A CHILLING CIA NOVEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500046-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: February 11, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500046-5
AnTI;;L A;0 1't.nhrt? THE WASHINGTON STAR (GREEN
0N FACE ~--c_1 11 February 1981
BOOKS
By Jonathan Yardley
OVsshinit= Star Hook Editor
;More he. smells- a.very large and very dangerous didn't have enough hard evidence, to. write it aa.
'David Wise has covered the rat.-Finally be decides to make a surreptitious visit fact.
Central Intelligence` Agency for to Sen: Barry Owens, a.k.a. Gary Hart in hopes of But "Spectrum" is several ' cuts. above run-offther
two decades and has written setting off a Senate inquiry: > s..a ... mill . spy fiction - severat; cuts,. to be speclfic~
several books about it, most `Travers. had grown wearyfrom: talking, and . above the. novels of Frederick Forsyth. It moves
notably The Invisible ;{ t Sen. ~ry Owens seemed drainedby what he had :.along smartly; its smoothly written, and it pro--
,Goveramenil" on which.he-- r-;j? ard -~ , videsall. the thrills and chills that the genre de-
collaborated with-Thomas & - - 'If derstand ;you correctly ML Travers,
Ross.: Now, in "Spectrum;" he_ _,x
has turned his.hand: to ftction; ; ?K
the-novel seems certain,-to set
?tongues wagging intheoftices:=
and hangouts of theihtelligence,
community:
t That's because Wise. has .combined his impressive-factual?~:
knowledge of the CIA's inner
workings with a bizarre...:
'conspiracy theory that contains .
Just enough of ,a hint of
plausibility to make the novel ': ; y
simmer. "Spectrum" is a roman- -
-a clef. of the sort that, ,.. , -
Washington readers gobble up-,
it's populated. by public figures
in thin disguise, and it engages
in fanciful embroidery upon
Of those events; the one ?'.
_
around which the hovel is
constructed is the -'-
disappearance in 1965 from a
A Chilling:
CIA Novel
By David Wise. VNdag,
37d pages..St3.95, ,
Owens 'said'slowly, -'your?agency now has some;
nuclear-processing plant in Western Pennsylva where under its possession and under its control
nia of 381 pounds of ".weapons-grade" uranium. 12 atomic weapons: What you are saying is than
The disappearance. was investigated by'all the ap- the CIA has become the.world's ninth nuclear pow4 l
but nothing was ever found - or at least nothing "'Or' said Travers; 'Towny Black has "
was.evet made public. The vanished uranium. was From this point Wise is off anti runnin? Re'setaa
and shipped across.the Atlantic for processing. It makes, on- the whole; for terrific reading
Though it is difficult for the non-initiate to knows-
But here's the rub: Israel. only needs 132 pounds
'of uranium,; yet the CIA has swiped. 381 pounds. where reportage ends and fiction begins, the por;
'What has happened to the remaining 249 pounds? trait Wise paints of the CIA's potential for domestics.
That is the question that comes to haunt Robert mischief is convincing and chilling.,, , =_
-Travers. He is now, in 1981rchief,of the-CIA's Lon Yet it's-not really an anti-CIA novel-?TraversK:
dozi office. But in 1965 he was involved -in~ - who evidently speaks4or Wise, strongly supports
'thou`gh not totally--informed about; = Operation the CIA's intelligence system; the abuse of that sys ?
Spectrum: The chief of.the operation was Graham tem is what troubles him. As he puts it. more than
pays workers to smuggl out small amounts of urn : ;, agency- to eliminate" Travers and the explosive~;
nium_The stuff is then delivered to the.Israelis. secret he carries f -~, l ; :. ~. ~ ~.?
Mafiacover'near the: nuclear-processing plant and' -.cohorts in Langley marshal the full arsenal ofth*,
officially listed as "Material Unaccounted For.' off an elaborate and. carefully plotted chain of:.
' Ford Wise, this is where the fun begins. Hein. events that permits him to give the reader a guided
vents a clandestine CIA domestic program called tour of the dark side of the CIA. While Travers in
Operation Spectrum, the :supposed- purpose of London. and Owens in Washington stealthily try
.which`is'to funnel uranium to Israel in order to to get to the heart of . the matter - where the CIA's= ?
help expand its' nuclear force. The CIA,,sets up?a ."nuclear cache. is hidden'-Towny Black and hli
recto for Plans and now director of Central Intel ' try believe. irz-freedom= and law.`If we"abandon -
Iigence. There was bad blood between them then, those principles in the name of defending them,:
and over the years their relationship has not im? we subvert the very institutions we're trying to
gate.and the disclosures in the late 1970s of CIA the reader is too conscious of the actual people
undercover.. dnmestir artvitiae ,iictnrh him on whom thev are ha-zed- nna nicn ennone sr Hw.nd
; -But he can't get Travers out of his .hair: Water-,- tend toward the- black ,and, white, and. too ofteta
islacx-s way of isolating him from the central of. in his aebut as a writer.of thriller fiction; Wise.;
David Wise...' greatly,The more. he learns-about Spectrum, the' that Wise wrote "$pectrum"-as fictiotr because he
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500046-5