CONFERENCE CALL - FRANK SNEPP, WILLIAM HOOD ON INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200150004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 97
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: January 15, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
DATE JANUARY 15, 1978 11:30 P.M.CITY NEW YORK
LARRY BEAR: Hello. I'm Larry Bear, and this is "Conference
Call" on WABC Radio. Tonight on "Conference Call" we're going
to talk about a subject that has occasioned a steady national
debate for several years now, and the subject is intelligence--
not the kind that we associate with IQ, but rather, the kind
we associate with agents, with national security, with crime,
with espionage, spies, counter-espionage, and covert action,
with code name operations, both real and fictional, Operation
H T Lingual(?), Health Alteration Committee, the Executive Action
Squad, and those familiar initials CIA, FBI, NSA, Consect(?).
In other places, for example, KGB, and GRU.
We're going to take a good, hard look tonight at two United
States agencies, the CIA and the FBI, and at what I believe to
be the key issue for a free and democratic society--how, and
I guess this is the question, how, in a world looked at realistically
as a network of nations essentially in competition, we, the United
States of America, can maintain national, and international Intelligence
and criminal justice services that will be competent and effective,
and also controlled, responsible, and accountable. What, if
any, are the limits we should set for secret intelligence operations
and activities? And what should be the limits, do you think
on the freedom of the press, public agencies, and the Congress
to hold such activities up to public scrutiny?
In Russia, for example, there are no moral issues posed(?)
to the KGB, and that includes kidnapping and assasination activity..
Nor does the Russian GRU, the Soviet Armed Forces Intelligence
Spy Service, have to concern itself with internal or external
niceties involving human rights and freedom.
Stalin was deified by tens of millions of people all over
the world. He was engaging with the help of the Soviet Secret
Services in mass murder, so extensive, brutal and inhuman as
to stagger and sicken the imagination even in the twentieth century,
where we witnessed so much death and destruction.
00200150004-3 25:
41 EAST 42ND STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10017, 697-5100
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Now in the United States we come to grips with moral issues
light years away from that kind of horror. Because we are a
open society.
However, there are serious issues we do have to face. For
example, one, domestic spying by the CIA. Have there been illegal
spy activities in violation of the rights of United States citizens?
Has the FBI infringed on the personal liberties of U.S. citizens?
The allegations have included, in reports, for example,
from the Rockefeller Commission and the Church Senate Intelligence
Committee, as well as from public groups, such as the Committee
for Public Justice.
Allegations concerning the opening of citizens' mail, or(?) planting
of tapes and bugs, the commission of burglaries, testing of dangerous
drugs on unsuspecting subjects, and accumulating, and I quote,
"regrettable mountains of dossiers on US citizens."
Secondly, there has been some criticism that there is a
lack of accountability by United States intelligence services
to the Congress, to the people, and even apparently to the White
House.
And there may be other serious issues involving illegality
and competence, intelligence community manipulation of United
States Presidents, and intelligence community manipulation by
United States Presidents.
But to me at least one thing is clear. If there is an important
issue to be resolved relating to the interplay between intelligence
community activities and the civil and human rights of US citizens,
and indeed of the citizens of other nations of the world, and
I believe there is, there is also a powerful, even overwhelming
case to be made for the absolute necessity of national intelligence
services, engaged in the protection and furtherance of the growth
of the Republic.
Effectiveness and competence may necessitate secrecy, while
Democratic process demands control, responsibility and accountability.
And so we're talking, are we not, of a very delicate balance.
The subject, then, Is intelligence. Secret operations In
an open society. My guests on Conference Call tonight
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are uniquely fit to discuss the subject with us. And we'll take
your telephone calls, all of us, and your questions and concerns
and issues.
Later on this evening when I announce the Conference Call
telephone number.
But for now, let me introduce my guests to you. My first
guest is Frank Snepp. He was recruited into the Central Intelligence
Agency in 1968, and he served over a period of eight years as
both an intelligence analyst, and an intelligence operative,
which in itself is unusual.
He worked on European security matters, and then did two
tours of duty in Saigon, Vietnam. From 1969 to 1971, and from
1972 to 1975, where(!) he was responsible for strategic estimates
and briefings, and handling interrogations and(?) informant network.
He resigned from the CIA one year, after Saigon fell. His
new book, entitled Decent Interval, published by Random House,
was written in total secrecy and published without advance announcement
by Random House, without having been submitted to the CIA for
review. The CIA has charged that publication of the book, Decent
Interview, Decent Interval, was a violation of the CIA secrecy
oath, and Frank I'm sure will comment on that.
My second guest is William Hood. And he began his career
In intelligence operations (UNCLEAR) of America's modern intelligence
service. He was with the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services
in World War II. And then with the Central Intelligence Agency
of course, at its official formation in 1947.
Bill Hood has been a specialist on England, France, Germany,
Austria and Switzerland. He has been on the Latin America desk,
and has held positions in the CIA as Chief of Operations in Eastern
Europe, and as Executive Officer for Counterintelligence.
My third guest is Dorothy Samuels, and she is Executive
Director of the Committee for Public Justice, which monitors --
monitors the progress of intelligence reform, and is dedicated
to the protection of individual civil rights.
Its historic 1971 Conference on the FBI was the first investiga-
tion of the FBI ever undertaken by either a public or a private
organization.
I welcome you to Conference Call, and am glad to have
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you with me tonight. The three of you. And I'm grateful that
you came. I don't know whether we'll solve anything, but I
think we can at least (GARBLED) issues of some importance.
I wonder, though, if I might, Bill, begin with you. While
I don't want a history lesson, I'd like to go back a little back.
In terms of the formation of -- of our intelligence services
in this country. I realize, of course, that we've had intelligence
services for many years. But I like to think of the modern intelligence
service as beginning --beginning around the time of the Second
World War. With the Office of Strategic Services. Maybe you
can tell us something about how that --how that began.
My impression was that Bill Donovan, who was I guess the,
what did they call him, the Father of the OSS, worked with Winnie
Stevenson, Winnie Stevenson of the British Security Coordination,
and then the OSS developed. But I'd like some background from
you.
WILLIAM HOOD: That's correct. Donovan was sent on a couple
of exploratory missions, tours really, to Europe by President
Roosevelt. And was clearly Roosevelt's candidate to establish
a, what would be in effect our first peacetime national intelligence
service. This was --was formed just before we entered World
War II.
I think actually American intelligence is now, seems to
be common coin, really started with our first great intelligence
officer, George Washington. And the difference in his operations
and the operations that have been conducted since his time is
not very great.
I think he engaged in covert action, counterespionage, and
state espionage. And did so very brilliantly. I think I would
call him a better intelligence officer, perhaps, than a general.
BEAR: Really.
HOOD: And he also had a -- a notion for secrecy. It's --
it's as you probably know it's only within the last fifteen or
twenty years that some of his agents have been identified. And
there're still two or three that -- to be identified.
BEAR: And Is -- is there some, there was a book. I think
it was called T,he Man Called Intrepid, or A Man Called Intrepid,
or something. Which began at least to -- to give the story
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of -- of Dewin(?) Stevenson and the British Security Coordination
that -- that operated as I understand it throughout the war right
here in New York City. In Rockefeller Center.
HOOD: Uh,huh.
BEAR: In complete secrecy, even though they had a couple
of thousand employees.
HOOD: Well, Stevenson I don't think was in complete secrecy.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
HOOD: But he was in formal liaison with the FBI at the time.
And of course, with Donovan, once Donovan was named by President
Roosevelt.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
And when was the -- did the CIA as such come into being,
though?
HOOD: It was established by the National Security Act of
1947, At the same time the National Security Council was formed.
And the services were unified. The military services.
BEAR: Uh,huh. And the CIA itself, then became in 1947 the
United States intelligence arm. But were there not, are there
still not, other intelligence agencies operating in the United
States? Governmental agencies?
HOOD: Well, of course. The -- there is the Department of
Defense Intelligence Agency. The National Security Agency.
And the FBI, although I don't know whether you'd call that an
intelligence agency. It certainly has a counterintelligence
responsibility. Those are the only ones that leap right to my
mind.
BEAR: Uh.huh. And some of them have a lot. I don't want
you to feel left out of this. I -- I just began with Bill because
he began with -- with the'modern intelligence.
FRANK SNEPP: Well, can we bring up a point.
BEAR: Sure.
SNEPP: Going back to 1947.
BEAR: Of course.
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SNEPP: The National Security Act. Actually, the CIA was
formed as an intelligence gathering organization in 1947. And
as I understand it, although my knowledge is obviously coming
from reading, now. Because I was not in the agency at its inception.
As you were, Bill.
But it was not involved initially under the 1947 National
Security Act in covert activities. That was part of the OPC,
was that the --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Accurate name for it. That was operated quite separately,
by Wisner, and several others. And only in 1947, 1 -- I thought,
1949 was the Act amended to make the agency responsible for covert
actions as well as intelligence gathering.
HOOD: That's -- that's correct indeed. The agency was established
in '47.
SNEPP: In '47. But it didn't have covert action --
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: That was added, I think it was --
SNEPP: Which is part of one of the -- the great debates.
Whether or not the agency should be in fact returned to its
original role and form, which is to collect intelligence,
without that covert action capacity,
BEAR: Well, that's an excellent point. And it seems
to me that in the recent (GARBLED) debate about the role of
intelligence, and whether the CIA and the FBI have overstepped
their bounds, and so forth.
A lot of material comes out that I think falls on unsophisticated
SNEPP: Ummm.
BEAR: Let me put it that way. You mentioned, for example,
covert action. I would think that a good many people, like
myself who are lay people, tend to think that's all that the
CIA's involved in.
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(OVERTALK)
BEAR: And probably the FBI too. Covert action. Covert
actions means --
SNEPP: That's the dirty tricks.
BEAR: Yeah, people are out there doing tricks --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: Against foreign leaders and so forth and so on.
And as a matter of fact, and we can discuss whether that's
real anyway. But -- but you mentioned espionage, and you
mentioned counterespionage.
And I really would like to take a few minutes to talk
about what the CIA in fact does. And what espionage means.
And what counterespionage means. And what covert action means.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: I think most people don't really understand that.
SNEPP: Well, Bill is the expert, I think, on terminology.
But it would be useful to start out by saying that William
Colby mentioned recently. I think in testimony before one
of the House Committees. That initially covert action, meaning
dirty tricks, accounted for something like 50 per cent of
the CIA's budget. And now accounts for only 2 per cent.
Which it seems to me extraordinarily small.
But this is what the former Director said. So that's
a starting point. We're seeing that particular activity --
kind of activity shrink. Covert action --
DOROTHY SAMUELS: (UNCLEAR) I, just about a point, what
is this you say, that this is the Director saying that 50
per cent of the CIA budget --
SNEPP: Initially. Initially.
SAMUELS: Would you say, not only that an enormous part
of the budget, obviously. But would you say something about --
SNEPP: Well, I think the budget is $700 million. Something
like that.
SAMUELS: Just a note on who gets to look at the budget.
And --and --
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SNEPP: Oh my heavens. We're jumping from subject to
subject. First of all, I think maybe we should --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Sort out the terminology.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Then we can talk about who (GARBLED) the budget.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: I just want to point out that the budget itself
is a covert activity.
SNEPP: Well, not any more.
SAMUELS: Well, less and less.
( OVERTALK)
BEAR: And -- and you know also point out the National
Security Agency has a bigger budget. And --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: And we can -- we can relate to that budget because
I think it's important. And where the FBI spends its money
too. But. I -- I don't want to miss the central issue --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: So what are we talking about in terms of activity?
SNEFF: Well, 1 was an analyst, and unlike the KBG and
the Chinese Secret Service, the CIA has a huge part of its
facilities devoted to analysis. Of overt(?) source material.
Of agent source material. Of all data.
Then there is the other side of the house, which Bill
worked in. I take it, for most of your career.
HOOD: Uh,huh.
SNEFF: Which is the -- the clandestine service. Now
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I, because of my Vietnam service, slipped back and forth.
But on the other side, you have covert action, that is to
say dirty tricks people, if you will. You also have people
who are engaged in counterintelligence, as Bill was. And you
also have people who are engaged in simple intelligence gathering.
So those are sort of broad categories, I think, under the
aegis of the clandestine service.
Okay Bill. It's your turn.
BEAR: I wonder (GARBLED) if -- if I can ask you specifically.
The word espionage, which you mentioned Frank.
BEAR: Even of itself. I think most people find hard
to differentiate from -- from covert action. Because espionage
has that meaning. It means that somehow you're sneaking around
in back alleys. I don't necessarily mean(?) it's a bad, you
know, that's a bad thing. But it's a way of being.
Espionage is not covert action. Is it Bill?
HOOD: No. There are three intelligence disciplines:
espionage, counterespionage, or counterintelligence. They're
used synonomously now. And covert action.
Espionage is quite simply stealing the plans. That's
all it is.
(OVE.RTALK)
HOOD: You're trying to find out what the other fellow
doesn't want you to, has classified, and wants to keep away
from you.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
HOOD: Counterespionage is keeping him from finding out
your secrets. It gets into much more elaborate things than
that. It-means penetrating his intelligence services, deceiving
him, when this is possible.
But basically it's a defensive activity.
Covert action is a very broad term, and it -- it ranges
from clandestine attempts to influence foreign opinion or
action --
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BEAR: Propaganda, in other words. Right?
SNEPP: Right.
HOOD: And black(?) propaganda, that is, propaganda that
can't be attributed. And goes from that to support of irregular
warfare. Resistance or guerilla groups, underwriting certain
foreign activities, as we did in Laos. Arming and supporting
paramilitary forces.
BEAR: So what you're saying then is that in -- in espionage
and as you got on, Frank, it could be something as unglamourous
as reading thousands of newspapers --
SNEPP: That's right. That's right.
BEAR: All over the world. Thousands of magazines. And
you know (GARBLED).
SNEPP: And listening to -- to foreign broadcasts, and
trying to figure out what somebody actually means.
HOOD: It's important to realize how -- how much more
comes from these --these activities which are -- are honest
and completely aboveboard.
SNEPP: Reading.
HOOD: Reading newspapers--
SNEPP: That's right.
HOOD: And listening to the other fellow's radio broadcast.
And I would say you would get any variety of estimates on
it, but certainly 80 to 90 per cent of the data collected
by the agency is from overt sources.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Though as one said, it is the -- the agent, the
(GARBLED), the John McCone(7) types --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Who are deep inside the opposition that provides
the goad(?) or the corroborating information.
HOOD: Permits you to -- really to evaluate --
SNEPP: That's right.
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HOOD: And point out the importance of the mound of data
that you've got --
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: From overt sources.
SNEPP: Absolutely.
BEAR: And -- and when we pass from espionage into counterespionage
or counterintelligence, I guess that's where you have the
coin(?). You've got to understand that -- that foreign governments,
they may be Russian or otherwise, are in -- are hopefully
from their point of view engaged in the same kind of operations.
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: And they're trying to recruit Americans, wherever
they may be, in the hope that they'll provide for them the
kind of information we're looking for our agents to provide.
SNEPP. Uh,huh.
BEAR: So dealing with -- with that kind of threat is --
is the counterintelligence operation that I take it you were
involved with,
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: From time to time I had to, yes.
SNEPP: And of course as counteragents -- and there's the feel
of the intelligence business. Counterespionage. Keeping
your opposition from determining how you're operating.
And it's so important. Without that, then you're vulnerable.
HOOD(?): A good counterespionage service is at the heart
of any intelligence activity. No matter how good your positive
intelligence, your intelligence collection is, you can be
tricked if -- if you do not --if you're not supported by a
very strong counterespionage service.
BEAR: Well, in -- in what sense, when you say you can
be tricked.
HOOD: You can be deceived. Your agents can be doubled,
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and run against you. Unless you have an inside view of the
opposition you, to a degree, are at their mercy.
BEAR: When you talk about an agent being doubled, what
does that mean.
HOOD: That means an agent of one side who is, comes under
the control, of the opposition or enemies, as the case may be.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Is a double agent.
BEAR: It's an interesting book.
SNEPP: Are you going to mention Masterman's book.
No doubletalk systems.
BEAR: Well, -- I was thinking of something a little simpler,
and that"s a book, the Harry Rozitky that I was just mentioning
about the CIA's secret operations.
And it's interesting he mentions at one point, I think
it's in the late sixties, am I correct, that there were 300,
or 600, Russian agents in New York City alone.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: At that time. Is that -- am I correct?
HOOD: I'm not sure that that was his figure but we have
to distinguish between agent --
BEAR: Uh,huh.
HOOD: And intelligence officer. An agent is somebody
who'has no ostensible connection with the intelligence services
employing him.
Frank and I were intelligence officers --
BEAR: Uh,huh.
HOOD: And we're sometimes referred to in the press as
agents.
SNEPP: As agents, correct.
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HOOD: And that is like covert action getting involved
with covert activities --
BEAR: Uh,huh.
HOOD: And secret Intelligence. These are quite separate
words which the press as yet hasn't thought out.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR:: Well, I'm glad we've got you then. Does that mean
Bill as a matter of fact that -- that when you were in Europe,
for example, that your identity was known? Because you were
an officer, as opposed to being an agent?
HOOD: Well it wasn't theoretically, it wasn't known.
But when you've been around 25 years, it's already known(?).
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: People, there were people (UNCLEAR) my authority
as a member of the CIA.
BEAR: Well that's an interesting fact. What you're saying
is there're people who are not to be identified, hopefully.
Is that right?
HOOD: They're not career employees. They're hired to --
for a certain job, and released when their job is over.
SNEPP: And there's also another category of let's say
operative. And that your asset. An asset may be someone you
don't hire, whom you're able to manipulate through various
and sundry techniques.
Now sometimes that term is misused, and maybe I'm misusing
it right now.
But in Vietnam, we always referred to an asset, as, say,
a journalist, who we might talk to regularly. Who -- who
we're trying to cultivate, and draw into our confidence, so
that we could direct him in the right direction. The way
that would be useful to American policy. Or to our interests,
or what have you.
That's an asset. Not paid. (GARBLED) most of the time.
Not realizing that we're doing this.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
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SNEPP: And then you have the agent who is willing(?).
He perhaps may not be willing. But in.any event, he was hired,
or there is some handle on him.
SAMUELS: In the development of what you call (UNCLEAR),
which is really an espionage function, you in fact can get
involved, and how does that become covert action, or does
it?
( OVERTALK)
BEAR: That's not necessarily a function, is it?
SAMUELS: Well it's SNEPP: It would be.
SAMUELS: A hindrance.
HOOD: There's another -- another term that's used perhaps
more in Europe than in Southeast Asia. Asset, as it's used,
as I understand it, applies to, was applied to an agent.
It's not really a category.
But you put something down as a contact. You've added
someone who's not employed. But someone --
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Information, or for advice. Or to ?? to do you
a turn.
SNEPP: That's right.
HOOD: Who would faint dead away SNEPP: Well, I noticed --
HOOD: At the thought of being called an agent.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Or being called an asset. But, we thought in
Vietnam we had a couple of assets that we could om
BEAR: Well I --
SNEPP: Utilize from time to time.
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BEAR: To pursue something that Dorothy I think was getting
at, Frank, I note, you did mention in the book, in your book --
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: (GARBLED) book. The Bureau Chief of the New York
Times --
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: Giving(?) a general (UNCLEAR) with a television
interviewer in 1969.
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: He said that in reference to journalists
SNEPP: Hmmm.
BEAR: American journalists in Vietnam. And I quote.
"We would leak to them on a selective basis, draw them into
our confidence, and then we could shape their reporting (GARBLED),
because they trusted us.
SNEPP: That's right.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: A rather convoluted way of saying something.
To somebody.
What it means simply, that we would indeed pass around
information from time to time, most of it was checkable.
And the journalists would come back to us with further information.
And then we would feed data which wasn't checkable.
Let me give you an example. So that there's no misunderstanding.
If we wanted to paint the North Vietnamese at a particular
time as particularly perfidious, we would emphasize in our"
leaks to the press the fact that they were, oh, running a
lot of men down the (GARBLED) system to South Vietnam.
We would neglect to mention that they might be running
a lot of people back up the trail system to North Vietnam.
So it appeared that in fact the North Vietnamese presence(?)
was expanding, expanding.
And this would put a particular burnish on the story
we were putting forth, the kind of story we were trying to
put across to Congress or whathaveyou.
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That's what I mean by manipulations. And manipulations,
are -- is really a loaded term. Now the journalist, because
the information is so technical, could never check it. He
would never be able to determine whether or not that certain
number of troops had come down the trail system. And he couldn't
know that we were withholding information that might relate
to the -- the exfiltration of those troops. So that's the
business of manipulation.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Finding ourselves sufficiently(?) obscure.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: I'm going -- I'm going to have -- I'm going to
have to manipulate (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE).
We're talking on Conference Call about the intelligence
issues., Secret agency operations in an open society. With
Frank Snepp. William Hood. And Dorothy Samuels. Now you
stay with us. Because we'll be back to talk with you some
more after five minutes of the latest news on WABC, New York.
BEAR: Larry Bear back again. Your listening to Conference
Call on WABC Radio. And tonight we're talking about the intelligence
issue. Secret agency operations in an open society.
My guests, Dorothy Samuels, the Executive Director of
the Committee for Public Justice. William Hood, who began
his career in intelligence operations with the Office of Strategic
Services, the OSS, which was formulated of course at about
the time of World War Ii, and then became In effect the Central
Intelligence Agency In 1947. Bill Hood has been a specialist
about England and France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
That is, in Europe.
He's been on the Latin American desk for the CIA. Has
held positions as Chief of Operations in Eastern Europe.
And as Executive Officer for Counterintelligence.
My third guest is Frank Snepp, who was -- began his career
in the CIA in 1968. Served over a period of eight years,
As both an intelligence analyst, and intelligence operative.
He did some work in European security matters, but did
two tours of duty in Saigon, Vietnam, which resulted, one
of the results at least, was his new book. Called Decent
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interval. Which you may well have heard about. If you haven't
you certainly will. And it's published by Random House.
Frank did two tours of duty there, in 1969 and 1971 in
Vietnam. And from 1972 to 1975, when he was responsible for
strategic estimates and briefings, handling interrogations
and informant networks as well.
And we have begun here on Conference Call to try and
make some: sense out of some of the terms that (UNCLEAR) on
our -- in the media, and the press, television and radio.
With regard to intelligence. Espionage. Counterespionage.
Covert action. And so forth.
And it seems to me that it's quite important that we
do talk about those terms, because all of us as citizens have
been and will continue to be called upon to play some role
hopefully in the ultimate decision making process here in
the United States about intelligence operations.
What kind of legislation we should seek, what kind of
intelligence gathering our agencies should or should not be
involved in. And it's impossible to contribute anything,
to your Congressman, to your Senator, to the general discussion
in any way if you don't understand in fact what we're talking
about.
We relate it seems to me, and we have been relating to
a lot of so called covert activities that have to do with
the CIA, I think more than the FBI. And one tends to think,
I guess, that "dirty tricks" is the real business of intelligence.
And what's been said here tonight, and I think that certainly
what's true is that the Central Intelligence Agency does not
spend a great deal of its time involved in covert activities
or dirty tricks, in fact, as we tend to think of them.
But in intelligence gathering activities. And we have
talked some about that. And I think that maybe we ought to
talk a little more about it as we were doing during the course
of the news break.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: I'd like to ask again if I could with regard to
the activities of the CIA, if you like -- just make, perhaps
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you might do this, Bill, some general estimate of the involvement
of the CIA in intelligence gathering. That is to say, espionage
and counterespionage and covert activity. How does it --
just in very general terms -- break down? Is it half and
half. Or is the majority of the work of the agency outside
the covert activity area?
HOOD: I think it's changed, obviously. Historically
that -- that it must be at a very low level now. I'm not
sure what the figures are. But if Director Colby said 2 per
cent, I wouldn't certainly argue with that.
The time was that the, probably at the height of the
Cold War, 51, 52, when we were first engaged in that heavily,
the percentage was much -- was much larger. And it varies
from country to country.
I think that rather obviously today in a great many areas
there is no covert action whatsoever. Going on. And I'd
say very little in any area. But it -- it is, there was a
lot of it done in -- in Latin America during the -- during
the Kennedy time.' And I'm sure that's dropped to nothing
now.
SNEPP: Talk about figures again. Because having been
an analyst, I've become fixed on figures. For better or worse.
I'm sure for worse. But in any event, it's in the public domain
now. That about the --the roster of the CIA is about 15,000
people, which is you know rather small considering that the
agency is accused of all these great sins.
Only about 8,000 people in the agency are engaged in
clandestine services. It may vary back and forth from 5 to
8,000.
HOOD: I would say that's on the low side.
SNEPP: Right.
HOOD: You know, (GARBLED) to do It.
SNEPP: And half of those are in a sort of support role.
Which means supporting -- reporting from the POE, writing
reports in(?) an editorial capacity, to put it in simple form.
Technical services. And what have you.
And so a very small number of people actually out there
[18]
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[l9]
in the field doing dirty tricks, if you will. Or gathering
intelligence, if you will.
So again, we're -- we're not confronted by this -- this
monster in -- at least in terms of numbers.
HOOD: Uh,huh. You had to compare it too. I think that
if you take just that 5,000 figure, which I think is quite
high today. If you take -- if you subtract from that just
the secretaries, you come down --and the clerks --
SNEPP: That's right.
HOOD: You come down to--(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Well, that's where we -- well, you have to compare
that with the -- with the threat. Now what's the KGB up to?
Everyone will agree that there's a 90,000 figure for the --
HOOD: For the KGB. But even in that, when you cut out
the people who are engaged exclusively in the Soviet Union,
and guarding the borders, that's one of their other jobs,
you come down to probably 20,000 people in the espionage --
HOOD: And counterespionage, and covert action. Which
is -- is quite different from the CIA figure. And then you
have to throw in of course all the East European Communist
countries --
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
HOOD: The intelligence services of which are completely
at the beck and call of the KGB. Or GRU.
SNEPP: So there's quite -- quite a substantial threat.
BEAR: Uh,huh. Clearly so.
Okay, I wanted to at least get that out on the table
somewhat, and we may get some more questions about it from
some of the callers.
And get back to what we were talking about at the news
break, Frank. In terms of -- of loose ends.
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[20]
BEAR: And you take another step. You had said that there
were leaks on a selective basis.
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR; And in a sense --
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: We were certainly talking about manipulation of
the press.
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: What's -- what's your feeling about that? Do you --
I think, if I read your book correctly, would not think so
highly of that(?).
SNEPP: No. As a matter of fact --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: That's the one axe I have to grind. I think the
CIA should get out of the press business entirely.
The latest CIA guidelines recently issued by Admiral
Turner permit the CIA to continue to deal with foreign journalists
who work for foreign intelligence organizations -- I beg your
pardon, foreign news organizations.
In other words, we could hire somebody who works for
The Economist, or for lawyers, technically. Just to give
you an example. I'm not suggesting that's happening.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
SNEPP: But we can no longer under the new guidelines
hire American journalists who work for CBS, or foreign journalists
who might work for CBS, Time Magazine, and so forth. (GARBLED)
I think, however, we should get out of all news gathering
activities, or we should get away from trying to hire any
journalist. Because the problem is there is blowback, to use
a terrible term.
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(211
When a journalist begins working for you, I don't care
how objective he may try to be, he at some point I think --
at least this is true of the journalists I've known, foreign
journalists overseas. They will begin to skew their vision
in your direction. Even if they don't want to.
They may be doing something for you in the intelligence
field. They may be out there gathering intelligence. They
may be reporting to their editors, quite objectively, the
situation. But the two are beginning to merge.
And it's very possible, even if the journalist writes
for a foreign newspaper, that his material would be picked
up by, say, The New York Times, The Washington Post. That's
blowback.
And because of that -- that threat, I think we should
again back off from all journalists.
HOOD:: But what -- what would happen if the journalist
works for Tass, or Izvestia?
SNEPP: I know, this is the counterintelligence man speaking.
HOOD,: Well, I say -- I say, if we're recruiting somebody.
If we had a chance to recruit somebody from Tass --
HOOD: Would we be forbidden to do that because what he
reports would be -- could be manipulated, and blowback on
the United States? I'm sure you wouldn't go that far?
SNEPP: Well, I think if we're targeting, say, the --
the Soviet news services, we're talking about in fact targeting
the Soviet intelligence service, for many Tass men are operating
part time or full time for KGB.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: But it's -- that's (GARBLED).
HOOD:: You consider them fair game. Although, if we influence
their product, what -- what is printed --
SNEPP: Well, can you give me an example of a Tass man's
reports and dispatches being picked up by The New York
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[22,
Times. Or The Washington Post. I think -- in other words
I think you're posing a case where in fact there is not really
a problem. I would go after Tass.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: I would go after Tass.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: But if we begin talking about hiring, say, a French
journalist. Or a Chinese journalist operating out of Taiwan.
Then I think we're getting into a very gray area. And I think
that's what we should stay away from.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: I think it's very easy to blow that into a bigger
problem than that is because I don't think there are -- ever
have been that many foreign journalists as -- as agents or
sources or contacts.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: I think it is a big problem. And I -- this is
a, I think it's an important point to make.
Colby said the other day at(?) the House Committee on
Intelligence, in these hearings dealing with the press --
it doesn't really matter, he said, if there's blowback. Spillover
into the American press. Because oftentimes, the stories
that blow back appear at the bottom of page 4, in the newspaper.
Therefore it's unimportant.
Well, the point is that that story that appears on the
bottom of page 4, which may seem in the overall context of
the news to be unimportant. Could deal with atrocities in
Cambodia. They can deal with many things that could finally
figure in American policy down the road a piece. And at the
moment makes them very unimportant.
That's why, again, I think that there is a danger. And
I think any spillover, however small it may be, (GARBLED)
the advantage you might gain by hiring a journalist to do
your bidding overseas. Leaving aside Tass I grant
that's an exception.
HOOD: But would you -- would you stop diplomats from
dealing with journalists?
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(231
SNEPP: Certainly not. But the CIA should not be in the
business --
HOOD: Well --
SNEPP: Of propagandizing, even indirectly, the --
HOOD: That's not what I --
SNEPP: The American people.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: Frank, I -- I think there's a distinction that
needs to be made.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: Because -- Frank, I -- I think there's a distinction
that needs to be made.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: Not one where you'd have to accept the morality
of it, but at least a distinction. Between in -- in essence
having a newsman in a sense on your side, because he's --
SNEPP: Un,huh.
BEAR: Doing work for you. And you've made I think, you
know, a reasonable case for that.
How about the press guy who wouldn't dream of -- of being
a go between for the -- for the CIA --
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: Wouldn't dream of -- of gathering information for
them. He's nevertheless in a position to be manipulated --
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: By the CIA. In terms of the stories he writes.
It can be like the gentleman from The New York Times you mentioned.
As I recall, in your book you said, you know, to all intents
and purposes, was being as objective as he could.
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[241
SNEPP: That's right. That's right.
BEAR: But he was getting data he couldn't check terribly
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: Now, that's a different thing, isn't it --
SNEPP: That is. That's a different thing.
BEAR: Well, then let's relate to that because in a way
that's (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE).
SNEPP: Absolutely. Because there can be blowback there.
In other words, we can have a foreign journalist, whom we're
using as an agent. He may write stories that blowback into
the American press. That's propagandizing the American people.
Any way you cut it.
We may be briefing an American journalist, who is in
no way, shape or form working for the CIA. And we may brief
him on a particular subject. And we may skew the briefing
to get across a particular point of view. He'll write the
story. We're propagandizing the American people.
The National Security Act of 1947 unfortunately is not
as clear on this point as it should be. But it says that
the CIA shouldn't have domestic police functions in the United
States.
And as I understand it, this has been interpreted as
barring the propagandizing of the population in the United
States. And I think it's a very fair -- fair rule. And so
we're talking about a point of legality, granted ambiguous
legality, but a point of legality. And that's why I say the
CIA should back off from journalists. Because It seems to
be illegal.
BEAR: Well but -- but just take a look -- sure, take
a look at that.
If I'm a journalist for ABC and I -- and I want some
information. And the story that I'm writing it seems to me
does relate in part --
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[251
BEAR: To some activities I at least have a suspicion
that you're engaged in at the CIA. It could be the FBI or
whatever. And I want to go there, and I want to try and dig
out a story. And what can I do other than talk to the (UNCLEAR).
SNEPP: You should go to the political officer in the
Embassy, who hopefully isn't a CIA man and under cover.
BEAR: Wouldn't be. It's not his cover.
SNEPP: Right.
And get your information from him. I don't --
BEAR: Ever talked to CIA people?
SNEPP: Think the CIA should be in the business of handing
out news. It's an intelligence gathering organization.
BEAR: But you know what I see there? I see -- I see ABC,
or CBS, or Time or someone going back to the editor and saying,
you know something, those guys won't not say anything about
anything. And I don't like it. And I'm going to write a
story.
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: And say, these guys won't talk or give any information
to the free press. What do you do with that?
SNEPP: Well, here we have a problem. Because obviously
the press has a stake in not pursuing this issue of the CIA's
relationship with the press too far, because it's going to
lose its terrific sources.
And there is a bit of hypocrisy here. The press stays
rather quiet when this issue is raised because it would mean
again the access in the Embassy would be more limited. And
sources would begin to dry up.
BEAR: So that's a problem. I take it, Bill, that you
have a -- a --
SNEPP: He's looking pained over there.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: No, I was thinking. From the point of view of
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[26]
the journalist. There's an immense amount of data which can
be made available that --that only -- only exists in the CIA.
Perfectly open -- openly arrived at. Press analysis. All
of this data that's put out by OCI. A great deal of it could
be released to the press.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: And as far as I know is. I'm not sure --
SNEPP: That's right.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: It seems to me silly to withdraw from that.
SNEPP: You brought up a very interesting point. I appeared
recently before the Senate (GARBLED) Committee, and one of
the things that I told them from my modest perspective was
that if you're going to deal with the press, if that -- if
we can't get rid of that problem. And the CIA must continue
to deal with the press, brief the press, and what have you.
Then we should establish a rule. Anytime the press gets
a briefing from a CIA officer, it ought to be on the record.
So the -- the reporter can say, according to the CIA, the
Soviet balance of forces is so(?) --until the Soviet strategic
forces (UNCLEAR).
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: So that the reading public will know where his
information is coming from. I think this would discourage
the agency from handing out this informations knowing it could
always be called on it. And this seems to me a very sensible
rule. If we're going to continue to deal with the press.
I mean, I'm defeating my own purpose by suggesting a
solution. But there we are.
BEAR: Well, okay. Because it just seemed to me that that,
you know, was worth bringing up.
BEAR: Let's -- let's for the moment talk about the book,
Decent Interval. It seems to me just from what we've said
thus far that while you could certainly be -- be referred
to as a responsible critic (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE).
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(271
SNEPP: Well I -- I think there're probably some fairly
responsible people who would say that's not true.
BEAR: Well, it seems to me that you could be called that.
And yet the book has caused an enormous amount of controversy.
People saying, for example, that Decent Interval is an indecent
book, because it takes the CIA to task, and -- and the Federal
Government. And -- and --
BEAR: And Ambassador Martin, and a whole lot of things.
Just what if -- if -- and I hate to put such a blunt(?) question
to you. But what was your great concern, that caused you to
write a book of so many pages, and obviously such a great
l ink(?) .
What was the -- the heart of your concern (UNCLEAR PHRASE)
It appears to me it obviously was not that the United States
of America was making a mistake in having a Central Intelligence
Agency and an intelligence function.
SNEPP: (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) Because I believe that
there cannot be a double standard in matters of secrecy.
Look, Director Colby was handing out his account of the
evacuation, right after the collapse of Vietnam, to journalists
of his choice.
He expected the rest of us in the agency who had been
there to keep quiet. In deference to the secrecy agreement
we all signed. I think what he was doing was an abuse of
the secrecy system. Secrecy is not divisible. It applies
to Director Colby, and to Director Turner, to Frank Snepp,
or it applies to nobody.
I mean, after all, Director Colby, when he was Director,
signed the secrecy agreement, was under pain of the secrecy
agreement. And he should have abided by it. And yet he didn't.
So I figured the bets were -- were off at that point.
I wanted to demonstrate by example that again secrecy is not
divisible. The secrecy strictures cannot be selectively applied.
So I wrote the book.
Now, in the book, I hasten to add, I did not expose
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(281
any sources and methods, at least not to my knowledge. And
I think the CIA is still combing the book, trying to find
a source or a method which would justify legal action, but
so far I don't think they have. And that was one of the reasons
I wrote the book.
Secondly I wanted to force the CIA to learn from some
of the mistakes it made in Vietnam. 1 offered to do an after
action report when I came back. I wanted to help focus attention
on what we'd done wrong with the evacuation.
We had left a lot of material behind. We left agents
and collaborators. And it seemed to make sense to sit back
and determine what this meant in terms of our future operations
in Southeast Asia.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
SNEPP: But the agency didn't want to do this. It wanted
simply to forget about what had happened. When I discovered
this was the attitude of the agency, I said okay. Then I'm
going to write an after action report of my own. And that
was the book. The second reason.
BEAR: Okay. Let's -- let's then take a look at the substance
of the book. What (UNCLEAR) -- again, we can take so many
pages and such obviously an enormous effort on your part.
And -- and condensing it is hardly fair.
And I think the listeners would know that the only way
to get a complete picture is to read the book, Decent Interval,
But what is your -- were your substantive specific concerns
that you laid(?) out there? I mean, what happened that --
that enraged you?
SNEPP: Well first of all, the book, I think, is a pro
agency book.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Because it demonstrates that the CIA was (INTERRUPTION
IN TAPE) job throughout the last years of the war. It was
generating very good intelligence on Communist intentions.
We knew what was going to happen. We knew the Communists
were going to move on Saigon toward the end of April, 1975.
We knew it in time to begin planning rationally for an evacuation.
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[29]
We didn't. And I wanted to answer the question, why didn't
we.
And what I discovered was myopia at the top. The --
the intelligence was flowing back to Washington, in most cases.
But Dr. Kissinger, for his own reasons, Ambassador Martin,
for his reasons, and finally my own boss Tom Polgar(?), the
CIA Station Chief in Saigon, for his reasons, chose not to
go with the intelligence. Not to begin planning again in
any vigorous way for evacuation.
And I focused -- the most important part of the book,
from my standpoint, deals with the question of why they --
why they didn't.
And why didn't they? All right. I'll answer that question
very quickly. Henry Kissinger, you'll recall, by late March
1975 had Just come off of a Middle East shuttle. He'd been
unsuccessful in arranging a disengagement of Egyptian and
Syrian forces in the Sinai Desert. Precisely because both
sides were unsure of how far to trust American policy.
Because of this, the last thing Kissinger wanted to do
was to give the impression that we were prepared to abandon
an ally in Southeast Asia. This would have further complicated
his Mideast peace gambit. So he was not in favor of (GARBLED).
Then you had Ambassador Martin. Ambassador Martin an
old cold warrior(?). He had lost a son, an adopted son, in
Vietnam. And this of course strengthened his determination
to stand fast.
I think Tom Polgar could also be spoken of as a cold
warrior in a certain classic sense. Not quite able to distinguish
between the devil and Communism. I think that's a line I
use In the book. And I hope that's not too offensive. And
I think it probably is -- is accurate. It speaks to the man
himself.
The --- these are the personal factors. That vitiated(?)
against the planning for an evacuation. Pulling the plug.
Then, on top of all of that, we had the false peace signals.
During the final month of the war, the French, and then the
members of the Hungarian truce team in Saigon, put out the
word that there was a chance for a negotiated settlement.
And the Soviets in private communications with Kissinger conveyed
the same impression.
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(30]
And all of this tended to divert, I think, the principals
from what the intelligence was saying. Which was, there was
no chance for a negotiated settlement. Ergo, we should begin
planning for that evacuation. Very complicated tale, indeed.
SNEPP: But that's the sum total of it.
HOOD: Wasn't one of the major considerations the fact
that a detailed evacuation plan, if it leaked, wouldn't it
cause a run on the bank. Wouldn't it threaten the -- our
policy there? If -- if --
SNEPP: I think that was a neat rationalization. First
of all, in very early April, a highranking CIA man, who visited
in Saigon, Ted Schakley, in fact, had seen to it the city
of Saigon was cordoned off against refugees in the countryside.
Against stragglers from the South Vietnamese army.
And therefore the city was in a way in a vacuum as the
crisis developed. So there was less of a danger of panic.
Secondly although there was a danger of panic possible,
a potential for it, I think we could very early on have begun
quietly putting together the lists of the Vietnamese we would
have helped when the crisis finally reached a head.
We didn't do that. On the last day of the war, the day
of the evacuation, we didn't have any master list identifying
collaborators, or identifying the -- the Vietnamese who had
worked for the Embassy we might help. And that was the failure.
A very, very basic failure. A failure of organization, if
you will. That could again been done I think without precipitating
the collapse of morale within the city.
HOOD: But don't you get into -- into a -- a argument
on just that point.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: With people like the Chief of Station or the Division
Chief in Washington? I don't think they'd agree with you
on that.
SNEPP: They may not. But there we are.
(OVERTALK)
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[311
SNEPP: The point is, we didn't get out the people we
should have gotten out. And --
HOOD: How many people were gotten out? How many people
did we evacuate?
SNEPP: All right. 140,000 Vietnamese refugees, now live
in the United States. Half of those, or well over half of
those, escaped on their own. That is, by jumping into fishing
boats at the last moment, and paddling out to the American
evacuation fleet offshore.
The other roughly 60,000, 51,000 in fact, were evacuated
by the American airlift out of Saigon, which was organized
by the American military.
The agency got out about, oh, I think, 2,000 or 3,000
people.
HOOD: And how many would you have recommended we get
SNEPP: I would have -- I would have at least have gotten
out all of our Vietnamese employees. And our Vietnamese employees
numbered 1,900. Only 537 of those got out. The 2,000 or
3,000 I'm talking about are -- are collaborators like Tu and
Quong, and what have you. The others who worked inside the
government.
And as a matter of fact, the majority of those got because
people like your friend and mine, Bill Johnson, defied the
orders of the Ambassador and the wishes of the Station Chief,
and moved on his own. Put people on aircraft without permission.
HOOD: That was in -- in a degree in -- in defiance of --
of Embassy --
SNEPP: That was not in a degree. That was --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPPP: (UNCLEAR) of Ambassador Martin's wishes and directives.
BEAR: One of the things that -- that really strikes
home to me about the book is -- is that I would certainly
agree with you as I read it, it seemed to me not at all an
overall condemnation of the CIA.
On the contrary, it seemed to me that what you were saying,
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[321
I think almost pleading was the thought I got, was gee, it
means so much to me. I wish you guys would, I mean, pay attention --
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: To the problems. And -- and it strikes me that
some of the -- of your insights into the Ambassador, into
the Station Chief for example, into what you call it, the
Cold War mentality. The -- was echoed in Harry Rozitsky's
book and that was done with the complete approval of the CIA.
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: (GARBLED) completely. In terms of --
SNEPP: That's right..
BEAR: His own, you know, judgments about the mistakes
that have been made.
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: In terms of -- of this -- of this Cold War mentality,
and this -- this -- this kind of violent military anti-Communist
stance that we take.
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: As opposed to some of the stances we could take.
But --but it still leaves me with one question (INTERRUPTION
IN TAPE) germane, about the whole discussion tonight.
That is, in terms of trusting American policy.
BEAR: How do you begin to make those judgments that we
should hold up to public display the mistakes, misjudgments,
if indeed they are, and I'm sure Bill Hood, you know, as he
was saying would not (GARBLED) --
BEAR: But assuming that they were, hold up to public
scrutiny these kinds of mistakes. And then find a delicate
balance where we're really saying, hey, let's make things
better. And at the same time, what really happens when people
read these things and see these things. And lose faith.
SNEPP; Well, I think it's wrong to debate all of this
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[331
in public, as a matter of fact. I don't think people should
a book like -- books like mine.
I think the agency should do internal after action reports,
and that's what I was pushing for. And only because they
didn't do It did I go the way I did. In fact, I'd love to
be in the agency right now. I'm sorry I had to leave it.
But I figured I had to take a stand on this issue. Because
too many of my Vietnamese friends had been left. And the
agency didn't want to acknowledge again that this is what --
HOOD: I find it remarkable that there was no after action
report written. Because on almost every failed activity,
It seems to me it's more -- it's.analyzed more thoroughly.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: (GARBLED) interrupt you, only because we've got
to pause for some public service announcements. But then we
will be right back on WABC, New York.
BEAR: Larry Bear back again. This is Conference Call.
And for those of you who have been listening to this first
hour, to our discussion of the intelligence issue, secret
agency operations in an open society, here's your chance to
ask some questions of my guests Frank Snepp, William Hood,
and Dorothy Samuels. And I'll reintroduce them more fully
in just a moment.
If you've got a pencil and paper, and a mind that talks,
now's the time. 212 is the area code. Because we are here
in the city of New York. The telephone number is 541-8520.
That's 541-8520. And the area code is 212. And the issue
is intelligence operations.
If you've got questions or concerns, (UNCLEAR), let's
make them now. 212 is the area code. 541-8520.
Frank Snepp is one of my guests. He was with the Central
Intelligence Agency over a period of eight years. As an intelligence
analyst, and operative. He did two tours of duty in Vietnam.
And his book, Decent Interval, has to do with the last days
of that war. And particularly the evacuation. And his particular
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criticisms and concerns about the Central Intelligence Agency. And
the United States Ambassador. And some of the people back home
in connection with that.
William Hood is with us. He has been with American
intelligence, now retired, but with American intelligence back in
what we might call, I suppose, the beginning of modern American
intelligence, the oss, the Office of Strategic Services, which
came to public attention of course in World War II.
And then he went directly with the Central Intelligence
Agency. Which was formed in 1947. He was a specialist, a
European specialist. Was the Chief of Operations in Eastern
Europe, and Executive Officer for Counterintelligence.
And my third guest is Dorothy Samuels. She is Executive
Director of the Committee for Public Justice, which monitors
the progress of intelligence reforms.
We're going to talk about that Committee, and particularly
its relationship to the affairs of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
Okay. We'll take your calls. Again the telephone number
is 541-8520. That's 541-8520. And I want to talk as a matter
of fact too with -- on the issue of these intelligence reports
that you brought up, Dorothy. How they're used. And who
makes policy decisions on (UNCLEAR)
And then you've got -- glad(?) to take your call. Hello.
VOICE: Yes.
BEAR: Yes, go ahead.
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
BEAR: Hello. Are we having any trouble with -- with
the lines. Will you pick them up and see. We seem to be having
a little difficulty. Because I see the lines are lighting
up in different parts. But if you -- you'll stay with us,
I'm sure it'll be all right.
212 is the area code. 541-8520. Why don't you ask your
question Dorothy. The one that we were talking about'as we
went to the --
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SAMUELS: Yes. Well, my question, and I -- I think this
is something Frank explains. All this intelligence that's
gathered by the --by the CIA. How is that used, to make policy.
Who does it go to, to make policy decisions about --
SNEPP: Well, the routing slip is probably one of the
most powerful weapons of any bureaucrat in the CIA. It can
determine where a report is directed. It can determine where
a report is directed. A CIA Station Chief for instance in
the field might want to get a particular report to the White
House. He so designates it, and that report will go directly
to the White House. As opposed to (GARBLED) consumers at
the CIA headquarters in Washington, in Langley.
And if it goes to the White House, obviously it carries
greater weight. So the Station Chief in the field is in the
position to put a particular slant if you will on a particular
event, or crisis. Simply by directing the intelligence to --
to a particular consumer.
And an Ambassador can do that as well. It is part of
the standard operating procedure for a Station Chief in the
field to issue his own analyses of a situation. We call them
field appraisals in the business. And again he is in a position
in these field appraisals to put a particular slant on the
situation. And it's also standard operating procedure to
clear these field appraisals with an Ambassador. So the Ambassador
can impose his view on your intelligence. On your final analysis.
And analysis is very important. Because obviously the
policy maker in Washington, top men, don't have time to look
through all the raw intelligence. So what he gets, in finished
analytical form, may influence his decisions.
This was one of the problems in Vietnam as a matter of
fact. Kissinger was seeing a great deal of analysis, but oftentimes
very little of the raw intelligence which carried the real
truth, without any kind of bias whatsoever.
HOOD: But Frank, you agree that the amount of analysis
done in the field --
SNEPP: It varies.
HOOD: Is very, very slight.
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(OVERTALK)
HOOD: As a rule, the reports are passed without analysis.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Analysis is provided at headquarters.
SNEPP: Well, is that really true, Bill? Don't you agree
that there is a mechanism, I'm not sure if it's classified,
so I won't mention (GARBLED).
But it is possible for reports officers, the editorial
writers, in other words, the editorialists who finally process
the intelligence reports. They.can add something -- a comment
of their own on. And they can say this particular source
is to be believed. His track record is terrific.
And in that way (UNCLEAR) can be imparted to an intelligence
report --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Even a raw intelligence report. And that'll appear
in(?) parenthetical form, or what have you. On the report.
And the consumer will see it and say, oh well, we won't
trust this one. We'll (GARBLED) trust it a great deal.
HOOD: The -- the source evaluation is done at headquarters.
It's not done in the field.
SNEPP: Well, it was done in --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: They were done in the field.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: In both places.
HOOD: The -- the evaluations are done in -- basic source
evaluations -- done in Washington. It's the only place where
the policy reporting --
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Can be compared against --
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(OVERTALK)
HOOD: ...And other data...
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: Well, what about...
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: No, not in the CIA. Which is a very interesting
thing. I think, again, one of my little hobby horses. I think
the CIA should establish a dissent channel such as exists
in the State Department, so that an officer in the field if
he sees a piece of intelligence being sidetracked or ignored.
He can go in at risk of losing his next promotion, and
send the cable back and say, Mr. Director, I think that this --
this piece of intelligence ought to be looked at. It would
be done all in classified channels, so there would be no --
it wouldn't be a matter of leaking this to the press or anything
else. Our sources or any methods would be protected.
But this is what the State Department allows now. A
dissent(?) channel. And I think the agency could profit by
one.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: I think it probably would give heartburn to some
of the old officers like Bill. But in any event (UNCLEAR)
it's a feasible way of handling it.
HOOD: Is that a dissent from policy, or from the report?
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: It would be -- it could be used in any way.
HOOD: As I understood it, It's -- it's you know for
policy -- policy questions.
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SNEPP: But I think in the agency, one might be able to
apply it more broadly.
So that if you felt a particular, not every -- not every
report you're dissenting to, but if you see a series of reports
being overlooked or sidetracked, then you send them back through
a dissent channel.
In Vietnam we (GARBLED) a dissent channel on the matter
of corruption. And I always felt that we were not reporting
adequately on that subject. And if I could have gone and said
hey look, I'm sending back this cable, it might have done(?)
probably no good, but in any event .it would have done some
good for me. I would have laid off the martinis.
BEAR: Okay. Let's see if the phone is working now. Hello.
Are you there?
WOMAN: Yes.
BEAR: What's on your mind? Go ahead.
WOMAN: Uh.
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
BEAR: Hello. You know -- you know what you're doing.
You're keeping -- you're keeping your radio on (UNCLEAR).
Stop for a moment.
WOMAN: Uh,huh.
BEAR: And those of you who want to call us, the number
is 541-8520. And you must remember than when you do get on
the phone, you have to keep your radio off. Because there
simply isn't any way that we can talk to you and get the radio
feedback too.
Go ahead.
WOMAN: Okay. I just wanted to say (GARBLED)
BEAR: I beg your pardon?
Joe, would you do me a favor? You know, the calls are
not coming in very well, but when they do come in, seems like
the CIA --
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(OVERTALK)
BEAR: For those of you, I'm sorry -- they -- I don't know
why the phones don't seem to be operating well, but I would
appreciate it if you'd --keep trying.
It's happened in the past, and we'll check with the phone
company and see what's going on. But just try to dial. It's
541-8520.
And if enough of you call in, maybe you'll finally get
through. I'm really sorry about that. Okay.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: (GARBLED) We were talking about how to get dissenting
views back to Washington. Or at least a multiplicity of views
on pieces of intelligence.
And I think something else you could do(?) In the agency
aside from establishing, say, a dissent channel would be in
the major embassies to establish an analytical shop. This
isn't done normally. Quite apart from the CIA station. An
analytical shop, made up of one or two CIA analysts.
And you might do this in Rome, Tokyo, what have you.
So that they could -- they would have the opportunity to do
analyses, independent of the Ambassador, without having to
clear them with the Ambassador, or the CIA station chief.
The Ambassador and the station chief would send back their
own views. But you would have this independent voice. And
I think this would serve to insure that all the intelligence
did get back to the policy makers. Maybe I'm naive and idealistic
or both, or what have you, but I -- It's not -- it doesn't
seem to me so far fetched.
HOOD: Well, it -- it requires quite a bit of logistical
(UNCLEAR) to establish a couple of analysts In every --
SNEPP: Not in every embassy. Just the major ones(?),
like Singapore, say, Tokyo, Rome, maybe Paris. That sort of
thing.
HOOD: Do -- do you have the feeling that there's that
much dissent about reporting in -- In these major embassies?
I understand in Vietnam it's entirely different matter.
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I have never encountered a situation where a reports officer
and Chief of Station are at loggerheads over a piece of intelligence.
Some --a station chief may think that a case officer's individual
report is less valuable than the case officer thinks it is.
HOOD: That(?) comes up all too frequently. But it's rarely
dissent as to whether -- whether -- whether the thing should
be sent forward or not.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Well, have you ever encountered a sitation where
certain kinds of information are not getting back to Washington.
Because the station chief objects to the thrust of the information.
HOOD: I personally never have. And I don't think it probably
has happened in -- in Western Europe.
SNEPP: Hmm.
HOOD: Or let alone in Eastern Europe.
SNEPP: You mean we have -- we have had very successful
intelligence operations all the way down -- down the line.
HOOD: Well, that's something different. Whether you have
a --a disagreement.
SNEPP: All the news is gotten back.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Oh, (UNCLEAR) -- why not. Because the more you you send back, the -- the better the station looks.
HOOD: And I don't think you have to toe to a -- to a policy
BEAR: Let me -- let me Interrupt you to ask a specific
question. We seem to have a couple of calls on the line. But
I want to be sure that're cleared, because it means having
to end up getting in a bit -- a bit weird(?). So let's hold
off for a while.
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f411
Let me ask you a question now about the CIA and the FBI.
I think that -- because I want to get Into the FBI also --
what is the relationship between these two agencies? Because
we saw in Watergate certainly (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) but --
but a very difficult and -- and almost desperate(?) division.
Of the CIA and the FBI.
What is their relationship, in terms of intelligence activities
in the United States?
(COMMENTS OFF MIKE)
HOOD: It's -- in Intelligence activities in the United
States, the FBI clearly is responsible for all kind of intelligence
activity in the United States. And the CIA basically does
not operate in the United States. In close liaison.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: But -- but what happens, for example, if -- if somebody
that you've been following in, let's say, Eastern Europe, decides
to pay a visit to the United States. And someone about whom --
with whom the CIA has(?) some great concern.
HOOD: That's right.
BEAR: Gets into the country. And is making contacts
with people. Whose job is it to follow him up? The FBI or
the CIA?
HOOD: If -- if this person is a -- a, presume he's a KGB
officer or an agent.
BEAR: Let's -- let's assume that's at least a question.
HOOD: That would be the FBI's job.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: It would, Bill.
HOOD: Absolutely.
SNEPP: Let me ask you a question, Bill. You were in counter
intelligence. You (UNCLEAR) John McCone. What business was
It of the CIA to open 13,000(?) letters that apparently were
opened from 1952 1 think until the present. Logically,
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that should have been done by the FBI. But it wasn't. it
was done by people in the agency, and most particularly in
the counterintelligence section. Why was it done? I mean,
why did you preempt the FBI in this -- this area?
HOOD: I don't know that it was preempting the FBI.
But the reason it was done, the stated reason, is that
the Communist intelligence, Eastern European and KGB, were
using open mails to contact --
SNEPP: Hmmm.
HOOD: Various people.
SNEPP: Why didn't you let the FBI do this?
HOOD: I -- I cannot answer that.
SNEPP: You mean, that's classified, or you can't answer
HOOD: I simply don't know.
SNEPP: Was it because the FBI was considered incompetent
by the CIA officials involved?
HOOD: I -- I simply do not know.
SNEPP: That's a rumor I had always heard. The FBI really
wasn't considered up to the task. Early ono
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: Well, at least they didn't do it. And the CIA did
do it.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: The FBI (UNCLEAR) -- as I guess we've found
in the last-few years. That the FBI seems to have used the
whole cloak of national security Investigations to go after
political dissenters.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: And of course that's been (GARBLED) FBI that
the Committee for Public Justice has been very concerned about.
[421
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[43
BEAR: I want to get further into that, but I'm told that
someone had been on and off so many -- are you there?
MAN: Yes, I am.
BEAR: Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry we've kept you waiting
so long. Go ahead.
MAN: Okay. I would like to know from (TELEPHONE STATIC)
relation between the CIA, FBI and the GRC(?).
And excuse me, I was going to ask you another question.
What is the opinion of the CIA about the problem of the province
of Quebec? (INAUDIBLE DUE TO TELEPHONE STATIC)..
BEAR: It cost you a lot of money, I'm well aware you're
calling all the way from Canada.
Okay, let's see what we can do. Thank you. Go ahead.
Can we --can we answer that question? We were in the midst
of talking about the FBI and the CIA. He probably had his
radio on.
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
BEAR: And then if you want to make some comment about
the Canadian situation, please do.
HOOD: I think you'd have to ask the CIA to comment on
the Canadian situation. I've been out for a year and a half,
and I haven't heard anything about it.
The relationship to the FBI is cooperative. The FBI is
the domestic, it has among its other police responsibilities
domestic counterintelligence responsibilities.
The CIA operates abroad.
SNEPP: But isn't it true though all together, isn't it
so, that the FBI has a certain prerogative in various countries
In Latin America. That was part of the old -- it was operating
there initially during World War II. It had a mandate, did
it not? In -- in Latin America?
HOOD: (GARBLED) before.
SNEPP: I see.
(OVERTALK)
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HOOD: Since World War II.
SNEPP: I see.
HOOD: When it -- under Mr. Hoover it carried on throughout
World War II. OSS practically was not operational in Latin
America at any time.
SNEPP: Well this could(?) carry over even after.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) the agency till 1947, until
the CIA was established.
SNEPP: Do think that has caused problems. In other words,
has created tension between the CIA and the FBI?
HOOD: I don't think so. A lot of the FBI men who are
involved, who were stationed in Latin America, who were specialists
in Latin America, came over to the agency.
So, I -- I don't think that was any part of the friction.
I think Mr. Hoover was very miffed at losing any part of his
empire, and certainly had throughout his career considered
Latin America to be a part of it.
SNEPP: But as of the time you left the agency, you don't
think that that was a difficulty. There wasn't tension between
the two services. Between the FBI and the CIA,
HOOD: Certainly not over Latin America.
SNEPP: Not over Latin America.
BEAR: Well, if we can't answer the question specifically
that was phoned to us, and I can see why -- why we should note
I think (UNCLEAR) there's probably some things that you couldn't
say.
But let me relate to the general question, That is the
issue of --of separatism in Canada. Is that still(?) business
of the CIA or the FBI? I'm just talking generally. I'm not
talking about any specific incidents or other -- or whatever.
But how could something that's going on in Canada with
relation to an internal problem that the government has there
be related to the business of the CIA or the FBI?
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[451
HOOD: I would think that would be a straight diplomatic
problem. It would be -- it would be under analysis by the embassy.
It's nothing to be dealt with through espionage.
We don't operate in -- in Canada. And it is -- I would
say it's a diplomatic issue.
BEAR: But let say if the Prime Minister of Canada, and
I'm -- I'm just making this up. Okay. I want to make that
very clear. The Prime Minister of Canada were to say to the
President of the United States during the course of a state
visit. And it could be any President. I'm not talking about
Mr. Carter, either. You know, we could use some help. Because
we've got a very delicate situation. Whether it be Canada,
or anywhere else.
And we have great respect for your intelligence activities,
and you've got a lot of contacts and so forth. (GARBLED) police.
And lots of them(?) are under indictment or whatever is going
on there. And what --what -- an order issues from the President
of the United States to provide intelligence. I suppose the
CIA or the FBI then provides intelligence. Do they not?
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: That's a pretty hypothetical example.
BEAR: I -- I realize it.
HOOD: If -- if that were to come to pass, and it seems
to me highly unlikely, I just --
(OVE:RTALK)
HOOD: Don't know what -- what the President would do.
BEAR: Well what would the CIA do if the President asked
for information?
HOOD: Well, that is so far beyond my experience. The
South Vietnamese never posed that kind of question to us though.
BEAR: They didn't? Even with the evacuation(?) orders?
HOOD: No, I don't think so. I would(?) think that if
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(46]
Canada itself had had an intelligence or counterintelligence
problem it would turn to the -- the British --
BEAR: Uh,huh.
HOOD: To help them.
BEAR: Okay. That's about the best we can do.
(GARBLED) You're on the air.
(WOMAN'S VOICE INAUDIBLE ON TAPE)
BEAR: I know. There's been a problem. And I do apologize.
And we are checking it out with the engineers there.
WOMAN: (TELEPHONE STATIC)... I haven't been out of the
United States but once in my life, and that was just oh a night
or two.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
WOMAN: But, isn't it true that if you -- if you are supposed
to be a rich country, and you mistreat some of your subjects,
isn't that easy then for your enemies to come in and take them
and use them against you? (TELEPHONE STATIC - VOICE INAUDIBLE).
Just like you have subjects. Your -- your people. But
you don't treat all of them nice.
BEAR: I think -- I think I understand your question.
I guess what you're saying is that if you have people in the
country who are disaffected because of the way they've been
treated --
BEAR: Don't they make -- don't they make more, easier
subjects for -- for a foreign government to recruit. If they're
unhappy and disatisfied with --
WOMAN: Yes.
BEAR: The way they've been treated,
WOMAN: That's what I --
(OVERTALK)
WOMAN: It would be much easier to (GARBLED) them, because
they say well I'm not getting a bit more.
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[471
BEAR: I understand your point. Let's see if we can get
some comment. It's -- it's a debatable(?) question. I think
that, Bill would comment on it at least from his own experience
from the point of view of the Russians.
HOOD: Well I think it's the disaffected Soviet citizens
that make the best agent candidates. And that's true of --
of the other Communist countries. The more the people are
pushed around, the more they're likely to resist.
BEAR: Uh,huh. And this Is true, I think this is the issue
that the Soviet agent would -- would, in your experience, Bill.
And I don't mean to shut you out, Frank. But.-- but would
you make the assumption --
HOOD: Weil.
BEAR: (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) for a minute. That the KGB
would be more likely to go to -- to minorities in this country?
WOMAN: That's right. That's right.
BEAR: I get your question.
HOOD: It's very clearly established. One of the -- the
documents we took from the KGB listed some of their criteria
for recruitment operations against the United States.
And membership in a minority certainly is -- is one of
the -- the first categories they address themselves to.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: That's a very dangerous notion, actually. If
you begin by thinking that one of the real strengths of the
country, of a democracy, Is the ability of the citizens to
dissent. And to publicly --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: Just, let her -- let her finish (GARBLED).
SAMUELS: Then you know it's one of these, the notion
that groups that might be dissenting from established policy
are (UNCLEAR) subversive.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
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[48]
SAMUELS: Just by the very fact that they're dissenting.
Is a notion that Hoover used --
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: To justify surveillance and subversion of these
groups. Where there was no notion -- there was no evidence
at all that any kind of criminal activity was taking place
by these groups.
HOOD: We know that. But the Russians look at it through
their own eyes. And to dissent in the Soviet Union is -- is
SAMUELS: Uh,huh.
HOOD: Practically a capital crime.
SAMUELS: Yes. But -- but what I was going to say was that
in the United States that's a notion.
BEAR: Yeah. And I want to thank SAMUELS: Of some -- subversion is a dangerous --
BEAR: And I want to thank the caller.
SAMUELS: Notion.
BEAR: We will have to cut(?) for some news.
The phone calls are getting through. Those of you who
are on, please do hold on. We'll get back to you. But I think
that that that call seems to me an important issue.
On the one side, there is apparently the validity of (GARBLED)
on the Soviets that you're going to disaffect. But it raises
some tremendous problems internally. If the FBI can make the
assumption that if you belong to minority groups or dissenting
groups, that you've got to watch them and be careful because
they're going to be had.
Okay, we're going to pause for about five minutes of the
latest news, and then we'll be back to talk with you on WABC,
New York.
BEAR: This Is Larry Bear, back again. This is Conference
Call. The issue is intelligence, secret agency operations in
an open society. We're at 212, 541-8520.
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149]
Everything seems to be operating well. 541-8520.
My guests are Frank Snepp. His recent book is called
Decent Interval. Published by Random House. And it relates
to CIA activities and United States activities in Vietnam.
My second guest is William Hood, who has been with the
intelligence services up until his retirement. Beginning with
the OSS, and the Office of Strategic Services in World War
II. And among other things, was chief of operations in Eastern
Europe. And Executive Officer for Counterintelligence during
his service with the CIA.
Dorothy Samuels is with us. She is the Executive Director
of the Committee for Public Justice. We'll be talking about
that In just a moment.
We'll take your calls now. 541-8520. Good morning.
And thank you for waiting. Hello.
MAN: Yes. I have a question (TELEPHONE STATIC - VOICE
INAUDIBLE) monitor the activities of terrorist groups. And
also, if they do, how would they go about infiltrating them?
BEAR: Does the CIA in fact deal with and monitor the activities
of terrorist groups.
HOOD: It surely tries to deal with and monitor the activities
of foreign terrorist groups. Because(?) we do that by penetration,
by recruiting a member.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: That's certainly the best way.
MAN: (TELEPHONE STATIC) looking for defectors from the(?)
group.
HOOD: I beg your pardon?
MAN: In other words, to look for a defector from that
group?
HOOD: Well, they might try to infiltrate the group with
a -- a agent who's been selected. And then work into it one
way or another.
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(501
BEAR: Could I -- if you (GARBLED). Does -- does the CIA,
or would they in a case like that, relate to the intelligence
networks of other nations with similar concerns(?). I think
of West Germany.
HOOD: Well, there's considerable liaison on -- with all
the -- the NATO countries that we're in, and all of our Intelligence
liaison usually follows diplomatic liaison.
If we're close diplomatically with a country, the intelligence
follows along.
BEAR: Okay. Thank you for the question. 541-8520. You're
on the air.
WOMAN: Hi.
BEAR: Hello there.
WOMAN: Okay. I was encouraged by a book that is written
by Donald Benyon. And it's called, The Control of Candy Jones.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
WOMAN: This will be made into a movie. Mr. Bear, I'd
like to know from your guests -- of course the CIA was the
villian. I'd like to know from your guests would this type
of dirty tricks be carried on.
Now may I hang up and listen to what you have to say?
BEAR: Don't hang up yet, because I'm not sure anybody
else has read that book. What did you say It was?
WOMAN: The Control of Candy Jones.
BEAR: And -- and it had to do with what, With mind manipulation?
You mean, they manipulated this lady's mind, Is that it?
WOMAN: I'm -- I'm not hearing you too well.
BEAR: Yeah. We do have a problem with the phones. And
I'm terribly sorry about that. I -- i, what I'm asking you
is, since we didn't read it, we can't answer the question unless
we know something. Did the --did the Central Intelligence --
WOMAN: It was - the book contained how Candy Jones who
was a --a model, one of America's -- America's foremost models --
(OVERTALK)
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WOMAN: Was controlled by the CIA.
BEAR: Okay.
WOMAN: And it's going to be made into a movie.
BEAR: Well, Candy Jones is relating to the real person.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: You're relating to the real person. The model.
WOMAN: That's right. The real person. Who is Candy
Jones.
BEAR: Okay.
WOMAN: She's on WMCA. I'd like to know if the dirty tricks
that were used on her will continue in the CIA. Now may I
hang up and listen to what you have to say?
BEAR: Okay. Go ahead. (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) There is
a book called The Control of Candy Jones by Donald Baynes.
And what it has to do with is mind control, brainwashing and
so forth.. Hypnosis. And --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: And so I guess the question really is since we can't
relate to Candy Jones, and no one's read the book. And I guess
the real question is does the intelligence services really
deal at all with mind control experiments, mind control, brainwashing
and so forth?
SNEPP: Well, we know a little about that, don't we? That
has just come to light. The (UNCLEAR) program, which traces
back to 1953. Involved I think $25 million, and countless
subjects. Well, that was -- that was focused on mind control.
And the agency did apparently use drugs to -- without
the knowledge of various subjects -- to try to gain some --
some handle on the subjects.
And one particular subject I recall after being fed LSD
or something jumped out of a window. Back in 1954. So the
agency was into that a little bit.
But as I had been told, I was -- when I went out to
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[52]
Vietnam, I discussed the possibility of using drugs in an interrogatior
of a particular subject, and I was told by a colleague who
was in the counterintelligence section that it just doesn't
work. That drugs never have been very successful in controlling
an Interrogation.
Now you may have -- you may dissent from that, Bill.
But in any event, I was told when you have a subject in solitary
confinement, for Instance, really drugs are not going to help
you out. You've got to establish a rapport to get strategic
intelligence from a man.
HOOD: (UNCLEAR) -- two or three separate aspects to that.
If you're going after one piece of information -- if -- if
someone does or does not speak Russian. So he belts down half
a bottle of Vodka, which is probably as good a mind control
drug as anything that anyone else has come up with.
The chances are he might be controlled into saying a word
or two in Russian. But if you were to ask that man the --
how many carburators are being made in a factory in -- in (GARBLED)
somewhere, he's not likely to be quite so responsive.
What happened there? With McNamara, you know. What happened
there?
My basic Impression is interrogation drugs simply do not
BEAR: Larry Bear here.
MAN: Hi. How are you?
BEAR: Fine.
MAN: Not specifically related to the CIA and the FBI but,
during the Vietnamese War, when McNamara was Secretary of Defense
he would say that he -- he thought we were winning the war.
And that oh(?) in six months or eight months (TELEPHONE STATIC)
and so forth, and I used to say to myself,, now, hell, how does
he know that. (GARBLED) the Vietnamese?
No. Cause our boys weren't doing that well. What
was he a victim of bad intelligence? Supposedly a brilliant
man. Should have known what was going on. And obviously we
weren't winning anything.
BEAR: Frank. Would you like to --
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(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: (GARBLED) a counterintelligence question, doesn't
it? I think the man was suffering from what many of us suffered
from In Vietnam, and that was a good case of wishful thinking.
And he seemed to along quite far away with his wishful thinking.
So did many officials, Including, I think, President Johnson.
And I think that answers the question. I don't think we can
really put words into McNamara's head. And an intelligence
officer shouldn't. After all, McNamara was an American official.
And the CIA is not involved in -- in trying to interpret the
thoughts (UNCLEAR)
BEAR: Well, one of the things I think you could say --
can say, Frank, it's in the(?) book as a matter of fact. That
the real, if I didn't misread it, the real problem in terms
of Vietnam at least in the time you were there, was not that
there wasn't sufficient intelligence --
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: But -- because there seemed to be. But what happened
to that intelligence?
(.OVERTALK)
BEAR: Between the time that it comes in, and the time
that somebody makes a decision in Washington that we're winning,
we're losing. We put up another $100 million, or whatever.
Or we don't.
So I would say at least from the book that the problem
is not with the intelligence, that is data coming in and being
gathered well.
SNEPP: Hmmm.
BEAR: But what happens to It.
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: And -- and I don't know whether it was Bill who
made the comment or whether it was one of the books that I
read.
But that there comes a point along the line where the
CIA I think doesn't make maybe that final policy decision.
There're a whole lot of other things involved. With Intelligence.
Including political --
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SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: Policy decisions that get made at the top. Including,
I suppose, a decision of, to hell with that data. This Is
what we have to do politically, and we're going to do it anyway,
and whatever.
I don't know if you want to comment on that, Bill.
HOOD: The CIA doesn't make any policy decisions except
about CIA activities.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: It's not the CIA that determines that another 15,000
men should or shouldn't go into Vietnam. Is that right?
HOOD: That's right.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: But you may be asked to comment on whether or not
the 15 or 20,000 men might have changed their ultimate victory.
HOOD: Right.
SNEPP: Whether or not that will be effective in its objective.
And the agency did comment on that. And for the most part
said, no, it wouldn't work. So there you are.
(OVERTALK)
8520.
BEAR: Thanks for the call. We're a 212 area code. 541-
The subject is Intelligence. Secret agency operations
in an open society. You're on the air,
MAN: It concerns two things. First off, the missing in
Asia. What Is the latest opinions of the agency just prior
to the total withdrawal. As to the possibility of -- of American
survivors, you know.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
MAN: POWs In particular.
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BEAR: You write about that in the book.
SNEPP: Right. We -- as a matter of fact, we -- we concluded
that -- that the missing in action had to all intents and purposes
been accounted for.
That there were no Americans alive In Communist hands.
And that was based on our sources. And there may have been
some American defectors, or fellows who decided to stay in
the jungles with a particular unit, might have been captive
at one time. But there was no good intelligence on that.
BEAR: No, you're saying there was no good intelligence.
SNEPP: There was no good intelligence indicating that
there were Americans living with the Communists.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
SNEPP: Only rumors here and there. So I think that issue
really has been dispensed with. At least as far as the intelligence
community-community was concerned.
BEAR: Uh,huh. Thank you for the call.
You're on the air.
WOMAN: Hello, Mr. Snepp. Hello.
SNEPP: Yes.
WOMAN: Mr. Snepp?
SNEPP: Yes.
WOMAN: When you were writing this book, the CIA was aware
of it. And you had agreed to let it review the book before
publication. You then changed your mind, and you gave I think
as your reason that the agency tried to whitewash its role --
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
WOMAN:'In the withdrawal. Now, listening to you, it seems
to me it just doesn't seem like a logical reason, because you
felt that way before you started writing this book.
Why didn't you keep your agreement, and submit the book
for them to look at to approve?
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SNEPP: That's an excellent question. And we were discussing a
little while ago. First of all, when every -- when any American
joins the CIA he signs a secrecy agreement. The secrecy agreement
obligates the officer not to say or write anything about the
agency without clearing it with the agency beforehand.
And secondly it provides for certain redress of grievances
through the Inspector General's office in the CIA.
Well, after the collapse of Saigon, I went to the Inspector
General, and I offered to provide information on the evacuation,
and how it had been mishandled. And the Inspector General
in the CIA said he really wasn't very interested. So I thought
I met that obligation.
I did not submit the book for review because as I was
saying before I felt that the agency had forfeited the right
to apply secrecy strictures to me. When high ranking CIA officials
like Colby were leaking their own version of what had taken
place in Vietnam. In the final days. And they were in fact
leaking classified information, to support their version.
So, I figured that this again was (GARBLED) of the secrecy
system. And the bets were off.
WOMAN: May I ask one other question?
SNEPP: Yes ma'am.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR(?): Yes, sure.
WOMAN: This -- I'd like to ask his opinion. Is there
a likelihood that the -- the unexpected decision there of our
government not to furnish any more money then(?) to prosecute
this war against the Communists.
That the military there in -- In Vietnam, (TELEPHONE STATIC)
the morale of the military and the sudden and unexpected withdrawal..
Couldn't that have been one reason, you know -- as you recall
people from Congress went there too.
SNEPP: Hmmm.
WOMAN: And I recall reading that they told the military
they should not expect any more help from the U.S.
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[571
So in view of that, wasn't this totally unexpected. And
how could you say the CIA was the one to sort of put the finger
on. Wasn't this an unusual situation what(?) our Congress
did?
SNEPP: Uh, as a matter of fact I -- you have several questions
there. I do not hold a view that Congress was responsible for
the collapse of Vietnam. And that was a view promulgated by
the Administration right after Saigon's -- Saigon's fall.
And the view was that if aid had been provided to the South
Vietnamese in large quantities, we might have averted the worst.
I don't believe that. I think that it might have been
very useful to give a little aid to'the South Vietnamese, simply
as a morale booster. But large amounts of aid were immaterial.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: The South Vietnamese had a great deal of material
at their disposal. The problem was corruption. And the material
was not reaching the guys on the ground. The -- the fellows
who needed to use it.
BEAR: As a matter of fact, Frank, in your book you give
some figures for the amount of material that was left behind.
In the --
SNEPP:: That's right. That was the two million -- the
two billion dollars.
BEAR: Oh, the two billion dollars.
(OVERTALK)
WOMAN: Yes, well that was all part of the payoff that
resulted --
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: Yeah, but the point was that they had two billion --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: Dollars worth of equipment. That's a lot of equipment.
WOMAN: Well, do you think the fact that our government
(TELEPHONE STATIC - VOICE INAUDIBLE) completely 100 per cent.
At that time they said nothing would go forward further. Didn't
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(58]
that have something to do with the
the way they pulled back, and just
that had anything to do with it?
SNEPP: Well,
And as I write in
and this is going
Henry Kissinger's
amount of aid for
purposes.
way the military felt, and
surrendered? You don't feel
of course it had something to do with it.
the book, I think Henry Kissinger's policy,
beyond an intelligence judgment in any case.
policy should have been to seek a very small
the South Vietnamese for morale building
instead, for reasons of his own, he went the other way.
He sought a very large amount of aid, which Congress would
never legislate.
WOMAN: Well, didn't
SNEPP: Consequently we were unable to restore the South
Vietnamese morale(?).
SAMUELS: (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) pass the buck on the on the responsibility for the fall of Vietnam.
(OVERTALK)
WOMAN: And may I say this. Didn't Mr. Kissinger and President
Ford, weren't they very anxious for that little bit of aid,
and the Congress just -- just gave a flat no.
SNEPP: No, ma'am. They -- they refused to go after a
small amount of aid, and shot for $700 million as a final (UNCLEAR).
And Congress just wouldn't buy that.
Because the aid wasn't needed for logistical reasons.
It was needed for morale building reasons. And you could have
bought morale for the South Vietnamese for about $300 million.
And nobody In Washington seemed to realize that. They were
shooting for the larger amount.
BEAR: Thank you for the call. This is Conference Call,
You're on the air. Hello.
MAN: Yeah, I'm holding.
BEAR: No, you're on.
MAN: Oh. Okay.
BEAR: Go ahead.
MAN: I've got a question concerning a -- the evacuation.
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[591
Because it was -- there was no prior planning on the part of
anybody over there, what in your estimation is the number of agents
that eventually made it to our shores?
SNEPP: The number of agents who made it to our shores?
MAN: Right.
SNEPP: Well, what we -- we talked about that a little
while ago. There were 1900 Vietnamese on the CIA's payroll.
Only about 537 finally got to the United States.
There were 2,000 to 3,000 more Vietnamese who were evacuated
as a result of some CIA effort. There were some agents among
those.
MAN: Right. I'm -- I'm not speaking of (TELEPHONE STATIC)
agents.
SNEPP: Oh, you mean, I see.
MAN: Right.
SNEPP: I see.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: That's a question which probably we're still tryin
to sort out. Or the agency's still trying to sort out.
I don't think the Communists in fact had infiltrated the
evacuee ranks at -- at the time of Saigon's collapse.
(OVERTALK)
MAN: (TELEPHONE STATIC) -- if they didn't, they missed
a very good opportunity.
SNEPP: Well, I think they suffered from the chaos too.
They didn't expect to win so quickly, and weren't prepared
for It.
BEAR: Okay, thank you for the call.
Let me -- we'll take some more calls a little later on.
But one of the things we haven't (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE).
Do you want to make a comment, Bill? Please do.
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HOOD: One thing about evacuating agents. I -- it's one
thing to take them out, but an agent on our side of the lines
is not really much good. The (GARBLED) would be to leave your
agents behind where they'll still be able to work.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Some of the people I'd like to think are -- are
still in business.
SNEPP: Well that was one of the saddest parts, I thought,
of the CIA's planning, and yet a lack of planning. You see,
a decision was made very close to the final days of the war
not to establish a stay behind spy network in Vietnam. Because
it was felt that Congress would never support the funding for
such an operation. So it wasn't done.
In Eastern Europe, of course, there was such stay behind
operation. Spies were -- were put into the woodwork as it were
so they could report on the new Communist governments. That
was not the case in Vietnam.
HOOD: I have to say in my experience it must be the only
time that that's not been done.
SNEPP: Well, a very explicit decision was made.
HOOD: On the grounds that Congress wouldn't fund it, and
it would be a nickel and dime operation,
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: It wouldn't cost very much.
SNEPP: But it would have involved setting up expatriate
operations on, say, Thailand. And because of the political
sensitivities in Thailand, that was determined to be really
beyond the pale.
And there was all sorts of technical problems. But the
primary problem, the problem given -- or I should say, the
primary reason this wasn't done was that it was felt again
Congress wouldn't get behind it.
BEAR: Dorothy, I'd like to get into an issue that I think
is perhaps more germane to the Committee for Public Justice.
(601
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(611
BEAR: Which -- which you direct. As Executive Director.
And it has to do with the FBI. We've been talking about foreign
espionage and sabotage and so forth. And then of course there's
the whole question of revolutionary or radical activities on
the other hand inside the United States.
And sometimes, it would appear that the FBI doesn't make
as -- as the important distinction. And -- and one of the
great concerns we've had with the business of civil liberties
relates to the operations of the FBI, in this area. And you
might, at least, set out(?) the issues for us.
SAMUELS: Yes. Well I -- I think the issues here, I think,
are pretty clear. (UNCLEAR) Whether the Federal Bureau of
Investigation is going to be a Federal Bureau of criminal investigation.
That is, to -- to investigate and detect crime.
Or whether it's going to be criminal and political activity
that it's going to investigate. And (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
Is that the FBI had a counterintelligence program. We talked
here tonight about when for instance a foreign agent comes
to the United States, the FBI is to be informed. And then the
investigation of that agent. And any crimes that that agent
might be committing in the United States. Comes -- comes under
the aegis of the FBI.
What we learned was that the FBI had a counterintelligence
program, CONTELPRO, which went after United States citizens
exercising First Amendment rights. And because we have this
sensitive title of national security investigation of subversive
acts, there was always a -- a cloud of secrecy that we(?) could
always say, we cannot tell you the details of what we are doing.
Hoover would say. Because to do so would violate national
security.
And this national security catchall had allowed the Bureau
to go on. And probably If it weren't for what -- what happened
in Watergate, with a lot of things sort of coming out in the
wash, we wouldn't have really probably ( UNCLEAR)
Subversive groups. For example, The League of Women Voters.
Certain Democratic (GARBLED), Democratic Party politicians.
People who were -- I, one of the jokes my friends always used
to have when we would go to Vietnam protests, which were nothing
more than sort of (VOICE GARBLED) with a purpose.
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[621
I remember looking up at the big moratorium demonstration
in Washington, I think it was in 1970, i think, or maybe it
was in 69. And we looked up on the buildings. And there were
all sorts of photographers. And my friend say, well, can you
imagine J. Edgar Hoover at a party?
You know, some people take our pictures in the day. He
would --he would take our pictures (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE --
VOICE GARBLED).
And we used to talk about it. And then of course you
find out that it's true. It's disturbing. And you find out
that the FBI is paying people to infiltrate the supposedly
subversive groups.
And -- and some of it is really quite comic(?) to us now
about activities (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE -- VOICE GARBLED) participating
in a meeting and then writing up reports.
The League of Women Voters met today. They voted today
that they would hold a meeting of candidates. Some of these
candidates are XYZ who had been pinpointed by the FBI as being
against the war. Being against the Vietnam War was thought
to be a very subversive idea.
Once you determine that exercising First Amendment rights
is -- is somewhat of a subversive notion as Hoover did, at
least on -- on the Left, what he did was -- was never subversive.
(INTERFERENCE ON TAPE -- VOICE GARBLED) with his kind
of propaganda, was -- was never (UNCLEAR) of investigation.
Once you decide that, then you justify -- you can decide
to justify the First Amendment rights as subversive.
Now there?s that, well that sometime in the future if
this organization dissents from war policy, then some time
in the future you might become violent. And so --
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: That was, even though there's no evidence that --
that these people were going to be conducting, in many cases.
Now, there're also some instances where because Hoover himself
didn't(?) know that certain groups were in fact exercising
their right perfect -- in a perfectly peaceful manner.
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But he was opposed to the political -- political point of
view that they were expressing. There're some instances where
we find that Hoover's agents were in fact provoking --
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: Certain kinds of activity.
And that they would be, say, the people on the campus.
The campus informers and provocateurs, who would be (GARBLED)
to say, let's take over the building.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: Now granted, a lot of other people said those
kind of things back in that period. But (UNCLEAR) used to
find out that some of those people were agents of the FBI.
There were programs to try and discredit people who were
writing articles, major columnists writing in national magazines.
Newspapers, and people who are syndicated across the country.
To try and spy on them, gain evidence about their private lives,
and then disseminate that kind of information.
So anyway, this is all by way of background. I think
in a lot of ways this is strange(?) for you, and I guess a
lot of people, for a lot of people listening tonight.
And with Hoover, I think, one of the things that happened
is that this became paramount with his mores and I think in
the process a lot of legitimate law enforcement activities
went by the wayside.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: During this period of time. And now the question
is, what do we do to bring this under control. Sure, Hoover's
gone. But supposedly all governments are laws and not men.
Right now, there is no comprehensive statute that governs what
the FBI can and cannot do. A comprehensive law to control
the activities of the FBI. To define -- to just define(?)
what its legitimate purposes should be.
The current question, I think, that's now before us and --
and that my organization (GARBLED). What we want to do is
to put an end to what we call the -- the national security
loophole, domestic security loophole. That is to say,
(63]
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[641
that there (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) laws in the United States.
Espionage laws, laws against: certain kinds of violent activity.
That should be able to cover the kind of things that the FBI
should be looking into. Investigating.
The kinds of things that might use -- use a court order.
Legitimatize for instance a -- a tap. If you believe, and
I don't, that -- that wiretaps are a particularly useful tool
for gathering information about criminal activity.
Unfortunately what -- what the situation we have is that
a lot of people who (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE -- VOICE GARBLED)
in getting it under -- back under -- back under -- under the
rule of law. And -- and you are effectively performing a legitimate
law enforcement function. You see the language of reform and
yet because domestic security, national security, really has
become sort of such a magic term, (UNCLEAR) -- President Ford's
bill, on wiretaps. That he submitted before he left office.
And he submitted it with the rhetoric of -- we have to find
a way in our society that we could both investigate very serious
matters that should be investigated. And that are also, would
gibe with our notions of civil liberties.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: And Watergate should never happen again. On
the other hand, right now we have a situation at least (GARBLED).
There are gray areas. We can at least say there are certain
(UNCLEAR) when the FBI goes out. And spies on legitimate organizations.
Exercising First Amendment rights.
What we would want to do is keep a -- this national security
loophole, and put it in the law. And, unfortunately, President
Carter has introduced wiretap legislation that -- that would
do the same thing, that is, put it right into the legislation,
the possibility for the abuse again, with the broad catchall.
Whereas in our view all legitimate kinds of law enforcement
activities could take place under some sort of criminal standard,
whether in wiretapping, or it could(?), again, if you agree
that wiretaps should be permitted.
Or in the charter that Bell and Carter will be submitting
to Congress shortly. We think that there's a good chance of --
of that. And again, (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) where Carter will
announce that when we see that a Watergate can't happen again,
we're going to see that the government can no -- can -- can
no longer illegitimately spy on its own people for their political
beliefs.
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(GARBLED) we will see, you know, in writing a charter
which will allow the FBI to investigate a national security
matter.
BEAR: Speaking in a general way.
SAMUELS: In a general way.
BEAR: Let me -- let me just talk for a moment so I can
give station identification. This is WABC New York.
I would ask you this question. Whether you feel that
there Is In fact a legitimate way and a way that, and I'm not
going to ask you to spell out a statute, but a legitimate way
for the FBI to pursue its activities, or to pursue essential
activities like being sure, as a matter of fact, that you know
we don't have KGB agents running around loose. You know.
And at the same time, in fact protect dissidents who are
not KGB agents or anything else. From the wiretapping and(?)
mail opening and all of them, the whole horror list that's,
you know. The bank(?) jobs we've been reading about, and for
which Kenny's(?) under indictment already. That kind of thing.
Is that possible, or are you really saying that the statute
or the charter would have to be so restricted in order to protect
civil rights and in fact maybe the FBI or any domestic agency
would have -- they would all have to be out of the business
of -- of espionage, and counterintelligence.
SAMUELS: Yes, well, first I would take it out of the FBI.
To begin with. You know, I don't --
BEAR: Would you have the CIA acting too?
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: No. No. I don't think that would be (GARBLED)
a problem.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Absolutely nobody in the agency.
SAMUELS: No. And I think for you know protection of rights
I wouldn't particularly want that. But right now, just the
way the agency is structured, the personnel, the history,
you know, this--
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[66]
HOOD: Which agency?
SAMUELS: The FBI, you know. It's -- it's proof it's never
had, I think the (GARBLED) always had a sort of a reputation,
whatever, for recruiting very high level kinds of personnel.
And, the FBI never, you know, you might say it's been sort
of a (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE) -- very little ability, either
at law enforcement or at, well it's been very, very inept,
you know.
And as far aas I -- I think there is a danger just with
their mentality. Keeping every time they just, you know, just
with their mentality -- (OVERTALK)
HOOD: --what you think of the FBI. I think many people
agree with you. But --
BEAR: Well, that's an issue. I think some may or may
not. But what is not an issue, I assume, is that we somehow
have to deal internally within the borders of the United States -
we somehow have to deal internally with -- with the real threats.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: And also we have to, I don't want to sound (UNCLEAR)
but, you know, we also have to deal with the fact that civil
liberties have been infringed with inpunity. Very often.
SAMUELS: Hmmm. And what does that mean?
BEAR: And -- and what do you do?
SAMUELS: Well, that's -- that's tough, but I don't think
it means that we spy on every (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE).
BEAR: No, neither do 1. Neither do 1.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: We do have to practice counterespionage. If you
take a -- a rule of thumb.
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: Rule of -- rule of thumb.
(OVERTALK)
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(671
HOOD: Thirty per cent of the staff of any Soviet installation
abroad is involved in intelligence work. Secret intelligence.
SAMUELS: Uh,huh.
HOOD: If there're 100 people in the Embassy in -- in Washington,
and it's larger than that, 30 of them are KGB and the GRU personnel.
Now who deals with their activities -- their illegal activities.
In this country.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Set up a domestic counterespionage organization?
BEAR: We need the FBI to do criminal investigation of
the FBI.
SAMUELS: (UNCLEAR) the FBI someplace else. I think what
you have to do is really determine what are the FBI -- you
know, what is it to endorse espionage war?
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: And whether, you know, that there is a difference
between what sort of, the notion of subversion. Subversion's
a very bad word. There're no laws against subversion. There
are laws against espionage. And there are laws against violence.
And there are --
Subversion is anything that would seem to be contrary --
SNEPP: Aren't we really talking about simply imposing
better control.
SAMUELS: Yes.
SNEPP: In,counterespionage.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: And counterintelligence activities. And I think,
I'm optimistic. I think the legislative charters that are
under debate in the Congressional committees may be heading
in the right direction.
And when they're finally passed, we're going to see
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(681
a situation where for one thing no intelligence or counterintelligence
activity can be undertaken by the CIA or the FBI without strict
guidelines from the White House, and the interagency committees
who've been set up by -- was going to be set up under (GARBLED)
Turner's direction.
And secondly if someone in the FBI or CIA undertakes an
activity that exceeds these guidelines, that person will immediately
be liable for criminal prosecution. I think that will be a
deterent --
SAMUELS: Uh,huh.
SNEPP: Against the -- the would be Hoovers, the people
who go much too far.
SAMUELS: There's one problem with that, though There're
actually several problems. But one major one is that Bell,
the Attorney General Bell, supports legislation that would
on the one hand -- that would immunize how the government it -- it will indemnify government employees from lawsuits
and so forth.
SNEPP: Well he's also discussing though a provision which
would involve setting up anytime you determine whether an American
official, or counterintelligence official, or CIA official,
got into an illegal activity, you would immediately set up
a special prosecutor who would look into the case.
And there would be an automatic mechanism for this sort
of thing. (INTEFERENCE ON TAPE) I think that kind of threat,
that danger, the danger that the mechanism might be brought
into play, would serve as a very big deterrent against again
the would be Hoover.
SAMUELS: Uh,huh. But I'd still do worry(?) -- do you,
about what you call the national security loophole.
SNEPP: Hmmm.
SAMUELS: Rather than just a criminal standards investigation.
That the FBI should investigate criminal activities. And I'd,
you know, I'd like to know what you think about that. Whether
the FBI's mandate should be a broader mandate, and it should
have --
SNEPP: (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE) I would hate to see something --
a special mechanism set up to carry out counterintelligence
functions in the United States..
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1691
BEAR: Like domestic counterintelligence --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Exactly.
HOOD: I don't see how you could do it.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: I -- I wasn't meaning to propose that. What
I would say --would say, as long as we have sort of the same
personnel --
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: At the FBI. I think to a large degree I have
questions about whether the mentality --
SNEPP: But don't you think --
SAMUELS: The things that(?) get looked at --
SNEPP: Right.
SAMUELS: Counterintelligence in this country is going
after --
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: Are reasonable.
SNEPP: Well don't you think the controls are -- are being
better established, that is to say, under the new legislative
charter. There will be better control.
BEAR: I -- I don't really know what legislative charters
you're actually talking about, Frank.
SNEPP: Well, the House and the Senate Committees on Intelligence
have been working for the past year on new charters for the
FBI, the CIA. And they're going to be under very heavy debate
as of the 19th of January, when Congress finally gets down
to business again.
And one of the provisions in these new charters is that
again anyone who exceeds guidelines from the top will
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[701
be liable to criminal prosecution. This is one of the issues
under debate. And the provisions under debate.
And it would be very nice if the American public would
get behind that provision, so that it's passed. That it's
included in the charter.
BEAR: Well, I -- excuse me. Do you want to make a comment,
HOOD: (GARBLED) It seems to me at the ground level, one
regulation, one concept, is that no government agency is authorized
to break the law of the United States.
SNEPP: Yeah. Well, that's always so.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: It's sort of a foregone conclusion.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: So you've got -- you've now got --
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
SAMUELS: (GARBLED) everything is classified --
HOOD: Right.
SAMUELS: And we(?) have access to these things.
BEAR: And the classification can still be used. I mean
the whole --I don't know how many people are famiiiar with
the fact that there is a --a former CIA agent under indictment
now.
SAMUELS: John Kerns(?).
BEAR: Yeah.' John -- for things that took place -- events
that took place here in New York. Going after, I guess, activists,
anti-war activist people.
SAMUELS: Uh,huh.
BEAR: And (GARBLED) jobs, you know. Breaking into houses
and so forth and so on. But there's a concern there that maybe
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f
E711
they won't be able to really prosecute him in a full trial
because he'll say that I could bring out all the evidence if
necessary that involves the national security. And therefore
you can't deal with national security openly (INTERFERENCE
ON TAPE-. All that kind of business.
And it seems to me that if we can back up a little, there
are really two -- there are two central issues. That I don't
think that we're -- that we're really facing through(?) now.
I mean, we should solve what we are facing.
One is I think (UNCLEAR) kind of a -- a cultural issue.
Social issue. And the other one is. legal.
The social issue is this. It seems to me as a result of
what's been happening since 1933, 32, 33, 34, there are a lot
of people in this country who -- who are looking at the CIA
and the FBI now. A lot of people.
SAMUELS: Uh,huh.
BEAR: As really the villans in our democracy. You know.
Responsible for everything. Wherever you look. Whether it's
somebody who died overseas in the country, or a labor leader,
or a political leader--
Whether (STATIC) there's really a conspiracy here. It's
a -- it's a CIA conspiracy. Or an FBI conspiracy.. Everything,
in terms of people's sets of values. Lots of people think(?)
there's a conspiracy.
And it's staggering to me. And if you take lawyers, and
everybody --nobody wants to. But if you take lawyers, no matter
how critical they are of the system, it is really hard to find
a lawyer who looks at the American system of justice as a vast
conspiracy to overpower groups in the country.
You know, I mean, that's - lawyers will say well, I don't
like this and this. But even, you know, Kuntsler wouldn't
go that far.
If you take a look at economists, and you say I want to
talk to you about this enormous power that's being amassed
by the banks. And enormous sums of money that banks have in
Investments, and they control the oil companies. And is it(?)
a conspiracy, they would say no. I mean, that's not a conspiracy.
You may have to watch the abuses of power and so forth. But
that's absurd, to say that banks are engaged in a conspiracy.
But it's clear that the CIA is engaged in a national conspiracy,
an international conspiracy against everybody.
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Look, I'm bringing it out, only to indicate that before
you get any legislation, you know, one would hope on the part
of the people who -- who are responsible for passing it, and(?)
for the people responsible for electing them, that we take
a look at this whole issue of intelligence, the CIA and FBI.
In a way that's related to some kind of reality.
I think there're a lot of blots on the CIA banner.
I think this drug testing was frightful. It's clearly
illegal. And the opening of the mail is clearly illegal.
Some of the lunacy that was involved in covert operations.
I mean, what was it, putting a -- a explosive cigar in -- in
(GARBLED).
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Well. (UNCLEAR) -- that was not illegal.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: It was a ridiculous operation, but that wasn't
particularly illegal.
BEAR: Well, let's put it this way. I think, and Roditzky(?)
in his book, and he's certainly (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE). And
you(?) say that probably the most immoral act that any nation
can engage is the -- the assasination of -- of a political
leader of another nation.
And I don't think that, you can argue with me, Bills if
you want to -- but I don't think --
HOOD: I certainly won't. I certainly won't, I agree
entirely.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: It's the most Immoral kind of act. So that, Illegal
or not. And -- and (UNCLEAR) say that certainly there have
been excesses. I think there's no question about It,
[72]
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[731
What doesn't get talked about, however, is, you know,
the day to day work that thousands and thousands of people
do all the time that are absolutely crucial you know to --
to our existence as a nation, it seems to me.
And -- and I think the first thing we have to do is to --
is to overcome an imbalance in the public thought that somehow
what we're really dealing with is a wild beast.
And therefore all the legislation proceeds from the basis
that we are wild beasts here.
SNEPP: Well, that was Churchill's --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: (GARBLED) monstrous, okay -- even In terms of the
F B I , and Lord knows I -- I --
(INTERRUPTION I N TAPE)
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: The CIA folks may figure (UNCLEAR) that way.
The second issue --
(OVERTAL K)
BEAR: The second issue --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: The second issue which seems to be important too
is, it Isn't just the CIA and the FBI. You're talking about
a proliferation, for example, of agencies. Hell, the National
Security Agency has a budget in excess of a billion dollars.
And the CIA, say, $700 million. And the National Security
Agency Is $1.2 billion, or $3 billion. The last figures I
saw were '76. And I think that's the Department of Defense
intelligence operation. I mean, let's assume they're all beautiful.
They aren't. Even if they were. How do you deal with the
fact that there's a proliferation of intelligence agencies
with an enormous amount of money, and while accountability
Is crucial, I mean, I would like some accountability for my
bread. I mean, why do --
(OVERTALK)
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[741
SNEPP: And you're going to get it.
BEAR: How?
SNEPP: Because under the new legislative charters --
BEAR: How?
SNEPP: The budgets are going to be made public. For the
first time.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: (GARBLED) about -- about how the CIA budget is --
is, up until now has worked, and what
BEAR: And the FBI's budget
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: And what the Congress and Senate have known about
the CIA activities that they're appropriating money for. What
they have, and haven't, known.
SNEPP: Well, after all, the oversight committees are only
a very recent beast(?). They trace back to the Rockefeller
Commission, and then the Church Committee.
Now we've got a Senate oversight committee and a House
oversight committee. So they're just getting into business.
And one of their problems is that they are at the mercy
of the intelligence organizations in this sense. They can't
make any judgments on the organizations, be it budgetary or-
whathaveyou. Unless the organizations in a way volunteer information
to them. So they -- they're in trouble that way.
BEAR: But don't you agree --
SNEPP: Secondly, they can only make recommendations as
to the way the agencies ought to go. They don't have any dictatorial
powers over the CIA or the FBI, or anything else.
SNEPP: And that's just as a sort of broad background.
Where they stand.
SAMUELS: What -- what I was.really referring to is what
part of the budget (UNCLEAR).
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[751
SNEPP: Now -- they now have absolute budgetary review,
and in the future, the budgets will be made -- I don't know
whether it would be broken down, but the overall budget will
be made -- made public.
SAMUELS: Yes. But that really was an extraordinary thing(?).
It was--
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: I thought one of the --
SNEPP: There was terrific debate over that, by the way.
SAMUELS: Uh,huh.
SNEPP: But I think it's finally --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Been resolved in favor of making the budget public(?)
SAMUELS: The great feeling that it was a national security
secret --
SNEPP: That's right.
SAMUELS: What the United States was spending on --
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: And how.
SNEPP: That's right.
SAMUELS: And how.
BEAR: Well, over the badly kept national security, by
the way.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: So one issue, the issue of money, of course, is --
Is paramount. But -- but do you all agree that the issue is
also one, I'm not making a -- a normative judgment, i.e., the
CIA is rotten or marvelous on the national security, but that
in fact regardless of how they're being operated, there's overlap
of personnel --
A
4-3
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(761
SAMUELS: This is a reorganization problem (INTERFERENCE
ON TAPE --VOICE GARBLED).
BEAR: But can you do anything without a real reorganization.
And I don't mean putting in -- you know, what you do when you
reorganize, you see, is to -- is to shift personnel. So this
guy becomes --
(OVERTALK)
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
SNEPP: There is an overlap problem though. Under the
most recent Executive Order, Turner was given authority to
determine the budget for the first time. Turner as -- in his
capacity as head of Central Intelligence. The budgets of the
Pentagon agencies, which are the National Reconnaissance Office,
the National Security Agency, and the BIA(?). Which together
eat up about 80 per cent of the intelligence budget of the
United States.
Previously he only had budgetary review for the CIA itself.
Now everybody gets reviewed by Turner. But he did not get
the power to hire and fire people in the Pentagon agencies.
So In a way the budgetary review authority he's gained
doesn't amount to very much.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Because (GARBLED) can continue to keep on board
in his agencies anybody he wants to.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: So you're going to have continuing overlap.
HOOD: But I think you -- you, the DCI -_
SNEPP: That's Differential Central Intelligence -?
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: For those of you out there who may not know.
HOOD: Finds the Pentagon is spending much too much money
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(771
in DIA, it would report that to the Secretary of Defense, and
presumably to the President.
Now the Secretary of Defense can say (INTERRUPTION IN
TAPE), I'm not going to change.
SNEPP: No -- no -- no. As a matter of fact Turner now,
based under the Executive Order, can say this is what you must
spend, and what you cannot spend. He has veto power over the
budget for the Pentagon agencies.
Now Brown can appeal to the interagency committee -- this
is all new structure -- the interagency committee that has
been set up with Turner at its head. He can appeal Turner's
decisions. So the veto is not absolute.
But the important thing again, getting away from all these
technicalities, is that Turner really doesn't have a handle
on the Pentagon agencies. And all of what's taken place, all
the reforms we've seen in the past summer, in a way, is window
dressing.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Because the real -- the real (GARBLED) of the NRO
and the NBRA and the --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: No. It would presume (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE --
VOICE GARBLED)
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: But the President can enforce it if he wants to.
SNEPP: Enforce --
HOOD:.Enforce the -- the director(?) of central intelligence.
SNEPP: Of course. Of course. Of course.
BEAR: But this is (UNCLEAR) of the organization in a sense.
I mean, isn't it(?) better for Congress to say we don't give
a damn in fact, you know, if the President says this shouldn't
be enforced. Or should. We say that we ought to be (INTERRUPTION
IN TAPE) with substantive issues.
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(7g)
Like for example the Harry Roditsky book. Certainly his
book, certainly is not an anti CIA book in any way. I think
he's.Justly critical, and so forth.
You know, the CIA, in his opinion, might be a lot better
off, and so would the country if it were reduced about fifty
to sixty per cent. And it would really be, you know, a much
smaller, more cohesive unit, with a lot less responsibility.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: I don't think he said fifty or sixty per cent.
BEAR: Well, whatever. But I'm not even saying it's right.
I'm saying that is to me a legitimate issue to be debated when
one says --
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: When one says let's really -- really look at this
whole intelligence apparatus.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: What functions are and should be legitimately
performed? It'.s really the -- the basic issue.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: And how these are performed --
(OVERTALK)
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: Yeah. That's not going to happen just by making
(GARBLED).
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: No, of course not.
SAMUELS: And I thought that those were the questions that
Carter (UNCLEAR).
SNEPP: He is addressing them. As a matter of fact --
(OVERTALK)
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(791
SNEPP: The great debate in the White House now is with
priorities in the intelligence field.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
SNEPP: What do you -- where do you target your assets?
And that question is again still being debated. And until
It's resolved, until we determine whether or not we should
focus all of our intelligence assets on Soviet military capabilities.
Or whether or not we should divide them up a little bit. Focus
some of them on military capabilities. But also on the Soviet
(UNCLEAR). And also terrorist operations around the world.
And until that question's resolved, then we're still going
to be sort of treading water.
SAMUELS: What about --
SNEPP: In terms of discussing where --
SAMUELS: What about --
SNEPP: The intelligence, you know, the apparatus and the
community is going.
SAMUELS: What about from the point of view of someone
on say one of the Congressional oversight committees.
Say the CIA wants to perform a certain kind of operations.
And they propose the operation and the budget to -- to the
committee.
SNEPP: Hmmm.
SAMUELS: They outline it. Will the budget that's submitted
to Congress accurately reflect the real cost of that operation.
In other words, the CIA --
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: Works with all these other agencies. And so
you budget $20,000 of CIA personnel and resources. That sounds
very reasonable. You're maybe, the information that we're going
to get out of this operation maybe it's not --
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: Of national importance.
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[801
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: But $20,000 is a small investment. But then,
when you factor out the real costs and other --
SNEPP: Well, intelligence is not a cost effective business(?)
by the way. I mean, you can have (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE), and
then you can have a defector who comes in and brings you the
(GARBLED), and you're home free.
But the point is, going back to what I said earlier,
these committees in -- in many ways are captive of the agencies
they're supposed to be overseeing. Because they can only make
decisions on budgets and other questions. On the basis of
information given to them by these agencies. If the agencies
don't give all the information to the committees (UNCLEAR).
HOOD: The Committees -- the Committees must work on a
program basis. That you don't --
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE -- VOICES GARBLED)
SAMUELS: What I'm saying is that In setting priorities
for the oversight committee given the present way I understand
the costs are factored (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE) because they
don't have the real costs.
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: Looking at a total budget, they can't (GARBLED)
HOOD: They come pretty close to it I think. The Bureau
of the Budget certainly can.
BEAR: You -- you can't -- you can't expect to make a
listing of foreign(?) double agents --
.. HOOD: Right.
And give them so much a year. I mean, there's just no way
to do that. And it's a problem that you don't have in the Department
of Agriculture. Or you shouldn't. For example.
How do you deal with the -- with the public perception
problem. Seriously. You know, the public perception of of the CIA (GARBLED).
SNEPP: You don't open up Langley headquarters to tourists.
(OVERTALK)
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SNEPP: I mean, let's face It, that's pretty ridiculous.
BEAR: All right. I'm -- I'm -- right. Fair enough. I'm
just thinking of -- of the fact that -- that you get divided
up. Like on the Panama Canal Treaty issue, you know. On the
one side are the people who say that the CIA, well, the CIA's
sacrosanct. And if they say they need $475 million then give
it to them.
Like the Defense Department. If they need $172 billion,
our defense is worth anything.
And on the other side of the (UNCLEAR), you know, you
can't give the world's most horrible conspirators anything.
So that somewhere, you know, between those two.
HOOD: You -- you keep bringing up such negative terms.
BEAR: That's so. But anyhow, but you know In the middle
of that somewhere, people have to begin to understand the good
and the bad.
Now I, as I understand what you're saying, Dorothy.
don't want. to, you know, misstate you, or misspeak you, as
they(?) used to say --
SAMUELS: Uh,huh.
BEAR: But what you're saying is that (INTERFERENCE ON
TAPE) of perception of the FBI, as you seem to understand it,
there Isn't much anybody can do. That that agency goes to
the quit(?), or the quick.
SAMUELS: Well I -- I just have some questions given its
past history whether it's the agency best equipped at this
point to be the Federal -- THE Federal law enforcement agency.
You know, I do have some questions whether we (UNCLEAR).
SNEPP: Don't'you think -- don't you think Its image is
changing with the passage of Hoover?
We're in a new era. A new era with the CIA. I think
we owe both of these agencies a little time. And let's cool
down this thing just a bit. Let's see what --
[811
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[821
SNEPP: The legislative charters say.
SAMUELS: One of the problems is -- is that I think at
least in -- in regard to the FBI, is that
SNEPP: They take advantage of you (GARBLED).
SAMUELS: Well, we've had problems. We've had -- recently
one of the offices, the Justice Department's Office of Professional
Responsibility, which incidentally does not have (INTERFERENCE
ON TAPE -- VOICE GARBLED), nor be independent.
They formed a task force which reported out findings about
certain kinds of favors being performed by contractors on Hoovers's
house, etc. etc.
There were similar findings In the case of the present
Director, Clarence Kelley.
HOOD: Did they say what it was?
SAMUELS: Well, whatever it was --
HOOD: It was improper.
SAMUELS: It was improper. And I think the appearance
of propriety Is very, very important. If you want to --
BEAR: It is -- it is to me.
And we're going to have to pause for some public service
announcements, and news. So stay with us. We'll be back on
(OVERTALK
BEAR: Larry Bear back again. This is Conference Call
on WABC. And we are discussing the intelligence issue. Secret
agency operations in an open society.
With Frank Snepp, who was with the CIA for some eight
years, particularly in Saigon in Vietnam. From 69 to 71 and
1972 to 75. His book, Decent Interval, published by Random
House, has caused a great deal of controversy because it's
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[831
highly critical of some of the CIA operations -- the Embassy
operations -- and other operations in Vietnam, particularly
with regard to the -- to the final days of the evacuation of
Saigon.
William Hood is with us. He was with the OSS during World
War 11, and then Immediately with the CIA (UNCLEAR) in 1947.
He's been a specialist in Europe. Was In fact the Chief of
Operations in Eastern Europe. And also held the position in
the CIA as Executive Officer for Counterintelligence.
And my third guest is Dorothy Samuels, Executive Director
of the Committee for Public Justice.
And I notice that the phone has been lighting up. And
we'll take a couple of calls If you want to call in now. It's
541-8520. And the area code is 212. 541-8520.
And we were talking -- to clear the calls coming In --
we were talking about some of these operations giving rise
to a certain picture of the intelligence agencies.
One of the things that -- that struck me, and I don't
think we went into it to the extent that we should have. In --
in presenting the Image of the agencies, of course, and maybe
you can relate to this, Bill, has to with mail intercepts.
From 1952 to 73, It appears to me at least, and that(?)
Is to many others, that the mail intercept operation of the
CIA was Illegal. And you may want to comment on -- on that
particular issue. And -- and what it has done inside(?) the
agency.
HOOD: Well, It's certainly been very harmful to the --
to the image and way out of proportion to I think any value
that -- that could conceivably have come from It.
I think the -- the activity was cleared, with various
Attorney Generals, and I believe with at least one Postmaster
General. That does not make it legal.
From my point of.view, no government agency should be
authorized to break the laws of the United States. And when
they do, they're clearly In error, and should be brought firmly
to task.
BEAR: Of course, the mail intercept from 52 to 73, there's
really no excuse for it. Any more than there's any excuse
for the -- for the abuse of civil rights that took place
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[84]
in terms of testing new drugs on human organisms. But you
know when you talk about it, you going to --
SNEPP: Wait a minute. You said no excuse for it. Now
I want to comment too. I want to (UNCLEAR) to that one.
BEAR: All right.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: The men who launched the mail intercept program
were not sinister men. They were patriots in their own way.
And were talking now of people like, well who were in the
counterintelligence field, like (GARBLED) and whathave you.
These -- these are very dedicated, hard working people.
And I just wanted to bring that forth, because what -- what
you're suggesting is that they -- they had some dark motives
in mind.
Now they were out to protect the United States in the
way they thought was right,
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: It raises -- it raises, perhaps (INTERFERENCE ON
TAPE).
SNEPP: They tended -- they tended to exceed(?), go beyond
the law, yes.
BEAR: Yes, they certainly did. But it does raise another
issue, doesn't it. That some of the problems that we have
to contend with. And (GARBLED) the problems that get presented
by innocent(?) people. This is in a sense terribly difficult
to deal with.
Really. You know, you get a -- you get a crook, or a
known crook, or whatever, and -- and I don't mean to suggest
that. But -- but - but because they were not, but undoubtedly
would do, as you said --
SNEPP: What they thought was right. That's right.
BEAR: Argues even more for --
SNEPP: Hmmm.
BEAR: For some kind (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE -- VOICES GARBLED)
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(851
BEAR: That would on the one hand protect American citizens
from that kind of activity which in the end does infringe on
their civil rights, and at the same time allow people who are
dedicated (UNCLEAR) in an area where we need the best people --
(OVE RTALK)
BEAR: To do their job.
SAMUELS: Tell me If I'm wrong, but to do their job, most(?)
good people at the agencies would prefer to have a pretty clear
Idea at this point of what we think and what we're really doing.
And what their responsibilities -- to have it laid out for
them.
HOOD: I think there's -- that's a very important point.
Because If -- if the guidelines are fuzzy, then they're very
prickly.
If everyone is working (GARBLED) while wearing boxing
gloves, that's not going to work.
They'd have to know precisely what the guidelines are.
And (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE) I don't think would be any -- any
violations. Certainly in -- in domestic activities.
BEAR: Well, a lot of people who want to ask questions.
(INTERFERENCE ON TAPE), we'll take them. The area code is
212, and the number is 541-8520.
Good morning.
WOMAN: Hello. (VOICE DROWNED OUT BY TELEPHONE STATIC)
BEAR: Good morning.
MAN: Good morning. I would like to bring up an Important
aspect (TELEPHONE STATIC) the countries involved. In my opinion,
a war brings out the best qualities in a country, and the worst.
And I feel that if you look at the questions on either side,
disregarding the other side, either from the positive, disregarding
the negative -- or the negative, disregarding the positive.
You're highly myoptic in your view.
Now, the war in Vietnam brought out the United States'
greatest strengths in the fact that we could support a war
for so many years. Because we supported the French
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E86)
involvement in the war, I believe the latest figures were 80
per cent.
BEAR: I don't understand -- I don't understand where that --
where that shows our strength.
MAN: Well, it shows our strength in the fact that we could
actually support a war --
BEAR: The fact is we couldn't, and we're still paying
for it. I'm just talking about fiscally. I'm not talking
about morals.
MAN: Fiscally too. We flushed away $150 billion.
BEAR: But we could not afford it.
MAN: But we still had people riding around In new Cadillacs.
We did in a sense have guns and butter. And then in another
sense we had guns but no butter.
I'm saying, it affected us in both ways. It brought out
our greatest organizational feats. And then again it brought
out their corruption. (TELEPHONE STATIC -- VOICE GARBLED)
BEAR: What's -- what's the point that you want to make,
or the question you want to ask?
MAN: Well, the point I want to make is that It brought
out our intelligence community's greatest feats of collecting
data. But It also brought about their poorest feats, (TELEPHONE
STATIC) liabilities.
And that once they had that information, (GARBLED) difficulties
in deciphering It and organizing it and utilizing it to Its
fullest abilities.
SNEPP: Uh.huh. That's exactly right. I agree with you,
sir. And as a matter of fact, that?s one of the reasons I
wrote my book. I wanted the -- the agency to hold. that mirror
up to itself and realize there was much to be learned from
the Vietnam experience.
They didn't seem to want to learn anything from It when
I --
MAN: Yes.
SNEPP: I returned from Saigon.
(OVERTALK)
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MAN: This is Mr. Snepp, right?
SNEPP: That's right.
MAN: I -- I've listened to you at great extent on talk
shows, and all that.
SNEPP: Probably too much.
(OVERTALK)
MAN: No, I don't believe so. Because you were making
a valid point. There's a lesson to be learned. And whether
we want to accept that fact or not, okay, the question is still
there.
If we Ignore it --
MAN: We're condemning ourselves to a repetition of the
war in Vietnam.
SNEPP:That's exactly right.
MAN: We're in an economic Vietnam right now. Let's face
SAMUELS: I hope domestically that that will be learned
also. When we see how the FBI behaved during that time.
BEAR: I would hope so too. Thank you for the call. This
Is Conference Call. And thank you for waiting. Go ahead.
BEAR: Yes, sir.
MAN: I'd like to know about the John F. Kennedy assasination.
Many people say that the CIA and other intelligence agencies
were responsible for his assasination.
I don't think this is right (TELEPHONE STATIC -- VOICE
GARBLED). Why would our Intelligence want to kill him? And
I'd like to know what your guests' opinions on this would be.
BEAR: I was waiting for the call. Someone was bound to
make it. And you're certainly entitled to do so. And let's
see what comment we can get.
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[88]
HOOD: Well, I agree with you, sir. The motivation for
any American intelligence agency killing the President quite
escapes me. It's -- it's just not in the -- in the books.
(TELEPHONE COMMENTS INAUDIBLE)
HOOD: There has not been in my view a scrap of evidence
produced on any side to bear out that proposition.
BEAR: Okay. Thank you for the call.
(TELEPHONE COMMENTS INAUDIBLE).
BEAR: This Is Conference Call. You're on the air.
WOMAN: Mr. Bear. Thank you.
BEAR: Go ahead.
WOMAN: Miss Samuels, and gentlemen.
BEAR: Uh,huh.
WOMAN: I would like to ask (TELEPHONE STATIC -- VOICE
GARBLED) Vietnam War. Wasn't -- wasn't that unconstitutional,
gentlemen?
BEAR: You mean the war?
WOMAN: I mean (UNCLEAR) Vietnam War. Congress did not
declare war, did they?
SNEPP: Well as a matter of fact Congress gave the President
sort of a carte blanche with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. And
the President tended to go pretty far with that.
(TELEPHONE COMMENTS INAUDIBLE)
SNEPP: So the war was not technically -- technically it
was not unconstitutional. The Tonkin Gulf resolution passed
in 64 --
WOMAN: Uh,huh.
SNEPP: It said that the President could do certain things.
And he gave it the broadest possible interpretation. Several
Presidents did. And so we ended up in a very expensive war.
(TELEPHONE COMMENTS INAUDIBLE)
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(891
BEAR: And -- and certainly it shows (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
intelligence that it was not a war that was brought about by
the CIA --
(TELEPHONE COMMENTS INAUDIBLE)
BEAR: Or the FBI.
SNEPP: That's right.
BEAR: Okay. I -- I think that's -- that's at least something
(GARBLED) with some degree of -- I don't mean to be -- to be
flip, by the way.
SAMUELS: Well what about the Tonkin Gulf, and what information
was provided about it.
SNEPP: Well then we get in -- yes, then we get into another
question.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Whether or not the whole thing was a set up. And
whether or not the spy ships should have been there. But --
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Exactly.
HOOD: Whether it was a (UNCLEAR) delay. The way the initial
intelligence was handled.
SNEPP: Right.
HOOD: The fault being I gather that the intelligence was
going directly into the White House.
SNEPP: That's right.
HOOD: Live. Without any evaluation.
SAMUELS: Hmmm. And it --
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: It's my impression -- I think Frank would know --
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[901
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
HOOD: That the -- the ships were on direct line to the
White House, with the President's intense Interest in the war.
And the -- it wasn't intelligence. It was news reporting really,
that they were under attack. Which seems to be a very debatable
question. After the fact.
SAMUELS: Well, that's right. And my understanding is
maybe it was not the -- was -- was it the CIA that fed information
about that attack (UNCLEAR) to(?) newsmen, to journalists.
The layout that appeared in Life Magazine complete with photos.
Were they supplied by the Defense Department? Or --
SNEPP: That I don't know.
SNEPP: Well, certainly there was an orchestrated effort
to put across the Administration's story on account of what
had taken place.
BEAR: I'd like Bill to ask you. And you've had a long
experience obviously with -?- with Intelligence. Beginning
with the OSS, and then of course with the CIA -- then in different
posts. Both In terms of your activities and your location.
Whether you feel that it is in fact valid to take a look
now at the organizational structure of intelligence In this
country with a view toward some -- some changes and some reforms.
And we're not -- I'm not referring so much now to the to the Issue whether the CIA Is corrupt and ail that business.
But (UNCLEAR) issue of overlap, of expense, of -- of the ability
to handle an enormous amount of detail.
Do you think It's legitimate to look hard at -- at the
present structure?
HOOD: Well, of course it's legitimate to look hard at
it. And certainly there is and has been overlap and redundancy.
I think that -- that there's a tendency in the press and and others to assume that intelligence budgets are really just
a matter of breaking open another box of money. Actually they're
very tightly controlled And a real discipline is enforced
on -- on redundancy and -- and overlap. Come their budget
time. And there just isn't money enough to go around. And
I think the new setup will vastly improve that.
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1911
It's going to take some doing because basically American
government isn't organized so the Director of one agency can
tell the Director of another agency what he can spend. I mean
that's --. that's -- it tampers with the command function.
But to the degree that can be done, and they're certainly
off on the right foot I would say now, it will be an improvement.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Well I would dispute his -- his interpretation
of recent history. I think probably that the Intelligence budget
was not carefully supervised, or overseen by -- by many people.
And I think probably the various Senate committees and House
committees back when, early sixties, late fifties, sort of
gave their nod and said okay, just run with It. We don't want
to look at the budget too closely.
And I think the agency, from what I know -- now this is
again before my time. (UNCLEAR) I'm only speaking from what
I have read and heard. That the agency did have a -- a --
pretty much of a free hand. With money. And the Director did
have a contingency fund, which he(?) had used to support operations
for which he didn't want to make any accounting.
Is this wrong, or not?
HOOD: Oh, I think so. The contingency fund was only to
cover expenses that were not foreseen in the -- in the budget
projection.
SNEPP: To say that another way. You could use those funds
to support activities which were not reported to Congress in
the first place.
HOOD: But were reported on an ongoing basis. There's
no money In the agency that I'm aware of that can be used by
the agency without reference --
SNEPP: I thought that was the whole purpose of the contingency --
(OVERTALK)
HOOD: That's(?) not my impression.
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[921
BEAR: Okay Let's take a look at this, then. Another
question. You were involved, Bill, with a lot of counterespionage
activities. And some of them were very delicate indeed I'm
sure.
Now when you talk about oversight, we're going beyond,
well, this Is not beyond budget (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE). But
we're getting into a report of activities to an oversight committee,
or committees.
And one of the things about Congress that worries me all
the time, Frank, is that Congressmen, you know, playing with
TV cameras, and Congressmen playing with (UNCLEAR).
SNEPP: Uh,huh.
BEAR: Congressmen play all too much. One way or another.
And so I'm --I'm concerned in any event, you know, with the
validity of an -- of an oversight committee that's -- that's
composed unfortunately at least in part (UNCLEAR) of people
who are playing to the gallery. But, that hasn't(?) always
led to you know the kind of concerns that you think about (INTERFERENCE
ON TAPE).
SAMUELS: Uh,huh.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR: But -- but the issue still comes down to how does
an oversight committee deal with the kind of activities, legitimate
now, I'm not talking about illegitimate. Legitimate activities,
that demand secrecy. But how much can you say that helps determine
the budget. How much can you say that helps determine questions
like should the agency be involved (UNCLEAR) legality --
BEAR: But should the agency be Involved in all these areas
at the same time, or should they not. And how --
(OVERTALK)
SAMUELS: And how can they determine -- what -- will they
have enough information to determine whether an activity is
in fact a legitimate or illegitimate activity.
HOOD: Yes. First thing I think is they get all the
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[931
information they ask for. The one exception probably being
the identities of specific agents.
I know of no question the agency would not respond to
posed by the --a review committee, oversight committee.
SNEPP: Well I think again we're sort of speaking prematurely
because the oversight committees are only beginning to function.
But, look, look at the case of the Church Committee..
The Church Committee wanted to look into several test cases,
If the agency had done right or wrong overseas. And the agency
had offered six test cases. One was Chile. And a deal was
made. If they -- the agency gave the committee everything
there was on Chile, then the other six test cases wouldn't
even be made public. And they weren't. So the agency won
a round.
The negotiations were carried on in such a way. The committee
carried --was persuaded to look at the Chilean case, and not
at anything else. So the agency won a tactical -- a tactical
round.
SAMUELS: (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE) with national security.
SNEPP: Well, there're a lot of -- a lot of problems in
it. But in any event, they outmaneuvered -- the agency outmaneuvered
the committee, the Church Committee, in -- in its original
direction.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Which was to uncover, oh, plots that went way beyond
what was necessary, I suppose, you could put it that way.
HOOD: I don't put that down to outmaneuvering them. So
far as it's true. I'm -- I'm not -- I'm not aware of that.
I -- I testified before the Church Committee, and certainly
the form was, answer whatever questions you're asked.
SNEPP: Hmmm.
HOOD: Fully and completely.
(OVERTALK)
BEAR:To what extent -- in that -- were the -- were the --
with the simple (UNCLEAR) with the exception of naming names,
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[94)
you were able to answer all questions with regard to any intricate
operations that were being performed, or had been performed,
in counterintelligence in Eastern Europe, and so forth.
HOOD: Well I don't think they -- they addressed it on
an ad hominum basis. Specific operations. They were looking
for -- for real trouble areas.
And you notice that all the scandal and -- that has affected
the agency --very little of it has concerned espionage. Or
sabotage for that matter. It all comes out In the covert action
area. When was the last espionage scandal? When was the last
time a spy really hit -- hit the news on the front page.
SNEPP: Well, very recently, as a matter of fact. There's
a -- I can't remember the occasion exactly. it was about a
fellow who was working for military intelligence recently.
Who had been -- who had blown a particular operation and
was allowed to go scott free. It appeared in the papers In
the past few days. And I'm sorry I can't remember the details
of the case.
HOOD: The guy who blew It was allowed to go scott free?
SNEPP: That's right. For some political(?) reason.
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: Well, I think we're quibbling --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: We're quibbling over semantics. i want to go back
to this business. Because I think you're dancing around the
point here. I don?t want to get into a long debate over it.
But, look. The agency has several sets of files on all
cases. One is the soft file. And one is the hard file. Now
the soft file will contain a lot of data that may not be verifiable.
And -- but may carry a case way down the road.
Now when the Senate, or the House, asks for a file from
the agency --and If the agency Is forthcoming, It will hand
over the hard file. But the real nitty gritty, the juicy stuff,
is never handed over.
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1951
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: I know (GARBLED) it's not very -- this Is not untrue
because I know that I have a soft file and a hard file. So
under the Freedom of Information Act I can apply for the hard
file, but I'll never get the soft one.
HOOD: I'd say that (UNCLEAR) I wouldn't say that's untrue.
I was going to say that I -- my experience of a soft file is
a working file.
SNEPP: Yes. I mean we're -- we're speaking euphemistically --
we're speaking euphemistically again.
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: The hard file is the one which in fact has the
real operational details in it.
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: We do.
HOOD: I think that -- that the -- the agent file is the
file. And if somebody's going to leave it on his desk --
SNEPP: You mean to say --
HOOD: He has odds and ends, or pieces, on the desk. But --
SNEPP: You mean to say if you were looking into, say,
the agency's involvement in Angola, the hard files would tell
us all that Congress needed to know? I'm talking about in
a closed session.
HOOD: Well I think (UNCLEAR). It's not one file.
SNEPP: How would you know if you were -- if you were on
the committee, how would you know? If you were getting all
their files. You wouldn't know. See, that's the problem.
You would only know as much as the agency would tell you.
HOOD: If -- if you assume that --
(OVERTALK)
(INTERRUPTION IN TAPE)
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(96)
BEAR: You know, the issue -- the issue it -- it seems
to me Is not an issue of good faith or bad faith. Granted,
yeah, there may be people In the CIA or the FBI or the Supreme
Court, or anyplace, you know, who (GARBLED).
(OV E RTAL K)
BEAR: Yeah. It's not a question of bad faith at all.
It's -- I don't think. I mean -- but -- but it's a question
of someone sitting up there and for example and saying, who
is part of the establishment, and I don't care if it's the
CIA or the Department of Labor. (UNCLEAR) more important I
think here. (UNCLEAR) in the best interests of the country,
and (INTERFERENCE ON TAPE) decisions about what's In the best
interests of the country. And I'm not being sarcastic, either.
But in their (GARBLED), you know, the best interests would
dictate a hard file, a soft file, or... (OVERTALK)
BEAR: And that's the way it would go. And there's just
no way to get behind it.
SNEPP: There's a marvelous story about Director Colby,
who was about to go before one of the committees and testify
that the agency was not involved extensively in mail -- the
mail opening campaign.
And he was running out to his car, about to jump In the
car, and somebody from counterintelligence section came running
up and said, s-ir, we just found this -- this file at the bottom
of an old safe somewhere. It indicates we are very extensively
involved In --
(OVERTALK)
SNEPP: In this activity. All this by way of suggesting
that sometimes even the Director doesn't --
SAMUELS: (INTERRUPTION IN TAPE -- VOICE GARBLED) has
not been involved in certain kinds of illegal activities since
1966 --
SMAUELS: And formed a very high level task force to check
this out with all the Bureaus, and then we find that the activities
were going on at least through 73. You know.
(0VERTALK)
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[971
BEAR: .. we're going to be here for three hours. But
(UNCLEAR) that you can. And try and see for yourself what
the problems do seem to be. And try and see what. they aren't.
Don't get caught up, you know, any more than you have
to in -- in journalistic excesses and communicationr-excesses.
Or even proponents' excesses. Pro CIA. Anti CIA. (UNCLEAR).
These are very serious issues. And they do relate to civil
liberties. And they do relate to security. In a very real
sense.
And -- and, It just seems to me that when the politicians
begin to talk, and the journalists begin to get excited, you
ought to have some data. That you can think about, and --
and draw some conclusions on. And that, it seems to me is
terribly important.
I want to thank my guests who are with me this evening.
Frank Snepp and William Hood and Dorothy Samuels. For being
here. Discussing the intelligence issue, secret agency operations
in an open society.
I have to say of course that the opinions expressed in
this show are not necessarily those of WABC Radio or the American
Broadcasting Company, Incorporated.
I know that we did have some trouble with the lines tonight.
Which I'm sorry. And some of you may still (UNCLEAR) have
a line. And I wish we could take more calls. There's just
no time for it.
One of the things I'd like to do is it doesn't solve
the problem, right. Or settle it. But I'd like to read a short
quote from Sir William Stevenson, who was in charge of British
Security Coordination. It comes from a book entitled A Man
Called Intrepid.
And he says, and I quote, "Among the increasingly intricate
arsenals across the world, intelligence is an essential weapon,
perhaps the most important. But It is, being secret, the most
dangerous. Safeguards to protect and prevent its abuse must
be devised and revised and rigidly applied. But, as In all
enterprise, the character and wisdom of those to whom it is
entrusted will be decisive. In the integrity of that guardianship
lies the hope of free people to endure and prevail."
I'm Larry Bear. And I thank you for being with us.
Good night.