THE NIGHTMARE NOVEL ABOUT WHAT THEY DID TO A WOMAN BEHIND THE CLOSED DOORS OF THE C.I.A. THE CARE OF DEVILS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400150008-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 4, 1999
• Sequence Number: 8
• Content Type: BOOK

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This novel by a former American intelligence officer was originally
published in 1958. The early reviews hailed it as one of the most
shocking and terrifying books of the year. But then, suddenly and
mysteriously, the book simply disappeared. No more advertising.
io more reviews. No more copies in the stores. And this extraordi-
nary novel might never have been heard of again if it hadn't been
for an article by Malcolm Muggeridge in Esquire eight years later
raising the question of "whether the Agency [the C.I.A.] may not
have taken a hand in ensuring that Miss Press's novel was kept off
the bookstands." Muggeridge went on to call The Care of Devils
one of the most astonishingly truthful and appalling novels ever
written about the world of espionage. With his article, this time
bomb of a novel has suddenly exploded into one of the most
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controversial books of the decade.*
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 by Malcolm Muggeridge
A very limited edition indeed, published eight years ago-
whose subject is the C.I.A.-
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he Care of Devils (by Sylvia Pr.% s; $3.95, Beacon
Press) first made its appearance in 1958, when it fell about
as flat as a novel of its competence and topicality possibly
that it provides, with a candor and authenticity I have not
come across elsewhere, a blow-by-blow account of the inter-
rogation of a suspected subversive in an American intel-
ligence agency-clearly the C.LA.-during the ill-omened
McCarthy era. Apart from any other consideration, The
Care of Devils would seem to me to be of major interest
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as documentation. It contains, for instance, the only first-
hand description I have ever read of what it is like to be
harnessed to the ridiculous polygraph, or lie-detector machine-a
contraption so redolent of the particular imbecility of this age, with
its obsessive belief that everything, including ultimately fornica-
tion, can be set up and operated mechanically. Considered just as
fiction, The Care of Devils is no masterpiece, but well above the
average of many novels which make a big stir in the women's clubs;
as a piece of social history, I found it impressive-vivid, informa-
tive, and obviously sincere.
The dust jacket informs us that the authoress, ~bliss Sylvia 1'ress;t
was "for many years an American intelligence officer here and
abroad." It thus may be assumed that she and her heroine, Ellen
Simon, are approximately one and the same person. Her novel
obviously would not have been pleasing-in fact, highly distasteful
-to the C.I.A. and its then boss, Allen Dulles, whose views on the
necessity 'of confirming that intelligence officers remain "clean as a
whistle" by means of regular interrogations, fortified by the use
of the polygraph, have been stated publicly. The question naturally
arises in one's mind, therefore, as to whether the Agency may not
have taken a hand in ensuring that Miss Press's novel was kept off
the bookstands. My own consciousness of the ineptitude and incom-
petence of publishers is such that I require no theory of outside
interference to account for the failure of any novel. On the other
hand, equally I know from experience that intelligence organizations
are capable of any folly. As between the incompetence of publishers
and the folly of intelligence organizations, I am neutral, and content
myself with stating what seems to me to be incontrovertible-viz.,
that Miss Press's novel deals with matters of great and, alas, con-
tinuing importance, in an interesting and, as far as one can judge,
truthful manner, and that nonetheless it seems to have largely es-
caped the notice of booksellers, book buyers and reviewers alike.
In the last respect at least, I can belatedly try and mend matters.
Tire story begins with the Ellen, at work in the Washington
headquarters of the C.I.A. :;:.e is clearly a fairly senior and expe-
rienced officer, with an assistant of her own. She has.worked over-
seas, we are given to understand, having been recruited into the
Agency in the war years when it was the O.S.S. (Ali, those first on ~>7u
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and innocent, to start work in our frowsty old intelligence brothel!
A : too soon they were ravished and corrupted, becoming indis-
tinguishable from seasoned pros who had been in the game for a
quarter of a century and more.) Ellen's current problem is to
decide on the bona fides-or otherwise of a defector from the Com-
munists-a problem of whose complexity only those who have had
to handle it will be aware; the truth being that the great majority
of defectors are actuated by interested, rather than idealistic or
ideological, motives-money, a girl, that sort of thing-
so that, as one is uneasily aware, should the balance of
advantage swing the other way, they would be liable to
redefect, and in that sense cannot ever be regarded as
reliable.
Ellen is convinced-as it turns out, rightly-that her
man is a phony, a point which crops up several times in
the course of the narrative. The suggestion seems to be
that Ellen's discovery of the man's phoniness is a point
against her rather than for her; almost as though her
superiors had a stake in his genuineness, resented his
exposure, and took out their annoyance on Ellen. In the
conditions of panic created by McCarthy in government agencies
this is perfectly possible, especially if the defector in question had
been somehow sponsored by the Wisconsin Senator's ribald en-
tourage. Such situations, in any case, are all too liable to arise in
intelligence organizations the world over, all of them being ab-
normally subject to internecine conflict. I know of a case in the
war of a very valuable source of information remaining unused
because the man who turned it up happened to be personally disliked
by a senior officer at headquarters. Again, there is the case of
Cicero, the British Ambassador in Ankara's valet, who extracted
from the Embassy safe the full plans and order of battle for the
invasion of France and sold them, as it turned out for counterfeit
money, to the Abwehr. Himmler was so furious at a rival organi-
zation's pulling off this coup that he arranged for the documents to
be pigeonholed and never passed to the military. I often used to
reflect, when I was an intelligence officer, that if only we could
concentrate on the enemy the inse~-:.ate hatred we directed at one
another, the war would be won in n:, .me.
While still grappling with the problem of the defector, Ellen is
called away to the Internal Security Department, where, to her
amazement and chagrin, she discovers that she is a suspect herself.
Then there begins a long, exhausting and distressing process of
interrogation, day after day, week after week, in which the whole
of Ellen's life, her love affairs, her friendships, every tiny detail
and nuance of her private existence are gone into by her two clottish
interrogators. The interest and suspense are well maintained, as
is the sense, almost overwhelming at times, of the unspeakable
disgustingness of the whole procedure. Ellen, of course, as soon as
she realized what was afoot, should have slapped her interrogators
in the face for their impertinent curiosity, scattered their precious
dossiers about the floor, and otherwise manifested her contempt for
them and all their ridiculous, dog-eared tricks-the light shining
in her face, the dark mentions of knowing more than they say, the,
elaborately staged confrontation, etc., etc. Then, with a sigh of
relief, she should have got herself a job as a bartender or call girl,
something nice and wholesome and i%-,.sh, and lived happily ever
after. In America and the countries of the West we can still do
this; in the U.S.S.R., they cannot. It is one of the few remaining
dividends of what we like to call our free way of life.
Actually, Ellen does nothing of the sort. Racked by anxiety, sleep-
less, distracted, she endures the humiliating procedure, tries des-
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perately to prove her innocence-though without knowing what sl.e 4
is being accused of-searches through old pa,crs and letter;, goes
over and over in her mind just what happened on such an occasion,
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not really be e-;--,ected to be otherwise.
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After all,
she is in the niftier. She has lost her
right to protest because she has par-
ticipated in subjecting- others to sinm-
ilar treatment. She, too, has framed
the idiot questions, clone the idiot re-
search, taken the unpardonable lib-
erty of violating that essential in-
tegrity of t:e person whose safe-
guarding is the basis of all civiliza-
tion. The savage is vulnerable to the
tribe; the civilized man may proud-
ly claim that as long as he obeys cer-
tain specified and known laws, whose
contravention carries certain equally
specified penalties, his life is his own.
The moment the state allows prob-
ing fingers to be intruded there, then
barbarism has set in.
Poor Ellen has relinquished her
own rights by virtue of her occupa-
tion. She has touched pitch, and
now is being tarred herself. There
she sits, relentlessly questioned by
two fellow Americans about all sorts
of matters which have nothing what-
I ever to do with them, or with the
C.I.A., or the United States Govern-
ment; matters which pertain to her-
self alone, and can be broached only
in the intimacy of love or the ecstasy
of faith-in bed or in the confession-
al. It is terrible to think of such
things going on in the shadow of the
Lincoln Memorial-procedures and
practices which are a denial of ev-
erything that our history, our relig-
ion, our literature and our traditions
are supposed to cherish.
People forget that it has all hap-
pened so recently. I can just remem-
ber my father, before the 1914-18
war, going abroad. For money he had
golden sovereigns which were ac-
ceptable everywhere; he did not need
to take with him a single document.
The only country where passports
were required was-how significant
-Russia. In what is often regarded
now as the unenlightened nineteenth
century, anyone could come to Eng-
land who wanted to. To quote the
opening sentences of A. J. P. Taylor's
brilliant volume in The Oxford His-
tory of England (English, History
1911-1945)
"Until August 1914 a sensible,
law-abiding Englishman could pass
through life and hardly notice the
existence of the state, beyond the
post office and the policeman. He
could live where he liked and how he
liked and as he liked. He had no offi-
cial number or identity card. He
could travel abroad or leave his coun-
try forever without a passport or
any sort of official permission. He
could exchange his money for any
other n,o. without restriction or
limit. `tie could buy goods from any
country in the world on the same
terms as he bought goods at home.
For that matter, a foreigner could
spend his life in this country without
permit and without informing the
police."
London was full of subversives of novel, she is constantly put-
every sort and description-anar- tin-- just this question to her-
chists, Communists, crackpots, Karl
Marx in person-all busily plotting
the overthrow of our and every other
government in the world. At the
same time, the United States was
growing into the richest and most
powerful nation on earth by simil-
arly allowing everyone who had a
mind to cross .he Atlantic to come
to New York and try their luck. Did
people in those clays wake up trem-
bling lest subversives had got into
the Home Office, or some diplomat of
ours be contemplating defecting to
another country? Not at all. Every-
thing suggests that they slept in
their beds a good deal more quietly
than we do, though M.I.5 consisted
then of at most seven elderly retired
oMcers from the Indian Army,
whereas today it is numbered in hun-
dreds and the Secret Service in thou-
sands, and both organizations togeth-
er, at a rough estimate, cost the tax-
payer about the equivalent of the
total defense budget in the days of
Gladstone. As for America-what
the P.B.I. and the C.I.A. dispose of
in the way of manpower and public
money, God alone knows, but it must
be astronomical.
At the end of her ordeal Miss
Press's heroine is fired as a security
risk. Instead of having a great ball
to celebrate this blessed release, she
manages to get admitted to the head
man-presunnably Dulles-and begs
him at least to tell her what she has
been found guilty of. He murmurs
something about "lack of candor,"
but it is obvious that he has not read
the report of her interrogation, and
that she is in some sort a sacrifi-
cial victim offered up to appease Sen-
ator McCarthy and his Un-American
Activities Committee. Cut off from
all hope of redress within the C.I.A.,
she settles down to write her own
version of the affair. The result is
The Care of Devils. Incidentally, I
should point out that in England she
would have been denied even this re-
course. With our usual cunning we
have devised a splendid instrument
for shutting everybody up without
expense or the risk of public scandal.
This is the Official Secrets Act, which
requires every employee in Defense
and Intelligence Departments to give
an undertaking that he will not dis-
close any information which comes to
him in the course of his duties upon
pain of a fine and/or a term of im-
prisonment. Thus, if Miss Press had
worked for British intelligence she
would have been required to submit
the manuscript of The Care of Dev-
self. It is a perfect Kafka
situation; she is accused of
nothing, yet is tormented ai-
ternately by a sense of guilt
and of outraged innocence.
Her whole moral fabric is
corroded away. If she is guil-
ty she must keep away from
her friends lest she contam-
inate them. Anyway, who are
her friends? Has she got
any? If so, are they accom-
plices? Or secret enemies who
will be brought out to accuse
her? With the most extra-
ordinary prophetic vision, in
his novel The Trial Kafka
,.resees that this is going to
become the human condition
-to be accused of an un-
known crime; to be investi-
gated, interrogated, kept un-
der surveillance, pressed to
confess, even confessing, per-
haps at last executed. Guilty
or not guilty? Who can say?
Since there is no crime. Only
guilt.
Insofar as there was any
cogent thought in the sick and
vacuous minds of Ellen's in-
terrogators, it was, presuun-
ably, that the man-Steve
Lasker, with whom Ellen had
had a love affair and been on
a trip to Mexico-had some
sort of bad security record
which contaminated her. Let
us assume the worst-that
Lasker had been a Soviet
agent, that Ellen in retro-
spect had vague suspicions of
him, and that, because he had
been her lover, consciously. or
unconsciously she wanted to
shield him, and so was some-
times evasive and less than
candid in answering ques-
tions about their relationship.
Is this really so very repre-
hensible? It is, in any case, a
matter which could have been
settled honestly and honor-
ably in five minutes by just
putting the point to Ellen.
This was never clone. It was
skirted round, hinted at,
touched upon, but never put.
Right up to the end, and
afterward, she had no means
of knowing what, if anything,
they had against Lasker. Nor,
rather surprisingly, did she
apparently make any effort,
then or subsequently, to seek
out Lasker and have it out
with him. The cc,,,' :;; char-
ils to the department she worked for actor in the melodrama is
before it could be legally published. never brought onto the stage,
There, we may be sure, it would have perhaps because, if he were
collie to rest. to be, the melodrama would
The question naturally arises as to t;u - into farce-which, in a
whether Ellen was guilty. Had she, -90i", of way, Ellen wanted no
in fact, done anything wrong? In the more than her interrogators
cii~i.
Contlnu
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will inevitably seem that, in safe-
guarding our freedom, we destroyed
ratus we built up to probe our en-
server. il Lhe end to confuse our own
ceiving others for the good of the
state led infa iiihly to our deceiving
ourselves, r. that the vast army
execute these purposes were soon
caught up in the web of their own
sick fantasies, with disastrous con-
light intelligence pros, as they dazzle
the general public, by an in-
ti::,sically sinister and sordid ac-
manner of her ejection from it, Miss
Press shows how an organization like
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