Deadly Deceits

by Ralph W. McGehee

  On Tuesday, April 8, I went to the Agency to rework the items deleted from my resubmitted version. I was not surprised to see that the Directorate for Operations had reversed itself in several key areas. Where its original deletions did not hold up, it merely changed its objections to apply to previously approved information.

  China desk had changed its objection to my negative evaluation of its operations. The desk now claimed that the technique itself was classified. That technique, recruiting persons from the other side, was just slightly newer and less well known than prostitution. Of course if I could not discuss the technique, my evaluation would be meaningless. That night I went back to the Reston Library and cleaned out its shelf of books written by ex-Agency officials. Those books, some undoubtedly written at the behest of the CIA, discussed that “forbidden” technique in detail. By adding footnotes to those books, I was allowed to retain my discussion of that technique.

  The Thai desk had also changed its position on material not initially marked for deletion—namely, the rural village survey program that I directed with Thai officials. The desk’s original objection pertained only to my mention of working in liaison with Thais. When it became apparent it could not maintain that objection, the desk then claimed the technique itself was classified and must be deleted. This was ridiculous. Over the years I had lectured and passed out unclassified handouts describing the method. When documents reporting on those training sessions were located, the Thai desk had to drop its objection.

  Forty-six days after I submitted the book, the Agency returned the manuscript with a letter saying that it had no security objections to the publication of that version. Throughout the review one central issue had been in question: reference to CIA operations with Thai organizations. What terrible secret was the CIA so vehemently attempting to hide? On October 6, 1976, Thai security forces overthrew the civilian, democratically elected government in a violent bloodbath. A study by Dr. E. Thadeus Flood published by the Indochina Resource Center said of that bloodbath: “This activist agency [CIA] took the lead in developing a strong apparatus in Thailand.… It should be mentioned that in their training, the CIA placed special stress on the Thai Border Patrol Police (BPP). News reports from Bangkok during and after the recent coup indicate that it was the Thai BPP who levelled their heavy weapons at unarmed Thai students, boys and girls, waving white flags, and raked them with fire.”2

  Thomas Lobe describes what happened in more detail: “On that horrible day in October 1976, then, the CIA/OPS-trained Border Patrol Police, with some units of the OPS-trained riot squads of the Metropolitan Police, burst into Thammasat University to crush the unarmed students and their fury knew no bounds … in meting out humiliations, in mutilizations brutally inflicted, in burning a student alive, and in simple wholesale murder. Thousands of unarmed students were killed, injured, or arrested, and a few days later, most of the liberal to left journalists, scholars, and intellectuals were also rounded up and put in prison or ‘rehabilitation camps.’”3

  After receiving the approved version of the manuscript, I signed a contract with a publisher who wanted extensive rewrites.

  I began rewriting the manuscript and submitting each chapter as it was completed. On February 4, 1982, Paul Schilling, a young lawyer on the general counsel’s staff, called and asked me to come to the Agency the next day for a meeting to discuss the first chapter. I was annoyed because everything in the chapter had either been approved before, was quoted from the Senate’s Church Committee report, or was personal. I prepared myself with documents and met with Paul in one of the little anterooms off the main reception area. Some of the objections were to information that the Agency had declassified and released to the Church Committee, which I easily documented. But the other objections concerned details of my training in espionage and paramilitary operations and details of psychological tests the Agency uses to help identify a specific personality type for possible employment. I was not prepared to rebut those arguments. Paul and I agreed that I would return home and call in the appropriate references.

  The rest of the day I phoned around to all Fairfax County libraries to get copies of books by William Colby, Ray Cline, Allen Dulles, Lyman Kirkpatrick, David Phillips, and other pro-Agency authors whose works had received formal CIA approval if not sponsorship. Almost all discussed information that the PRB now claimed was classified. I phoned the citations in to Paul Schilling. I thought that would take care of the matter. A few days later Paul called and asked if I would come in for another meeting. On February 11 we met again in one of the cubbyholes off the packed main reception area. Paul apologized for asking me in again and said that the PRB had agreed that the information 1 had taken from the Church Committee report was not classified. I relaxed. The PRB was merely recognizing reality.

  Paul then said, “But the other material on your training and the psychological test is classified. The board said it had made a mistake earlier when it had approved that information.”

  To the shock of the people in the reception area I bellowed, “That’s tough shit. It can’t reclassify information.” After calming down, I pointed out that the Agency had cleared similar information on training for its friendly former officers such as Colby, Phillips, Cline, Dulles, Kirkpatrick, and others.

  “Yes,” Paul said, “but the PRB made mistakes.”

  I noted that in at least one case the CIA had helped a former officer write his book, and the book contained numerous references to training.

  Paul responded, “The Agency’s relationship with an author is that the PRB reviews material written by the author, nothing else.”

  “That’s not the case with [the book in question]. It was written as a covert action project by the Agency. I know it was.”

  Paul continued, “The Agency’s relationship with an author.…”

  I then cited facts relating to the writing of that book.

  Paul retorted, “The Agency’s relationship with an author.…”

  Schilling recommended that I consider an appeal to the deputy director of the CIA, Admiral Bobby Inman.

  That weekend I called Paul at home and advised him that Executive Order 12065 on classification, Section 1-607, reads: “Classification may not be restored to a document already declassified and released to the public under this order or prior orders.” Paul said, “Oh, we’re operating under a new order.” What Paul was referring to was a draft executive order then being proposed by the Reagan Administration. That order, only later put into effect, allows officials to reclassify information previously declassified and disclosed if it is determined in writing “that the information requires protection in the interest of national security and if the information may be reasonably recovered.” The manuscript obviously could not be “reasonably recovered,” since I had sent copies to my publisher, my editor, and numerous others.

  Paul quickly realized he had jumped the gun on the new executive order and shifted instead to the position that Agency officials had again and again made mistakes in declassifying information in my original manuscript and in other books.

  After consultation with Mark Lynch, I prepared and submitted my 35-page appeal on February 19, 1982, noting that many of the deleted items had been approved in the first manuscript, had appeared in the approved writings of other pro-Agency officers, or were available in numerous other publications. On March 12, 1982, I received a letter from the general counsel’s office saying, “The DDCI [deputy director of central intelligence] has reversed the board with respect to all … passages contested in the appeal,” except that, “the DDCI has upheld the board’s decision to delete five sentences … unless Mr. McGehee can show the Agency has previously cleared such information.”

  I immediately scanned four approved books and found 24 references to equivalent or identical material as contained in the five sentences. I sent these references to the general counsel. The PRB acted quickly and, rather embarrassed, acknowledged that my five sentences were not classified.

&
nbsp; I thought, well, now I have been vindicated and my problems are over. But this was not to be. On March 23, I received another letter informing me that chapter two was so sensitive that it was impossible to identify specific items and the PRB had rejected the entire chapter. I had had enough and contacted George Lardner, Jr., a journalist with The Washington Post. He wrote a long article entitled “CIA Veteran Decries Effort to Reclassify Material for His Book.” This public embarrassment forced the Agency to reconsider its actions. On April 29, I received a registered letter offering me the services of Bob – my old antagonist – to work together to produce an approved version of the manuscript.

  I accepted the offer. We held three long sessions at my office, so we would have instant access to my books and files. The battle over chapter one had been completed, so we concentrated on the remaining chapters that I had turned over in the preceding months. Chapter two, dealing with my tours in Japan and the Philippines, according to the earlier PRB decision could not be used, but in the interim I had stumbled upon one of the lesser-known books by ex-CIA officials, Howard Hunt’s Undercover. In it, to my joy, was a chapter dealing with his assignment as a case officer to Japan; the same chapter also discussed the Agency’s base at Subic Bay in the Philippines. His book had been approved by the Agency and when I pointed this out to Bob he agreed that I should also be permitted to discuss my activities in those countries. Even so, I was not allowed to include details of my work. I could only give information no more explicit than that given in Undercover.

  Chapter three also presented major problems. Many of my specific designations for places were deemed classified, but by making minor changes I was allowed to retain some points. The discussions of my work at Headquarters processing clearances and file traces were marked classified and many sentences had to be deleted. Although the Marchetti-Marks and Colby books had discussed the requirements for clearances and traces, they had not gone into any detail. Unable to locate other coverage of these procedures, I could not retain my material. But I was allowed to quote information on that topic given in Philip Agee’s book, Inside the Company.

  Chapter four, about my tour on Taiwan, gave information in general terms of an agent operation directed at mainland China. Someone had objected to this major element of the chapter. I protested that other approved Agency authors had been allowed to discuss agent operations, some with a great deal more specificity than my account. This argument was finally accepted.

  Bob and I reviewed each of the many points in the remaining chapters. In this process I conceded a number of points where the law was clearly on my side. I did this to speed the clearance process and to avoid a long, time-consuming lawsuit.

  John Marks and Victor Marchetti’s book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, published in 1974, was the last approved critical book written about the Agency by an ex-employee. In light of my own experiences the reason is obvious: the secrecy agreement and the way it is abused by the Agency. It is virtually impossible to write in an atmosphere where everything is secret until it is deemed otherwise. The PRB, taking its responsibilities seriously, labels just about everything secret until an author who is critical of the Agency can prove this not to be the case. But the situation for ex-employees who are advocates of the CIA is the opposite. They are given almost carte blanche to discuss operations and techniques, and in some instances they are assisted in the research and writing of their works.

  Does the secrecy agreement work to protect legitimate classified information? Probably to some small degree it does. But the price we pay for this minor protection is enormous. The Vietnam War is a prime example. This Agency-produced disaster was sold to the American people through massive disinformation operations. Would it not have been better if we had known the truth at an early stage? Similarly, would the American people not be better off knowing the truth about the CIA’s current secret war in Latin America? Don’t we deserve to know about reckless and phony covert operations, including Agency-planted “Communist” documents, that help determine our foreign policy?

  It is clear that the secrecy agreement does not halt the flow of information to our enemies, for it does not affect the CIA employee who sells information. Look, for example, at England, which has a strict official secrets act and probably the most porous security service in the western world. What the CIA’s secrecy agreement does quite effectively, however, is to stop critics of the Agency from explaining to the American public what the CIA is and does. It is sad to say, but the truth is that the primary purpose of the secrecy agreement is to suppress information that the American people are legitimately entitled to. For this reason, I am opposed to the secrecy agreement as it is now written and administered.

  Because the major portion of my CIA career revolved around Southeast Asia, where CIA operations were well publicized and even officially disclosed, the Agency could not stop release of much of the information in this book. But my experience should sound a warning. Agency officials show no hesitation in trying to censor embarrassing, critical, or merely annoying information. I cannot speak for the legal aspects of the various laws, but it is obvious that national security has little to do with how the Agency administers the secrecy agreement. As the CIA becomes more adept at applying the law under President Reagan’s executive order on classification that went into effect August 1, 1982, all critical information about the Agency will probably be forbidden.

  I do not expect that the executive branch or the Supreme Court will be upset by the Agency’s attempts to censor information that the public is entitled to. The American people, however, should be worried. Once the Agency is unleashed and the iron curtain of official disclosure falls, we will all suffer its consequences.

  SOURCES

  1. Gung Ho!

  1.

  Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), p. 281.

  2. Japan and the Philippines: Innocents Abroad

  1.

  U.S. Congress, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence, 94th Congress, 2nd sess., 1976. (Hereafter cited as Church Committee.) Book IV, p. 50.

  2.

  Ibid., pp.49-50.

  3.

  Ibid., p.49.

  4.

  Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), p. 167.

  5.

  Jerrold L. Walden, “Proselytes for Espionage – The CIA and Domestic Fronts,” Journal of Public Law 19, No. 2 (1970), pp. 195-196.

  6.

  Harry Rositzke, CIA’s Secret Operations: espionage, counterespionage and covert action (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1977), pp. 168-169.

  7.

  Ibid., pp. 169-171.

  8.

  Ibid., pp. 171-173.

  9.

  William R. Corson, The Armies of Ignorance (New York: The Dial Press/James Wade, 1977), pp. 369-370.

  10.

  Ibid., p. 371.

  11.

  Center for National Security Studies, CIA’s Covert Operations Vs. Human Rights (Washington, D.C.), p. 12.

  12.

  Robert Borosage and John D. Marks (eds.), The CIA File (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976), p. 23.

  13.

  Church Committee, op. cit., p. 36.

  14.

  David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New York: Bantam Books, 1964), p. 115.

  15.

  Thomas Lobe, United States Security Policy and Aid to the Thailand Police (University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies: Monograph Series in World Affairs, Vol. 14, No. 2, Denver: University of Denver, Colorado Seminary, 1977), passim.

  16.

  Christopher Robbins, Air America: The Story of the CIA’s Secret Airlines (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979), pp. 85-86.

  17.

  Ibid., p. 86.

  18.

  Lobe, op
. cit., passim.

  19.

  Edward Geary Lansdale, Major General, United States Air Force (Ret.), In the Midst of Wars: An American’s Mission to Southeast Asia (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), passim.

  20.

  Center for National Security Studies, op. cit., p. 13.

  21.

  Borosage and Marks, op. cit., p. 21.

  22.

  Ibid.

  23.

  Robbins, op. cit., p. 18.

  24.

  Andrew Tully, CIA: The Inside Story (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1962), pp. 60-67.

  25.

  Wise and Ross, op. cit., pp. 127-128.