SOME CIA SPY SECRECY NEEDED, WALTERS DECLARES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01731R002400230003-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2003
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 3, 1975
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2003/08/05 : CIA-RDP80R01731 R002400230003-2
Approved
needed, Walters decla r~s``
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, Sun., Aug. 3, 1975
SoMe CIA's r
He said George Washington
tried- to kidnap Benedict Ar-
nold and Benjamin Franklin
intercepted British mail three
years before the war began.
When Franklin was sent to
-Paris, Walters claimed, he ob-
tained printing presses to use
in forging passports and other
documents.
And John - Jay, he noted,
maintained a listening post in
Jersey City, N.J. where he in-
terviewed travelers entering
and leaving British-occupied
New York.
Directly criticizing the
p r e s s, Walters noted that
newspapers and other publica-
tions are among -the natiDn's
greatest sources of informa-
tion.
"Russian intelligence is so
swamped with information,
their problem is to discern the
real from the phony," he said.
Walters said U.S. official
once told him it was too bad a
plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler
in 1944 failed.
"It would have been great If
it had succeeded. But it would
have been greater if H i t I e r
could have been assassinated
in 1937. Think of how many
lives would have been saved"
Walters said the official told
him.
Walters defended drug ex-
perimentation by recalling that
in the 1950s it was feared the
Communists had a drug that
U.S. Intelligence got off to a
bad start in the Revolutionary
War.
"Not only was Nathan Hale
our first agent, but he got
caught on his first mission,"
Walters said.
Despite the current public
"assault" on the intelligence
community. Walters recalled
that spying and intercepting
mail were not uncommon in
By Martin Gershen
The deputy director of the
Central Intelligence Agency
warned here Saturday that
conducting CIA operations
through a "gold fish bowl" is a'
danger to the, security of the
country.
",Intelligence-gathering is vi-
tal if the. United ? States is to
survive as a nation. If the
whole question of exposing our
secrets doesn't stay within
measure, we're going to be in
trouble," said Lt. Gen. Vernon
A. Walters, noting that 'spying
Is as old as the nation.
The tall,. powerfully built
m i l i t a r y officer addressed
some 200 former intelligence
agents and their wives at the
29th annual convention of the
National Counter Intelligence
Corps Assn.
Walters, who s p e a k s eight
languages fluently and has
been an interpreter for Presi-
dents Dwight D. Eisenhower
and Richard M. Nixon; jok-
Ingly lamented the fact that
FortRelease 2003/08/05 : -CIA uuhl- DP9 8e1W6He6
cans. He noted that Cardinal
Mindszenty of Hungary had
withstood Nazi pressures with-
out breaking. -
"But he was ready to
confess to the, Communists,"
Walters said.
He added that some U.S. GIs
captured in the Korean war be-
came the first U.S. soldiers in
history who refused to go home.
These examples, he said,
made U.S. officals fear the
Communists had a drug that
could make enemies helpless.
 Approved For Release 2003/08/05 : CIA-RDP80R01731 R002400230003-2
GR1htATESr.. NEWSPAPBYt
Chicago Tribune, Sunday, Auguclt 3. 19-75
Approved For
defends
CIA's fop aide U. S.'Hucd for secrecy
By John Gorman
THE, UNITED STATES may have to
conduct its affairs in a "fishbowl" as a
result of congressional investigations of
the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA
deputy director predicted here Saturday
night.
Lt. Gen. Vernon Walters, number two
man at the CIA, said that if any country
could function in the "fishbowl" condi-
tions, the. U.S. would be the first to do
so.
Speaking to an enthusiastic audience
of more than 200 persons at the National
Counter Intelligence Corps Association
dinner in the Sheraton-Chicago Hotel,
Walters warned the former World War
II intelligence officers that the "wreck-
ers are getting ready to dismantle the
intelligence service again."
"We're told today that it is unAmeri-
can to have things secret," he said.
TO COMBAT this notion, Walters
quoted George Washington who told a
subordinate in a letter that the "need
for procurring good intelligence is so
obvious" that it need hardly be men-
tioned.
While ambassador to France, Benja-
min Franklin ran a printing press forg-
ing passports, Walters reminded the
crowd.
Walters defended the CIA as a reflec-
tion of the American people, made tip of
average Americans. He said that the
CIA conception of what is right and
wrong reflects the attitudes of the citi-
zens. If that conception changes, he
said, "we are perfectly willing to
change also."
DEFENDING TIIE CIA's recently dis-
closed role in the 1953 suicide of a civil-
ian Army employe who had been given
LSD, Walters recalled the public senti-
ment at the time.
"It was a time when fighting men for
the first time in history were refusing to
come back home from the Korean War.
[Jose[] Cardinal Mindzenty appeared
hollow-eyed and confessed. The feeling
at the time was that this had been done
with drugs. we were convinced the oth-
er side was using mind-controlling
drugs." Walters said.
There is a current popular idea that
"we must throw everything out and thus
be cleansed. But if we do this, we may
well be cleaned out. This idea is insani-
ty insofar as the safety of the United
States is concerned," he said.
lease 2003/08/05 CIA-RDP80ROl 731 R002400230003-2
 Approved For Release 2003/08/05 : CIA-RD08OR01731 R002400230003-2
217 WEST CAMPBELL STREET ARLINGTON HEIGHTS. ILLINOIS 60006
Went Ads 394 24nn . r.........__ .,,..... - _
lk Grove Vil
lags
urn Prospect
Uffald Grove
Arrington Heights, Illinois 60006
Tuesday, August 5, 1975 2 Sections, 20 Pages
At counterintelligence convention
CIA: officer defends acts ami
by BOB LAHEY
Members of the American in-
telligence establishment are not con-
vinced that detente is just around the
corner, nor are they ready to don kid
gloves in dealing with America's op-
ponents.
A group of former military in-
telligence agents gathered in Chicago
Saturday night and cheered a ranking
officer of the CIA who came to defend
the intelligence establishment against
current "innuendoes and abuses."
Lt. Gen. Vernon A. Walters, deputy
director of the CIA, addressed about
500 persons at the annual convention
of the National C.I.C. Assn., an organ-
ization of former agents of the U.S.
Army Counterintelligence Corps. Ar-
Vernon
Walters
THESE FORMER "counterspies"
applauded enthusiastically when Wal-
ters indirectly defended the CIA
against allegations that it may have
had a hand in foreign assassination
plots.
He quoted a friend who recently
commented: "If Adolf Hitler had been
assassinated in 1944, it would have
been great. But if he had been as-
sassinated in 1937 or 1938, think of the
lives we could have saved."
Walters argued ? for the continuing
necessity of a far-flung intelligence ef-
fort. "The great mass of people do not
Des Plaines
Palatine
cheers
about intelligence."
Walters also made indirect refer-
e n c e to stories of covert ex-
perimentation with LSD and other
drugs by the CIA. Citing the notorious
brainwashing of Hungary's Joseph
Cardinal Mindszenty In 1948, Walters
said it was the concensus of American
intelligence analysts that Mind-
szenty's treason "confession" was
.brought about through the use of un-
known drugs.
. "That is what led to what hap-
pened," he said.
W A L T E R S ALSO defended In-
sense any threat to us," he declared. telligence operations on historical
lington Heights attorney. e h ur ctn. ,p }{u d,q $ore Washington
co, presider*l l:(i916 rr Yidr~,, q -sen cY`dt ncl+l,bJghLHd 3~ tcEY' a `73~iiedict Arnold;
ted the convention. that there is something shameful Benjamin Franklin intercepted British
mail; John Jay quizzed travelers w!
visited British-occupied New York.
Walters said much American
telligence is gathered overtly frc
foreign publications and from anal,,
ing technical data.
But, intelligence cannot be cart.
out without the "human" elemer
meaning secret agents, he said. Tee
nical intelligence won't get you ins:
a building or inside a man's head.
Walters also asserted the fears
runaway CIA, without congressio:
control, are unfounded. "We have
secrets from our Congressional Ov
sight committees," he said. "We c.
live with any guidelines they pr
scribe."