LETTER TO LT. GEN. VERNON WALTERS FROM RUSSELL H. PERRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000200410001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 36
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: July 30, 1975
• Content Type: LETTER

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AC 214 521-2171
RUSSELL H. PERRY
Chairman of the Board
WILLIAM E. COOPER
President
RICHARD A. GOODSON
Chairman oF the
Executive Committee
JOHN D. TORREY, JR.
Brig. Gen. USA (Retired)
Executive Director
VICE PRESIDENTS
MAURICE I. CARLSON
First Vice President
LEE DRAIN
Secretory-Treasurer
WILLIAM L SCHILLING
Membership
FRANK NORTON
Programs
R. E. LOMBARDI
VICTOR KENNEDY
BARRY MASON
JAMES M. SPELLINGS
MRS. VINCENT E. THOMPSON
JAMES R. WRIGHT
:
3409 Oak -Lawa:,"Ayenue
1.
T
Lt. Gen. Vernon Walters
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D. C. 20505
Dear General Walters:
Dallas, Texas 75219
July 30, 1975
On behalf of the Dallas Council on World Affairs,
it is a pleasure to confirm your acceptance to address
a luncheon meeting at 12 noon Tuesday, September 16,
1975, in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton-Dallas
Hotel. This meeting will be cosponsored by the Dallas
Chamber of Commerce and will terminate no later than
1:30 p.m. It is understood that your subject will be
entitled "CIA and World Affairs",
The Dallas Council on World Affairs is an independ-
ent, voluntary, non-partisan organization of citizens
and representative businesses of the Greater Dallas areu
Many other distinguished individuals have appeared befor
our Council over the past twenty-three years, including
heads of state, ambassadors and other important
dignitaries.
We look forward to meeting you and to earing
your remarks.
42
Rusel. H. Perry
C air an of the Board
Dallas Council on World
Chairman of the Board
Dallas Chamber of Commer e
ft airs
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SPEECH
by
LT. GENERAL VERNON A. WALTERS
before
tzi a.
6-7-`1
DALLAS COUNCIL ON WORLD AFFAIRS
THE CIA AND WORLD AFFAIRS
DALLAS, TEXAS
1"
16 September 1975
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A R TTCL d'it.A:if-5
THE BALTIMORE SUN
ONJ)4GB_L. 12 December 1976
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urn
airera
By BRADLEY 'MARTIN
Imagine- an industrial' complex in
; which woodworke.rs patiently turn out
? one-of-a-kind ship models?such as a 25-
foot version of the CIA spy ship Hughes
Glomar Explorer; where foundry workers
. cast -aluminum parts - for. aircraft, and.
? where an engineer tinkers with the proto-
type.- of a stereoscopic camera system for
mapping and measuring the human body
in three dimensioos. ???,'
:? Imagine further that all these people
ate.. working on the products of a single
company. And, finally, imagine that the.
company. with this bizarre product, mix;
far from being a giant conglomerate, has
? only 60 :employees and :sales of around
51.5 million a year. -. -,ese
That is diversification. And that is Dan-
ko Arlington, Inc., tucked away in a few
bUildinge on East Wabash avenue in
- Northwest Baltimore, where .its history -
and the proclivities ?f its current chief ex-
ecutive conspire to keep its corporate fin-
gers in several pies-at once. ,? ?
The late Joseph 0. Danko, Sr., with a
' brother-in-law, started the original firm in
1920 to make wooden patterns for casting.
His son;Jeseph 0. Danko, Jr., recalled last
. week that the company' survived the De?
? pression anti prospered during World War .
? II. ? After the war, the senior Mr. Danko
and several other people bought an alumi-
num foundry that ? had, been started to
serve the defense industry. It was named
e'Arlington Bronze and Aluminum- Comp,ae
nee annee,..e; eta ? eelen
the early I950`.s, -members-of: the -
group got into the manufacture- of coiru- ,
gated box machinery. Wheri they eventual-
ly-sold this operation, they looked around ?
for another manufacturing line that would
use castings produced,. in: the Arlington
foundry. ? : ssn ????
? ? ? By this time,- the junior Mr. Danko, a-
graduate of- Poly and the_ engineering
. school at.Corn?ell who describeihimself as
a "technically oriented fellow," was in-
volved. in the company. He became preesi-. -
dent in?1960, - ? ? a ?
_ In' 1988 the company found a new.
direction it Could take that would both re-
late to its foundry business and appeal to
the younger Mr. Danko's inventive nature..
0
C. txtircliaci
k' eu.47-4. A
A Southeast Baltimore firm called
. Kelsh Instrument Company was in deep 1
financial trouble and up for bids. Danko 1
Arlington, among 14 contestants, won the
bidding and took over Xelsh, which pro-
duced machines for plotting contour maps
from stereoscopic photo models. The ma-
chines-were made with aluminum cast-
ings.-
The pattern shop, the foundry and the
instruments company were_ broueht to-
gether into a single firm. (Mr. Danko, who
is 56 years old, says he owns about 95 per.
cent of the stock, which is not publicly
traded.) : ? ?? ? _ ? ?
The pattern shop had gotten into mak-:
- . big ship models around 196e, producing
Ahem to scale so that marine architects
,could test their designs in the water.
The firm was so proud of the crafts-
manship on one 1971 job, an odd-looking
25-foot model with a large, rectangular
" well and a price tag of $7,000, that it
framed a color photo of it and hung the
photo in its reception area.
Recently, when the story broke that the
Central Intelligence Agency had re-
covered at least part of a sunken Soviet
submarine with a ship called the Hughes
Glomar Explorer, the people at Danko Ar-
lington looked at the photographs in the
newspapers and took a new look at the?
photo of their model, Mr. Danko said.
What they, saw persuaded them that the-
model had been a test version of the Glo-
?.mar Explorer. ,
The company has retained a 1971 pur-
chase order for a customer identified as.
Global Marine, Inc., of Los Angeles, with
instructions to send the finished model to
the 'Naval Ship Research and Develop-
ment Center's David Taylor Model I.3aein,
outside Washington, where models of na-
val ship designs are tested. _
Officials at Global Marine Develop-
? ments, Inc., of Newport Beach, Calif., the
Global Marine subsidiary that worked on
'development of the Glomar Explorer, con-
firmed last week that the model number
mentioned in the purchase order showed
that the model was of the Glomar ship..
Nothing quite so glamorous is going on
now in the Danke Arlington pattern divi-
'sion's shop. A model of .a Great Lakes ore
;carrier is being built, with five different,
'-interchangeable icebreaker bows that can e
-be locked into place for separate testing
And nearby, work continues on the
company's original product: wooden pat-
terns that can be parked into sticky sand
- and then removed for the pouring of mol-
ten metal that will harden into the shapes
of the patterns. ? ?
The company's foundry division, user
of some of those patterns, melts metal al
around 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit and
brass at around. 2.300 degrees to make
castings. Large aerospace contractors are
major customers, and the division in-
cludes a laboratory with X-ray and metal-
lurgical testing equipment, to ensure that.
. tight specifications are met. ?
? The foundry accounts for the hulk of
the firm's business and has been kept busy.
in recent years despite the recession, Mr.
- Danko said. e ? - ? ? . ?
: That, the president added, is the beauty
of diversification. A few years ago, the
'foundry, was lagging but the instrument
business was doing very well, he said. Now
the company's instrument business, like
many Other businesses providing capital
? goods, is quite slow?but .the foundry is
carrying it. ' ?
That is a good, thing from Mr:Dartko's
point. of view; especially since he is his
company's' chief engineer and appears to
enjoy nothing better than designing and
improving the intricate. instrumems that
. give a science-fiction feeling to the Danko
Arlington complex: - . ?
When the firm took over Kelsh Instru-
? ment, the only products were the plotting
:instruments._ To rneltesecoteette.maps with
a plotting- instrument; two aerial photo--
? graphic' images made from slightly differ-
entangles are projected through a lens
system and merged. They form, to an op-i!
erator equipped:. with special' polarized
spectacles, a single three-dimensional lire'.
? . The operator moves controls to cause a
? dot of white light to appear to stay at
- ground level while he moves the viewer. -
Land features and contour markings are
automatically traced on a sheet of paper. .
? This saves the trouble of conducting a de-
tailed land survey to determine the con-
The Keithinstruments originally used
? red and blue filters?like the ones in the
spectacles that used to be provided to pa-
trons of theaters showing 3-D movies?to
give the three-dimensional effeete After -
Dank ?? -o Arlington took over , Kelsh Mr
s that their suitabilit.
o Ycan be com ared. _eee, ; -,.. . - . ? - - ?
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Event:
Place:
Date:
Time:
.DCI PUBLIC APPEARANCE
C',4 / 7324/ Ceok,5
David R. Deaner Memorial Lecture Series
Dixon Hall, Tulane
November 15, 1976
7:30-9:00 p.m.
Speaking from Text
Need Press Office Help
to Prepare Text
Hand Out Text
Yes
Yes
Limited Release
Embargoed Release
Want Press Office to Attend Yes
Press Conference Yes
Need Press Office Help
to Set Up Press Conference
Special Press Assistance Required
Comments
Yes
No
-:No: x"
No
x
11?:?
etrerz...eacmgra.,60.
30 minute speech fo11owe by Q&A
an.e..1.-a,f-1,15._
(One is a General International Relations specialist; another
will be a S.E. Asia specialiqt nd the,thtrd
moderator) This sessien will be followed by 15-20 minute
student Q&A session
Neil will intushLwylLu?,
.onoploioam
Travel Arrangements
-smavomazae,Aaae???Iso?yer
Contact Neil Bush -- [phone]
call him on Mon, Wed, or Fri at 11:30 a.m.
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BALTIMORE, ApilirlegvhdrFor Release 2004/11/01: CIA-RDP88-01315R?000 04 bki ' 5/ '7R
NEWS AMERICAN
E - 217,423
S - 296,818
AUG 29 1974,
U. S. Drug Agent Ouster
Feared Turkey's Aim
WASHINGTON (NNS) ? Fear
is moutiting that the Turkish
government may farce U.S.
drug agents out of Turkey.
The agents have been trying
to help prevent the shipment of
Turkish opium to the United
States.
' Washington's fears were
roused by an Ankara newspa-
per article which officials here
suspect was planted by the
Turkish government to whip
up public sentiment in Turkey
against tie presence of U.S.
Drug Enforcement adminis-
tration (DEA) agents.
T h e article accused the
DEA agents of refusing to
cooperate with Turkish au-
thorities, of being a branch of
the U.S. Central Inteiiigence
Agency-4C141,,znd of them-
selves being narcotics smug-
glers.
The U.S. embassy in Ankara
considered the article so sig-
nificant that it cabled its corn
tents to Secretary of State Kis-
singer. A DEA memorandum
dated Aug. 12, the day the ea-
lole reached Washington, said:
M r. (Dea Administrator
John R.) Bartels. feels that
this (the newspaper article)
may be the be-7i,nning of a
campaign to. toss DEA out of
Turkey."
Bartels, through a spokes-
man, now says he never ex-
pressed such a view of the ar-
ticle, and that "We've had
nothing but cooperation from
the Turkish government."
But Rep. Lester L. Wolff, D-
N.Y., a congressional crusader
against heroin smuggling, said
he is convinced the article
means, "They are setting the
stage for asking our agents to
leave."
T h e Ankara newspaper,
Cumhuriyet, was described in
the embassy cable as "left of
center" and "influential."
Sources in Washington add
that the newspaper is "sup-
portive of the government."
A DEA source said: "There
probably were government
sponsors of that article. At
least one government minister
/f.-7 Key
? 1.7
6 ir u DIr(? uj
C C
In?
must have talked to them
(Cumhuriyet's editors)."
T he Turkish government
agreed in 1971 to ban opium,
poppy production in Turkey,
the source f most of the her-
oin smuggled to the East
Coast of the United States. In
exchange, the U.S. govern-
ment agreed to subsidize Tur-
key's former poppy farmers.
But the Turks recently res-
cinded the poppy growing ban, :I
prompting Wolff and other 1.1
members of Congress to warn
of a new wave of heroin smug- '1
gling. A Wolff resolution call- 'A
ing for an end to all U.S. eco-
nomic and military aid to 4
Turkey unless the Turks take .1
convincing steps to assure the i?-?
opium will not get into illicit i
channels has been passed by
the House and is now beir.g
considered by the Senate.
According to Wolff, seed has:
already been distributed in
Turkey for planting this au-
thurnn.
_
?
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meaLn.
28 AUG 1974.
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American Friends of the Middle East
This is the second in a series of articles
describing the affiliations, statements,
and activities of several Washington or-
ganizations which promote Arab inter-
ests in the United States.
American Friends of the Middle
East (Aees4E), located in an expansive
office on Massachusetts Avenue, de-
scribes itself as a "private, non-profit
organization dedicated to furthering
communication and understanding be-
tween the peoples of the Middle East
and North Africa and the people-of the
United States through educational and
informational programs."
According to Director of Information
Services, Joan L. Borum, AFME was
created in 1951 when it became ap-
parent that the United States was des-
tined to play a significant role in the
Middle East. As a result of efforts by
several noted individuals active in the
Arab Middle East, AFME was organized
to present "the other side" of the Middle
East story, which its founders felt was
not adequately represented or heard in
this country.
"We have always tried not to favor
the pro-Arab side or the pro-Israel side,"
Borum said, "but have looked at the
Palestine question from a pro-American
side." She maintained that American
political decisions concerning the Mid-
dle East are often "made without ade-
quate access of information."
Avowed Anti-Zionism
Politically, however, AFME is any-
thing but neutral. The organization is
avowedly anti-Zionist?though not anti-
Israel?asserted Borum, who did not
see this as a political orientation. Chal-
lenging Israel's right to exist as an "ex-
clusive theocratic state," Borum insist-
ed that because the creation of Israel
was predicated by the Zionist move-
ment" it was established on wrong prem-
ises." She called American support
for the founding of Israel "a big mis-
take in terms of American national in-
terest. We don't think Israel will ever
be a viable entity in the Middle East,"
she said.
To be sure, AFME today has as-
sumed a much more restrained polit-
ical role than in the past when it boast-
ed such extremists and ?vell-known anti-
Zionists as Dr. Elmer Berger, Harold
B. Minor, and Kermit Roosevelt on its
Board of Directors. The stigma of the
der Dorothy Thompson, however, has
not yet worn off entirely. Nowadays,
AFME is less concerned about dissem-
inating outright propaganda as about
emphasizing Arab medical, educational,
and economic progress.
With total membership under a thou-
sand, AFME relies in small part on a
little over three thousand individual
contributors to help finance its opera-
tions. There is no need to actively solicit
funds, however, since a steady flow of
money comes from numerous contracts
and grants from major corporations and
foundations. Among these are the Ford
Foundation, the Department of State,
and the American-operated Saudi Ara-
bian Airlines.
Oil companies and other major in-
dustries have also contributed, but Bor-
urn termed these sums "very minor"
since the organization itself is "not a
direct service to them" and, therefore,
not necessarily in their interest to sup-
port. In recent years no corporate fund-
ing has exceeded $5,000 per year.
CIA Funding
Borum admitted that in the past
AFME had received sioificant sums
from organizations, including the phil-
anthropic Dearborn Foundation, which
were later shown to be conduits for
CIA funds. Borum added that since the
disclosure in 1964, there has been no
financial assistance from sources receiv-
ing CIA funding. (See Near East Re-
port Special Survey, 1964.)
A significant portion of AFME'S dis-
bursements are to its eight overseas
offices in the Arab world?none in
Israel. Besides the main Washington
office, there are U.S. branches in New
York, Chicago, and San Francisco, with
several more local chapters . scattered
throughout the country.
Although funds are primarily used
for "manpower and development proj-
ects" in Arab countries, nearly one-
half of AFME'S total revenues go to
maintenance and administration. At
present top priority is being given to
counseling Arab students for admission
to American universities under pro-
grams sponsored by the U.S. govern-
ment. ArmE also sends specialists to
Arab countries to establish bases of co-
operation with religious, cultural, and
social-minded leaders of the Middle
East. It sponsors programs of Arab
speakers before student, church, and
0 1.4 ,) .417,
?si
I-117(1acftkr
C YYLOOt..
diences with the Arab viewpoint and.
conducts an active publication,campaign.
Besides its bi-monthly newsletter,
AFME Report, the organization puts
'out literature describing its activities
and promoting the sale of books and
Pamphlets articulating the Arab posi-
tion. These publications unabashedly
reflect AFME'S anti-Zionist posture.
Viewpoints, published monthly, deals
with cultural and economic events in
the Arab world. The "Basic Facts
Series" is a compilation of painphlets
providing general information on indi-
vidual Arab countries. Mid East, a
monthly review of events, was discon-
tinued in 1971 for lack of funds<
AFME acts as a clearing
louse for information on the Middle
East by offering books and other publi-
cations to its members and contribu-
tors at substantial discounts. Perusal of
the list of information services, how-.
ever, favors representation of the Arab
perspective on the problem.
One of AFME'S principal objectives
is combating what Borum categorized
as "misinformation" of the American
public by Zionist elements. Asked
whether AFME'S anti-Zionist leaning did
not place the integrity of the organiza-
tion as a nonpartisan one into question,
Borum hesitated before saying that this
was a serious consideration which she
needed more time to think about.
?DAVID ETTINGER
'ID viciously anti-ZioniAriiiitt4td flOPReleaSvitlISVPI/Otf :adiki4bOg'61.64315R000200410001-0
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ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE 4
THE PARADE MAGAZINE
Washington Post
8 October 1978
n December 1976,a man in a shape-1
iJ less gray suit entered a suburban
building within sight of the nation's
capital. In an office on the ninth
floor he peeled $2000 from a thick roll
of bills and left carrying a cardboard
box. In it were thousands of micro-
filmed documents marked "Secret'.
and "Top Secret" The man was an
official of the Soviet embassy. The
ninth-floor office belonged to theCar-
rollton Press, Inc. And the transaction.
was completely legitimate. _
The Soviet Union was merely one
among hundreds of subscribers to a
highly unusual publishing venture--;
an enterprise possible only in a society.
as open as the United States's. Carroll-
ton's Declassified Documents Refer-
ence System sells recently unveiled
official secrets from the. files of the
CIA, FBI, Pentagon, State DepTirtinent
and other federal agencies. The idea-
was born in the fertile imagination of
William Walter Buchartan,_ a former
CIA officer and Carrollton's founder.
Buchanan, 50, left the CIA in 1957.
After several years as a management
consultant and publishing executive,
he formed the Carrollton Press in 1967.
Initially, the firm published indexes to
scholarly journals and innocuous gov-
ernment documentsof interest - p_ri-
._ .
madly to libraries.' .
Then, in 1974, Congress overhauled
the Freedom of Information Act. Sud-
denly, _thousands:,of _ official. _secrets.:
were being declassified. "-I-
Buchanan says, "that there was no way:
for scholars, libraries or ordinary citi-
zens to find out which 'documents
were available. Nobody in the govern-
ment even knew." 1- -
In time-honored American entre-
preneurial tradition, Buchanan saw an
unmet need and filled it. He hired
Annadel Wile, a former information-
processing expert with the CIA, and
the Carrollton Press began purchasing
copies of declassified _documents.
Theie?Were-- summarized, indexed, re-
produced on microfilm and7offered
initially to those libraries able to meet
the stiff subscription rftLi4.?r95StglfE0
documents declassified in a particular
year, $3950 for the 16,000 documents
by Joseph_E. Persico
_ Today,.the Declassified Documents
Reference System regularly scoops the
major news and publishing media. In
September 1977, for example, news-
papers, wire services and magazines.
carried a story?gleaned from a new
book, Marina and Lee?reporting that.
Lee Harvey Oswald had planned to
kill Richard .Nixon in Dallas months
before Oswald assassinated President
Kennedy. Subscribers to the Carrollton
service knew about the Nixon threat a
full year before it came out in the pop-
ular press.. The story appeared among.
325 Oswald-related documents which
the Carrollton. Press had legally ob
tamed from government files._ -..
in the spring of 1978, Legend: Th
Secret Life of Lee Harvey Oswald, a
heavily promoted book by Edward Jay:
Epstein, shed new light on Oswald"S
life in the Soviet Union. The jrlformq-
tion was not news, however, to-Car7
rollton subscribers `wl-t-o- had read
about Oswald's Russian sojourn 181
months before th& book came out.
The Carrollton' report included a]
verbatim transcript .of the- diary Os-I
weld kept, poor spelling and all. Aril
Oct. 21,1959, entry, for example; gives1
Oswald's reaction upon being denied
Soviet citizenship: "I decided to end
it. Soak ristin cold water to. numb the
pain. Than .slash 'my left wrist._,Than
plang wrist into bathtub of hot water.
. . . Somewhere, a violin 'plays, as
watch my life whirl away." Soviet offi-
cials found Oswald bleeding.to death
and rushed hint to a hospital in time to
save him. One can-only speculate on.
the course of history had-they:arrived
an hour later. ; ? ? ? ---? ? ?
Subscribers to the Declassified Doc-
uments Reference System can, also
read of Oswald's bitterness when his
proposal of marriage was rejected by
Ella, a beautiful Russian Jew.: "I realize
she was never serious with me, but
only exploited my being an American
to get the envy of the other girls who
consider me different from the Russian
Boys. -I am miserable!".
In July. 1977? the Washington Post
Releastatc26184/11ilietineCICARDIWPOEMI
Secret Experiments on Behavior Con-
trol?' Subscribers to the Carrollton
e
C bd,4 / 1Aj ,-/t:,11NA16 e
(it
C. V ko-
F
? vt-1-5
ev.A.S
S y 4 1-
P
would have on a meeting ora corner
ence."
The report stated that t'a_very small
dose" of LSD was placed in a bottle of'
Cointreau. One man who drank un-
wittingly frorrr the bottle- was Dr.
Frank Olson,- an- Army' civilian ern
ployee 'who- thereafter- went into a
state of depression and, 10 days after
the drug experiment. plunged to his.
death from a New York City' hotel-
SZef'zg
Another _C.arrollton document re--
veals someCIAthinking at the time
regarding the potential of drugs...
"Some of the individuals in 'the
agency had to know tremendous
amounts of information, and if away
could be found to produce amnesias
... after the individual left the agency
?it would be a remarkable thing." -
The Declassified Documents Refer-
ence System also scooped The New
York Times- as well as a number of
other major dailies and television news
_departments on-these former secrets:
that US:forcesstood ready in 19664-to
back up a military coup against Brazil's
civilian government: that the' Soviet I
Union probably suffered several nu-1
clear power plant accidents in the lat
1950's and early 1960's; and that the
US. Army Chemical Corps- had had:.:
studies done to learn how synthetic
marijuana might be mass-produced as
a chemical warfareagent. - 4
Some newspapers, to make sure that
.no potential news from the Declassi-
fied Documents Reference System
slips past them, have become sub-
scribers_ These inc:Fude such distant
, journalistic cousins as The New York
Times and the National Enquirer.
Numerous foreign governments be.-
sides the Soviet Union are interested
R001520641(jGfri _ebsolete, secrets._ In a
letter postmarked "Peking, a Mr_ j
Huang Fu-sheng, book buyer for the
_ j
WAS
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_
by Alexander Cockburn & James Ridgeway
s the Howard Hughes mystery ship,
Glomar Explorer, prowled about
he Pacific last summer, its every
move was studied in fascination
py a small grotip of businessmen 6000
-niles away in Gloucester, Va., a sleepy
ittle town on the Chesapeake Bay.
For these men Howard Hughes and
lis ungainly barge had become a spec-.
Ter. They feared Hughes might suddenly
emerge the winner in what to American
ndustry had become a ferocious strug-
gle, the race to win control of the min-
erals lying at the bottom- of the ocean.
Gloucester is the headquarters of
Deepsea Ventures, Inc, a subsidiary of
renneco, the international energy con-
gloi-nerate, which, together with part-
lers in Japan, Belgium and the U.S., is
iwiftly working to become the first
z.ompany? in the world to open a mine
DO the ocean floor.
As the Hughes ship edged into Ha-
waiian waters, the Deepsea men
.vatched nervously. They now insist
:hey knew nothing of the Soviet sub
:hat the Glomar was trying to raise for
the CIA. What worried them was that
Hughes might have stolen the march,
and begun mining ahead of them. .
But the Deepsea men held steady. ,
Then, on Nov. 15, 1974, they made their .
own daring move. Richard Greenwald,
the company lawyer, was dispatched to
the courthouse in Gloucester where he
filed a mining claim.
To Kitsinger's office
Later that day a messenger brought
the same claim along with a request for
"diplomatic protection" to the office
of Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of
State. Within a day or so details of the
claim reached ambassadors of the So-
viet Union, the United Kingdom,
France, and other powers. Soon the
claim was published in newspapers
from Tokyo to Johannesburg to Caracas.
The claim was extraordinary. For the
mine which Deepsea Ventures- staked
- out was 800 miles west of Mexico, 650
miles from the nearest dry land--a tiny
French-owned islet?and about 15,000
feet below surface of the Pacific. To be
precise it covered a 23,000-square-mile
rectangle of seafloor just north of the
Equator. ?
For Deepsea Ventures the unique
claim was a big leap forwrd in, its
.10-year struggle to win the race for the
billions of dollars worth of precious
? minerals lying on the floor of the
world's oceans.
It is a race in which Americans, Jap-
anese and Belgians battle against Cana-
dians, British and French. It pits Ameri-
can against American, Texas wildcatters
against U.N. bureaucrats. Corporate
fortunes hang on the outcome.
What is the prize they seek?
For many years it has been known
that vast stretches of the sea floor are
covered with rocklike objects that re-
semble black potatoes. These "nod-
C-?/ 1/-4.2 2--