THE AGENCY'S BRIEF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00499R000100040002-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 1, 1972
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

HARPER'S
Approved Fo Release 2005/QI74011ccj -RDP84-0049i11i 000100040002-0
Interrupting its usual silence, the CIA has provided
IIarper's with a rare public document. It is an official letter
0/ protest against our July cover story, "Flowers of Evil,"
an extremely compromising report by Alfred IV. tlIcCo.y
about the CIA's complicity in the heroin trade in Southeast
Asia. "I trust," writes IV. E. Colby, the Agency's execu-
live director, "you will give this response the same prom-
inence in your publication as was given to the McCoy
article."
The letter appears below in full, together with Mr.
/1lcCoy's reply and the testimony of a former USi11D rep-
resentative who witnessed the Cl1]'s participation in the
Laotian drug trac. This exchange, we hope, throws fur-
ther needed light on a little-known stretch of the sewer
that runs between Washington, Saigon, Vientiane, Pnom-
penh, and Bangkok.
Beyond all that, we are surprised by Mr. Colby's use
of the word "trust." 111e may well be reading too much
into it, but that word, and indeed the whole tone of the
letter, suggests that Mr. Colby expected an immediate mea
culpa from 11arper's. Is the CIA that naive? illy. Colby,
who once presided over the notorious Phoenix program. in
Vietnam,* is hardly an innocent. Still, his entire letter
reflects a troubling simplicity, an unquestioning trust in
the goodness of his ow7t bureaucracy. He asks us to share
that trust, whatever the stubborn facts may be, As con-
elusive evidence of the Agency's purity, for example, he
even cites Director Richard Helms' public-relations argit-
nrent that "as fathers, we are as concerned about the lives
of our children and grandchildren cis all of you."
Such curious expectations of trust apparently nroti-
vated the Agency to ask Harper & Row to hand over the
galleys of Mr. McCoy's book, The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia, from which. lie drew his magazine article.
The Agency declared that it simply wanted to check the
book for factual inaccuracies, possible libel, or damage to
national security. To deliver this unusual request, the
Agency dispatched Cord Meyer, a man. with the proper Es-
tablishment connections who, as the CIA's overseer of the
since-trans f orated Congress f or Cultu.r-al Freedom, ' *- 111i ht
be said to have once been in the publishing business h1711-
sell. Although the galleys were duly sent to the Agency, the
CIA's subsequent complaints about Mr. McCoy's research
failed to impress Harper & Ron;, which has since confi-
dently published the book, unchanged, Apparently there
are limits to trust, even among gentlemen.
Although filar. McCoy won't agree with us, our own re-
action to this episode is to feel a certain sympathy for the
beset bureaucrats of the CIA, who seem to be impaled on
the defensive notion, "The Agency, right or wrong." By
definition the CIA finds itself involved with a good many
questionable people in Southeast Asia. That is a condition.
of its mission-a mission it did not invent but simply
carries out on. White house orders--and the suspect that
the public would trust the Agency a good deal more if it
either acknowledged the facts or remained silent. Alas,
the CIA now seems determined to revamp its image into
something like a cross betieeen General Motors and the
League of ll7omen Voters. But so endeth our sermon.. Let
the reader draw his own conclusions.
ilE AGENCY'S BB AET:
lie/-per's July issue contains an
article by Mr. Alfred W. McCoy alleg-
ing CIA involvement in the opium
traffic in Laos. This allegation is false
and unfounded, and it is particularly
disappointing that a journal of
Harper's reputation would see fit to
publish it without any effort to check
its accuracy or even to refer to the
public recorcl to the contrary.
Normally we clo not respond pub-
licly to allegations made against
CIA. Because of the serious nature of
these charges, however, I ant writing
to you to place these accusations in
proper perspective and so that the
record will he clear.
The general charge made by Mr.
McCoy that "to a certain extent it
[the opium trade in Laos] depends
on the support (money, guns, aircraft,
etc.) of the CIA" has no basis in fact,
To the contrary, Mr. John I,.. Inger-
soll, Director of the Bureau of Nar-
cotics and Dangerous Drugs, in a
letter to Representative Charles S.
Gubser of California on May 27, 1971
`Phoenix is a campaign of systematic counterterror designed to root out and destroy Vietcong sympathizers. As U.S. pacification
chief from 1968 to mid-1971, Ambassador Colby headed CO11DS'(Civil Operations and Rural Development Support), which ran
Phoenix in cooperation with the South Vietnamese police. 11r. Colby has testified before the Scna.te Foreign Relations Committee
that, in 1969 alone, Phoenix agents "DCU1ralized"19,531 suspected Vietcong, killing 6,137 of them in the process. Critics argue that.
1'hocnix uses assassination methods and that Mr. Colly's figures are extremely conservative.
fhe CCF, among other activities, at one time published a dozen or so-serious anti-Communist magazines throughout the world.
The best known is Encormter, which now has.a different sponsor.
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(reproduced in the Congressional no land to cultivate-and to villages security and inspection measures pre-
Record of June 2, 1971), stated: where the hulk of the male popular- date Mr. McCoy's charges against Air
tion is off serving in General Yang America.
Actually, CIA has for sonic time Pao's forces. (4) After the North Vietnnrilese
been this Bureau's strongest partner Prior to the North Vietnamese of- offensive in northeastern Laos, "Vend
in identifying foreign- sources and fensive, supplies were delivered to th,, Pao was able to continue his rate in
routes of illegal trade in narcotics. xIeo tribesmen. Those supplies, hors-- Laos's narcotics trade by opening a
Their help has included both. direct
support in intelligence collection as ever; consisted of rice seedlings and heroin laboratory at Long Clieng, the
Well as in intelligence analysis and other types of seeds plus livestock to CIA headquarters town.
production. Liaison between our provide the Meo with basic suste- There is not only no evidence con-
two agencies is close and constant nauce and also to encourage the Moo neeting General Van, Pao with a
in matters of mutual interest. Much. to give up the planting of opium pop- heroin laboratory in Long Chart? but
of the progress we are now making pies. These efforts meet with considcra- also none to suggest the presence of
i.rr identifying overseas narcotics able success. Mr. Boland Paul, itr- such a laboratory in bong Cfreng,
traffic can., in fact, be attributed to vestigator for the Senate Foreign He- There are a number of U. S. Govern-
CIA cooperation. lations Committee, reported in the went officials in Laos working against
Mr. McCoy makes the following April 1971 issue of foreign 11 f)airs the drug traffic. They would have
charges which I shall deal with speci- "that clue to the lone, association with spotted such a laboratory in Long
frcaIly: the CIA, the Mao tribesmen in Lao- Cheng and seen to its dismantling had
(1) General Van, Pao, "corn- were shifting from opium to rice and one existed.
wander of the GIA secret army in other crops." (5) "CIA contract airlines have re-
northeastern Laos ... has become an The fact is that the opium prodtrc- portcdly carried opitun, and indi-
increasingly notorious entrepreneur non in northeastern Laos has been vidual CIA nien have abetted the
in the Laotian drug trade." greatly diminished rather than in- opium traffic."
We have no evidence indicating creased as alleged in the McCoy This charge is also false. CIA is not
that General Van- Pao is involved in article. involved in the narcotics traffic and is
the Laotian drug trade. Because his 3) When Air America became tilt, actively working against it; its per-
forces are the principal Laotian do only air transport available, "it began sonnet are also flatly prohibited from
terrent to Nortk Vietnamese aggres- flying lleo opitun to mar'.Iets in Low- in), such activity as individuals, and
lion, many U. S. Government person- Cheng and Vicntianc." are subject to termination if so in-
nel have been in constant contact with Air America has long; had an effec- volved. Mr. i\lcCoy has produced no
General Van,, Pao for a number of five. inspection system, and more re- evidence which implicates Agency
years. No evidence has conie to light cently an even more rigid system to personnel in the narcotics traffic.
connecting hire with narcotics traf- bar even inadvertent transport of liar- Such unsupported charges against
fickirrg. cotics has been introduced. Air Amer- this Agency and its people of abetting
On the contrary, General Vang Pao ica released a statement to the press the flow of narcotics are not only irre-
has strongly supported the anti-nar- on June 2, 1972, which said: sponsible but particularly ironic in
cotics legislation passed by the Lao view of the many efforts this Agency's
National Assembly in 1971 and, as a There is an intensive program of personnel are making to steer the flow
leader of the Meo. has done his best inspection of both passengers and of narcotics into the United States.
to influence the tribal orou1ps to aban- cargo carried out in close collabora- 11Lore than one year ago, in an
n tion with local and U. S. authorities' address before: the American Society
don their traditional growth of the At up-country sites, inspectors in- a y
opitun poppy and develop substitute spect all baggage of passengers and of Newspaper Editors, Mr. Diehard
crops and new forms of livestock to crew members departing from- their Ilehns, Director of Central Iutelli-
provide daily sustenance and income. stations. All cargo placed aboard Bence, stated the following:
Further, most of northeastern Laos up-country sites is inspected by
There T members o f the inspection servicThere is the arrant nonsense, for
is not under General V and Pao 's con members example, that the Central Intelli:
trot but actually in the hands of the All baggage of persons departing Bence Agency is snmchoui involved
North Vietnamese. General Van,- Pao Vientiane
rre roil Services
are Air inspected. Apanecteddd. Lao ao Where Air r Con- in the world drug traffic. We are
obviously Development has no control over the crop p vnot. As fathers, we are as concerned
cultivation there, and cultivation of boarding passengers refuse to sub- about the lives of our children and
any crop in that area is extremely dif- writ to inspection. or are fount to grandchildren as are all of you. As
frcult because of the ongoing hostili have contraband in their posses- all. Agency, in fact, we arc heavily
ties. Sion, they are denied the right to engaged in tracing the foreign roots
(2) The CIA assurance of food board the aircraft and their names of the drug tragic for tlrc Bureau.
supplies to the Laotian Meo tribes- are turned over to local Lao author- of Narcotics and Dangerous Drrigs.
men allowed the Meo to "allot more ities. Through these and related 117e trope we are helping with a solri-
land to the growin of o pitn." measures attempts by individuals to lion; ice Irrrow we are not con-
g I tributing to the problem.
This allegation would not he made carry opium on company airplnnes
by anyone familiar with the war- have been detected and prevented. This statement remains valid today.
ravaged economy of the Meo tribe. These small-time smut.-glers and I trust you will give this response
users are the greatest threat and the the same ~r orninence in blica-
Tlre U. S. Government provides food security inspection service has.con t 1 your Inr
to Meo refugees-111eos Who have stituted an effective deterrent. Lion as was given to the McCoy article.
been driven off Apiprimld Pprt>Release 2005/07/01 : CIA-RDP84-00499R0&'1b064bb ~'( Q ecutive Director
Ncrrtt Vietnamese and therefore tr..ve Please note that thew. tightened Centre ntelli-ence Agency
l ~ n L ~ a
 Approved
'1111111!1 AIMIIOWS
. ES1PTN SIB:
agccy committee with both CIA and
State Department representatives,
had concluded that "there is no pros-
pect" of curbing the drug traffic in
Southeast Asia "under any conditions
that can realistically he projected"
because of "corruption, collusion and
indifference at some places in sonic
governments, particularly Thailand
and South Vietnam, that preclude
more effective suppression of the t:raf-
fic by the governments on whose terri-
tory it takes place."
When I testified before the Senate
and presumed to articulate a position
that contradicted the official ortho-
doxy as set forward by the Adminis-
tration, various government agencies
rushed to discredit inc. A State De-
partment spokesman, Mr. Nelson
Gross, accused me of sensationalism,
and a Bureau of Narcotics official,
Mr. John Warner, labeled me a pur-
veyor of "gossip, rumors, conjecture,
and old history." In their haste to dis-
credit inc, however, Mr. Warner and
Mr. Gross contradicted themselves
and other Administration statements.
Rebutting my Congressional testi-
mony about the role of official corrup-
tion in the Southeast Asia drug
traffic, Gross stated: "As for Ouan
Rathikoun ... we are not aware of
anything more than unsubstantiated
allegations concerning his past and
present complicity. With regard to
his `control' of the `largest heroin lab-
oratory in Laos,' once again, all we
have is allegation."
Only ten days later, John Warner
contradicted Gross in the course of
rebutting my charges in an interview
with the Washington livening Star
(June 19, 1972) : "Gen. Ouane Ratti-
kone, former chief of staff of the
Royal Laotian Army, had consoli-
dated several opium refineries into
one, and with his army controlled and
protected the Laotian narcotics traffic
for years, Warner said."
Evidently, the Administration is so
nervous about the compromised na-
ture of its anti-narcotics effort: in
Southeast Asia that its spokesmen feel
compelled to conceal or controvert
even the most obvious facts. General
Ouan has admitted his involvement
to me and to other journalists before
and since. I find it impossible to be-
lieve, as no doubt would the good
General Oman, that Mr. Cross and the
State Department "are not aware of
anything more than unsubstantiated
allegations concerning his past and
In essence, Mr. Colby's letter con-
sists of flat. denials of my analysis
backed up largely by supporting state-
ments from such partisan sources as
the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and
Dangerous Drugs, Air America, and
the CIA's own director, Richard
1Ielns. Given the rather incestuous
nature of M.r. Colby's rebuttal, it is
largely a question of whether his or
any other Nixon Administration
spokesn.m.an's optimistic, sanctimon-
ions pronouncements on the state of
the Southeast Asian chug traffic: can
be believed.
First. of all, let me repeat that there
is undeniable evidence that CIA
charter aircraft. were actively in-
volved in the transport of narcotics in
northern Laos during the period from
the mid-1960s until mid-1971. Tic
former comrnander-in-chief of the
Royal Laotian Army, Can. Ouan
Rathikun, who freely admitted his
own involvement in his nation's nar-
cotics traffic, assured me that he had
personal knowledge of Air America's
involvement in the transport of
opium. The former commander of the
Laotian Air Force, Gen. Thal Ma, who
was forced out of his command be-
cause Im refused to allocate aircraft.
for the transport of General Ouan''s
opium, likewise assured inc that Air
America was involved in the opium
traffic. During the course of my re-
search for the book, 1 interviewed
former USA 11) employees and rank-
ing Laotian bureaucrats who had sear
opium-loaded. Air America aircraft
landing at Long Cheng, the CIA. head-
quarters for northern Laos, and had
observed an opium refinery operating
in Long Cheng valley. To make abso-
lutely sure that these allegations were
well founded, I spent ten days hiking
through the hills of northern Laos
interviewing Mco villagers who have
fought as CIA mercenaries for the
past decade. I spent about: a week in
the mountain district of Long Pot and
was told by the Meo district officer,
numerous village headmen, and
opium farmers that their 1970 and
1971. harvests had been purchased by
Mco officers in the CIA's mercenary
army and flown to long Cheng on
Air America helicopters. Since one
village's 1971. harvest amounted to
Approved
For Rellmsle 5V,074G@ ,ar'CIA,6R i P84-rQ04919&ROOQtOOg4OO2?'0I call. only con-
snore than 700 kilos of raw, pungent
opium, there can be no doubt that the
American pilots of these helicopters
knew what they were carrying.
And yet Mr. Colby would have us
believe that his agency has been do-
ing everything in its power to curl)
the narcotics traffic in Southeast Asia.
Then how does he account for the fact
that. General Ouan's heroin laboratory
near Ban I_Iouei Sai in northwestern
Laos operated for almost two years
without any interference from the
CIA or its 30,000 mercenary troops?
Until the laboratory was abandoned
by its staff in amid-1971, it was the
largest opium refinery in Southeast
Asia, and it processed thousands of
kilos of pure heroin for both U.S. GIs
fighting in South Vietnam and addicts
back in the continental United States.
Substantial quantities of heroin from
this laboratory, packaged with its dis-
tinctive Double U-0 Globe brand
label, addicted tens of thousands of
American GIs and have been seized in
bulk quantities in cities along the East
Coast from New York to illiani. The
CIA had a number of secret para-
military installations only minutes by
helicopter from this laboratory, and
yet it did nothing for almost two
years. Nor is there a possibility
that the CIA was somehow ignorant
of the situation. Retirell CIA per-
sonnel, local CIA mercenaries, Baptist
missionaries, and ordinary hill tribes'
men knew of the laboratory's location
and importance months before it was
abandoned.
In light of the gravity of the heroin
crisis in the United States, it is par-
ticularly unfortunate that the CIA,
and the State Department as well,
have attempted to assuage the Ameri-
can people with falsely optimistic.and,
in fact:, blatantly dishonest and con-
tradictory statements about the qual-
ity of the Nixon Administration's
anti-narcotics effort in Southeast
Asia.
In order to justify its continuing
prosecution of the war in Indochina,
various Nixon Administration spokes-
memi have come forward with rather
dubious claims about the commitment
of the Thai and Vietnamese govern-
ments to anti-narcotics work. On May
15, Secretary of State Rogers told the
Senate Appropriations Committee
that "we are getting good cooperation
from Thailand with the drug prob-
lem." And yet only three months
earlier a highly classified Cabinet-
 Approved For lease 2005/07/01 : CIA-RDP84-0049980'00100040002-0
elude that Mr. Gross is not facing the
unfortunate realities of the Southeast
Asian drug traffic. But Mr. Gross is
only a spokesman, no matter how
maladroit, for the Nixon Administra-
tion, and his transparent, argumenta-
tion merely reveals the shallowness
of his department's commitment to
anti-narcotics work in Southeast Asia.
Perhaps just as damaging in the
long; run is the CIA's effort to induce
my publisher, Harper & Row.to elimi-
nate what it considers objectionable
portions of my Book, The Politics of
heroin e=rr Southeast Asia, or w-ith-
draw it from publication altogether.
After receiving it formal request from
the CIA's legal counsel, Harper &
1tows management decided it was
bound by its sense of publishing re-
sponsibility to provide till- Agency
with a copy of the maunrscript for
prior review. Faced with the prospect
of delaying the publication of illy
I,ook past the November elections and
thereby denying American voters in-
formation they might need for their
electoral decisions, I consented to
I larger & Row's decision though I dis-
agreed with its philosophical bases.
On July 20, it CIA agent arrived
at Harper & Row, picked up a copy
of the book, and spirited it off to the
CIA campus in Virginia for review
by "more than one component of the
Agency'." On July 28, another CIA
agent delivered the Agency's written
critique to Harper & Row. Neither
I harper & Row nor I found the rather
feeble arguments convincing enough
to merit arty changes in the ]took.
Aside from the obvious issues
raised by this attempted interference
with my bust Amendment freedoms,
what I find most interesting about the
C1A's moves is their unprecedented
openness. The reaction by the press
and publishing industry to date has
been predictably hostile. Why, then,
(lid the CIA take this risk? I can only
conclude that the Agency realizes that
what I am saying about its activities
is not only critical but accurate. Evi-
dently it believes my analysis is so
painfully accurate that it was willing
to accept bad publicity in order to
dilute the book or block publication
entirely. If I were as sadly misin-
formed as Mr. Colby would have us
believe, then the Agency surely would
have been able to rebut Inc effectively
by issuing a simple press release after
1 b k 1 1' 1 d
tc
tossing small packages up to tine re-
ceiving crew members. An American,
observing from a distance, asks it na-
tive employee to get it closer look. Ile
reports back directly: opium, aln nt
500 pounds of the stuff, is being
placed on board. He also says that
111 T ice, S the commander of the Laotian IIegu-
lar Army, General Ouan Rathkun.
1 c- .1OiL': has come in with the flight and is
? There is trouble at 1.vng Cheng. supervising the operation.
the secret (:cntral Intelligence. Agen North of Ban 1louei Sai, on the
cy military base in north Laos. m,() Lao side of the Mekong River near
guerrilla leaders are demanding full the Burmese border, is a cluster of
operational control over the dozen oy opium "cookers" in which the raw
so aircraft that work daily from this product is reduced, in this case, to +.
5,000-foot paved runway in the mid- morphine base. They belong to Chao
die of nowhctc.. the Americans resist. Lit, it Yao tribal leader and CIA
only too well what the, im- rilla commander. For months, an
plications of giving in would be. The) American badgers Cliao La for per-
hassle. Everybody, of course, know,:, mission to visit the site. Filially he
the stakes in this little game. Every- does. Not operational at the time, the
body knows that the Mco have their apparatus invokes images of it l oot
owrt ideas as to how these flying ma- leg still ill the. backwoods of Ken-
chines can he pert to efficient use. It':s tacky. The opium processed here
there for everybody to see: the neat. comes in from Burma and Yuman,
banana leaf wrapped cube. of raw-' contacts having been made by Chao
opium stacked neatly alongside till La's intelligence nctworl that,fitnded
runway, not quite it hundred yard, and supplied by the CIA, works tut-
front the air-conditioned shack from dercover ill these areas. The time is
which Agency officers command it 1968.
clear view of the entire area. In the These foregoing accounts have not
end. General Vance Pao, commande- hecn conjured up from my irnagina-
of the Meo army, has his way. The lion. They are factual incidents, and
Americans who are supporting tlu- I am the. American mentioned in
army might regret the small loss Of three of the examples. And they
operational control. But the war must shouldn't be viewed as isolated
go on. Anyway, even if the 11leo rack events, but rather as a mere sampling
up all the planes, more can always be of just how deeply the trafficking of
brought in. The time is 1967. opium runs as it central and integral
? An Ainerican refugee-relief part of the Laotian power structure.
worker visits a 11Leo village atop it The object of bringing these facts
1,500-foot mountain just north of tie__- into the open is twofold. First, to
Plain of Jars. Having come to dis_ show that opium trafficking was ram-
cuss local food-and-medical prole- pant in these areas when I was there.
lems, lie is given a walking tour of the And second, to stale my belief that
area. Of particular interest. to him is the American Embassy, together with
a sizable patch of unripe poppies other agencies nominally working un-
growing on the side of a hill just ill, der its auspices, not only knew what
from the village. It is opium, lie is was going ore but was fully aware
told. Soon it will be harvested. Then that it was in no small way conducted
"we will sell it to the General [Van' by the manipulation of U.S. aid ear-
Pao]." It represents a bit of extra marked for other purposes. I don't
cash; they will receive about 55 it make this charge lightly. It. was com-
pound. "Yon Americans don't pay i,s non knowledge to every field officer
very much," lie is told. The time is in the north. Talked about, but only
1967, on an informal basis, the opium ques-
? A Lao Air Force C1-7 transport Lion was subordinated to the primary
taxies to the head of the dirt airfield needs and objectives of U.S. policy.
at Barr Ilouei Sai, a small town in The utter ruthlessmess of this tac-
tile extreme northwest corner of the tical methodology is important to
country. As the engines shut down, a bear in mind. It mattered not what
created by
r
bl
e
ems we
Lao Army truck pulls up beside the ancillary pro
so 'Is
s
ht
]d
t to oo rs pu t
,
r
ot
-gyp ow nescnce.
het iP eI L ~d`~51~7t~ lltl` ~ - ~1~8 '-wY499 0(j!Q1AQcq{}R4Q2 Ocould l ee t tl; .
Aew avers, U01111. soldiers manurng the vehu.le tcg i e c 1 I
oontinue.
 wards in the boonA R cfVOd ff I ase 2005/07/01 CIA-RDP84-00490D000100040002-0
dying in the name of, for these un-
fortunates anyway, some nebulous
cause. If for the Americans this
meant, as it did, increasing the po-
tential reward, or quite literally, pay-
offs, to the Meo leadership in the
form of a carte blanche to exploit
U.S.-supplied airplanes and commu-
nications gear to the end of greatly
streamlining opium operations, well,
that was the price to be paid. In time,
the arrangement became increasingly I
mercenary. Dealing on such contrac-
tual terms perhaps made it easier
to rationalize away the other half of
Laotian reality: that hundreds of
thousands of natives had been caught
up in an American war of attrition,
and that the essence--the very life-
force----of an entire people had been
horribly scarred, if not fatally ex-
tinguished.
The war in Laos has always been
depicted as only a "holding opera-
tion"; merely a place to buy time for
our supposed allies, to allow them a
period of grace in which to mobilize.
Tlrus, with a second line of defense
established, the fate of this belea-
guered kingdom could be left to the
whim of fate. For the generals, Ouan
and Vang Pao, and for the rest of
their cronies, there has been time to
prepare for the inevitable day of
abandonment by their benefactors.
For thou, enough opium has been
grown, enough heroin processed from
it and sold on the streets of Saigon
to American GIs and in the back
alleys of New York City, so that the
generals' future portends surfeit, not
destitution. The tragedy in Laos is
that of the poor--the 11'leo soldier, his
family, and the rest of the conglom.-
crate Lao society who have long
been bombed, shot at, burned, up-
rooted, and who must now, in stark
confusion, ponder the enormous ca-
tastrophe that has befallen them.
The Americans ultimately will go
borne; the creators and engineers of
the Laos operation will be duly com-
plimented on a job well done. For
them there will be high-ranking ap-
pointments, and general promotions
all around.
But for the great bulk of the Ameri-
can people, who must one clay come
to realize the crimes that have been
committed in the false name of na-
tional honor, for them, there can only
be shame.
-RONALD) J. RICKI NBA.cII
hbpprov")tdc'9''o Release 2005/07/01 CIA-RDP84-00499R000100040002-0
 Approved For Release 2005/07/01 : CIA-RDP84-00499R000100040002-0
I NEW
10-1
McCoy, Alfred W. THE POLITICS OF HEROIN IN SOUTHEAST ASIA,
by Alfred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard
P. Adams II. New-York, Harper & Row, 1972. 464 p.
maps. HV 5801 .M1.
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 elrieclu
SEPTEMBER 3,1972
By Alfred W. McCoy
With Cathleen. B. Read
and Leonard P. Adams II
Illustrated. 46.4 pp.
New York, Harper. &'Row..$10.95i;,
It looks as though Papaver somni-
ferum, the rather beautiful opium
poppy, is going to provide us with
a new genre of film, fiction, journal-
ism and, even, scholarship.-This is
understandable.' Heroin addiction Is
savaging our cities. "Any nation that
of its character," President Nixon
observed last March shortly after his,
return from,China, oncd the most
addicted of nations. Mrs Nixott bas
declared,,",war" on heroin at home-
and galvanized his emissaries abroad.
In certain parts of the world, Amer-
ican diplomats now - give 'almost
monomaniacal attention to persuad-
ing frequently indifferent or corrupt
officials to do.something about poppy
cultivation, heroin refining and
heroin trafficking. `
Moreover, from the perspective of
a journalist or film-maker, the sub-
their poppy fields In remote corners
of Asia, ragtag paramilitary smug-
glers leading vast mule caravans
across cloud - shrouded - mountains,
shadowy Chinese middlemen bribing
?'" Press. in South Asia and Africa, now_
I rnnnrtc fram~enHv an rlrnc nrnhlama
1972, The New York Times Co. All rights reserved.
high - ranking officials to look the
-other way, cosmopolitan Corsican
intriguers arranging for stewardesses
to strap on "body packs" of No..4
heroin and fly to New York, intrepid
undercover agents. trying to foil all
of the aforementioned and-last, but
by no means least important-the
junkies on our streets, symptoms and
carriers of disquieting diseases.
This book, the first work of near-
scholarship in the new genre, comes
to us redolent of controversy [see The
leys-on June 1-the Central Intelli-
gence Agency dispatched an employe
to Harper & Row in New York to warn
,the company that the book could well
be inaccurate, libelous and "damaging
to the interests of this country," ac-
cording to the recollection of Execu-
tive Editor M. S. Wyeth. The next days
Alfred McCoy testified before a Senate
subcommittee about alleged involve-
ment of high-ranking' South Vietna-
mese officials, Air America and others
in the opium business. Alarmed, the
C.I.A.'s.General Counsel, Lawrence It.
Houston, stepped up the pressure, and
on July 5 asked to "see the text prior
to publication" in order to point out
Its inaccuracies;
Harper & Row agreed on July 19 to
let the C.I.A. consider the galleys for
a week and submit its criticisms, on
the understanding that the publish-
ers would be under no obligation to
make any changes., The mountain at
Langley, Va., labored and produced
a mouse. The 1,500-word critique
the Agency returned to Harper &
Row on July 28 understandably
"underwhelmed" the editors (who ap-
peared to have been concerned main-
ly about libel suits) and they decided
to proceed with the publication of
the book.
'The C.I.A.'s clumsy intervention-
particularly when linked to its on-
going efforts to prevent a former
agent, Victor L. Marchetti, from even
writing a book about the Agency
for Alfred A. Knopf-is seriously
disturbing. So is Harper & Row's sub-
mission of the book for prepublica-
tion criticism; it sets a worrying
precedent even if the company main-
tains, as it does, that this was a spe-
cial case. But the C.I.A. assaulted the
McCoy book like a bull lunging at a
matador's 'outstretched cape. For
what the 27-year-old Yale graduate
student has given us is not-as ad-
vertised-an expose of "C.I.A. in-
volvement in the drug traffic" but
rather a fascinating, often meticulous
unraveling of the byzantine complexi-
ties of the Southeast Asian opium
and heroin trade. To be sure, McCoy
weaves a New Left anti-C.I.A. leit-
motif throughout his pages and at
times lapses into the error (usually
made by angry non-Americans) of
crediting American espionage with
history-bending powers. Thus, in the
early (and weakest) chapters of the
book we are led to believe that if
the O.S.S. had not backed the Mafia
in Sicily at the end of World War H
and if the C.I.A. had not sponsored
Corsican mobsters as anti-Communist
strikebreakers on the Marseilles
waterfront, these -two underworld
groups would have subsided into
well-deserved oblivion and never
gotten into heroin trafficking.
As a former C.I.A. agent told Sey-
mour Hersh (who unearthed the
pre-publication fiasco), McCoy's as-
sertions are "10 per cent tendentious
and 90 per cent of the most valuable
contribution I can think of." "He's
a very liberal kid," the ex-agent con-
tinued, "and he'd like to nail the
establishment. But some leading in-
telligence officers inside the Govern-
ment's program think that his research
is great." Well they might. For McCoy
has done his homework, and, unlike
most authors of books about spooks
and mobsters, he gives us a rich set
of footnotes. It is too bad they are
not at the bottom of the pages, be-
cause this is a book to be read in
tandem with its footnotes. Some as-
sertions in the text are stronger than
the footnotes they rest on; many
are not.
The book's strength does not lie
in its finger-wagging approach to his-
tory, but in its astounding-but-true
tales of exotic rivalries that make up
the heroin trade, Have you ever heard,
for example, (Continued on Page 10)
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The Politigs
Of ' Heroin
Continued from Page I
of the Battle of Ban Khwan,
the Opium War of 1967? In
June of that year, Chan Shee-
fu, a half-Burmese, half-Chi-
nese warlord from Lashio in
Burma, dispatched a caravan
carrying 16 tons of raw opium
to the east, destined for Gen.
Ouane Rattikone, commander-
in-chief of the Royal Laotian
Army. But two ex-Kuomintang
generals, Tuan Shi-wen and Ly
Wen-huan, whose "armies" had
almost without challenge dom-
inated the opium trade, formed
a thousand-man expeditionary
force to intercept and destroy
the upstart's caravan whose
"single-file column of five hun-
dred men and three hundred
mules stretched along the ridge-
lines for over a mile."
After an inconclusive skir-
mish with the Kuomintang
marauders, the Shan opium
smugglers crossed the Mekong
River and dug in at Ban
Khwan, a Laotian lumber town.
As the two sides readied for
battle, General Ouane ordered
them both to.clear out of Laos.
"The KMT scornfully demanded
$250,000 to do so, and Chan
Shee-fu radioed his men from
Burma, ordering them to stay
put." Fighting began between
the Shan and KMT forces, in-
spiring General Ouane "to play
the part of the outraged com-
mander in chief defending his
nation's territorial integrity."
He dispatched six T-28 prop
fighters to deal with the in-
truders, displaying "all the tac-
tical brilliance one would ex-
pect from a general who had
just received his nation's high-
est state decoration, 'The Grand
Cross of the Million Elephants
and the White Parasol."'
Two solid days of bombing
and strafing sent 400 surviving
Shans piling into the Mekong
River and back to Burma, but
the fleeing KMT troops were
cut off by Laotian army units.
Meanwhile, Laotian paratroop-
ers had scooped up the big
prize, the 16 tons of opium.
nut, as McCoy points out, this
picaresque clash "appears to
have been a turning point in
the growth of Southeast Asia's
drug traffic.... General Ouane's
troops won the right to tax
Burmese opium entering Laos,
a prerogative formerly enjoyed
by the KMT, and the Ban Houei
Sal region [of Laos] later
emerged as the major process-
ing center for Burmese opium."
The book's theme (as dis-
tinct from the individual
scandals the C.I.A. hoped to
rebut when it asked to "see
the text") is that when the
United States moved into the
Indochinese vacuum left by
the French, it picked up,
and struck, alliances with
shaky 'governments, politicos
and mercenaries (like the
Kuomintang remnants in Bur-
ma) that earned a good deal
of money from opium smug-
gling. And-since it was only
a year ago that President Nixon
declared war on heroin-for a
long time American diplomats
and C.I.A. agents had consid-
ered opium trafficking by their
client allies a quaint local cus-
tom that didn't interfere with
the war against Communists.
Thus, for example, it was natu-
ral that Air America would
carry Meo opium in Laos. (In
attempting to rebut this point
in its correspondence with
Harper & Row, the C.I.A. was
disingenuous. In its own re-
buttal of the C.I.A. "rebuttal,"
the publishers simply quoted
Nelson Gross, the senior State
Department adviser on nar-
cotics, who had conceded the
point in an interview with The
Christian Science Monitor.)
Opium-dealing by America's
allies might have remained a
relatively benign phenomenon
(for Americans) had not a half
million G.L's been sent to Viet-
nam-and had not American
pressure on the Turks to get
out of the opium-growing busi-
ness sent the ubiquitous Corsi-
cans and other, traffickers scut-
tling to the Far Eastern con-
nection. As the traditional
Turkish source was being
phased out, - there was a rise
in the amount of Asian heroin
coming into the United States
in 1970 and 1971. McCoy ex-
aggerates the size of this flow
in order to indict American
policy-makers for not putting
the screws on their Thai, Lao-
tian and South Vietnamese al-
lies in the.war. But he rightly
points out that criticism of the
G.I. heroin epidemic has unduly
focused on the Army's efforts
to combat it, when in fact it
was South Vietnamese pro-
tection of the heroin racket
that insured an abundant sup-
ply of the drug. And one thing
we do know about drug epi-
demics is that they spread fast-
est when supply is great; the
G.I. epidemic is it striking case
in point, and one of the saddest
ironies of this irony-ridden war.
All across America today, ex-
G.I.'s are turning on others to
heroin while "war" is waged
against addiction.
But McCoy flaws his pioneer-
ing book at the end with an
astonishingly simple - minded
chapter entitled "What Can Be
Done?" which rejects both ad-
dict rehabilitation and the
prosecution of traffickers and
endorses eradication of the
opium poppy as the solution to
America's heroin epidemic. It
is a bit unfair to focus on this
brief concluding chapter, but
many Americans are going to
read "The Politics of Heroin
in Southeast Asia" and discover
a new set of bad guys-and a
new panacea. When the French
weren't doing enough about the
Marseilles heroin laboratories,
people boycotted Chdte auneuf-
du-Pape; next we can expect
cries for high tariffs on ceramic
elephants and nuocmam. The
international war on the poppy
'has great potential for hysteria;
a few home truths need to be
underscored. The first is that
the Burmese Government, as
McCoy shows, is unable to con-
trol the miniature Kuomintang
armies that still dominate the
trade and in fact permits op-
portunistic KKY militia units
to traffic in opium in order
to build up their strength
a"ainst several anti-Government
rebel groups. Pursuing a hermit-
like foreign policy, Burma,
which is thought to produce
400 of the 700 tons of opium
grown in the Golden Triangle,
is going to be growing jt for a
long time.
More important, however, is
the fact, conveniently ignored
by McCoy, that American ad-
dicts consume only a fraction
of the world's illicit opium. Ac-
cording to the Bureau of Nar-
cotics and Dangerous Drugs,
1,200 to 1,500 tons of opium
are produced illicitly around the
world every year. American ad-
dicts are thought to need only
60 to 100 tons of opium a year
to feed their habits-that is,
six to 10 tons of heroin. This
amount of opium can be grown
on five to 10 square miles of
arable, upcountry land-in Bur-
ma, in India, in Turkey, in
Mexico, in Ecuador. We are
not going to stop Papaver som-
niferum from growing around
the world, and even if gypsy
moths providentially consumed
every poppy extant,, it would
not be long before underworld
chemists were turning out oxy-
codone, hydromorphone and
oxymorphone-synthetic opi-
ates used in medical compounds
which established addicts are
unable to distinguish from hero-
in.
International efforts to en-
courage a reduction in poppy
acreage should not be de-
bunked. But we should not in-
vest high hopes or, when it
comes to a choice, - excessive
resources in such undertakings.
The best we can hope for on
"the supply side of the equa-
tion," as the narcs call it, is a
reduction of availability on the
street-fewer kids experiment-
ing with heroin and getting
hooked. Meanwhile, we should
not become preoccupied with
the glamorous, international-
intrigue, facet of the heroin
problem. We will have to re-
solve the problem, pace McCoy,
at home, not abroad. ^
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 !spar:. '` WASHINGTON, t.C. ?
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WEEKLY - 524,212
SEP 2 1972
viewed with amused tol-
erance as just another
Asian peccadillo like cor-
ruption, gold smuggling,
and night Clubs that ad
vertised "Twenty Fresh
Girls Just Arrived From
Bangkok With Medical
Certificates."
When the Embarrassed Chucklin
g Stopped
Our Aiii0, Opium,
and the CTA
the bag. the agent what was in
He looked embarrassed. "Opium," he
said.
Embarrassment .was the stron
emotion that gest
American officialdom showed
a decade ago if anyone mentioned the
wide-open dope traffic Conducted by our
allies in Southeast Asia. Narcotics smug-
gling ' was more often
white canvas bag aboard. Italready big,
knew the answer, but as we buckled our
seat belts I ask d
- _.~....~. . lvtanoy
We were just about to
one take off from
of the many secret airstrips the -
tral Intelligence. Agency had' cut into Centhe
mountains of northern Laos, when a tribal
soldier hurried up, spoke briefly to an
American CIA
The epidemic of piute
struck our armies there in 1970 and the
frightening inroads the drug has made
among
turned that amusing peccadillo into a
deadly menace to our own national well-
being.
Free Publicity
So The Politics of Heroin in Soutlzea?st
Asia,couldn't have been published at a
worse time for the men who direct our
Policies in that bloody and controversial
Corner of the world. Newspapers, maga-
zines, and television reporters have de-
scribed allied involvement with the nar-
cotics trade.in the past, Without generat-
ing more that, ?r f .m
White slavery and gold
smuggling still rate little
more than an enlbarrass-
ed Chuckle at some of our
Southeast Asian embas-
sies ("we're here to fight
communism, not to play
missionary"'), but narco-
tics is somethin
~??t?;- uu[. or Its accustomed Terry and'tle Piratesrs. It is rigt,t out of
of shell denials. o publicly issue 11 pages or less true.
and it is all more
.
Thegenc sh M
Y
`The book is so
thoroughly researched,
so carefully annotated,
and so specific in its
accusations that even
the Central Intelligence
Agency has crawled out
of its accustomed shell
of secrecy to issue 11
pages of denials.'
its charges. Instead of Preventing its
Publication, the president of the 155-year-
oldsponpseublishing house said the CIA's re-
merely "reaffirmed" his com-
pany's confidence in the book.
McCoy is a 27-year-old graduate stu-
dent at Yale. His book 'is a monumental
piece of scholarship in a field that
sometimes resists investigation to the
point of killing the investigators. He has
interviewed spies gun runners, opium
farmers, mercenaries, . policemen, and
generals along a trail that ran from dusty
European libraries to mountaintops in the
no man's land of northern Laos. He. pro-
duced a fasci
nating tale of mercenary
is so denials. But thoroughly this book, Pica evasions and armioesn, lost battalions, cornrnando raids
published Aug. 17 on Communist China , wild mountain
ghly researched, so and
carefully tribesmen led by hard-drinkin
annotated, and so specific in its accusa- adventurers whn
eons that even tha
np?+,. g American
Staff Writer Malloy spent several
years in Southeast Asia as a corre-
spondent for United Press Inter-
national.
-----------------
amount of free publicity. by asking Harper
& It ow to suppress its publication. It
trapped itself in _a "put up or shut up"
corner by telling the publishing company
it could demonstrate that author Alfred
McCoy's allegations were "totally false."
It failed to demonstrate any such thing
wilen Ilarper & Row broke publishing
tradition by giving the agency an advance
look at the book and a chance to explode
ould have stayed in its cCoy s chief conclusion
hell
t uaranteed t1~ 010004000~nu~~
IiS/HC $ AP~~B ~ s~, ftji p1 :1 =R 8X Q44 4W
t Ived irr the narcotics traffic
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at three levels: (1) coincidental complicity
by allying with groups actively engaged in
the drug traffic; (2) abetting the traffic
by covering up for known heroin traffick-
ers and condoning their involvement; (?)
and active engagement in the transport of
opium and heroin." He makes a solid case
for the first two charges. Evidence for
the third would be equally watertight if
he had dropped the word "active" with its
suggestion that the United States consci-
ously promoted narcotics smuggling as
well as just consciously permitted it.
The book niakes it clear that the United
Mates didn't conspire to grow opium, pro-
cess it into heroin, and ship it off to Amer-
ican school children. I:ut it does show that
our Asian pet Generals and politicians did
do these things and that we knew about it.
It shows that we-continued to supply arms
and equipment to these international
pushers, and that, they used them to ex-
pand their narcotics operations. And it
shows we knew that too.
A `Local' Problem
The reason for this American complic-
ity, of course, was the allegedly tough-
minded "we're not missionaries" syn-
drome that made any anti-Communist an
ally no matter how despicable he might
be. The CIA's rebuttal includes an excel-
lent illustration of. the attitude. The agen-
cy's chief counsel argued in its defense
that "when this drug became a matter of
concern to Americans, as distinct from a
local Southeast Asian problem, CIA en-
gaged in a variety of programs to attack
it.
The counsel didn't say just when the
CIA discovered that heroin was as had for
Americans as for mere Asians. But it was
obviously far too late, after young Amerir
cans were already injecting themselves
with products of a narcotics apparatus
whose construction lips been watched with
amused detachment by American officials
who thought it was a "local Southeast
Asian problem."
McCoy contends that helicopters of the
CIA's Air America airline were picking up
opium from tribal villages in northwestern
Laos as late as May "of last year. The CIA
says Air America has rules against carry-
,ing opium. It is possible that both are
right, since Air America pilots haul tribal
officers and supplies from mountaintop to
mountaintop without necessarily knowing
the purpose of their missions.
But most damning and revealing is the
defea.se the CIA makes against McCoy's
charge that the agency and the U.S. Em-
bassy in Laos threw up a facade of legal
technicalities and talk of Laotian
"sov-ereignty" to prevent the U.S. Bureau of
Author McCoy describing his find-
ings to a Senate subcommittee.
Narcotics from even investigating the
wide-open narcotics operations of Lao-
tian generals who admit using American-
supplied guns and planes to control the
smuggling of tons of dope.
The CIA quotes in its defense a Bureau
of Narcotics statement praising the em-
bass': and the agency for the passage of
a Laotian antidrug law nine months ago
and the establishment of a bureau office
in Laos soon after. Until then, the bureau
said, "programs to effect control of nar-
cotics trafficking could not be initiated
without Laotian national drug-control
laws."
That is exactly McCoy's point. The
United States raises private armies on
Laotian soil, bombs Laotian villages, runs
commando -raids across its borders, and
pays off its politicians without particular
reverence for Laotian law. And since it
also overthrows governments it doesn't
like, and pays most of Laos' public and
private bills, the United States can get
any law it really wants. The most telling
confirmation of McCoy's thesis is that
U.S. narcotics Investigators couldn't even
set up an office in this American depen-
dency until a year after local heroin began
flowing into Vietnam's U.S. Army camps,
and ?10 years after I shared an Air Amer-
ica flight with a sack of Laotian opium.
(The Politics of ? Heroin in Southeast
Asia. By Alfred W. McCoy with Cath-
leen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II.
Harper & Row; New York City. 464
pages. $10.95.)
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Spooking the First Amendment
T hursday,.4ug.24,1912 THE WASHIDGTON POST
The CIA Mounts an Operation on a Book
A FUNNY thing happened to author
Alfred W. McCoy on the way to his publica-
tion date. He and his publisher, Harper &
Row almost got spooked by the CIA in a
gambit that does little credit to our secret
overseas operatives. It seems that in his
book, "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast
Asia," Mr. McCoy argues that American dip-
lomats and secret agents have been signifi-
cantly involved in the narcotics traffic in
the "golden triangle" of Laos, Thailand and
Burma. The CIA, upon learning something
of the content of the book, apparently de-
cided that it had cause for the expression of
some concern. As a result, the author al-
leges, the agency resorted to "extralegal
measures" such as CIA visits to the pub-
lisher, telephone calls and letters in an at-
tempt "to harass and intimidate me and my
publisher."
I am not concerned with the accuracy
of Mr. McCoy's text or his methods of schol-
arship. I do, however, wonder about the way
in which the government expressed its inter-
est in his work. Whether there were visits
to the publisher or phone calls, as Mr.
McCoy alleges, is not the point. It is clear
that the general counsel of the CIA wrote
and asked to see the book prior to publi-
cation. While he denied that the agency's
interest affected in any way the publisher's
right to publish, the general counsel went
on to apply some heavy pressure, saying
"it is our belief that no reputable publish-
ing house would wish to publish such alle-
;,rations without being assured that the sup-
porting evidence was valid."
cv.o -
HARPER & ROW, for its part, told the
agency that it desired to publish the book
but also to "live up to the traditions and re-
sponsibilities of a great publishing house as
we see them." Overriding the author's pro-
tests, the publisher decided to submit the
book for an unusual pre-publication review
by the CIA. A source at Harper & Row re-
ports that the agency wrote the firm saying
that it could "prove beyond doubt" that
By Roger Wilkins
McCoy's facts were wrong. After reviewing
the book, the agency attempted, in an 11-
page critique, to demonstrate that the au-
thor's evidence did not support his asser-
tions. Apparently, after reviewing the CIA
critique, Harper & Row decided the agency
had not proved its case. "They just didn't do
it," the source reports. So, the book will see
the light of day.
Unfortunately, this is neither the govern-
ment's nor the CIA's first venture into the
murky business of attempting to impose
pre-publication restraints on the words and
ideas the citizens of this country are to read
and consider. The Justice Department's
thrust against the Pentagon Papers is still
fresh in memory. And the CIA has a rich
history in this business. In recent years, the
agency has flitted from Random House to
Putnam to courtrooms and to Harper & Row
trying to influence what the rest of us do or
don't react about the CIA.
But the agency cannot have it both ways.
It cannot hide away in the woods when it
pleases and then tell the mirrors of the
world what to show when it becomes edgy.
Its message to Harper & Row was especially
pernicious. While disclaiming any intention
to inhibit. publication, the agency suggested
more than once that no reputable or respon-
sible publisher would want to publish a book
without first validating the facts. And then
the agency offered itself as chief validator. I
am not sure whether the publisher needed
to go as far as submitting the galley proofs
of the book to the CIA. for pre-publication
review in order to ascertain the agency's
views or whether, indeed, that decision was
entirely wise. But to its credit, Harper &
[tow resisted the pressures and retained the
ultimate publishing judgment.
Gva
THAT IS all to the good, for the CIA, in
offering its services as ultimate validator of
the author's source material, was dangling
a lure that leads down the path to acquies-
cence in censorship. If Clifford Irving's caper
taught us anything, it was that. the pub-
lisher has ultimate responsibility for check-
ing the validity of the material he proposes
to publish. It is clear that the publisher,
upon learning that serious questions have
been raised about the reliability of material
it has on hand, should at least talk the ques-
tions over with any responsible doubter.
But finally, the responsibility rests with
the publisher, it cannot and should not be
shifted to any other party, particularly not
to a secret agency of the government. Any
other course would lead to the erosion of a
publisher's most precious right, the first
amendment right of free speech, which is
his only guarantee of his ability to promote
the free flow of information and ideas
throughout society, and our only guarantee
as well.
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 Approved For.Relea2OWR1 :V~DP84-004900100040002-0
17 August 1972
Victory over the CIA
totted beyond 'recognition,
Dear Sir: and none is based on convinc-
Although one'has the feeling ing evidence."
that to respond to Nat Hen- Clearly what is involved
toff's recent column about here is not a threat but a
Harper & Row, allowing the request, not an attempt to
CIA to see a book prior to revise but an offer to prove
publication (Voice, August 10) matters which, if they could
is only to encourage him to be proven, might well lead
even more dubious efforts, the both publisher and author to
enormity of his assertions and make changes of their own
their potential impact on the free will. To refuse even to en-
author community compel me tertain such an offer seems to
to put Harper's side on the us egoistic and, irresponsible.
record at least once. We do not want to play God
.Stripped of its rhetoric, with men's lives, or even with
Hentoff's article boils down to their reputations. Although
the assertions that Harper & we have great confidence in
Row "surrendered" to "pres- the author and in the book, we
sure" from the CIA by giving do not find it utterly incon-
it the opportunity to see the ceivable that . someone else
book prior to publication may . know something we
(which Hentoff says is the don't. This is simply a matter
same as giving them the of intellectual honesty; to con-
power to.revise it), and that vert it into some form of polit-
the publisher unfairly per- ? ical surrender is an exercise
suaded the author into going in knee-jerk paranoia. .
along with its point 'of view
despite his own feelings to the
contrary.
Hentoff's claim that what is
involved here is prior re-
straint is a classic exercise in
bootstrap logic. Although he
admits that the CIA's request
(which he has apparently not
- seen, although everyone else
has, and which is not, as he
says, "confidential") is only
for permission to review the
book, he nevertheless assert,,;
that "what the CIA is after,
the wording of- the letter
makes clear, is permission to
revise." Later in his article he
escalates this to "an attempt
at prior restraint (review)."
Since the real nature of the
CIA's request ' (demand) is
central to the issue, I will
quote from it: "In the light of'
the pernicious nature of the
drug traffic, allegations con-
cerning involvement of the U.
S. government therein or the
participation of American cit-
izens should be made only if
based on hard evidence. It is
our belief that no reputable
publishing. house ,would wish
to publish such allegations
without being assured that the
supporting evidence was valid
.. we believe that we could
demonstrate to you that a con-
siderable number of Mr.
McCoy's claims about this
agency's alleged involvement
are totally false and -without
fo tuctation, a number are dis
H"/HC- $'I,
them to the 'limit. It seems in this case, the author had
rather ungenerous to fault other equally attractive pub-
this strategy for having paid lishing options which did not
off, as it appears to ? have- involve showing. the manu-
done. script to the CIA. The fact
But, says Hentoff, there is. that he chose to go along with
the "chilling effect" to consic', us rather thaii publish else-
er. Just what got chilled in where only reflects the fact
this case? What difference did that our commitment to the
it make that the CIA saw the; book was clearly more impor-
book three weeks earlier than tant to him than our dif-
it otherwise would have? This ference of opinion about
is not a series of newspaper showing it to the CIA.
exposes where future sources -B. Brooks Thomas
u,igxn ury up. Ana the CIA can General Counsel
intimidate past sources just
as well after publication as Harper & Row
before, even assuming they East 53rd Street
need our copy of the manu-
script to do it. Nat Hentoff will reply
? I am not saying there is no next week's issue.
such thing as a "chilling ef-
fect." I am only saying that
its importance must be
judged on the circumstances
of each individual case, and
weighed in the balance
against the danger of pur-
suing the opposite course. In
this case I b
li
th
d
e
eve
e
anger
As everyone knows by now,
the CIA , of "chill" was much less than
did submit their corn- danger of publishin
meats, which we and the au- the serious allegations which
thor carefully considered and might turn out to be unsuppor-
rejected as wholly unper-, table. I believe that the action
suasive. The book is being of the'Freedom to Read Com-
published this week without a mittee, which Hentoff criti-
word changed. And yet Hen- cizes,"was based on a recogni-
toff bridles at calling this a tion of the delicacy of this bal-
victory. We gave away, he ance. Hentoff's simplistic
says, _ a full adversary pro- analysis does not, of course,
ceeding in a court of law eveadmit the existence of
which would have protected the problem.
the author's rights and the Finally, Hentoff scores
public's as well. Yet it was Harper & Row for having suc-
just such a proceeding that we 'cessfully persuaded the au-
sought to avoid or, failing thor to go along with its point
that, win, by making the book
available voluntarily. , of view. It does not take much
reading between the lines to
We are in the business ofd perceive that what he really
publishing books, not li resents is the notion that a
tigating with the CIA. Whatev- publisher should have a point
er it may do for the ego, such of view on'such a matter. Yet
litigation is enormously ex- a publishing house is not a
pensive for both author and public utility 'like the tele-
publisher, and it can tie up phone company, required by
publication for months and law to transmit messages for
even years. The CIA could anyone who can pay the fare.
commence an action whether Many people 'associate the
we let them see? the book or credibility of a work with the
not, and the moment the issue reputation of the publisher as
was joined the Court could, well as with that of the author,
and probably would, have let and most are quick to hold the
them -see the book anyway. publisher to account when
One of the reasons for volun- things go wrong. The Clifford
teering the book was in the Irving debacle is only one of
hope of avoiding such expense several recent reminders of
and delay by convincing the this fact of life. Surely the au-
CIA that they had no case for thor has. no more right to
court action. Another was to force the publisher to publish
put us in the strongest pos-,against his scruples than the'
Bible position should the CIA publisher has to force the au-
go to court anyway, in which thor to write against his.
case we would have fought
Approved For Release 2005/07/01 : CIA-RDP84-00499ROO0100040002-0