INTERVIEW WITH VERNON WALTERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700060113-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 113
• Publication Date: February 27, 1978
• Content Type: TRANS

D' -O TV R gr15el 2005/07/01 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R
February 27, 1978 12:30 PM
SUBJECT Interview With Vernon Walters
STATION WTTG TV
Washington, DC
PAT MITCHELL: Another man who was touched by Watergate
was Lieutenant General Vernon Walters. He was Deputy Director of
the CIA at the time of that scandal. General Walters has since
retired and has written his memoirs, "Silent Missions." He's also,
by the way, the opening speaker for tonight's Cocoran Gallery's
1978 lecture series that begins tonight with General Walters.
. According to Haldeman's book, General Walters, if we
might talk about that just one more time, he says that he and
John Dean asked you to go Acting FBI Director Patrick Gray and
ask Mr. Gray to call off the Bureau's investigation of Watergate.
Did you do that? Did that happen? And what was your
understanding of the...
GENERAL VERNON WALTERS: Well, that is not a very accurate
description of what happened. He sent for me, along with Mr. Helms,
and I saw him in his office. And he told me that the continuation
of the FBI's investigation in Mexico would possibly uncover some
CIA assets; and to ask him, since the people had been arrested, to
lay off the investigation in Mexico.
MITCHELL: And when you asked him...
GENERAL WALTERS: Not in the rest of the United States.
That's a rather important item.
Now, I had been at the CIA six weeks and I did not know,
and probably after four years I didn't know, every operation they
were conducted. So, this was the Chief of Staff to the President.
I had no reason. to believe he was asking to do something wrong or
underhanded.
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In the matter of national security, in such areas, until
the Watergate, no one really questioned the President's powers in
these areas.
But when you went to Patrick Gray, he agreed to stop,
right? He agreed to do what you had asked.
GENERAL WALTERS: When I told him this.
Now, the reason why I agreed to go to Pat Gray is that
for three years I had been running secret negotiations for the
President in Paris with the North Vietnamese and with the Chinese
Communists; in fact, the opening contact that led to the Presi-
dent's visit to China, and so forth. And I reported directly to
the White House on this. The CIA knew nothing about it.
My belief at the time that Haldeman spoke to me was that
there was something like this going with Castro in Mexico City.
Now, that was on a Friday. John Dean was not there. On
Friday I was called by Mr. Dean. And in the meantime, when I went
back to the CIA, I asked, "Is there any traffic coming out of
Mexico City that we're not reading, from the Embassy?" Because I
would send messages from the Paris Embassy to the White House on
the negotiations with the North Vietnamese and Chinese that I would
encode myself. And therefore the station there would know that
there were messages going out, but they would not know the content.
So I thought, if there's something like this going on in Mexico,
there will be traffic that is not being read.
PAT BUCHANAN: General, can I ask you about that meeting,
the one with Haldeman and Ehrlichman, I think the famous June 23rd
meeting, where it was alleged that Haldeman did ask for the con-
tainment by the FBI? It was said that he mentioned...
In Mexico only.
BUCHANAN: Yeah -- mentioned the Bay of Pigs, and
Director Helms grabbed the arms of his chair. And Haldeman implies
that this meant a connection with assassination.
Is your recollection of that meeting similar to Haldeman's
recollection of that meeting?
GENERAL WALTERS: No. I haven't read Mr. Haldeman's book,
to tell you the truth. I got back from a trip around the world yes-
terday. I did glance at the Newsweek thing.
Mr. Helms did not, to my recollection, grab the arms of
his chair at all. When he brought up the Bay of Pigs, Helms said,
with some irritation, "I don't see what the Bay of Pigs has got to
do with this."
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BUCHANAN: But he was not panicked by the thing, at all.
BUCHANAN: You went back and wrote several memoranda of
conversation. I remember because in the White House I had to read
those. Those were written several days, though, after the meeting.
GENERAL WALTERS: Right.
BUCHANAN: Why was there a delay in the writing of the
memorandum of conversation after the conversation?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, the first time -- on Monday, when
Dean called me, I didn't know who he was. And he said, "Well, you
can check out with Ehrlichman that it's all right to talk to me."
So I did, and Ehrlichman said, "Yes, Dean is in charge of this whole
project."
So I then went down to see him, and he told me he was
handling this and he was in touch with Gray, and everything else.
And I told him that after I went back to the CIA on the Friday, I
checked to see whether there was any possible asset in Mexico that
might be exposed by the containing of the investigation in Mexico.
Frankly, when he mentioned Mexico, I had never heard the
word before. I didn't know there was any connection with Mexico.
It was the first I'd heard of it.
MITCHELL: And you found out there wasn't, didn't you?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well -- no, no, but the...
MITCHELL: I mean you found out...
GENERAL WALTERS: ...laundering the money, I had never
head of at that time.
CHARLES COLSON: But that's a good question. Was there
any connection, in fact?
BUCHANAN: And why did, six months later, did the CIA,
which is alleged, destroy documents and tapes related to conver-
sations on Watergate after...
GENERAL WALTERS: I have no knowledge of any such --
Mr. Helms...
MITCHELL: I'd like you answer the question that Chuck
and I asked you, however.
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COLSON: Was there, in fact, any connection in the CIA
that -- I mean it may have been that they asked you to go into it
for the wrong reasons, but was there, in fact, anything in the CIA
that might have been compromised...
GENERAL WALTERS: No. You and I are at opposite poles on
this issue. The CIA had enough Republicans in it who could have
exploded any attempt to use this against the President or to do the
President dirt .
MITCHELL: And you are referring to whether or not the
CIA had anything to do with the Watergate break-in...
GENERAL WALTERS: That's right. That's right.
MITCHELL: ...which is not specifically what Chuck was
asking about.
GENERAL WALTERS: But basically I found nothing that
could be exposed by this. And that is what I told Dean on Monday,
the very next working day after I had seen Gray.
BUCHANAN: You're talking about the assets in Mexico.
Now, I'm referring now to the alleged Hunt's connection still
with the CIA, the Martinez connection.
Was the CIA apprised of the operations of the Hunt-
Liddy team going into...
GENERAL WALTERS: I was not apprised of it. I was the
Deputy Director, and I had no knowledge whatever of it.
COLSON: But you came in after. You see, what the file
shows -- and I've read the CIA file, which was yay thick, that was
sent both to the Congress and to the White House, and it all pro-
ceeded your being there. But it was very clear that Hunt had been
over meeting with Cushman, had lunch with him, had all kinds of
memos going back and forth, that the CIA developed the so-called
casing photos for the Ellsberg break-in, and even circled Dr.
Fielding's name on one of the pictures, and it was sent up to
Helms' office and General Cushman, your predecessor.' There was a
big file.
And I think what Pat is asking you is, while you were
Deputy Director, why did the CIA destroy all of its tapes after
Senator Mansfield asked that they be retained...
GENERAL WALTERS: I don't believe that's an accurate
statement.
COLSON: Well, they said they did. Director Helms...
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GENERAL WALTERS:
No,
they
didn't. I believe Mr. Helms
destroyed some of his files
when
he
left, and they weren't neces-
sarily Watergate files, when
he
left
the agency, as a number of
previous Directors had done,
he
had
done. But I do not believe
that the agency per se destroyed any
tapes or files. I do not
think that is an accurate statement.
COLSON: Well, in early 1974, you'll find, in January,
a letter from Senator Mansfield to the agency asking for all tapes
to be preserved. And it was immediately, within the next week,
that the agency later acknowledged to Senator Baker that they had
destroyed all of the tapes.
Were you there then?
GENERAL WALTERS: I was there then, and I still do not
believe that is an accurate statement.
Mr. Helms had been replaced as Director by Schlesinger
and was leaving. Senator Mansfield's letter came about that time.
And I believe that Mr. Helms felt that he was destroying files
that had nothing to do with the Watergate.
COLSON: Well, the facts, General, are that it was January
of 1974 that Senator Mansfield wrote and asked that all the tapes be
retained. Mr. Colby later testified to Senator Baker, and it's on...
BUCHANAN: Are you sure it wasn't '73?
GENERAL WALTERS: '73, I think you're quite wrong on that.
It was '73.
COLSON: I'think it was '74
GENERAL WALTERS: No, it was '73.
BUCHANAN: Helms was in Iran by '74.
COLSON: Helms wasn't there; Colby was.
GENERAL WALTERS: No, no, it was '73.
COLSON: Colby...
GENERAL WALTERS: I recall the letter from Senator Mans-
field. I believe it came on the 22nd of January.
MITCHELL: That's a pretty specific memory, I think...
BUCHANAN: Let me ask you about the damage to the Central
Intelligence Agency abroad in its contacts from (A) the leaks., these
individuals going out writing books, and (B) the revelations from
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Congress.
Has the CIA's capacity, sort of eyes and ears overseas,
been crippled by what's gone on in this country?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, obviously, it has done some
damage. It has done considerable damage. But quite frankly, it
has done less damage than I had thought it would.
By the nature of things, since the Directors -- and I
was there under four Directors -- were to tied up with the Con-
gress, a great deal of my responsibility was dealing with the
foreign friendly services and our friends abroad. And, frankly,
I think they showed extraordinary patience with us while we were
making a spectacle of ourselves to which there was no parallel
in history.
BUCHANAN: So you disagree with what the Congress has
done, and the way, and they were just sort of...
GENERAL WALTERS: I believe that you cannot run an
intelligence service in Macy's window. General Washington under-
stood this. I'll just give you one little, short story. He spent
the night, one night, at a sympathizer's home in Connecticut, and
in the morning the sympathizer's wife said to him, "General, where
are you going to ride today?" He leaned down in the saddle and
he said, "Madam, can you keep a secret?" She said, "Of course."
He said, "So can I, Madam," tipped his hat and rode on.
MITCHELL: Then I assume you agree that Mr. Helms should
not have spoken before that committee.
GENERAL WALTERS: I can tell you is if I'd been in Mr.
Helms' place, I would have done exactly the same thing that he did.
He was confronted with violating one of two oaths.
BUCHANAN: Right.
GENERAL WALTERS: Everybody forgets that the Director
of Central Intelligence is the only person in the United States
Government, without exception, who is charged by statute from the
Congress with the protection of his sources and methods.
BUCHANAN: Right.
GENERAL WALTERS: Now, when he was before that committee,
he had a choice of doing one of two things. Either he did not tell
them the whole story, which is what he did; or he broke his oath
that he would protect his sources and methods. That operation was
still ongoing. Any hesitation by him would have uncovered it.
There was no way he could get out of that hearing without...
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BUCHANAN: Exactly.
GENERAL WALTERS: ...breaking one of those two oaths.
He chose to break the one that would not endanger people's lives.
I think, in his position, I would have made the same
COLSON: There's a third way, which is simply to refuse
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, that would have uncovered the
ongoing operation.
BUCHANAN: It would have been an admission of...
GENERAL WALTERS: That there was something going on.
BUCHANAN: Yeah. Yeah.
Let me ask you about the CIA circa 1978. We've had
what's been called a purge of 800 members of clandestine services,
and it's been said this has really crippled morale out at the
agency, that they've got signs out there -- Admiral Turner's run-
ning it -- you know, "Beat Navy" right on the bulletin board, and
morale is down.
What is your reading of the morale of the CIA, of Turner's
continued capacity to handle and run the agency, given what's hap-
pened there?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, I will just simply say that I
have not been back there a great deal since I left. When I was
there, occasionally former Directors and Deputy Directors would
come in loaded with advice on what should be done and what should
not be done, and so forth. And I determined that when I left I
would not do this.
Let me just put it this way...
BUCHANAN: Can you give us the advice?
GENERAL WALTERS: Let me just put it this way...
MITCHELL: He could be listening, General.
GENERAL WALTERS: The American intelligence community
has been through the most traumatic experience that any intelli-
gence community in history has ever been through. What it needs
now is a little quiet and stability. Massive changes in personnel
and programs, in my opinion, will not give it this.
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BUCHANAN: Uh-huh. Well, I guess you would disagree...
MITCHELL: What do you think about his leadership,
Stansfield Turner, and about his desire to be -- to, you know,
put all of the intelligence community under one big umbrella which
he would head?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, I think that is a difficult
thing to do, since most of the money goes to Defense. And I just
don't see the Secretary of Defense opening his hand...
MITCHELL: No, he didn't do it graciously. That's for
GENERAL WALTERS: Actually, I've read these alleged
changes, and I don't see they're very different from what Bill
Colby or George Bush had: an overseeing right on the budget,
but he doesn't actually determine the budget. And that existed
in previous Directors.
The whole thing I think the American people have got to
face up to is no matter how powerful the United States is, if it
is blind and deaft, it's going to be a pushover.
BUCHANAN: Well, I would think, if you get rid of 800
of your clandestine services, your senior officers, a lot of
station chiefs in Western Europe and elsewhere, then you're crip-
pling the institutional memory of the agency, are you not?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, I think one of the things that
people have got to realize is that there's a place for.amateurs
nearly everywhere, but not in the intelligence business.
MITCHELL: But Mr. Turner has said himself -- I think
we ought to assess that...
BUCHANAN: Stansfield Turner, please note.
MITCHELL: Yes. He said, himself, there's no need for
that kind of intelligence community anymore, you know? That
technique has replaced the secret...
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, I'm afraid I disagree with him.
If we hadn't had Benjamin Franklin engaged in the covert operation
of getting France involved in the war against Great Britain during
the Revolution, we might not have this country and we might have
a different form of government at this time. Fortunately, Benjamin
Franklin was successful, even though his office was fully penetrated
by the British.
BUCHANAN: You negotiated those Paris Accords, or helped
to negotiate them. They were violated from day one by the North
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Vietnamese and the Soviet Union, were they not?
What's your feeling about the agreement we got? Even
if Henry negotiated -- or, Dr. Kissinger negotiated the final
agreement, what's your feeling (A) about the agreement we got
and (B) about how we followed up on our commitments?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, I think the agreement we got
was not necessarily a bad agreement. But I think that if the
President had not been crippled by Watergate, or, in fact, re
placed by the time the major violations came, and the United
States had taken...
BUCHANAN: He'd been there 18 months, now, while the
violations were going on. He was in there from March of '73
to August of '74. By then, North Vietnam had been completely
re-equipped, he'd been stripped of the power to bomb, they'd
cut off assistance.
What should Nixon have done? Should he have stepped
up and resigned and said, "Look, I can't.fulfill my commitments
under these treaties"? Or should he have acted?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, actually, the violations up to
tha.t time were somewhat peripheral. It wasn't until the great
offensive at Ban Me Thuot that really there was a point of retal-
iation. He was no longer President at that time.
I am confident, certain, that if he had been President,
he would have told Hanoi that the B-52s would be over Hanoi...
BUCHANAN: He would have violated the law.
MITCHELL: General Walters, didn't the North Vietnamese
ask you for the assassination of Thieu at one point?
GENERAL WALTERS: They didn't ask me. But at one point,
they were talking to Dr. Kissinger -- and in all fairness to Dr.
Kissinger, the squib that reported this left out his answer. Le
Duc Tho, who was the member of the politburo, said to him, "Get
rid of Thieu. Get rid of Thieu." And Kissinger said, "I don't
know what you mean." And there several back-and-forths. Both
Kissinger and I knew what he meant, but I think Kissinger wanted
to make him actually say it. And he said, "What do you mean, kill
him?" Le Duc Tho said, "Yes, but you don't have to put that in
the agreement." And Dr. Kissinger then said, "That would be
criminal and dishonorable, and the United States will have no part
in it."
MITCHELL: You also worked with an another world leader
for many, many years, and one you talk about in the book, and that
was De Gaulle. Very few people knew him, worked with him 27 years.
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Has history been kind to this leader?
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, I think General De Gaulle, like
all human beings, had a number of things I didn't agree with. But
if I was a Frenchman, I would probably have been a Gaullist.
He had considerable foresight in seeing what was going
to happen. For instance, he told us a long time ago that the
Third World nations would get control of the United Nations, and
eventually it would make us do things that we didn't particularly
want to do.
BUCHANAN: He told us to cut and run in Vietnam, too,
GENERAL WALTERS: Well, yes, because I think that after
the Bay of Pigs, when he had told us to go ahead -- or, rather,
after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he was almost the only Euro-
pean leader who said, "Go ahead," we didn't. He came to the
conclusion...
BUCHANAN: He said, "Go ahead." What do you mean, invade?
GENERAL WALTERS: Do whatever you want to Cuba.
BUCHANAN: Invade?
GENERAL WALTERS: Yes.
BUCHANAN: Uh-huh.
GENERAL WALTERS: He said -- after we didn't do that, he
said, "If they're. not going to fight for Cuba, 90 miles from the
United States, what makes we think they're going to fight for France,
3800 miles away? And I have to draw the consequences."
MITCHELL: Well, the consequences of that, and a lot of
other Lieutenant General Vernon Walters' meetings throughout the
years, and his work, is a part of "Silent Missions," his memoirs.
Thank you for sharing some of it with us.
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