Every intelligence service also makes use of people who work chiefly for money, or out of a love for adventure or intrigue. Some people thrive on clandestinity or deception for its own sake, deriving a certain perverse satisfaction from being the unknown movers of events. Among Communist conspirators one frequently finds this trait. People who knew Whittaker Chambers claim that there was a definite streak of this kind in him. In the upside-down world of espionage, one also finds men driven by a desire for power, for self-importance, which they could not satisfy in normal employments. The agent is often in on big things. He can make himself interesting and important to governments and sometimes gains access to astonishingly high places.
There is a fine passage in a World War I spy story of Somerset Maugham’s about why a certain man had taken to spying. Maugham says:
He did not think [Caypor] had become a spy merely for the money; he was a man of modest tastes. . . . It might be that he was one of those men who prefer devious ways to straight for some intricate pleasure they get in fooling their fellows . . . that he had turned spy . . . from a desire to score off the big-wigs who never even knew of his existence. It might be that it was vanity that had impelled him, a feeling that his talents had not received the recognition they merited, or just a puckish, impish desire to do mischief.1
1 W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden; or, The British Agent (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday & Co., 1927).
What Maugham shows us here is, of course, a fact that every good writer and psychologist knows, and every good intelligence officer, too: motives are rarely pure and single, but most often mixed. The possibility of money and protection might often tip the scales for the person who is ideologically motivated but does not quite have the courage of his convictions. Some intelligence services feel it is important that even the ideological collaborator accept from time to time some money, or some kind of favor or gift, since this makes the agent somewhat beholden to the service; it seals the bond. Both Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley told how the Soviets who were running the penetrations of the United States government during World War II went to great lengths to foist salaries or bonuses even on “dedicated” American Communists who were working for them. When the latter consistently fought the idea of accepting any sort of remuneration, the Soviets finally had their way by presenting them with expensive Christmas gifts, which couldn’t be refused, such as oriental rugs—“a gift from the Soviet people in gratitude for their help,” as Boris Bykov, a Soviet military attaché in Washington from 1936 to 1938, expressed it.2
2 Bykov made this remark to Whittaker Chambers, who quoted it in his book, Witness (New York: Random House, Inc., 1952).
Among the cases of people who will commit espionage for pay there are those who are in financial trouble—either debts they cannot meet or the misappropriation of government funds they have no way of replacing. Fearing discovery and unable to raise funds from any legitimate source, such a person may eventually turn to a foreign intelligence service with an offer of information, if it will pay him enough to rescue him. That crimes of “economic corruption” are frequent behind the Iron Curtain is evidenced by the particularly stringent measures taken by the men in the Kremlin to counter them, which I have already mentioned. A man who will try to extricate himself in this fashion from criminal prosecution contrives his own entrapment in espionage and is likely to serve the intelligence service well since he sees no other recourse. It can, after all, find ways to denounce him at any time to his own authorities.
Going down the scale of human behavior into the murky area of the psychoneuroses, one begins to encounter other kinds of motives, if they can be called that, which may induce a person to engage in espionage or to commit treason. Maladjusted persons nourishing grievances or seeking escape from their immediate environment may turn to treasonable acts if the means for doing so is in their hands, i.e., if they occupy positions which give them access to information of use to another power. Many minor cases of espionage especially turn out to involve persons who were not blackmailed or pressured, had no real ideological convictions, did not want money and were not adventurers in any normal sense of the word. They simply found some kind of twisted satisfaction in committing the act. Most of the cases, for example, of low-ranking members of American military establishments abroad who have crossed over to the enemy side fit into this category. To an unhappy misfit sitting in his barracks in West Germany, it may seem that the grass is greener in Communist East Germany or Czechoslovakia, which can be reached in a matter of hours. Frequently, such defectors will grab a handful of documents from military offices in which they are employed and will take them along in order to facilitate their welcome into a society they imagine will offer them a more satisfactory way of life than they previously managed to lead. A serious instance of such neurotically based treason was exposed by the flight behind the Iron Curtain in 1960 of two technicians from our highly sensitive National Security Agency, William H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell.
In the end, both the staff intelligence officer and the agent are needed to get the job done. Neither can manage without the other. Their relationship is unique in the professions. They are quite unlike buyer and seller, neither of whom need concern himself overmuch with the character and motives of the other, as long as business is done properly. Nor are they like employer and employee, although there may be occasional payment for goods and services.
Whatever his motives, and I have outlined some of them above, the agent initially must put himself in the hands of a stranger, the staff officer, about whom he knows very little, considering the delicacy of the work to be undertaken. He does know that the staff officer represents a foreign power in all its majesty and unreachability. The staff officer, on his side, must recognize that a large measure of his own authority derives from the fact that his country’s flag is waving behind him. In addition, however, his own person must be such that it inspires confidence, trust and respect in the agent. After all, the agent’s feelings about the capabilities of the intelligence system for which he may be risking his life will be based on the example he sees before him. A further complication is that the staff officer must manage to keep the agent’s goodwill, so long as the agent does his job, whether he likes him personally or not. Above all, he must fathom the agent’s motives in order to protect himself and his government, to see that neither is exploited, swindled or harmed.
What counts in the end, to be sure, is the quality of the goods, i.e., intelligence, that the agent delivers. However, when human beings rather than machines are involved in the collection process, the intangible and complex business of motives, loyalties and personalities plays an enormous role in the success or failure of the whole enterprise.
13
Myths, Mishaps and Mischief-Makers
MYTHS
A number of major and minor myths have grown up during the last decade about CIA and the craft of intelligence itself as we practice it today. These myths are in part the creation of hostile propaganda of Communist origin; more often they are the product of imagination or guesswork, thriving on a lack of public enlightenment and on the suspicion any secret organization arouses. Sometimes these myths grow out of news stories purposely launched to “flush” out the facts. In such instances the bigger the exaggeration, the better the chance, so the writers think, of drawing a denial or correction or at least some answer other than “No comment,” which for years has been, and I believe properly, the stock reply when the press calls on the CIA for information.
CIA MAKES POLICY
I have frequently been asked what “myth” about the CIA has been the most harmful. I have hesitated in answering, I admit, because there were several to choose from, but finally chose the accusation that CIA made foreign policy, often cut across the programs laid down by the President and the Secretary of State and interfered with what ambassadors and Foreign Service officers abroad were tr
ying to do.
This charge is untrue but extremely hard to disprove without revealing classified information. It is all the harder to disprove because to some extent it is honestly believed, and at times has even been spread, by people in government who themselves were not “in the know.”
The facts are that the CIA has never carried out any action of a political nature, given any support of any nature to any persons, potentates or movements, political or otherwise, without appropriate approval at a high political level in our government outside the CIA.
Here is an example of one of the recent myths of alleged political interference by CIA. The charge was spread abroad that the Agency secretly supported the OAS generals’ plot against de Gaulle. This particular myth was a Communist plant, pure and simple. One of the first to launch it, on April 23, 1961, was a leftist Italian newspaper, Il Paese (The Country), used from time to time as a trial balloon for Communist propaganda; then Pravda took it up and Tass sent it out to Europe and the Middle East, and the leftist press of Western Europe echoed it. Geneviève Tabouis, a well-known French writer who had a big following several decades ago, kept the propaganda mill going with three fantastic stories that gave Moscow new fuel. Meanwhile, highly reputable Western papers and columnists began repeating the rumors, and an aura of respectability was given to a story which was intended to discredit American policy in general and the CIA in particular.
In this, as well as in most such cases, there is absolutely no way to disprove such rumors. There is nothing to get your teeth into. It is only your word against the rumor market, and in this particular case high officials in the French Government did nothing to stop its spread.
A fresh and abounding group of myths about the CIA, each more fantastic than its predecessor, has been born out of the Bay of Pigs incident. A book published in May of 1964 contains a new crop of them.1 The books is largely based on statements attributed to four brave and leading members of the Cuban brigade which went ashore at the Bay of Pigs. The responsibility for telling the story lies with Haynes Johnson, a Washington reporter. One particular bit of mythology about CIA in this book which particularly disturbed me relates to the myth I have been discussing—that CIA interferes with government policy.
1 Haynes Johnson, The Bay of Pigs (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1964).
In describing the last days before the invasion force pushed off for Cuba, Johnson tells us about one of the American military trainers of the brigade coopted from the American military services—an officer known to the brigade members only as “Frank”. I know Frank: he is an able officer, but here he was not involved in high policy matters. His job was to see to it that the brigade got good military training. As his knowledge of Spanish was vague and as the English of the brigade members with whom he was dealing was far from perfect, there was plenty of room for misunderstanding. From what Frank has recently said, I am prone to believe that this was all a misunderstanding which the Johnson book has built up into a grave incident seemingly only to discredit the CIA.
Here is the story according to the book. Shortly before the brigade left Nicaragua for Cuba, Frank called in two of the leaders of the brigade, Pepe and Oliva (they became two of the four co-sponsors of the book). Frank told them, so they are credited with saying, that “there were forces in the Administration trying to block the invasion and Frank might be ordered to stop it.” If he receives such an order, he said he would secretly inform Pepe and Oliva. Pepe remembers Frank’s next words this way.
If this happens you come here and make some kind of show, as if you were putting us, the advisors, in prison, and you go ahead with the program as we have talked about it, and we will give you the whole plan, even if we are your prisoners.
This and certain related statements in the book have been widely blazoned in the American press as evidence that the CIA was preparing to thwart the orders of the President if he should have decided to call off the invasion.
This is totally false.
In the first place, Frank has denied the story.
In the second place, governing orders with respect to the brigade once it had left Puerto Cabezas would not have emanated from Nicaragua, Guatemala or from anyone in that area. They would have come from a command post located elsewhere which had direct contact with the brigade at sea and where the authority was not in Frank’s hands.
Thirdly, at the time of Frank’s alleged conversation with Pepe and Oliva, I know of no forces in the administration trying to block the action. True, no decision had been reached; the entire matter was before the President for decision.
Fourth, in addition to the control of the brigade exercised through the command post as I have mentioned, the brigade at all times after it set sail for Cuba and up to the time that it entered Cuban territorial waters could have been controlled by American naval forces.
Finally, shortly after this particular incident, the President of the United States on the eve of the landing gave the order to cancel the brigade’s airstrike designed to immobilize Castro’s aircraft, which might, and did, attack the incoming ships. The CIA, despite its deep apprehension of the effect of this order, responded immediately and loyally to the President’s decision. The brigade’s airstrike was canceled as it was on the point of taking off.
Here then is another myth which, if credited, could help to build up the utterly false theory that CIA stood ready to cross up high government policy.
Congressman Les Arends, who as ranking Republican member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee for CIA is well briefed on CIA doings, had this to say in a speech in the House of Representatives on March 26, 1964, regarding this myth of policy making.
The statement has been made that CIA meddles in policy. This is an often heard allegation about the Agency, but the facts do not support it. CIA is an intelligence organization and takes its direction from the policymakers. The late President Kennedy commented on this in October, 1963, when irresponsible sources were alleging that CIA was making policy in Vietnam.
Then he quoted what the President had said publicly in an answer to a question at a press conference as to whether CIA had meddled in our policy regarding Vietnam.
I can find nothing, and I have looked through the record very carefully over the last nine months, and I could go back further, to indicate that the CIA has done anything but support policy. It does not create policy; it attempts to execute it in those areas where it has competence and responsibility. I can just assure you flatly that the CIA has not carried out independent activities but has operated under close control of the Director of Central Intelligence, operating with the cooperation of the National Security Council and under my instructions.
Another related myth is the charge that CIA always supports dictators. This too has been subtly suggested in all manner of ways by Moscow propaganda. Since CIA does not support Communists or fellow travelers, it must, in Moscow’s view, support capitalistic warmongers, colonialists, et al. There is nothing in between. Ergo it must be dictators who are supported. And this myth has often been repeated in non-Communist literature.
The President and the State Department set the lines of foreign policies; they alone determine the course of conduct of all elements of the government in all areas of foreign activity. Despite this fact of our governmental life, the myth of mysterious and independent policies and activities of the CIA persists, and, I fear, it is only as we get better educated to the facts and less inclined to fall for divisive propaganda that these myths will collapse of their own hollowness.
With the Soviets using their vast subversive machine to upset free institutions wherever they can, it is all very well to say that we should satisfy everybody’s curiosity—including that of the Soviet—by acknowledging each step taken in the effort to counter them, and tell whom we are helping and why and where. But this is the best way to lose the battle, and we should not be jockeyed or angered i
nto answering these attacks, even if this means that troublesome myths persist.
THE SOVIET SUPER SPY
Nobody minds being portrayed as invincible. I imagine the Soviets derive a good deal of satisfaction from the popular image of their intelligence officers and agents that exists in the minds of some Westerners. The value of the image is that it tends to frighten the opponent.
If I seem to have lent any support to the myth of the Soviet super spy in my earlier characterization of the Soviet intelligence officer, I would like to remind the reader that I was then writing of his training, his attitudes and his background rather than of his achievements. The examples of Soviet failures are legion. Their great networks of the past, often too large in size, eventually broke up or were exposed, both as a result of the vigorous measures of Western counterintelligence and as a result of their own internal weaknesses. Their best-trained officers make technical slips, showing that they too are fallible. Often, in situations where there is no textbook answer, no time to get instructions from headquarters and when individual decision and initiative is required, the Soviet intelligence officer fails to meet the test.
Soviet training of both intelligence officers and agents tries to drill the wayward element out of intelligence work, but it cannot be done. Harry Houghton endangered his position by spending the extra money he earned from spying on real estate ventures. He wanted to amass a fortune. Vassall spent it on fancy clothes. Each lived beyond his regular income, and this was bound, sooner or later, to attract attention. Hayhanen, the associate of Colonel Abel, one of Moscow’s best spies, was an alcoholic. He was bound eventually to break up, to talk—and he did. Stashinski, the murderer, on Soviet orders, of the two Ukrainian exile leaders fell in love with a German girl and came into conflict with his KGB bosses over this relationship. It was the main cause of his defection. The Soviets seem to have taken too little note of these weaknesses.
The Craft of Intelligence Page 24
