Deadly Deceits

by Ralph W. McGehee

  14. CONCLUSION

  THE CIA is not now nor has it ever been a central intelligence agency. It is the covert action arm of the President’s foreign policy advisers. In that capacity it overthrows or supports foreign governments while reporting “intelligence” justifying those activities. It shapes its intelligence, even in such critical areas as Soviet nuclear weapon capability, to support presidential policy. Disinformation is a large part of its covert action responsibility, and the American people are the primary target audience of its lies.

  As noted in the Church Committee’s final report, the Agency’s task is to develop an international anti-communist ideology. The CIA then links every egalitarian political movement to the scourge of international communism. This then prepares the American people and many in the world community for the second stage, the destruction of those movements. For egalitarianism is the enemy and it must not be allowed to exist.

  The Vietnam War was the Agency’s greatest and longest disinformation operation. From 1954 until we were ejected in 1975, the Agency lied in its intelligence while propagandizing the American people. It planted a weapons shipment, forged documents, deceived everyone about the Tonkin Gulf incident, and lied continually about the composition and motivation of the South Vietnamese communists. Even now Agency historians and ex-employees try to perpetuate the propaganda themes through which it tried first to win and later to maintain American support for the war. As recently as April 22, 1981, former CIA director William Colby wrote an article for The Washington Post, portraying the Vietnam War—even in light of the Pentagon Papers disclosures—as the altruistic U.S. coming to the assistance of the South Vietnamese people. He had the audacity to recommend the period from 1968 to 1972—the era of CIA assassination teams—as a model for use in El Salvador.

  Not much has changed since I left the Agency. It follows all the same patterns and uses the same techniques. We have seen this in relation to El Salvador, where it fabricated evidence for a White Paper1 the same way it did in Vietnam in 1961 and 1965.2 We have seen it in Iran, where it cut itself off from all contact with potential revolutionary groups to support the Shah.3 We have seen it in the recruitment ads seeking ex-military personnel to man its paramilitary programs. We have seen it in relation to Nicaragua, where it arms Miskito Indians in an attempt to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.4 In this case it again exploits a naive minority people who will be discarded as soon as their usefulness ends, as happened with the Hmong in Laos. We have seen it in its attempts to rewrite and censor the truth. I personally have experienced this kind of Agency effort recently when it censored an article I wrote about its successful operation to overthrow the government of Achmed Sukarno of Indonesia in 1965.5 Its operations under President Reagan have become so outrageous that even the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee protested its plans to overthrow Qaddafi of Libya.6

  As long as the CIA continues to run these kinds of operations, it will not and cannot gather and collate intelligence as its charter says it must do. This leaves our government without that essential service. The most powerful and potentially most dangerous nation in the world is forced to rely on CIA disinformation rather than genuine intelligence because currently there is no alternative. This situation in today’s world of poised doomsday weapons is not acceptable.

  But the danger looms even greater. The Reagan Administration has taken steps to strengthen the Agency’s position. On December 4, 1981, in Executive Order 12333 entitled “United States Intelligence Activities,” the President gave the CIA the right to conduct its illegal operations in the United States, and on April 2, 1982, in Executive Order 12356 entitled “National Security Information,” he limited the public’s access to government documents, thereby increasing the CIA’s ability to hide from public scrutiny. The President wants the Agency free of the constraints of public exposure so that it can gather and fabricate its disinformation unharried by criticisms and so that it can overthrow governments without the knowledge of the American people. Such activities, of course, are not in the best interests of the vast majority of Americans. For example, whenever another factory moves to a foreign country whose leader is kept in power through Agency operations, more American jobs are lost. Only the rich American increases his profits. It is for this reason that I believe that President Reagan acts as the representative of wealthy America and, as his executive agency, the CIA acts to benefit the rich.

  Even after the Agency’s conspicuous failures in Vietnam, Cuba, the Middle East, and elsewhere, the fable that the CIA gathers real intelligence dies hard. But if the Agency actually reported the truth about the Third World, what would it say? It would say that the United States installs foreign leaders, arms their armies, and empowers their police all to help those leaders repress an angry, defiant people; that the CIA-empowered leaders represent only a small fraction who kill, torture, and impoverish their own people to maintain their position of privilege. This is true intelligence, but who wants it? So instead of providing true intelligence the Agency, often ignorant of its real role, labels the oppressed as lackeys of Soviet or Cuban or Vietnamese communism fighting not for their lives but for their communist masters. It is difficult to sell this story when the facts are otherwise, so the Agency plants weapons shipments, forges documents, broadcasts false propaganda, and transforms reality. Thus it creates a new reality that it then believes.

  Efforts to create a workable intelligence service must begin by abolishing the CIA. For a host of reasons I believe the CIA as it now exists cannot be salvaged. The fundamental problem is that Presidents and their National Security Councils want the CIA as a covert action agency, not an intelligence agency. As long as the CIA is subject to such politically oriented control, it cannot produce accurate intelligence. Because the CIA has been and is a covert action agency, all of its operating practices have been adopted to facilitate such operations while its intelligence-collection activities have been tailored to the requirements of these covert efforts. The Agency’s difficulties begin with the selection of personnel who are chosen based on personality characteristics essential for covert operations, not intelligence. The problem continues with the formation of operating rules that serve to foil the production of accurate intelligence while facilitating the implementation of covert operations. Until those factors are altered, the CIA cannot function as an intelligence agency.

  Covert operations must be removed from the CIA and placed in an entirely separate government agency. I would prefer recommending the total abolishment of covert operations, but that is impossible given the current world political realities. However, if a new covert action agency consisted of a handful of knowledgeable people who could, in emergency situations, pull together the necessary manpower to conduct a specific covert operation, then the chance of its duplicating the abuses of the CIA would be lessened.

  If an administration at any point decided it wanted a true intelligence service, it could be easily created. But it would not be enough merely to separate covert operations from intelligence. Accurate intelligence demands an atmosphere free of political pressure. One obvious solution revolves around identifying individuals possessing recognized ability, integrity, and flexibility and giving such individuals lifetime or long-term non-renewable appointments to a board controlling intelligence requirements and production. That board, augmented by top graduates of political science schools in one-year clerkships, would provide the independent analytical judgment necessary for valid intelligence. Expecting our system to grant that independent authority may be unrealistic. But trained analysts, working with all-source information, overseen by a “Supreme Court” of intelligence, would help to guarantee the production of accurate intelligence. Establishing a truly effective intelligence agency is no problem. The only problem is getting our leaders to want one, and that problem may be insurmountable.

  APPENDIX.

  THIS BOOK AND THE SECRECY AGREEMENT

  The secrecy agreement that I signed when I joined the CIA
allows the Agency to review prior to publication all writings of present and former employees to ensure that classified information relating to national security is not revealed. This provision seems logical and necessary to protect legitimate secrets. However, my experiences in getting this book approved show that the CIA uses the agreement not so much to protect national security as to prevent revelations and criticisms of its immoral, illegal, and ineffective operations. To that end, it uses all possible maneuvers, legal and illegal. Had I not been represented by my attorney, Mark Lynch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and had I not developed a massive catalogue of information already cleared by the Agency’s publications review board (PRB), this book could not have been published. The review of my manuscript carne in two basic stages, first on an initial manuscript that I wrote without editorial assistance, and second on a revised manuscript written following an editor’s advice.

  On February 26, 1980, I submitted the first version of the manuscript to the Agency for review and on March 21, several days before the mandatory 30-day review period expired, John Peyton, a lawyer of the Agency’s general counsel staff who served concurrently as the PRB’s legal adviser, called and asked that I come to a meeting on March 26. He moaned audibly when I advised him that Mark Lynch of the ACLU would accompany me to the meeting. At the meeting, held in the general counsel’s office on the seventh floor of the Headquarters building in Langley, the government’s side was represented by five attorneys – three from the general counsel’s office and two from the Justice Department. Had I come to the meeting alone, I would have been the lamb ready for slaughter. Because of his participation in other sensitive Agency cases, Lynch had earlier been granted a high-level “Q” clearance, but even so the Agency required him to sign an agreement before he could participate in that meeting. Peyton then explained that the publications review board had made 397 deletions in my manuscript. I was surprised, because I had been extremely careful not to use classified information in the manuscript. Those 397 deletions exceeded even the 339 passages excised from The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, a book by John Marks and Victor Marchetti that deliberately set out to expose Agency secrets. I later learned that the 397 deletions represented only a fraction of those initially demanded by the Agency’s Directorate for Operations. When I notified Peyton that I would be represented by the ACLU, the Agency had quickly retracted its more capricious deletions, resulting in the final list of 397 items.

  Lynch suggested that he and I first be permitted to adjourn to a private room to review each item. When we finished the review, the full group reconvened. I said that almost all deletions appeared in some form in the Pentagon Papers. Ernest Mayerfeld, deputy general counsel, said if that was true he could not object to their inclusion in the book. The lawyers said that I should get together the next day with the Agency’s freedom of information officer, Bob, to consider specific deletions.

  After lunch and later at home I reviewed the Agency’s deletions and matched each item with my source documents. I was overjoyed: all significant deletions were covered by supporting public data. My joy was premature.

  Early the next day I met Bob, who during my last few years with the Agency had served as my boss once removed. A dedicated cold warrior, Bob was a tall, stocky, impressive man in his late fifties who had achieved supergrade status in the Agency and had served as chief of station [19 words deleted].

  Bob seemed as agitated as I, and it was obvious that he felt he was soiling himself by dealing with me. In less civilized circumstances we probably would have been happier fighting rather than talking. Early on Bob set the tone. “It’s too bad you didn’t work for the Israeli intelligence service,” he said. “They know how to deal with people like you. They’d take you out and shoot you.”

  Bob then launched into a long monologue covering the vagaries of the secrecy laws, including details of the Carter administration’s Official Disclosure Law, the Freedom of Information Act, and the various problems in their application. I impatiently endured this speech. I was most anxious to get on with the review, to produce my public documents, and to get the hell out of there.

  We finally moved to the review of the specific deletions. The very first item caused trouble. Inexplicably the publications review board had deleted a reference indicating that the CIA conducted joint operations with Thai authorities. That relationship was so well known that books had been written about it, academic studies discussed it, pictures of CIA station chiefs appeared in the Thai press, and high-level Thai officials openly bragged in the media about CIA support for their organizations. Needless to say, I had not anticipated that the CIA would consider that relationship secret. If I could not admit that such a relationship existed, there was no point to the book since most of my observations were based on my six years with the Agency in Thailand. Fortunately I recalled a document from The New York Times edition of the Pentagon Papers entitled “The Lansdale Memorandum for Taylor on Unconventional Warfare,” which discussed specific CIA operations conducted jointly with Thai organizations.

  When I told Bob about the Lansdale memorandum being in the Pentagon Papers, he appeared to be surprised. But he recovered quickly and said there was only one official version of the papers – the Department of Defense’s 12-volume edition. After numerous phone calls a secretary brought in 11 of the 12 volumes—the one missing volume, according to the index, was the one that most likely would include the Lansdale memo. This really shook Bob. He suspected that someone had removed the critical volume. Later we did get that volume, but the Lansdale memo was not in it. I argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in the Pentagon Papers case had placed that information in the public domain, and it certainly could no longer be considered secret. We argued back and forth and finally agreed to postpone decisions on this and other items relating to CIA joint operations with Thai organizations.

  Many deletions caused little problem. In some cases, where an ex-CIA official’s affiliation with the Agency was well known, I had used that person’s true name. The Agency objected. I felt the point was unimportant and agreed to substitute titles or aliases.

  At one point I really became worried. Bob said that I must produce the document from which I had taken a direct quote. If I could not produce it, he warned that I would be accused of stealing secret documents. I had not deigned to steal any of the Agency’s classified fantasy, but I was not sure that I could relocate that precise quote. Luck was with me that day, and a short scan of the research materials I had brought with me produced that quoted passage.

  We referred the question of joint operations with the Thai police to the general counsel’s office, which conceded that such information was probably not deletable. We continued our review based on the premise that I could discuss joint intelligence and counterinsurgency programs with the Thais. Even so, I could not mention my participation in programs with specifically named Thai organizations although I could substitute phrases to describe them. Also I was allowed, via footnoting, to replace a deleted item with information from a source document. By juxtaposition I hoped my meaning would be clear.

  The next day I objected to the deletion of my very negative assessment of the Agency’s long-term operations against mainland China. I produced a book, Sub Rosa, in which a former Hong Kong station chief, Peer de Silva, set forth his own lengthy, negative evaluation of those operations. I said Peer’s book had been approved by the PRB and it had permitted him to state his opinion; therefore, I should be given the same privilege. Bob agreed and my critical comments, in modified version, were reinstated. From that point on I searched through books written by former Agency officials and cleared by the CIA, to locate items similar to deletions made in my book. By this tactic I was successful in reinstating numerous deletions.

  We had a problem over naming specific CIA stations and bases – other than those already acknowledged – even though those installations were well known. The Agency’s objection had nothing to do with secrecy. It instead applied
to administering the Freedom of Information Act. Whenever the Agency acknowledged the existence of a station or base, the public could, under the act, demand documents relating to the facility. Although it seldom releases documents in response to such appeals, the Agency must by law physically check all such documents. By not allowing anyone to admit that a station or base exists, it avoids those requests.

  Bob and I agreed to a modified version of my book. That weekend I made all the changes. On Monday morning I reviewed those changes with Mark Lynch and submitted the book to the deputy general counsel, Mayerfeld. In the interim Mayerfeld’s office had reversed itself. He said The New York Times’ Pentagon Papers had not been officially released, that the Supreme Court only ruled that it could not enjoin publication of those documents. Therefore, my discussion of liaison programs with Thai organizations might again encounter opposition.

  That night I searched through the edition of the Pentagon Papers that Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska had entered in the official records of the Senate. I found that it included the Lansdale memorandum and therefore supposed that that constituted official disclosure. The next morning I happily relayed the news to Bob. He said members of Congress could say anything, so the Gravel edition did not count. Official disclosure only occurs when a member of the executive branch of government performs that function. But how finely the Agency interpreted that statement I was yet to find out.

  I immediately went to the Reston Regional Library to look for statements made by members of the executive branch relating to CIA operations with Thai organizations. I spent the day going through The New York Times Index, reviewing all entries under Thailand from the present back to 1954. The index mentioned one well-publicized incident, allegedly caused by the CIA, that generated riots in Thailand. Because of the furor, numerous American officials were forced to comment on CIA operations in Thailand. Some press accounts sourced their information to CIA officials in Langley and the United States Embassy. I felt those references constituted executive branch disclosure of CIA activities in Thailand. I called Bob. He asked if the articles named specific American officials – a mere reference to a CIA official in Langley did not count. I said that Ambassador William Kinter had made a statement. He asked if the statement was in quotes. He said reporters could write anything, and if the statement was not in quotes it did not constitute official disclosure. (Later after completing the review process I found a reference to a high-level CIA official making a direct statement concerning CIA operations in Thailand.1 I called Bob and asked if that did not constitute that ever-elusive official disclosure. He said no. That person had probably spoken unofficially and could be prosecuted for violating his secrecy agreement.) But as I continued to accumulate public evidence of the CIA’s relationship with Thai organizations, Bob began to concede that I might retain relevant items in my book.