EX-CIA AGENT RECALLS MARCOS' RISE TO POWER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710024-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: April 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

~ Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403710024-4
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WASHINGTON POST
5 April 1986
Ex-CIA Agent Recalls Marcos' Rise to Power
Former Philippine Leader Described as Unscrupulous and `Cagey' Years Ago
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
HONOLULU-The Central In-
telli ence A enc is per inand
arcos a ed as an unscru ulous
po ttician vears alto.
At least Joseph Burkholder Smith
did. In 1959, Smith was the CIA
o ~cer m e arge o a million-peso
~ampaiAn tom uence t e ~ iaame
elections on behalf of the astencv's_
four favored candidaies.
Marcos wasn't one of them, but
the dynamic young politician came
in first in the crucial Philippine Sen-
ate elections that year, to Smith's
enduring chagrin. None of the four
CIA-backed candidates-a "grand
alliance o men a ~cate to rmg-
in back onest overnment to the_
tra ~tion o tie late Philippine pres-
iient Ramon Magsaysav-won a
seat.
"I'm still bitter,' Smith, now re-
tired and living in Florida, said in a
telephone interview... "If only we'd
had the guts to stick by Mag-
saysay's boys. They were really
quite different from the Marcos
crowd, the landed elite."
The 1959 elections were a vital
prelude to the presidential elections
in the Philippines in the years
ahead. Marcos' showing made him
an up-and-coming prospect.
"1959 was a beauty contest;'
Smith said. "That made him pres-
idential timber."
But as a CIA officer assigned to
Manila in 1958, mgt ~ not trus
Marcos from the first da the met:
aturdav Julv 11 1959 a ina
to "Portrait of a Cold Warrior," an
autobiography Smith wrote a ter_
gnitti g the ajje~n.,,cY a t?ca -,~.
"I felt he was a fairly cagey fellow
with not a great deal of scruples,"
Smith said. "He played things very,
very close to the chest:'
The former CIA officer first met
Marcos then a Philippine con rA ess_ _
man, when Marcos turned up to
escort Smith to a mPPt;no with Vice
President Diosdado Macapagal, the
leader of the Philippine Liberal ar-
t~who was ang ing or t e presr
dency in 1961.
Ostensi6T a civilian employe
with the 13th U.S. Air Force South-
east Regional Survey Unit, Smith
had earned a reputation . as "Mr.
Substantial Support," the only man
in the Philippines "authorized by the
United States government to dis-
cuss political negotiations with any-
one." Macapagal wanted to see him
to discuss "how much money we
would put into the campaign" for a
ticket that would be mutually sat-
isfactory.
What stuck in Smith's mind was
how Marcos, who was running for
the Senate with Macapagal's bless-
ing, criticized Macapagal on the
way to the meeting with him.
"If you just remember he [Maca-
pagal] has an exaggerated opinion
of himself and his own importance,
you should be able to reason with
him," Smith, in his book, quoted
Marcos as saying. "We really want
American help to win this election,
and all of us really want a strong
ticket. Also, we don't necessarily
think Macapagal must be the pres-
idential candidate in 1961. Only he
does."
At that point, covert U.S. inter-
vention in Philippine elections
seems to ave en wi a accept-
ed. According to Smith, it date
from 1951 when the CIA organize
and funded NAMFREL (the Nation-
al Movement for Free Elections) to
help counter rampant corruption
and to _ e ~e ucate t e pu ~c on-
the importance_of honest and free
elections.
Partly as a result, Magsaysay
won in 1953 by a landslide. "This is
the way we like to see an election
carried out," President Dwight D.
Eisenhower told reporters.
A genuine reformer, Magsaysay
put the Philippines on the path of
real democracy, but he was killed in
a plane crash outside Cebu City on
March 17, 1957. The new presi-
dent, Carlos Garcia, turned out to
be thoroughly corrupt and at the
center of the same kind of payoff
system that Marcos is now accused
of, according to Smith.
In 1958, Smith was given suc-
cinct instructions: "Find another
Magsaysay."
Smith saw the 1959 elections as
a chance to repudiate Garcia and his
allies. The Philippine senatorial
race is run on a nationwide basis,
and the candidate who got the most
votes among those running for the
eight seats at stake that year would
automatically become "a national
political leader, a potential presi-
dent."
For run-of-the-mill candidates,
election was important in another
sense. The annual salary fora law-
maker was only 7,200 pesos, but
the annual "pork barrel" bill avail-
able to each one would give them
250,000 to 500,000 pesos a year
for "public improvements."
Some observers are convinced
that Marcos was on the take early
on. "We used to call him 'the god-
father,' " Newsweek magazine re-
cently quoted a retired Philippine
general as saying. One of Marcos'
first reported treasure troves was
the tobacco industry in his home
province.
According to Tomas (Buddy)
Gomez III, a longtime Marcos critic
here, Marcos also devoted himself
in his early years as a congressman.
to serving on the import control
committee and "selling import li-
censes" through his law office.
The CIA's Smith, in any case,
sal at a wante no part o im. _
With the help of longtime Mag-
saysay lieutenant and NAMFREL
organizer Jimmy Ferrer, Smith hit
on the idea of aProgressive-Liberal
coalition and wound up pinning his
hopes on four candidates: Manuel
Manahan, who had cleaned up Phil-
ippine Customs under Magsaysay;
Emmanuel Pelaez, a Magsaysay
supporter in the Senate; Raul Man-
glapus, former foreign affairs un-
dersecretary, and Gen. Jesus Var-
gas, who had been dismissed by
Garcia as secretary of defense.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403710024-4
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403710024-4
None of them won. Part of the
reason, Smith said, was that his mil-
lion-peso budget ($250,000)
wouldn't go far enough. It didn't
leave enough money for printing
sample ballots, "the key to obtaining
the kind of vote-swapping deals"
that won senatorial elections.
Smith said he also had to give
$50.000 to MacanaAal. a man who
had been furnishing the CIA station
wit o itica m ormation t rou h a
deep-cover agent for a num er of
years."
~TFe "grand alliance" was. a fail-
ure. Marcos came in first in the
Senate race, topping the list by gar-
nering almost 300,000 votes more
than the second-place winner.
As the years went on and Mar-
cos' political stock continued to
rise, the U.S. government got "very
much in bed with him," Smith said.
Marcos was elected president in
1965, ousting Macapagal after a
single term. He won reelection
once, then declared martial law in
1972.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403710024-4