JAMES ANGLETON: the Spy Forced in from the Cold the BARD OF

— 9. A 0 Lab ~LLSi 11 11 lLJ"LS!—iL9 THE BARD OF WHITTIER: You May Be Hearing More of Him science, possessed of a convic- The one aspect of the Water- to the poet's withering view of Consideration tion that the world always en- gate debacle that has been over- the human condition, to his sures that we come to the same looked until recently is the liter- understanding of the essential Don't ary distinction that lies buried loneliness of a world in which Want end, it shows the poet at the height of his powers: in the transcribed Watergate each man is truly an Anybody tapes. The pathos, the insight Shown In the End into human character. the sheer Let's Face It Any In the end poetry of the historic remarks Nobody Consideration We are going has been preserved in The Poe- Is Whatever. To be bled try of Richard Milhous Nixon A friend Contrast, if you will, with the To death. (Cliff House Books, SI), a slim Of ours, knowledge of a world gone mad, And in the end, volume that deserves notice: Let's what the poet is able to capture It is all going Consider the mnemonic re- Face in the few words of "Who Are To come out anyway, sonances, unusually skillful for It. They After?" Then you get the worst a fledgling poet, that the author Who Are They After? Of both worlds. strikes in one of the book's first Don't worry About Who poems: The editor, lack S. Margolis, That sort the Hell Can't Recall points out that the poems are Of thing. are they after? taken entirely from the Water- You can say 1 don't remember It is disturbing to see in They gate transcripts with no addi- You can say 1 can't recall. "Consideration" the depths to are tions or deletions of words or I can't give any answer which the poet must have gone after punctuation, making it an even To that to discover his true feeling in us. more remarkable discovery to That I can recall. dealing with the adversaries that The final poem in the selec- find a first poet with such con- The stark simplicity of an- plague all of us from time to tion in many respects may be fidence in the great oral tradi- other poem is perfectly suited time: the best. Harrowing in its pre- tion of English literature. —JAMES SEY MOAE JAMES ANGLETON: The Spy Forced in from the Cold One summer evening several der the law, he has told friends, only the FBI has the authority and years ago, five men stood cast- the resources for such work. "He could have cared less about the ing for trout in a secluded Mid- kids protesting the Vietnam war." one CIA watcher said. western river. Four were Amer- However the CIA, in accordance with its statutory responsibili- icans; all practiced anglers. The ties, did keep an eye abroad on dissident groups, such as the Black fifth wa.s a Russian, obviously Panthtrs, who were tracked from Algiers to Moscow to North an amateur. His line kept snag- Korea, where they took demolitions training before filtering back ging on boughs, yet he enjoyed into the US and going underground. Such Americans were reported himself hugely, standing rubber- to the FBI, Angleton has insisted. booted in the swirling water and As to the charge of compiling 10,000 files, CIA colleagues have nipping vodka from a flask. pointed out that the agency has automatic access to all FBI files— The host was James Angleton, more than 100 million—and would have voluminous files on all who recently resigned after 31 Americans who have ever had contacts abroad with enemy or years as chief of counter-espi- friendly intelligence services. onage for the Central Intelli- The identification of Angleton's unit in the original New York gence Agency, The Russian was Times story of December 22 had the earmarks of authoritative a high official of the KGB (So- guidance from highly placed sources within the CIA. Since then, viet secret service), who had however, the Times appears to have shifted the focus of its charges defected to the US. The others to another CIA unit—the Domestic Operations Division—with were CIA. which Angleton and the counter-espionage staff have no connection. In such tranquil spots Angle- There are grounds for believing that Angleton's dismissal caps ton, a keen student of human 18 months of growing tension between him and new CIA director psychology, often has reaped his richest rewards. Defectors are fear- William E. Colby. Colby's CIA career has been spent primarily in ful of pursuit and assassination. torn by conflicting loyalties. Angle- covert labor activities and in the Far East_ He has told his staff ton, a soft-spoken yet firm man, spends months helping them un- that he must devote 95 percent of his lime to briefing the White wind, winning their confidence—and eventually extracting valuable House, Congress, and the news media. He is said to have little time information. It was through defectors that he uncovered such top- for or interest in the complexities of counter-espionage. grade British KGB spies as Kim Philby and George Blake. Congress, in creating the CIA in 1947- specifically barred it from "Jim's forte is patience," said a veteran colleague. "I've seen him "police, subpoena, law-enforcement powers or internal-security in a river at dusk, the rain coming down, casting slowly hour after functions." These were reserved for the FBI. But at the same time, hour, trying different flies until the trout strikes. He outwits and with characteristic imprecision, Congress ordered the CIA to "pro- outwaits them—as he does with spies." tect" intelligence sources and methods and to perform at the Na- A few weeks ago Angleton and his three top deputies—represent- tional Security Council's request additional services of "common ing among them 120 years of combined counter-espionage experi- concern" and "such other functions and duties" as the NSC might ence—were forced out following New Ynrk Times charges that the require. The gray areas here are obvious. CIA had staged "massive" and "illegal" intelligence operations Since spies and other subversives are travelling increasingly in against American anti-war dissidents during the early Nixon years. and out of the US. the system works only when CIA-FBI liaison is More than 10.000 files on Americans were compiled, the paper good. For 20 years Angleton worked closely with his friend Sam claimed. Angleton's counter-espionage branch was singled out as Papich, the FBI liaison officer. But in 1969 the late 1. Edgar the culprit. Hoover, incensed that President Lyndon B. Johnson had failed to Angleton has steadfastly denied that his relatively small staff had defend him from charges by Senator Edward V. Long of Missouri any reason—let alone the manpower—for the time-consuming, on- that the FBI was tapping his phone, precmptorily ended virtually erous task of running surveillance on Americans inside the US. Un- all FBI liaison—nut only with the CIA but with all other US in- 18 to 5, Sunday 10 to 9. For those Art exhibitions are standard comes clear that the Chinese who want more information equipment in the arsenals of artisan, since the beginning, has than the free leaflet and labels diplomatic weaponry, along had a uniaae gift of devising provide, the exhibition's two- with ballerinas and Fti!bright classic and elegant forms as well part catalog is a good invest- scholars. The most recent cul- as abstract decorative embellish- ment at 54. For a broader sur- tural salvo lobbed into the Na- ment. His patience and skill vey still, there is a fine and tional Gallery is the current and often are astonishing. heavily illustrated hook suitable fabulous Chinese exhibition, 3R5 In terms of sheer effectiveness for both students and laymen archeological treasures un- the Chinese exhibition is a more called The Arts of China by Mi- earthed in the People's Republic successful bit of cultural oneup- chael Sullivan (University of of China in the last 25 years. manship than last year's "Im- California, 55.95). available at The show has been one of the pressionist and Post-Impression- Discount Books. Poster collec- most popular cultural events of ist Paintings from the USSR," tors should have a look at four recent years in Paris, London, also shown at the National Gal- posters prepared for exhibition. .,td other cities where it has lery. As exciting as that event Though overpriced ($1.75 to been shown, and Washington is was, both in terms of art and A Shang Dynasty (twelfth $3.25) they probably will be- no exception. Lines have been (theme, it told us little about century BC) cooking vessel at come collector's items. long, but not unreasonably so. the Soviets except that they, too, the National Gallery. —Jo ANN LEWIS The National Gallery has in- admire the art of France. The stalled a special phone (737- China—pottery, bronzes, jades, Chinese show, however, conveys 4221) to tell you when lints are ceramics, textiles, and even the awesome sweep of Chinese history and culture from paleo- shortest. some fresco painting—been ex• lithic times through the four- There have, of course, been hibited all together and cover- teenth century in the forms of 1 other Chinese exhibitions in ing such a vast time span-8,000 ,AT noe years. masterfully shaped neolithic America, not to mention the oxeArr stones implements, bronzes con- first-rate collections in US mu- It is possible here to trace the temporary with the Trojan War, seums, most notably the Freer.

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