NEWSLINE ROUNDTABLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400150005-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 4, 1999
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: September 5, 1966
• Content Type: TRANS

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RADIO-TV MONITORING SERVICE, INC.
3408 WISCONSIN AVENUE, N. W. WASHINGTON. D. C. 20016 244-8682
!IEWSLIIIE RODUDTABT.
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CPYRGHT
Panelists: Jamb Bragg
1,Iom Lewis
U r nor Wolfe
5 September 1966
3:00 P.M.
(REZT: Sylvia Press, author of The-Care of Devils
Miss Press joined t1 program by telephone from
.,cl-! York.
JAMIE BRAGG: You know, when we first saw your book, we
thought it was a now book -- its called The Care of Devils,
by Sylvia Press. First of all, what do you ran by that title?
o: notice you nu o teed Thomas Paine.
SYLVIA PRESS: That's right -- now if you'll just give me
half a second here --
s3 GG: Go right ahead.
Pf,.E,SS: It's a little long, I'm trying to remember it --
and with the microphone stuck in my face -- 'ONeither have I so
inch as the infidel in me, as to suppose that He -- meaning
t1rod -- has relinquished the government of the world, and given
is up to the care of devils.' That's the quotation from Thomas
rains . . . I felt -- well of course, I was in government
maybe that's why the thing occurred to me as being so apt when
+. saw it. But I felt that when this thing was happening, it
eras almost as though God had turned His back, you know, and
given us up to irresponsible people, more than devils, That's
really more what I had in mind, because I'rz not a bitter person
by nature, ..> am I talking too much?
TON LEWIS: No. miss Press, the devils that you are talking
about are really the bureaucrats, aren't they?
PTSS: Exactly. It's the people who are apparently willing
to lead their lives by machines, and by rote, you know.
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ra
I4iss Presri, a lot of your book -- without getting
>. t:o the apecitics of the CENTRAL IIMZLIGENCE AGENCY right
r -- a lot of the 11rust of your book was to the effect that
n?eauoracy, as we :nor Its, particularly In Washington, Mends to
Y b if1e the imaginations and that -??
PR ri~S*. That's very true. I felt that all tho time I lives?
Washington, long before the incident that is described in the
-: k ever happened.
You mention -- or you ma he point quite strongly ---
t a bureaucrat tends to worry more about his personal security
getting the job done. Do you have any solution to this
there an alternai:ivo to ow system of the Civil Service, and
bureaucratic of icon, to avoid this kind of tendency?
PRESS : Well.. I don' t know how you can breed people with
wore imagination Pad more heart. I think It's something that
goon much deeper than our Civil Service, or anybody's civil
.orvice. I think it's something that starts within all of us,
I think the only thing to do is strive to be the kind of
oople who try to understand each other, rather than depend on
B~$ochanical thin`;,3. I think the tendency these days is to got
4;ar-ther and farLher away from the human bong, and I deplore
that -- I am wn aried about it -- I fear It.
.UGG: M:.ss Press, are the incidents in your book factual?
this a fac f,iai story, or is it a novel?
CRESS: ',.t's an autobiopraphxy, but I put it into the form o ovoi for t- number oJ: roauona. For one tong. I had no desire
- derogate The agency. I feel it's very nocaosary, as long as
7% are livisa ; In the kind of world we live In,, and as an
-",)-want want to see the best there is, but as I say, I
4A 'I n' t wan(; to direct it to the agency specifically. Another
- ng is tt.t I felt -- I had written before that -- I hadn't
uhlished it, except in radio? I used to be in radio myself,
w I hac?''t bad a book published before that -- but I do have
-1._ ins t) nc is of a writer, and I know that there are some things
:; at yoti leave out, because they're not the kind of things that
irpel people to read. I did not add anything -- I left out
quite n bit -- it lasted over seven weeks, and couldn't put it
all in, Couldn't remember every word --
1? .GG: Sure.
And I also felt that there were some things in my
)orso ial life that was certainly terribly difficult for me to
=,o ire Go during this period, and wouldn't have been any easier
:or iia to go Into, in the book. And I thought if I wrote it in
the third person I could say these things more easily, without
heiuI; hurt by them.
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:t.AGG: Perhaps at this point we should get from you : n
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