly would create “unrest and dissension” fication for making Cuba an even more mammal”). among the Cuban people. Oh, perhaps. repressive state. And Latin Americans who Sam Halpern was assigned as deputy What must be kept in mind as one reads could have been reflexively anti-Castro director of CIA’s Caribbean Desk in late this Marx-brothers scenarios is that the jeered at the United States’ failure to rid the media have widely blamed them on CIA, 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 51 hemisphere of a man who was essentially killing, by manual methods, most of the brought independence, democracy, and a tin-pot dictator. Tutsis in Rwanda; the “accepted” figure is majority (Hutu) rule, with further massa- And, finally, in Bohning’s view the about 800,000 of them. It was basically a cres in 1963. By military coup, Hutu leader Kennedy scheme contributed “to the Soviet tribal massacre, but a bit more organized Juvenal Habyarimana took power in 1973, decision to install offensive missiles on than that. In more au courant terms, think an event accompanied by more killings. In the island and [spawned] a cadre of Cuban of it as a democratic mass movement. 1990, Tutsi resistance led to the organiza- exile terrorists perpetuating murder and When retribution arrived in the form tion, by the Habyarimana clan, of interaha- mayhem in excess of their relatively small of a Tutsi army from Burundi, some two mwe militias. (There is the merest hint, in numbers.” In sum, a true mess. And in million terrified Hutus stampeded into Hatzfeld’s pages, of French influence in the December 1963, a few weeks after JFK’s the eastern Congo. Can you spell “failed creation of a political “cell” structure and murder, a CIA National Intelligence Esti- state”? Can you say “humanitarian crisis”? in the training of militia. That is outside mate stated the Castro was stronger than It fell to “the world community” to save the scope of the book.) ever, in terms of public support. them. Government radio broadcasts cease- Four decades later, Castro still lessly fed a Hutu sense of grievance and thumbs his nose at the US, and the Ken- hostility. Soon came hints of impending violence. Some months before April, party nedy-led anti-Castro efforts left a perma- t H e k I l l e r s s P e a k nent stain on our relations with the rest of cadres were checking on the supply and the hemisphere.  condition of machetes — ordinary farm Jean Hatzfeld tools. Days before the massacres, U.N. is a French journalist forces were hastily evacuating whites from The reviews above were released first to The whose other works Washington Times on several different dates in May, rural areas. are unavailable in June, and July 2005 and are reprinted here with On the evening of April 6, 1994, English. They include permission. President Habyarimana’s aircraft was Dans le nu de la vie, shot down over Kigali, and within a few interviews with Tutsi hours, the slaughter began. (The timing Joe Goulden had the great pleasure survivors, translated is incredibly tight. Surely the President of finishing galleys on The Money by Linda Coverdale. Lawyers, due from Truman Talley did not intend his own death to be “the Hatzfeld introduces us to a dozen Hutu Books/St. Martin’s Press in January signal”? A mystery.) 2006. Goulden is now writing a book men in their twenties and thirties who on Cold War intelligence. His e-mail had engaged in an orgy of murder, then Hatzfeld concentrates on events in a is [email protected]. imprisoned. We see them grinning into specific rural area, where the order to kill the camera. Most, we learn, were released all Tutsis did not arrive until April 11. The in May of 2003 to perform “community cultural veneer of Catholicism vanished service.” with blinding speed. Five thousand were killed in the church, five thousand more Hatzfeld begin with the assumption at the hospital. After that, the Tutsis hid that the reader has two or more facts to rub in the swamps. Oddly unexplained was the together about Rwanda. Let’s just say that apparently total lack of either individual or geographically, it is one of the pleasanter collective Tutsi resistance. A Job of Cutting African countries — a hilly green plateau high enough to have a cooler climate, In the Nyamata region, some 50,000 yet warm enough for the staple crop of of the 59,000 local Tutsis were killed Sue Huck, Ph.D. within a month, when the Hutus of bananas. Despite its dense rural popula- tion, Rwanda’s independent small farmers Nyamata began to flee to the Congo. Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak lived well enough by local standards. — A Report by Jean Hatzfeld, Preface by Susan Sontag [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, www. The population is–or was–an equal fsgbooks.com, New York, NY; 2005; published mixture of Hutus and Tutsis. The small w H A t W e r e t H e y first in France in 2003 via French Ministry of number of Twa avoid them both. From pre- t H I n k i n g ? Culture-National Book Center; isbn 0-374-28082- colonial times and into colonial days, when 7; 253 pages, maps, photo, NO INDEX] Belgium ruled Ruanda-Urundi, the Tutsis Hatzfeld, an experienced journalist, A Job of Cutting. That’s what it was were the dominant tribe. Hutus frankly was already familiar with what had hap- called. Assemble in the morning with a state that they resent the Tutsis for being pened. He found his dozen interview sub- freshly-sharpened machete. Hunt and taller, better-looking, more intelligent,and jects locked up and idle, and sat them down kill Tutsis until mid-afternoon. When the keepers of cattle. Members of both tribes individually, repeatedly, in relatively pleas- whistle blows, you can stop cutting them easily recognized each other. Intermar- ant surroundings. He could easily dismiss down and begin looting the possessions riage was rare, and led to tense and often excuses, evasions, and other nonsense, and of your slaughtered neighbors. fatal situations. the men soon spoke frankly. It was not as if Between April and June of 1994, most In 1959, when the last Tutsi king they were ashamed of themselves! died, the Hutus rampaged. The early 1960s of the Hutu men were engaged full-time in “Cutting” continues on page 62, col. 3… page 52 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 the difficulties getting administration support for the Joint Committee, the role Steel From The Sky: of the Saudis in 9/11, the problems associ- The Jedburgh Raid- ers, FRANCE 1944 by ated with creating a National Homeland Roger Ford (London: Intelligence Bookshelf Security Agency, and the November 2002 Weidenfeld and elections. The intelligence aspects cover Nicolson, 2004), 292 Candidates the Committee hearings, the Congres- pp., appendices, maps, index. sional leaks of NSA testimony, and the Hayden B. Peake discovery of FBI files in San Diego that After the fall [email protected] showed, among other things, that one of of France to Hitler the hijackers lived “in the home of an FBI in 1940, the British formed the Special asset” (p. 160). Then there are comments Operations Executive (SOE), a clandestine on the now familiar WMD issue that led to paramilitary organization to operate Intelligence Matters: the “slam dunk” assessment in the run up behind enemy lines and aid partisan The CIA, the FBI, Saudi to the Iraq war, and the battles of declas- resistance groups. Occupied France was Arabia, and the Failure sification of CIA data, all sprinkled with particularly important since it was clear to of American’s War on candid anecdotes about dealings with the Terror by Bob Graham all it would have to be invaded before the with Jeff Nussbaum. heads of the intelligence agencies. war could be won—coordinated resistance (New York: Random There will be considerable debate over was essential. SOE sent agents to arrange House, 2004), 296 pp, the last three chapters in the book. In his support to French resistance groups, but endnotes, appendix, index. conclusions, Sen. Graham lists 11 partisan they were in many cases unable to assess “reasons” that the present administration the partisans military capabilities. Brit- Retiring Flor- is not serving the country’s intelligence ish men on the ground were needed, said ida Senator Bob interests well. Typical, though not docu- SOE, and in December 1942 a proposal for Graham served on the Select Committee mented, are charges of presidential laxity 3 man liaison teams—to include Ameri- on Intelligence for ten years, including and cover-up. Then an Appendix called, cans and Frenchmen—was approved. The eighteen months as Chairman. During Lessons Learned, discusses “five of the major Americans were to come from the recently his service he co-chaired—with then problems and challenges for American created Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Rep. Porter Goss—the House-Senate Joint intelligence” (p. 237). With one exception, Special Operations Branch.2 The teams Inquiry into the intelligence community they lack specificity and are open to inter- were called Jedburghs. performance prior to 9/11, the results of pretation and significance. For example, Steel From The Sky is the first book which were published in July 20031. Intel- the first charges that “we have failed to about the Jedburghs. Before telling the ligence Matters, is a summary of his role in adapt to a changing adversary and global stories of many of the teams in the field, the joint investigation, his views on the environment.” The fourth, on the other author Roger Ford describes how they subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, hand, is somewhat hypocritical when it evolved organizationally, the seemingly and his recommendations for reform of the criticizes the “intelligence community” for endless—even in wartime—bureaucratic intelligence community. not implementing “the policies necessary struggles for power within SOE, the inter- The book is divided into two parts. to recruit human intelligence staff, to train allied battles with the French and OSS over The first goes over events leading up to the them, diversify them, reward or sanction responsibilities, and the team training 9/11 attacks and includes a very “brief his- them, or maintain their skills.” The final and equipment that had to be developed tory of U.S. intelligence,” (p. 11ff), before chapter contains the 19 recommendations from scratch. He also discusses the recent following the trail of two of the hijack- of the Joint Inquiry. Most are in the “should misconceptions surrounding team com- ers—Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihd- aggressively address the possibility…” position,3 and the origins of the name har—as they prepared for 9/11. In this mix category and are not helpful. But, the first Jedburgh—next on a list of codewords—not Sen. Graham critiques the performance of one recommends that the Community from a Scottish town as some authors have the intelligence community players with be reorganized and reformed to include suggested.4 Unfortunately, he does not equal severity, while acknowledging that a “Director of National Intelligence with provide source notes, but he does mention budget cuts in 2001 forced the CIA “to appropriate staff” (p. 255); a cabinet level some sources in the narrative that check reduce its HUMINT staff by approximately appointment. There is no discussion or out well, and he includes a useful appendix 20 percent” (p. 69) with foreseeable conse- hint of awareness that the existing DCI, with all the Jedburgh teams listed by code- quences in performance. His subsequent given adequate support and authority, name and member names. disagreement when he learned from DCI could perform this function. Ford leaves no doubt that SOE was as Tenet that it would take at least 5 years to While Sen. Graham has shared some anxious not to share responsibility as OSS train junior replacements reveals his grasp interesting insights on how things work in Director Donovan was adamant that they of the professional realities involved. Washington, but he also leaves some doubt should do so. This conflict along with other The second part of the book deals as to whether he really understands how problems, resulted in the bureaucratic deci- with the political and intelligence after- much intelligence matters. sion not to deploy any Jedburgh teams before math of 9/11. The political topics include the invasion. Ford considers this decision

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 53 a serious operational flaw since it was not The reason became clear later when it was In 1926 he entered Dartmouth College, possible to replace injured members or learned the network was then headed by a classmate of Nelson Rockefeller—to equipment in time and in some cases the a German double agent. As the course whom he sometimes lent money—gradu- delay limited the operational missions that of the war in France became evident, the ating in 1931. During the next ten years could be executed. The major post inva- resistance role diminished and Bruce ended George married, joined the Army reserve, sion complication came when the French up gathering intelligence rather than fight- and worked at various engineering jobs demanded that command be turned over to ing Germans. The double agent prudently in New York. He spent most of the war the French team members, a situation for decided to revise his loyalties. in Alaska where he was involved with the which no plans had been made and which While Ford stops short of concluding Russian lend lease program and David caused considerable confusion. the Jedburgh Programme made a significant Chavchavadze—later to serve with him In the end, more than 90 Jedburgh difference to the war effort, he leaves no in the CIA—was his top sergeant. In 1944 teams—four with 2 members only—were doubt that the Jedburghs themselves were George was transferred to military intel- inserted in to France, Belgium, and Hol- dissatisfied with the quality of support in ligence at Camp Ritchie, MD where he land. Events moved so fast that those in the field, his final assessment of the pro- worked on Soviet intelligence projects. In the latter two countries were not needed for gram is that “for an endeavor essentially March 1946, because he was also fluent their original purpose. Most of the book is experimental in nature… it was a consider- in German, he was sent to Fort Hunt, VA, devoted to telling the team stories in eight able success” (p. 256). to interview Reinhard Gehlen about his chapters or parts corresponding to regions Whether or not the reader agrees, knowledge of Soviet intelligence before of France where they operated. Logistical Ford has provide a thorough assessment being discharged. After a few years work- and communication problems were a jus- of the program. ing in an enterprise harvesting alfalfa, a tifiable complaint of each team. Nearly all childhood friend suggested he come work the operations are mentioned though the amount of detail is limited by the records CIA SpyMaster by Clarence available. Three examples are included to Ashley. (Gretna, LA: Pelican illustrate the missions involved. Publishing Company, Inc., The first Jedburgh team—designated 2004), 350 pp., endnotes, photos, index. Hugh—was inserted on 6 June 1944. It had a dual mission of liaising with the resistance When Clarence Ashley and assisting a British Special Air Service analyzed strategic missile (SAS) unit already in Western France. capabilities for the Central Intelligence Hugh’s commander viewed SAS—which he Agency he knew nothing of George Kise- Geroge Kisevalter and Clarence Ashley called Sad Athletic Sacks—as a support and valter, a case officer in Vienna who had for the CIA and in 1951, George became a tactical liability. Thus, he concentrated handled the first GRU agent run by the branch chief, GS-14, in the Soviet Division, on the partisan mission, though it also CIA. It was only in 1973, after both had assigned to operations in the Far East. It included dealing with a power struggle left the Agency, that they met and became was on his return from a trip to the Hong between two French resistance groups. In business associates in a real estate firm in Kong in 1953 that he became involved in the end they were modestly successful in Virginia. Over the years a close friendship one of the most famous CIA cases. channeling German troops by destroying developed and as Clarence learned more The story of Pyotr Popov has been bridges and railroads. about George’s adventures, he realized told elsewhere,5 but Kisevalter’s version The Jude mission turned to catastro- there was a life story here that needed to adds some new detail. Popov, a GRU Major, phe after finding the right DZ. The alert be told. It took considerable persuasion, was a walk-in to the Vienna station and his message noting 40 friends were on the way but in 1991 when classification was no successful handling required someone was misinterpreted to mean 40 aircraft, longer an issue, George finally agreed to with the ability to speak peasant Russian not people, and the DZ was a busy place. be recorded and the foundation for CIA and develop his confidence—George was The chaos increased when the demolition SpyMaster was laid. just the man. The case lasted nearly six ammunition exploded on impact. The George Kisevalter’s career in intel- years before ending in Moscow where partisans were not well trained and the ligence was anything but typical by today’s Popov was imprisoned, tried and executed. American 7th Army was expecting help as standards. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Ashley draws on the firsthand accounts it advanced up the Rhone Valley. the family moved to the United States in of other CIA officers involved to show the Team Bruce is an example of dimin- 1916 when his father, a reserve officer in the value of Popov’s contributions and tell how ished operational effectiveness because it Russian army, was appointed by the Czar the case reached its end. wasn’t inserted until the night of 14 August. to purchase weapons. After the Bolshevik The next major case in George’s To make matters worse, it missed the DZ revolution, the Kisevalters were stranded career involved another GRU walk-in, this by 30 kms. Comprised of Maj. William and eventually became citizens. George time a Colonel named Oleg Penkovsky, Colby, a French Lt., and a French senior went to Stuyvesant High School in New who was handled jointly with the British enlisted radio operator, it eventually linked York where he studied mathematics and SIS. Considered one of the most important up with the Donkeyman resistance network chemistry, winning the New York State Soviet agents ever recruited, Penkovsky’s that was reluctant to conduct operations. Chess Championship in his spare time. intelligence played an important role in page 54 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 the successful resolution of the Cuban Medal. There was one more honor to come the DCI that Philby was a Soviet agent. Missile Crisis.6 The pressures of the case his way. In 1997, when the CIA celebrated As with most reference works of its created problems for George but he played its 50th anniversary, George was designated kind, the thematic emphasis is on the con- his part through the final meeting with one of fifty Trailblazers for his many flict between the Soviet Union/Russia and Penkovsky in Paris. Kisevalter followed the contributions to the profession, the only the Western nations and their intelligence final days of the case from Headquarters case officer so recognized. Less than two services, though there are a relatively long and much later filling in the events for months later he was laid to rest in Arling- entries on China and Japan, and a short Ashley that led to Penkovsky’s arrest, trail ton National Cemetery. new entry on terrorist intelligence. Similarly, and execution. CIA SpyMaster is a sympathetic biog- there is no mention of information war- George had one more albeit oblique raphy of a unique CIA intelligence officer fare or the problems that email and the contact with the Penkovsky case. Only who served his adopted country with honor world-wide-web have created for counter- one participant, Greville Wynne, tried to and dedication. intelligence. Recent cases added include: enhance his personal status in the affair Robert Hanssen, Katrina Leung (Parlor when he wrote a book7 claiming, among Maid), and the Cuban agent in DIA, Ana other exaggerations, that Penkovsky had SPY BOOK: The Ency- Belen Montez. been flown overnight to the United States clopedia of Espionage, In spite of the deficiencies noted, in to meet President Kennedy. British author 2nd Edition by Norman the absence of a documented casebook Polmar and Thomas Nigel West called Wynne a liar and was on intelligence, Polmar and Allen have 8 B. Allen. (New York: sued for his trouble. West asked George Random House, 2004, provided the next best thing and it should to testify on his behalf. While this was 719 pp., bibliography, be of value to students, professors and the not possible, George knew West was right; appendices, photos, general reader. and he gave a deposition to that effect. The chonology, glossary, no index. See also a review by D. Cameron case ended with Wynne’s death before it WATT, Intelligence and National Security, came to trial. Among the various encyclopedias V16/1, pp. 348-9, that is not critical of the 9 T h e y e a r s of espionage, this one is the most up to errors, but does enumerate at some length between the Penkovsky date, and with the corrections made in the omission of many British sources and case and his retirement this edition, the most accurate, despite European espionage cases. For reviews that in 1970 saw George the fact that it persists on including the do list some of the errors not mentioned involved in a number oxymoron defector-in-place. The more than here see J. Ransom Clark in the International of recruitments in 3500 intelligence related entries—cases, Journal Of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, various parts of the personalities, terminology, organiza- Vol. 11, #2, pp. 239-42. world which Ashley tions—are arranged alphabetically and Col. Oleg Penkovsky Polmar and Allen provide a chronol- contain brief cross references to related describes. The most ogy of wars and events mentioned in the items in the book. In general the material is important, and by far the most controver- book that spans the period 1800BC to the not sourced, although there are occasional sial, concerned two KGB walk-ins. Anatoli present. Golitsyn would precipitate a CIA molehunt references to specific books. A number of for a KGB penetration and claim that the errors remain uncorrected and one should second, Yuri Nosenko, was a fake defector. be cautious if detail is important to one’s Ashley reviews the cases in detail based task. A few examples make the point: the Cover Up: What the Govern- ment is Still Hiding about on his conversations with George and date of Yuri Nosenko’s first contact with the War On Terror by Peter Nosenko. He concludes that “George never the CIA (1962 not 1963), calling Nosenko Lance. (New York: Regan accepted the case for a mole in the CIA or a double agent, and the statement on page Books, HarperCollins the argument that Nosenko was planted by 430 that The Penkovsky Papers were black Publishers, 2004), 360 pp., endnotes, appendices, the KGB” (p. 283), though he acknowledges propaganda. In the latter case, while the photos, index. that he did not volunteer his opinion even source of the papers was disguised, their after he learned of Nosenko’s incarcera- content was accurate and thus they fail the In his impressive tion under very harsh conditions. After the black propaganda test. The entry on Philby book, 1000 Days For case was officially resolved, George and also has many errors: he was not recruited Revenge, that deals with the intelligence Nosenko became friends. at Cambridge as alleged (nor were any of failures prior to 9/11, author Peter Lance George’s final assignment was to the other four member of the Cambridge suggested en passant that the explosion of the CIA officer training facility for new ring), Philby was not “the third man in the TWA 800 could have been a terrorist act, officers. Few will forget his formal lectures Cambridge spy ring” (he was the first), sev- not the result of frayed wiring. In Cover or his informal conversations in the club. eral details of his Vienna days are wrong, Up he argues that “terror mastermind By this time he promoted to super grade his second wife never worked at Bletchley Ramzi Yousef ordered the bombing of (the GS16), the first case officer to achieve Park, KGB officer Konstantin Volkov was TWA800” (p. 5) from his Supermax cell in that rank without being made a manager, not a defector, and Jim Angleton was not order to induce a mistrial in his own case. and he had received the Agency’s highest the head of CIA’s Office of Strategic Opera- It gets worse: Lance also charges that he award, the Distinguished Intelligence tions, nor was he the one who convinced warned the FBI and DoJ about the TWA800 bombing and they did nothing—cover 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 55 up. The FBI DoJ reaction may not seem After nearly ten years and many travels, nage story, Ms. Morgan provides historical so unusual when it becomes clear that they pieced together the story of what came context about the war and the Luxembourg Lance’s source was a Supermax inmate col- to be called the Luxembourg network and network’s role in it. She also describes the league of Yousef, con- Ms. Morgan reveals them all in The Secrets often complicated arrangements with nected to organized of Rue St Roch. the other British and French intelligence crime and also an FBI During WWI, an time when espio- services whose cooperation was essen- informant. Finally, nage networks were standard tradecraft, tial—Captain Mansfield Cumming, the Lance is also furious British military intelligence ran some 6000 first “C” crosses her stage from time to because he provided agents in Europe all tasked with finding time. But more than all that, she delivers the 9/11 Commission out what Germany was doing militarily a fascinating narrative of a time when case with questions and and economically. On the counterintelli- officer and agent problems were much Journalist Peter Lance his supporting mate- gence side, a series of Permit Offices were the same as today, but the pace of life was rials and they ignored them all. At the end established in cooperation with the French much slower. As Sir Colin McCall writes of the book he is far afield criticizing the security service, to interview persons who in the Preface, Janet Morgan “highlights commission for the “catastrophic mistake” had managed to cross the German border some important truths… the vital need of invading Baghdad and the consequent al and enter France, to determine whether for trust between the players, and, as part Qaeda threat. (p. 254) they were innocent travelers or potential and parcel of this, the constant need for Who is right here? The secondary spies. One of these offices, staffed by only 4 the human touch in addressing people’s sources aren’t much help. Neither are the officers and an administrative assistant— problems and anxieties.” uncorroborated interviews. Cover Up is the multilingual Miss Dorothy Done—was The Secrets of Rue St Roch is a story speculation mixed with sour grapes until located in a “narrow five-storey building… of classic military intelligence delightfully real evidence is produced. guarded by an orderly” (p. 9) at No. 41 Rue told by an author with an unusual sensitiv- St Roch. It was from here that Captain ity for the subject—intelligence history at Bruce would create and operate a very its best. The Secrets of Rue St Roch: Intelligence Opera- successful troop and train monitoring tions Behind Enemy Lines in the First World network working out of Luxembourg. War by Janet Morgan. (London: Allen Lane, Two of the most successful “No. No Backup: My Life as a Female Special FBI 2004), 408 pp., endnotes, appendix, photos, Agent by Rosemary Dew with Pat Pope. (New index. 41” agents were difficult recruitments for different reasons. Madame Lise Rischard York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004), 302 pp., endnotes, index. The 7th Baron was visiting her daughter in Pairs from Balfour of Burleigh Luxembourg when spotted by the Permit When government employees with died in 1967, but it Office. A distinguished lady married to a exemplary records experience persistent was not until 1995 doctor, espionage had never entered her industrial grade sexual harassment on that his son John thoughts. Then problems arose when she the job, they may seek (the 8th Baron) and tried to return to Luxembourg and she recourse through chan- his wife f inally learned only Captain Bruce could help; nels, become a whistle- opened the sealed for a consideration. Albert Baschwitz blower, or resign. By Wellington Chest was a Belgian NCO who volunteered his 1990, FBI Special Agent that contained the services to Bruce through the mail. After Rosemary Dew had tried story of his father’s a series of adventures, he eventually joined the first option without intelligence activities during WWI. The Madame Rischard in Luxembourg, travel- success, decided against records were impressive: agent names, ing clandestinely by balloon. Perhaps the the second, and so reluc- photos, codes, case files, even the story of first agent insertion by that method. tantly after nearly 13 years as an FBI Special an agent dispatched behind enemy lines Ms. Morgan tells the story of how Agent, she resigned. It would be another 13 in a balloon. John had seen the contents these amateur spies, successfully estab- years before she wrote of her experiences. briefly years before and his father men- lished a train monitoring network, many Why did she wait so long? tioned them on occasion. But it wasn’t members of which were recruited by the No Backup has two parts, both well until he was prodded by his wife that the once reluctant Madame Rischard. Bruce documented. The first covers the author’s discovery was finally made. How had the and his colleagues also developed their Bureau career that began in 1977, when, Lord Balfour, or Captain George Bruce, as own agent codes and subsidized a Lux- as a recently divorced mother of two, she he was in 1917, become involved in espio- embourg newspaper—Der Landwirt—that entered the FBI Academy at Quantico, VA., nage? Who had he worked with, what had was routinely sent to Paris, that ran coded one of the first four females to become they done? Where had they done it? John messages and served as one communica- special agents. After graduation she was and his wife, Janet Morgan, decided find tion channel. At other times face to face assigned to law enforcement duties in the the answers. They began by extracting all meetings were arrange in Switzerland. In San Francisco bay area where she surveiled the names and addresses in Lord Balfour’s those days, agents had to learn on the job members of the Weather Underground, records and then locating and interviewing and they earned high marks. was stalked by a lunatic who thought he surviving participants or family members. In the telling of this unusual espio- was being followed by the CIA and NSA, page 56 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 posed as a prostitute searching for Black improvement. While she acknowledges and the investigations by the Congressio- Panther fugitives, and interviewed survi- steps by the current FBI Director intended nal Committees. Pillar also stresses the vors of the Jonestown mass suicide. Her to implement some of her suggestions, she importance of the “cell-by-cell, terrorist- next assignment was to the Defense Lan- leaves room for doubt that major change by-terrorist disruption of terrorist infra- guage School to learn Russian after which will occur in the near term. structures,” the substantial disruption she was transferred to the Washington So why did see write the book now? of “al-Qaida since 9/11… an organization Field Office where she worked successively Because she realized as she observed the markedly less capable than it was two years on the counterintelligence and counter- FBI since 1990, that others were still expe- ago—although still capable enough….” (p. terrorism squads. In 1985 she became riencing the same problems—too little xli), and the costs of terrorism as shaped by the seventh woman in FBI history to be had changed. And, further, in a time of the U.S. response to the threat. While he named a government manager (GM-14) great need, she hoped her voice might help acknowledges that no compromises can be and supervisory special agent in the Coun- others see the need for reform itself. made with these extreme terrorists, he sug- terintelligence Division at Headquarters. It After leaving the Bureau, Ms. Dew gests there made be some avenues worth was there that, among other projects, she became a nurse, worked as a defense con- approaching with other countries. supervised the Bureau’s role in the Achille sultant, developed antisubmarine software Pillar argues that the concept of a war Lauro hijacking. In 1987 Dew became a field programs, served on a Presidential advisory on terrorism is less like world war two in supervisor in the Denver field office where committee on information technology and style and more akin to the war on drugs she worked against White Supremacists, national security, and became a chemical or the war on poverty—amorphous and on counterintelligence cases involving weapons inspector. And, this talented lady hard to pin down. A principal theme of the illegal flow of embargoed technology, has written a very interesting book. the book addresses this point: minimizing and participated in a presidential protec- terrorism against U.S. interests depends on tion detail for the first president Bush. Her the health and wisdom of overall foreign final assignment was on the FBI’s Inspec- Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy by Paul policy” as well as a strong military. In this tion Staff. Pillar. (Washington, DC: Brookings regard he advocates getting foreign part- Institution Press, 2004), 272 pp., endnotes, The book describes several constants index; 2nd edition. ners involved. Overall, this book presents in her relatively brief but promising career. a temperate and discerning analysis with The positive ones include rapid promotion, The ideas and principles discussed practical insights aimed at dealing with a awards and commendations. The major in the first edition of this book, published problem that is part of our daily life and negative aspect, which becomes a central before 9/11, have not changed. The new 43 yet persistently resists attempts to stamp sub-theme of the entire book, was the page introduction to it out. pervasive and persistent sexual harassment this edition addresses from a few male special agents that began the post 9/11 ques- with the training at Quantico and contin- tions: “What really did Codename TRICYCLE: The True Story of the ued at every stop along the way. It just such change, and what did Second World War’s Most Extraordinary Double not? And what are the Agent by Russell Miller. (London: Secker & an incident that she relates in very embar- Warburg, 2004), 290 pp., endnotes, appendi- rassing detail (pp. 191-20) during her final opportunities and the ces, photos, index. assignment, that precipitated her abrupt pitfalls of the surge of resignation. And, as she makes it brutally interest in counterter- The WWII British clear, citing specific incidents, she did not rorism?” (p. viii) One presumable change, double-agent operation endure this treatment alone. suggests Pillar, is the argument of some first made public in John Masterman’s book, The In part two of the book, Ms. Dew dis- analysts “that terrorism was not a signifi- Double Cross System11 cusses what she learned about the FBI from cant threat to the United States and that its 10 was one of the most suc- its creation to the present. She reviews costs were low and manageable.” (p. xi) cessful undertakings the Hoover legacy with its emphasis on This despite the statement to Congress of of its kind for two prin- law enforcement and the consequences then DCI George Tenet, in February 2001 ciple reasons. First the that has had for counterintelligence. In where he “placed international terrorism agent-handling tradecraft was excellent. the process she examines the effect of the and specifically al-Qaida at the top of the Second, the British had broken the Abwehr Bureau reluctance to cooperate with other list of dangers.” (p. xxxviii) Thus 9/11 did codes used to send instructions and com- intelligence agencies, the impact of several not cause a change in ments to their “agents” so the Brits had discomforting recent espionage and terror- the intelligence com- nearly perfect feedback, a genuine basis ist cases including Richard Miller, Aldrich munity awareness the for trusting the more than 20 doubles. One Ames, Robert Hanssen, Katrina Leung terrorist threat, Pillar of the early recruits, Dusko Popov, was a (PARLOR MAID), and failures associated suggests, but rather multi-lingual Yugoslav lawyer solicited in with 9/11, to name a few. Since she was not the change was in the mid 1940 by the Abwehr―German security involved, she merely gives views based on public awareness of the Dr. Paul R. Pillar service―in Belgrade to work against the her experience. In a chapter titled, Scared of threat. British in London and eventually America. Change, Ms. Dew makes a series of specific Other topics covered in this edition Popov reported the approach to MI6 and recommendations aimed at long range FBI include the reaction to 9/11 in Congress after careful screening, was given the code-

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 57 name TRICYCLE. In 1974, he published his animosity” charge followed from Hoover’s autobiography, SpyCounterspy that made obvious disapproval of the Balkan playboy Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories by Jean M. Humez. (Madison, WI: The Univer- several controversial claims. Foremost cover which Popov executed with skill and sity of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 471 pp., end- among them was that FBI Director, J. Edgar persistence. In his book, Popov charged notes, bibliography, appendices, photos, Hoover, had known about the attack on Hoover had not even sent the question- index. Pearl Harbor well beforehand, but had naire to the White House, the War Depart- In the first modern failed to warn the country. Only margin- ment, or the Navy Department. In his well biography of Harriet ally less outrageous were Popov’s claims to documented study of these questions, Tom Tubman (nee Ross), Jean have been the model for James Bond. Troy shows beyond any doubt that Popov is Humez documents the wrong on both points, documenting that Journalist Russell Miller adds new story of this most famous the questionnaire was sent to the principal detail to the TRICYCLE story based on female slave born in Mary- agencies involved, though they did noth- Harriet Tubman from recently released documents in the Brit- land in about 1820. Best ing. Troy also suggests that if the Pearl Wilbur Seibert’s, ish and American National Archives, and The Underground known for her work with Harbor message was as clear as Popov papers provided by the Popov family. He Railroad. 1898. the Underground Rail- some historians later claimed, the British provides many interesting new facts about road in the 10 years pre- would not have relied on a low-level double the Double Cross System and TRICYCLE’s ceding the Civil War, Tubman also served agent to be the messenger.13 Miller cites handing by MI5, though analysis of their as a Union scout or spy in South Carolina MI5 comments that the Pearl Harbor data significance is sometimes open to chal- through most of the war. Though she never should have been transmitted separately lenge. An example concerns the claim, went to school and never learned to read but “no one ever dreamed Hoover would made by Popov in his book and Miller in or write, she learned the tradecraft of the be such a bloody fool.” (p. 254-5). Another his, that TRICYCLE was “the inspiration clandestine life the old fashion way and interpretation might be that the British for” or “rather in the mould of James Bond” was never caught. (p. 5). Yet the quotations Miller cites as evi- didn’t want America to take preventative Tubman’s early life was typical for the dence from British intelligence files raise action and thus used TRICYCLE as courier times. In 1844, though she was the legal their own doubts. The assessments that not likely to get much attention, but this act property of a white man, she was permitted Popov has a greater attraction for women would have been transparent to the State to married John Tubman; they were child- “than might be expected from his personal Department and eventually historians. less. When her owner died in 1849, she appearance…” or that he has the facial Despite what Miller claims as ‘full access to feared being sold, and leaving her husband characteristics of a “Mongolian Slav,” that FBI records,’ he does not resolve this issue, behind, escaped to the North on her own. he was “a careless dresser” “short, and not though he lays out the various sides well. She soon found abolitionist friends who handsome,” (p. 6) are not suggestive of the Hoover’s final insult to Popov was helped her find work. In December 1850, James Bonds known to movie goers.12 delivered in a Reader’s Digest article in April she made her first return to Maryland to 1946 in which it was explained “how the There are also some inaccuracies help some relatives escape and thus the FBI ‘discovered’ the existence of micro- about MI6 players that he mentions. For Underground Railroad was born. During dots. The Balkan Playboy was mentioned example, his comment that “Kim Philby… the next ten years she worked with John as the unknowing carrier of the discovery ran MI6 operations on the Iberian penin- Brown and Frederick Douglass among made by the FBI laboratory (p. 248). Miller sula” (p. 50) is untrue; Philby was a coun- other famous spokesmen of her cause. terespionage officer and he studied but did retaliates by including as fact the state- The bulk of the book is devoted to not run operations. ment that Hoover “was exposed as a closet stories of Tubman’s life, before, during and Miller’s difficulties increase when he homosexual and… cross dresser” (p. 92) among other undocumented insults. after the war, that she turns the American side of the TRICYCLE dictated to others or that The book adds much new material story. Tasked by the Germans to go to the were reported by jour- about Popov’s personal life before the war United States and establish agent networks nalists and friends. The and in the European business world after and answer questions in a questionnaire deatils of her spying days WWII, it neglects to mention the prison provide by the Abwehr, Popov, in coordi- are told in one chapter. It term he served for … And though he was nation with British intelligence, arrived is not clear just how she unquestionably a valuable double agent in New York on August 10, 1941 where he came to serve the Union for four years, nothing in the book or his contacted the MI6 station and the Bureau. Army in the Sea Islands off South Carolina file supports the author’s contention that The questionnaire was in the form of a and Georgia, but records show she was Popov was the “most extraordinary double microdot, the first the FBI had ever seen. working out of Beaufort, South Carolina in agent” in the second world war―most Several questions concerned the naval base May 1862. Union troops mounted expedi- would give that accolade to GARBO.14 at Pearl Harbor. According to Miller, “until tion from the Islands and Tubman did the Finally, the careless errors15 and many the end of his life Popov was convinced that preliminary scouting. Her most famous undocumented comments place the book Hoover, motivated by personal animosity, operation was the Combahee River Raid in in the easy to read but of limited scholarly was responsible for ignoring the clear which she commanded a group of scouts value category. warning that he had brought with him to with results that led to the capture and the the Unite States that Japan was going to capture of 800 slaves from their Southern attack Pearly Harbor.” (.115). The “personal owners. She also found time to be a nurse page 58 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 in the hospitals and toward the end of the didn’t require “first rate intelligence orga- ligence and Military Deception During the World War Era, Vol. 3: OSS Jedburgh Teams war went to Washington to reveal their nizations.” (p. 438) Afterward, the reverse (Part 1), p. ii. deplorable conditions. was true. He presents names, facts and 4 Op. cit., Polmar and Allen, p. 340. 5 For years after the war she applied for figures, in support of arguments that make See for example, William Hood, MOLE (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981) and John but was never granted a pension because intuitive sense, but he makes clear that the L. Hart, Pyotr Semyonovich Popov: The the government said she had never been an paper is “based on private conversations Tribulations of Faith, Intelligence and official employee. Thus her income came with former and present French intelli- National Security, Vol. 12/4, October 1997, pp. 44-74. mainly from talks or dictating articles. gence operatives” and diplomats. (p. 442) 6 Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, She did collaborate with a co-author and Thus he leaves readers with a conundrum The Spy Who Saved The World: How a dictated an early autobiography, but had no the answer to which is left as an exercise Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, documentation. Ms. Humez has collected for the student. 1995). every story and anecdote about Tubman The purpose in creating this book 7 Greville Wynne, Contact on Gorky Street and provided extensive bibliography of was to fill a gap that grew as more and (New York: Atheneum, 1966). 8 Nigel West, The Friends (London: Wei- primary sources. And though there remain more courses on intelligence matters denfeld, 1998). West noted that at the time documentary gaps in her life story, Harriet appeared in university curricula over the not even American had a plane that would Tubman’s service to the Union is solidly last thirty years. So many valuable texts accomplish the feat, but Wynne remained adamant. recorded and this volume is a fitting tribute were written to meet the demand that no 9 The worst of the bunch is Richard to a remarkable life. course could assign them all and parts Bennett’s, ESPIONAGE :An Encyclopedia on their content was soon out of date. of Spies and Secrets (London: Virgin Books, 2002). What was needed then was a reader with 10 See also a review of Spy Book by D. Cameron Watt, Intelligence and National Strategic Intelligence: Windows Into A Secret contributions by recognized profession- Security, 16/1: 348–49, that is not criti- World—An Anthology by Loch K. Johnson and als, that covers the main issues of the cal of the errors, but does enumerate at James J. Wirtz, editors. (Los Angeles, CA: profession—the proven practices and the some length the omission of many British Roxbury Publishing Company, 2004), end of controversial policies—from many points sources and European espionage cases. chapter notes, bibliography, charts, tables, of view. This book meets that need. For a review that lists some of the errors index. not mentioned here, see J. Ransom Clark, Since all the articles have appeared International Journal of Intelligence and The editors of this anthology have elsewhere in journals or books, the editors Counterintelligence, 11/2: 239–42. assembled thirty five articles on the major 11 Chief of British foreign intelligence. contribute chapter length introductory 12 Pillar cites Larry C. Johnson, “The Declin- functions of the intelligence profession essays for each of the nine sections to ing Terrorist Threat,” New York Times, 10 written by intelligence officers, national provide a common thread and historical July 2001: A19, and John Mueller and Karl security journalists, academics, think- Mueller, “Sanctions of Mass Destruction,” parallels from topic to topic. For anyone Foreign Affairs 78 (May–June 1999): 44. tank analysts, novelists, and politicians. seeking greater understanding of the 13 I met Dusko Popov after his book was Topics range from strategic intelligence in today’s very chal- published in 1974. There was nothing in his appearance or manner to suggest that the familiar his- lenging world, they will find it in this tory of the intel- he was the role model for James Bond volume. and he indicated that that was publisher ligence commu-  hype. He did say that an episode in Ian nity, collection and Fleming’s Casino Royale was close to his own experience at a casino during the war analysis, foreign that he thought Fleming had witnessed. intelligence, coun- e n d n o t e s Miller mentions this on page 89, but does not give a source. terintelligence, 1 Report of the U.S. Senate Select Com- 14 Hoover’s final insult to Popov was deliv- and covert action, mittee on Intelligence and U.S. House ered in a Reader’s Digest article in April to those with considerable contemporary Permanent Select Committee On Intel- 1946 in which it was explained “how the FBI relevance, as for example, the relation- ligence together with additional views, ‘discovered’ the existence of microdots.” December 2002, s. Rept. no. 107- 351 107th The Balkan playboy was mentioned as the ship of intelligence to policy, the danger Congress, 2d session H. Rept. no. 107-792, unknowing carrier of the discovery made of politicalization, accountability, the Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community by the FBI laboratory (248). Miller retali- quandary of intelligence reform, and Activities Before And After The Terrorist ates by including, as fact, a statement that Attacks Of September 11, 2001. Hoover “was exposed as a closet homo- 2 establishing intelligence services in new Created by OSS Director William Dono- sexual and . . . cross dresser” (92), among democracies. van for the same purpose as SOE, OSS-SO other undocumented insults. Branch had virtually the same organiza- 15 With so many contributions, select- Thomas F. Troy, “The British Assault tion. on J. Edgar Hoover: The Tricycle Case,” 3 ing a few for comment risks unintended Occasionally authors have stated each International Journal of Intelligence and offense. Still, by its mere inclusion one team was composed of one British, Ameri- Counterintelligence, 3/2, Summer 1989: can and Frenchman. See for example, 169–209. raises the explicatory question—what does Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen, Spy- a novelist—in this case Percy Kemp—have Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, 2nd to contribute to a non-fiction reader on edition (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 339. But as Ford notes, the only require- “A government big enough to give you intelligence? Mr. Kemp’s interesting con- ment was that men from each country par- everything you want, is strong enough to tribution, The Rise and Fall of France’s ticipate in the program and only 7 teams take everything you have” Spymasters, argues that before the col- had one member from the three main countries. Teams were constructed to meet —Thomas Jefferson lapse of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf local conditions. See John Mendelsohn, War, the French government concluded it Covert Warfare: Intelligence, Counterintel- 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 59 enough, I’m tired and I never got assigned CIA for not recruiting more Soviet agents to Holland. Now, in the twilight of my life, during the cold war. incoming I’m going to draw myself up for one last A more telling record, according to several crepuscular joust. The lance has gotten former spooks, is that the agency in those years heavier, its haft is splintered, and I need did not recruit a single mid-level or high-level Ward Warren glasses in the gathering dusk, but today’s Soviet agent. Every significant CIA informant windmills are larger and have bigger vanes. was a volunteer. s Curator of the Historical Intel- Maybe I can pierce one of those vanes Given that the recruitment of agents ligence Collection at the CIA from and draw real blood as opposed to the 1991 to 1996 I wrote a column for is usually a close-held bit of operational A metaphorical and mostly Pyrrhic victories activity, it’s hard to accept that the “several the CIA quarterly, in-house publication, of my earlier sallies. This foray is more Studies in Intelligence. I wanted to call it former spooks” could be so certain of the important. The Economist has gone off the Agency’s failure in this respect, and even Incoming in analogous agreement with the rails with a March 19 article entitled Can military’s description of an artillery attack. if it were true, the handling of the volun- Spies Be Made Better. So giddy up Rocinante. teers represents a significant operational I was overruled. In a remarkable display of There’s work to be done. unimaginativeness, the column was called success. Most reports cite a dozen or more Why attack The Economist when The Books In Brief. The column amounted to of these volunteers who were handled New York Times and its co-conspirators an annotated bibliography of possible use efficiently and secretly for many years in Washington, Los Angeles, and San to those tortured until Aldrich Ames identified them for Francisco publish more or less the same souls interested the Soviets. Ames is not a success story or worse misinformation about the intel- in the literature of to highlight on the Agency’s resume, but ligence community almost daily? First, Intelligence. In rec- the volunteers and their handling by the nothing can be done about The New York ognition of the fact CIA indicate an operational competence Times or its ideological clones, but The that those tortured that belies the patronizing tone adopted Economist based on its past record may souls are still out by The Economist. be salvageable. The March 19th article there somewhere, I Even more than the obvious mis- may read like David Corn wrote it, but a am going to resume statements in the article, it is the tone of quick check revealed that he is still at The the column for The the article that should be remedied by Nation. Second, the CIA recommends The Intelligencer and the magazine’s editorial staff if it is to Economist to prospective employees at the for Periscope. I will retain credibility. Agency officers are not various open information sessions around also take the oppor- “spooks.” They are government officials the country. The Agency considers The tunity to give the column its rightful name. and deserve respect until specific, prov- Economist the gold standard for informa- I will continue my usual practice regarding able allegations can be cited to erode that tion on foreign affairs and current events letters of complaint and argument and respect. It is especially absurd to include, so any cracks in its integrity will produce citations of errata. They will be returned as the article does, the Agency’s analysts confusion and consternation among these unopened. under the spook rubric. Many of these prospective “Spies.” And “Spies” is the first The Economist got uppity on March 19. analysts are not under cover and even if flaw in the article that needs correction. they do have a minimal cover their actual The article below points this out. The title The article is not talking about “Spies”, it’s is stolen from John Sullivan’s book Spies day-to-day activities resemble a college talking about Case Officers or, in current faculty more than a clandestine analytical and Lies about his career in calligraphy or Agency parlance, Operations Officers. If polygraphy, I can’t remember which. John production line. William Langer and Sher- The Economist cannot get this simple fact man Kent, the progenitors of the analytical would certainly not resent my theft, in part straight, what else might it misconstrue? because we’re friends and in part because I side of the Agency specifically designed Well, for starters it should distin- justifiably reviewed his book favorably. it to resemble a college faculty. And in a guish between Case Officers and their supposedly responsible article, the use of agents. In the article’s third paragraph: the word “thuggish” in a description of At one point, every CIA case-officer work- the aides that Porter Goss brought with s P I e s a n d l I e s ing on Cuba was a double agent. him from Congress is reprehensible. These It probably means to say that every four aides “most of whom have had no De Guiche: Have you read Cervantes? Cuban asset was a double agent. If the Case previous experience of intelligence work” Cyrano : I have ‑ and found myself the Officers were double agents, they would all include a former analyst and Case Officer hero. be in jail. The same paragraph includes: with a Doctorate from Oxford University, All but three CIA officers working on East a former Case Officer with an impressive Tilting at windmills in the Central Germany allegedly worked for the Stasi resume from the private sector, an intel- Intelligence Agency guarantees two things lectually brilliant former deputy Attorney Here again, the article probably ‑ fatigue and the assurance that Holland General, and a close Congressional asso- means that all but three assets working will not be a field assignment. Windmill ciate of Porter Goss with a demeanor and against East Germany were working for tilting was my hobby during 29 years in a reputation that could be described as Stasi, the East German Intelligence Ser- the CIA as an operations officer and, sure “thuggish” only by adherents of the per- vice. And the same paragraph indicts the page 60 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 sonal destruction school so common in between the Community and the new that loses its identity. In its infancy, the CIA Washington and now apparently adopted Director of National Intelligence shakes was filled with the spirit and the people of by The Economist. out, the Bush administration’s interest in the wartime OSS. That spirit began to fade These “said to be thuggish manag- Intelligence and the appointment of Porter with the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and descended ers” according to the article are responsible Goss as CIA Director will certainly help to its lowest with the Church and Pike for sacking “a dozen senior spooks” and restore some of the Agency’s reputation. committee hearings of the mid-1970s. At for the resignation of another “two dozen What can be done to restore the reputation this point the bold and daring CIA began who have quit in fury.” The actual count is of The Economist after its article on spies is its slow decline into the wilderness of four; two who resigned rather than accept a matter for another day. political correctness and bureaucratic demotion, one who resigned because he stagnation. The focus on the CIA’s main felt it was simply time to try something mission of recruiting and handling assets An now, my work is done so I’ll point else, and finally the former Executive slowly disappeared from the intelligence Rocinante toward the hacienda where Director who truly had no experience with landscape. With their ability to orbit ninety Dulcinea waits with a back rub and Sancho Intelligence work. The Executive Director miles above the earth, satellites offered a Panza will have prepared a dry martini, was offered another position, but resigned clean and unobtrusive platform for gather- shaken but not stirred, just the way we instead. He was not sacked. ing intelligence. Of course, as Baer points like them. One reason the article lacks credibil- out, all these clean methods have serious ity is it use of unnamed “former spooks” Dd limitations: Satellites cannot look inside a as sources. If these sources are willing to series of buildings in the Biqa valley to see The flood of books on Intelligence talk for publication, they should have the if Americans are being held hostage. by Intelligence officers continues. Inside strength of character to put their names Several situations Baer writes about the Intelligence Community, we read to the information. The article’s use of a are disturbingly illustrative of dangerous these books with a base of experience that named source, Lindsay Moran, who wrote paths the CIA has followed in gathering allows, in most cases, a mature, subtle, and a book about her one-tour career with the human intelligence. From the case officer sophisticated understanding whether we Agency, is a bit like citing the bat boy for in Paris who was more interested in pros- like the book or not. But what about the the Beaumont, Texas Tigers as a source of elytizing than debriefing, to the political people without the advantage of an inside information about the front office strategy protest over a covert bugging operation look? What do they think? I regularly in Detroit. Miss Moran was not, by her own that could have negative consequences for discuss Intelligence books with a gradu- admission, a successful Case Officer and an oil company, Baer draws a portrait of ate history student from George Mason she seems even less suited to be a source of a CIA unable—or unwilling—to engage University whose interest is Foreign Affairs. information when she barely worked long in the activities for which is was created As an experiment, I asked him to write a enough to learn how to spell CIA. and upon which the security of the United review of one of those books. The review States rests so heavily. Not everything in the article deserves below is the product. I will continue this Although the inability of the CIA to criticism, but the effective points have been practice with each AFIO publication until collect human intelligence effectively is made before usually with a less thuggish the student receives his MA and gets a job. widely discussed by politicians and pun- approach. “American’s secret world is Longer if he is still willing. inefficient and demoralised, and has been dits, Baer provides a compelling account As with all government agencies, the for some time.” That’s probably true, but of how and why this state of affairs came CIA has a bureaucracy, a culture, and a mis- mostly, at least as far as the CIA is con- to pass. sion. The function of bureaucracy is to sup- cerned, because the end of the Cold War In the current push for intelligence port the mission by acquiring and chan- moved the focus of the policy makers in reform, it is critical to realize that shuffling neling the resources that are necessary the nineties away from foreign intelligence boxes on an organizational chart or adding and available. Culture, broadly defined, and on to domestic matters. The Peace Div- more top-level bureaucracy is not a magical represents who works in a particular idend came in part from the Intelligence cure for organizations that have lost focus. agency and why. The culture of an agency Community, and the change took its toll. Rather, high-ranking intelligence officials will determine how it goes about accom- In his 1947 work, Strategic Intelligence, Sher- need to refocus the energy of their agencies plishing its mission. The State Department man Kent points out that inefficiency and onto the appropriate targets. The function likes to talk because it is filled with diplo- demoralization are the inevitable result of a of the intelligence community is not to mats. The National Security Agency with lack of interest in intelligence by the policy conduct business in a manner so as not its mathematicians and engineers likes its makers. The recent history of the CIA rela- to offend US Senators; it is to gather the computers and listening posts. When the tionship with the policy makers validates information that will ensure the safety of bureaucracy and the culture are in sync Kent’s prediction. The attack on the World the American people. We are the ultimate and focused on the mission good results Trade Center and the election of George client for the intelligence community and occur, but the opposite is also true; when Bush, however, has laid the groundwork we deserve better. the bureaucracy and culture lose sight of  for a resurrection of the competence and the mission—and in fact work against energy of the Intelligence Community Ward Wesley Warren retired in 1989 it—disaster is sure to follow. as a whole and of the CIA in particular. after 30 years as an operations officer Regardless of how the new relationship Robert Baer’s See No Evil is a first- in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations hand account of what happens to an agency where he was stationed at numerous 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 61 posts in Asia and South Asia. After days of Peter the Great to the end of the retirement, he was Senior Vice Presi- Biographical Directory of Flag Rank 20th century. For those who hadn’t given it Soviet & Russian Naval Officers, 1917-1999 dent of Omega Associates Consulting much thought, it brings to one’s attention in Pittsburgh, PA before returning to by Frederic N. Smith [Newcomb Publish- the CIA from 1991 - 1996 under con- ers, Arlington, VA; 2000, 703-524-5310, 2nd the difficulties of a navy doomed by geog- tract as Curator of the Historical Intel- edition, published previously in 1996, 300 raphy to operate in enclosed seas — the ligence Collection. Mr. Warren is the pages, Index, isbn 0-9649531-4-5;pb]. Baltic and Black Seas — and hostile or author of numerous essays and book Retired Naval Intelligence officer distant seas, such as the Barents and North reviews on the subject of intelligence Pacific. –review by Dr. Sue Huck. and has lectured at universities and (and AFIO member) Dr. Frederic N. Smith government and private institutions presents the fruits of a life- throughout the United States. time avocation in a neat Tales Before Midnight by Ted Mason. Col- Biographical Directory of more lected writings and short stories of the than one thousand “flag “truth is stranger than fiction” variety. rank Russian and Soviet Bartleby Press, Silver Spring, MD. ISBN 0- naval officers.” To cover the 910155-61-5; $12.95 PB original. Also noted… years from 1917 to 1999 has Mason explores a been a considerable endeavor; Dr. Smith wide range of human THE ENEMY WITHIN: has not been on active duty with the U.S. emotions and events…a Terror in America—1776 Navy since 1963. But he has doggedly to Today by Interna- columnist tries to black- tional Spy Museum, latched on to any name with the rank of mail a crusading sena- Washington, DC. admiral attached to it. tor, a doctor convicted [available from 1-866- A sampling of the difficulties in- SPYMUSEUM]. 62 pgs, of euthanasia is asked paperback. volved can be found in the Introduction to commit the act again and Notes. As experienced readers will years later, and a forgotten French town A cross between an exhibition cata- surmise, during most of its history, the is liberated by a deserter and experiences log [of the same name held at the Museum Soviet government fiercely guarded any close calls in a satirical retrospective of in 2005] and a photographic history of a information which could conceivably be Cold War Europe.  broad range of groups and activities in the of military or intelligence value. Handing U.S. deemed by the writers to fall under the out factual information about top officers “Cutting” continued from page 52… rubric “terrorism.” This includes the mili- was not an official public relations func- tia groups, the KKK, the German Ameri- tion. All too often, as Dr. Smith notes, What were they thinking, as they can BUND, McCarthyism, the Weather flag-rank officers would appear at official went off singing in the morning to hunt Underground, SLA, McVeigh-Nichols, events, and we would have no clue as to down helpless victims of every age and up to al Qaeda. Excellent photographs, who they were! sex? On a scale of one to ten, the mental pull-out timeline, and domestic security Dr. Smith has noted with some activity seems to hover about one point five, legislation chart. Exhibit is now on tour amusement the attention lavished upon with occasional blips to two. The govern- in Oklahoma City. visible new features of a Soviet vessel, such ment said to do it, that nothing bad would as an unusual array of antennae, vs a sur- happen. All my friends are doing it. They prising indifference to the identity of the fine you if you don’t. There’s a lot of loot. THE SNOWSTORM MUR- Sometimes it’s fun. Beats farming. DERS by Ruth Ameser up-and-coming officers aboard. Bannigan, (AuthorHouse, Let us demonstrate how some biog- 2005 Paperback 455pgs. ISBN raphies are easier to winkle out and piece “We sang on the paths, we downed 1420806009 $13.25 pb) together than others. Take, for example, out unwagwa [banana beer]... The days The author, who entries for two of the nine Admirals seemed much the same. We swapped worked for CIA in both Washington and Smirnov. The career of Admiral of the gossip, we made bets on our victims, Germany, has written a splendid yarn Fleet Nikolay Ivanovich Smirnov occupies we spoke mockingly of the cut girls, involving Arab terrorist efforts to blow up two pages in this Directory. It is followed squabbled over looted grain. We made the Capitol, and the combined efforts of. by five lines offering all of the information fun of every cry for mercy. We went the heroine, DC Homicide, the FBI and the available on “Adm. Smirnov, P.A..” He was about our business without a care in the CIA, to stop them. A perfect novel to curl Commissar of the Navy in 1938, and was world — provided that we concentrated up with on the airplane or beach. It will executed in 1939. on killing during the day, naturally.” grip your interest as the tautly constructed Obviously, by means of the wealth of plot unfolds. A few coincidences are a bit detail involved, a working concept can be In 37 brief topical chapters, Hatzfeld of a stretch and the character development derived of the structure and organization interweaves the testimony of his dozen tends to be sketchy, but the book moves of the Soviet/Russian navy, over the pas- killers on subjects as diverse as women, along at such a headlong pace that these sage of time. looting, torture, the role of cadres, and the men’s own fate. While seemingly are minor quibbles. — review by Mary Lynne The Directory also offers a very useful disorganized, this book is relentlessly McElroy, AFIO. fourteen-page thumbnail outline and mind-boggling. chronology of the Russian Navy from the  page 62 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 arrangements. In fact, while the recent Arms Control, 1945-1960. restructuring, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, Burton Gerber served for 39 years, FORTHCOMING may solve some problems, it has also most of it overseas, as an operations officer in the Central Intelligence created new ones. The authors of this Agency. He frequently lectures on volume agree that transforming policies ethics as related to public policy and and practices will be the most effective intelligence. way to tackle future challenges facing the T r a n s fo r mi n g U . S . Table of Contents nation’s security. I n t e l l i g e n c e Preface This volume’s contributors, who have Introduction - Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber Edited by Jennifer served in intelligence agencies, the State PART I: NEW REQUIREMENTS E. Sims, Burton or Defense Departments, and the staffs 1: The Twenty-First Century Challenge for Gerber of congressional oversight committees, U.S. Intelligence - Ernest R. May Georgetown University Press, 2: Understanding Friends and Enemies: bring their experience as insiders to bear The Context for American Intelligence Washington, DC; http://press. in thoughtful and thought-provoking Reform - Jennifer E. Sims georgetown.edu/index.php ; $29.95 essays that address what such an overhaul 3: Understanding Ourselves - Jennifer E. paperback; ISBN: 1589010698; LC: Sims 2005008373; 7 x 10, 320 pages, of the system will require. In the first PART II: NEW CAPABILITIES September 2005 section, contributors discuss twenty-first- 4: Integrating Open Sources into Transna- century security challenges and how the tional Threat Assessments - Amy Sands 5: Clandestine Human Intelligence: Spies, intelligence community can successfully “In this new security environment chal- Counterspies, and Covert Action - John defend U.S. national interests. The second MacGaffin lenges are likely to arise out of confused section focuses on new technologies and 6: The Digital Dimension - James R. Gosler and chaotic local settings, and involve 7: Analysis and Estimates: Professional modified policies that can increase the nimble enemies that can lose themselves Practices in Intelligence Production effectiveness of intelligence gathering and - Douglas MacEachin in civil society. In struggling to cope with analysis. Finally, contributors consider 8: Denial and Deception - Donald C.F. these challenges, the U.S. intelligence Daniel management procedures that ensure the community can appear lumbering and PART III: MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES implementation of enhanced capabilities 9: Managing Domestic, Military, and muscle-bound. To help the community in practice. Foreign Policy Requirements - James raise its game, Jennifer Sims and Burton Monnier Simon, Jr. Gerber have brought together an expert Transforming U.S. Intelligence sup- 10: Intelligence and War: Afghanistan 2001- ports the mandate of the new Director 2002 - Henry A. Crumpton group with inside knowledge and some 11: Managing HUMINT: The Need for a New imaginative proposals.” of National Intelligence by offering both Approach - Burton Gerber —Lawrence Freedman, careful analysis of existing strengths and 12: Intelligence and Homeland Defense weaknesses in U.S. intelligence, and spe- - Henry A. Crumpton profesor of war studies, 13: Intelligence Analysis: Management King’s College London. cific recommendations on how to fix its and Transformation Issues - Mark M. problems without harming its strengths. Lowenthal These recommendations, based on inti- 14: Congressional Oversight of Intelligence “There is a consensus that intel- after September 11 - L. Britt Snider ligence reform is imperative, but little mate knowledge of the way intelligence Meeting the Challenge: Action Now - Jen- agreement on how to translate the works, include suggestions for the creative nifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber mixing of technologies with new missions Contributors imperative into action. This thoughtful Index volume brings the expertise and inge- to bring about the transformation of U.S. nuity of a pack of informed observers intelligence without incurring unneces- to bear, producing thorough and bal- sary harm or expense. The goal is the anced recommendations that advance creation of an intelligence community M Y F B I : B r i n g i n g d O w n well beyond the loose talk, glittering that can rapidly respond to developments t h e M afia , I n v e s t i g a t i n g generalities, and political heat that have in international politics, such as the emer- B i l l C l i n t o n , a n d w A g i n g dominated public discussion.” gence of nimble terrorist networks while w A r o n T e r r o r —Richard K. Betts, reconciling national security requirements Columbia University with the rights and liberties of American by Louis J. Freeh citizens. St. Martin’s, http://www.stmartins. The intelligence failures exposed by com/index.html; 352 pp, ISBN 9/11 and the missing WMDs in Iraq have Jennifer E. Sims is a visiting professor 0-312-32189-9, $29.95 HC, made one thing clear: change is needed with the security studies program October 2005. at Georgetown University. She has in the U.S. intelligence community. served on the Senate Select Commit- Freeh led the Transforming U.S. Intelligence argues tee on Intelligence and in the Depart- FBI from 1993 to that transforming intelligence requires ment of State as a senior intelligence 2001, through some officer. She has published a number as much a look to the future as to the past of the most tumultu- and a focus more on the art and practice of works on intelligence and arms control, including Icarus Restrained: ous times in its long history. This is the of intelligence than on its bureaucratic An Intellectual History of Nuclear story of a life in law enforcement, and his

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 63 struggle to strengthen and reform the FBI dealings with senior legislators who were while ensuring its freedom from political haunted by memories of our intelligence t H e l A s t of t h e C o l d w A r interference. failure at Pearl Harbor and yet riddled s P I e s : t H e l I F e of M icha e l S t r ai g h t — t H e O n l y Bill Clinton called Freeh a “law with fears that such an organization A m e r ica n i n B r i t ai n ’ s enforcement legend” when he nominated might morph into an American Gestapo. C amb r i d g e s P y r I n g him as FBI Director. The good feelings He focuses in particular on the efforts of did not last. Going toe-to-toe with his Congress to monitor, finance, and control Roland Perry, Da Capo Press, ISBN: boss during the scandal-plagued ‘90s, the agency’s activities from the creation of 0306814285, Hardcover, $27.50 (395p) Freeh fought hard to defend the Bureau the national security state in 1947 through the planning for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs from political interference and to protect MICHAEL WHITNEY STRAIGHT, invasion in 1961. America from the growing threat of ter- the scion of a rich American family, was rorism. When Clinton later called that Barrett highlights how Congress taken to Devon, England when his mother appointment the worst one he had made criticized the agency for failing to predict remarried an English- as president, Freeh considered it “a badge the first Soviet atomic test, the startling man. His parents began of honor.” appearance of Sputnik over American air a progressive school in This is Freeh’s personal story, from space, and the overthrow of Iraq’s pro- an ancient Tudor Manor, his Catholic upbringing in New Jersey to American government in 1958. He also Dartington Hall. The law school, the FBI training academy, his explores how Congress viewed the CIA’s gifted Michael moved career as a US District attorney and as a handling of Senator McCarthy’s charges of from the left-wing lib- federal judge, and finally his eight years communist infiltration, the crisis created eralism of Dartington as the nation’s top cop. This is a look at by the downing of Pilot Gary Powers in a to the London School of Economics and American law enforcement in the run-up U-2 spy plane, and President Eisenhower’s then Cambridge University. complaint that Congress meddled too to September 11. Freeh is clear-eyed, frank, At Cambridge in the early 1930s, much in CIA matters. Ironically, as Bar- and offers vision for the struggles ahead. he fell amongst the notorious Ring of rett shows, Congress itself often pushed spies operating for the KGB. Straight the agency to expand its covert operations Louis J. Freeh served as director of was emotionally blackmailed by Russian the Federal Bureau of Investigation against other nations. agents Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt from 1993 to 2001. He now is senior The CIA and Congress provides needed vice chairman of MBNA which was and recruited by them to the KGB. Straight acquired by Bank of America in July historical perspective for current debates at 20, and with mixed feelings was sent 2005. in Congress and beyond concerning the to the US to spy for the Russians. Yet he recent failures and ultimate fate. In our sought ways to please two masters: Stalin post-9/11 era, it shows that anxieties over (through directives from Burgess and the challenges to democracy posed by our Blunt), and Straight’s own burning ambi- t H e C I A a n d C o n g r e s s : intelligence communities have been with tion to become a senior political figure t H e U n t o l d S t o r y f r om us from the very beginning. - even US President. T r u ma n t o K e n n e d y “Barrett reveals a CIA that made its own Stalin wished to insinuate him rules, wrote its own budget, classified its own into the heart of American capitalism as David M. Barrett. Univ. Press of Kansas, secrets, and persuaded the Congress to like it. Cloth ISBN 0-7006-1400-1, $39.95 an agent on Wall Street. Straight pulled A rich and fabulous story that sheds new light strings to be placed inside the Government on just about every significant episode in the of family friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, From its inception first decades of the Cold War and confirms what with an aim to making his run in politics in 1947 and for decades many have long suspected—secrecy is the great and eventually becoming Moscow’s man in afterward, the Central enemy of democracy, and vice versa.”—Thomas the White House. In Washington DC from Intelligence Agency was Powers, author of Intelligence Wars: 1937, he provided intelligence reports and shrouded in secrecy, with American Secret History from Hitler to confidential government documents to little real oversight by Al-Qaeda his Russian Controls and KGB associates Congress—or so many for five years. Americans believe. David M. Barrett DAVID M. BARRETT is associate reveals that during the agency’s first professor of political science at Villa- Straight took over his mother’s mag- fifteen years, Congress often monitored nova University and author of Lyndon azine, The New Republic, in 1941 and used the CIA’s actions and plans, sometimes B. Johnson’s Vietnam Papers and it as a Communist propaganda sheet. He Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson also used his family wealth to fund several aggressively. and His Vietnam Advisers. Communist fronts. He made his run for Drawing on newly declassified docu- the Democratic Party immediately post- ments, research at some two dozen war. But a journalist who knew some of archives, and interviews with former offi- his murky past threatened to expose him. cials, Barrett provides a colorful account The Democrats dumped Straight. His main of relations between American spymasters ambition thwarted, Straight then turned and Capitol Hill. He chronicles the CIA’s his mind and resources to pushing another page 64 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 candidate for the Presidency---left-winger relationship between FBI’s remarkable sweep of the great Public Henry Wallace. If this succeeded, there the president and the Enemies of the American Depression— would be a potential communist puppet head of the CIA has John Dillinger; Pretty Boy Floyd; Baby Face in the White House. been so scrutinized or Nelson. America finally had its hero in the In keeping with a life- so relevant to our gov- War on Crime, and the face of all the con- long dilemma of conflict- ernment policy. Former quering G-Men belonged to Melvin Purvis. ing ambitions and masters, CIA director Admiral Yet these triumphs sowed the seeds of his Straight socialised and Stansfield Turner high- eventual ruin. With each new capture, each worked with U.S. Presi- lights pivotal moments new headline touting Purvis as the scourge dents over six decades. He between presidents and their CIA direc- of gangsters, one man’s implacable resent- his second wife was the tors—detailing the decisions that continue ment grew. J. Edgar Hoover. The Director stepsister of Jackie Kennedy, with whom to shape the intelligence community. This of the FBI was immensely jealous of the he developed a close relationship before, behind-the-scenes look at the CIA’s rela- agent who had been his friend and protégé, during and after John Kennedy’s Presi- tionship with the presidents, from World and vowed that Purvis would be brought dency. Straight was Richard Nixon’s choice War II to the present day, reveals how intel- down. A vendetta began that would not to be deputy chairman of the National ligence gathering works, and how personal end even with Purvis’s Endowment for the Arts. He consorted over and political issues often interfere with death. For more than several decades with a long litany of spies government business. three decades Hoover from the U.S., France, England and the • Why President Harry Truman trampled Purvis’s rep- Soviet Union in a demimonde of intrigue, distrusted the CIA yet ended up expand- utation, questioned crime, murder and deceit. In 1963, Burgess ing it. his courage and com- died after defecting to Russia. In the same • How President John F. Kennedy petence, and tried to year Straight made an unconvincing ‘con- entrusted his reputation to the CIA at the erase his name from fession’ to the FBI. Bay of Pigs in Cuba and got burned. all records of the FBI’s greatest triumphs. Last of the Cold War Spies covers the • That President Nixon strongly split life of an intriguing figure, who never mistrusted the “Ivy League” CIA yet tried, Alston Purvis is Melvin’s only surviv- reconciled his major dilemma. –review by unsuccessfully, to use it as a way out of ing son. With the benefit of a unique family Andrew Lownie Watergate. archive of documents, new testimony from colleagues and friends of Melvin Purvis • That President Gerald Ford was and witnesses to the events of 1934, he The members of the notorious Cam- confronted with three reports of egregious has produced a authentic new telling of bridge spy ring which betrayed Britain and illegal CIA misdeeds, and how he the gangster era, seen from the perspec- to the Soviet Union in the 1930s are responded by replacing CIA director Colby tive of the pursuers. By finally setting the well known: Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, with George H. W. Bush. record straight about his father, he sheds Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt Drawing on his own years as DCI, as light on what some call Hoover’s original and John Cairncross. But there was well as interviews with living presidents, sin - a personal vendetta that is an early another member, a mysterious American Turner provides a view of the inner working example of of Hoover’s bitter, destructive Michael Straight, whose role has escaped of the Agency. The book concludes with paranoia. historical scrutiny. In the year before a blueprint for reorganizing the intel- Straight died, in frank interviews with ligence community and strengthening Alston Purvis has appeared widely him, from government files and from the relationship between the CIA and the in the media, including the History confessions from former intelligence president. Channel and A&E, to talk about his officers, Roland Perry has painstaking father. He is head of Boston Univer- produced an intriguing and illuminat- sity’s design department. ing account of Straight’s crucial role in the most damaging spy ring of all time. Alex Tresinowski is a senior writer —Phillip Knightley t H e V e n d e t t a : F B I H e r o for People magazine specializing in M e l v i n P u r v i s ’ s w A r politics, crime and current events. The author of five books, including A g ai n s t C r im e , a n d J . an upcoming biography of boxer Billy E d g a r H oo v e r ’ s w A r B u r n B e fo r e R e a d i n g : Conn, he lives in New Jersey. A g ai n s t H im P r e s i d e n t s , C I A d I r e c t o r s , a n d S e c r e t Alston Purvis with Alex Tresinowski. Publi- I n t e l l i g e n c e cAffairs Books, ISBN: 1586483013, October 2005, Hardcover, $26.00 (320p). B l u e p r i n t fo r A c t io n : A Stansfield Turner. Hyperion Books, ISBN: F u t u r e w O r t h C r e a t i n g 0786867825, October 2005, Hardcover, By the end of 1934 Melvin Purvis $23.95 (256p) was, besides President Roosevelt, the most Thomas P.M. Barnett. Putnam, $26.95 famous man in America. Just thirtyone (288p) ISBN 0-399-15312-8 There has never been a time when the years old, he presided over the neophyte

2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 65 Military-strategy from home at age 17 portrait of Greene. consultant Barnett fol- to escape an abusive She describes Greene secretly taking lows his ballyhooed father and avoid an a minor role in a Truffaut film, dining with The Pentagon’s New Map unwanted marriage, Charlie Chaplin on the Côte d’Azur and with this unconvinc- Sarah Edmonds lived visiting his friend the double-agent Kim ing brief for Ameri- as a man for two years Philby in the USSR’s twilight. can interventionism. before she heeded Lin- Echoing the now con- coln’s call for more ventional wisdom that troops and enlisted in a larger, better-prepared occupation force the Second Michigan R I G H T I n g T H E s t O r y O F might have averted the current mess in Infantry. Performing her duties with dis- PO L I S H I n t e l l I g e n C E Iraq, Barnett generalizes the notion into a tinction, she won the respect and admira- formula for bringing the blessings of order tion of the men she served alongside, even Tess Stirling, Dria Nalecz, Tadeusz Dubicki, Intelligence Cooperation Between Poland and globalization to benighted nations after they discovered, many years later, her and Great Britain During World War II (Val- throughout the “Non-Integrating Gap.” A astounding secret. Resuming her female lentine Mitchell, 616 pp. $95) “System Administrator force” of American identity and marrying after the war, she and allied troops—a “pistol-packing Peace lived a relatively tranquil life until she British accounts Corps”—could, he contends, undertake decided to seek a military pension 20 years of the acquisition of an ambitious schedule of regime change, later. Enthusiastically supported by her the Germans’ Enigma stabilization and reconstruction in Islamic former comrades-in-arms, she became the encoding machine have countries and as far afield as North only woman to secure a soldier’s pension ignored the essential Korea and Venezuela, making military for her Civil War service. Although ques- role played by Polish intervention so routine that he terms it tions remain whether she also served—as intelligence along with the “processing” of dysfunctional states. she claimed—as a Union spy, Edmond’s its other feats in the Second World War. Barnett’s ideas are a rehash of Vietnam-era gender–bending Civil War experiences are Here is a work that rights the memory of pacification doctrine, updated with ano- well worth checking out. —Booklist Polish intel’s contribution to the Allied dyne computer lingo and New Economy cause. spin. Implausibly, he envisions Americans In 1939, Polish intelligence offered volunteering their blood and treasure for the British Enigma, plus the keys to decod- a “SysAdmin force” fighting for interna- ing Wehrmacht messages, 80 per cent of I n S e a r ch of a tional “connectivity” and envisions the which the Poles could read. The British, B e g i n n i n g : M y l I F e w i t h world rallying to the bitterly controversial focused on trying to read Japanese naval G r aham G r e e n e banner of globalization. Worse, he has no codes and so protect their empire in Asia, coherent conception of America’s strategic showed little interest in the offer – until interests; “the U.S. is racing... to trans- Yvonne Cloetta, as told to Marie-Françoise Allain, trans. from the French by Euan they found themselves at war with Hitler. form [the] Middle East before the global Cameron. Bloomsbury U.K. (Trafalgar Sq., In an introduction to Intelligence shift to hydrogen [fuel] threatens to turn dist.), $30 (224p) ISBN 0-7475-7108-2; paper Cooperation, written with Polish Prime the region into a historical backwater,” $16 ISBN 0-7475-7112-0 Minister Marek Belka, Britain’s Tony Blair runs his confused rationale for continued For more than gives recognition to the Poles’ achieve- American meddling in the Muslim world. thirty years, Yvonne ments. Better late than never. That Barnett’s pronouncements are widely Cloetta shared her life acclaimed as brilliant strategic insights (as A British historian and two Polish with Graham Greene. he himself never tires of noting) bodes ill ones have edited this work with contribu- After years of tor- for American foreign policy. —Publisher’s tions from a variety of researchers. The mented love affairs and Weekly, Reed Business Information result relates not only the story of the dangerous exploits, the acquisition of Enigma but how the Poles novelist found solace smuggled to England in the middle of the and understanding war a copy of the German V-2 rocket and t H e M y s t e r io u s P r i v a t e with this remark- its top-secret fuel. t H O M P s o n : t H e d O u b l e able Frenchwoman, which assuaged his Lest any readers be inclined to regard l I F e of s A r ah e M M A famously melancholic nature yet allowed the Poles as a somewhat parochial folk, E d mo n d s , C i v i l w A r him to create some of his greatest work. they will learn that Polish intelligence was s O l d i e r Greene knew that the time might come active from Japan to every part of Europe, when Cloetta’s privacy would be invaded, whether Nazi occupied or neutral. Among Laura Leedy Gansler. Free Press, $25 (320p) and his advice was to either refuse to other extraordinary feats, it acquired the ISBN 0-7432-4290-7 speak or to tell the truth. This Cloetta has full order of battle of the Wehrmacht and done with the help of family friends and Gansler chronicles the intriguing Luftwaffe before the Normandy land- biographer Marie-Françoise Allain. What life and times of a woman who served ings. emerges is an intimate and revelatory as a man during the Civil War. Fleeing In 1941 a Pole in Greece, Jerzy page 66 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005 Iwanow-Szajnowicz, destroyed a German the radical fringe-represented by al-Qaida’s OTHER RECENT OR submarine, sank a destroyer and sabo- brand of Islam known as Wahhabism, the FORTHCOMING TITLES taged an aircraft engine factory so that official religion of Saudi Arabia-is actually Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al planes equipped with its engines crashed. a part of it. The only difference is that they Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field In Afghanistan, Bronislaw Telatycki, use words and money instead of bombs to Commander by Eric L. and Ralph Pezzullo. according to the citation making him an accomplish their goals. (Crown Books, October 2005, $25.95) officer in the Order of the British Empire, Presents unique perspec - he significantly helped neutralize that tive on war in Afghanistan. country as a center of hostile activity. This is a book that should find a wide reader- B l i n d s P O t: t H e S e c r e t H i s t o r y of A m e r ica n ship, despite its price, far beyond Chicago. Open Borders, Open Wounds: What America —Derk Kinnane Roelofsma in AFIO WINs C o u n t e r t e r r o r i s m Needs to Know About Illegal Immigration by Rep. Tom Tancredo. (Encounter Books, Oct., Tim Naftali. Basic Books, ISBN: 0465092810, $23.95) May 1, 2005, $26.00 HC Explores the world of the ranch- National secu- ers and farmers who must deal with I n fi l t r a t io n : H o w M u s l im rity historian Timo- all the illegal immigration. s P I e s a n d S u b v e r s i v e s thy Naftali relates ha v e P e n e t r a t e d the full back story of w A s hi n g t o n America’s attempts A Devil’s Triangle: Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Rogue States by Peter to fight terrorism. Brooks. (Rowman Littlefield, Oct., $26). Paul Sperry. Nelson Current, 22 March On September 11, 2005, ISBN: 1595550038, 352 pgs. 2001, a long history Argues that the U.S. is returning of failures, missteps, to its pre-9/11 complacency. As Americans and blind spots in continue to worship our intelligence services came to a head, The World Was Going Our Way—The KGB and at the altar of cultural with tragic results. At the end of World the Battle for the Third World, Newly Revealed diversity and endorse War II, the OSS’s “X-2” department had Secrets from the Mirokhin Archive by Christo- religious tolerance for established a seamless system for counter- pher Andrew. (Basic Books, Oct., $29.95) tolerance sake, Mus- ing the threats of die-hard Nazi terrorists. The second collection from lims masquerading But those capabilities were soon forgotten, the KGB archives offers insights on as “moderates” have and it wasn’t until 1968, when Palestinian world-wide operations. insinuated themselves into the very fabric groups began a series of highly publicized of American society, taking advantage airplane hijackings, that the U.S. began to of our blind trust and gaining footholds take counterterrorism seriously. Naftali The Jedburghs: France, 1944, and the Secret in our education system, government, narrates the game of “catch-up” that vari- Untold History of the First Special Forces by Lt. workplace, law enforcement, and mili- ous administrations and the CIA played Col. Will Irwin (Ret.). (Public Affairs Books, Oct., $26.95) tary. In this startling book, investigative —with varying degrees of success—from journalist Paul Sperry uses interviews the Munich Games hostage-taking to the This former U.S. special and classified documents to explain how, raft of terrorist incidents in the mid-1980s forces officer reveals the origins for the past thirty years, these Islamist through the first bombing of the World of the first multinational unit to go extremists have been covertly working to Trade Center in 1993, and up to 9/11. In behind enemy lines in WWII. destroy our constitutional government detail, Naftali shows why holes in U.S. and the ethics on which our nation was homeland security discovered by Vice built. Their goal, according to Sperry, is President George H. W. Bush in 1986 were How to Spot a Liar by Greg Hartley and Mary- annn Karinch. (Career Press, Sept., $14.99) to replace the U.S. Constitution with the still a problem when his son became Presi- Quran and turn America into an Islamic dent, and why George W. Bush did little Former military interro - state. And, as Sperry details point-by- to fix them until it was too late. Naftali gator Hartley suggests ways to point, they have been unwittingly aided by concludes that open, liberal democracies get at the truth in all settings. the media, government, and citizens, who like the U.S. are incapable of effectively don’t fully understand the dangers of the stopping terrorism. For anyone concerned Muslim faith. about the future of America’s security, this Dare to Repair Your Car: A Do-It-Herself Guide to Maintenance, Safety, Minor Fix-Its, and Talk- Perry explodes the facade of modera- masterful history will be necessary—and ing Shop by Julie Sussman and Stephanie tion and patriotism that Muslim scholars, eye-opening—reading. Glakas-Tenet. (Collins Books, Sept., $14.95) imams, clerics, businessmen, and other The authors of Dare to Repair offer help for leaders in the burgeoning Muslim commu- even the most car repair– challenged woman. nity in America have conveyed in the wake Why do we mention it? The co-author is the wife of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In reality, the of former DCI George Tenet.  Muslim establishment that publicly decries 2005 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • page 67 BALLOT FOR ELECTION OF BOARD MEMBERS FOR 2006 Terms run January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2009. For those who have not already cast votes by e-mail, please send vote no later than 25 November 2005. VOTE FOR NO MORE THAN SEVEN CANDIDATES. A photocopy of this ballot is acceptable. Ballot is available online at www.afio.com/ballot2006.htm for Speed Voting.  I vote for all seven nominated candidates below or  I vote for selected candidates as indicated by check marks. Clearly PRINT your name at right so we can verify your membership status and that it is current:______.

 Sarah BOTSAI, Ph.D. NSA, Retired. Charter Member, Senior Cryptologic Executive Service. Education: PhD, American University, International Relations; National War College. Assignments outside NSA: Deputy Director, White House Situation Room; Intelligence Community Staff; Cryptologic Advisor, USCINCPAC; Faculty, National War College. Intelligence Community Activities: Editorial Board, Studies in Intelligence; Executive Committee, National Cryptologic Museum Foundation.

 Keith COGGINS. President & Chief Executive Officer, as well as Chairman of the Board, of Varec, Inc., a global market leader in measurement, control and automation solutions for oil & gas, defense and aviation markets. He has been active in military, government, commercial and international business for over 30 years. Coggins holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and has used his scientific expertise to develop many patented products, including an automated and secure fuels manage- ment system used at all U.S. Department of Defense facilities worldwide, major oil companies and many commercial airports. He is very active in the current activities in Iraq, having provided systems and support to the military, oil ministry and Baghdad airport. He has been a strong supporter of AFIO.

 Christopher N. DARLINGTON. More than 32 years with CIA where he worked mainly within the Directorate of Operations, and had six overseas assignments primarily in developing countries. He also served tours within the Directorate of Intelligence and on the IG Inspections staff, and prior to retirement was the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Africa in the National Intelligence Council (NIC). Upon CIA retirement in 2000, he rejoined the NIC as a contractor where he manages the NIC Associates Program, designed to enhance cooperation between academia and the Intelligence Community—a mission that meshes well with AFIO’s. He is the recipient of the Career Intelligence Medal. In addition to AFIO, he is a member of CIRA [Central Intelligence Retirees Association] and a member of the board of Governors of DACOR [Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired].

 Amado GAYOL. Gayol was Officer in the airborne battalion of the 2506 brigade involved in the Bay of Pigs, 1961, where he was captured and sentenced to thirty years in prison. After two years in prison the US paid his ransom. He was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, trained as a U.S. Army Special Forces Captain, Airborne Ranger qualified, wounded in combat in the Dominican Republic, 3 year veteran of the Vietnam war, served 25 years as a Senior Operations Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency where he was a specialist on Non-Official Cover [NOC]. He is the recipient of the CIA Intelligence Star for Valor and the U.S. Army Purple Heart. He retired from CIA in 1995 and is President of Gayol and Associates, Florida-based International Security Consultants providing governmental and CEO intelligence & security services [protection from kidnappings, extortion, product contamination]. He is also co-President/Owner of APS ID, a leading biometric and security systems integration company located in Miami, Florida.

 Walter JAJKO, Brig. Gen, USAF(Ret). A DoD Senior Executive- 6 with many years of service in the Intelligence Community, he was assigned as the DARPA Fellow/Professor of Defense Studies at Institute of World Politics, a graduate school in Washington, DC. Served for many years in Office of Secretary of Defense for the Under Secretaries of Policy, Intelligence, and Acquisition. He was the Assistant to SecDef (Intelligence Oversight) responsible to the Secretary and the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board; Acting Deputy Under SecDef (Policy Support); and Director, Special Advisory Staff with responsibility for policy, operations, and support in reconnaissance, covert ac- tion, clandestine collection, special operations, covert, psychological operations, and perceptions management. DoD representative for sensitive NSC activities. If elected, Jajko seeks “portfolio”as AFIO’s “foreign minister” with responsibility for establishing relationships with similar organizations in countries allied to U.S.

 Gary W. O’SHAUGHNESSY, Maj. Gen., USAF(Ret). 33 years in the USAF, retired in 1993. During Air Force career, com- manded units and managed intelligence activities in Europe and Pacific. Spent most of his career serving in the intelligence field with assignments ranging from tours with NSA to Director of Intelligence (J-2) at the U.S. European Command’s headquarters in Germany (EUCOM). From 1989-1993, was involved in managing and restructuring SIGINT, HUMINT, MASINT, and Scientific/Technical Intelligence resources, focusing these intelligence assets on the requirements of theater warfighters. Orchestrated the consolidation of 16,000 Air Force intelligence personnel under a single organization, and employed many of these resources in support of U.S. operation in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm while Commander of Air Force Intelligence Command (now AIA) and the Joint Electronic Warfare Center (JEWC). Currently Vice President, Government/Defense Operations for Oracle Corporation where he interacts with the Military, Intelligence and Homeland Security communities to develop information technology solutions. He joined ORACLE in 1993.

 E. Alan PLATT. Retired in 2001 from the Senior Intelligence Service of the Central Intelligence Agency —a career of almost 35 years. At CIA he was in the Directorate of Operations where he served six field assignments, four as Chief of Station. At headquarters he was Special assistant to the DDCI, Deputy Chief of Special Activities Division (Covert Action), Acting Chief of the Counterintelligence Center and served a tour at NSA as Assistant Deputy Director for Operations, where he managed a global, multi-billion dollar enterprise of several thousand civilian and military personnel. Platt has been recognized with numerous awards for outstanding contributions to U.S. Intelligence. He his expertise is in areas of global operations management, leadership development, national security and intelligence policy, and counterintelligence, clandestine and information operations.

 [write-in candidate]  [write-in candidate]

 [write-in candidate]  [write-in candidate] Send vote to AFIO - Votes, 6723 Whittier Ave Ste 303A, McLean, VA 22101. If you have not done so and you prefer to avoid envelopes and stamps, you can send your vote by e-mail. Send to [email protected] supplying the names of your selections, or just write “ALL SEVEN” if applicable, and remember to indicate either your full name or your NEW membership number. page 68 • association of former intelligence officers’ periscope newsletter • 2005