AFIO 7TH CONVENTION HEARS HELMS, NSC CHIEF ALLEN AND SENATOR CHAFEE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
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• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
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AFIO 7th Convention Hears Helms,
NSC Chief Allen and Senator Chafee
AFIO held its 7th annual convention on October 2-3, and the record number of participants-over 370 in
all-attests to the calibre of the speakers and the panel discussions throughout the two-day proceedings.
The convention, held, as last year, at the Holiday Inn, Tyson's Corner, Fairfax, Virginia, was a combination of
renewed camaraderie, ceremony, intelligence insights and substantive discussions concerning Soviet disinformation
and the Soviet role in international terrorism.
Speeches by Helms and Allen
The highlight of the convention came at the ban-
quet on October 3 at which The Hon. Richard Helms,
former Director of Central Intelligence and former
Ambassador to Iran, gave a talk filled with reminis-
cences of his fascinating career, including vignettes of
his participation in the handling of top international
crises by US presidents over the two past decades.
Helms also listed his reasons for not writing his profes-
sional memoirs, stating that documenting the various
incidents and episodes would require an excessive
amount of research. The overflowing banquet audience
of over 400 hung on his every word.
Another major event was an unpublicized address
to AFIO members only, by the Hon. Richard V. Allen,
Assistant to the President for National Security matters.
Allen, a superb public speaker with a gratifying sense of
humor, outlined his attitude toward his job, his relation-
ship to the President and to the other policy makers in
government, and the role of the media and its reporting
of events. His remarks were strictly off the record and for
that reason they are not further summarized here.
Senator Chafee Comments
Perhaps the strongest "up-beat" moment of the
convention came at the October 3 lunch when Sen.
John H. Chafee (Rhode Island) a senior member of the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told the
assembled delegates of the efforts by the Congress to
pass a variety of legislation to strengthen the intelli-
gence community, including a bill on protection of the
identities of agents and sources and one which would
partially exempt CIA from some requests under the
Freedom of Information Act. (A round-up on the status
of such legislation can be found elsewhere in this issue.)
Chafee assured the delegates that the mood in the Con-
(cont'd on page 3)
Mr. Richard V. Allen, Presidential Assistant for National
Affairs, AFIO guest speaker on October 3.
AFIO Lunch on
Pearl Harbor Day
On Monday, December 7th, 40th anniversary
of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, AFIO will
hold its winter lunch at the Ft. Meyer Officer's
Club in Arlington, Virginia. An appropriate speaker
is being sought and AFIO members will receive a
luncheon flyer. For those who can attend, put this
date on your December agenda.
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KGB Disinformation; A Senior Defector Speaks
Ilya Dzhirkvelov, a former KGB officer, defected
from the Soviets in 1980 while assigned to Geneva,
Switzerland. He now lives in Great Britain under official
British protection. His last cover assignment for the
USSR was that of Novosti editor.
The editor of the American Bar Association's Intelli-
gence Report recently met Dzhirkvelov in England and
recorded a remarkable interview with him, which
appears in that publication's July 1981 issue. In it,
Dzhirkvelov relates his own first-hand knkowledge of
how the KGB manipulates news, how it uses interna-
tional organizations as "fronts" and how it supports
terrorism.
Because of its length, we re-print herewith only the
first half of the interview. The final part will be printed in
the next issue of Periscope. Our thanks to ABA for its
permission to us to re-print this informative interview:
Q. Will you introduce yourself, please?
A. I am Ilya Grigoryevich Dzhirkvelov, 54, a Geor-
gian. Until April 1980 a citizen of the USSR. Married,
with one daughter born in 1975.
Q. For how many years did you work for the
KGB, in what capacities, and when did you leave their
service?
A. In the organs of the KGB (then NKVD) I worked
since 1944. I was recruited in Tbilisi, Georgia, and sent
to the short training course for junior officers. Immedi-
ately afterwards I was dispatched to the Crimea and
joined the so-called special detachments. For a while I
was taking part in the combat and intelligence opera-
tions against the Germans but then our detachment
was given the task to supervise the deportation of
Crimean Tartars from their homeland. In February 1945
we guarded the Yalta Conference. After the war I gradu-
ated from an advanced KGB school in Moscow. On
graduation I was sent to Romania for intelligence work
but in a short while got recalled to Moscow and was
given a job in the First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelli-
gence)-first against Middle East countries and then, for
a short spell, against the United States.
During 1953-54 I worked for the Second Chief
Directorate (Counterintelligence) where I looked after
the embassies of the Middle East countries and foreign
journalists stationed in Moscow. Then I was again
moved to the First Directorate, into the position of
Deputy Head, Section 10. That Section conducted fron-
tier area intelligence and I was mainly responsible for
Turkey and Iran.
In March 1956 there was some unrest in my native
Georgia, where a peaceful demonstration was met by a
hail of bullets. Right after those events I was sent to
Georgia-against my will. Until the end of 1957 I was
Deputy Head, First Section, of the Georgian KGB, at
which time I applied for voluntary discharge, giving per-
sonal reasons. My application was granted and I joined
my family in Moscow. My last KGB rank was captain.
However, my unofficial connection with the KGB
was never severed. They were in touch with me both in
Moscow where I was appointed Deputy Secretary
General of the Union of Journalists and later abroad,
when I was TASS correspondent in Tanzania and the
Sudan from 1966 to 1972.
Q. Do you have any direct knowledge of the KGB
disinformation operation, and if you do, could you
describe some concrete examples in which you were
involved or which came to your attention?
A. The KGB disinformation service took shape in
1947 when political intelligence of the KGB merged with
the military intelligence (GRU) for "the more active coun-
teractions to the cold war." The above services merged
into the Committee of Information attached to the Coun-
cil of Ministers of the USSR. In charge of the new Com-
mittee was Vyacheslav M. Molotov.
At that time the Fifth Directorate was formed. Its
task was to conduct disinformation "undertakings" in
Western and other independent countries. Initially, the
Directorate was not responsible for the organization of
sabotage, unrest or similar "extra-actions" as they were
known. "Extras" were the responsibility of a separate
section-the one headed by the notorious Colonel (then
General) Sudoplatov and later one B. Studnikov. Now,
however, both functions are entrusted to one and the
same department in the KGB First Directorate. I think it is
known as Department 13.
During my work in Tanzania and the Sudan I several
times took part in the distribution of disinformation
material. One example, in Tanzania, was our "work" to
discredit the American Peace Corps. The line was that it
was a CIA front organization and its subversive activity
had to be "exposed." We tried, often successfully, to
place prepared articles into local papers-preferably
signed by the Tanzanians. The "authors" were always
paid well, and "their" articles worked: Tanzania, and
then Uganda, started refusing Peace Corps services.
The other example was in the Sudan. When an
agreement was signed on the reopening of the Ameri-
can Cultural Centre, we were immediately ordered to
spread rumors among politicians and other local digni-
taries that the new Centre was no more than a CIA
branch which had the task to destabilize the Jaafar
Numeiry regime. We quoted "reliable American sources."
Later, I succeeded in placing an article in a local news-
paper with a strong indirect hint that the U.S. "special
services" wanted to change the regime in the Sudan.
Such articles invariably get reprinted by the Soviet
press and broadcast by the Soviet radio quoting the
"source" chapter and verse.
Similar means are used for defaming those politi-
cians and statesmen in the developing countries whom
the Soviets do not like. The easiest publications for such
defamation, as well as for placing articles extolling the
'"achievements" in the USSR, are, naturally, Communist
and other left or "independent" papers and magazines.
(The final portion of this interview will appear in the
next issue of Periscope)
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Distinguished Panelists Discuss Soviet Role
in Disinformation, Terrorism
AFIO Convention delegates heavily attended two
discussion panels on Friday, October 2. A morning
session was devoted to Soviet political action and dis-
information, and one in the afternoon focused on the
Soviet role in international terrorism.
Panel on Soviet Disinformation
In the morning session, Donald Jameson was
moderator of the panel on Soviet political action and
disinformation. Panelists were the noted writer ('The
Spike") and journalist, Arnaud deBorchgrave; David
Binder, assistant Washington bureau chief of the N.Y.
Times; and Dr. Vladimir Sakharov, former Soviet diplo-
mat who defected in Kuwait in 1971. Sakharov has
recently written a highly regarded autobiography, High
Treason (reviewed in a recent issue of the Periscope).
Discussion was highlighted by several sharp
exchanges between deBorchgrave and Binder on the
one hand, and deBorchgrave and Harry Rositzke, AFIO
member and author of a new book, The KGB, on the
other. DeBorchgrave accused Rositzke of down-playing
the effectiveness of Soviet disinformation in his book
and in recent newspaper articles, and quoted the top
Soviet dissident personality, Andrei Sakharov, and other
experts who warn that western journalists are being
manipulated by the Soviets to propagate slanted and
tendentious material as well as distributing forgeries
which distort or falsify western aims and personalities.
Rositzke, who was in the audience, vigorously
defended his views on Soviet disinformation and stated
his own personal wish that the term 'disinformation' be
abolished. He said he personally trusted the U.S. press
and that if the names of U.S. journalists being paid by
the Soviets came to light, it is the duty of those who
know this to report it to the FBI.
Binder, while admitting that "we (the press) bury
our corrections in back pages", said that disinformation
was not worth getting excited about in peace-time. "Lies
have short legs," he said. He also pointed to disinforma-
tion efforts by the U.S. in the past. His main theme was
that corrections of known disinformation stories and
campaigns launched by the Soviets are problems for
governments to correct, not the free press.
AFIO Convention-Chafee Comments
(cont'd from page one)
gress toward restoration of a strong and effective intelli-
gence establishment is very good and expressed his
strong personal support of efforts to strengthen it.
At the concluding business session, the AFIO Board
of Directors reappointed Mr. John M. (Jack) Maury as
AFIO president for another year. (Listing of the full Board
including new members elected by ballot on October 3,
appears elsewhere in this issue).
Sakharov, speaking from his previous experience
with the Soviet diplomatic service (and involving close
collaboration with the KGB and GRU) stated that the
U.S. government and media "keep passing the buck
back and forth" for corrections of disinformation items.
He reminded his audience that the USSR considers the
U.S. as "the main enemy" and that the Soviets devote
their principal efforts to remove U.S. prestige and pres-
ence in all other countries by whatever means possible.
The afternoon panel, concerned with the Soviet
role in international terrorism, had Harris Greene as
moderator. Panelists were Mrs. Claire Sterling, political
journalist and author of the best-seller The Terror Net-
work; Mr. David Martin, senior Washington correspon-
dent for Newsweek and author of a book on CIA officials,
Wilderness of Mirrors; and Dr. Sakharov.
Mrs. Sterling bore down heavily on the role of
Soviet surrogates and proxies (Cuba, Yemen, East Euro-
pean states) who assist western terrorists. She empha-
sized that she has been persistently and inaccurately
accused of writing that the Soviets were in total control
of western terrorists, pointing out that hers is the theory
of "the loaded gun": the Soviets put at the disposal of
western terrorist groups all kinds of training, documen-
tation, money, equipment and arms, in many cases to
those who are not in full sympathy with Soviet aims or
doctrine. The principal aim of such Soviet aid, she said,
is de-stabilize and to weaken the social and political
fabric of western nations. Lest the U.S. become compla-
cent, she said, the recent arrest of a wanted Italian ter-
rorist, caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally from
Canada, might be a warning of what may lie ahead for
this country.
Martin, on the other hand, questioned what he said
was a lack of conclusive evidence that terrorists were
being directly controlled and assisted by Moscow
although he agreed that they were being trained in
some numbers elsewhere.
Sakharov dwelt on Soviet abilities to smuggle ter-
rorists into the USSR for training. From his own back-
ground as Soviet consul in Egypt, he related that he
issued great numbers of detachable visas for such ter-
rorists so that they could enter and leave the USSR
without any passport stamps or indicators.
For purposes of keeping the panel's focus on terror-
ists working against western societies, the Soviet role in
assisting so-called "national liberation movements"
against autocratic or repressive regimes was not brought
into the discussion. All of the panelists were agreed that
the Soviet hand in aiding and abetting terrorist move-
ments attacking U.S. and western democratic targets
had to be carefully monitored.
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Chapters Report at
AFIO Convention
Status of Legislation
of Intelligence Interest
On the morning of 3 October, the Convention
turned its attention to hearing reports from the eighteen
Chapters around the country. Highlights at this session
were as follows:
? George Wiggins, President of the Arizona Chap-
ter, the newest Chapter in AFIO, described how his
Chapter was formed.
? Howard Furst, President of the Orange County
Chapter, led off the California reports. He suggested that
Life Membership be paid in installments, that advertis-
ing mats designed by AFIO be available to the Chapters
and that the phone number of Chapter presidents be
listed in Periscope.
? John Cole of the Pasadena-Glendale-Burbank
Chapter urged the membership to concentrate its atten-
tion on educating the youth of this country about the
need for intelligence. He also proposed that the annual
conventions be held alternately between the west coast
and the east coast.
? Eileen Scott, President of the San Diego Chapter
reported that her Chapter now has 125 members and
announced that San Diego would like to host next year's
convention.
? Charles Hayden, President of the San Francisco
Chapter telephoned in his report endorsing San Diego's
bid for the next convention.
? Bob Dowd, newly-appointed Florida State Chair-
man, reported on the four Chapters in that State. There
are currently a total of 250 members in the four Chap-
ters. He suggested that more attention be given to
educating U.S. labor union leaders on the need for
intelligence.
? Dick Grant provided a written report on the
Montana Chapter which continues, as most Chapters, to
be active in promoting better public understanding of the
role of American intelligence.
? Bill Buhl reported on the Central New York
Chapter. Derek Lee, President of the Greater New York
Chapter, reported on his visit to the Ohio Chapter and
discussed the need to verify that local Chapter members
are also members of AFIO.
? Lewis Lewton, President of the Ohio Chapter
(Cleveland), spoke highly of Derek Lee's visit and the
press coverage of the Chapter's meetings.
? Randy Welch reported on the Keystone Chapter
in Pennsylvania and brought up the problem of verifying
the information in membership applications, a topic of
concern to a number of members, although AFIO cannot
perform any investigation or name traces on applicants.
(We must largely rely on the referral system in which a
current member vouches for an applicant.)
? Fred Rodell, President of the Gulf Coast Chapter
(Houston), reported on his Chapter developments, and
Wendell (Tex) Little, President, Lone Star Chapter (San
Antonio), covered many of his Chapter's educational
efforts. Tex suggested that AFIO keep the Chapters
abreast of legislative developments, especially on pend-
ing bills. (Note: Periscope has tried to do this and will
continue to do so.)
The House passed the Intelligence Identities Protec-
tion Act on September 23, 1981 by a vote of 354 to 56.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
reported out a bill which contained language that would
have impeded prosecution by requiring proof that the
exposure of agents' identities had impaired the U.S.
foreign intelligence activities. Congressman John Ash-
brook (R., Ohio), however, introduced an amendment to
reinstate the previous 'intent' language which had been
in the original HR 4 when introduced. This amendment
passed and the House rebuffed its own Intelligence
Committee by passing a stronger bill than the Com-
mittee reported to the floor. Congressman Ashbrook paid
AFIO a compliment by stating that our organization was
composed of individuals 'who knew what the needs for
intelligence were.'
On October 6, the Senate Judiciary Committee
voted 9 to 8 to weaken S 391 with language similar to
that contained in the House Committee version. How-
ever, Senator John Chafee (R.,R.I.) has announced that
he intends to offer an amendment to restore the original
language to S 391 when the bill is considered on the
Senate floor about October 21. If the Senate passes
S 391 there will be a conference to work out the differ-
ences between the House and Senate versions. It looks
as if there will be an identities protection law this fall.
Freedom of Information Act
Senator John Chafee's S 1273 is an amendment to
the National Security Act of 1947 which authorizes the
Director of Central Intelligence to designate those rec-
ords within the Intelligence Community which are
exempt from FOIA. This bill may take some time before it
is brought up for a vote because of jurisdictional prob-
lems. The Government Operations Committee is consid-
ering an Administration proposal to do away with FOIA
entirely. AFIO has already testified before the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence in support of S 1273.
Convention Statistics
Would you believe that 30 percent of our conven-
tioneers came from 26 states and Mexico, for a total of
over 100 AFIO members and spouses who do not live in
the Maryland-Virginia-Washington, D.C. area? The five
states with the largest contingents at the Convention
were Florida (15), California (14), New York (13), Texas
(9) and New Jersey (8). Of the states represented, 30
members were present from those west of the Mississippi.
Colonel Frank Brandstetter of Acapulco, Mexico,
who had been visiting China, flew to the Convention
directly from China, arriving tired from jet-lag but alert.
W. O'Day Constance came from Haleiwa, Hawaii. These
two win our praise as those who traveled the longest
distances to come to our Convention. Hats off to both!
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Convention '81: Up Front and on the Sidelines
Our unsung volunteers ready to handle the crush of
arriving Delegates.
Our Convention Chairman, Col. Bob Roth,
has a few comments.
AFIO Luminants: L to R, Dick Bates (AFIO Vice-President),
John Warner, Dr. Louis Tordella, and AFIO Chairman of
the Board, Dick Stewart.
U.S. Navy Sea-Chanters open our Convention with music.
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Convention '81: Speakers and Panels
Richard Helms addresses AFIO Convention Banquet.
Panel on Soviet Disinformation; L to R: Vladimir Sakharov;
David Binder, N.Y. Times; Moderator Donald Jameson;
Journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave.
Panel on Soviet Role in International Terrorism. L to R:
David Martin, Vladimir Sakharov, Moderator Harris Greene,
Claire Sterling.
Senator John Chafee (R.I.)
addresses Convention
Luncheon, October 3.
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