LETTER FROM GEOFFREY M.T. JONES TO PRESIDENT AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES, COLBY COLLEGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90G00152R001202420007-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 1, 2011
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: November 23, 1987
• Content Type: LETTER

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EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT
ROUTING SLIP
ACTION
INFO
DATE
INITIAL
1
DCI
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DDCI
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EXDIR
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D/ICS
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DDI
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DDA
X
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DDO
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DDS&T
9
Chm/NIC
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GC
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IG
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Compt
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D/OCA
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D/PAO
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D/PERS
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D/Ex Staff
t
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3637
Exec ive ecretary
3 Dec '87
STAT
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VETERANS OF OSS
40th FLOOR
30 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10112 I
ddent Geoffrey M 1 Jones
t Presidents Ray S Cline
Emilio 0 Daddario
tonal VPs. Peter Kar low
Weslern USA
Richard Dunlop
Central USA
Eddwin J Putzell. Jr
Southeast USA
Patrick Dolan
Europe
,story Edward F Boughton
surer: William Duff
I. Secretary
James R Weldon
Treasurer
William J Morgan, Jr
ECUTIVE
COMMITTEE
Bruce Anderson
Carole G Bird
Raymond L Brittenham
John A Bross
Peter D Cmi
Hon William E Colby
Max Corvo
line Griffith de Romanones
William J Hood
Lawrence R Houston
John Howley
Rev Blahoslav S Hruby
Henry B Hyde
Edward Hymoff
Albert E Jolts
Kathleen A Kearns
Hon Francis L Kellogg
Albert G Lanier
Leonard P Laundergan
Elizabeth P McIntosh
Bonnie Ursin Moran
Dr. William J Morgan
Hon Julian M Niemczyk
LI Gen William W Quinn
Harry A Rositzke
Peter M F Sichel
Emily C Stone
Kay Sugahara
John Weitz
NOVAN AWARD
COMMITTEE
Owen McGlvem. Chairman
Hon John A Blatnik
Raymond L Brittenham
Joseph R Coolidge
Patrick Dolan
Henry B Hyde
Hon Clark MacGregor
Turner H McBaine
Elizabeth McIntosh
mes St Lawrence O'Toole
Edwin J Putzell. Jr
NBERSHIP
COMMITTEE
rankhn Cantield,Chairman
Carl F. Efler
Elizabeth P McIntosh
Robert Macnair Morgan
[phone] ? Telex: 127429
November 23, 1987
President and Board of Trustees
Colby College
Waterville, Maine 04901
It was brought to my attention that in the November 15th
Sunday edition of the New York Times the faculty of your
college has voted to ban recruiting students for the Central
Intelligence Agency.
We former proven practitioners of intelligence operations
so helpful to the winning of World War II, are most amazed
that the faculty of such a grand old American college as Colby
should be so innocent, naive or unable to understand that if
we do not have a modern secret intelligence agency, we might
as well give up the struggle and decide Western civilization
is too effete to protect itself against our enemies. The
reasons reported as given by your faculty for the ban are so
false they need no refutation; your faculty is simply misinformed.
In the dangerous world in which we live, clandestine as
well as overt intelligence is a harsh necessity, and the need
of our best brains in this effort is vital.
We exhort you, therefore, to take a firm stand against this
inane action of your faculty and permit the CIA to interest your
best intellects in the furtherance of intelligence activities,
without which the United States will never be able to meet on
equal terms the secret agencies of other nations, some of which
represent a pestilence that crawls in the darkness. Colby owes
this to America -- and certainly some of its students seem to
think so.
Yours truly,
97tM.T. ones
President
GMTJ/gl /
cc: Hon. William H. Webster V/
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
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OSS;
=FICERS
sident: Geoffrey M.T Jones
e Presidents: Ray S. Cline
Emilio O. Daddario
lional VPs: Peter Karlow
Western USA
Richard Dunlop
Central USA
Eddwin J. Putzell, Jr.
Southeast USA
Patrick Dolan
Europe
retary: Edward F. Boughton
isurer: William Duff
t. Secretary
James R. Weldon
t. Treasurer:
William J. Morgan, Jr.
ECUTIVE
COMMITTEE
Bruce Anderson
Carole G. Bird
Raymond L. Brittenham
John A. Bross
Peter D. Cini
Hon William E. Colby
Max Corvo
One Griffith de Romanones
William J. Hood
Lawrence R. Houston
John Howley
Rev Blahoslav S. Hruby
Henry B. Hyde
Edward Hymoff
Albert E Jolis
Kathleen A. Kearns
Hon Francis L. Kellogg
Albert G Lanier
Leonard P.Laundergan
Elizabeth P. McIntosh
Bonnie Ursin Moran
Dr William J. Morgan
Hon. Julian M. Niemczyk
Lt. Gen. William W. Quinn
Harry A Rositzke
Peter M. F. Sichel
Emily C Stone
Kay Sugahara
John Weitz
INOVAN AWARD
COMMITTEE
i. Owen McGivern, Chairman
Hon John A. Blatnik
Raymond L Brittenham
Joseph R Coolidge
Patrick Dolan
Henry B. Hyde
Hon. Clark MacGregor
Turner H. McBaine
Elizabeth McIntosh
ames St. Lawrence O'Toole
Edwin J. Putzell, Jr.
MBERSHIP
COMMITTEE
Franklin Cantield,Chairman
Carl F Eifler
Elizabeth P. McIntosh
Robert Macnair Morgan
VETERANS OF OSS
40th FLOOR
30 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10112
[phone] ? Telex: 127429
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/01: CIA-RDP90GO01 52RO01 202420007-2
Scene
In Thailand: A Cloak-and-Dagger Reunion
T hey were members of that dwindling
band that Franklin D. Roosevelt once
called "my secret army." now unarmed,
and far from secret anymore. Almost all
were in their late 60s and early 70s. no
longer lean and flat-stomached as they
were in those World War II days of dan-
ger and glory. But whatever their physical
condition, the visiting band of Americans
had great stories of derring-do to tell and
a wonderful place to tell them: Bangkok's
Saranrom Palace. a 105-year-old stately
structure that serves as Thailand's For-
eign Ministry. Last month the palace was
the site of a special reunion dinner for
71. a former U.S. Navy colonel from
Washington who boasted a new artificial
hip joint. Devlin was in Burma during the
war with oss Detachment 101. which won
the U.S. Presidential Unit Citation for its
guerrilla activities against the Japanese.
He added, looking down at his Brooks
Brothers seersucker suit. "Now we're just
old boys."
But very special Old Boys, not to
mention Old Girls. The members of the
oss group had each anted up at least
510.000 for a week-long visit to Thailand
that included the Free Thai commemora-
tion. Oss get-togethers have been annual
some 70 members of the fabled Office of
Strategic Services, precursor of the mod-
ern CIA, a handful of whose members had
fought to free Thailand from its wartime
Japanese occupiers.
There was William Pye, for example, a
balding, semiretired Massachusetts busi-
nessman who now works in real estate.
During the war Pye, now 68. trained the
first Thai natives who joined the oss from
the Free Thai Movement, the anti-Japa-
nese resistance. He led the group overland
from China's Yunnan province into Thai-
land, where they reported Japanese troop
movements and pinpointed targets for Al-
lied bombe rs flying from India.
Along with Pye was Francis Loet-
terle. 69, a retired executive from Arizo-
na. Loetterle jumped behind Japanese
lines into Thailand in 1945 as leader of a
second team of resistance fighters to make
the leap. The entire first team of partisans
was slotted by the occupiers and shot out
of the sky. "We were civilians who joined
the oss to do a job." said Francis Devlin,
events in the U.S. and Europe, but this
was the first of its kind held in Asia.
Perhaps no single Thai was more hos-
pitable than the host at the Foreign Min-
istry's recepiliuti and commemorative din-
ner. Foreign Minister Siddhi Savetsila. A
small, wiry man, Siddhi. 68, is also the
Thai air chief marshal. But he is proudest
of all that after Pearl Harbor, while a stu-
dent at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, he joined the Free Thai
Movement. Siddhi came back to his
homeland in 1945 as an oss agent to lo-
cate Allied prisoners ofwar. .As the minis-
ter told his guests in a voice trembling
with emotion. "I always look back with
pride to my time with the oss."
So did all those present at the gather-
ing, an unlikely crew of former corporate
executives. engineers and hankers. Their
days of hard action were tar behind-
most said they had given up sports like
squash and tennis in favor of more medi-
tative rounds of golf-hut memories were
still fresh and spirits exuberant. "If we
hadn't dropped the atom bomb, we were
ready to go into the soft underbelly of the
Japanese in Thailand, Indochina and Sin-
gapore," declared Willis Bird. 78, a retired
business consultant from Pennsylvania.
Bird is confined to a wheelchair but still
looks willing, if given the command, to try
that invasion anyway.
Not all the oss alums served in Thai-
land. or even in Asia, for that matter.
More than half fought and schemed in
Europe and arranged espionage missions
with Tito's Yugoslav Partisans, the
French Maquis and the Italian resistance.
But all felt equally comfortable basking in
the recognition of the feats performed by
their comrades-in-arms in Thailand.
w men you oeiong to the oss traternuy,
says Geoffrey M.T. Jones, a debonaire,
mustachioed former television producer,
"there is an immediate congenial inter-
change." Jones should know. A cloak-
and-dagger man who parachuted behind
the lines into France, he is full-time presi-
dent of the Veterans of oss, a voluntary
organization founded in 1947 that now
claims a worldwide membership of more
than 1.000.
The gala dinner at the Thai Foreign
Ministry was a Cinderella affair: black-tie
dress, ball gowns, vintage wines, warm
speeches. But another rare honor awaited
the vets: an audience with King Bhumibol
Adulyadej, the constitutional monarch,
visiting heads of state. The King met the
oss vets at Chitrlada Palace, the massive
Victorian-style royal residence. In a ses-
sion of almost an hour, Bhumibol ex-
pressed his gratitude for the Oss and its
exploits in his kingdom.
When not hobnobbing with royalty,
the former spooks behaved like any other
tourists. They shopped in the watery Riv-
er City and gawked at the three-spired
Grand Palace, the gold-roofed edifice
that is a re-creation of the splendors of
the old Siamese capital, Ayutthaya,
which was sacked by the Burmese in
1767. On their last day in Thailand, the
vets visited the legendary bridge on the
Kwai River that was built on the backs of
Allied prisoners of war. The oss alumni
laid a wreath in memory of the POWs who
died in the effort.
Back at Bangkok's Oriental Hotel,
the oldsters gabbed away a final evening
on the banks of the Chao Phraya, the
River of Kings, which flows through the
heart of Bangkok. "If I had to launch an
operation to blow up a bridge, I'd use one
of those rice boats out there to get to the
target," said Jones, pointing at a low-
slung craft that floated slowly by. "There
was no war, no bridge, no operation. But
there was still a hit of fire left in the war-
riors from Oss. ---By Dean BreflslBangkok
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BANGKOK POST TUESDAY NOVEMBER 3, 1987
A reunion of friendship
)N A stormy nifht more than 42
ears afo, Francis Loetterle pars-
huted into Thailand where under
he noses of the Japanese army he
nd his small team trained some
00 "Free Thai" in sabotage, street
ghting and jungle warfare during
ie closing months of World War II.
Last week the 69-year-old retired
usinesa executive was reunited
Pith a number of his surviving
students" as well as fellow Ameri-
in secret agents, guerrillas and
ropagandista who made up an au-
scious, decorated, sometimes con-
uversial spy outfit known as the
ffice of Strategic Services.
by
Denis Gray
The one-time operatives, some
ow of step or walking with the aid
canes, called each other by their
de names, carried tags of tong
abanded units and reminisced
rout clever intelligence gambits,
etly blunders and life - and not
frequently death - behind Japa-
'se lines.
Alexander MacDonald, corn-
ander of an OSS unit in Thailand,
et his communications man Dil-
)rth Brinton for the first time
ice the war and went shopping
th his former wife Betty McIn-
sh, who served with OSS in China
~d wrote a book titled "Undercov-
girl." Her speciality was concoct-
g rumours, lies and fake orders to
moralise Japanese forces.
"Frankly. Fm not big on dirty
cks, the CIA. But ours was a
onderfui mission and without
estion one of the finest experi-
ces of my life," Loetterle said. "I
is appreciated - and am to this
y. The Thais never forgot."
Indeed the 70 OSS veterans,
ves and widows were accorded a
lcome normally reserved for
ads of state, including an audi-
-e with His Majesty the King.
Besides forging lasting personal
s between the Americans and
mer "Free Thai," many of whom
e to prominent positions, the
S is widely credited here with
ping to check postwar demands
the British and other allies that
ailand be treated as an enemy
lion since it had formally sided
;h the Japanese.
Thailand's ambassador to Wash-
ton, Seni Pramoj, refused to pre-
it his country's declaration of
His Majesty graciously accepted the Donovan Medal as a symbol of friendship from Geolfrey Jones, president of the Veterans of
OSS and the William J. Donovan Memorial Foundation, on the occasion of the IGng's t0tr0 h birthday. The presentation took place
at ChlMada Palace last Thursday. Picture by Royal courtesy.
war and began organising the anti-
Japanese resistance at home and
abroad. The top "Free Thai" OSS
agent in Thailand was a man
named Pridi Banomyong, code-
named "Ruth," who became a
prime minister in the immediate
postwar era, when several demobi-
lised OSS officers chose to remain
in Thailand.
MacDonald, who was flying to-
wards a drop zone in Thailand
when the war ended, started the
English-language newspaper
Bangkok Post. Willis Bird, who still
lives in Bangkok, pioneered Thai-
land's stock market. Jim Thompson
revived the country's silk industry
and disappeared in the Malaysian
jungles under still mysterious cir-
cumstances in 1967.
These were among a talented
group of young men who volun-
teered to serve in an agency set up
July 11, 1941, to sprearhead Amer-
ica's intelligence effort in the war.
Led by William "Wild Bill" Dono-
van, a charismatic and freewheel-
ing officer, the OSS was blooded in
North Africa and then entered the
European theatre where it was ac-
cused by some orthodox US com-
manders of waging a "private war."
"We worked with anybody who
would help us win the war, and
they weren't all Sunday school
types," recalled Geofrey Jones, cur-
rent president of The Veterans of
the OSS. "We tried crazy things -
but some of them were successful."
OSS agents recruited Mafia
members, Roman Catholic priests
and fashion models. Jones said one
project floated was to attach fire
bomblets to bats which were to land
beneath Japanese houses. The bats
proved a homing species and re-
turned upon release to ignite the
experimental site headquarters.
But the OSS also notched major
triumphs, including the heroic op-
erations of Detachment 101 which
wreaked havoc behind Japanese
lines in Burma. It is regarded as
the first American unit to organise
local guerrillas for intelligence and
combat, and a forerunner of the
Green Berets in Vietnam.
In Vietnam, the OSS worked
with Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas -
and after victory argued with
Washington that the United States
should have maintained its ties
with the revolutionary leader rath-
er than side with the French in
Indochina.
The OSS was disbanded on Sep-
tember 20, 1945, and while some of
its members, like McIntosh, joined
its successor - the Central Intelli-
gence Agency - many returned to
civilian life.
Jones said about 1,000 belong to
the veterans group, and the names
of 750 others who served with OSS
are known. The organisation holds
periodic get-togethers, but the
Bangkok "reunion of friendship"
was the first in Asia. - AP
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VETERANS OF OSS
30 Rockefeller Plaza, 40th Floor
New York, NY 10112
Hon. William H. Webster
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC 20505
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