MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE ON THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000200070038-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2001
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: November 14, 1963
• Content Type: NSPR

NEW YORK REVM1 OF BOOKS
Approved For Release 20d~ i 6/oi :1iA-RDP70-
Vol%,ne 1, Number d
of G0
Alurb law
New Books on Politics: A Special Feature
Kazin on Eisenhower's Memoirs Malcolm Muggeridge on the C. I. A.
Raskin on the Defense Establishment Clark Kerr's Brave New University
Bedford on the West Indies New Books on Conrad, Jefferson, Apollinaire'
Drawings by Saul Steinberg and David Levine
Secret Agent U-2
Craft of Intelligence
by Allen Dulles.
Harper, 277 pp., $4.95
The Brothers Dulles might. well, one
feels, like the Brothers Karamazov, pro-
vide the subject for a novel of our time.
When we consider them as non-fiction,
however, we have to take account of
the historical fatality whereby one of
them, Foster, became Secretary of State
under a President only too content to
entrust him with the shaping and execu-
tion of American foreign policy, and the
other, Allen, took over the direction of
the Central Intelligence Agency at a time
of intensified cold war when its opera-
tions were commonly regarded as having
crucial importance. The two of them, in-
deed, were key figures in what Pravda
still likes to call American ruling circle;.
Foster, mercifully from a reviewer's
point of view, did not live to write his
memoirs; Allen, having now been induc-
ed to retire, has found time to record his
impressions of the C.I.A., as well as of
earlier experiences in the field of Intel-'
ligence.
There is no reason to suppose that,
as is common enough among eminent
contemporary personages, be has employ-
ed a ghost. Everything suggests that
The Craft of Intelligence is his own un-
aided work. The Dulles prose style, like
the Dulles style of oratory, is quite un-
mistakable. It has about it a kind of pas-
sionate ordinariness reminiscent of those
forms of dementia which express them-
selves, not in howling and incoherence,
but rather in an icily terrifying calm and
banality. The Hebrew prophets, I should
suppose, were tiresome enough, but at
least their wild appearance and words
matched their prophetic role. Supposing
their ferocious admonitions had been
proclaimed in the accents and the attire
of it Rotary get-together! Then, surely,
It would not have been enough to drop
them, like Jeremiah, down a deep well;
to ensure their extinction, a large stone
would have had to be dropped In after
them.
Mr. Allen Dulles has witnessed, and
personally participated in, the stupend-
ous growth in American Intelligence
activities, from nothing to the present
Tut, Imposing, and variegated edifice.
) &-on? iiows what It costs the Amerl-
san Exchequer, but certainly a great deal.
Some Idea of its range Is given by Mr.
Dulles when he mentions, in passing,
how "some good work of field collection
In Arizona" pointed to the imminence of
a coup d'ltat in Iraq. One knew, of
course, that the C.I.A. men were thick
on the ground in places like Laos and
Afghanistan; one would expect to rub
shoulders with them In the bars and bor-
dellos of Brazil and Montevideo, and to
find - them dispensing funds where
Africa's sunny fountains roll down their
golden sand. But Arizona!
As a wartime officer in M.I.6. I
witnessed the first O.S.S. arrivals among
us after Pearl Harbor. They came from
Yale and Harvard, from studying The
Wasteland and Beowulf; from selling
motor cars in Prague, and real estate on
the Riviera; linguists, some in unfamiliar
uniform, and some neat, some plutocratic
or even senatorial offspring for whom a
niche had to be found in the lusher, less
exacting branches of the armed forces.
All were inclined to hold our legendai y
Secret Service in a certain awe. This
was the innocent springtime of American
Intelligence. It soon passed. The remun-
eratior commanded by agents went soar-
Ag up, and grumbles were shortly to be
beard in M.I.6. offices about these
clumsy, affluent American interlopers
Approved For Release 2001/03/02 : CIA-RDP70-000PJ'8F 0 19CU 4038 ble-agent
( %
 from one-time pads. It was in the course
of atirade on suA1 i (t'vedhfor'aReIease 2001/03/02 CIA-RDP70-00058R000200070038-1
Allen Dulles's name. Of all impertin-
ences, he was, it appeared, operating in
Switzerland, and sending in reports in-
dependently of Our Man there. Clearly,
they were non-sensical and should be
disregarded. All the same!
How drastically the English and Amer-
ican roles were to be reversed, in Intelli-
gence as in other fields! The poor old
Secret Service is legendary no longer, ex-
cept in James Bond novels. It has come
to have a positively comic connotation,
more particularly in its counter-espion-
age activities. Mr. Dulles Is really very rills Warfare,-are Indistinguishable The point Is (and Mr. Dulles provides
an excellent example) that InteiiigenCe
charitable when he bestows a word oY`-lrvm Mr. Dulles's. personnel, at all levels, inevitably lose
faint praise on our Official Secrets Act. Il:os" far the American people get P
He goes on to remark, in what is surely value for all this expenditure of money, contact with reality. The trade attracts
one of the great understatements of all personnel, and effort is, of course, diffi- fantasists, and its practice encourages
time, that our "practices in hiring and cult to say. Mr. Dulles does not provide any tendency that way, if it does not
couplet by Blake
retaining personnel leave a good deal to much guidance. He reminds me, oblique- create which it. ought Theto be re is prominently a a couplet by Blake
be desired"-an observation which ought ly, of a bawdy French song I once heard
to be good. for a hearty laugh whenever called "Les Fraises et les Framboises." it whenever two or more Intelligence offi-
cers are gathered together:
the Macleans give a dinner party in Mos- was sung by a lisping village maiden,
cow, which made the gross meaning all the They ever must believe a lie,
In any case, the C.I.A. now bestrides funnier. Mr. Dulles, presiding over the Who see with, not through, the eye.
the so-called Free World like a colossus, C.I.A., and all its nefarious activities, is I doubt, however, if it would do any
with other N.A.T.O. Intelligence Services in a similar case. His ostensible inno- good. Intelligence is, by its very nature,
peeping out at one another, not always cence contrasts hilariously with the sordid a with-the-eye pursuit.
amiably, from between its huge :cgs. transactions in which he finds himself . One can summon up a smile of. sorts
Mr. Dulles, not unnaturally, considers involved. "While homosexuality," he at the operational side of Mr. Dulles's
the enormous proliferation and expansion gently observes, "has played a prominent business, recalling, for instance, the
of American Intelligence agencies both role in the most notorious recent cases, amazing collection of bric-a-brac the un-
inevitable and beneficial, especially when such as Vassall's, adultery or promiscuity fortunate Powers was carrying. The smile
they come, to a greater or lesser degree, Is the more usual lever." On the other fades when the subject of Security crops
under the C.I.A. umbrella. He is even hand, he goes on, "blackmail based on up. Then the antiseptic taste really gets
prepared to take a fairly stoical view of the threatened exposure of illicit sexual into one's mouth; then the trolley of sur-
a more or less independent rival estab- acts is a powerful instrument when ap- gical instruments moves silently into
lishment like the Defense Intelligence plied to men of certain nationalities, not view:
Agency created by Mr. McNamara in so when applied to others. It depends on People whose lives and records np-
1961, though at lower levels, one gath- the mores, on the moral standards of the pear clean as a whistle when they
ers, competition Is intense to the point country of origin." Thus, he concludes, are employed may, some years
of being murderous. "the citizens of those countries where a later, develop latent weaknesses,
There would seem to be some natural certain value is placed on marital fidel- which may or may not be discover-
trend towards in-fighting within and be. ity and where social disapproval of in- ed in the course of security reviews.
No one can suggest that, even the
tween Intelligence organizations ostensi- fidelity is strong are naturally the most most frequent security examinations
bly on the same side. I often used to re- likely victims." "A certain value" is goodl will point up all weaknesses. The
fleet in the war that if only this hostility Mr. Dulles is at some pains to rebut best one can do is to have the most
could have been directed towards the the widespread notion that he and his col- thorough examination that can be
enemy a speedy victory would be assur- leagues gave the President unsound ad- given, and I feel that one should
not exclude, in the examination,
ed. It was comforting, after the war, to vice at the time of the ill-fated Bay of technical aids, such as the poly-
learn that an exactly comparable state Pigs adventure. Ile may, for all I know, graph, more popularly known as the
of affairs prevailed on the German side be right. Yet, frankly, I myself would lie detector.
with Ribbentrop, Himmler, and Admiral always take it for granted that Intelli- There is no need for me to stress the
Canaris more concerned to cut one an- gence appreciations, whatever their loathesome implications of the above
other's throats than ours. Happily, too, source, must be misleading. It is diffi- passage. Torquemada, Beria, Himmler,
from all one can learn, Soviet Intelli- cult to think of a single case which sug- or any other of the Security Maestros of
gence personnel are far from being a gests the contrary. In North Africa, for history, would recognize it as sound doc-
baud of brothers. There is, indeed, a instance, what with cipher-cracking, and trine. How happy are those countries
close similarity in Intelligence theory and one thing and another, we had excellent which have no secrets to secure, no sub-
practice the whole world over. Our spies, sources of information about Italy. Yet version to fear; where the narrow mind
like our beats, engage in the same ec- when the Fascist regime collapsed, with and abnormal sense of rectitude of a
centricities of dress and behavior, and virtually no one even to regret its pass-~ Dulles can find innocuous expression in
fly; n cad of be-
the writingAtOd"d p Ikb lawn I f Q} f?cftAs 7n 00
tclligence-for instance, Alexander Or. o~our reports ha~f emisagcd 'any ping oP Tn mcl[ziT tficl?t ortty, alt]t,
loo's Handbook of Intelligence of Guer- the kind. and dangerous toys of a modern state.D