'CIA MISLEADING NATION'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200780021-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2010
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: April 26, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/17: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200780021-4
o APPUREN 'I
APPLETON POST-CRESCENT (WI)
.
26 April 1985
CimisIeading nation'
BY ANDY THOMPSON
PostdrosceM stall writer
During his first 17 years in the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency, Rap
Mc o11m was convinced that he was
ping save the world in the name of
democracy.
Now he sees the CIA as a covert ac-
tion arm of the presidency, over-
throwing or supporting foreign gov-
ernments while intentionally
misleading the public to justify its
activities.
McGehee, who created some of this
"disinformation" which eventually
was,relayed to the American public;
tried In his last eight years in the CIA
to:convince the agency not to mislead
citizens about the Vietnam War.
He left the agency in 1977, after 25
years of service in places like Japan,
Taiwan, The Philippines, Thailand
and Central America.
"Finally, I could no longer sustain
my prior ideological outlook," he told
a group assembled Thursday at the
Appleton Public Library He ap-
peared here as part of Central Ameri-
can Informatioet week.
McGehee, who warned the au-
dience that many of his statements
would seem unbelievable, became
disillusioned with the CIA when he
was not allowed to report the strength
of the communist movement in Thai-
land in the 1960s. He also "had a real
problem with the United States in
Vietnam."
"I protested the Vietnam war from
within for 10 years," he said. "The
agency was lying in propaganda to
the American people on what the war
was all about."
McGehee, who once served as chief
adviser to the head of the Vietnam
Vi ial police (the equivalent of
rica's Federal Bureau of In-
gation), left the CIA to write a
book which explained the situation to
Americans.
The book, "Deadly Deceits," took
three years to write and even longer
to b{{~in~g~ to the public because of ob-
jections by the CIA._
nature about his former employ
has resulted in surveillance. From
time to time, he said, his phone will
be tapped, his mail opened or his gar-
bage examined.
"But it is all done rather sloppily,"
he said at a press conference prior to
his speech. "I think intimidation is
the name of the game. It is my as-
sumption that these various sting op-
erations are directed at me to make
me dGsomething illegal."
It McGehee happened to identify a
sentence and a $50,000 fine. He
he ,#W d when he joined the CIA and
clee material to be made public
with officials.
` It;, bother me," he said of the
opot'sut*illance. "My only defense
Is , td'' a 1;00% legal."
After the book was published,
McGehee traveled to Cuba, Grenada
and Nicaragua. He sees some.paral-
leis between the CIA's involvement In
Vietnam and its presence in Central
America.
"I'm surprised at how unoriginal
things are," he said as he traced CIA
tactics over the years.
McGehee said there is always a
shipment of communist weapons
where the CIA is involved. Those
weapons are planted in a country and
the assumption is made that the
country is under communist attack,
he said.
He pointed to the United States' in-
vasion of Grenada as a "great ex-
ample of misinformation."
Americans were told that six ware-
houses in that country were filled
with communist weapons. But that
dissolved to two warehouses by the
time the media arrived in the country
a few days later.
McGehee said he watched situation
comedy-reruns instead of the evening
news during that period. "I think the
realism was the same on both of
them," he said.
His main fear about CIA in-
volvement in foreign countries (he
says the CIA is currently trying to
overthrow governments in 10 coun-
tries) is that harsh militaristic re-
gimes will rule.
The CIA is destroying popular
governments and replacing them
with brutal military governments,"
he said.
Meanwhile, in El Salvador, Presi-
dent Reagan contends that we are
supporting a democracy, and the CIA
is disseminating information which
supports a U.S. policy based on hu-
man rights violations in that country,
McGehee said.
"We're not told that it's mandatory
to vote and if they don't, they are a
good target of the death squads," he
said.
McGehee said every country in
Latin America and, Central America
has at one time or another been in-
fluenced by the CIA in terms of over-
throw or support.
"Particularly if the country is
small and weak, the CIA can prac-
tically dictate if the country can sur-
vive or not survive," he said.
McGehee said it is "very possible"
that U.S. troops might wind up in
Central American countries, "but I
hope it's not probable."
When the decision was made to put
American troops in Vietnam, the
public needed to be convinced that we
were needed there, according to
McGehee. He cited several instances
of CIA-produced disinformation re-
lating to that conflict and added that
the majority of American media were
suppressing stories which ran
against the policy of.the United States
and printing those stories favorable
to .the policy.
Evidence manufactured in Viet-
nam was designed to get Americans
behind the effort to prevent a take-
over by Ho Chi Minh when he in fact
already had control, McGehee con-
tended.
"Fifty-eight thousand dead Ameri-
,cans later... we began to see some of
the impact of the CIA's dirty tricks,"
he said.
The "most threatening operation,"
according to McGehee, was in con-
nection with Vietnam protesters, as
attention began to focus domes=
tically.
"We had become the enemy," he
said. "It was totally illegal; we had
no right to do any of it.
The overall aim is an economically
based world empire, and the best
.step citizens can take is to educate
theemmselves about the realities of U.S.
involvement in foreign countries,
McGehee stated.
"The best thing that can be done is
learn about everything and theis=mate this information," he
iid.
.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/17: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200780021-4