THE ROSTOW STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600040001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 21, 1967
• Content Type: OPEN

=AN EVENTS
CPYRGHT
21 October. 1967
Approved For Rele
The Otepka briefs relate an iti;`riouing story i
connection with the Rostow case. ;According to the
briefs, Bobby Kennedy and
Dean Rusk approached Otep-
ka in 1960 about Rostow, well
aware that earlier cfforte to
got him named to a highly
sensitive national. security proj-
ect had been thwarted by the
Q
r
s nc secu y s n ar :..-~ ?,
t
w
Desiring to ::;::;osto
. r
enhower
Eis
Administration's
't t^ d d l.'
fairs, made the determination on the basis of th
previous record that "Mr. Rostow was not desirabl
for employment."
to a key position in the State BUSK
Department, Rusk opened the discussion by asking
"What kind of security problem would be encounters
regarding the appointment of Mr. Rostow 'to the
department?"
Otepka replied that he was acquainted with th
Rostow file, and that this' familiarity dated back t
1955 when the department was giving consideratio
to hiring Rostow as a key, person in a psychologica
warfare project to be undertaken by the Operation
Co-ordinating Board.
"Persons employed by the project were required
to have a security clearance under the strict stand-
ards prescribed by the United States Intelligence
Board," the briefs state. "As a part of his evalua-
tion, Otepka at this time reviewed the State De-
partment file on Mr. Rostow, the CIA file and the
results of reviews given to the case by both the CIA
and the Department of the Air Force. The Air
Force had previously made a security finding adverse
to Mr. Rostow.'
"As a result of Otepka's findings, Under Secretary
of State Herbert Hoover Jr., the chairman of the
Operations Co-ordinating Board,. decided that Mr.
Rostow would not be utilized as an employe or
consultant by the State Department in connection
with the board's project.
"In- other -words, Mr. . Rostow could not get the
necessary clearance under the strict standards appli
cable to the Operations Co-ordinating Board."
When Rostow was again recommended for Stat
employment, Roderic O'Connor, adminr
ictretnr of ?0.a t?....o.,., nF Q,......a.. ^..A ('..., ....1., .. A 47
According to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter
Clark Mollenhoff, who unearthed the contents,
of the brief, when Otepka related the back-ground.
on Rostow, Rusk remained silent but Bobby .
"spoke disparagingly of the adverse finding that
had been made by the Air Force "'and referred
to the Air Force as "a bunch of jerks."
When it became clear that Otepka' would con-
tinue to evaluate the Rostow case in the same man-
ner ' as it had been evaluated previously. Rostow
was hired by t e W uc H usG. where the p-resid
can set his own t> i~t ?.i% -Approved For
nto the State Department for a. time as someone.
ho had already been given a clearance.
Angry with Otepka, Kennedy later assigned John
Reilly, formerly a Justice Department lawyer,,
o the State Department as deputy assistant secretary
f state. in charge of administration. -Reilly's role
n the anti-Otepka cabal is well documented. This '
bal at length plotted and engaged in eavesdrop-
ing, wiretapping, searches of Otepka's wastebasket
rd general spying on his activities in an effort to
rind grounds on which to dismiss him.
o A former professor of' international politics at
he Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rostow
s a graduate of Yale and served in the Office of
trategic Services in World War II. Identified as
he author of a State Department policy paper pro-
oting unilateral disarmament, trading with the Com-
munists and a generally "soft-line" toward Soviet
Russia and Communist China, Rostow has come
under considerable attack and was even the subject
of a special congressional hearing. In recent years
he , has been identified' with a comparatively hard
line on Viet Nam. The ? Otepka brief reportedly
does not disclose why Rostow was denied a security
clearance by the Eisenhower Administration.
The sensational ' Otepka briefs, whose contents have
been revealed to only one or two reporters in Wash-
ington, outline numerous cases of alleged security
violations. Clark Mollenhoff of the Des Moines
Register has detailed 14 of the cases which appear
below:
1.. A ,foreign service officer who sexually violated
his own daughter but was never disciplined, and in
fact later was designated a part-time security officer
at a post that did not have a full-time security
man.
2. A foreign service officer who borrowed money
from the State. Department Credit Union and forged
the endorsement of a fellow employe on his applica-
tion for the loan. The individual later was given
an important, assignment in the White House.
3. A foreign, service officer who admitted he fur-
nished 18 documents, some of them classified "secret,"
to Philip Jaffe, the publisher of Amerasia magazine
and. on whom 'there.-was a considerable .record of
Communist activities and affiliation. The officer was
permitted to take an honorable retirement with pen-'
sion.
4. A security division technician who went on
drunken rampages at several embassies in foreign
countries and whose misconduct was condoned ;and'
covered up- by Reilly. Reports of the misconduct
actually were kept out of the personnel file.
5. A security officer stationed in Athens," Greece,.
who failed to ,report a large number of security viola-.
Lions, yet was appointed deputy chief of the Division
of. Security 'Evaluations At the State Department.
Ie f se : CIA-.RDP75-00149R000600040 -,