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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600040104-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 1998
• Sequence Number: 104
• Publication Date: October 29, 1963
• Content Type: BULL

2c )REVIEW BULLETIN OCT 2 9 19
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F e case of tae Department security o cia o
qnp~
Ote ka bids fair to break all previous New Frontier
records orema handling the national interest. Otepka
is the official who blew the whistle on William Wieland,
ex-president of the Fidel Castro fan club in the U.S.
diplomatic corps, and exposed the methods by which
Wieland was given important assignments even after his
peculiar performance in the Cuban matter.
The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, in a
At H
C
YRGHT
report published last October, described Wieland as having
been "an active apologist for Fidel Castro," who had
"falsified his job application by omission," and who had
failed to pass along to his superiors information proving
the pro-Communist nature of Castro's movement.
Otto Otepka was a key figure in the inquiry leading to
these conclusions. As Chief of the Evaluations Division
of the State Department's security office, Otepka had de-
livered an adverse report on Wieland's "suitability and
integrity." Otepka told the senators: "I felt and I speci-
fied each instance, that I thought there were questions,
serious questions of the man's integrity, and I felt that
such questions, since they . . . did not relate to the issue
as to whether or not he was disloyal . . . should be re-
viewed and adjudicated under the Foreign Service regu-
lations of the Department of State."
Despite these recommendations, nothing in particular was
done about Wieland's security clearance until the subject
was raised at President Kennedy's press conference, January
24, 1962. Kennedy stammered an indistinct approbation
of Wieland's continued employment, and the following
day a State Department memo was dispatched indicating
Wieland was to be regarded as free and clear of security
shortcomings. Otepka commented : "I don't think I can
defend the Department in its course."
Otepka also alleged that men of "questionable background"
occupied other important positions in the State Depart-
ment, and that "emergency clearances" were being used
to keep personnel in sensitive positions. Department higher-
ups, appearing to challenge Otepka's testimony, accused
him of falsehood. The New Frontiersmen claimed not to
know anything about specific cases mentioned in Otepka's
presentation to the Subcommittee.
Otepka was subsequently recalled and asked to substan-
tiate his statements. He did so, producing documents cor-
roborating his previous testimony, chapter and verse. These
papers carried notes and initials by the same New Fron-
tiersmen who claimed never to have laid eyes on them.
Otepka's rebuttal, according to Subcommittee members,
was "iron-clad."
Caught dead to rights, the Kennedy officials assumed a
new tack. They could not now charge Otepka with lying-
since he had produced proof of their own untruthfulness
-so they charged him with revealing classified documents.
The act of refuting their own misrepresentations with
documentary evidence, and of nailing down security lax-
ness in the State Department, was alleged as a violation of
security! Otepka was put on notice that, for conduct un-
becoming a State Department official, he would be dis-
missed from his position. He is now contesting that order,
and the Senate Subcommittee is having a further extended
look at State Department security practices.
The episode as a whole presents a rather unhappy picture
of operating procedure in Foggy Bottom. We have, in
order:
1. State Department official William Wieland covering
up the true nature of Fidel Castro's 26 July movement,
helping steer the U.S. into diplomatic catastrophe in Cuba.
2. State Department higher-ups covering up for Wiel-
and, overriding sensible security practices to do so.
3. State Department denial of the true facts of the
security situation, in order to cover up for their previous
coverup of Wieland.
4. State Department reprisals against a man courageous
enough to tell the truth about security procedures, in order
to cover up for their general coverup in the security picture
as a whole.
In an interview with Willard Edwards of the Chicago
Tribune, Otepka commented concerning Coverup #3:
"This put their testimony in conflict with mine and with
my official knowledge. Their testimony was untrue. Since
they had used the Subcommittee forum to make their
statements, I felt entitled to rebut their statements and
present the true facts . . . I'm charged with violation of
orders when all I did was defend myself."
Considering the Department's over-all record in this
field, it seems unlikely its campaign against Otepka is in-
spired by zeal for security. The Kennedy officials are
obviously concerned to prevent Congress from knowing
of their misfeasances-merely the latest flowering of ex-
ecutive arrogance toward the legislature. The Senate In-
ternal Security Subcommittee means to assert the rightful
prerogatives of the lawmaking branch, and it is to be
hoped the result will puncture the hubris of the foreign
nt Secretar of State a r "
policy bureaucracy.
There are yet other ra gf the Otepka case
c c o r d i n g to testimony -e Mfe e u committee, eve-
and has been bringing people of dubious security status
into the State Department. Simultaneously, evidence has
accumulated suggesting a sustained effort to dismantle
the security office of the Department-a move described by
former Security Chief John W. Hanes as either "incom-
petence or a deliberate attempt to render the State De-
partment's security section ineffective." It was Otepka's
lifference with the New Frontier on these matters, that
allegedly brought on the vendetta against him. The Sub-
s been examininp, this
con-
6 ? NATIONAL Rct b'Stri'LEg0 - Approved For ReleaseCTA-RDP75-00149R000600040104-0
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 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000600040104-0
Two days later, September 25, they took off from Cozumel,
bound for Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and they have nat been
heard from since
ex or e s Vie has tried to get U.S. authorities to
search for the aircraft, but their response has been, it is said,
perfunctory. Perhaps she and the three young children
should not have expected more, for Rorke has been in
trouble with the U.S. Government.
One D. F. Cardoza, a customs supervisor, has threatened
Rorke with a $5,000 fine and two years in jail. As reported
by columnist Robert S. Allen, Cardoza explained to Rorke
that the order came "directly from the Great White Father
in Washington-President Kennedy." The State Depart-
ment had previously grounded two other planes Rorke had
used, by canceling the certificates permitting flights to the
Caribbean. Still earlier, customs officials had threatened to
shoot the tires of his plane if a takeoff was attempted.
Rorke, of course, had invited this trouble by making a
series of incredible air raids on Castro's Cuba in the last
regrets over Mr. Baker's forced resignation. And the GOP,
under that rocking, socking fighter, Everett McKinley Dirk-
sen, complacently agreed to a secret investigation of the
Baker case. Were the circumstances reversed, Senator Mike
Mansfield, the Democratic leader, would be clamoring
loudly-backed by the press-for open hearings and shout-
ing "unclean" from the rooftops.
The,?s involves Otto Ote ka, the State
Department security o icer who gas been semi-cashiered
for supplying information, to the Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee, which showed that some of his superiors
had been more than a little cavalier with fact in their sworn
testimony. For cooperating with the committee, Mr. Otepka
has been disciplined and removed from his job. At present,
while the case wends its way through the bureaucratic
jungles, he has been given the task of preparing a guide
book. Obviously, it was felt by Secretary Rusk that to de-
mote Mr. Otepka to leaf-raking or floor-scrubbing might
cause too much comment.
The Otepka case has led to some comments from Repub-
lican legislators, but the outcry one would have expected
has not materialized. Neither has there been any concerted
effort to link the breakdown in security disclosed by Mr.
Otepka to the horrors of the Dunlap case. Sergeant Edward
Dunlap turned over highly important information to the
Soviets. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was, as usual,
not called in until much too late. The Sergeant made one
attempt to commit suicide and informed his superiors of it-
yet nothing was done to prevent the second and successful
effort.
In fact, his demise before he had been forced to name
his confederates and to show the determined laxness of
the National Security Agency was met by a sigh of relief in
certain quarters. With Sergeant Dunlap dead, a number
culminating in a bomb' raid on an oil refinery
outside Havana last April. o e ad the h
t
is per-
~ i CIA in hese c ivit' orke's anti as stm
sona : m ugus a was jailed by Castro while cover-
ing Cuba on assignment .from NBC-TV ; he has claimed
to be the first U.S. citizen Castro jailed. And Rorke's anti-
Communism is professional and traditional: his earlier ca-
reer includes work with the FBI, and military intelligence
in Germany, and he was in on the first postwar dragnet of
Communists in the Allied Zone of Germany. Back in 1919
his father, then Assistant District Attorney in New York,
prosecuted the founders of the Communist Party, U.S.A.
At one time or another the U.S. Government has sent
military or other search teams after vacationers in Mexico,
or Nelson Rockefeller's boy lost off New Guinea; even
cattle stranded in blizzards on the western plains have
had bales of hay dropped to them from Air Force C-119s.
But Alex Rorke apparently will have to go it alone. Unless
somebody nudges Great White Father.
of people can sleep better these nights. This is such an
obvious proposition that the question arises: Was it really
a suicide-or was he helped along the way? The Whittaker
Chambers report of a conversation with an apparatchik is
recalled. It's easy to murder but to suicide someone takes
skill.
ThheeDunlacase, however, is but one more indication
tha t he Liberal vim ew of security is robbing this country of
its most vital secrets. If one listens to the Administration
claque, security measures are old-fashioned and no longer
needed. Yet at a time when President Kennedy's Defense
Department, according to Assistant Secretary Arthur Syl-
vester, was lying to the people in order presumably to
maneuver against the Soviets, Sergeant Dunlap was slipping
his espionage colleagues facts that were too touchy to give
the American public.
11 The Otepka case and the Dunlap fiasco-riot to mention
the recent. to of fhe< t~ to Ira
d
Soviet spies b f I-can be the basis for some search-
ing questions in t~e and the Senate. But the belief
that Communism is no longer an issue, that espionage and
security should not be talked about, seems to prevail on
Capitol Hill. The brainwashing of the post-McCarthy era
has convinced many Republicans that to talk about these
topics can mean death at the polls. It upsets the Washing-
ton press crops and they write nasty things about you.
This fear of adverse comment was responsible in sub-
stantial part for the number of Republican votes cast in
favor of the Moscow Treaty on nuclear testing. More than
one senator admitted that he would have stood up against
the treaty-but that he did not want to be "isolated" or
pushed into the "radical Right" wing. In instance after
instance-starting with the Wieland case-this kind of press
and social intimidation has carried the day. QUINCY
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