THE NATION

INTELLIGENCE Rattling Skeletons in the CIA Closet It's been tough going for the Cen- to him by courier plane. The cause of under whose stewardship the most re- tral Intelligence Agency of late. The the furor was a story in the cent abuses ostensibly occurred, is now agency was tarnished by Watergate and Times charging that for about 20 years ambassador to Iran. Before he left Teh- embarrassed by revelations that it had the CIA had illegally spied on many ran last week for a vacation trip through spent $8 million to undermine Chilean American citizens within the U.S. Europe to the U.S., he "categorically de- President Salvador Allende's Marxist One immediate consequence was the nied" in a cable to the State Depart- government. Last week threatened to departure of a little-known but impor- ment that the illicit operations had bring even worse opprobrium. On Cap- tant official, James Angleton, who had taken place. Defense Secretary James itol Hill, the heads of four different com- served as CIA chief of counter-intel- Schlesinger, who was Helms' immediate mittees and subcommittees announced ligence. Angleton, it was believed, su- successor, remained silent. parallel investigations of the CIA to be- pervised the domestic espionage oper- Other members of the intelligence gin when Congress reconvenes. From ations. But he denied having anything community, however, maintained that his vacation retreat in Vail, Colo., Ger- to do with domestic surveillance and the report was exaggerated. One intel- ald Ford ordered up a report by CIA Di- insisted that his resignation was solely ligence officer said that the report "sug- rector William E. Colby that was flown because of an indiscretion in the course gests, most unfairly, that these violations STEVE 0 RTH UP of an interview with the Times were systematic and massive rather than that could have jeopardized a U.S. aberrations." Some experts theorized agent in Moscow. that the Hersh figure represents not sur- The main outline of the do- veillance in the sinister sense but the mestic spying was drawn by Times number of Americans whose names Reporter Seymour M. Hersh (see have been fed into CIA computers un- THE PREss). He wrote that the der a name-check system. Being includ- agency had conducted in the U.S. ed was not necessarily invidious. Ac- clandestine surveillance opera- cording to Victor Marchetti, a disillu- tions—including wiretaps, break- sioned former agency official and co- ins (known as "bag jobs") and sur- author of The CIA and the Cult of reptitious interception of mail Intelligence. "Into that system go the —and eventually amassed intel- names of anyone who visited an 'ene- ligence files on some 10,000 my' or politically sensitive country Americans. Hersh disclosed no whom the agency might have wanted names, though he mentioned that to debrief. There are also lists from trav- at least one Congressman had el companies and airlines and others been involved. shared with the agency by Army intel- Among the targets of CIA sur- ligence or the FBI." Using Actress Jane veillance, TIME has learned, were Fonda as a hypothetical but plausible Supreme Court Justice William 0. example—she opposed the U.S. involve- Douglas, former Democratic Rep- ment in Viet Nam and visited Hanoi resentative Cornelius E. Galla- —Marchetti speculates that the CIA AMBASSADOR RICHARD HELMS gher of , Democratic computer would probably store the Representative Claude Pepper of names of all her known business, pro- and the late Democratic fessional and personal associates. Senator Edward V. Long of Mis- Gray Area. The agency's defenders souri. A high CIA official, respond- emphasize the distinction between ing to a TIME inquiry, denied that 10,000 names in a computer memory the agency had kept any kind of bank and 10,000 dossiers. They also in- watch on these public men. But sisted that whatever domestic spying other sources insisted that the sur- took place was relatively isolated and re- veillance had been conducted. sulted from links—real or imagined Such activity would clearly vi- —between Americans and foreign sub- olate the National Security Act of versive organizations. The defenders 1947, which states that the CIA suggested that there is a "gray area" in "shall have no police, subpoena, which foreign and domestic operations law-enforcement powers, or inter- cannot be neatly separated. According nal-security functions." The law to insiders, these borderline transgres- limits the agency's espionage sions tended to follow four patterns: functions to foreign operations. 1) A foreign agent takes up resi- When the CIA follows a target to dence in the U.S., perhaps under em- the U.S. or uncovers a connection bassy cover, and contacts U.S. citizens. between a foreign operative and As a consequence, the agency decides a domestic group, the case is sup- to keep tab on those citizens. posed to be turned over to the Fed- 2) An American political dissenter eral Bureau of Investigation. goes abroad and travels to Communist For the moment at least, the or other unfriendly countries. The agen- CIA DIRECTOR WILLIAM COLBY agency was hunkering down. For- cy decides to run computer checks on Hunkering down. mer Director Richard Helms, his associates in the U.S. 44 TIME, JANUARY 6, 1975 "Happy New Year, yourself—I'm CIA!"

3) A CIA agent who has been posted ver reportedly exclaimed at one point. year prison sentence for income-tax eva- abroad returns to and de- As a result, the CIA increasingly by- sion that had no connection with na- cides to follow up on a domestic angle passed the FBI, though it always care- tional security), the CIA apparently of his work overseas. fully established a foreign connection to sought information about his contacts 4) An employee like Marchetti justify each domestic operation and give with officials in the Dominican Repub- leaves the CIA and begins exposing its it a quasi-legitimate appearance. Anoth- lic. In the case of Senator Long, it was activities, prompting the agency to in- er justification was the law's rather his negotiations with foreign companies, vestigate the ex-employee and his as- vague provision making the CIA direc- and in the case of Representative Pep- sociates in the U.S. tor "responsible for protecting intelli- per, his relations with Cuban refugees Handing these cases over to the FBI gence sources and methods from unau- living in his district that apparently in- became increasingly difficult as relations thorized disclosure." terested the CIA. between the two agencies deteriorated None of these reasons seemed to ex- When told of the CIA's attention to in the 1950s and '60s. On "hundreds of plain the CIA's interest in Justice Doug- him, Pepper said, "I do declare, I didn't occasions," one source recalled, FBI Di- las and the three members of Congress. know anything about it. I'm utterly at a rector J. Edgar Hoover arbitrarily Donglas came under scrutiny in the mid- loss." Douglas said last week that he was turned down CIA requests for surveil- '60s after he visited the Dominican Re- unaware of any CIA concern with him. lances, wiretaps and bugs. "Screw the public. As for Representative Gallagher Whatever these excesses of the '50s CIA—let them do their own work!" Hoo- (who recently served 17 months of a two- and '60s, there is a strong suspicion that

years at Harvard Law School, then fol- The Spy Who Came into the Heat lowed his father into the oss. Immedi- ately after the war, he worked for a U.S. Until recent weeks, James Angleton ton became a lieutenant colonel in the intelligence operation in Italy that was a paradigm of his arcane trade. Cul- oss. The son went to Yale (class of '41). helped pro-American politicians win tivated in taste, shrewd in intellect, and Fellow Student William Bundy, an ex- election over leftist opponents. He joined above all discreet in his work for the CIA man and now editor of Foreign Af- the CIA when it was formed in 1947 and CIA, Angleton, 57, was in thetwilight of fairs, recalls Angleton as "a person of served for a while overseas. a distinguished career.,,_ great depth in whom one sensed a con- Kim Philby,the British spy who de- Then, suddenly, he became a casu- stant searching." Athong &tar tlilitgs, teitBa MiTscow, m'enti'oned Angleton alty of the constant tension that a co- Angleton worked on the campus mag- in his book My Silent War. Philby found vert agency must live with in an open azine, the Lit. Angleton hard-driving and liked his society. As was After Yale, Angleton spent two American colleague. They frequently about to blow his cover, Angleton blew dined together, and Philby described his cool. In a telephone conversation him as "one of the thinnest men I have with Seymour Hersh, he let slip that the ever met and one of the biggest eaters." CIA had a "source" in Moscow who was In 1954 Angleton assumed respon- "still active and still productive." sibility for counter-espionage—combat- Last week, his career ended, Angle- ting the activities of adversary spooks ton's gaunt, 6-ft. figure was more stooped round the world. Victor Marchetti, the than usual. His speech slurred by ex- ex-CIA official who turned agency crit- haustion, he insisted that his actions had ic, said that colleagues regarded Angle- been intended solely to protect the U.S. ton as "a gentleman, a connoisseur of from its archenemy, the Soviet Union. fine wines, an intellectual who knew or- iSaid he: "I have seen no change in the chids, and a fanatic who was always able ) Soviets at any time, where the Soviets to keep his fanaticism in rein." have ever deviated from their own de- His indiscretion in dealing with sire to take over." Hersh astonished Angleton's friends. Meanwhile, bits of information Mourned one: "It was wildly out of char- about his background surfaced. His late acter. I can only think that Jim cracked father, James Hugh Angleton, was a under the strain of knowing that the businessman with foreign connections. Times story was coming and there was ' During World War II, the elder Angle- nothing he could do about it."

TIME, JANUARY 6, 1975 45 THE NATION the CIA'S domestic spying increased as WHITE HOUSE the Nixon Administration became pre- occupied with combatting left-wing pro- testers. In 1970 Nixon briefly endorsed At Play in the "Dallas Alps" the program drawn up by his aide, Tom Charles Huston, for break-ins, electron- Wearing a jaunty red-white-and- vacation home since 1969, and four ic eavesdropping and other forms of blue stocking cap, the big man schussed years ago bought a throe-bedroom con- snooping to keep tab on Viet Nam War down the mountain trail and snow- dominium above the village. Every win- opponents and other radicals. The CIA's plowed expertly to a stop. His cheeks ter, when Washington turns gray and Angleton was a member of the ad hoc were ruddy, his eyelashes and thick eye- damp, Ford looks forward impatiently committee that discussed the plan. brows frosted white by the —12' cold, - to getting back to the powdery snow and When Hoover refused to cooperate, it and his grin could not have been broad- thin, crisp air. was supposed that the scheme had been er. The skiing, exclaimed Gerald Ford, Returning as President this year, abandoned altogether. But presidential was super! however, Ford had to move out of his aides—with or without Nixon's consent Day after day last week, the Pres- own place for security reasons. He took —are thought to have persuaded the CIA, ident was out on the slopes high above a private seven-room Alpine chalet on or at least some members of the agen- the winter resort of Vail, Colo. For the a cul-de-sac. Going to a strange house, cy, to go ahead with it. most strenuously physical man to occu- deprived of her own things, Betty Ford That cooperation with the White py the White House since Teddy Roo- remarked a bit wistfully that it was the House may well explain why the CIA sevelt, the exercise was pure tonic. The first time in five years that she had had- willingly gave CIA Alumnus E. Howard setting, however, was slightly Hunt bogus identification papers, a wig incongruous. Vail is an ele- COLORADO MOUNTAINS TOWERING OVER VAIL and other equipment for the White gant winter resort, the place House "plumbers." According to Sey- where John Lindsay, Jackie mour Glanzer, a member of the Justice Onassis, , Department's original Watergate team, Robert Redford and numer- the CIA blocked the prosecutors' efforts ous Kennedys come to play. "to get at the truth" before the first Wa- Carved out of a wilderness tergate trial in 1973. He added: "The twelve years ago, Vail is a CIA officials were well aware of the sit- high-priced retreat where the uation. They knew the full story. But apres-ski attractions include the CIA was of no assistance. They gave continental restaurants, 28 us nothing. They frustrated and thwart- heated pools and smart bou- ed our efforts to get at the truth." tiques for snow bunnies. Vail Calls for Review. Many observers is sometimes called the "Dal- in Washington who are far from naive las Alps,"`a reference to the about the CIA nevertheless consider its Texas oilmen who have tak- past chiefs and most of its officials high- en a liking to the place and ly educated, sensitive and dedicated helped push land values to public servants who would scarcely let more than $200,000 an acre. themselves get involved in the kind of The resort is a world away massive scheme described. But that is from Grand Rapids and the not to say that abuses did not occur. A square, salt-of-the-earth style few days before the Hersh story ap- that otherwise characterizes peared, Colby had an off-the-record the President. session with the Council on Foreign Re- Yet the Fords seem com- g lations in New York. Some of those pre- pletely at ease among the sent were apparently aware of Hersh's caviar-and-crape set. They a digging and questioned Colby about the have been making Vail their domestic activities of,thexiA. One,parr_ ticipant recalli: "The implication was FORDS KISSING ON CHRISTMAS MORNING WHILE UNWRAPPING FAMILY PRESENTS that Colby [when he assumed the di- rectorship in 1973] discovered more than he thought had been going on and that he put a stop to it." The charges against the CIA do not involve totally new violations of civil lib- erties by the Government. To an extent, the new controversy is a jurisdictional question. But the basic issue is whether public officials are obeying the law. Similar acts have been committed by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Ser- vice and Army intelligence. There is one important difference, however. Unlike the CIA, the other agencies are subject to review by the courts or other restraints. Precisely because the CIA was not made subject to vigorous, systematic review, its founders in Congress prohibited it from operations within the U.S. borders. However the present charges against the CIA are sorted out, almost inevitably there will be—and should be—new calls for closer supervision of the agency. 46