TECHNOSPIES THE SECRET NETWORK THAT SPIES ON YOU-AND YOU

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200610001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 27
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 1, 1978
• Content Type: BOOK

STAT
Approved For Re
=S LIRMlS2S1SV UUlSlSTI,~D
The Secret Network That Spies on You - and You
by Ford Rowan
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York
t17''
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FORD ROWAN
tra red between cooperating networks with no loss of
fidelity." sit would be very easy to use a network like
the ARPANET b'rcoed secret transmissions.
In 1976 ARPA Direc George Heilmeier testified about a
joint project with the Navy evelop a secure network to
study command and control pro zns. Heilmeier said it
would be a "secure subnet" of the ARP T, which would
involve very powerful computer systems. ANET, he
said, was "coming of age in an operational sense."
In fact, ARPA is not only sharing its ARPANET with the
military services, it is turning over the technology itself for
use in upgrading other military communications systems.
The Defense Communication Agency's new AUTODIN II, a
secure network designed for the entire military, is modeled
after the ARPANET. The old AUTODIN broke down so of-
ten in Vietnam that soldiers referred to the AUTODIN ma-
chines as "auto-dinosaurs." Because of the unreliability of
AUTODIN, CIA officers in Vietnam often had to use un-
secured telephone lines. The CIA even considered building
its own communications system, called PYRAMIDER, so
agents could communicate directly with CIA headquarters
in Langley, Virginia. The military hopes that the new AU-
TODIN will solve the problem. ARPA's director testified
that the ARPANET "is the complete technology base for
AUTODIN II [Automatic Digital Network], the secure DOD
military computer-communications network scheduled to
begin initial operation in FY 1979."
The intelligence agencies are also upgrading their com-
munications capabilities. Before 1973 special intelligence
and special access organization information was sent on the
Defense Special Security Communication System. In 1973
this communications system was merged into AUTODIN.
But the intelligence agencies were not satisfied with the up-
grading of AUTODIN to ARPANET standards. So intelli-
gence officials decided to upgrade one of their own net-
TECHNOSPIES
works called COINS, the Community On-Line Intelligence
Network. COINS is a secure network serving the Defense In-
telligence Agency, the military intelligence agencies, the
National Security Agency, the CIA, and the State Depart-
ment.
With the addition of IMPs and TIPs the COINS network
will have the capability of remote retrieval of data stored in
military computers. Pentagon officials insist that COINS has
never been used to spy on Americans. But the network is
designed to share secret intelligence information among the
various agencies. "The purpose of the COINS network," a
Pentagon Official testified, "is to make sure that a file avail-
able in the DIA can be used by an intelligence analyst in the
NSA, for example."
There's no guarantee that COINS and the other powerful
tools of the intelligence agencies cannot be turned against
Americans in the future. The abuses of the CIA and the NSA
in the past show that it can happen. In fact, at about the time
the CIA began Operation CHAOS to spy on thousands of
Americans and the NSA began compiling "watch lists" to
eavesdrop on millions of telephone conversations, there
was one primitive use of the COINS system. The network
was used to relay some information from the Secret Service''
to the National Security Agency in the late 1960's. Accord-
ing to a former Secret Service official who took part in the
transfer, the material was "junk." It was just a "trial run."
COINS and AUTODIN are not the only systems to benefit
from ARPANET technology. In 1972 the director of ARPA
told a congressional committee that "the Defense Com-
munications Agency has ordered three of ARPA's Interface
Message Processors so that a prototype ARPANET opera-
tion can be established between three of the WWMCCS
computers." WWMCCS is pronounced "Wimmix," and it
stands for Worldwide Military Command and Control Sys-
tem. It is a central nerve system for the entire military. One
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broke up, were the two Army intelligence officers. They
duly filed reports on all they had seen and heard.
The information from the Halloween party and the hun-
dreds of other events covered by 1,500 Army agents in the
1960s was filed away, much of it in computer data banks.
Civilian officials in the Pentagon were not fully aware of
what was going on until 1970 when the Army spying pro-
gram was exposed in the press.
Senator Sam Ervin, the chairman of the subcommittee in-
vestigating the surveillance, said he "was first told infor-
mally that there were no computers; then, that there was
one, but that it had been disconnected for this program;
then that there were a few more computers that the depart-
ment had forgotten about or not known about." During the
controversy the Pentagon promised to stop spying on civil-
ians and destroy its domestic surveillance files. But as late
as 1975 some parts of the files were found in an Army coun-
terintelligence analysis detachment in Washington. The
Army had also given much of the data to the CIA, the NSA,
and various police department "Red Squads" across the
country.
The story of the primitive use of computers in the domes-
tic surveillance of the .1960s and 70s is a chilling taste of
what could happen again. If an "emergency" similar to the
civil rights and antiwar protests of the past should occur in
the future, all of the government agencies will have much
more sophisticated computer systems in place. And the
likelihood is that the new computer networks will be quick-
ly utilized if government decides to spy on its own citizens.
The Central Intelligence Agency has tried to keep secret a
proposal made by CIA Director Richard Helms during the
height of the antiwar protests in 1969. Helms recommended
using computer networks to share information about Amer-
ican dissidents between the CIA, the FBI, the National Secu-
rity Agency, and military intelligence units. In one memo
Helms wrote, "I understand that the Office of Computer
Service possesses on-line capabilities and other functions
which not only would provide vastly improved information
storage and retrieval but also affords the possibility of a data
link with certain other elements of the security community.
"I would urge the earliest utilization of this capability,"
Helms added.
In fact, the CIA and the NSA went the farthest in utilizing
computers to spy on Americans. In 1969 Director Helms
stated, "There is an obvious need for introducing expanded,
sophisticated computer support" for the CIA's domestic
surveillance program. Operation CHAOS, as the biggest
program was code-named, eventually gathered information
on 300,000 individuals and the agency collected informa-
tion from electronic eavesdropping, mail opening, and the
penetration by agents of domestic groups. All of it went into
a computer system called HYDRA.
The bottom line in a CIA manpower study on Operation
CHAOS says this about the HYDRA computer: "Without
such computer support, it would have been impossible to
run this program . . ." HYDRA was developed to handle
the "backlog of undigested raw information" that flowed in
during Operation CHAOS. The names of individuals men-
tioned in intelligence reports were computer indexed. The
computer printout on an individual or a group contained
references to every file, document, and communications
traffic where that name appeared.
The HYDRA computer was designed to categorize infor-
mation on a "need to know" basis. The computer contained
"streams" of data, some more sensitive and secret than oth-
ers. Special passwords were required for CIA officers using
the computer to gain access to information in each stream. It
was because of the multistream nature of the computer that
it was dubbed HYDRA.
When enough information had been collected on an in-
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FORD ROWAN
dividual to warrant special attention, a personality file
called a "201" was opened on that person. The least sensi-
tive part of the 201 file contained information on his birth-
date, place of birth, occupation, and organizational mem-
berships. More sensitive information would be recorded in
another "stream" in HYDRA. Such information about the
individual would be more detailed and would show which
sources and methods were providing facts about the person.
Operation CHAOS developed nearly 1,000 files on target-
ed organizations and some 7,200 personality files were
stored in HYDRA. A 1972 CIA memo on the HYDRA system
states that "since all cable and dispatch correspondence in
relation to the program is compartmented for reasons of op-
erational security and sensitivity," it was not processed
through regular CIA channels. Instead, the memo stated, "a
complex, highly sophisticated system is utilized for the
control and retrieval of this information." The memo also
said that an additional reason for these advanced proce-
dures was "the receipt of a large volume of reporting from
the Federal Bureau of Investigation which requires detailed
retrieval capability for pertinent names cited ...."
Information was flowing into HYDRA not only from CIA
sources but from the FBI, the NSA, Army intelligence, and
other government agencies. Every name went into the HY-
DRA system. If an individual who was being spied upon
mentioned the name of a friend, even a casual acquaintance,
the name of that person went into the computer as well.
Thus people who had no direct participation in protest ac-
tivities came to be spied upon along with the activists. Ev-
ery bit of information gathered in Operation CHAOS went
into HYDRA with no winnowing out of erroneous informa-
tion.
The HYDRA system was designed so there could be on-
line query and input capability at remote terminals. That
meant that a CIA officer using the computer could do so
from a terminal in his office rather than having to go to the
computer center. HYDRA was an astonishing assemblage of
electronic components, including nine IBM 2260 terminals,
five IBM 2741 terminals, one Data 100 Offline printer, one
Data 100 Card Reader, and an IBM 360/67 computer.
The CIA's computers contained more about Americans
than just the information collected in the domestic surveil-
lance program. The CIA, which is supposed to be a foreign
intelligence operation, has long been accumulating bio-
graphical information unrelated to its foreign duties. And
many American citizens are listed in the CIA's central in-
dex. There are a total of about 15 million biographical refer-
ences. In recent years there has been an effort to cut down
the mass of information. In 1975 there were about 7.5 mil-
lion names in the CIA computer, of which about 115,000
were those of American citizens. The number of personality
201 files on Americans is estimated to total about 70,000.
In 1974 the CIA issued new regulations to restrict the
storage of information about Americans in the data banks.
No information would be filed away unless the citizen was
involved in "foreign activity detrimental to the national se-
curity interests of the United States." But the regulation list-
ed examples of activities which can be interpreted quite
broadly, including "espionage, counterintelligence, sabo-
tage, subversion, covert propaganda, psychological or un-
conventional warfare or paramilitary operations . . . ter-
rorist activity and narcotics trafficking," as well as par-
ticipating in the "illegal apparatus of foreign Communist
parties" or "other international clandestine activity."
The CIA's Office of Security maintains files on some
900,000 people, almost all of them Americans. Most of these
files are about people who work for the CIA, but it includes
others who simply have a relationship with the agency. The
Office of Security is very liberal in deciding what consti-
tutes a relationship. There are files on elected officials,
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TECHNOSPIES
FORD ROWAN
judges, and businessmen. In 1975 the CIA kept dossiers on
seventy-five senators and members of the House.
The CIA Office of Security once kept an extensive com-
puter list of about 300,000 persons who had been arrested in
cities all over the nation and charged with offenses relating
to homosexuality. The CIA claims this list was destroyed in
1973.
The extensive nature of the CIA's computer files shows
how -all-encompassing record keeping can become. When
the CIA feared embarrassing disclosures it terminated Oper-
ation CHAOS in 1974, but the agency continued to maintain
a mountain of material on American citizens. When Direc-
tor William Colby ended CHAOS, he issued a directive re-
stricting the collection of information about Americans. But
it contained a big loophole. The Colby directive permitted
the collection of facts about Americans when incidental to
foreign intelligence collection. That was a key exception.
From the secret beginning of Operation CHAOS through the
period of controversy after its exposure the CIA claimed
that the spying on Americans simply had been an inciden-
tal part of its foreign intelligence mission.
The Colby directive stated that if information is received
by CIA bases on American citizens, "and it is determined
that such information is inimical to U.S. interests or the
base feels that the incidental information should be report-
ed to headquarters," it should be sent through channels.
"Headquarters will make the final determination as to dis-
position of any information which is received."
So the CIA is still the judge of what it should collect,
whom it should tag for surveillance, and which records it
should store in its computers. While there is no evidence
that the massive surveillance of the antiwar period contin-
ues, the HYDRA computers still exist. In fact, the CIA has
continued to upgrade its computers.
A CIA officer named Paul sits at the center of this enor-
mous powerhouse. From the CIA's Operations Center on a
top floor of the agency's Langley complex, he has access to
news moving over the press association teletypes, cables
coming on from CIA officers overseas, and messages flow-
ing to and from the agency from the State Department, the
FBI, the Treasury, and the White House. "We have to know
everything from the status of the Russian fleet to who is cut-
ting down a tree in the demilitarized zone of Korea," Paul
explains.
It is essential work, essential to the survival of America in
a nuclear age. But in performing its legitimate tasks, the
agency has acquired a proficiency that can be turned against
American citizens if a domestic emergency, like the antiwar
protests of the Vietnam era, suddenly hits home. One can
sense the growing technological power of the CIA in a con-
versation with Paul, who uses the agency's might only for
worthwhile foreign purposes.
Paul can describe the new computer terminals linking
various intelligence agencies and the White House where
lengthy texts of messages can be edited. On his desk sit two
telephones, a normal business phone and a special gray
phone, the latter instrument part of a system that electroni-
cally codes conversations. A notice on the gray phone
warns that it must not be used within three feet of tho regu-
lar phone-to prevent any of the secret conversations from
somehow being intercepted. The gray phone links various
elements of the national security community.
Down the hall from Paul, in another area of the Opera-
tions Center, are the facsimile machines, devices which can
transmit photocopies of documents to the White House or
the FBI. Newer machines are in the process of being
installed for "Wash Fax," as the system is called, Paul ex-
plains. But he notes that there are so few of the older fac-
simile machines in existence that when the Treasury De-
partment was added to the system a couple of years ago, the
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 FORD ROWAN
only place where the White House could find a "Wash Fax"
machine to install in the Treasury was at the home of a for-
mer President. "They didn't need it in San Clemente any-
more," Paul notes.
All is not perfect at the hub of this powerhouse. Paul re-
calls how he tried to test the emergency preparedness tele-
phone system late one night. He tried to call a command
center like Mount Weather, Paul said, "but the guy who an-
swered the phone said he was a guard at a prison in Vir-
ginia."
Despite occasional shortcomings, the CIA has managed to
develop communications skills which make it possible to
transmit intelligence information quickly and secretly. Few
would complain when the intelligence concerns overseas
developments. The danger is that the system could be per-
verted for domestic surveillance in some future Operation
CHAOS. There are two haunting lines from those old CIA
documents about Operation CHAOS: ". . . the Office of
Computer Service possesses on-line capabilities [which]
afford the possibility of a data link with certain other ele-
ments of the security community. . . . I would urge the
earliest utilization of this capability." And, "Without such
computer support, it would have been impossible to run
this program . . . ."
While the CIA had no business engaging in police func-
tions inside the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation has a clear responsibility to protect Americans from
crime. To carry out its legitimate domestic role, the FBI has
acquired immense record-keeping skills and has amassed
voluminous information about Americans. The problem, as
one General Accounting Office study confirmed, is that of-
ten the FBI uses its skills in ways that do nothing to counter
crime. > X X
-The-GAO- fou-that-FBI domestic surveillance -opera-
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FORD ROWAN
Commission. It provides tips on how to get information
from trade and professional associations, the Better Busi-
ness Bureaus, credit agencies, banks, and other private
sources. Where's What suggests that a skilled investigator
check the records written into a family bible.
And here is what Where's What has to say about educa-
tional records: "The visit to the small college is almost al-
ways a pleasant assignment because the setting, the spirit of
the students, and the relaxed manner of administrators and
faculty are difficult to match in any other type inquiry. The
first stop is usually the registrar's office. . . . Some schools
will provide a nice little office for the investigator, others
will have only counter space. The author remembers one
school where a cantankerous old lady never wanted to ex-
tract a file from a cabinet as she was concerned that it would
not be replaced. She kept all the files in a vault, would open
the cabinet, peek at the file and then call off the desired in-
formation-never once facing the investigator. When all
was finished, the lady would turn around and in her sweet-
est smile would say, `Always glad to be of help."'
And the CIA is supposed to be a foreign intelligence
agency! CIA officials insist that just because a lot of filing
systems are mentioned in Where's What does not mean that
CIA agents are regularly poking around in them. But
Where's What is a "how to" manual. How to snoop.
Where's What recommends that CIA investigators seek
the assistance of local police. The policeman, it says, makes
it his job to know what is going on, who knows whom, who
can be trusted to be discreet, who are the blabbermouths,
and who are the "window detectives." Where's What con-
cludes, "The modern professional police officer is not the
`flatfoot cop' of many years ago but is a well-educated, intel-
ligent gentleman who wants to cooperate with federal in-
vestigators."
Despite its disdain for the word "flatfoot," Where's What
TECHNOSPIES
still advocates that an investigator use his feet to visit offices
and procure files. It is a pre-computer document. The world
has changed in the decade since it was written. With com-
puterization, the investigator of the very near future will not
need to wear down his feet to the point where he's called a
"flatfoot." Tomorrow's investigator may be able to get al-
most all of the information he wants simply by using the
computer terminal at his desk. X 'c
The possibility of keeping tabs on individuals electroni-
call will be enhanced with the growth of a banking service
know as EFT, Electronic Funds Transfer. With EFT, the
custom can give his bank card to a merchant, who inserts
it into a erminal, which records the amount at the bank,
and trans s money from the customer's account into the
merchant's count. Other devices permit bank customers
to withdraw sh from machines when banks are closed.
These transacts s rely on computers and telecommunica-
tions. The econo 'es in such EFT systems are apparent, but
there are dangers i the movement toward electronic bank-
ing
.
A great deal of inforr ation is recorded about an individu-
al with each EFT transa ',on-not only is a history built up
of his spending habits bu each purchase and his where-,
abouts when he made that rchase are recorded. Such in-
formation can be of great valu to law enforcement and in-
telligence officers. Even if a per n who has been using an
EFT system suddenly decides he ants privacy and elects
to spend cash, the EFT computer uld record the cash
withdrawal-and it would stand out pr inently.
In a 1971 experiment a group of specia 'sts in computers,
communications, and surveillance was give a strange task.
They were asked to describe a system of surve' lance which
might fit the purposes of the Soviet secret poli e. The ex-
perts were told to come up with a plan which would not be
obtrusive. What did they come up with? An EFT system. An
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substantive content of the speech. . . . This will open up
enti ly new ways for people to interact with devices and
contr systems of all types."
The uestion is where will the "control" reside? In free
men? O in the surveillance machines of agencies like the
NSA?
A former director of the NSA, General Lew Allen, said
that the computerized sorting and analyzing processes can
help the agent ignore inappropriate messages that it just
happens to intept. Allen says the procedures are de-
signed so that Americans will not be spied upon because
"processing, sortie and selecting for analysis is conduc-
ted . . . to insure imediate and, where possible, automat-
ic rejection of inappropriate messages."
But unfortunately, the, \NSA's use of computers, buzz-
words, and watch lists of targeted individuals can be direct-
ed against Americans more easily than these techniques can
be used to protect citizens. The NSA's surveillance of Amer-
icans in recent years has been an Orwellian harvest of
shame. The NSA has used its most secret communications
capabilities to spy on American citizens.
over the years the agency has cohected information on
thousands of Americans who sent or,~eceived messages,
spoke on the telephone, or were referred to in conversations
intercepted by the NSA. Until those files yr ere destroyed in
late 1974, the NSA had information on somek5,000 Ameri-
can citizens in its computers. The mere mentl n of a name
during a transatlantic telephone call could trigger the NSA
to open a file on an individual.
The NSA's appetite just grew and grew. And it was will-
ing to share its bountiful harvest with other agencies, like
the CIA. Some of the information from the NSA went into
the CIA's domestic surveillance program, Operation
CHAOS. In the late 1960s the agency was drawn into the
systematic monitoring of the protest activities of Ameri-
cans.
TECHNOSPIES
Operation MINARET, for instance, was set up to study
foreign influence in U.S. peace and black power move-
ments. In the charter establishing this secret eavesdropping
program, MINARET was described as an effort to monitor
"communications concerning individuals or organizations
involved in civil disturbances, antiwar movements/demon-
strations and military deserters involved in antiwar
movements."
The FBI, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the
Secret Service, and the military services all submitted
names of American protestors for the MINARET watch list.
These people's communications were intercepted and
analyzed by the NSA, and reports were furnished to the oth-
er agencies. Between 1967 and 1973 some 1,200 Americans
were listed on the watch list.
The CIA used the information supplied by the NSA's
MINARET to update its CHAOS files. The FBI used it to
develop leads on citizens who were later harassed in the
COINTELPRO operation. The NSA assisted the Bureau of
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in an illegal wiretapping
program designed to catch Latin American drug traffickers.
The BNTDD suspected that a public phone in Grand Central
Station in New York was being used to arrange illegal drug
shipments. The BNDD knew it could not legally wiretap the
phone, so it asked the NSA to do the job! Rather than use
one agent to listen to calls from one pay telephone booth,
the NSA used its electronic monitoring devices and com-
puters to screen virtually all phone conversations between
citizens in the United States and Latin America. They didn't
catch their drug peddlers.
The NSA discontinued its most blatant eavesdropping on
Americans when congressional investigators began asking
about the supersecret agency, but it still monitors interna-
tional communications, including telephone, cable, and
computer data traffic, and some domestic long-distance
telephone circuits. Because the NSA can monitor virtually
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collection of information about a person's life style, politics,
religion, or race, on the ground that the law violates the
credit firm's freedom of speech.
Businesses sometimes hire private investigative agencies
to check out prospective employees. One such firm, the
Wachkenhut Corporation, utilized a list drawn up by a
Washington man named Barz Lag who kept track of con-
gressional hearings and other government proceedings to
sort out "derogatory-type" information on'leftists for black-
listing purposes. These lists of "subversives" contained the
names of people active in civil rights`a:.d antiwar protests
in the 1960s. Wachkenhut gave the liststo the "Church
League of America," which now claims to holclthe largest
and most comprehensive files on subversive activity, with
the single exception of the FBI. Wachkenhut's investigators
still make use of these files.
Very often it is possible to learn a great deal about some-
one without having to resort to direct surveillance. A re-
markable guidebook for gathering personal information
about Americans came to light in 1975. It is entitled
Where's What and it was published as a "confidential"
sourcebook by the Central Intelligence Agency. It is now
available to the public under the Freedom of Information
Act.
In its more than 400 pages Where's What lists hundreds
of sources of information for investigators, ranging from vi-
tal statistics kept at county courthouses to financial records
stored in automated files. The book tells how to find infor-
mation about motor vehicles, education, police actions, and
court judgments. Open sources-libraries and old newspa-
per morgues, for instance-are not overlooked.
Where's What lists the record systems of all federal de-
partments plus twenty-two federal agencies, including the
Selective Service System, the Small Business Administra-
tion, the Veterans Administration, and the Civil Service
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(LEATUTER as
How far has it gone?
Mother lit up another Virginia Slims and peered into the
Planter's Punch. Unnoticed underfoot, a small mouse scam-
pered across the faded carpet of the Army & Navy Club in
Washington. The talk was of "The Threat." The man was
"Mother." He was thinking back two years.
A gaunt, ghostlike character, he has put the fear of God
into grown men who have worked for the CIA for more than
two decades. Some of them look back over their shoulders
when his name is uttered.
James Angleton. Former chief of counterintelligence for
the CIA. Master spy. Poet. Horticulturalist. His orchids, it is
said, are stunning. For twenty years he was in charge of
keeping the CIA's men in line and keeping Communists out
of the CIA. He was known around the agency as the "Gray
Ghost." But in his later years he obtained a new nickname
after two books about the CIA referred to him pseudony-
mously as "Mother."
Mother is testifying now. In a soft voice. But it cuts like a
TECHNOSPIES
scalpel. "It is inconceivable that a secret intelligence arm of
the government has to comply with all the overt orders of
the government."
The scene is the Old Senate Office Building. The date is
September 24, 1975. James Angleton is on the witness
stand. It is an unprecedented sight. It is not friendly fo-
rum.
"I withdraw that statement," Angleton breathes. It is not
his finest moment. Appearing before the Senate Intelligence
Committee, he is grilled about his life's work, the secret
work, and about his deeply held feelings that there are
times when an intelligence agency is not expected to obey
the public regulations of the government and the laws of the
land.
"Well," Angleton backtracks, "I would say I had been
rather imprudent in making those remarks." While his life's
experience screamed internally, "It's true," his public front,
prodded by Senator Frank Church, capitulated.
Church pressed Angleton about his comment that it is
"inconceivable" that the CIA should have to comply with
"all the overt orders of the government."
"Do you withdraw that statement?" Church demanded.
"I do." Angleton glared. A lie, perhaps, but one that
welled up from the very depths of his personality. Here he
was, the CIA's guardian, guardian of the nation's security,
before this group of senators, men who could never compre-
hend that we are in a "secret war," to use Angleton's own
term.
How is this war going? Angleton speaks as one who, in
his own words, "has given up thirty-one years of life with
certain very high ideals for this country. When I left the
Army," he explains, "I believed that we were in the dawn of
the millennium." He swallows. "When I look at the map to-
day and the weakness of power in this country, that is what
shocks me."
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How did Angleton fight this "secret war"? "The sum total
of counterintelligence activity includes dossiers, identifica-
tion of individuals, travel control, and a whole series of oth-
er dossier items," Angleton explains. These items form a
base "from which can be developed a product which is
counterespionage," the direct effort to counter the threat.
Angleton struck fear into the hearts of brave men in the
CIA. In charge of keeping the agency pure, he watched ev-
eryone. No Russian infiltrators or subversives would slip
past this slim man. For society at large, Angleton had larger
fears. Fears, as Walter Mondale put it, that America's own
children were trying to destroy this country.
Yes, Angleton says, the threat seemed so real back in the
late 60's and early 70's that agencies like the CIA, NSA, FBI,
and Army were called on to protect national security. To
Angleton it was an emergency, a threat, a challenge, a crisis,
and it required information, intelligence, dossiers, and ac-
tion.
To Mondale it was paranoia. "Paranoia that the American
people were trying to destroy the country," Mondale told
Angleton. "I think that attitude," Mondale added, "shows
he v dangerous it is to have agencies which themselves do
not feel that they are bound by the restrictions of the law."
Mother responded softly, "It was not, in my view, para-
noia."
Years later, over drinks with a reporter at his club, Angle-
ton relives those hearings, and it is clear that his views have
not changed. "America," he intones, "faces a grave threat."
His voice rarely raises over a whisper. Straining forward to
catch every word, one is pulled gradually into Angleton's
world. Despite the gravity of the perceived threat, it is a
comfortable world-made easier to comprehend because
the enemy is identifiable even as he is everywhere. The
threat comes from the left. And Angleton favors strong
measures to fight his "secret war."
To understand past episodes of spying on Americans-
like Operation CHAOS-or things which could happen in
the future, like a more pervasive misuse of surveillance tech-
nology, it is necessary to understand men like Angleton.
After several lunches with the man it becomes easier to
grasp his fears for the country, to recognize his well-mean-
ing sincerity, to feel friendship for this man who was once
so fearsome. He is bitter about the Congressional probes. In
response to an offhand remark that former CIA director
William Colby was to be commended for always telling the
truth to the reporter, Angleton snaps, "He should have
lied!"
While the ground rules of these meetings do not permit
quotation of other remarks by Angleton, one overriding im-
pression can be conveyed. Here was a man of action, a man
dedicated to protecting his country.
The CIA likes to boast of its capability to analyze the
threat to America, but its personnel have always viewed
their role as protecting America from the threat. Inside the
agency, information gathering and analysis has always been
viewed as an adjunct to the CIA's main role. Analysis has
taken a back seat to operations. The emphasis has been on
covert action.
That's why the CIA worked so hard at destabilizing the
democratically elected government of Chile when President
Nixon demanded an end to Marxism there. The CIA utilized
the full range of covert tactics, including propaganda, press
manipulation, bribes to officials, efforts to rig elections, pen-
etration of interest groups, and efforts to foment a military
coup. The CIA mounted this campaign despite an inter-
departmental intelligence report which concluded that the
United States had no vital interests within Chile, the world
military balance of power would not be significantly altered
by a Marxist victory, and the election of a leftist government
would not pose any likely threat to the peace of the region.
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Another example of the CIA's energetic use of covert ac-
tion came in Operation MONGOOSE, designed to get rid of
Castro. MONGOOSE and related CIA efforts were fueled by
the intense desire of President Kennedy and his brother
Robert to topple the Cuban Premier. The CIA, in its zeal to
remove Castro, contemplated using exotic poisons to kill
him, and even enlisted help from Mafia hoodlums.
Under both Presidents Kennedy and Nixon, the CIA con-
sidered assassination as a proper tool to counter the threat
of Marxism. Was the threat so grave as to justify such tac-
tics? These were not "one-shot" affairs. The CIA even estab-
lished an "Executive Action" unit, code-named ZRIRIFLE,
to develop a capability to neutralize enemies. The CIA
claims this capability was never used.
The CIA was not above participating in mass murder. Op-
eration PHOENIX, a military program, involved CIA per-
sonnel in operations with South Vietnamese forces which
resulted in the deaths of 20,000 Vietnamese civilians. This
program of terror utilized computer data banks to help track
down Vietcong infiltrators and crack the "infrastructure" of
Communist sympathizers in South Vietnam.
This marriage of technology and terror, be it toxins with
murder plots or computers with efforts to wipe out an "in-
frastructure," is a fact of life for the CIA. The CIA uses infor-
mation and it uses technology. And some of the covert uses
can be very dirty.
The CIA has performed most of its covert actions over-
seas, but the covert mentality has made inroads on domestic
agencies, especially the FBI and the IRS, which have used
their powers to harass extremists and enemies. And the
CIA's covert tactics have been copied in other agencies,
specifically in the drug abuse program.
The big push for action came from the White House. Pres-
ident Nixon ordered the CIA to help curb drug abuse and re-
lated crimes, which he called "the number-one domestic
TECHNOSPIES
problem." Overseas the CIA was ordered to help keep track
of drug traffic. The NSA monitored telephone calls to catch
drug traffickers. Agents followed the trail of drugs right into
American cities.
The drug problem in 1971 was not unlike the urban disor-
ders of the 1960s or the antiwar protests of the 1970s, or
even the success of Marxists in Latin America. Each was
viewed as a danger to the national security. In each case
presidential orders called for extraordinary action. The
drug menace was seized upon by the Nixon Administration
as the cause of the crime wave Nixon had campaigned
against in 1968. In short order the antidrug crusade came to
be envisioned by White House aides as a force for domestic
surveillance and clandestine political repression.
From the beginning, drug abuse proved especially hard to
curtail, and President Nixon turned to the most covert of
agencies at his disposal. In addition to using the CIA to
monitor drug traffic overseas, the Nixon Administration re-
cruited CIA personnel to work for the agencies responsible
for coping with drug abuse in the United States. Some sixty
former CIA men went to work for the Drug Enforcement Ad-
ministration. One, Lucian Conein, became a senior official
in the DEA. In earlier days, Conein had been a counterinsur-
gency operative in Vietnam. He was the U.S. embassy's liai-
son with the cabal of South Vietnamese generals who assas-
sinated President Ngo Dinh Diem. After Conein left the CIA,
his old colleague Howard Hunt brought him into the White
House, where he was assigned to work on Nixon's number-
one domestic problem, drug abuse.
While Conein's role is not fully known, the White House
task force went to work under Hunt and Gordon Liddy. It
began organizing a team of about 200 former Cuban agents
to perform political tasks for Nixon, to fight Castro, and to
fight drug abuse. The project, code-named DIAMOND, re-
cruited men skilled in combat and demolition. It was to be
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the strike force of the White House Plumbers, a special co-
vert action unit, ready for instant use against domestic
"enemies." This project never went very far.
Conein eventually was moved to head of the Special Op-
erations Branch of the DEA, in charge of carrying out the
war on drug pushers. The White House reorganized the an-
tidrug program in DEA and demanded that some way be
found to stop the big-time traffickers. Gordon Liddy came
up with a way. His suggestion was to kill them.
The DEA set up a network of informers and a computer-
ized system for penetrating the drug "infrastructure" and
identifying traffickers. The program resembled the CIA's
PHOENIX program in Vietnam. One computer program.
known as EPIC, collected intelligence on drug traffic across
the Mexican border into Texas. States as far away as Ver-
mont and Washington have used the EPIC data. And the
NADDIS computer provided automatic cross-indexing,
which permits agents in the field to obtain information on
individuals in a hurry.
The Nixon Administration even enlisted Mount Weather
in the campaign against drug pushers. During 1972 the
White House established a national heroin "hotline" so
people could telephone a central number to report drug
pushers. The program was hastily put together and the only
facility with the necessary telephone equipment which
could be found was the underground communications cen-
ter in Virginia. Personnel of the Office of Emergency Pre-
paredness were put to work answering phones on a twenty-
four-hour basis as the calls streamed in to the toll-free num-
ber from across the country. The program, however, proved
to be only a publicity gimmick. Of the 33,313 phone calls
received in the first three months, only 113 provided solid
leads for the narcs and only four arrests resulted.
As for the program to assassinate major drug traffickers, it
also fell through. Although the CIA took credit for killing
some drug suppliers in Southeast Asia, the program never
got off the ground anywhere else. Before any "hits" were at-
tempted, word of the DEA's strange undertaking got into
the press. Senator Lowell Weicker disclosed that Conein
had examined some unusual weapons that a private firm
was trying to sell to the DEA, such things as an exploding
telephone and a rocket launcher swagger stick. Conein later
explained that he thought he was going to be shown only
surveillance devices, not weapons. The publicity put an
end to the efforts to murder drug pushers.
But America had come too close to having the techniques
of the CIA's PHOENIX program transplanted from the bat-
tlefields of Vietnam to the streets of America.
"Let me tell you the story about the dead man who went
seeking a decent burial." George smiles, as if he is about to
tell a joke, then he looks at the fishpond and frowns. "This
is a good place for the story about the dead man." As we
walked across the lawn of the old brick mansion, George
talked about his days as a pilot. As we stepped through the
giant atrium, the conversation shifted to laser research.
When we looked at the flower garden, George spoke of com-
puters, the kind which comprehend human speech. As we
sat on a wooden garden bench, George spoke of executive
action and murder.
Dumbarton Oaks, where an international meeting in the
1940s helped create the United Nations, is a pleasant place.
But three hours in the gardens with a spy-soldier-scholar
can be an unusual experience. George likes to stroll slowly
and soak up the spring beauty. But he understands that
things are not always as they appear. And that's why he has
a story about a dead man.
"This fellow showed up at a church and asked the priest
to bury him," George recounts. "The priest said, `It's good
to make arrangements in advance, farsighted,' but the fel-
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low said, `Farsighted, hell, I've been dead for two weeks!"'
George has a twinkle in his eye. "The priest knew he had a
troubled soul on his hands, but he couldn't convince the fel-
low that he was alive and well." Rather than exorcism,
George laughs, "the priest decided to try a modern form of
witchcraft-he sent the guy to a psychiatrist."
George recounted how the fellow insisted to the psychia-
trist that he was dead. "The doctor got him to talk and talk,
but all he would talk about was his recent `death,' so in ex-
asperation the shrink turned to logic as a last resort."
George leans over and grabs a hand, like he's acting out the
story.
"The doctor said, `My man, isn't it true that a corpse that's
been dead for two weeks cannot bleed?"' George paused.
"The fellow answered, `Well I guess so, a corpse that's been
dead that long wouldn't bleed."' Then George ran the stem
of his pipe across the hand. "The doctor took a little knife
and nicked the fellow's hand, and of course it bled. `See,"'
George quoted the doctor, "'you're bleeding."'
"'What do you know,"' George quoted the fellow,
" `corpses do bleed!"'
Not a bad joke, but what's the point?
"It's a parable, dammit," George shouts, shaking his pipe
so hard the smoldering tobacco spills out onto his pants leg.
"A society that thinks it's dead will view all the evidence in
such a way as to prove it's dead; a society that thinks it's
right will twist all the information showing it's wrong
around to prove it's right."
We all live our lives within the confines of our own mind
sets, our world views. Everyone processes information
through his own frame of reference. Information which con-
flicts with preconceived notions is hard to swallow. As
George pointed out, witness our struggle with civil rights or
the reality of American behavior in Vietnam.
"All the talk about equal rights and equality contradicted
TECHNOSPIES
the bigoted world view of many whites. Not to mention the
inferiority complexes of many blacks," George explained.
"Look at Vietnam, the pictures of Americans burning vil-
lages, the stories of Americans killing women and children,
it didn't fit our view of ourselves as honorable victors." Evi-
dence which contradicted our world views produced ten-
sions, George says, but over time attitudes changed.
What George really worries about is that the mind set of
American intelligence operatives and their political superi-
ors is more resistant to change than the average man's, that
the White House, the CIA, the FBI, and the other agencies
cannot comprehend what is happening in America. "Social
change and protest didn't fit their preconceived picture of
what was supposed to happen in the land of the free and
home of the brave.
"The reason the intelligence agencies were unleashed to
spy on Americans," George explains, "is because of a mam-
moth intelligence failure. The guys at the top," he explains,
"were blinded by their own preconceived attitudes. We saw
everything in terms of the Cold War," George adds. "Every-
thing was a crisis, an emergency, a matter of national secu-
rity."
President Johnson and, later, President Nixon clearly be-
lieved they were acting to cope with a pressing national
emergency when they demanded intelligence about racial
riots and antiwar protests. They couldn't believe it was
homegrown protest, so both presidents concluded that for-
eign influence had triggered domestic unrest.
Johnson turned to military intelligence and the CIA to try
to uncover foreign elements fomenting unrest at home. No
one ever found any foreign control. Nixon insisted that the
CIA dig up the facts on foreign influence in the antiwar pro-
tests. Yet every major study conducted by the intelligence
agencies showed no instances of foreign control. Every neg-
ative report was greeted with presidential orders to expand
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the spying, to look harder for foreign influence. For nearly a
decade powerful military, intelligence, and law enforce-
ment agencies snooped on Americans and made trouble for
"troublemakers" because no one in leadership positions
could accept the evidence that this was homegrown, legiti-
mate protest.
Both the Johnson and Nixon Administrations criticized
the FBI for failing to cope with the demonstrators and dissi-
dents. The bureau had enormous information-gathering op-
erations, but the results seemed meager.
The Johnson Administration wanted to figure out a way
to evaluate the FBI's raw data on domestic disorders, so the
assistant attorney general for civil rights, John Doar, sug-
gested setting up a new "single intelligence unit" to study
data from the FBI, the IRS, and neighborhood, labor, and
antipoverty programs. His recommendation was accepted
in 1967 by Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who established
the Interdivisional Information Unit, the IDIU, which setup
a computerized system and accumulated files on 12,000 cit-
izens.
In 1969 President Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitch-
ell, included the CIA in the Interdivisional Information
Unit. The IDIU computer now processed more than 30,000
reports each year from the FBI, military intelligence, and all
the other sources enlisted in the fight against domestic un-
rest. The IDIU encouraged the sharing of surveillance infor-
mation among agencies. By 1970 it was producing weekly
computer printouts of all intelligence on black activities,
campus disturbances, and other disorders. In 1971 Assis-
tant Attorney General Robert Mardian, who would later be
tried for Watergate offenses, issued new guidelines for the
IDIU. "IDIU must analyze and monitor all information relat-
ing to past civil disorders as well as information relating to
the potential for civil disorder," Mardian instructed.
Unhappy with the failure to predict violence, the Nixon
Administration established the Intelligence Evaluation
Committee in 1971. This led to the so-called Huston Plan,
hatched by White House aide Tom Charles Huston, to coor-
dinate the domestic activities of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA,
and military intelligence units. The Huston plan sought the
presidential seal of approval on the illegal surveillance ac-
tivities by intelligence agencies that were already under
way. It called for intensified electronic eavesdropping, mail
openings, and break-ins. The Huston memo noted that
those tactics were "clearly illegal."
The heads of the CIA, the NSA, and the Defense Intelli-
gence Agency and President Nixon endorsed Huston's plan,
but it was scrapped when FBI Director Hoover objected, ap-
parently because it intruded onto his bureaucratic turf.
Nonetheless, many of the illegal surveillance activities con-
tinued.
The IDIU, the IEC, and the Huston Plan were top-level re-
sponses to the need for good analysis of what was happen-
ing. Yet the White House was never satisfied with the analy-
tical product it received.
Because the analysis failed to measure up, the emphasis
shifted to operations. In place of analytical deficiencies, the
White House ordered dubious operations. The result was
even greater efforts by the White House and the intelligence
agencies to gather facts about Americans and mount opera-
tions against them.
It is a big mistake to chalk up the Huston Plan and Water-
gate as extraordinary events brought about by a corrupt ad-
ministration. They were only part of a long-term trend to-
ward the centralization of intelligence analysis and opera-
tions. Surveillance grew by leaps and bounds because of the
emergency mentality that still persists throughout these
agencies. And throughout the decade of the protests there
was increased dependence upon new technology for sur-
veillance purposes. Army Intelligence was enlisted in the
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cause because the military had nationwide communications
superior to the FBI's. The CIA was brought in because its
computers, more sophisticated than the FBI's, could per-
form analytical functions. The CIA, the NSA, and the DIA
were involved in the Huston Plan because they were the fel-
lows with the big computers and the most sophisticated
techniques.
After it was all disclosed, Huston himself conceded that
the risks had been too great. "The risk was that you would
get people who would be susceptible to political considera-
tions as opposed to national security considerations, or
would construe political considerations to be national secu-
rity considerations, to move from the kid with a bomb to the
kid with a picket sign, and from the kid with the picket sign
to the kid with the bumper sticker of the opposing candi-
date, and you just keep going down the line."
"Imagine," the privacy expert asked, "what Watergate
might have been if its adventures had taken place not in
1972, when automation was still in roughly an early stage,
but in 1980, or 1984?" Dr. Alan Westin warned Congress
that when more governmental and private files are comput-
erized, when the Social Security number is used more and
more to identify people, and when some central govern-
ment unit has the security plans and data access keys to all
sorts of computers, then it will be possible to pull off a suc-
cessful Watergate-type operation.
"By 1980 or 1984, of course, the White House would have
been well staffed with systems experts and computer infor-
mation specialists," Westin said. "Instead of a basement
room with tape recorders, the White House would have had
video display terminals linked to a computer in Camp Da-
vid." Westin added, "This would have held some `enemies
files,' such as 500,000 political opponents to be systemati-
cally harried by federal discretionary authority. . . ." West-
TECHNOSPIES
in listed other files which could be made accessible to the
White House, including computer records of "leakers" to
the press, and files on "disloyal" radicals.
"In such a Watergate 1984 setting, the Plumbers of 1972
would have become the filers of 1984, and the dossiers,"
Westin said, "would have been produced far more effective-
ly than by such crude measures as wiretaps, break-ins, and
double agents." Westin warned, "We cannot allow secret
files to be built under the cover of national security, files
that can be easily used to harass political opponents, dissi-
dent groups, and the press."
- Westin, testifying in 1974, said that computerized infor-
mation systems had not grown to that full dimension of
danger when Watergate occurred. But what he and almost
everyone else did not know is that the Nixon Administra-
tion had begun the process of centralizing computer com-
munications at the White House.
The May, 1971, memo is on CREEP stationery. It is
stamped "Confidential." It reads, "To: Gordon Strachan.
From: Jeb Magruder. Subject: White House Computer." The
memo discusses ways the Committee for the Re-Election of
the President could utilize the government's computer re-
sources. The proposal lists eighteen potential uses, includ-
ing using the computer to maintain information on regis-
tered voters on a precinct-by-precinct basis for the entire na-
tion. The memo includes a map showing how the computer
can be used for "simulation mapping of demographic data."
The CREEP officials were ready to utilize government
computers for blatantly political purposes. A June, .1971,
memo discusses ways to use each agency to control patron-
age. Patronage is defined broadly to include jobs, contracts,
grants, subsidies, social programs, public works programs,
and public relations. One form of "patronage" is listed in
the memo this way: "Execution of federal law (resides
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mainly in the Department of justice whose interpretive
power touches every vested interest)."
With that kind of attitude it is not surprising that the
White House wanted to upgrade communications and com-
puter capabilities. An earlier memo on the campaign states
that the White House Communications Agency and "other
people with technical know-how" will be asked to devise
"various telephonic and electronic devices" to provide
communications between the White House and its political
operatives.
The first computer the Nixon Administration turned to
was the one operated by the Emergency Preparedness staff
at Mount Weather. Remote terminals in the White House
and the nearby Executive Office Building permitted White
House officials to use the computer for personnel purposes.
The Mount Weather computer was used by the White
House to maintain three files: the Executive Branch Presi-
dential Appointees File, the Incumbent File, and the Talent
Bank. About three thousand names were included in each
file. The Talent Bank contained facts on a person's ethnic
background, sex, political affiliation, work experience, edu-
cation, and performance rating. These files were used by the
Nixon Administration to keep track of its own personnel
and job applicants, but sources say there were plans to ex-
pand it to include political "enemies" of the administra-
tion, so they would not be able to get government jobs or
contracts.
"It was an itch on our part to get friends in the depart-
ments rather than the people that we found there," John
Ehrlichman explained. The Nixon Administration consid-
ered establishing Talent Banks at every department to
screen people applying for jobs-even nonpolitical jobs
supposedly protected by civil service merit rules. "It was a
large-scale intensive effort to undermine merit hiring for
civil service jobs," according to one investigator. Joseph
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TECHNOSPIES
once worked for the Civil Service Commission, but he quit
when he couldn't get anyone to do anything about the
abuses he uncovered. He's willing to "go public" only if
he's subpoenaed by a congressional committee, but so far
none has dared call him. That's because he knows a lot
about how representatives and senators of both parties
abused the system.
"On some occasions," Joseph recounts, "applicants for
civil service jobs were cleared through the White House
personnel office." He recalls references to secret political
clearances for jobs. "The system rated everybody on politi-
cal criteria," he says, "and it was computerized at the White
House."
Actually the computer was buried deep beneath the hills
of Virginia at Mount Weather. The preparedness officials
were happy to share their computer capability because they
could use the lists of presidential appointees in an emergen-
cy to help keep the government running. The danger, of
course, is that such a secret system could be used to ban
"enemies" from government jobs during normal condi-
tions. Furthermore, the Mount Weather computer has a
large memory capacity and could be used to store intelli-
gence data on dissidents. Preparedness officials deny that
that has ever happened.
But in 1971, before Watergate forced a cutback to the most
ambitious political schemes, the White House was consid-
ering ways to utilize technology. In that year a major pro-
gram code-named ZENITH was instituted to modernize the
White House situation room and expand the computer facil-
ities available to the President and his staff. ZENITH was
budgeted at $2 million for the first two years and involved
several agencies. The Defense Communications Agency
was responsible for the design and installation of the com-
puter equipment. The General Services Administration was
responsible for finding space for the equipment. The White
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House Communications Agency was responsible for install-
ing a separate but compatible message-handling computer
system. -
The new computer facility was going to be buried under
the White House lawn on the south side of the West Wing,
then it was decided to install the main computer in the Ex-
ecutive Office Building and put the message-handling com-
puter in the East Wing of the White House. The initial plan
called for using a CIA computer, but an April, 1971, memo
from Project Director Charles Joyce to H. R. Haldeman says
that the plan "became unglued" when it was realized that
there would be so many users of the computer that two ma-
chines were required. ? >(
Joyce's memo said that the White Housb staff, the Office of
Management and Budget, and the National Security Coun-
cil would have simultaneous on-line access "with privacy
protection for all" of the users. The system could produce
paper printouts and display video pictures on remote con-
soles. The uses suggested by Joyce were altogether proper.
But the Nixon White House adopted a hurry-up attitude for
other reasons.
A May, 1971, memo shows that Joyce was under great
pressure to have the system operational before the end of
the year, in order to obtain "maximum utilization from the
computer for the entire 1972 year." Of course, 1972 was the
election year, and by mid-1971, according to John Dean, the
White House staff had shifted its attention from regular du-
ties to "focus very much on the re-election."
After the Watergat,- scandal broke, the political misuse of
the computer stopped. One official testified that there was a
mass burning of documents relating to the political pro-
grams. But the computer systems which were expanded
during the Nixon Aaa.ministration were not burned. They've
grown.
Messages from the State Department and tlo Pentagon
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CHATUM U9
What's next?
The young woman did as she was told. She sat still and
looked straight ahead, not glancing to the side to see what
was happening at the end of all those wires that connected
to her body. Jennifer was on "the box." The operator, a man
who had seen thousands like Jennifer come and go, went
down the list of questions. When he asked, "Have you ever
used drugs?" the needles on the machine jiggled even be-
fore she finished lying. Before long the man had extracted a
confession that Jennifer and her boyfriend smoked pot from
time to time.
A half hour after Jennifer had arrived for her polygraph
test in a suburb of Washington, D.C., the man had good
news for her. Despite the drug episode, Jennifer had
"passed" the lie detector test. "It was scary being strapped
to that machine," Jennifer said, relieved that she had made
it through.
This was not a scene from the Langley, Virginia, head-
quarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, although it
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FORD ROWAN
would fit right in. Jennifer is a teenager. She had applied for
a summer job as checkout clerk at a local drugstore. The
drugstore required all prospective employees to take a poly-
graph test.
This is the story of the technological inquisition, which is
still in its infancy, with the "lie detector" its most common
manifestation. Ongoing research attempts to link computer-
ized techniques with new medical, psychological, and soci-
ological insights in order to understand and manipulate hu-
man behavior. Combined with other surveillance tech-
niques, behavior modification may become the most intru-
sive form of government activity in the future. Government
agencies have invested millions of dollars in research to
find out how people behave. Modern inquisitors have con-
sidered almost everything from using mind-control drugs to
implanting computer devices in peoples' brains. It is not
such a big jump from spying on peoples' behavior to trying
to change their behavior. Because of the advances in tech-
nology, it is completely possible that America could slip
into the everyday use of behavior monitoring and modifica-
tion in the future.
It is increasingly common for American businesses to
screen prospective employees and make spot checks of em-
ployees' honesty from time to time with polygraphs. Some
300,000 job-connected lie detector tests are given each year.
A former employee of a milk store chain in Georgia told
how he was given lie detector tests every three months. Dur-
ing his last test he conceded that he had consumed some
soft drinks and milk without paying. The examiner used
abusive language in an attempt to intimidate the man into
confessing he had taken more than he had admitted. The
man called the lie detector "the newest form of torturing
confessions out of citizens."
The American Civil Liberties Union, which considers
polygraphs to be of "unproven reliability," says that one out
TECHNOSPIES
of every four potential employees tested by companies may
be barred from a job because of recommendations by poly-
graph examiners.
The ACLU wants to ban the use of polygraphs as an inva-
sion of privacy. Thirteen states already restrict business use
of such devices. The Congressional Subcommittee on Infor-
mation and Individual Rights also recommended that "the
use of polygraphs and similar devices be discontinued by
all government agencies for all purposes." The Privacy Pro-
tection Study Commission recommended in 1977 that a
new law be enacted to prohibit private employers from us-
ing any kind of "truth verification" device.
Nevertheless, the use of such devices is on the increase
and the variety of lie detecting machines is growing. They
can measure psychological stress in a person's voice and
how fidgety a person is (this device is known as the "wiggle
seat"). There is a microwave respiration monitor, and a ma-
chine which measures the dilation of the pupil of the eye.
"The box," the standard polygraph machine, measures
blood pressure, pulse, respiration, perspiration, and
changes in the skin's resistance to electricity. It requires
considerable equipment, including a blood pressure cuff for
the arm, a bellows for the chest, wires for fingertips, and so
on. The theory is that when a person tries to conceal or lie
about something there are measurable physiological
changes in his body.
The Subcommittee on Information and Individual Rights,
however, said that "there is no `lie detector,' neither ma-
chine nor human. People have been deceived by a myth that
a metal box in the hands of an investigator can detect truth
or falsehood."
"I sure can tell if you're lying," Mike insists. Mike is a
polygraph operator who has worked for police and security
outfits in Virginia, just outside of Washington. He is an en-
ergetic man, a Polish-American who has adorned his office
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wall with cartoons about "Polacks" and squiggly graphs
made by a stress evaluator stylus. One graph measures the
stress of a mooning calf; another measures the stress of a
calf being castrated. There is a discernible difference be-
tween the patterns.
Mike says that psychological stress can be measured by
devices like the polygraph and the voice-stress analyzer. "It
works," he insists. Others believe that the key to the success
of any polygraph is the operator or examiner who adminis-
ters the test. A good examiner gets subjective clues from
watching the person being grilled, the argument goes, and
the machine gives him clues only to the person's mental
state. Mike, who appears to be a shrewd judge of men, does
not buy the argument that it is all subjective, but he agrees
that the skill of the operator makes a difference. There have
been reports that only 20 percent of polygraph operators are
competent. Mike doesn't think it is that bad, but he does
scorn polygraph operators who ask a few questions then an-
nounce to an employer that someone lied or "flunked."
Mike is now working with voice-stress analyzers, and he
says that operators of these devices must be properly
`trained. The voice analyzer does not require the cumber-
some equipment of the polygraph machine. Answers to
questions can be taped for later testing on the machine. One
of the most controversial demonstrations of the voice-stress
analyzer was its use by George O'Toole on tape recordings
of Lee Harvey Oswald's remarks after he was arrested in
Dallas in connection with the murder of President Kennedy.
O'Toole concluded that the stress levels in Oswald's voice
indicated he was not lying when he denied killing Ken-
nedy.
Proponents of the voice-stress analyzer say that one
advantage of the device is that it can be used surreptitious-
ly. The person being tested need not know his voice is being
recorded. Newspapers like the National Enquirer have used
TECHNOSPIES
it to evaluate the recorded comments of politicians. It has
resulted in headlines like this one: "Exclusive-Scientific
Evidence Proves: Ted Told the Truth About Chappaquid-
dick."
But does it work? The CIA, the military, and the FBI have
been cautious about using voice-stress analyzers, even
though alumni of those organizations developed the ma-
chines. A study made by a Fordham University psycholo-
gist for the Army in 1974 concluded that there was a "clear
inferiority of voice analysis . . . not only to the polygraph
but also to judgments made on the basis of simply observing
subjects' behavior." Proponents of the analyzer say that it
does accurately measure stress but that it does not necessar-
ily show that someone is lying. Mike, who uses the machine
regularly, says that stress might result because of a personal
problem or nervousness about a particular subject rather
than because the subject is lying. "But if there is no stress in
an answer," Mike says, "that's a good indication the fellow
is telling the truth." Other users of voice analyzers are less
cautious in their claims. One Seattle, Washington, operator
announced, "I am declaring war on liars, and I don't care
what problems with invasion of privacy there are."
In Israel a new "microwave respiration monitor" is being
tested by the police and military. The Israeli policemen aim
their machine at the solar plexus of an Arab walking up to
the Allenby Bridge checkpoint. As soldiers question the
Arab, the microwave signal tells the police if he is breathing
more rapidly than normal. If the Arab appears too nervous,
the police radio the soldiers and the Arab is turned away.
Another device developed at Kent State University is sup-
posed to tell if someone is lying even if the individual says
nothing. It measures changes in the size of the pupil of the
human eye as the person is asked questions. The small eye
changes are supposed to show his reaction to the questions,
even if he refuses to comment.
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The Central Intelligence Agency is a big user of poly-
graphs. So many tests are made that the agency uses a com-
puter to categorize stress measures on the individual poly-
graph charts. The CIA recently disclosed that over a ten-
year period more than 60 percent of its job applicants were
rejected as a result of lie detector tests. About half had al-
ready completed all the other security screening and been
provisionally approved for employment. "Without the
polygraph program," Director George Bush said in 1976,
"the disqualifying information on these cases would have
remained unknown." Bush defended the CIA's polygraph
screening, claiming that it deters unsuitable persons from
applying and keeps out foreign agents who would like to
penetrate the CIA.
The debate over lie detection techniques, their accuracy
and propriety, is likely to continue as their use increases
and new devices become available for surreptitious testing
,of-- individuals. But one major reason for their use was
summed up by Richard Nixon on a White House tape re-
cording. "I don't know anything about polygraphs," Nixon
said, "and I don't know how accurate they are, but I know
they'll scare the hell out of people."
Classified CIA behavior research files show that the agen-
cy developed computerized polygraph techniques to try to
test the truthfulness of its own agents and Communist de-
fectors. The effort to use machines to test whether someone
was telling the truth evolved into an effort to use drugs to
force someone to tell the truth. The CIA's exotic research
program shows how technology and medicine can be com-
mandeered for surveillance and control. Most of the experi-
ments of the past three decades fell short of the CIA's goals;
one reason most of them failed was that computer tech-
niques were still in their infancy.
TECHNOSPIES
Perhaps the most bizarre experiment ever paid for by the
U.S. government was code-named MIDNIGHT-CLIMAX.
The Central Intelligence Agency outfitted apartments in
San Francisco and New York City in the 1950s with fancy
red drapes, paintings of can-can girls, two-way mirrors, and
recording equipment.
Prostitutes were hired to pick up men in local bars and
lure them to the apartments, where the women gave them
drinks spiked with LSD, and CIA psychologists watched
what happened through two-way mirrors. But the men were
not all lonely barflies. In the words of one CIA memo the
tests involved "individuals from all social levels, high and
low, native Americans and foreign nationals."
Many CIA counterintelligence officers are skeptical about
Russian and other defectors. They suspect that defectors
may have been given the mission of misleading American
intelligence officials. The agency has invested significant
time, energy and money into ways of testing their truthful-
ness, including experiments with "truth serums."
The idea was that drugs could be used to elicit honest an-
swers not only from defectors but from the CIA's own em-
ployees, from prisoners of war, and even from people who
had no idea they were being drugged. The development of
truth drugs, however, was only a start. It turned out to be an
easy step from research into ways of monitoring behavior to
research into ways of modifying and controlling behavior.
The CIA was not. the only agency involved in drug ex-
perimentation. In 1948 the CIA, the FBI, and the military
services established Project CHATTER to find a drug that
would force people to talk against their will. Over the years
the FBI dropped out, but the CIA and the Army steamed full
speed ahead.
Everyone is aware of the arms race, but few people know
that there was a behavior control race. In the early 1950s the
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FORD ROWAN
Soviet Union was believed to have a mushroom that in-
duced hallucinations, so the CIA started trying to grow a
fungus that induced hallucinations.
CIA behavior research was stepped up during the Korean
War. The agency was worried about Communist efforts to
brainwash American soldiers captured in Korea. Some
American POW's had a memory lapse, a period of disorien-
tation, after passing through Manchuria. The CIA wanted to
subject the returning POW's to interrogation with truth se-
rum, but the Army refused permission. So the CIA set up
the ARTICHOKE team to develop behavior control tech-
niques using drugs, electro-shocks, aphrodisiacs, lie detec-
tors, hypnosis, and extrasensory perception. It arranged to
buy 100 million doses of LSD.
ARTICHOKE was renamed Project ULTRA, and from
1952 until 1967 drug experiments were conducted at eighty
institutions-colleges, prisons, hospitals, research compa-
nies. Knockout drugs were tested on unwitting patients
suffering from terminal cancer. Prisoners were given drugs
which caused loss of speech, loss of memory, loss of will
power, and had the capability of putting them in a catatonic
stupor. Hallucinogens were slipped into the mixed drinks
of unsuspecting people. Exotic toxins were developed
which could inflict instant death. At least two people died
because of the tests. The CIA conceded later that some of the
research was "considered to be professionally unethical."
Twenty years after research along these lines was begun,
the Army surgeon general said that some of the experiments
on military facilities violated the Nuremberg war crimes
codes, which require that people subjected to experiments
first give their consent.
In 1962 Congress enacted a law to safeguard people in-
volved in drug tests. The law provided that the Food and
Drug Administration monitor the experiments. The law was
aimed at research by private drug companies, but it was
TECHNOSPIES
clear it referred to all testing, including government-spon-
sored tests.
The CIA simply ignored the law. And the military actual-
ly drafted a memo saying it was exempt from the law. This
1964 "Memorandum of Understanding" was drawn up so
that if the military approved a secret drug test it "will auto-
matically exempt the drug" from the application of the law.
The memorandum was signed by then Deputy Defense
Secretary Cyrus Vance. Accompanying regulations which
implemented this "exemption" were signed by then Direc-
tor of Defense Research Harold Brown.
This arrangement to escape FDA scrutiny was later la-
beled as illegal by the General Accounting Office. Vance
was named Secretary of State by President Carter; Brown
was named Secretary of Defense. While there is no evidence
either Brown or Vance knew about the unusual drug experi-
ments, no official inquiry has ever been undertaken on how
high up the Pentagon chain of command the drug tests were
evaluated.
Permitting the military and agencies like the CIA to ex-
periment with behavior-altering drugs is especially danger-
ous to a free society. Monitoring is only the first step for a
covert intelligence outfit. As night follows day, covert.oper-
ations follow intelligence collection in an agency like the
CIA.
The operational side of the CIA has dominated the side
that gathers information. In the CIA covert action came to be
more important than the analysis of the information which
was collected. This trend has affected not only foreign intel-
ligence but the FBI's domestic intelligence operations as
well. COINTELPRO disruption programs became more im-
portant than the evaluation of information about what was
actually happening in the ghettos and on campuses.
In behavior research the emphasis also shifted from ways
to monitor behavior to ways to manipulate it. The CIA's Proj-
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 ect ULTRA was designed to consider "possible means for
controlling human behavior of which drugs were only one
aspect...." Other means included "radiation, electro-
shock, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology,
graphology, harassment substances, and paramilitary de-
vices and materials."
ULTRA was the research program and DELTA was the
operational program, designed in the words of one CIA
memo "for the use of biochemicals in clandestine opera-
tions."
A 1963 report by the CIA's inspector general noted "ma-
jor accomplishments both in research and operational em-
ployment" of ULTRA.and DELTA techniques. The inspec-
tor general reported that the CIA had developed "chemical,
biological, and radiological materials capable of employ-
ment in clandestine operations to control human behavior."
This is an incredible power for any agency, especially a
clandestine agency, to possess. We have learned a great deal
about the experimental programs of ULTRA, but almost
nothing has been revealed about DELTA.
The CIA insists it halted the drug testing program in the
1960s. But a 1975 CIA memo documented the agency's con-
tinuing interest in behavior control, affirming that the agen-
cy conducts "a many-disciplined research program encom-
passing activities in the physical, life, and social sciences.
Research activities iaclude life sciences research, in behav-
ior sciences, physiology, and the related physical science
materials with emphasis on assessment, health, bionics,
narcotics, and biological and chemical warfare materials."
Although the moat odious drug experiments have been
stopped, the CIA continues to show an interest in behavior-
al techniques to control or change the way people act and
think.
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ARPA-The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is
a foremost sponsor of research into computers and sur-
veillance systems.
ARPANET-An advanced computer network set up by
ARPA to link universities, think tanks, and military re-
search installations; it has served as a model for new
telecommunications systems.
ARS-The Advanced Record System was designed by the
General Services Administration to handle messages
for government agencies; shortcomings in the system
have prompted proposals to upgrade the ARS for com-
puter communications.
Biocybernetics-The study of ways to link men and com-
puters is now being sponsored by ARPA and other gov-
ernment agencies.
CHAOS-The Central Intelligence Agency code-named its
domestic surveillance program of the antiwar period
TECHNOSPIES
Operation CHAOS; facts were gathered on 300,000
Americans.
COINS-One of the communications links which connect
computers in the various agencies of the U.S. intelli-
gence community is code-named COINS; the system is
being upgraded to ARPANET standards.
Cointelpro-The FBI's counterintelligence program result-
ed in the disruption and harassment of American citi-
zens who were considered radical or extremist by the
bureau's leadership.
Covert Action-This term usually refers to the CFA's secret
operations overseas, but it also applies to FBI opera-
tions like Cointelpro.
DAME, DASE-These terms are used by Army Intelligence
to refer to methods of defending against break-ins
(DAME), and electronic surveillance (DASE); but
agents who were trained in these methods say they
were actually taught how to conduct burglaries and
wiretaps.
DOMS-The Pentagon's Division of Military Support coor-
dinates the Armed Forces planning and operations to
suppress domestic insurrection in the United States.
EFTS Electronic Fund Transfer Systems are being used by
banking and credit card companies to permit mer-
chants and customers in widely dispersed areas to use
central computers to handle financial transactions
without cash.
Elsur-Electronic Surveillance comes in three basic forms:
Bugging picks up conversations via hidden micro-
phones, wiretapping picks up conversations directly
from telephone lines, and radio interception picks up
messages sent by air-including long-distance phone
calls relayed by microwave towers.
FEDNET-In the 1960s the Ceneral Services Administration
proposed upgrading a communications system to serve
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various government agencies, but critics managed to
get this computer network killed because they feared it
would be a threat to personal privacy.
FPA-The Federal Preparedness Agency, like its predeces-
sor the Office of Emergency Preparedness, is in charge
of coordinating the government's readiness for emer-
gency; it runs hidden headquarters like Mount Weath-
er.
Garden Plot-The Pentagon's plan for coping with civil dis-
turbances in the United States is code-named Garden
Plot; the plan has been put in effect to handle racial in-
cidents.
Gram Metric-This term was used as the code-name of nnP
of the Pentagon's biggest command post exercises in
which a war game simulated conditions of domestic
unrest in American cities.
Harvest-The National Security Agency has a mammoth
computer operation which harvests, correlates, and
stores information gathered from electronic eavesdrop-
ping.
HYDRA The Central Intelligence Agency put the informa-
tion gathered during its domestic surveillance program
into a computer system which it called HYDRA be-
cause the machine could process multiple streams of
information.
Huston Plan-During the Nixon Administration a White
House aide named Tom Charles Huston drew up a pro-
posal for the President outlining illegal intelligence op-
erations which secretly were being carried out by gov-
ernment agencies inside the United States.
IEC-The Intelligence Evaluation Committee was one of
several coordinating bodies set up during the antiwar
period to try to impose some central planning and oper-
ational control over the domestic activities of the FBI,
the CIA, and other intelligence operations.
TECHNOSPIES
IDIU-The Inter-Divisional Information Unit attempted to
coordinate domestic intelligence activities and central-
ize information into computerized form in the justice
Department.
IDRS-The Internal Revenue Service maintains a nation-
wide system so tax collectors can check out informa-
tion in computers about taxpayers; it's known as the In-
tegrated Data Retrieval System.
IGRS-During the period of antiwar protests, the Internal
Revenue Service used to run something called the In-
formation Gathering and Retrieval System, which
stored intelligence information about 465,442 people.
KBE-During the period of racial protest the FBI kept a list
of black civil rights leaders which it called the Key
Black Extremist Index.
Message Switching-New computer technology has made
it possible for telecommunications networks to trans-
mit and store messages across the country; the FBI
wants to utilize this technology to coordinate state and
local police data communications.
Microwave-From ovens to telephones, the technology of
using microwaves is making life more efficient; but
when microwaves are used to relay long-distance?tele-
phone calls it becomes very easy for anyone with the
proper radio equipment to listen in.
MINARET-During the protests against the Vietnam War,
the National Security Agency instituted a watch list of
Americans involved in protest activities so that their
communications with persons overseas could be moni-
tored and given to the CIA and FBI for evaluation.:
Mount Weather-One of several underground bunkers
which the federal government maintains in the moun-
tains to the west of the nation's capitol to be used as a
headquarters in the event of an emergency.
NCIC-The FBI's National Crime Information Center is a
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FORD ROWAN
computerized system which local and state police de-
partments can use for such purposes as checking on
wanted persons and stolen cars.
OTP-The Office of Telecommunications Policy in the
White House had been in charge of coordinating com-
munications planning; the Carter Administration has
shifted this responsibility to the Commerce Depart-
ment.
Polygraph-Electric devices which monitor physiological
changes in an individual who is being interrogated are
widely used in an effort to detect lies; their accuracy,
however, is questionable.
Rabble Rouser Index-The Federal Bureau of Investigation
maintained a variety of lists of suspected subversives
during the directorship of J. Edgar Hoover; the Rabble
Rouser Index contained hundreds of names of social ac-
tivists.
SAD The Special Analysis Division of the emergency pre-
paredness program was in charge of developing ways
to control information and impose censorship in Amer-
ica.
Security Index-The FBI's most important list of suspected
subversives totaling thousands of names was secretly
maintained for four decades; shortly before it was abol-
ished in the mid-1970s the list was computerized.
Special Service Staff-The Internal Revenue Service estab-
lished this staff during the period of antiwar protests as
part of the interagency effort to keep track of and dis-
rupt protesters.
Tiger Teams-This term is used to describe teams of mili-
tary computer experts who test the security of comput-
ers by trying to penetrate -and usually succeeding in
doing so-supposedly secure systems.
Zenith-This code-name was used to describe the efforts
during the Nixon Administration to upgrade the White
House Computer operation.