INTERVIEW WITH CAVE BROWN AND COLBY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100110006-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: August 9, 1976
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST"T
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1 -4.
RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
STAT
Nine In The Morning
WTOP TV
CBS Network
Au; ust 9, 1976 9:00 AM CITY Washington, D.C.
Interview WithABrown and Colby
CAROL RANDOLPH: Arid we're also going to talk to
right now -- Ed has joined Anthony Cave-Brown (?) and former
CIA Director William Colby for a discussion of the development
of the CIA.
EDWARD MUTTER (?): As Carol mentioned we do have with
us today the former head of the CIA, William Colby, and Anthony
Cave Brown who has written a very interesting book about the
CIA, at least the origins of the CIA, called "The Official War
Report of the OSS."
ANTHONY CAVE-BROWN: Yes, I edited it and put an
introduction. The actual volume was written by Kermit Roosevelt
who was then with the OSS in '48.
MUTTER: Let's talk about that just for a moment.
Basically what that is it traces the origins of the CIA and
how it began from the...
CAVE-BROWN: Well in a certain sense, of course, the OSS
was a wartime agency and was formed for the purposes of war and
when the war was over the OSS was dissolved. However, it's
perfectly true to say that there were certain elements of the
CIA buried in that organization.
MUTTER: How did it develop into the CIA -- into the
organization that we know and that some of us love and hate
today?
CAVE-BROWN: Well the OSS when it was dissolved spun off
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a large number of highly qualified men. Now there was also
a bureaucracy and a system of acquiring intelligence on a
global basis.
And so, when President Truman decided to establish
the Central Intelligence Agency -- I think it was in '47 or
'48 --
CAVE-BROWN: ...yes, as a result of the Cold War, the
fact that the Russians were misbehaving on rather a large
scale. When the organization was established, then they
decided to pick up most of the senior officers of the OSS.
MUTTER: Has it always had this history of secrecy
that we know of today?
CAVE-BROWN: Oh, yes. I mean Alan Dulles made it very
explicit when he said, that in order to be effective a
secret service must be secret. You can't go around telling
the hostile elements in the world what you propose to do,
the nature of your operations and intentions.
MUTTER: There's a -- when you're talking about the
OSS, there are reports that, for instance, the United States
Government knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed and
that we did not do anything about it because at the time
there really wasn't an American intelligence operation.
CAVE-BROWN: Yes, I mean, well Mr. Colby, no doubt, knows
a good deal more about this than I do, but the fact. is this,
that it's extremely likely and all the evidence shows that
there were fragments of intelligence all over Washington
indicating that the Japanese main fleet was somewhere at sea
and evidently had hostile intentions. There were certain
indications from London, at the Japanese Embassy in London,
that there might be an attack.
But the trouble was that there was no central
intelligence board, no single person to which all that infor-
mmation came so that he could directly keep the President
informed.
I think it's perfectly true to say that had the
Central Intelligence Agency or the OSS or some similar
organization existed at that time, there would have been a
good deal less of the element of surprise in'Pearl Harbor.
COLBY: The Japanese admiral had orders that if
the fleet were discovered at sea, it was to turn around and
go back to Japan. All it needed was one long range
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MUTTER: Did we know that there was going to be Pearl
COLEY: There was information, as Cave-Brown says, in
the Navy. There was other information in the State Department.
There was other information elsewhere in the government, but
nobody had put it together and made a really cautious and care-
ful estimator of what the Japanese might do.
WJe knew that there was a critical period with Japan,
but we didn't really put together the possibilities.
deception?
During World War II, what was the greatest
CAV1-BROWN: Oh it was unquestionably "Bodyguard".
I mean "Bodyguard" goes down in history as the Trojan Horse of
modern times. Plan "Bodyguard" which was...
MUTTER: Why don't you explain that...
CAVE-BROWN: Yes, I will. Plan "Bodyguard" was the
cover and deception plan, strategic and tactical, to mislead
Hitler about the date, time and place of the invasion. The
invasion itself was the emotional and strategical climax of
the Second World War. If it failed history would go one way.
If it succeeded history would go quite another way.
As it turned out, of course, because Hitler was
mislead totally, 6,300 ships, the greatest armada of all times,
was able to enter the Bay of Biscay and the Germans with a few
exceptions were really not aware of the size and power of the
invasion until daybreak came up and they could see it for
themselves.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Colby, I think, was involved
in that operation, weren't you at one time?
No, it was a little later.
Alright. The point was that the British in Britain
had seized control of the entire Germany spy network and they
were feeding the intelligence to Hitler, which he believed.
MUTTER: Before we move on to modern history, which
is what I really want to get into, one final question on this:
Why were these files kept classified for so long?
CAVE-BROWN: Well this is the traditional British
attitude. They believe it's necessary to conceal so long as is
possible the methods, the motus apparendi, of various intelligence
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services. Moreover, of course, they were very anxious at all
times to protect their identities and even the identities of the
families of people who were of service to the United States and
the British Government over this most critical issue.
Most important of all, there were American or British
or both agents in very high places in Germany and were
capable of doing Hitler and the German general staff great
disservice.
But I think above all things, the anxiety was to
protect the sanctity of a thing called Ultra, which was of course
the code and cipher breaking organization that existed in
Britain at that time.
MUTTER: Mr. Colby...
COLBY: Why is it secret?
MUTTER: Why. Why. Why is this whole thing, everything,
is secret? We don't know anything about the CIA.
COLBY: No, you do know -- some -- quite a lot now.
But the answer to your question is the long tradition of secrecy
in intelligence, ever since Moses sent a spy from each tribe to
spy out the land of Israel.
But we are a democracy.
COLBY: Well. And that's the point, I think, that
nobody really questioned the secrecy of intelligence until really
in recent years. America has revolutionized intelligence. It's
brought technology into inteligence. It's brought academic
research in mass into intelligence and it's insisted that American
intelligence operate under the law.
Now obviously intelligence breaks laws. Most countries
have laws against espionage.
MUTTER: Which is very interesting. Where is the final
line? Where does it border on national security? What can we`do?
Can we do anything for the security of the country? Is that
basically the motto of the CIA?
COLBY: No. I think the point is, the point that we've
made very clear and have made clear in CIA and before all this
excitement occurred in 1973, is that CIA would operate under the
law. Now that means it operates under American law.
COLBY: And since 1973 the directives have been very
clear that that would be the case.
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MUTTER: That's fine. You say you operate under the
law, but is it not true that if you determine or if somebody
in the Central Intelligence Agency determines that. whatever we
want to do, whether it be murder or a break-in, if it is necessary
for the national security, then we can do it?
COLBY: No, that's not so. That's my point. That the
earlier philosophy was very much that way, yes. The philosophy
over the centuries was very much that way.
MUTTER: Then when did we stop this?
In the last five years.
M[JTTEtt: The last five years.
COLEY: That's the point. CIA saw the effects of Vietnam
and Watergate, knew that the American people would insist, once
they turned their mind to it, that American intelligence operate
under the law, so CIA arranged itself so that it would operate
under the iaw.
MUTTER: Alright. Are you telling me, therefore, then
for the last five years the Central Intelligence Agency has
committed no murders, no illegal break-ins and has operated under
the law completely?
COLBY: I say that since 1973 we've put out clear
directives that we would not do anything improper under the law
that is assigned CIA.
MUTTER: Has anybody been...?
COLBY: And as for murder. Now let's get that very
clear because that's a very sensational subject.
COLBY: And a very.serious one. Now I have turned down
suggestions for assassination o'er my career. I've issued
directives again-assassination. The Senate committee spent six
months looking into the story of CIA assassinations and they
discovered that there were two occasions in which CIA started,
and in one case, Mr. Castro, tried very much to bring about his
death.
But aside from those two cases of attempts, CIA never
murdered anybody, never assassinated anybody.
plans?
MUTTER: Then what we're talking about is assassination
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COLBY: Those two. Those two cases were plans of
assassinations.
MUTTER: At least -- this is the information that we
have made -- that has been made public. Are you saying...
COLBY: No this is the result of a six month study
by the Senate committee who had access to all of CIA's information
and background.
MUTTER: Are you saying, then, as far as you know and
being a care.