DEAD LETTERS IN SAL [ ]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000800160001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 29, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 28, 1972
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Retds~~ff*1
-When Britain pulled out of Rhodesia after the 1965 Unil,
the CIA worked. to ferret out details of the sanction-bus
--:1n the popular traditions of spying, secret documents disz
were used to convey messages in invisible ink. It was a shock
one of the informers was a prominent lawyer. But it was. no
the CIA had expanded. into an area where the British were un,,
.active in Egypt, Iran and Syria. E. H. COOKRIDGE ends his
and looks at the Director, Richard Helms -STATINTL
ANY of the bright young / f
? at~, r,..11... I.n.i V
recruited to CIA from ' ?'~
law offices and univer- -"' Other CL
British sanction policy became, British n
osed to
- Francis P
to glean some of the methods of the supp
Rhodesian pig-ir.n, tobacco, and other who had
British Secret Intelligence Service. products through the Portuguese ports w
Dulles enjoyed making wisecracks of LorenSo Marques and Beira in East' cloak-anc
about the Victorian and Indian Army Africa to Europe and the Far East. Cuba anc
traditions still surviving in the British Merchants and shippers there had Wigant,
secret service, but he had a healthy made fortunes out of the traffic which Congo di
respect for its unrivalled experience the Portuguese were bound, by United and sever
and great professionalism. He knew Nations resolutions and agreements the most
that CIA could learn a lot from the ,,,;,ti u.;*.,;,, to regard as illeeal. Edward
in the
East ow ....................
- ----- After the closure yr u........
'East and Africa, where its stations in Salisbury all -Information about 1957 from the State Department;
were rapidly expanding. Rhodesian exports dried up at source. from 1959 he headed the East and
After Archibald Roosevelt, one of At this juncture CIA stepped in to South African section and, at the time
CIA's foremost "Arabists", had re- assist the British. It was not merely a of his ne' appointment, was Station
stored cordial relations with SIS when cad in Pretoria. Among his various
labour of love. American tobacco ~
station head in London, a plan of co- syndicates in Virginia, Georgia, exploits he was reputed to have
pperation was devised for Africa, where initiated the first contacts between the
most of the former British colonies had North and South Carolina, Ten- South African government and Dr
gained independence, and were be- nessee and Kentucky greatly in- Banda of Malawi.
coming subject to strong Soviet and creased their production and sales to The CIA agents were perpetually
Chinese pressure. Roosevelt was still Europe when Rhodesian tobacco - journeying between Salisbury and the
in London when, in 1965, Rhodesia growers lost most of their trade Mozambique ports, and Murray was
"Unilateral through sanctions. Traditionally, temporarily posted to Lusaka to main-
t
STATINTL I
made her momen
ous Rhodesian tobacco was used for cigar
. Declaration of Independence" (UDI), twin . personal contact with British.
which. led to the conflict with the and cigarette manufacture in Belgium, officials resident in Zambia. Mr Ian
British Government. Holland, Germany and Switzerland. Smith and his cabinet colleague, Mr
When these supplies dried up, Euro- J. H. Howman, who looks after foreign
There is no better instance of the pean manufacturers turned to Amer-; affairs as well as security and the
strengthening of CIA-SIS collabora- can growers. But by and by Rhodesian secret service of the Rhodesian regime,
tion than the hitherto undisclosed exports began to flow again, by the were not unaware of .the unwelcome
story of the services CIA rendered use of false certificates of origin and
the British authorities in Rhodesia. operations of the Americans. They
smuggling through the Portuguese suffered them for the sake of avoiding
particularly since about. 1968. ports and through Durban in South an open clash with Washington. Their
Indeed, in assisting the British SIS Africa, much-to the displeasure of the patience, however, became frayed
in its thankless task of implementing Americans. when it was discovered that secret
the policy of economic sanctions Thus, obliging the British and help- documents had disappeared from the
against the Smith regime, CIA put its ing American business, CIA ordered headquarters of the ruling Rhodesian
relations with the Portuguese in its agents to ferret out the secrets of the National Front Party. Subsequently,
jeopardy. It has an enduring under- sanction-busting schemes devised by
standing with the Portuguese Govern- Mr Ian Smith's regime. Soon the CIA
ment and its PIDE secret service on station in Salisbury was bustling with
many aspects: NATO security, anti- activity. Since 1962 it had been headed
communist operations, the use of radio by Richard La Macchia, a senior CIA
stations in Portugal and her colonies, official, who had joined it in 1952 frromm~
and of bases for th U-2 spy planes pte~j~p Ot~,44ci and special Forces iaT[f0~' to l{ RDP80-016018000800160001-9
An ca in
continued
bique and Macao. However thin the the U.S. Development Aid Agency. _
 TIME
Approved For Release.200V%WPP1 -,CIA-RDPB 01-9
STATINTL
SYRIA full bunkering, refueling and repair fa-
Blusterers and Brinkmen cilities at the Syrian port of Latakia.
Syria's radical rulers affect a style clos-
Even though Syria's invasion of Jor- er to Peking's brand of Communism
dan was one of the prime reasons for than Moscow's, however, and they have
the Arab summit, when President Nou- never hesitated to play the two giants
reddine Atassi showed up in Cairo to off against one another. When Soviet
represent the Damascus government he arms deliveries to replace weapons de-
seemed surprised that anyone was up- stroyed in the 1967 war fell behind
set. "You said you would never permit schedule, Army Chief of Staff Mustafa
the Palestine resistance movement to Tlas journeyed to Peking. The Soviets
be liquidated," he told a furious Gamal caught up on their back orders.
Nasser. "Well, they were being liquidated Delirious Policy. Scarcely a year has
and we tried to save them. What can passed in the last two decades without
be wrong with that?" a public demonstration of savagery by
The Syrian force was pulled back the men who hold power, or covet it,
quickly and with reportedly heavy losses. in Syria. Prime Ministers have been
But it stayed around long enough to re- shot and opponents of the regime have
mind the world that the Syrians are still been killed in mass executions; two Jews,
the biggest blusterers and brinkmen in labeled Israeli spies, have been hanged
the Middle East. When Richard Nixon -and their bodies left on display for
dubbed them the "crazies" of the Arali- the delectation of the bazaar crowds.
world during a recent briefing for Mid- Arab rhetoric is acknowledged to be
Western newspapermen, it was one of overblown, but Syria's is sometimes in
those rare assessments with which both a class by itself. In their campaign of
Israeli and Arab leaders could agree. frenzied anti-Western propaganda, the
Renaissance Party. The fanatical lead- Baathists once actually issued an of-
ers of the Baath Party who run the Da- ficial warning to the populace to be-
mascus regime have long been Nasser's ware of CIA "vampires," who were plot-
hair shirt. The Baath (literally, Renais- ting to collect Syrian blood for wound-
sance) originated in Syria during World ed American G.Is in Viet Nam.
War II, blending socialism with Arab na- Its foreign policy has been scarcely
tionalism. In 1961, they supported Syr- less delirious. Syria was one of the first
ia's pullout from the three-year-old Unit- Arab nations to supply Palestinian guer-
ed Arab Republic. thus ending Nasser's rillas with aid and training camps. They
dream of an Egyptian-led Arab bloc. are perpetually threatening war against
Currently controlled by a minority Mos- Israel. Last fall they sent tanks to seal off
lem faction under General Salah Jadid, their border with Lebanon in an attempt
who wields the real power over the party, to support Palestinian commandos there
Syria has been rocked by no fewer than against the moderate Beirut regime.
16 coups in the past 21 years, many re- Nothing but scorn is reserved for the
sulting from intraparty feuds. kingdom of Jordan; Atassi is fond of say-
When the Russians started pouring ing that "the liberation of Palestine pass-
vast amounts of aid into the Arab world, es through Amman," presumably along
Syria drifted quickly into the orbit of with Syrian tanks. Nor is neighboring
Soviet influence. Moscow is footing half Iraq counted as a friend though it, too,
the bill for a $400 million high dam . has a Baathist regime. The Iraqi branch
on the Euphrates, and has agreed to of the party has been too independent to
build oil-storage tanks at the Homs re- suit the Damascene Baathists.
finery and lay 500 miles of pipeline. In
return, the Russians have been granted
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601 R000800160001-9
 STATINTL
Approved For Rel, stud 9 J 4 CIA-RDP
19 JAN 1970
J
By William Tuohy
Los Anseles Times
BEIRUT, Jan. 18-Author
Miles Copeland says that the
American diplomatic bum.
bling he describes in his book,'
"The Game of Nations." re-
sulted more from inexperience
than incompetence.
,,We had nobody who could
speak Arabic and we didn't
know anything about this part
of the world right after the
war," Copeland said here.
"The Game of Nations" Is the hottest-selling book In the
Middle East, sold out in most
book stores. It is published in
London and is due to be re-
leased in the United States in
April.
( It tells in fascinating and
sometimes humorous detail
j what is described as the inside
cry of various State. Depart-
ment and Central Intelligence
Agency operations in Syria,
Lebanon and Egypt.
Feisal Has It Translated
Ilarly about Egypt and Presi-! coup, in the 1958 Lebanon cr1-
dent Nasser, that Saudi Ara- sis and during the rise of Nas-
bia's King Feisal, as well asIser.
other Arab leaders, have had
co tes translated into Arabic.
p
alive. Dulles was always send. was an "attempted bribe." So,
lag out special emissaries! to spite the Americans, he de-
without letting the ambassa.
dor on the spot know what
was going on. It did not make
for constructive diplomacy."
Because of his friendship
with Nasser, Copeland often
played the role of the Egyp-
tian leader in the State De-!
partment "game** "center,";
where diplomats tried to fig-i
ure out what various rulers]
would do under "various cir-
cumstances. "i V
Thus the book, says Cope-
land, "is an application of
game theory to political anal-
ysis." As such, it shows how
leaders of weak nations have
been able to gain leverage far
out of proportion to their
strength because, of the way
major powers have courted
them.
cided to build an "unfunc?
tional structure"-"something
very large, very conspicuous,
very enduring and very expen?
sive-costing, oh, say, some-
thing in the neighborhood of
$3 million."
The result was the "Tower
of Cairo," ? says Copeland,
"which we American friends
of Egypt see across the Nile
every morning as we breakfast
on our balconies at the Nile
Hilton."
Though the book paints
Nasser as a Machiavellian op-
erator, Copeland says Nasser
read it before publication and
approved.
"Egyptian officials who
know the real score like the
book," says Copeland. "Those
who don't know the score are
horrified by it."
neates the behind-scenes role -Reasons for Book
played by U.S. diplomats, milI. There has been widespread
tare attaches and intelligence speculation as to why Cope-
land, who presumably still has
ties to the U.S. intelligence
community, revealed so much
inside material about the CIA
and diplomatic operations.
Copeland says that the Brit-
Ash journalist-spy Kim Philby
was privy to most of the secret
detail and that the Russians
may he presumed to know
Copeland, 53, from Birming- 11 "I didn't want to write an-
ham, Ala., was an Office of, other stuffy memoir," Cope-
Strategic Services officer dur land says. "I wantd to tell
Ing World War II, then vice what really goes on in the
-glossed'-a
consul in Syria, - and later a power struggle among nations
management consultant to the
CIA, working for the firm of
Booz, Allen and Hamilton. He
his own consultant
ns
bout it.
not what is usually
Copeland relates how, dur? was learner.
inn tha 1A53 anoumr,nt about A couple of other authors
`Slow ru
--- - -- - - - were working on books pur-
firm in association with Ker- the amount of U.S. aid to
porting to show that Nasser
, mit Roosevelt, another former Egypt, he transfcred $3 mil-
t ^cc. r-T:1. __-1-r in the mid. i, was a virtual captive of the
C
t
I/A during his rase
o power,
idle East. -"
In visits to Cairo over the cret funds to be given to Nas? and the agency felt it would
I
1' b ser. be harmful to American inter.
er
d
f
ecame p
.years, Copelan
I In counting the money, ests to have this view takeni
hags the closest American
friend of Nasser, and the book which arrived via Beirut, with seriously.
C
ope a .
focuses on the U.S.-Nasser re- Nasser s aide, writes
latlonships. land, "we found there was~Hence, they were willing to'
nnn nnn rr-..-n.. ~1'n.?_ I _._ _ _ ____ ??._ _ e _ . _ _
Nasser as a Hero
"If there is a hero in the
'book," says Copeland, "I sup-
pose it Is Nasser. And If there
is a villain I suppose it is John
I Foster Dulles.
''Nasser may be flawed but
he has demonstrated his abil-
ity to play in the big leagues
with the major powers, and he J amusement and annoyance,
has eaten American dlplomata~ says Copeland,, and decided It
won't fuss about the missing
$10,' whereupon he and his se-
curity guards climbed into a
large, Mercedes and headed
for Nasser's residence on the
other side of Cairo."
But Nasser received the
money with a mixture of
hope that' Nasser would bey ?
shown to be an independent
.,nationalist trying. to use the -
United States in what he cone.
ceived to be the Egyptian nay
tional'interest. ;' `~
.- ..::.a4 i.i+~:?.:.1:.iL's.'4 h.Wwi.Y?rw..J'.MatV'--, '
STATINTL
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601 R000800160001-9