INTERVIEW WITH VICTOR MARCHETTI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74B00415R000400160015-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2005
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: September 14, 1971
• Content Type: TRANS

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PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM RADIO NEW YORK
STATION WOR
DATE SEPTEI BER 14, 1971 6: 15 PM CITY NEW YORK
INTERVIEW WITH VICTOR MARCHETI~~
JOHN WTNOATE: My guest is former CIA officer Victor Marche' s .
He wrote the book., in a way an expose of the CIA, called "The
Rope Dancer". Victor Marchete, has the CIA spied on you since
you wrote the book?
VICTOR 'MARCHETE: Not in a clandestine sense, no, but they.
have had people get in touch with me. A security officer, for
exainple, who pestered me for several months until I finally showed
him a copy of the manuscript, after which after he read it,
I never heard from him again.
WINGATE: Were you ever asked to change the manuscript?
MARCHETE: No. No one ever asked me to do that. They knew
my feelings very well. I had worked-in the executive suite for
three years and knew the director personally along with all the
other top people, and they knew that I felt this way and spoke
out against these things while I was in the agency.
WINGA'TE: On the 6:15 interview, the guest, Victor Marchete,
was for fourteen years in the executive suite of the Central Intelligence
Agency in Washington. Who was the director then?
MARCHETE: The three years that I was in the executive suite
it was Richard Helms, the current director, who was then the d.ir-
ector. Prior to that time, when I was working my way up through
assignments on the analytical side of the house, Admiral Rayburn
was director, and prior to him John McCone. Prior to him, Alan
Dulles.
WINGATE: What's life like in the executive suite-on a day-
to-day basis of the CIA?
MARCHETE: It's a strange miXture of some spooky elements
where you know important decisions are being made behind closed
doors, and at the same tame. very bureaucratic. A lot of paper
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shuffling. A lot of meetings that have to be attended to. The
.normal kind of activities that go on in any executive suite of
a large organization.
WINGATE: Do spies come stealthily in and out much as they
would do in an old-time movie with George Sanders?
Geto t.e.-~
NARCHETE: Not really, but some very famous people like General
-Gen., head of the Garman Intelligence, who just recently resigned,
would pop in quietly for lunch with the director and some of the
bigwigs. Other Intelligence leaders from other areas of the world
would occasionally drop in.
WINGATE: Meeting in secret with the CIA.
MARCHETE: Meeting in privacy with the CIA. Their visits
were not necessarily advertised, certainly not their visit to
the CIA.
WINGATE: Did the CIA often confer with the White House?
MARCHETE: Yes, in a number of ways. During the Johnson
administration, the director used to attend the Tuesday afternoon
lunches along with MacNamara and Rusk, where Intelligence matters
-would on occasion be discussed. Usually, unless it's a highly .
sensitive matter, so extremely so that only the director can discuss
it with the President, things seemed to be handled largely through
the President's national security advisers.
WINGATE: Now, who directs and where is it directed from,.
the day-to-day operations of our Intelligence agents around the
world?
MARCHETE: Well, speaking only of the CIA, they're directed
by the director, Richard Helms, through his...
WINGATE: Does he know where every spy is?
MARCHETE: I don't think anybody knows where every spy is.
That is a fact. There have been times when I have been assigned
to do studies to find out for the directo:c if there were any Fuibright
students being used as agents.
WINGATE: Why?
MARCHETE: Because Senator Fuibright had been told by some
of his students that they were recruited by the CIA, and the director
wanted to find out if this indeed was the case. We were unable
to unequivocally and absolutely say that no Fulbright students
were recruited,, because although the director said they shouldn't
be and the chief of the clandestine services said they shouldn't
be...
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WING:ATE : They didn't went F'u ib nigh t students.
MARCHETE: That's right, but by the time one got. out to-the
field one couldn't be sure of what the station chief was doing
or the actual case officer.
WINGATE: But, Victor Marchete, I'm trying to nail down who
actually says out there, "You in Vietnam or you in Italy, get
that man." Who gives the order?
MARCHETE: There are times when the director gives it. There
are times when the chief of clandestine services gives it. There
are other times when nobody gives it. That is the point. Insofar
as the bulk of the Intelligence community is concerned, there
is very little direction on specific issues because there is very
little review of specific issues. It's usually done on an ad
hoc basis. The CIA and the US Intelligence community, a six-billion-
dollar annual business, is not reviewed thoroughly enough by Cong-
ress or by the leading administrative executive officials.
WINGATE : Are you telling me we don't know sometimes what
our spies are doing?
MARCHETE: I am saying yes. There are times when we learn
after the fact what has happened.
WINGATE: After fourteen years, why did you quit the CIA?
Had you breached security?
MARCHETE: No, I left because I had in the last few years
up in the executive suite come to realize that the Intelligence
community, was too large and needed to be reformed. it required
much more direction and control. It has much too much military
influence, which is bad in a variety of ways.
MARCHETE: One of the ways is that the military delays and
tries desperately to influence Intelligence which they consider
--- this is the final, product, like national Intelligence estimates
which they feel do not support their military programs. For
example, if the CIA is doing a national intelligence estimate
on anti-ballistic missile development in the Soviet Union, which
I have done in the past when I worked for the CIA, and as the
staff man I may want to say, based on all the research that was
provided to me, that the Soviets are doing very little in this
field. They're not likely to have.much success in the next few
years. The military sees this as hampering their attempts for
funds for their own ABM program. So they begin a campaign to
prove that the Soviets really are doing this.
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WINGATE: Well, what are the Soviets doing?
MARCHETE: As of the time I left, they had a rinky-dink system
up around Leningrad and they were putting in some AI3AM's around
the Moscow area. Most of this information has been little by
little leaked to the press...
WINGATE: But at this point I don't know whether to believe
you, the military, or what. Is this what this sort of bureaucracy.
:leads to?
MARCHETE: Exactly. You can't get...
WINGATE: I don't know what to believe.
MARCHETE: You cannot get a definitive answer. This is why
the Intelligence community must be reviewed.
WINGATE: You mean spies must be madre to work and do their
work well is what you're saying.
MARCHETE: Exactly.
WINGATE: You're not against an intelligence community.
MARCHETE: No, I firmly believe in Intelligence. I just
think it should be run properly.
WINGATE: The guest, Victor Marchete, for fourteen years
a top-ranking CIA officer. He wrote the book, "The Rope Dancer",
a spy novel on the black art of espionage. Quick question: is
the. art black?
MARCHETE: At times it is, yes, and at other times it's gray.
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