STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE [Vol. 2 No. 4, Fall 1958]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 110
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 29, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 1, 1958
• Content Type: STUDY

e 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDibkl3g1-12A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL
STUDIES
INTELLIGENCE
10B NO. -9-8---435121-67
Box NO, _
F !DER NO. _2
TOTALrocs HEREIN
VOL. 2 NO. 4
FALL 1958
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF TRAINING
Approved For Relea
0001-0
25
Approved For Release 2004/12/gkRW-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
All opinions expressed in the Studies are those of the
authors. They do not necessarily represent the official
views of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of
Training, or any other organizational component of the
intelligence community.
WARNING
This material contains information affecting the National
Defense of the United States within the meaning of the
espionage laws, Title 18, USC, Secs. 793 and 794, the trans-
mission or revelation of which to an unauthorized person is
prohibited by law.
Approved For Release 2004/12R-FFEiA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
25X1
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Next 1 Page(s) In Document Exempt
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL
Approved For Release 2004/12/174gAltifliqa,78-03921A000300220001-0
CONTENTS
Page
The Role of the Consultant in Intelligence Estimates
Joseph R. Strayer 1
An "ordinary citizen" participates in one "form of
divination." SECRET
25
The Covert Collection of Scientific Information
Louise D. Omandere 23
Frustrations and optimism in the most critical of
intelligence fields. SECRET
Soviet Defector Motivation John Debevoise 33
Soviet citizens choose freedom from punishment for
their misdeeds. SECRET
Defector Disposal (US) Delmege Trimble 43
An intricate psychological aftertask of intelligence
exploitation. SECRET
Reminiscences of a Communications Agent . Expatriate 55
Dark-room and dangers. CONFIDENTIAL
Executive Privilege in the Field of Intelligence
Lawrence R. Houston 61
The position of the intelligence officer in the face of
congressional and court demands for confidential
information. OFFICIAL USE ONLY
A Definition of Intelligence . . . . Martin T. Bimfort 75
A second assault on an intractable concept. SECRET
MORI
Approved For Release 2004/57 EN.t.fAr.030022000,-0
\
)j V
Approved For Release 2
.1'
i LAL
Itt+CIA-rcDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Critiques of Some Recent Books on Intelligence . 79
CONFIDENTIAL
Central Intelligence and National Security by
H. H. Ransom Abbot Smith
C. I. A., by Joachim Joesten . . Philip K. Edwards
Burma Drop, by John Beamish
Richard K. Shabason
UNCLASSIFIED ARTICLES
Counterintelligence for National Security
87
25X1
Sketches the kinds of information
security measures, and the activities
tions that produce it.
prerequisite for
and organiza-
The Mail from Budapest . . . .
93
25X1
A delightful classic in the history
gence operations.
of counterintelli-
The Greater Barrier
105
25X1
The imminent solution of the foreign language com-
munication problem will leave only the problem of
communication in English.
Communication to the Editors
113
A student of the Civil War disagrees with portions of
a recent STUDIES article.
We Spied Walter Pforzheimer
119
Evaluates an addition to the intelligence bibliogra-
phy.
MORI
Approved For Release 2004/friffffitIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL
25X1
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002ReagT0
An "ordinary citizen" appraises
his participation in one "form
of divination."
THE ROLE OF THE CONSULTANT
IN INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES
Joseph R. Strayer
Most consultants, at one time or another in their careers,
wonder what excuse there is for their existence. They do not
have continuing access to all the sources of information avail-
able to the intelligence community. They can spend only a
few hours in pondering the significance of events which require
days or weeks for proper analysis. Yet they are asked for
advice about the most complicated problems and are expected
to give their opinion on five minutes' notice. They wonder if
the ritual of consultation has any more value than other forms
of divination. They fear that they often seem naive and
ignorant and they know that they can correct these deficiencies
only by using up the time of intelligence officers who presuma-
bly have something better to do.
These feelings of guilt are made worse by the fact that the
work is interesting and enjoyable. The problems are impor-
tant, even if the consultant's opinion is not. However ignorant
the consultant may be at the start of his career, he will find
himself enlightened during his period of service. The intelli-
gence community has not solved all its problems of style and
organization but it usually succeeds in presenting essential
facts in a clear, logical and compact form. There is no better
way to get an education in world affairs than to act as a con-
sultant. But these benefits only deepen the consultant's
doubts. What does he give one-half so precious as what he
receives?
For some kinds of consultant the answer is fairly easy. These
are the men who have dined with dictators or haggled with
desert sheikhs, who understand the mysteries of international
finance or the intricacies of oriental politics. Such men have
specialized knowledge and technical proficiency, they add to
the pool of information and skill available to the intelligence
MORI/HRP
1
ApproveYWhelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0 from pg. 01-05
V3a:?ed For Release 2004/12/17 : 91tIEFe'72,10?h9e21e0OnOst93,9?20001-0
community instead of draining it. The need for this type of
consultant is too obvious to require explanation; intelligence
can always use expert knowledge of little-known areas or of
highly technical problems.
But even these experts are often consulted on matters in
which they have no special competence, and intelligence often
recruits consultants who are not experts at all. They are ordi-
nary, well-informed citizens, with some interest in foreign
affairs. What special knowledge they may have is usually
confined to Europe, an area on which practically everyone in
Washington is an expert. It is to be hoped that they also have
good sense and good judgment, but these qualities are certainly
at least as common in the intelligence community as in any
group of outsiders. What can such men contribute to the in-
telligence effort?
Since I belong to this group of consultants which has no par-
ticularly valuable expertise, my answer to this question may
be somewhat self-serving. As far as I can see, the chief value
of these consultants lies precisely in their lack of special
knowledge. If nothing else, this makes them fairly representa-
tive of a large number of the consumers of intelligence prod-
ucts. Any text-book writer knows that it is fatal to ask an
expert whether a particular chapter is clear and meaningful.
Either he will read all his own knowledge into it and pass over
loose organization and glaring omissions, or he will quarrel with
every generalization and load it with unnecessary detail. The
best critic of the first draft of a text-book is an intelligent
person who has only a sophomore's knowledge of the field. In
the same way, the best critic of an intelligence paper is prob-
ably the consultant who has only a general knowledge of the
topic. If he misinterprets a key passage, if he is not convinced
by the reasoning, if he feels that some essential information
has been omitted, then the chances are that several consumers
will have the same reactions.
For example, consultants have sometimes been troubled by
the indiscriminate use of the terms "left" or "leftist." Since
"leftist" can mean anything from a man who believes in uni-
versal suffrage to an ardent supporter of Communism it does
not help very much to be told that the cabinet of country X
has "four leftist members." Consultants have also been critical
of the use of technical phrases in places where non-technical
/*proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0W66120001-0
Approverfilqtrogelscamae2tVisliNgt: CIA-RDP78-03921A000300210211-0
language would be just as effective. Why say "has optimum
capability" when all that is meant is "works best"? The war
against vagueness and jargon must be fought by all members
of the intelligence community, but consultants can sometimes
be used as shock troops in the struggle.
Lack of precision is not the only reason why a paper may fail
to be convincing. Sometimes the argument seems too precise,
it places too much weight on logic and reasonableness. Con-
sultants may not be expert but they have usually had enough
experience to realize that human beings seldom solve their
problems in a completely logical and sensible way. A nice
example of this clash of logic and experience occurred a few
years ago when the French Assembly was debating the ratifica-
tion of the ill-fated EDC agreements. The first draft of a paper
shown to a group of consultants predicted with some confidence
that the agreements would be ratified. The arguments for
this belief were strong. They were based on intensive investi-
gation of the attitude of the government and the deputies and
they were presented with impeccable logic. But some con-
sultants distrusted the underlying assumption that the depu-
ties would be reasonable and follow a policy of enlightened
self-interest. They argued that these qualities are rare in any
political group and especially in a French political group.
Their opposition may have helped to make the final draft of
the paper much less certain about ratification, even though it
still leaned to the wrong side.
Criticism of style and logic is an essentially negative func-
tion. The consultant can also make some positive contribu-
tions. He should not hesitate to ask obvious and even silly
questions. The greatest danger in intelligence work, as in-
deed in all intellectual activity, is that of falling into a repeti-
tive routine. We all know of cases in which judgments have
been repeated year after year simply because they were once
sanctioned by the highest authority. It does no harm to re-
examine what seems obvious or to question long-established
generalizations. It was, I believe, a consultant who first
queried the standard passage about the USSR being unwilling
to conclude an Austrian State Treaty. It was another con-
sultant who cast doubt on the clich?hat Mohammedanism
and Communism are fundamentally incompatible. On the
other hand, certain consultants were demonstrably wrong when
SE.CREI 3
Approvea ror Kelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Pamtpd For Release 2004/12/17 : 9weeralownosoiggp000i-o
they urged that there was a real possibility that the USSR
would withdraw from East Germany in return for a neutraliza-
tion of the reunited country. But their question at least forced
the intelligence community to examine with greater care its
basic assumptions about Soviet policy in Germany and so in
the end to have greater confidence in its estimate that the
USSR considered it essential to retain its hold on East Germany.
Most important of all, the consultant, simply because he
stands a little farther away from the trees, can sometimes see
the first signs of the storms which will destroy certain portions
of the forest. The intelligence community, like any other
group, must assume that there will be a certain amount of
continuity in the phenomena with which it deals. If it did not
do so, it could not function. If precedents mean nothing, if
what a statesman does today has no bearing on what he does
tomorrow, then it becomes impossible to make estimates. Some
of the most valuable intelligence papers ever written those
projecting the future economic growth of the USSR ? were
based on the assumption that existing trends would continue.
But, granting all this, quantum jumps do occur in human
affairs. Sudden changes can overthrow precedents and dis-
tort trends. It is hard for anyone to foresee such changes; it
is particularly hard for men who have spent years watching a
certain pattern of conduct emerge and apparently stabilize
itself. The worst failures of intelligence in recent years have
been caused by this inability to anticipate the possibility of
drastic change.
I am not suggesting that greater reliance on consultants
could have prevented many, or indeed any, of these failures.
Like most educated men, consultants tend to overestimate the
element of continuity. But sometimes consultants do not
know very well what it is that is supposed to continue. Because
they have fewer old facts in their minds they are more recep-
tive to the scattered new facts which indicate that a change is
coming. I can remember two incidents which illustrate this
point. The first came after the death of Stalin. Certainly no
one could then have predicted the exact nature of the changes
which would occur. But there was a tendency on the part of
some members of the intelligence community to deny that any
change would take place. Certain consultants, on the other
hand ? mostly those who knew little about the Soviet
ipproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921AVART)220001-0
ApproviugeRvoffelefam2RWINk: CIA-RDP78-03921A000300RW-0
Union ? felt that drastic change was inevitable, that no one
but Stalin could continue Stalin's system. Their arguments
may have been weak, but their hunch was right. A little more
willingness to look for signs of change in the months following
Stalin's death might have prevented some poor estimates.
The other case was more recent. When the Gaillard govern-
ment fell in France early this year, the generally accepted
opinion was that this was merely another episode in the
lamentable history of the Fourth Republic. Another weak
government would be formed, which would limp along until
replaced by an even weaker successor. Some consultants, how-
ever, felt that this was the last straw, that the French would
no longer tolerate a system which made them politically im-
potent. In spite of their counsel, the possibility of a Gaullist
regime was still being denied by some elements of the intelli-
gence community almost up to the moment when de Gaulle
took power.
One final moral: on both occasions the consultants deferred
to the greater knowledge of the experts whom they were advis-
ing and did not press their point of view very strongly. This
was an abnegation of their proper function. Dissent leads to
questioning of established opinion, and only through question-
ing established opinion can we arrive at the imperfect knowl-
edge which is all that intelligence can ever attain.
Sgin 5
Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001
Approve -0
25X1
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Next 15 Page(s) In Document Exempt
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200,0I1.7.0
btL,Kt
The purloiner of scientific se-
crets pleads for patience, part-
nership, and better guidance.
THE COVERT COLLECTION OF
SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION
Louise D. Omandere
This country, which has for over a hundred years led the
world in technical development, is confronted by the very real
possibility ? some say probability ? of falling behind in the
scientific and technical race, and most dramatically in the
contest for supremacy in space ? in rockets and missiles, in
earth satellite vehicles and manned space platforms, the emer-
gent key elements of the power position of great nations. At
this critical juncture it behooves this community to look to its
performance in the field of scientific intelligence, to ask whether
we are giving it sufficient emphasis, to review its processes and
address ourselves to its problems.
This article is addressed to one aspect of scientific intelli-
gence, perhaps its least prominent one, the clandestine collec-
tion of scientific and technical information. But covert collec-
tion cannot be considered in isolation from collection as a
whole, nor collection in isolation from reporting, analysis and
production; and we shall touch on all of these.
Pin-pointing the Covert Requirement
Let us begin with the first question the collector asks: "What
shall I collect?" (Not how, but what. How is the second step.)
Whence comes the answer to this question? Essentially from
the analyst; the collector cannot determine which data among
those available are critical and must be collected at no matter
what risk unless he is informed by the man who day after day
analyzes all available material in his particular field. The col-
lector must rely on the analyst to direct him, and to a certain
degree his success depends upon the aptness and precision of
the requirements he is called upon to fill.
Particularly is this true in the field of scientific intelligence
where frequently minute scientific data are crucial. A require-
ment which asks, "Tell us all you know about such-and-such a
MORI/HRP
a from pg. 23-31
ApproveggMelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000?-v
tEeard For Release 2004/12/17 : Cev-eRr? Plctn?
ac216%03.i0o0n220001 -0
target or about research in such-and-such a field," is not calcu-
lated to develop the kind of intelligence information the analyst
really needs. The intelligence officer running a scientific col-
lection operation is no better equipped with this requirement
than he was without it. Yet this is the type of requirement he
most commonly receives.
Suppose, for example, that a field intelligence officer is run-
ning an operation against a target which comprises institutes
in all the major basic sciences and in their military applica-
tions ? a technical institute. (Lest it be assumed that such
a target be purely hypothetical, it should be stated that there
are several of this kind presently confronting the collector.
One of them has, in addition to its general administrative set-
up, the following military Divisions: Engineering, Artillery,
Signal, Anti-Aircraft Artillery, Planning, and Experimental. It
also has technical units as follows: War Technical Institute,
Biology Department, Bacteriological Technical Unit, Meteor-
ology Technical Unit, Security, Chemical Department, Textile
and Material Laboratories, Radar and Radio Laboratories, Sig-
nal Corps Research and Storage, Explosives and Pyrotechnic
Laboratory, and one unit the function of which is not known.)
Faced with the necessity to collect information on such a
target, where does the covert collector begin if he is armed only
with a requirement for "all information available on the
Target"?
Because such an institute would be vital to the scientific
potential of the country in which it was located, its activities
would be shrouded in secrecy. Even so, it would be next to
impossible for some information on it not to get into semi-overt
and overt channels. For example, if the institute were located
in a city where service attaches are posted ? and most of these
institutes are so located ? the attaches could undoubtedly re-
port in some detail on the location, physical description, and
physical security of the target. Except in highly classified
military fields, there would probably also be local press releases
concerning scientific developments at the institute.
More important is the wealth of information overtly deriva-
ble from the publications of any institute's staff. The amount
of intelligence information on classified subjects obtainable by
analysis of overt literature was recently put to the test by a
highly sensitive U.S. installation which maintains rigid security
4proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921AVOM220001-0
ApproviteVA FNigonnc2KUNZ : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300231(9alr0
precautions. As an experiment, a scientist well qualified in
one of the specialties of the installation but without knowledge
of its work or that of its subcontractors was engaged to study
the overt publications of personnel at the installation. Al-
though classified research cannot be published and all publi-
cations of the installation's staff must be cleared by the appro-
priate scientific and military authorities, this expert was able
after studying the overt material which he found on his own in
the Library of Congress to determine the entire program of
that installation, including its most highly classified aspects.
With one minor exception, he reconstructed its total research,
development and production program.
It is true that Americans in defense work are allowed to
publish more freely than their Soviet Bloc counterparts. But
even in Iron Curtain countries the complete muzzling of sci-
entists has been found impossible. Restrictions on the publi-
cation of scientific information have been considerably relaxed
in the Soviet Bloc since 1955, and particularly within the last
two years, in recognition of the fact that science flourishes or
dies to the degree that the exchange of ideas among scientists
is encouraged or constricted, and in deference to scientists'
need to publish in order to establish nationally and interna-
tionally their professional reputation.
Information on much of the work of our secret target's scien-
tific staff would thus be readily available to the U.S. intelligence
community through the Library of Congress, the Department
of Commerce, and the community's own program for exploita-
tion of foreign documents. Moreover, scientists from this
target would inevitably be allowed to attend international con-
gresses in their fields of specialty, and would probably be per-
mitted to present scientific papers at such congresses. The
exploitation of these congresses through the multiple ma-
chinery of overt collection would furnish additional informa-
tion on scientific developments at the institute.
Asking the covert collector for "all available information" on
this target, then, is asking him to collect information which
can be gathered by the analyst from overt and semi-overt
sources to which he has ready access. A thorough analysis
of these overt data would limit the areas which required covert
coverage and enable the clandestine collector to concentrate
his efforts on the really covert aspects of the target. Only the
ApprovesSarRelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200N-0
Agnefd For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Covert Scientific Collection
consumer can thus collate and analyze the overtly available
information and levy a resultant meaningful requirement upon
the collector.
We see, then, that the first step of collection the
What ? rests in the hands of the analyst, and that only a
sound, detailed and exclusively covert requirement will yield
maximum results in the clandestine collection of information.
Analysis of all the information at hand ? overt, semi-overt and
covert ? and the levying of well-founded requirements to fill
in its gaps constitute the first and basic step in the process of
collection. Let us turn now to the next step in the process ?
the How.
The Man and His Methods
The covert collection of scientific information is fraught with
many difficulties, more than any other field of intelligence.
Special knowledge is required to understand the meaning of
data in this field. The information most desperately needed
by the scientific intelligence community is hidden deep within
the folds of Soviet security in areas almost totally inaccessible
to ordinary covert operations. In addition, certain highly
critical scientific work can be carried on under the nose of the
collector without the slightest risk of detection; biological war-
fare research is an example of such work. (BW is in fact the
best form of do-it-yourself warfare. Enough pathogenic mate-
rial can be manufactured in a camp kitchen in forty-eight
hours to incapacitate a tremendous military installation.
Dissemination of the material can be easily handled by one
person who can drive through or even around the installation.)
The key individual in covert collection is the field intelli-
gence officer, the "case officer" responsible for handling the
agent ? for contacting him, for maintaining the critically im-
portant rapport with him, for giving him instructions on what
to do and how to do it, and for eliciting information from him
according to prescribed requirements. The case officer is de-
pendent upon his headquarters components, both in the field
and in Washington, for support in maintaining the necessary
relationships with his agent, for the formulation of information
requirements tailored to the specific capability and location of
the agent.
ROproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A4ORT220001-0
APP""EcoVe?1gg-55? 0 ec
C2eofyikirr : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300gieffif-0
In some fields of intelligence ? the political, economic and
even military ? the case officer with operational experience
and an informed knowledge of current events can, if necessary,
formulate his own requirements when he is unable to obtain
them from the consumer. If, for example, he is suddenly faced
with an opportunity to debrief an important source of informa-
tion on military plans and does not have time to cable for
requirements, he can do a creditable job on his own and develop
most of the required information. In the scientific field, how-
ever, this is not possible. Unless he is a highly qualified sci-
entist in precisely the same field as his agent-scientist, he can-
not debrief him without appropriate requirements received
from the consumer. A case officer trained in physics, for ex-
ample, would be ignorant of the field of microbiology. With-
out appropriate requirements, tailored specifically for the
microbiologist, he would be as helpless as the case officer who
specialized in political or counterespionage operations. And
even if he is a scientist in the proper field, he still needs state-
ments of requirements in order to keep abreast of the changing
gaps in substantive intelligence while conducting operations in
the field.
The case officer is a species of its own, possessing generalist
abilities and specialist skills. It is a rare scientist who has all
the qualifications of a good case officer, and an even rarer one
who has them and is also willing to forsake his scientific career
for an anonymous one in intelligence. The ideal scientific and
technical case officer is this rare individual. It is therefore
usually necessary, in selecting a scientific case officer, to make
a foregone choice between these two sets of qualifications, those
of the case officer and those of the scientist: the former are
indispensable to a successful operation in any field, including
the scientific. A good case officer, with appropriate training
and good requirements, can conduct a very successful operation
in the scientific and technical field. A good scientist who is
not adaptable to operations cannot.
Faced with the shortage of the ideal scientific case officer
and the resultant necessity of using a layman, the collector
must first overcome the difficulty caused by the layman's
reluctance to deal with scientific material. An excellent case
officer may shrink from a scientific operation simply because
the language is totally foreign to him. In the political or even
Approvegg&ETRelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000F0
AgEsiffd For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78:03921A000300220001-0
Covert Scientific Collection
economic field he is on familiar ground and is confident that
if necessary he can fend for himself, but in the scientific field
he feels lost. He cannot evaluate what he hears, and without
guidance he does not know whether he has new and critical
information, old and unwanted data, or mere fabrication. He
also frequently feels at a great disadvantage in talking to his
agent, who is highly learned in subjects of which he is himself
totally ignorant and the basic principles of which he cannot
understand. This reluctance to undertake scientific opera-
tions can be overcome by giving the case officer basic training
in scientific principles and terminology and by interesting him
in the importance of scientific and technical information.
We have said that the really critical scientific information
needed by the United States is almost completely hidden in
impregnable installations deep within the Soviet Union. Yet
the collection of much-needed scientific intelligence informa-
tion is not completely impossible. If we work at the primary
targets from the periphery, we have a reasonable chance of
success, of obtaining enough critical information to enable us
at least to make educated guesses which may come satisfyingly
close to an accurate estimate.
One of the potentially most fruitful sources of scientific in-
telligence information is the scientific congress. An interna-
tional scientific congress or conference is the mecca of every
scientist, and Soviet and Satellite scientists are attending these
conferences in increasing numbers. Over one thousand such
conferences, congresses, symposia and colloquia are held every
year, providing for a substantial amount of intercourse among
scientists of all nationalities. Many of the same scientists
attend meetings of the same group held yearly or biennially.
In considering the scientific congress from the intelligence
viewpoint, a clear distinction must be made between the con-
gress as a source of positive information and as an operational
arena. The positive information the congress yields is almost
invariably overt. The scientific papers, the open floor discus-
sions and the small seminar sessions are all easily covered
through overt sources. Thus there is little need to expend the
efforts of the clandestine collector at a scientific congress
merely to collect positive intelligence information.
As an operational arena, however, the congress can hardly be
surpassed. For one thing, scientists of all nationalities, Bloc
Afiproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921AMM220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300a0eR0E1f0
Covert Scientific Collection
and non-Bloc, can meet on common ground, in an atmosphere
as free of political tension as can be found in present-day cir-
cumstances. For another, it is possible for the same scientist
to reestablish, time after time, contact with his counterpart
from behind the Curtain without being conspicuous in so doing.
He can meet his counterparts not only on the conference floor
and in closed sessions, but on social occasions as well. Partic-
ularly for Western scientists who have appropriate language
qualifications, social intercourse with their Satellite colleagues
is common and easily arranged. Through attendance at peri-
odically recurring conferences, it is possible for Western sci-
entists to meet their Satellite counterparts year after year, and
it has become standard practice to correspond between meet-
ings and to exchange reprints.
Over a period of time, sufficient rapport can often be estab-
lished between Eastern and Western participants at these con-
gresses to provide the basis for a clandestine operation, begin-
ning, for example, with the introduction of a case officer to the
target scientist for the purpose of recruitment. Once a Soviet
Bloc scientist has agreed to work for the West, there will be
little difficulty in maintaining subsequent communications.
For, if the operation has been handled professionally and
securely, the recruited scientist will within six months to a
year be attending another conference, where he can be securely
debriefed and rebriefed. Thus there is no necessity to attempt
to lay on an elaborate secret writing method or code, which at
best can yield only fragments of information and which is
fraught with operational and security hazards. In short, what
can be achieved through operations at international confer-
ences is in fact penetrations of target installations within Bloc
areas.
The greatest success so far achieved through this means has
been the recruitment of Satellite scientists who travel to the
USSR, sometimes for periodic short visits and occasionally for
extended study or work, who can report on their observations
and work within the Soviet Union when next they attend a
conference in the West.
Inept or non-professional elicitation of Bloc scientists, how-
ever, has resulted in the discovery of these efforts by the opposi-
tion and the resultant loss of potentially valuable assets.
Within recent months, the East German Government has an-
Approvegg&TRelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220000
NyEked For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RIDP78-03921,900300220001-0
Covert bcientitic Collection
flounced in the press that GDR scientists would not be allowed
to attend scientific congresses in West Germany because such
congresses were so widely exploited by American intelligence.
Thus, in order for the United States to derive maximum benefit
from conference exploitation, our efforts in this field, both overt
and covert, must be handled professionally and securely. These
efforts and their security can be fortified by thorough coordi-
nation among the intelligence elements concerned. If the in-
telligence activity at scientific conferences were disclosed to
Soviet intelligence, Soviet attendance at such conferences in
the future would undoubtedly be curtailed and perhaps alto-
gether prohibited. In that event a profitable long-range poten-
tial for covert collection of scientific information would
disappear.
But if the program outlined above can be prosecuted in a
well-planned manner for a period of time, the eventual pene-
tration of the more important targets within the Soviet Union
through scientists who have agreed to report on their activities
becomes a realistic possibility.
Legal travelers are another source of scientific intelligence
information. Western scientists have been allowed to tour
wide areas of the Soviet Union and with the trained eye of the
scientist can observe and report in accurate detail on the in-
stallations visited. While no really critical target can be ade-
quately covered in this manner, still information of value which
will contribute to the overall picture of Soviet scientific poten-
tial can be gathered. On a limited scale, Western scientists
have been permitted to visit Soviet scientists in their homes.
This enables the Westerner to collect information on the habits
and attitudes of the Soviet scientist in his home atmosphere,
his family attachments, hobbies and other characteristics, in-
formation which helps headquarters assess the scientist's
potential with a view to future operations.
Even non-scientific legal travelers can be of considerable
assistance when furnished simple collection techniques which
can be applied with complete security, are non-compromising
if discovered, but at the same time yield valuable and even
critical scientific data. Such collection techniques can also be
given to resident agents, legal or illegal travelers, and even
couriers. While elaborate gadgetry and large black boxes are
limited in their application to field operations, other more
APproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A6601111220001-0
ApprovKfecifINgrwc2polydgicv : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300Wa-0
simple techniques with a wide variety of applications can be
used without considerable risk to the agent. Great caution
should be exercised in the employment of any such techniques
in order to avoid an exposure which would render them useless
in the future, but properly handled they have a real potential
for developing answers to presently unanswerable questions.
ApprovAR3TRelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200011-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002gpah0
The inside spies are recruited
from the discontented officials
of the enemy.?Sun Tzu, c. 500
B.C.
SOVIET DEFECTOR MOTIVATION
John Debevoise
On the eve of the new year 1954, toward midnight, a chauf-
feur-driven Mercedes-Benz stopped midway on one of the
Danube bridges in Vienna. A bulky, rather well-dressed indi-
vidual with the wide bell-bottom trousers Soviet officials wear
stepped out, dismissed the car, went to the rail, and was imme-
diately lost in the chill fog which rose from the river. As the
New Year dawned, headlines in Viennese newspapers an-
nounced that Soviet citizen Gregoriy Ryapolov had drowned
himself in the Danube; his overcoat and jacket had been found
near the bridge railing. He had been Director General of AEG
Union, a USIA (Administration of Soviet Property in Austria)
firm.
While the Viennese were reading this latest scandal of the
Soviet occupation, Ryapolov himself was en route by air to the
Defector Reception Center near Frankfurt am Main, accom-
panied by an American case officer. He had been "induced" to
defect. His well-staged suicide had been planned in detail by
his Austrian mistress, who accompanied him to freedom, and
an American officer in touch with her. As planned, he was
picked up by these two in another car after leaving a few
articles of clothing on the bridge to indicate his suicide.
Transgressors in Trouble
In the early stages of Ryapolov's interrogation it became
apparent that his defection was not ideologically motivated.
He had been receptive to an inducement pitch only because he
was in deep trouble: a whole shipment of AEG Union genera-
tors sent to the USSR had been found defective, and Ryapolov,
as the head of the firm, was being investigated. His panic was
the decisive "inducement." Ryapolov's case is illustrative gen-
erally of the entire defector inducement problem. A Soviet
citizen usually has to be mired deep in difficulties before he
will even consider defection. You hear of "ideological defec-
tors," but when you deal with Soviets you seldom meet one.
MORI/HRP
Approve?EREkelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220004% from pg. 33-42
ikeRvred For Release 2004/12/17 : SlcimypD7etwo9r2mogrg000n220001-o
Readers for whom inducement is a word charged with the
hint of shadowy adventure deserve at this point a description
of the routine process in its ordinary milieu. Every evening
when the ice begins to melt in diplomatic cocktails around the
world, a parallel thaw occurs in the ostensible personal rela-
tions between the assembled representatives of the USSR and
Western diplomats. In this atmosphere of amiability take
place the skirmishes of reconnaissance patrols in the great
game of inducement ? the probing of those charged with dis-
covering which among the company is susceptible to subversion
in some way or other for the purposes of the subverter.
The objective of the game for the players on both sides is
ultimately to develop relations, if possible, to such a point of
confidence that a private meeting can be held to discuss one
or the other of two actions ? recruitment in place or outright
defection. Measured in terms of defections to the West from
among the ranks of Soviet diplomacy, the results of these in-
ducement attempts can, after more than a decade, be charita-
bly described as slim. We seem to be successful only when, as
with Ryapolov, our probings discover a human soul in terror,
facing retribution for previous misdoings.
It can in fact be taken as a general rule that for Soviets a
grievous transgression of one kind or another must precede and
through anxiety precipitate defection. There have been all
told quite a number of Soviet defections in various parts of the
world since 1951, when record-keeping began and the U.S.
defector program was formulated in NSCID 13 (now NSCID 4).
Ivan Karpovich Permyakov, a Soviet Army private who de-
fected on 18 April 1951, was the first to be handled under this
Directive at the newly opened Defector Reception Center in
Germany, 15 kilometers outside Frankfurt am Main. Since
then 87 Soviet citizens have passed through the DRC, and else-
where 60 others have defected to the West. Their motives have
been varied, but uniformly they have been in trouble and
needed to flee impending exposure or punishment for misdo-
ing. The ancient impulse to migrate, to leave one land and
settle in another in hope of better fortune, the old urge that
emptied Europe of its malcontents and filled America, is not
powerful enough at mid-twentieth-century to propel a Soviet
citizen beyond his country's borders.
proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A660815g220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12117 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300%,KWO
Soviet Detector Motivation
The getting out, for the vast bulk of residents of the USSR,
is too difficult to permit thought of any kind of emigration.
But there are factors beyond those of border guards, distance,
and lack of means which act to deter defection. One of these
is a complex of fears. A prospective defector has to consider
what will happen to him if his attempt at defection fails. There
are stiff penalties for attempting to leave the control of the
authorities without their permission; what is simple emigration
in the West is treason in the Communist system. The fear of
failure and for self is broadened by the Soviet law that permits
reprisals against blood relatives as penalty for defection. A
Soviet citizen traveling or stationed in the West usually leaves
some member of his family behind in the USSR. Such a per-
son is, in blunt language, a hostage against whom reprisals
may be taken if the Soviet defects. Not much is known of the
extent to which this legal sanction is invoked, but its existence
is undoubtedly a real deterrent.
Then most Soviets, even Muscovites, are provincial in the
world sense. They have a fear of the unknown West that sur-
passes by far the 19th century U.S. country bumpkin's sus-
picions of the big city, a fear officially nurtured by indoctrina-
tion. They have been told that if they were to seek asylum in
the West they would fall into the hands of imperialist intelli-
gence officers who would wring information from them as juice
is squeezed from an orange, and when their usefulness had
ceased they would be cast back upon Soviet mercies, much as
the rind of an orange is cast aside when the juice is gone.
The potential defector's doubts about his future in the West
must be aggravated by the successes of the Soviet repatriation
campaign and by the stories of some of the returnees concern-
ing their treatment abroad. A "Committee for Return to the
Homeland" in East Berlin carries on an aggressive campaign
to encourage Soviets all over the world to return to the USSR.
Many, many have taken advantage of this Committee's offer
and have gone back. Many more will do so. Quite a few of
these repatriates, coming from refugee centers in Europe, had
constituted the hard core of the resettlement problem in that
they were unacceptable outside the camps because of disease
or mental instability. Others, coming from Central or South
America, had never quite melded into a social structure which
by and large is lacking a suitable middle class. You are either
Approve&Kgaelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000n
tpgergTed For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-IDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Soviet Defector Motivation
a landlord or a peon in many parts of Latin America, and a
good many of the Soviets resettled there never got used to their
status as "white Indians." They were easily persuaded to
repatriate, their fares paid all the way. No one seems to know
precisely the reaction these returnees are producing within the
USSR, but their presence by the hundreds all over the Soviet
Union is certain to act as a deterrent to defection.
These universal physical and psychological barriers to defec-
tion are supplemented by certain specific influences, equally
powerful, which act on particular groups. These further de-
terrents fall into two categories, those affecting the military
and those applying to civilians.
Military Defections
Loyalty of the Soviet soldier to his oath and to his superiors
acted as one of the gravest of his deterrents during ten years
following the war when parts of the Soviet Army were in Aus-
tria, East Germany and East Berlin, contiguous to the borders
of the free world. The strength of this loyalty was best illus-
trated in Vienna, where there were no barriers between occu-
pation zones and access was open to all without hindrance.
From the time early in 1951 when DRC was established until
the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Austria in 1955 there
were only 11 Soviet military defections in this area. This
paucity of defection in relation to the number of Soviets who
had the opportunity was explained away at the time by reason-
ing that Soviet personnel in Austria were already enjoying liv-
ing conditions and social arrangements far better than they
had known at home, and therefore had no need to defect. It
was said that the Soviet soldier "had never had it so good."
The test would come, said the experts, if and when there was
ever a pull-out of the Soviet Armed Forces from Austria.
With the signing of the Austrian State Treaty came the long-
awaited pull-out during the summer of 1955. Despite the fact
(reported by a Soviet defector who had been a civilian employee
of the Soviet Forces in Vienna) that no special precautions
were taken to prevent defections from the withdrawing forces,
Western preparations to receive the expected defector flood
were wasted. Despite the lack of fences and guarded borders,
despite the thousands of forbidden ties Soviet troops enjoyed
with Austrian Fraeulein, despite substantial inducement efforts
*proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921P220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030W3a94-0
Soviet Detector Motivation
of all kinds, not a single Soviet soldier requested asylum. The
Soviet Army decamped its thousands. There were rumors that
some of them had remained behind, but none ever appeared in
defector channels. What was considered a riddle at that time
appears in retrospect merely to illustrate the loyalty the Soviet
has to his authorities and his homeland.
Although loyalty is thus apparently the strongest factor
opposing defection among the largest group of Soviets ever
allowed outside the USSR, some Soviet soldiers and officers
have defected and others probably will. Since 1951, 11 Soviet
officers and 33 enlisted men have deserted to the West. Only
three of these, however, were more or less "ideologically moti-
vated." Aleksander Smirnov, a re-enlisted sergeant, fell in love
with one of the German girls employed by U.S. intelligence in
an inducement project. She persuaded him to desert and de-
livered him. into U.S. hands in Berlin in September 1954. Be-
fore that, a Junior Sergeant named Vladimir Vasil'yevich
Murav'yev was persuaded to defect in place by the Gehlen Amt
(now become the Bundes Nachtrichtendienst, the German In-
telligence Service). He furnished various Soviet Army publica-
tions and reported on his unit's activities in Vienna, but in June
1954 was forced to seek asylum because a cache of documents
he had stolen was found and an investigation was under way.
He had been the battalion librarian and mail clerk, an ideal
position for intelligence purposes. He ultimately was debriefed
at the DRC and entered the United States Army as a Lodge
Act alien enlistee in April 1956.
The case of this Junior Sergeant is coupled with that of a
Junior Lieutenant as two high points in the defector program
because of their comparative purity of motivation. Ivan
Ovchinnikov, Junior Lieutenant with a Radio Intercept Regi-
ment, told how he was embittered by the fate of his father, who
was imprisoned by the regime in 1933 and released, blind and
partially insane, to die in 1946. Having thus tasted the horrors
of the regime, Ovchinnikov defected when he had an oppor-
tunity in Berlin.1 A serious and thoughtful young man, he
gave U.S. intelligence his ideas on deterrents to Soviet military
defections. He pointed out the West's failure to provide a sub-
'Since this article went to press, Ovchinnikov has redefected to the
USSR. ? Editor.
Approve8r4Ekelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200017-0
ArksmtiEfl For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Soviet Defector Motivation
stitute for the military way of life which some individuals ? So-
viet as well as Western seem to crave, noting that there are
no military formations of Soviet exiles.
Ovchinnikov may have been right. The Labor Service com-
pany units in Europe cannot be called military formations, al-
though they offer the empty forms of the military mode of
living barracks, uniforms and a hierarchy of officers.
Neither does the Lodge Act Alien Enlistment Program do the
job adequately in that it does not place former Soviet soldiers
in national units.
Loyalty in the Soviet Army and its effect as a deterrent to
defection have been dealt with at some length because until
recently the propinquity of the masses of troops to areas where
they could defect has resulted in their forming the bulk of
defection cases. It is important as well, however, to under-
stand some of the factors in the motivation of Soviet civilians,
especially in view of the current exchange programs which
allow large numbers of Russians to tour and attend conferences
outside the USSR every year.
Civilian Defections
After forty years of Communism, the people of the USSR
and especially its elite are in a political sense completely the
product of this environment. There have been no other politi-
cal and economic influences exerted on those who are younger
than fifty. Those who are older remember only vaguely an
ancien regime in dissolution. The Russian writer Boris Pas-
ternak deals with this phenomenon in his latest novel, "Dr.
Zhivago," which was smuggled out of the USSR in manuscript
and published in Italy early in 1958. His title character, speak-
ing in 1917 after the October Revolution, says:
I think too that Russia is destined to become the first
Socialist State since the beginning of the world. When this
comes to pass, the event will stun us for a long time, and after
awakening we shall have lost half of our memories forever.
We'll have forgotten what came first and what followed and
we won't look for causes. The new order of things will be
all around us and as familiar to us as the woods on the horizon
or the clouds over our heads. There will be nothing else left.
Pasternak's observations reflect what has actually occurred.
Since 1917 the monolithic state has produced in its citizens
the nearest thing possible to what might be called a mono-
proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A6606220001-0
ApprovssivfecoraffMgp Mi17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300MW0
lithic attitude of mind. It has shielded them from all but
one doctrine, given them but one way of life and one read-
ing of history, economics, politics and sociology. The rest of
the world has been pictured in caricature. Soviet society rep-
resents to its citizens, and the Communist Party to its mem-
bers, their whole known world, the only place where they can
work, have friends and find understanding.
The Communists fell heir to a cohesive force in taking over
the citadel of "Holy Mother Russia": even emigres whose
families had been almost exterminated in the Revolution have
been induced to return home or to cooperate with the Soviets
in the name of Mother Russia. But to this inherited magnetic
concept another has been added. The USSR is the home of
the Communist philosophy ? a latter-day lay religion offering
its devotees a complete Weltanschauung lacking in the democ-
racies, which harbor a diversity of competing world views and
religions. Russian Communists are taught to look on the
Western Lockean system as an outmoded creature of the 18th
century, comparing poorly with the "modern" politico-economic
philosophy fostered by Marx in the 19th century and revised by
Lenin in the 20th.
The real progress made by the USSR under Communism
appears in the eyes of its devotees to substantiate these teach-
ings, and it has been observed that the rate of defection among
Soviets varies with atmospheric conditions prevailing in the
"climate of success" they are attempting to create for their
system. From October 1957, when Sputnik I appeared in
space, to date (August 1958) only three Soviet citizens have
appeared in defector channels: one of these, strongly suspected
of being an agent, has been "burned" and placed in a refugee
camp; a second, after staying with the British for several
months, was repatriated to the USSR; and the third, a para-
noiac in serious trouble in his Embassy at the time of his defec-
tion, wavered for some time but finally elected to return to
Soviet custody. During the three months prior to Sputnik I,
the period in which the USSR announced its ICBM and stepped
up its propaganda for negotiations and disarmament, there
were no genuine Soviet defectors. Six Soviets who came into
U.S. hands during this period have all turned out to be either
proved agents or so highly suspect that they have had to be
"burned" and disposed of in refugee camps.
ApprovAWRelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022008?-0
AgE:Kaid For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78,03921A000300220001-0
ovietDetector motivation
It thus appears possible that the solid scientific achievements
of the USSR, its economic gains, and its "peace" propaganda
have now been sufficiently successful in convincing its citizens
that Communism is indeed "the wave of the future" to have
an effect on the foundering Soviet defector program.2 The
proof of this speculative explanation, of course, lies in the
minds of individuals not available for questioning; but the fact
remains that in previous years the flow of genuine defectors
has been much greater (approximately 15 per year) and the
number of Soviet agents smaller, while the number of indi-
viduals in trouble and therefore likely to defect should stay
fairly constant year after year.
Defection is also probably discouraged by an impurity in the
Communist system of which Djilas complains in his book The
New Class ?the emergence of an elite not foreseen in any of
the writings that laid down the precepts of socialism and Com-
munism. The intellectuals, scientists, managers, artists,
writers, professors, and military and intelligence officers in the
USSR have a far greater share in the good things of life than
they would have in the West. Others can hope that they or
their children will one day become members of this elite and
enjoy an exalted position which they could never achieve in
Western society.
There have been defectors from these elite groups. Names
that come immediately to mind are those of Gregoriy Ryapolov,
mentioned earlier; Anatoli Skochkov, a former USIA lawyer in
Vienna who defected in a drunken fit of depression in 1954;
Yuri Rastvorov, an ex-MVD officer who defected in Tokyo in
1955; MVD Lt. Colonel Gregoriy Stepanovich Burlutskiy, whose
defection in 1953 set off the rumor that Beria had come over
to the West.3 All four, however, were in real trouble prior to
defecting. Each, it is true, was dissatisfied with the restraints
The author does not imply, at a time when for example increasing
myriads of East Germans are seeking asylum in the West, that the
Satellite defection program is so "foundering." ? Editor
Burlutskiy was wearing a watch given him by Beria with the latter's
name on it and a citation for his services in "pacifying and re-
settling" various minorities in the USSR. In Afghanistan, where
Burlutskiy came out of the USSR, a journalist who couldn't read
Russian was able to make out the word "Beria" and touched off
the rumor heard round the world.
A4aroved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0WAR20001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300R-W-0
5owet Detector Motivation
imposed by the regime, but it was his personal difficulties rather
than political dissatisfaction which precipitated defection.
There never has been a defection among top-rank or even lesser
Soviet scientists to match that of Bruno Pontecorvo. Vladimir
Petrov, who defected in Australia, changed his status from
KGB officer to owner of a chicken farm. No matter what one
may think of Soviet society, it is presumably pleasant to be at
the top of it.
Semantics also play a role in obstructing the encouragement
of defection. One of the greatest problems is discrepancies
between Russian and Western usage in the meaning of specific
key words in the realm of international affairs, discrepancies
which have led to the loss of links with the Soviet people, a
serious breakdown of oral and written communication. This
nightmare of semantics has forced Western scholars to write
articles explaining "How to Understand Communist Jargon."
Any diplomat who has bargained with Soviet representatives
recognizes the problem, and it arises in face-to-face negotia-
tions in inducement too. Even with adequate translation,
there are no real equivalents between our vocabulary and the
Soviet in whole areas of words dealing with politics, sociology,
and economics. This is the reason why much of our propa-
ganda fails to make an impact within the USSR. A whole
Soviet generation has been educated that certain old words
have new meanings within the Communist frame of reference.
In our propaganda we tend often to use these words in their
Western sense, thus failing to speak the language of the audi-
ence. Defectors have pointed out that because of this lack of
semantic exactness the Soviet audience sometimes regards our
propaganda as unscientific and confused. Some of the most
effective propaganda produced is written by Trotskyites and
ex-members of the Party who understand Communist jargon
and know how to use it.
The broad conclusions of this article coincide with what psy-
chiatrists and psychoanalysts have said about defection.
Enough experience has been garnered in the past five years to
enable them to draw certain generalizations in this field, among
which stands the statement that "ideological reasoning was
practically never found at the basis of the decision to defect.
Rather, much more often there was an impulsive discharge of
accumulated tensions, and an eruption of intense emotional
Approvegreglkelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200014-1)
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
SECRET Soviet Defector Motivation
needs which demanded satisfaction. . . . Defection is a trau-
matic experience which takes place at a time of personal
crisis. . . ."
One can only add a footnote for use of the officer charged
with the task of inducing the defection of Soviet officials. Take
a leaf from the book of the case officer who brought in Rya-
polov, and look for a Soviet up to his ears in troubles. Experi-
ence has shown that you are likeliest to be successful if you do.
/40proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921ANSM220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002N8VO
Creating a happy humdrum
life in America for defectors
from Communism is an impor-
tant but trying and sometimes
impossible aftertask of their
intelligence exploitation.
DEFECTOR DISPOSAL (US)
Delmege Trimble
Perversities of human nature reach some kind of ultimate in
the typical individual consigned to the Defector Reception Cen-
ter (US). Problems of weaning an erring fellow-being from
psychological and economic dependence multiply when the
subject is an alien who, having deserted his own country for
personal reasons, remains imbued with an ideology which dis-
courages self-reliance. Before going into the workings of the
Defector Exploitation, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Pro-
gram,1 consider the "patient" of the Central Intelligence Agen-
cy's clinic in human relations:
Nervous strain grips the man in the new PX clothing re-
cently arrived in the United States, probably from the Defector
Reception Center (Germany). The furtiveness of his deep-set
eyes and the lines that crease his Slavic face, from high cheek
bones to square jaw, reveal the defector's guilt complexes and?
fears of the future. His americanization may have begun in a
barber's chair where a pompadour was reduced to a crew cut,
but his transformation into a worthwhile citizen of the West
will be an involved process stretching into the indeterminate
future.
No two domestic disposal cases, to be sure, are clinically, the
same, but this stocky man in his thirties is a composite rep-
resentative of the defectors received in the US Center. Trucu-
lent, ambivalent, probably psychotic, and certainly convinced
that he should be rewarded for slipping through the Iron Cur-
tain, the typical defector displays mental gyrations which re-
veal a congenital problem personality. Almost invariably his
escape has been motivated by personal rather than ideological
reasons. This has been true without exception of defectors
I Set up under the original NSCID's 13 and 14, now incorporated into
NSCID 4.
MORI/HRP
SECRET 43
from pg. 43-54
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
,Spenyed For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-BERMIONAINCRA9220001-0
from the USSR; the exceptions occur among defectors from the
Satellite countries, who may have fled in abhorrence of re-
gimes forcibly imposed on their homelands. A Pole or a Ru-
manian is infinitely more cooperative than a Soviet defector,
and his conversion is correspondingly simplified.
Defectors, it should be explained, constitute by definition
only a relative handful of the half-million runaways from
Communism who have been welcomed to the United States.
The chief criterion used by the Interagency Defector Commit-
tee to determine whether an escapee is a defector in the sense
of the NSCID is knowledgeability. Ex-officials from the Soviet
Orbit, whether diplomatic or military, and almost all persons,
regardless of status, from the USSR itself, are considered de-
fectors, whereas a common soldier in the Polish Army whose
intelligence potential is presumably low is normally labelled an
escapee. It is thus apparent that even Satellite defectors have
been identified, at least ostensibly or temporarily, with Com-
munism.
Since a peculiarly egoistic and parasitic attitude of mind is
required to dispose a middle-level bureaucrat or army officer
to renounce the USSR, the chances are practically nil that he
will become oriented in the West and self-supporting on his
own initiative. He is a far cry from the young Communist
intellectual who sparked the Hungarian revolt of October 1956
or the stolid man of the factories, inspired by Utopian ideals
of a democratic workers' state, who took up the fight.
Defector Dumping: A Case Study
Defectors were first brought to the United States after World
War II by federal agencies who had primary interest in ex-
ploiting them for positive foreign intelligence information.
They were not men who could simply be returned to PW cages
after being interrogated; yet little consideration was initially
given the disposal problems involved. The practice of cutting
defectors adrift on the American economy after their intelli-
gence and propaganda values had been exhausted gave rise to
inevitable difficulties such as those dramatized in the Pirogov-
Barsov case, which demonstrated the need to set up an ade-
quate program for disposing of defectors brought to this
country.
Atproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921ROS?R220001-0
ApprovNif9ctiRBW08V9W 2/17: CIA-RDP78-03921A000300;6=1011-0
In October 1948 Peter A. Pirogov, a Soviet pilot, and Anatoly
Barsov, his navigator, had flown a MIG from the Ukraine to
the US Zone of Austria. Their exploit was greeted with official
and popular acclaim, and before long they were brought, amid
continued wide publicity, to the United States. Here they were
treated to a 10-day tour of Virginia, in accordance with their
wishes to see the beauties they had heard extolled in propa-
ganda broadcasts beamed to the USSR. After their intelli-
gence debriefing they were furnished some financial aid until
March 1949 and thereupon they were cut loose ?to shift for
themselves. Without employment, funds, or knowledge of a
foreign land, the pair drifted from one desperate situation to
another. Barsov was hopelessly unadaptable and consoled
himself with whiskey and domestic vodka. Demoralized, he
finally contacted the Soviet Embassy in Washington and ar-
ranged to return to the USSR.
Cloak-and-dagger aspects of the situation were intensified
when Barsov, acting on Soviet Embassy instruction, was trying
to induce Pirogov to redefect. Pirogov reported these efforts
to CIA representatives, who made arrangements to monitor a
meeting between the two in a Washington restaurant. CIA
agents were prepared to prevent any attempt at kidnapping
Pirogov and to take advantage of the outside chance that Bar-
sov might be persuaded to remain. But other US agents at
the restaurant, independently assigned to the case, began a
fracas before the discussions between the defectors had got
under way, and in the ensuing confusion Barsov and Pirogov
were spirited away in separate cabs by the two separate sets of
Government representatives.
Barsov was returned to the USSR in 1950. The presumption
that he was executed for his defection was confirmed by the
onetime MVD agent Vladimir Petrov, who defected in Aus-
tralia in April 1954. But in May 1957 the Soviet Foreign Min-
istry theatrically produced for foreign correspondents a live
exhibit who was introduced as Anatoly Barsov, "shot by the
American press." This demonstration was occasioned by the
sceptical publicity given in the West to a purported letter from
Barsov which Soviet Second Secretary Dimitri Mashkantsev
used in trying to persuade Pirogov to return to the USSR.
Steadfast in his refusal to return, Pirogov has nevertheless
45
ApproveggElielease 2004/12/17 : CIA-R0P78-03921A000300220001-0
AgEmeld For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RBEn8p9i3Vgs0a9311.9?)20001-0
maintained an attitude of querulous dissatisfaction with his
treatment in the United States. He only recently has accepted
employment as a Russian language instructor at a local uni-
versity.
The Rehabilitation Program
It was to cope with mounting problems of rehabilitation and
resettlement such as these that the Defector Reception Cen-
ter (US) was instituted in 1951. Property was acquired and
operations begun that same year. The primary purposes of
this little-known program are a) to prevent redefection with
its adverse propaganda effects, and b) to resettle the defectors
and integrate them into the US economy so that they can pro-
vide for their own support.
Installing a defector in a job is relatively no great problem.
The problem is to induce him to stay with the job and become
a part of the community, overcoming his fear, doubt, false con-
cepts, guilt complexes, loneliness, and language difficulties.
The program attacks this problem in three stages:
1. If the defector's debriefing has not been completed overseas,
he is further exploited for foreign intelligence upon his ar-
rival at DRC (US) .2 During this exploitation he is also pre-
conditioned for his eventual resettlement by being intro-
duced to American traditions through visiting historic spots
in the Washington area. Strenuous efforts are made to keep
up his morale.
2. As soon as conveniently possible, he is taken to a safe house
removed from the city's confusion and distracting influ-
ences, which are not conducive to a happy metamorphosis.
Here, under close supervision, his rehabilitation is begun in
earnest. This is a twin process, comprising psychological
adjustment to restore the individual's mental equilibrium
on the one hand, and "resocialization," that is reorientation
for membership in a society different from any he has
known, on the other.
3. When the rehabilitation process has been completed ? in
anywhere from a few months to four or five years ? the de-
fector is resettled. He is found suitable employment some-
In some cases he may be placed under contract for a year or more,
and even later his knowledge of Soviet affairs may be recurrently
utilized in light of new developments.
46
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921AWM220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300ggelig.1-0
Defector Disposal (US)
where in the United States, and responsibility for him is
transferred from the DRC to a field office in that area.
The ideal goal of the program, transformation of the defec-
tor into a useful and self-supporting member of the community,
is not always achieved. One of the earliest showcase exhibits
in defection occurred in the United States 3 when Oksana Ka-
senkina jumped from the third floor of the Soviet consulate in
New York on 21 August 1948. Her legs, arms, and pelvis were
broken in the leap to freedom that became a diplomatic inci-
dent when the Soviets sought to regain her custody. The pro-
ceeds from a book and series of magazine articles she wrote
while convalescing, some $40,000, lasted her only a year, and in
1949 she became a CIA ward. Today, at the age of 61, her
propaganda usefulness long since exhausted, she continues to
be an expensive liability, staying alternately in Miami and a
nursing home in Boston. She must be well cared for, if for no
other reason, simply to prevent redefection. For in addition
to her physical infirmities, Madame Kasenkina suffers from the
psychosis that she is being pursued by Communist agents.
Defector Types and Motivations
Although no two cases are alike, certain generalizations can
be drawn about the personalities and motivations of defectors.
According to the Kluckhohn Report issued by the Center for
International Studies, Massachusetts Institute for Technology,
55 percent of defectors sampled in a study were diagnosed as
"severely maladjusted" and 20 percent showed "actual acute
pathology." Even in those defectors who were relatively nor-
mal before, trauma may have been induced by guilt feelings
over their betrayal of motherland and associates and by the
difficulties of readjustment first to German and then to Ameri-
can environments. So it is that in nearly all of them patterns
of fear, apathy, depression, resentment, and hostility are mani-
fested in various orders and to varying degrees. The violent
mood swings of defectors may be laid in part also to national
characteristics: the Kluckhohn Report noted that such am-
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has the immediate responsibil-
ity for defectors who are already in the United States when they
request asylum. When the FBI has established their bona fides
and released them, however, CIA may be requested to aid them in
adjusting to life in America.
ApprovellOGERelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000470
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
SECRET Defector Disposal (US)
bivalence is more characteristic of Soviet man than of the West-
ern European.
Defectors can usefully be classified into "primitive" and
"complex" types and by grouping according to age. Young
defectors in general need more help, but usually more can be
accomplished with them than with the older ones whose psy-
chology as individuals is more firmly set. Defector personal-
ities cover the spectrum from self-evaluated "hero" and "ad-
venturer" to outright screwball and crook. There is also the
ambitious, prestige-disappointed man like Lt. Col. Yuri Rast-
vorov, Soviet second secretary in Japan, who decamped after the
British Officers' Club distracted him from his intelligence mis-
sion.4
Defections are frequently an act of rebellion against Com-
munist controls and regimentation after a taste of relative
freedom in the West.5 Occasionally defection is inspired by
utter repugnance, as it was for Nikolai Khokhlov. Partly at
his wife's instigation, this MVD captain revolted against his as-
signment to assassinate a NTS (Russian Solidarist Movement)
leader in Frankfurt, Germany, in May 1954. He was brought
to the United States for resettlement and after the first year
became financially independent, earning money from magazine
articles and the serialization in foreign papers of his book In
the Name of Conscience. Not content to take life easy, he
campaigned in a futile effort to save his family and then joined
in the underground fight against Communism. An unsuccess-
ful attempt against his life, attributed by some to Soviet agents,
occurred in 1957 when he was on a trip from Paris to Frank-
furt, where he was in contact with anti-Communist refugee
organizations.
That he was a Beria man fearful of his future doubtless contributed
to Rastvorov's defection. His failure in a mission and subsequent
flight were in character with a psychological assessment of him
made after his arrival in the United States. The conclusion that
he is an egotistical dilettante who cracked when the going became
rough has been borne out by persistent characteristics of his be-
havior during the course of efforts to resettle him.
'Material attractions in the Western world should not be overesti-
mated. Very real deprivations and frustrations exist, of course, in
the USSR and its Satellites, but the Refugee Interview Project con-
cluded that most people's satisfactions in daily living are sub-
stantially greater than generally supposed.
POproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921ACSIKM220001-0
ApprovatEasrRnimeaf08Nil 2/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300R*1-0
Others have fled their homelands to escape reprisals, for
example Josef Swiatlo, dreaded deputy chief of District 10 in
the Polish Ministry of Public Security from 1948 until his de-
fection on 5 December 1953, after the execution of Beria.
A spirit of adventure occasionally impels defection. After
the Soviet tanker Tuapse, bound for Red China, was intercepted
by the Chinese Nationalists in October 1955, 19 seamen jumped
ship in Taiwan and sought asylum. Of the nine young sailors
brought to the United States, four have remained.6 Three of
these are gainfully employed today, and the fourth is in school.
A bill recently introduced in Congress would change their
status from parolees to permanent alien residents. In the
meantime, having been granted political asylum, they are
responsibilities of CIA, although they are completely non-pro-
ductive for intelligence purposes and as bad a headache at
times as sailors on the beach can be.
Rehabilitation Procedures
In its initial approach to defectors brought to the United
States for resettlement, the DRC (US) is friendly but frank
about their future. In spelling out to them the steps involved,
the Center emphasizes that successful resettlement depends
upon their complete cooperation. No promises and no com-
mitments are made that are not absolutely feasible. Equally
explicitly the point is made that defectors are not regarded
as "hirelings" or "traitors" but as persons who had the courage
to leave a social order that was bad for their homelands. Yes,
they are told, you have gone through hell, but now is the
chance to play a part in a new and better existence.
Rehabilitation begins with the defector's assignment to a
CIA case officer. For his initial period in this country, at least,
it is esssential that each defector be assigned to a single case
officer ? a counselor whom he can come to trust and turn to
on all matters. The designation of only one case officer, in-
cidentally, short-circuits any inclination the defector may have
to play off one counselor against another. The single counse-
lor, for his part, will be able to get a fuller understanding of
his ward's personality in order to help his readjustment and
anticipate any danger of a breakdown or redefection. During
?Five returned to the USSR in fear of reprisals.
ApproveaK0kelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000V0
Agemerd For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDF78-03921A000300220001-0
Detector Disposal (US)
this period in Washington, the case officer in charge is respon-
sible for securing transient housing for the defector, arrang-
ing his exploitation for foreign positive intelligence, maintain-
ing his morale, and taking care of the many details connected
with his presence in the United States.
Intensive individual assessments are meanwhile initiated
by headquarters medical and psychiatric staffs to supplement
the case histories prepared by intelligence officers abroad. Psy-
chological or vocational aptitude studies are also made to
determine the defector's employment qualifications. The goal
here is to fit him into a stratum of society appropriate to his
capabilities and earnings and to his status in the country he
fled, and to give him an environment conducive to successful
resettlement.
When the defector is transferred to a safe house, he begins
the sometimes prolonged process of reorientation and adapta-
tion to a new culture. Here he is introduced to US traditions
and the everyday life of the average American citizen. He is
shown the difference between the ideology of unlimited op-
portunity and that of the totalitarian state. He is disabused
of the concept of extreme polarity between good and bad social
phenomena which he has acquired from Communist indoctri-
nation: American ways are not portrayed as perfect, but only
better than those of Communist countries.7 He is also taught
the rudiments of the English language, enough to speak and
read a little. He can gain some degree of fluency at a US
naturalization school in the area where he is later resettled.
But formal schooling is not enough. If the primary pur-
poses of DRC (US) are to be achieved, the defector's usual con-
cepts of political government and daily existence must be dras-
tically altered. The woes of the immigrant in the American
melting pot are compounded by the thousands and one phobias
peculiar to the defector.
The case officer's first ? and, unfortunately, frequently con-
tinuing ? problem is usually to decompress the defector while
at the same time maintaining his morale. The usual defector
has delusions of grandeur inspired by the old notion that US
7 Successfully resettled defectors not infrequently continue for some
time to accept many goals of the Soviet system even while reject-
ing the means and conditions created by the current regime.
AgOroved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0110031220001-0
Approved For ReLease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Detector Disposal (US) SECRET
streets are paved with gold and a distorted sense of self-im-
portance in consequence of his initial exploitation and noto-
riety. These delusions may persist for years, especially among
the many congenital misfits whose background and personal-
ity structure place them beyond the reach of most known tech-
niques of vocational guidance. These individuals are inter-
ested above all in making considerable money with the least
possible expenditure of energy. The world of work is far less
stimulating to them than the world of make-believe which
largely determines their attitude. They look to their bene-
factor to support them, and they seek devices to get the most
possible out of him. In extreme case they resort to extortion
and complain to Congressmen about their treatment, threaten
to redefect, etc.
Infinite patience is required of a case officer during the proc-
ess of spoon-feeding a charge who can't digest democracy in
large doses. But once a minimum of confidence has been es-
tablished the case officer adopts, whenever a defector becomes
difficult, what is known as a "gruff paternalistic note." The
usual defector has a grudging admiration for strong and
arbitrary authority as the only safeguard against the excesses
of the Russian nature. He will revolt from time to time against
authority, but he nevertheless wants it and needs it until some
progress has been made in his adjustment to American life.
This authority, however, he must not think of as that of an
elaborate hierarchy which holds him completely at its mercy,
but rather as that of one person to whom he can also turn for
guidance. In this relationship, and with an unequivocal sys-
tem of rewards and punishment, he can come to recognize that
as he behaves responsibly he will not be controlled with rigidity.
In his role of father confessor, the case officer can play a
powerful part in promoting a defector's rehabilitation. In the
eyes of his ward he becomes a reflection of America, illustrating
its good aspects and mirroring in any flaws he displays its bad
ones. Openminded discussions between them about US do-
mestic issues and international perspectives should supplement
the presentations of lecturers at the safe house, and may be
more convincing.
The time required for rehabilitation varies with individuals
from weeks to years. Quick acculturation is desired, of course,
ApprovHCFRATRelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220061-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
SECRET Defector Disposal (US)
in order to effect resettlement as soon as possible, with the ob-
jective of making the defector self-reliant and self-supporting.
But one obdurate escapee has been taking the course for five
years, and there is little hope of his ever graduating. At the
other extreme stands a young Bulgarian defector, an elec-
tronics engineer, who promptly scanned The New York Times
want ads upon his arrival at Idlewild Airport and today is filling
a $150-a-week job in Boston while attending MIT in off hours.
His behavior shows not only his individual character, but also
the results of an excellent preconditioning at DRC (G).
A number of factors affect the rate at which a defector is
able to learn how to adjust himself to his new environment,
but the most universal of these is the degree of disparity be-
tween the American culture and what he has hitherto known.
Just as immigrants from the UK and Scandanavia become as-
similated more rapidly in the United States than those from
Southern or Eastern Europe, so the adjustment process is more
difficult for a defector who has been exposed to nothing but
the Communist system in the USSR during his entire forma-
tive life than it is for a Czech who has spent only a few years
under such a system.
Resettlement Procedures
After a defector has finished the rehabilitation process, there
is the problem of obtaining employment for him. If he for-
merly had some trade or was, say, an electronics engineer in
Poland, placing him may not be difficult. If not, he can often
be given schooling or on-the-job training. But what's to be
done with a hired murderer? He may have had a cushy job
under Soviet bureacracy, but what sort of work is to be found
for an ev-MVD or KGB agent in the US economy commen-
surate with his former status?
A difficult case short of this extreme was that of Milos Pacak,
charg?'affaires at the Czech Embassy in Rome, who defected
in 1952 and was brought to the United States the following
year. Besides what he was paid as inducement to defection,
he had been promised employment in the United States com-
mensurate with his background and abilities. But he could
hardly be transplanted from his Communist diplomatic post
to one in the Department of State, and he refused lesser em-
ployment proposals on the grounds that, although the jobs
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0gaff20001-0
Approved For Release200.4/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300MEtil -0
Defector Disposal (U5)
were good, they were not up to his former position. So for
two years he loafed, drunk and unshaven much of the time, and
used blackmail to extend his Government subsidy. His story
has a happy ending, however: his wife and son, who adapted
well to American ways, in turn assisted in his rehabilitation,
and he is currently employed doing language research at a
university.
Defectors are sometimes given contracts with US Govern-
ment agencies, but this measure is usually a temporary one;
eventually they Will have to find private employment. So
suitable jobs are sought with the help of CIA's domestic field
offices, which study the results of the defector's earlier aptitude
tests, his background, training, and experience, and communi-
cate with likely employers. Security factors in individual cases
determine whether the approach to prospective employers
should be made directly or through cleared cutouts. When-
ever it is practical and clearances permit, employment and
social service agencies and foreign nationality groups 8 are
called into the job hunt.
Once prospective employment has been decided on, the field
office in the area takes over and a single contact specialist re-
places the case officer. The contact specialist assesses the
defector's cover story from the standpoint of its plausibility
in the eyes of the prospective employer. Next he briefs the
defector about the firm or firms considering him and makes
certain that he is presentable. He accompanies the applicant
to interviews but participates only when necessary to rescue
him from a break in his cover story or a lapse in his English.
But the availability of suitable positions rather than the presence
of ethnically similar groups dictates the selection of a geographic
area for resettlement. Attempts to enlist the services of a previ-
ously resettled defector in resettling another have been anything
but successful, and it has been found advisable to keep Soviet de-
fectors separated in resettlement. Instead of working together, they
are likely to regard their own kind with suspicion. A Soviet artil-
lery major, a tank captain, and an infantry lieutenant working on
the same Department of Defense project once got into a brawl
when the captain insinuated that the bragging major had stolen his
Hero of the Soviet Union medal from a corpse. An alerted CIA
officer divested the broken-nosed major of a butcher knife, and the
comrades were reassigned.
ApproveallEdElltelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000R
Aqawl For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Defector Disposal (US)
If the defector is hired, the contact specialist assists him in
finding suitable housing conveniently located with respect to
his new employment. He makes sure that the accommoda-
tions are not beyond the man's means and that the landlord is
neither suspicious nor unscrupulous. He checks on whether
the defector has enough money for immediate needs, appears
presentable, has his alien registration card, and can fill out
employee forms, such as designation of insurance beneficiary,
in accordance with his cover story. He traces the route to and
from work with his charge, and on his first day on the job takes
him to lunch or meets him after work, discusses his reactions,
boosts his morale, answers question, etc.
The contact specialist's responsibility is a lasting one. He
gives continued friendship and guidance to the defector with-
out allowing him to become so dependent that his develop-
ment of self-sufficiency is inhibited. He keeps on the alert for
any circumstances which may threaten the security of the
case, and he keeps a reasonably detailed account of his man's
integration into the community. He forwards periodic status
reports to Washington, and in any emergency notifies head-
quarters immediately. If all goes well, the defector adjusts
himself to American ways and after five years may apply for
US citizenship.
It rarely goes so smoothly. Many resettled wards regard the
acquisition of a television set and sporty car, regardless of their
ability to keep up the payments, as a sine qua non of life in the
United States. Many mix alcohol with gasoline and rout some
case officer or contact specialist out of bed in the middle of the
night to go bail for them. An obstreperous Finn is now serv-
ing 85 days in jail after a Minnesota court became wearied of
his being taken off the hook; his latest escapade had hospital-
ized two deputy sheriffs in a head-on collision.
Despite constant nursemaiding, some resettlement cases
must be turned back to DRC facilities for further rehabilita-
tion. Some never are resettled, and an estimated 10 percent
become permanent welfare charges. As General T. J. Betts
once remarked, there is nothing more durable than a defector.
But considering the material with which DRC (US) has to
work, the countless man-hours and finesse that go into the
program are highly effective.
AO proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A9Mg220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL
A technician's personal story
of his work in radio and photo-
graphic transmission of intelli-
gence to the British service af-
fords a glimpse of wartime espi-
onage through foreign agent
eyes.
REMINISCENCES OF A COMMUNICATIONS AGENT
Expatriate
During World War II, I was employed by the British intelli-
gence service in one of the European countries which was at
first neutral, then a German ally, and finally under German
occupation. I had two concurrent jobs. One was to maintain
radio communications with a base on the Mediterranean some
750 miles away. The other was to photograph intelligence
reports, maps, and sketches and to conceal the films in incon-
spicuous objects which could be smuggled across the border. ,
Some of the techniques used in these operations were sup-
plied by my superior and some were of my own devising. Al-
though these procedures have now undoubtedly been anti-
quated by technical progress since the war, they should still
hold some historical interest. Certainly some general princi-
ples of conduct which were important to me have continuing
validity as precepts for the clandestine agent of today.
After the Germans had overrun my homeland and imprisoned
me along with many others, I escaped and made my way to
this country which was still neutral and where the people were
traditionally well disposed toward my people. I wanted to
avenge the ravaging of my homeland, within my small indi-
vidual power, and to continue the struggle against its brutal
occupier. Therefore, although I am not British nor a great
admirer of the British, I entered their intelligence employ as
the occupation most promising for fulfillment of this my
purpose.
The work was dangerous, very dangerous after the Germans
came in. Every person living in the city where I worked had
MORI/HRP
ApproveWIRgISM-2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000V0 from pg. 55-60
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL Reminiscences of an Agent
to be registered. Block managers and the superintendents of
apartment houses were charged with seeing to this registra-
tion; they enforced it scrupulously, so that it was virtually im-
possible to live there without having a card in the file at police
headquarters. A separate file was kept on foreigners. When
the Germans came, one of their first acts was to take over this
file, and they began arresting suspects on the very first day.
That I was not arrested I attribute to the virtue of my simple
and partly genuine cover. I was actually a student at the poly-
technic institute, and I remained by choice a very needy one.
I found quarters in a servants' boarding house, a small room
not opening on the hallway but directly off the kitchen, which
fortunately had an outside entrance. Foreign students who
lived in better quarters or could afford luxuries the Germans
became curious about.
With respect to my radio work it is not the techniques I used
but my lack of techniques and procedures for security that is
noteworthy. I made the transmitter myself, and it was a good
one for those days; but there was no way its frequency could
be changed to throw anyone who might be suspicious of my
traffic off the scent. I therefore limited my transmissions to
two hours each.' I changed the location from which I made
radio contact as often as I could, but I had to work in the city
or its inner suburbs. Most of my transmitting, in fact, was
done from a house only about 30 yards from one of the Gestapo
offices.
Moreover, there was no securely established schedule for
these radio contacts, and at the end of each transmission a
time for making the next one had to be arranged. If the Ger-
mans had deciphered these arrangements they would have
known when to look for me next. There was no kind of guard
or even lookout during the transmission; I was always alone,
with two pistols for protection.
Once when I was called upon to lend my transmitter to a
friendly intelligence service in an emergency, I had an oppor-
tunity to observe the security precautions they took for their
operators. They had the use of isolated buildings in the coun-
'Under the circumstances described a limitation to fifteen minutes
would have been the proper precaution. ?Editor
Aliproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-09tOME11131100U20001-0
Approvitgkiirsagm,s2934/Agg : CIA-RDP78-03921pesmqmpotto
try for their radio contacts, and they kept live to eight armed
guards around the house, lying in the grass at a distance of
fifty yards or so, all during the transmission. On one occa-
sion, they recalled, the Germans had come raiding, but the
guards held them off while the operator escaped with his equip-
ment.
Unfortunately, my superiors were not willing to furnish this
kind of protection, and the work of transmitting was conse-
quently quite enervating. I was compensated and heartened,
however, whenever the American bombers would come over and
destroy some enemy airfield and I knew that my efforts had
helped make the raid possible.
In my photographic work I felt less exposed, if scarcely at
ease. The Germans usually made their house raids and ar-
rests either between six and eight in the morning or between
ten in the evening and midnight, so the hours between one and
six a.m. were comparatively safe. Once every two weeks or so
there would be an accumulation of material for photographic
forwarding and a courier, witting or unwitting, to take it out
of the country. My superior would bring me this material
after midnight. I would get to work on it by one o'clock and
finish by about five. Then I could get an hour's sleep before
meeting my superior at six to deliver the product.
The material consisted of typewritten intelligence reports,
maps locating bombing targets, sketches of military installa-
tions, layout plans of airfields and refineries, etc. The lan-
guage was usually French, sometimes German, never English
to point to the identity of the service. Some of the reports
were enciphered. Usually there would be 30 to 40 pages of
typing and three to five maps or plans; but once there were
80 typed pages and 40 sketches, a substantial quantity of in-
criminating paper in my little room. The sketches required
quite a bit of preliminary work before photographing. They
had been made by agents employed at the installations they
pictured, and they needed some cleaning up and a calculation
of the proper enlargement ratio to keep their scale true. An
accompanying report would usually refer to the sketch and give
further data on the plant or airfield, such as precise location,
whether surface or underground, number of planes, troops, fuel
tanks, etc.
Approveg9MFMEV2004/1 2/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200015-70
AttanslAraelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Reminiscences of an Agent
I used a Leica camera with a 24x36 mm (1"x11/2") frame,
usually without the close-up attachment. I laid the original
materials out on the floor and fixed the camera perpendicular
to them. It could accommodate six typed sheets in one frame,
but usually only one of the large sketches at a time. I shot
each frame three times, to get two negative copies to keep in
reserve. This part of the work was done under the greatest
tension, with the material spread out all over the room. When-
ever the gate opened, I stopped and listened to the footsteps on
the stairs which told me what floor the late comer was heading
for. If he stopped climbing at my floor, I frantically tried to
get things out of sight. The Gestapo did make arrests in this
boarding house, but never came to my room.
The next job was developing the film. (I had often con-
sidered lightening my work by sending out undeveloped film,
which would also have been less dangerous for the courier; but
I wanted to check the developed negatives to be sure they were
good, and I was reluctant to risk the damage in transit to which
undeveloped film is liable. I therefore never tried it.) After
washing off the fixer solution I rinsed the film in alcohol to
hasten its drying, and then immediately checked the legibility
of the photographed texts with a special magnifying glass.
When I was satisfied that the negatives were all good I could
start burning the originals in the kitchen stove next to my
room.
By the time I had disposed of the original papers, the film
would be dry. Taking a strip of a dozen frames at a time, I
placed it emulsion side down on a sheet of plate glass and
wiped the back with a piece of cotton dipped in acetone until
the heavy celluloid was dissolved and only the thin emulsion
remained. I now cut the emulsion strips into individual frames
and separated the negatives which were to be sent out from the
two copies to be kept in reserve against the possibility of loss in
transit. The reserve copies I put in a match box or wrapped in
a paper. I tied this tiny package on the end of a string and
suspended it through a hole in the wall under the kitchen sink,
sealing the hole afterward so the end of the string was not
visible. It would be only through the unluckiest of coinci-
dences that this cache would be discovered.
/*proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-05611MQVIX220001-0
ApprovefileDiMmedOgg/lieWt: CIA-RDP78-03921AMMSMALO
I then returned to the negatives to be dispatched. You re-
call that there were six pages of typing on each frame. These
I cut apart, so that each page of the original report was now
represented by a wafer of emulsion less than a quarter-inch
square, and very thin. Stacked together in page sequence,
40 pages would be less than an eighth of an inch thick. When
packaged for the courier the stack was usually rolled into a
pellet the size of a small pea.
How the film was packaged depended on whether the courier
was witting or unwitting and how he would cross the border.
One of the unwitting couriers was a German ? and a Nazi
Party member ? who traveled on business to Switzerland and
Turkey. For him I once concealed the film in the lining of a
lady's compact which my superior asked him to carry as a gift
to a friend in Ankara. A sentimental letter accompanying the
compact secretly instructed her what to do with it.
For witting couriers who were not likely to be suspected a
good place of concealment was the heel of a shoe. Safer, how-
ever, was a pack of cigarettes. I would open a new pack, be-
ing careful not to leave any evidence of tampering, take a
cigarette from the middle of it, remove half the tobacco, insert
the film pellet, repack the tobacco, and reseal the pack so that
it looked fresh from the factory. The report might possibly
be lost, but there was little chance that it would be discovered.
But it was best not to use the same method repeatedly. One
variation I used was the flashlight battery. I took apart the
middle cell of a three-cell battery, replaced part of the contents
with my film pellet, and resealed the cell. This cell would be
dead, so I substituted a lamp rated at two volts for the original
rated at three and a half in order to avoid any suspicion aris-
ing from a weak light.
When word was received by radio that the report had ar-
rived, I would recover the two reserve copies from under the
kitchen sink and burn them, so as to be left briefly without any
compromising material on hand. The reports, as a matter of
fact, always got through, and I was praised for my packaging.
There were never even any complaints that passages were il-
legible.
I should like to emphasize again, in conclusion, that my suc-
cess was due in large measure to the fact that I always lived
ApprovaMIRMaL2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000V0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL Reminiscences of an Agent
in very humble circumstances. None of my friends and ac-
quaintances could have imagined that I was doing intelligence
work. The landlady thought me a poor and simple student.
I stipulated to my employers that I should be paid only enough
to subsist on from month to month, for an agent who spends
freely, shows that he has money, or frequents expensive places
is not a secure agent.
APproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-00SIMOD01300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03MR19N28INLV
A review of legal precedents for
protecting sensitive informa-
tion from disclosure in the
courts and Congress, with par-
ticular reference to Central In-
telligence privileges.
EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE IN THE FIELD
OF INTELLIGENCE
Lawrence R. Houston
Recent agitation in congressional and newspaper circles
against "secrecy in government" has focused attention on in-
formation security measures in the Executive Branch. The
courts, too, have declared in recent months that information
used by the government in preparing criminal prosecutions
and even some administrative proceedings must be divulged,
at least in part, as "one of the fundamentals of fair play." 1 In
this atmosphere, the intelligence officer may reflect on the risk
he runs of being caught between the upper and nether mill-
stones of congressional or court demands on the one hand and
the intelligence organization's requirement for secrecy on the
other.
Actually, the problem of demands for the disclosure of infor-
mation which the government considers confidential is not a
new one, as can be seen from the history of the Executive
Branch's struggles to withhold information from the courts and
Congress. The Executive has based itself in these struggles on
the doctrine of the separation of powers among the three
branches of government, which holds that no one of the
branches shall encroach upon the others.
The Separation of Powers
Demands for the disclosure of information held by the Execu-
tive have been made by the courts and by the Congress since
the early days of the republic. On the other hand, the very
First Congress recognized, more than a year prior to the ratifi-
Communist Party v Subversive Activities Control Board; U.S. Court
of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, decided 9 January 1958.
MORI/H RP
ApprovOiTPA611ASIe41414112/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220061-0 from pg. 61-74
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RQP78-03921A000300220001-0
OFFICIAL USE ONLY Executive Privilege and Intelligence
cation of the Bill of Rights, that some of the information held
by the Executive ought not to be divulged. An act passed on
1 July 1790 concerning "the means of intercourse between the
United States and foreign nations" provided for the settlement
of certain expenditures which in the judgment of the President
should not be made public.2 During his first term of office
President Washington, anxious to maintain close relations with
Congress, on several occasions passed information to the Con-
gress with the warning that it not be publicized. In a special
message dated 12 January 1790, for example, he wrote:
I conceive that an unreserved but a confidential communica-
tion of all the papers relative to the recent negotiations with
some of the Southern Tribes of Indians is indispensibly requisite
for the information of Congress. I am persuaded that they
will effectually prevent either transcripts or publications of all
such circumstances as might be injurious to the public inter-
ests.'
Two years later, in March 1792, a House resolution empow-
ered a committee "to call for such persons, papers, and records
as may be necessary to assist their inquiries" into Executive
Branch actions with respect to a military expedition under
Major General St. Clair. The president did not question the
authority of the House, but wished to be careful in the matter
because of the precedent it might set. He discussed the prob-
lem with his cabinet, and they came to the conclusion:
First, that the House was an inquest and therefore might
institute inquiries. Second, that it might call for papers gen-
erally. Third, that the Executive ought to communicate such
papers as the public good would permit and ought to refuse
those the disclosure of which would injure the public: Conse-
quently were to exercise a discretion. Fourth, that neither the
committee nor the House had a right to call on the Head of
a Department, who and whose papers were under the Presi-
dent alone; but that the committee should instruct their chair-
man to move the House to address the President.'
By 1794 President Washington, then in his second term,
began to show less liberality in divulging information to Con-
gress, for on 26 February of that year he sent a message to the
Senate stating that "after an examination of [certain corre-
'Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 2283.
a 1 id. 63.
Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 303-305.
Proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDPER30:12d.21116a0a8001220001-0
A p p rovnl eFciariAe Ipiswep 0 Vc?/&7tipj6i ftp P 78-0 N9F181X1049R226 Mir?
spondence] I directed copies and translations to be made except
in those particulars which, in my judgment, for public consid-
eration, ought not be communicated." 5 Two years later, on 30
March 1796, he transmitted to the House his famous refusal to
divulge certain information requested by the House in connec-
tion with the Jay Treaty. In this treaty, many people be-
lieved, the young republic did not get enough concessions from
the British, and the Federalists who supported it had become
the target of popular resentment. Washington replied as fol-
lows to a House resolution:
I trust that no part of my conduct has ever indicated a dis-
position to withhold any information which the Constitution
has enjoined upon the President as a duty to give, or which
could be required of him by either House of Congress as a
right . . . The matter of foreign negotiations requires cau-
tion, and their success must often depend on secrecy; and
even when brought to a conclusion, a full disclosure of all the
measures, demands, or eventual concessions which may have
been proposed or contemplated would be extremely impolitic.
Pointing out that he had been a member of the general con-
vention and therefore "knew the principles on which the Con-
stitution was formed," Washington concluded that since "it is
essential to the due administration of the government that the
boundaries fixed by the Constitution between the different De-
partments should be preserved, a just regard to the Constitu-
tion and to the duty of my office under all circumstances of
this case forbids the compliance with your request." "
Thus during Washington's administration the doctrine of
the separation of powers came to provide the basis for execu-
tive privilege in withholding information. This doctrine, not
specifically enunciated in the Constitution, emerged from de-
cisions taken on specific political situations which arose during
the first years of the republic, as the same men who wrote the
Constitution interpreted it in such ways as they thought pro-
moted its intended ends. In this way it was established that
the Executive Branch of the Government has within its control
certain types of executive documents which the Legislature
cannot dislodge no matter how great the demand. The Execu-
tive Branch can be asked for documents, but should exercise
5 1 Richardson, op. cit. supra, note 2, 144. Italics supplied.
61 id. 186.
ApprovegIFFbfir4i4JA MI4)(12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200R0
Aeiprn90.Fegetilme 2004igetttiRifgV-2A?21101Pg3e942???1-0
discretion as to whether their release would serve a public good
or be contrary to the public interest.
The Judiciary also recognized, as early as 1803, the independ-
ence of the Executive Branch and its ability to control its own
affairs. Chief Justice Marshall wrote: "The province of the
court is, solely, to decide on the rights of individuals, not to
inquire how the Executive, or executive officers, perform duties
in which they have a discretion. Questions in this nature
political, or which are, by the Constitution and laws, submitted
to the Executive, can never be made in this court." 7
It is notable that this executive privilege was applied in the
congressional cases cited above to the President's responsibility
for foreign affairs. Under the Continental Congress, the De-
partment of Foreign Affairs had been almost completely subject
to congressional direction. Every member of the Congress was
entitled to see all records of the Department, including secret
matters. But after the Constitution was written, and pur-
suant to its grand design based on the separation of powers,
Congress in 1789 subordinated the Department of Foreign
Affairs to the Executive Branch and provided that its Secretary
should have custody and charge of all records and papers in the
Department. In 1816 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
declared that the "President is the Constitutional representa-
tive of the United States with regard to foreign matters" and
that the nature of transactions with foreign nations "requires
caution and success frequently depends on secrecy and dis-
patch."
Precedent in Intelligence Cases
Intelligence activities, intimately linked with foreign policy,
played their part in the evolution of the Executive Branch's
position on disclosure of information. In 1801 Congress in-
terested itself in the expenditures of various Executive Depart-
ments and instituted an inquiry "as to the unauthorized dis-
bursement of public funds." In reply to charges that the War
Department expended funds for secret service not authorized
by law, Oliver Wolcott (Comptroller of the United States
1791-1795; Secretary of the Treasury 1795-1800) gave a clear
exposition of the accounting requirements of intelligence which
is applicable today:
Marbury v Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803).
htilproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RdigilaSktiglOOM20001-0
AP P r"fgetliOeMIs0 0644117a9A-813P 78 -0M16119.0 twaqvit -0
I never doubted for one instant that such expenditures were
lawful, and that the principle should now be questioned has
excited a degree of astonishment in my mind at least equal to
the "surprise" of the Committee.
Is it then seriously asserted that in the War and Navy De-
partments ? establishments which from their nature presup-
pose an actual or probable state of war, which are designed to
protect our country against enemies ?that the precise object
of every expenditure must be published? Upon what principle
are our Generals and Commanders to be deprived of powers
which are sanctioned by universal usage and expressly rec-
ognized as lawful by all writers of the Law of Nations? If one
of our Naval Commanders now in the Mediterranean should
expend a few hundred dollars for intelligence respecting the
force of his enemy or the measures meditated by him, ought
the present Administration to disallow the charge, or publish
the source from which the intelligence was derived? Is it not
equivalent to a publication to leave in a public office of ac-
counts a document explaining all circumstances relating to a
payment? Ought the truth be concealed by allowing fictitious
accounts? Could a more effectual mode of preventing abuses
be devised than to establish it as a rule that all confidential
expenditures should be ascertained to the satisfaction of the
Chief Magistrate of our country, that his express sanction
should be obtained, and that the amount of all such expendi-
tures should be referred to a distinct account in the Public
Records?
The statute referred to in the debates was an Act of Con-
gress passed on 9 February 1793 which gave the President au-
thority, if the public interest required, to account for money
drawn from the Treasury? for the purpose of "intercourse with
foreign nations" simply by his own certification or that of the
Secretary of State. Actually, this statute reaffirmed the similar
legislation of 1790 providing for the settlement of certain ex-
penditures which, in the judgment of the President, ought not
be made public.? The substance of these Acts was revived and
continued in later legislation, and President Polk utilized it in
1846 in refusing to accede to a House resolution requesting an
accounting of Daniel Webster's expenses as Secretary of State
in the previous administration.
Control of Federal Expenditures, A Documentary History 1775-1894,
Institute for Government Record of the Brookings Institution, pp.
329-330. Punctuation modernized.
'Richardson, supra, note 2.
ApprovePfgriktitea 2ov2/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200016-50
AegrfmILF6?Etem 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
txecutive Privilege and Intelligence
In 1842 Webster had negotiated an agreement with the Brit-
ish representative, Lord Ashburton, on the long-disputed
boundary of Maine. To make the treaty more palatable to
the public and enhance its chances of ratification in the Senate,
Webster had spent money out of "secret service funds" to carry
on favorable propaganda in the religious press of Maine. Sena-
tor Benton termed this practice a "shame and an injury . . . a
solemn bamboozlement." A Congressional investigation fol-
lowed, during the course of which the request was levied upon
President Polk.
President Polk based his refusal to comply on the statutes
which gave the President discretionary authority to withhold
details on how money was spent. He supported his predeces-
sor's determination that the expenditure should not be made
public, asserting that if not "a matter of strict duty, it would
certainly be a safe general rule that this should not be done."
In his message to Congress he acknowledged the "strong and
correct public feeling throughout the country against secrecy of
any kind in the administration of the Government" but argued
that "emergencies may arise in which it becomes absolutely
necessary for the public safety or public good to make expendi-
tures the very object of which would be defeated by publicity."
He pointed out as an example that in time of war or impending
danger it may be necessary to "employ individuals for the pur-
pose of obtaining information or rendering other important
services who could never be prevailed upon to act if they had
the least apprehension that their names or their agency would
in any contingency be divulged." 1?
The non-disclosure of information relating to intelligence
was tested rather vigorously in several instances during the
Civil War, and these tests established a strong precedent in
favor of the inviolability of intelligence activities. Brigadier
General G. M. Dodge, who conducted a number of intelligence
activities in the West with considerable results, became the ob-
ject of relentless criticism for his financing methods. He
refused obdurately to break the confidence of his agents by
revealing names and amounts paid, and when he was denied
the funds necessary for these activities, he had to raise the
money for his agents by confiscating cotton crops in the South
105 Richardson, op. cit. supra, note 2, 2281.
nproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDFM103.92/140111N00220001-0
Approved For Relea5e 2004/12/17 ? cIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
txecutive Privilege and Intelligence OFFICIAL USE ONLY
and selling them at public auction. Three years after the end
of the War, when War Department auditors discovered that
General Dodge had paid spies for Grant's and Sherman's
armies, they peremptorily ordered him to make an accounting
of the exact sums. Receipts and vouchers signed by spies who
lived in the South were obviously difficult to obtain, and fur-
thermore the names of the agents, for their own security, could
not be disclosed. As a result, when the War Department closed
Dodge's secret service accounts 21 years after the war, they
were apparently still without a receipt for every dollar spent',
A leading legal decision governing the privilege of the Ex-
ecutive Branch to withhold intelligence also had its genesis in
the Civil War. In July 1861 William A. Loyd entered into a
contract with President Lincoln under which he proceeded
"within the rebel lines and remained during the entire war."
He collected intelligence information all during the war and
transmitted it directly to the President. At the end of the war
he was reimbursed his expenses, but did not get any of the
$200-per-month salary for which the contract called. After
Loyd's death a suit was brought by his administrator against
the Government to collect the salary Lincoln had contracted
to pay him.
The case was finally decided by the Supreme Court in 1876,
and the claim was denied. Mr Justice Field set forth in his
opinion a position on secrecy in intelligence matters which is
still being followed today. He wrote that Loyd was engaged
in secret service, "the information sought was to be obtained
clandestinely," and "the employment and the service were to
be equally concealed." The Government and the employee
"must have understood that the lips of the other were to be
forever sealed respecting the relation of either to the matter."
Were the conditions of such secret contracts to be divulged,
embarrassment and compromise of the Government in its pub-
lic duties and consequent injury to the public would result, or
furthermore the person or the character of the agent might be
injured or endangered. The secrecy which such contracts im-
pose "is implied in all secret employments of the Government
in time of war, or upon matters affecting foreign relations,"
and precludes any action for their enforcement. "The pub-
Perkins, J. R., Trails, Rails and War, Bobbs-Merrill (1929) .
ApprovaffirriAleligieQtr4ail2/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200C6V-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
OFFICIAL USE ONLY Executive Privilege and Intelligence
licity produced by an action would itself be a breach of a con-
tract of that kind and thus defeat a recovery.f, 12
The pattern of executive privilege as applied to withholding
information on intelligence activities was determined by the
resolution of these situations which occurred from the first
years of the Republic through the Civil War. Decisions in
later cases utilized the precedents which had here been estab-
lished. In 1948 the Supreme Court, deciding a case concern-
ing an application for an overseas air route, reaffirmed that
"the President, both as Commander-in-Chief and as the na-
tion's organ for foreign affairs, has available intelligence serv-
ices whose reports are not and ought not be published to the
world," and defined its own position on cases involving secret
information:
It would be intolerable that courts, without the relevant in-
formation, should review and perhaps nullify actions of the
Executive taken on information properly held secret. Nor can
courts sit in camera in order to be taken into executive confi-
dences . . . The very nature of executive decisions as to for-
eign policy is political, not judicial."
Intelligence information is recognized by the three branches
of Government as of special importance because of its connec-
tion with foreign affairs and military security.
Authorities for CIA Information Controls
As an Executive agency CIA partakes of the privileges
accorded generally to the Executive Branch with respect to
withholding information, privileges ultimately dependent on
the separation of powers doctrine. In addition, Congress has
specifically recognized the secrecy essential in the operation of
Central Intelligence by providing in the National Security Act
of 1947 that the Director "shall be responsible for protecting
intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized dis-
closure." In the Central Intelligence Act of 1949, noting again
this responsibility of the Director, Congress exempted the
Agency from any law which requires the disclosure of the
organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries, or num-
"Totten Adm'r v United States; 92 US 105 (1876).
"Chicago and Southern Airlines, Inc. v Waterman Steamship Cor-
poration; 33 US 103 (1948).
Pstproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RIEFF8dA22WO401220001-0
Approved For Relea?e 2004/12/17 ? CIA-RDP78-08M69,1203(n2M4-0
Executive Priviiege and Intelligence
bers of personnel employed. Other statutes exempt the Agency
from requirements to file certain information reports.
Pursuant to the Director's task of safeguarding intelligence
information, Agency regulations governing the release of infor-
mation serve notice upon employees that unauthorized dis-
closure is a criminal and an administrative offense. A crim-
inal prosecution for unauthorized disclosure can be instituted
against an employee under several statutes, including the Espi-
onage Laws, or administrative sanctions including discharge
can be applied against him.
Central Intelligence is also subject to the provision of Execu-
tive Order 10501 that "classified defense information shall not
be disseminated outside the Executive Branch except under
conditions and through channels authorized by the head of the
disseminating department or agency." This provision, al-
though it has never been tested in the courts, gives the Director
added support in controlling the release of information to the
courts and Congress as well as to the public. He can and will
upon request release information of no security significance to
the courts or Congress; he can exercise discretion in the release
of information produced by and concerning the CIA; but there
are limitations on his authority over information originating
in other departments, joint interagency documents, and per-
sonnel security information. If the decision whether to com-
ply with a demand for information cannot be made at the
Director's level, it is referred to the National Security Council.
CIA's position vis-a-vis the courts and Congress is unique
beside that of other agencies, because of the recognized secrecy
and sensitivity and the connection with foreign affairs pos-
sessed by the information with which the Agency deals. This
position has been tested on several occasions.
Intelligence and the Courts
The secrecy of intelligence employment which the Supreme
Court recognized in the Totten case? on the Loyd-Lincoln con-
tract over eighty years ago is basically unchanged today. The
difficulties encountered in the courts by a person claiming pay
for secret work allegedly performed for the Government were
illustrated in the Gratton Booth Tucker case in 1954. Tucker
alleged that he had performed services "under conditions of
utmost secrecy, in line of duty, under the supervision of agents
Approved*BICRUlektlig 2a0012/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200A
AuffMLF0sEe6eArf 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Executive Privilege and Intelligence
of the United States Secret Service and of the C.I.D. of the
Armed Services and Department of Justice, FBI and of the
Central Intelligence Agency." He claimed that from 1942 to
1947 he contributed his services voluntarily and "without
thought of compensation in anticriminal and counterespionage
activities in Mexico and behind the lines in Germany," and
that in 1950 he was assigned to Korea. For all this he brought
suit against the United States in the Court of Claims, seeking
payment of $50,000 annually for the years he worked and of
$10,000 as expenses. On the very basis of these allegations,
and without going into the matter any further, the court re-
fused recovery, citing the Totten case as authority."
Another aspect of the Government's privilege not to disclose
state secrets in open court was decided several years ago by
the Supreme Court in the Reynolds case. This was a suit for
damages brought against the Government by the widows of
three civilian observers who were killed in the crash of a mili-
tary plane on which they were testing secret electronic equip-
ment. The Air Force refused to divulge certain information
which the widows thought necessary to their case, stating that
the matter was privileged against disclosure pursuant to Air
Force regulations prohibiting that reports be made available to
persons "outside the authorized chain of command." The Air
Force then made a formal claim of privilege, affirming that
"the aircraft in question, together with the personnel on board,
were engaged in a highly secret mission of the Air Force." An
affidavit by the Air Force Judge Advocate General asserted
further that the material could not be furnished "without seri-
ously hampering national security." The Supreme Court
accepted the Air Force argument, saying that "even the most
compelling necessity cannot overcome the claim of privilege if
the court is ultimately satisfied that military secrets are at
stake." And these Air Force statements had been sufficient
to satisfy the court of the military secret involved.?
The privilege of withholding national security information
from the courts has been subject to some limitation. One case,
U.S. v Jarvinen,le illustrates that this executive privilege is not
14 Gratton Booth Tucker v United States; 127 Ct. Cl. 477 (1954) .
"United States v Reynolds; 345 US 1 (1952) .
le United States v Jarvinen; Dist. Ct. Western District of Washington,
Northern Div. (1952) .
4proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-ROMAI9MOMNI220001-0
Approved For Rele?e 2004/1.2/17 ? cIA-RDP78-03921AnnO8laii261W-0
Executive Privaege and Intelligence OFFICIAL
judicially inviolable. Jarvinen was a casual informant in the
United States who gave information in 1952 to CIA and later
to the FBI that Owen Lattimore had booked passage to the
USSR. He later informed CIA that he had fabricated the whole
story. Soon thereafter Jarvinen was indicted for making false
statements to government agencies. At the trial a CIA em-
ployee called to testify by the Department of Justice prosecutor
was directed by CIA not to answer. The witness' claim of
privilege was not accepted, however, and when he refused the
court's order to answer he was held in contempt and sentenced
to fifteen days in jail. He was pardoned by the President.
The CIA argument had been based on the provision of the
CIA Act of 1949 that the Director "shall be responsible for pro-
tecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized
disclosure" and on Executive Order 10290, then in effect, which
limited dissemination of classified security information. The
court had reservations about the substantive merits of the priv-
ilege, and the widespread publicity emanating from the case
apparently vitiated the claim of need to protect sources and
methods. It was the further opinion of the court that in a
criminal prosecution the Government must choose either to
present all the pertinent information, regardless of its sensi-
tivity, or to risk dismissal of the case by not presenting any
sensitive information at all.
There have been several instances of indirect Agency par-
ticipation in court cases, usually when employees have been
requested to furnish documents or testify on behalf of the Gov-
ernment or private parties. In recent cases in which other
Government agencies have participated there has been a co-
operation between them and Central Intelligence representa-
tives which was lacking in the Jarvinen case, and little difficulty
has been encountered with respect to the privilege of with-
holding classified information. A good example is the Justice
Department's prosecution of the case against Petersen,17 an
employee of the National Security Agency who had passed NSA
documents to the Dutch. The Justice Department needed to
present classified information to the court in order to substanti-
ate its case, but the Director of Central Intelligence advised, in
17 United States v Petersen (E. D. Va. Criminal No. 3049, January 4,
1955) .
ApprovegFIFtPlet6IPMe M4/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200d11-0
AbygMLFMeain 2004/12/17 :.CIAADP78-03921A000300220001-0
txecutive 14w, lege and Intelligence
the interest of security, that a particular document not be used.
The Justice Department accepted this recommendation and
succeeded in convicting Petersen on other evidence.
CIA and Congress
CIA's record of cooperation with congressional committees
has on the whole been satisfactory. The Agency certainly
recognizes that Congress has a legitimate interest in some
intelligence information and obviously a better claim on it
than say the private citizen who needs it for purposes of litiga-
tion. Although, under the separation of powers doctrine, in-
telligence gathering and production is an executive function
and the responsibility of the Executive Branch, the Congress
does have responsibilities in the foreign affairs field. It is,
moreover, the appropriating authority for Agency funds, and
indiscriminate withholding of information could not only result
in a poorly informed Congress but also jeopardize the good will
the Agency enjoys with it. Within the bounds of security,
therefore, CIA has attempted conscientiously to fulfill requests
from Congress proper to the legislative function. And Con-
gress, for its part, has so far respected CIA's decision to with-
hold information or produce it only in closed session with the
understanding that it is not to be released.
If summoned by a subpoena to testify before a Congressional
Committee, all CIA employees, including the Director, are re-
quired to appear or be held in contempt of Congress. There
are few instances, however, in which an employee has been
subpoenaed to testify involuntarily, and no documents have
ever been released to Congress without the Director's approval.
In most cases it has been as a matter of form or at Agency
request that an employee's testimony has been called for and
a subpoena served. In only two instances situations have
arisen which led to strained relations between the Agency and
congressional committees. When Agency testimony was de-
sired by the Senate Internal Security Committee concerning
the security status of John Paton Davies, CIA successfully re-
quested several delays in the hearings on security grounds.
And in 1954, while the Senate Committee on Government
Operations was considering inquiring as to certain facts relat-
ing to the security status of an Agency employee, counsel for
the Committee and the General Counsel of CIA agreed on the
Proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RaM06412111AB0Caa7e20001-0
Approved For
legitimate interests of the Agency and the Committee. The
employee was never questioned by the Committee.
No court cases have defined an employee's rights to withhold
from Congress information which has been classified and the
divulgence of which could work harm to this country's intelli-
gence program. Such a case could theoretically arise through
testing a Congressional contempt citation in a habeas corpus
proceeding, but it is unlikely that such a test will be made.
The employee could use an order from the Director as a basis
for not testifying, and the Director's judgment has always been
respected by the Congress when he has decided he cannot re-
veal certain information. Because the information which CIA
has is so clearly within the purview of the Executive Branch,
this Agency has a much stronger legal basis for refusal than
other departments have.
If Congress should persist, there would of course have to be
eventual Presidential support for continued refusal to give in-
formation. Such support was tendered, outside the intelli-
gence and foreign fields, in 1909 when Theodore Roosevelt with-
stood a Senate resolution calling for certain papers in the
Bureau of Corporations concerned with the absorption by U.S.
Steel of another corporation. Roosevelt informed the Senate
that he had obtained personal possession of the papers it de-
sired but that the Senate could get them only by impeachment.
"Some of these facts which they [the Senate] want," he de-
clared, "for what purpose I hardly know, were given to the Gov-
ernment under the Seal of Secrecy and cannot be divulged,
and I will see to it that the word of this Government to the
individual is kept sacred." 18
Generally, there has been a spirit of cooperation between the
Legislative and Executive Branches. In those cases where a
conflict has occurred, and the Executive has refused to divulge
information requested even in the strongest terms by the Legis-
lature, the decision of the Executive has prevailed. The Con-
stitution has been in existence for over 170 years and under it
34 Presidents and 85 Congresses have forged a strong interpre-
tation of the separation of powers. In the field of foreign
affairs intelligence, the Director of Central Intelligence, acting
18 The Letters of Archie Butt, Personal Aide to President Roosevelt;
by Abbott, pp. 305-06.
ApprovePPEActegeW NA 2/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000a
Ammt FogERt?sp 2004/12/17 CIA-RIQP78-039,21AOPP0300220001-0
txecutive Privilege and Intelligence
under the constitutional powers of the Executive Branch of
Government together with powers granted by statute, can with-
hold such information as he believes is in the best interests of
the United States. If a showdown were to occur, however, the
issue is between the President and Congress as to whether
classified information should be divulged against the wishes of
the Director, who is responsible for the protection of sources
and methods. Historical precedent in similar situations ap-
pears to favor the President.
Al!)proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-ROFFIVX192151011DISKIV220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030021006611-0
A recent article in STUDIES pro-
vokes here a second attempt to
sort out a tangled concept.
A DEFINITION OF INTELLIGENCE
Martin T. Bimfort
Formulating a brief definition of so broad a term as intelli-
gence is like making a microscopic portrait of a continent, and
the product of this effort is likely to have less value than the
process of arriving at it, the reexamination of our own think-
ing as we seek to pinpoint the essentials of the concept. Yet
misunderstandings within and without the intelligence com-
munity often result from incompatible understandings of the
meaning of the word intelligence. Moreover, the assignment
and coordination of functions, responsibilities, and relation-
ships among the members of the community must rest upon an
agreed interpretation of this word in the laws and directives
which govern our work.
Definitions carefully formulated by intelligence experts do
exist, but all seem deficient in one respect or another; the con-
cept remains as sprawling and thorny as a briar patch. Each
expert tends to view the term through the spectacles of his
specialty. Military intelligence officers speak of enemies and
areas of operation, defining operation as a military action or
the carrying out of a military mission. The collectors of in-
formation are inclined to regard its further processing as a
kind of frosting, a matter of arrangement and decoration. The
agent handlers tend to lose sight of the end in the wildwood of
the means. The producers of finished intelligence, cutting
their cloth far from the smell of sheep dip, are likely to dis-
regard both the raw materials and the methods by which they
are obtained. Like the services within the intelligence com-
munity, these specialists within services need common defini-
tions as bridges toward unanimity.
A definition recently proposed by R. A. Random' is here com-
pared with three others. After discussing them we shall, with
human temerity, propose yet another.
Intelligence as a Science," Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 2, No. 2
(Spring 1958), page 76.
MORI/HRP
75 from pg. 75-78
Approve*gehelease 2004/12/17: CIA-R0P78-03921A000300220001-0
Apparrd For Release 2004/12/17 : CAAMMR51030f21M9S9pci20001-0
1. Webster's Unabridged (1956)
"Intelligence. 5. The obtaining or dispensing of infor-
mation, particularly secret information; also, the per-
sons engaged in obtaining information; secret service."
2. Dictionary of United States Military Terms for Joint Usage
(Revision of February 1957)
"Intelligence ? the product resulting from the collection,
evaluation, analysis, integration, and interpretation of all
available information which concerns one or more aspects
of foreign nations or of areas of operation and which is
immediately or potentially significant to planning."
3. A Training Handbook
"Intelligence =The product resulting from the collection,
evaluation, collation, interpretation, [and] analysis of all
available information concerning the intentions, capabil-
ities and objectives of other countries which are significant
to a government's development and execution of plans,
policies, decisions, and courses of action."
4. Mr. Random
"Intelligence is the official, secret collection and process-
ing of information on foreign countries to aid in formu-
lating and implementing foreign policy, and the conduct
of covert activities abroad to facilitate the implementa-
tion of foreign policy."
Definitions 2 and 3 consider intelligence solely a product.
Definitions 1 and 4 recognize that intelligence is also a process,
but they contain other inadequacies. All four omit counter-
intelligence, a deficiency which is like that entailed in explain-
ing an automobile in terms of its motor without reference to
its bumpers or brakes.
Webster's definition is clearly not exclusive enough for our
purposes. There is much obtaining and dispensing of infor-
mation, even secret information, which has nothing to do with
intelligence as we use the term. The second and third defini-
tions list whole series of overlapping concepts in an effort to
include everything, yet exclude the essential concept of process.
With Webster, they likewise ignore not only counterintelli-
gence but also political action and covert propaganda, although
76
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A220001-0
ApprovAckfarnRitlicayeOh1iyj : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030C6SION1-0
these activities are conducted by intelligence organizations in
accordance with directives based on law.
Mr. Random's definition avoids all but one of these pitfalls,
but has weaknesses of its own. First, in the phrase "the official,
secret collection and processing of information on foreign coun-
tries," the adjective official is proper to the processing of intel-
ligence but not always applicable to its collection. The ac-
quisition of intelligence is normally performed for a govern-
ment, but the act of acquisition is sometimes highly unofficial.
Secondly, although secrecy is critical to intelligence, it is not a
universal attribute. There is overt reporting by representa-
tives abroad, overt processing of overt materials, overt dis-
closure of finished intelligence. Thirdly, intelligence is not
confined to information on foreign countries; witness FBI re-
ports on the CPUSA. This last difficulty can be solved, if the
term agent is understood to mean any person or group who
serves the interests of a foreign state, by adding the words "and
their agents" after "foreign countries."
Mr. Random states the purpose of intelligence as "to aid in
formulating and implementing foreign policy." But intelli-
gence may aid in determining domestic policies for national
security as well: the inauguration of a program for civil de-
fense, for example, or stepping up the national development
of space satellites.
The final element in the fourth definition, "the conduct of
covert activities abroad to facilitate the implementation of
foreign policy," comes close to the mark. It should be made
clear, however, that "covert" as here used does not mean
"secret," in the sense that the activities are hidden, but rather
"non-attributable," in that the government's responsibility for
these activities is not disclosed.
The omission of counterintelligence from the fourth defini-
tion, as from the others, is the more surprising in that counter-
intelligence is a part of intelligence not in an architectural but
in an organic sense. The counterintelligence elements of the
intelligence bloodstream are the white corpuscles and anti-
bodies. It is true that our emerging definition has taken some
informational aspects of counterintelligence into account by in-
cluding "information on foreign countries and their agents,"
but we must also cover the aggressive and defensive measures
SECRET_ 77
Approvea ror Kelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Aiseemd For Release 2004/12/17 :
r pp Skek-E9pnTt8603y3oo22000i-o
n e igence
which intelligence takes to protect its activities and products.
Adding this element to our definition, we rest our case on a
triad (positive intelligence, political action, counterintelli-
gence) with threefold application (to process, to product, to
agency).
Intelligence is the collecting and processing of that informa-
tion about foreign countries and their agents which is needed
by a government for its foreign policy and for national security,
the conduct of non-attributable activities abroad to facilitate
the implementation of foreign policy, and the protection of both
process and product, as well as persons and organizations con-
cerned with these, against unauthorized disclosure.
/proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921AEKW220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921AMAR911-0
CRITIQUES OF SOME RECENT BOOKS
ON INTELLIGENCE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY.
By H. H. Ransom. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
1958. Pp. 272. $4.50)
This is the best study that has been written on the develop-
ment, organization, and problems of the US intelligence busi-
ness. The author declares that his goal is "to describe con-
temporary central intelligence insofar as this can be done from
nonsecret sources." This goal he has admirably attained; it is
remarkable indeed how much can be learned from "nonsecret"
sources if they are industriously and skillfully used. The tone
of the book is throughout temperate and scholarly. The reader
will find an excellent brief discussion of what intelligence is,
and of how it is supposed to operate. He will find good sum-
mary accounts of the history, functions, and present organi-
zation of all the IAC member agencies, and of CIA itself. Curi-
ous outsiders will learn a good deal that is new to them, and
students in CIA training courses will find this an excellent
textbook.
To a great ? perhaps excessive ? degree the story centers
about National Intelligence Estimates. Partly, no doubt, this
is because the existence of these estimates and the general
manner of their production is no secret. But partly it is be-
cause the author entertains the highest notion of their signifi-
cance. "No development in American governmental institu-
tions in recent years is more important than the evolution of
the mechanism for producing the National Intelligence Esti-
mate," he says. This mechanism is accurately and quite fully
described. And there is much explanation of why successful
policies can only be made on the basis of good information and
sound estimates.
But the author runs into trouble when he attempts to say
how good National Intelligence Estimates really are. Even if
he had been given all the texts of all the estimates he would
not have found it easy to arrive at a judgment of their validity.
Approvc9KLEgt1gA46 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220033-0
MORI/HRP
from pg. 79-81
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL Recent Books
As it is, the best he can do is to quote people like Admiral Rad-
ford, who says that we always overestimate the strength and
capabilities of the Soviets, and other people like Joseph Alsop,
who says that we always underestimate them. The reader will
not be much wiser after such quotations; indeed he may well
wonder why Alsop should be cited at all as an authority on the
subject.
Then the author worries about the dangers of "intelligence
by committee" ? the perils of a watered-down consensus. He
fears that there may not be enough weight given to variant
opinions. "On the most important of questions," says he, "is
likely to be found the greatest variety of dissenting views."
This is a commonly held notion, which the present reviewer
believes to be false. The fact is that there is not often much
difference of opinion in the intelligence community on "the
most important of questions" ? it is on the less important that
argument is most apt to be sharp. Indeed, most of the time
devoted to coordinating the text of Estimates is spent in adjust-
ing relatively minor matters of emphasis, phraseology, and the
like. When there are firmly held differences of view on a truly
important question, nobody desires to minimize the matter or
to suppress a dissent by watering down the collective judgment.
A great deal hangs on the confidence and firmness with which
an intelligence estimate is rendered, whether as a consensus or
as a dissent. If a firm judgment is given, it may be sufficient
by itself to determine US policy. But intelligence estimators
would be irresponsible if they gave a firm judgment when the
evidence did not warrant it. They would in effect be making a
policy decision in the guise of intelligence, and they ought not
to do this. It seems to me that the author of this book, along
with others who decry the "watering down" of intelligence
estimates, misses this point. He gives intelligence estimators
no credit for honest doubts, or for decent intellectual humility
in the face of insufficient evidence. He is clear, however, in
his caution that intelligence estimators must base their differ-
ing opinions strictly on the evidence, and not upon extraneous
political or budgetary considerations.
The author's discussion of the relationship between intelli-
gence and policy is always interesting, and sometimes down-
right alarming. Policy-making, says he, is a dynamic process,
Afiproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-06:01UNEff0f01X120001-0
ApprovvelcFeff lagloekise 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A6NAWitpickt-0
and a key element in it is the information available. The man
or group controlling information thus to a degree controls
policy. If knowledge is power, he remarks, CIA through an
increasing efficiency has come to play a major role in national
security policy.
He goes yet further. CIA, he says, will probably increase its
influence, simply because increasing centralization of power
and of function is more or less inevitable in the modern age.
At some time or other the policy-making elements in the
Executive and Legislative branches of the government may
reach an impasse. When that day comes it may be that CIA
will constitute a "third force" within the Executive Branch,
and successfully espouse its own foreign-military policy. This
horrendous prospect disturbs the author a little, and is one
reason why he favors the appointment of a Congressional Com-
mittee to oversee the operations of CIA in the way suggested
by Senator Mansfield.
Despite these fears, the author sketches out a considerable
extension in the traditional activities of intelligence. Too little
attention has been given, he says, to the discovery of factors
by which the United States may influence the future. There
has been too little Basic Research, and too much accumulation
of facts. "The whole intelligence enterprise tends to focus
upon the filling of a vast warehouse of encyclopedic data."
And again, "too little regard is shown generally to theory, rea-
soning, or the inductive method." Be it so, but an increasing
mastery of these methods, and an increasing weight of product
from them, might in the long run make CIA virtually an arbiter
of policy. Myself, I doubt that we shall ever be wise enough to
reach that position on the "most important questions."
The foregoing observations are directed to some points raised
in the last chapter of the book under consideration. Primarily
the book is descriptive, not argumentative; it deals with the
intelligence mechanism as it exists, and eschews theory. There
is an excellent apparatus of footnotes, and a lengthy critical
bibliography. Altogether this is a major work in our field, and
one to be warmly welcomed.
ABBOT SMITH
Approvedc tQfi1ikialILAi004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200018-4
p piEgifirAelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Recent Books
C. I. A. By Joachim Joesten. (Munich: Isar. 1958. Pp. 192.
DM 12.80.)
Two distinct and somewhat ill-fitting Parts make up this
book by the German-born U.S. journalist Joesten, and the less
valuable of the two has imposed its title upon the composite.
Part II, "[Episodes] from the Duel between the [Soviet and
U.S.] Clandestine Services," is devoted almost entirely to the
story of two Soviet spy rings in the United States, the one
centered on Jack Soble and the one headed by Colonel Abel.
These stories the author puts together from public sources,
chiefly the indictments against the principals and their own
published testimony and statements.
In this Part Joesten adheres, if somewhat loosely, to his docu-
mentary sources, employing literary license mainly to endow
his characters with personality and play them through his
pages with dramatic finesse. The reader feels he has got per-
sonally acquainted with Martha Dodd Stern, Jack and Myra
Soble, George and Jane Foster Zlatowski, the ignoble hero
Boris Morros, Colonel Rudolph Abel, the degenerate Reino Hay-
hanen, Sgt. Roy Rhodes, and their supporting casts ? at least
he has got acquainted with the Joesten characters representing
them ? and finds himself emotionally involved in their adven-
tures. There is probably not another so readable account of
these two espionage nets extant.
To these stories of Soviet spying Joesten adds a weak after-
balance in a chapter on Soviet public exposure of U.S. spies,
and finally he describes, by way of wry comic epilogue, the
battle fought among U.S. agents over the defectors Barsov and
Pirogov at "The Three Musketeers" restaurant in Washington.
Part II logically includes also the book's Vorspiel, staging the
scene in which USAF Captain French "lost the biggest gamble
of his life" when his flier offering the Soviet Embassy nuclear
weapons data found its way to the FBI.
Part I, which gives the book its title, purports likewise to
rest on open documentary sources, or at least public informa-
tion, in its description of CIA's organization and activities; but
here Joesten has either used his sources too uncritically or em-
broidered on them too freely. Interwoven into a generally
sound synthesis of what is publicly known about the Agency
are extravagances and misinformation like the following:
MORI/HRP from
%proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP780131E4EDEQQT1I0220001-0 pg. 82-84
ApproveMetwtROme 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921ACONNOBIVAD
The most minor CIA official gets a salary which would look
like a golden dream come true to the best paid of freelance
journalists. . . .
CIA has a language school at its disposal . . . [where] hun-
dreds of young men and women sit . . . learning little-known
Soviet languages like Azerbaidzhani. . . . Beginners learn in
six to eight weeks to read Pravda fluently and monitor Radio
Moscow. . . . Compulsory for all [new CIA employees] is the
Russian language and in addition one other Soviet Bloc lan-
guage. . . .
It can be stated without exaggeration that any person who
is in any way in the public eye in any country today is under
CIA surveillance. . . . All his activities, the good and bad
aspects of his character, his financial involvements, the com-
pany he keeps, his sex life, his habits (especially drink and
drugs) ? everything is down in his file. . . .
By and large . . . the daily CIA report to the President is
based chiefly on information from secret agents in the adver-
sary's territory, while the much more comprehensive weekly
and monthly reports contain predominantly material . . . dis-
tilled from newspapers, periodicals, books, radio broadcasts,
etc. . . . The Office of National Estimates issues a weekly
review of the U.S. international political and strategic posi-
tion . . . wherein the development of American nuclear might
is weighed against the country's vulnerabilities. . . .
Within the CIA Operations Branch is a special section . . .
called by the initiated the "Department of Dirty Tricks." In
the usual abbreviation of this name, DDT, lies an unintentional
but nevertheless neat pun. . . .
"AWD," as the chief is called orally and in writing by his
subordinates, . . . is not easily upset and almost never makes
a public statement. . . . He called together 500 of his main
supervisors and declared, "Anyone who gives McCarthy any
information will be dismissed on the spot." . . .
If a CIA employee has an accident, no ordinary doctor can
be called, nor can the injured man be put into a hospital to
which the general public has access. . . . If he dies, no coro-
ner's examination can be made, no death certificate can
be issued, and no burial in an ordinary cemetery can take
place. . . .
Joesten's book was criticized for German readers on 22 May
of this year by another journalist, the Washington corre-
spondent of the Hamburg Die Welt, Herbert von Borch, as
"amateurish" and written with a "cheap sensationalism" which
misrepresented the facts about CIA operations. Von Borch's
heavy-handed attack was apparently inspired, however, not so
Approvec199MWIFelaal1/442004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200018-0
AeeigrugiorAllelease 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-031A007330V20001-0
ecent oo s
much by misrepresentations like those cited above as by the
central theme which serves to integrate Joesten's two dissimilar
Parts ? namely, that the necessary secrecy of intelligence
operations creates an unchecked center of power in the U.S.
Government which poses a potential threat to Western
democracy.
Joesten bolsters this warning with authorities Senator
Mansfield's "If secrecy becomes inviolate, it will lead to abuse";
the New York Times' "As things stand now, CIA is in practice
above the law. . . . No one in Congress knows whether . . . it
is in the process of establishing a bureaucratic world govern-
ment, . . . whether it perhaps arrogates to itself the determi-
nation of U.S. foreign policy"; Senator Morse's declaration that
the organization in its present form is incompatible with the
U.S. constitution; Senator Mansfield's fear that "the whole sys-
tem [of checks and balances] may break down and the door
be opened wide to tyranny." 1
Joesten himself realizes that his warning may be misinter-
preted. He writes in a postscript:
One should not conclude from the fact that the American
clandestine services now show an ominous similarity with
the Russian ones that the United States and the Soviet Union
are spiritual twins.. . . America remains, in spite of its all
too frequently evident blemishes, . . . a country in which the
freedom and dignity of the individual is guaranteed by its
constitution. . . .
But. . . the showdown with the East must be held in the
ideological arena. I have indicated to what extent the United
States . . . has taken up the weapons of the cold war. The
reader . . . can see how dangerous these weapons . . . could
become if ever the essence of the contest lost its ideological
character. . . . Every war is a thing of evil, including the
"cold" war, a craft which may easily get out of hand. . . .
PHILIP K. EDWARDS
BURMA DROP. By John Beamish. (London: Elek Books
and Toronto: Ryerson. 1958. Pp. 222. 16/?.)
This autobiographical account of espionage and guerrilla
activity in the Japanese-held Burma jungles is unfolded by its
All citations in this paragraph are retranslations out of Joesten's
German rendering.
%proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78C64?040/6W0220001-0 MORI/HRP from
pg. 84-86
Approved For .Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0,0030_02,2Q001-0
Recent Books LUNI-IIMN I IAL
Anglo-Burmese author in a cultured British prose sometimes
incongruous with the dashing, adventure-happy flavor which
it has in common with other tales of OSS exploits around the
world. As a matter of fact Beamish, presumably out of respect
for his secrecy oath, delicately avoids implicating the OSS in
the Burmese operations he details. He gives his employer as
British Force 136, describes his fellow-agents as though they
were all British, and acknowledges the existence of American
operations only in picturing his chance encounter with a color-
ful lone Texan whose extravagant personal equipment was sug-
gestive of the White Knight's mad miscellany.
This reticence with respect to his true employer prevents him
from telling the reader that his first mission, to which he de-
votes about half his book, was one of the two or three early
successes which convinced General Stilwell and local Army
headquarters that OSS Detachment 101 deserved full support
and a fair share of the scarce means and materiel available in
the theater. The ten-man party with which Lt. Beamish made
his first parachute drop, in February 1943, blew up bridges in
the Myitkyina area along the Japanese supply route from
Mandalay and then spent several months investigating condi-
tions in northern Burma and sending back intelligence reports
by radio before making its way to Fort Hertz via the Triangle.
Beamish, the records indicate, did leave Detachment 101
after this mission, in mid-1943, and the other two missions he
describes were presumably carried out under the auspices of
Force 136, whose operations were more or less coordinated with
those of the OSS. At any rate these two later assignments of
the author coincide in character with the two emergent phases
of Detachment 101's developing activity ? during most of 1944
a concentration on the gathering of intelligence by espionage
teams, and in 1945 the organization and direction of guerrilla
warfare with irregular forces, largely Kachin, which came to
number as many as 10,000. Beamish' second mission was de-
voted to determining the vulnerability of the ferries along the
Salween boundary between Japanese- and Chinese-held terri-
tory and to assessing the strength of local defense forces and
possibilities for guerrilla recruitment. The active guerrilla
warfare phase of operations began for him in January 1945
when he was parachuted down to a guerrilla center being or-
ganized near Lashio. Highlights of this mission were the res-
2 004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220CM-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL Recent Books
cue of a Shan chief, along with some sixty members of his
household, from Japanese internment, and the routing of Jap-
anese regulars attacking an airstrip.
Burma Drop illustrates authentically the tradecraft of jungle
operations; but the reader will probably remember it best for
the author's love of his green Burmese forests, his warm affec-
tion for the Kachins, his nostalgia for the timber camp and its
elephants who courageously "lifted" the refugees of 1941 into
Assam, and his melancholy acquiescence to the passing of a
gracious colonial era.'
RICHARD K. SHABASON
1 Another member of Detachment 101 is the author of a new novel
about the OSS in Burma?Dean Brelis' The Mission (New York:
Random. 1958. $3.50) . Brelis' story is fictitious and contains
little tradecraft, but in terms of human experience and appre-
ciation of the Kachins his book is a more moving one than
Burma Drop.
Apliroved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-033010108131311420001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE FOR NATIONAL
SECURITY
In 1949 Sherman Kent introduced a triplicate framework
within which to consider the subject of intelligence i.e., as
knowledge, as activity, and as organization.' This article will
proceed within that framework to discuss counterintelligence,
a field of intelligence.
Inevitably it sounds a bit illogical to call counterintelligence
a type of intelligence, for we aboriginally think of intelligence
as knowledge, and counterintelligence as an activity or organi-
zation acting against forces seeking such knowledge. Yet mem-
bers of the intelligence community will agree that we must
produce counterintelligence information (knowledge) as well
as take counterintelligence measures (activity) and devote
personnel to these duties (organization). This threefold paral-
lel view of counterintelligence gives it a unity which obviates
the use of a number of makeshift terms invented in the past
for some of its aspects.
Counterintelligence as Knowledge
Counterintelligence is the knowledge needed for "the protec-
tion and preservation of the military, economic, and productive
strength of the United States, including the security of the
Government in domestic and foreign affairs, against or from
espionage, sabotage, subversion and all other [similar] illegal
acts designed to weaken or destroy the United States." 2
Since the "military, economic, and productive strength of
the United States" is linked with the security of many far-
flung installations and may be affected by activities originat-
ing almost anywhere in the world, the amount of counterintel-
ligence information needed is vast, and it must be produced
both within the United States and in all the foreign areas to
which U.S. interests extend. Kent dichotomized counterintel-
1 Strategic Intelligence (Princeton, 1949) , page ix.
2From the definition of "national security" proposed in the Report
of the Commission on Government Security (Washington, D. C.
1957), pp. 48-49.
MORI/HRP
Approved For Release 2004/12/17: CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000817-0 from pg. 87-92
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Counterintelligence for Security
ligence by location, as security intelligence ? domestic and se-
curity intelligence ? foreign; 3 but since essentially the same
type of counterintelligence information may be required from
Little Rock as from Okinawa, Iceland, Spain, or West Ger-
many, and since it is produced domestically and abroad in the
same way, a division by geographical source does not seem use-
ful for conceptual purposes.
Counterintelligence as Activity
The activity of counterintelligence is the production of
knowledge, and as with all intelligence, this knowledge is not
produced for the counterintelligence organization itself (ex-
cept as parts of it are instrumental in the further production
of knowledge 4) but ultimately for others ? the prosecutors,
legislators, commanders, and executives who are responsible
for administering security measures. We should clearly dis-
tinguish between counterintelligence activities and security
measures, for there is a tendency to treat them with unjustified
synonymity. Security measures are defensive devices applied
by the executive as protection against the things which coun-
terintelligence seeks knowledge of.5 They relate directly to the
item to be secured, denying or inhibiting access to particular
information, material or areas. A representative grouping of
types of security measures follows:
Information Control
Security clearances
Locking containers
Security education
Document
accountability
Censorship
Camouflage
Physical Security
Fences
Lighting
Guard systems
Alarms
Badges and passes
Area Control
Restricted areas
Curfews
Checkpoints
Border and frontier
control
'Op. cit., pp. 210-211.
"These parts are indicated in such statements as, "The FBI conducts
two types of security investigations ? one to uncover admissible
evidence to be used in the prosecution of an individual or group in
federal court, the other for intelligence purposes only." (Whitehead,
The FBI Story, New York, 1956, p. 339.)
5 "Security measures ? measures taken by a command to protect
itself from espionage, observation, sabotage, annoyance, or sur-
prise" ?Dictionary of U.S. Military Terms for Joint Usage.
/proved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
ApprovzilnFigrINIesiggn?20A/;12gL:r4A-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Security measures may be taken on the basis of counterintel-
ligence knowledge, but the function of the counterintelligence
activity proper is simply the production of knowledge knowl-
edge concerning the plans, operations, and capabilities of or-
ganizations intent upon subversive activities. "Subversive ac-
tivities" is used here for convenience in a broad sense, to in-
clude espionage, sabotage, and related actions.
These activities are defined in our federal statutes. Chapter
115, Title 18, U.S. Code, "Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Ac-
tivities," describes certain crimes, such as seditious conspiracy,
which constitute subversive activity in the sense that they aim
at the overthrow of the government. Other statutes particular-
ize espionage as a number of activities including even gross
negligence in the handling of national defense information.
However, the essence of espionage as a practical threat to our
national security is revealed by major U.S. court cases to lie in
the clandestine and illegal collection of secret information on
behalf of another country. The counterintelligence organiza-
tion has little or no control over the vast amount of information
available to foreign countries through legitimate overt sources.
Sabotage is described in our statutes as the willful destruc-
tion or defective production of war or national-defense ma-
materie1.6 It can embrace the work of cranks or vandals disas-
sociated from any foreign or revolutionary power, but as? a
practical threat to national security, sabotage is a clandestine
and illegal activity on behalf of a foreign country which, un-
like espionage, is likely to be limited to periods of actual or
threatened armed hostilities.
Certain kinds of activity, however, which are not made
criminal by law are nevertheless objectives of counterintelli-
gence. Subversive elements may and do operate under a
blanket of constitutionality in their effort to weaken the funda-
mental loyalties that are the real support of a government of
law. To what extent this legal subversion, designed to disaf-
fect the citizenry from its government, must be tolerated for
the sake of preserving individual freedoms is the province of
the legislative and judicial experts in constitutional law. But
the counterintelligence organization counters this legal sub-
6 See Title 18, U.S.C., Chapter 105.
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200P0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 ? CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Counterintelligence for Security
version as well as criminally subversive activity in that it seeks
to produce knowledge of the details of both.
Counterintelligence knowledge may fail to support action
before the courts for any of a number of reasons ? the provi-
sions of the Statute of Limitations, technical defects in the
statutes, the inadvisability of exposing confidential informants
or techniques, or because the subversive activity has not pro-
gressed sufficiently toward its intended end to constitute a
crime. If it is not judicially competent, this knowledge may
still be used profitably by counterintelligence as a lead to fur-
ther investigation, by the executive as the basis for new security
measures, or by the legislature in blocking loopholes in the law.
Our description of counterintelligence activity has included
the traditional elements of counterespionage, countersabo-
tage, and countersubversion.7 The list of particulars might be
extended by adding countersedition and countertreason, for
example, as other subdivisions of counterintelligence activity.
But these divisions are rather artificial ones, for the processes
by which knowledge of espionage, sabotage, sedition, treason,
subversion, etc. is secured are all the same.
The identification of subversive activities, that is the produc-
tion of counterintelligence knowledge, is carried out in three
overlapping phases ? detection, or the recognition of some
actual or apparent evidence of subversive activity; investiga-
tion, or finding out more about this evidence; and research and
analysis, which puts the information into such order that some
use may be made of it. The techniques of investigation and
research have been written of at great length, but three groups
of detection techniques are worth noting here.
The first of these may be characterized as surveillance, under-
stood in a broad sense to include the screening of refugees, the
monitoring of communications, personnel investigations, and
the scrutiny of the press or other news media (for detection,
not for censorship) . It also includes observation of known
subversive outlets and the use of informants wherever they
may be productive.
Farago uses exceptional nomenclature in an attempt to distin-
guish between security and counterintelligence measures. He
groups security intelligence, counterintelligence, and counteres-
pionage as activities under the general heading of negative intelli-
gence. (Ladislas Farago, War of Wits, New York, 1954, p. 271.)
ASP)roved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approvetfn909M84904/112gEui.RA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Another technique of detection is, surprisingly, publicity.
Through publicity the loyal citizenry is made aware of the
danger of subversive activities, is taught ways to recognize
them, and learns the identity of counterintelligence agencies to
which it may turn. Defection programs make use of the pub-
licity device, and immunity statutes assist its effectiveness.
Prudence is of course required in the exercise of this technique.
A third method in detection is liaison, through which coun-
terintelligence agencies are afforded each other's cooperation
and that of other public and private agencies in order to maxi-
mize their range of observation for evidence of subversive ac-
tivity or legal subversion.
The use of these techniques and the whole process of identify-
ing subversive activity must be guided by an analysis of previ-
ous efforts. Detection, investigation, and research and analy-
sis are mutually supporting processes. If they are to be effec-
tive, they must also be continuing processes, and carried out
by skilled personnel.
Counterintelligence as Organization
As organization, counterintelligence consists of the person-
nel, along with their organized skills and methods and their
organized files of data, engaged in these processes that pro-
duce counterintelligence knowledge. Since counterintelligence
measures must be continuing in order to be effective, there
must be a permanency of being for the counterintelligence or-
ganization and a background of continuity in its files and in
the experience of its field and headquarters personnel.
Ideally, the field personnel should all be skilled in all coun-
terintelligence techniques and fluent in half a dozen languages
as well. What is not always fully appreciated is that the
counterintelligence expertise is more critical than the lan-
guage facility. A language weakness can be compensated for,
but professional counterintelligence ability is indispensable.
In practice, individual field personnel are likely to be expert
in only one or a few of the techniques required, for instance
liaison. Others may be expert in research and analysis, the
ability to clarify, organize, and make significant the reports
of the investigators. Investigators may be specialists in inter-
rogation, shadowing, or the use of technical equipment. These
experts, like highly skilled persons anywhere, are likely to be
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022008]-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/1 tialeapeimmg2figk. ogvuorg2 0001-o
sensitive and at times temperamental; and supervisory coun-
terintelligence personnel must have the developed professional
skill to direct and nurture the talents of their subordinates.
Security and counterintelligence measures are never popu-
lar, nbt even during a hot war. "Whither so much counterin-
telligence?" and "What price national security?" will be con-
tinuing questions. Such questions can be answered by the
counterintelligence organizations, in the last analysis, only by
the clarity and dispassionate professionalism with which they
compile the knowledge necessary for "the protection and pres-
ervation of the military, economic, and productive strength of
the United States." A high quality in this product will en-
courage public recognition and the cooperation of loyal citizens,
provide incentives for legislation and grounds for judicial ac-
tion, and guide the executive in the establishment of security
measures.
433roved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
THE MAIL FROM BUDAPEST
This story of pre-war espionage and counterespionage has
been summarized from records originating in Czechoslovakia
and acquired by American intelligence after World War II. It
has all the qualities of a classic except one: it is nearly un-
known. It is our purpose here to pull it out, with its still
useful lessons, from the shadows of the past.
In 1936 the international situation of Czechoslovakia was
worsening steadily. Hostile neighbors stood upon her borders.
Three million Sudeten Germans, helped by Hitler, were prepar-
ing for armed revolt. Austria was weak, Poland cool toward
the CSR, and Hungary antagonistic. Czechoslovak counterin-
telligence had its hands full.
In the spring of that year Colonel Ujszaszy had been the
Hungarian Military Attach?n Prague for two years. The
routine surveillance by Czech counterintelligence of all mili-
tary attaches of hostile countries had until then revealed noth-
ing startling about the colonel. A bachelor, he lived in a villa
in Vorechovka, an exclusive residential section of Prague. His
hostess and mistress was a young Hungarian beauty. His car
was driven by a Hungarian chauffeur. Observation reports pic-
tured him as an easy-going bon vivant. His ambition and de-
votion to duty were not of the flaming variety; their match-
flickers went out at the first puff of pleasure. You might have
called him a wine-woman-and-song man but that his record did
not indicate a taste for music.
His only staff employee was a non-commissioned officer
named Kovacs, who shared his superior's tastes: he was a
regular visitor at night clubs and various boudoirs. The Czechs
now began to work on this man. An intelligence officer struck
up an acquaintance with him in a night club and began the
slow work of cultivation. During the first two months it was
learned only that Kovacs had a wife and two children at home
and that he spent money too freely. One evening, however,
when the darkening night was as soft with spring as Kovacs
was with drink, his Czech friend tried to draw him out about
his daily work.
"Work?" repeated Kovacs, looking as though he had found
a fly in his glass. "There's almost nothing to do, except buy
MORI/HRP
93 from pg.
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0 93-103
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
The Mail from Budapest
some stamps for the colonel every other Friday. Don't know
what he wants with Czech stamps. He's probably writing love
letters."
The Post's Appointed Rounds
Czech intelligence grew curious about these stamps. It
knew that the diplomatic courier from Budapest arrived in
Prague every other Friday, a fact which might well be more
than coincidental. It decided to test the hypothesis that letters
brought by the courier were mailed by the Hungarian attach?
to addresses inside Czechoslovakia, possibly to agents of Hun-
garian intelligence.
The obvious thing to do was to intercept any such letters,
but here the Czech service ran into a legal wall. The secrecy
of private correspondence in time of peace was guaranteed by
law in the Czechoslovak Republic. It was necessary to obtain
the consent and cooperation of the highest postal authorities.
The fact that the ostensible sender was an accredited diplomat
did not make the problem easier. Reluctantly the Czech serv-
ice decided to take into its confidence the Director General of
the Central Office of Post and Telegraphs, the equivalent of the
U.S. Postmaster General.
This gentleman listened coldly at first. But when a senior
intelligence officer unfolded the story of manifest danger to the
country, he agreed in the end that national security would
have to take precedence over national law. He insisted that
the first interception be conducted with extreme care, because
this illegal act, necessary to determine whether the letters were
innocent or not, would be the basis for all that might follow.
He also laid down the following stipulations: (1) the letters
were to be picked up only from the box or boxes into which they
were dropped; (2) the interception had to take place immedi-
ately after the letters were posted; (3) no postal employee
would be involved in such a flagrant violation of postal regu-
lations. The postal director agreed to provide a postman's uni-
form and a master key which fitted all mail boxes in the
country, and he did not demur when he was told that the re-
sults of the operation, if successful, could not be divulged to
him.
Meanwhile the chief of Czech counterintelligence was con-
sidering the many ways in which Colonel Ujszaszy could post
ROproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approveg jokig?instr? 20M/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Budapest
his mail. He could drop them into the box nearest his em-
bassy. He could scatter them in boxes all over Prague. He
could mail them in the countryside, from various remote areas.
He might have an accomplice ? his mistress, for exam-
ple ? post part or all of the letters. And they could be mailed
at any time, on any date. Yet it was essential, in order to
prevent suspicion on the part of the addressees, to recover,
process, and remail them on the same day and from the same
mailbox. The best of the Czech experts would have to be avail-
able for opening, photographing, testing for secret writing, and
re-sealing.
To cover all contingencies the following orders were issued:
(1) The Hungarian courier, upon his arrival at the Central
(Wilson) Railroad Station on the following Friday, was to be
placed under surveillance. The Czechs already knew that he
invariably travelled from station to embassy in a diplomatic
car, but they were taking no chances. He would be followed
to the embassy. Surveillance would continue if he deviated
from the established pattern.
(2) Beginning that same afternoon, a special squad of hand-
picked surveillants, with two cars at their disposal, was to
watch Colonel Ujszaszy's every move. Here too the Czechs
showed professional caution. The train which the courier had
taken heretofore would not arrive until just before Friday mid-
night, but there was always the chance that he would appear
early this time. There was also little chance that the letters
would be mailed until the next day: in Czechoslovakia, as in
the rest of continental Europe, Saturday was a working day,
and Ujszaszy would not need to beat the weekend. Just the
same . . .
(3) Lighter surveillance was to be maintained for the mis-
tress, the chauffeur, and even for the non-corn, Kovacs. Of
course it was improbable that Kovacs, in blurting out the story
of the stamps, would have concealed the related chore of mail-
ing the letters. But the Czechs were aware that it is usually
the improbable that wrecks well-planned operations.
(4) The squad watching Ujszaszy was to keep in close touch
with the "postman," who was to approach the box, if possible,
even before the letters were mailed, in order to estimate the
number of envelopes to be picked up. Members of the surveil-
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200A5-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
The Mail from Budapest
lance squad would, of course, take all precautions against draw-
ing the attention of the Hungarian attach?
The courier arrived the next Friday, on schedule. The of-
ficial automobile picked him up and delivered him at the em-
bassy, on schedule. He stayed there overnight, as usual. Colo-
nel Ujszaszy, smartly turned out, attended a social function
that night, as usual. The following morning, keeping to his
normal pattern, he showed up about ten o'clock for work at the
embassy. And just after eleven he emerged, carrying in his
left hand a packet of letters estimated by the watchers as
numbering seven to ten. With firm military bearing, looking
straight ahead, he crossed the street and dropped his letters
in the nearest box. His duty done, he wheeled about and re-
turned to the embassy.
The postman, on the other hand, slouched a little under the
weight of his bag, because it was already eleven o'clock. He
opened the box with his key, picked up the top twelve letters,
and trudged off.
At headquarters it was quickly established that four of the
twelve letters were the innocent correspondence of local citi-
zens. But each of the remaining eight oysters, when opened,
held its pearl; each was addressed to a Hungarian agent on
Czech territory. Even Colonel Ujszaszy, the Czechs reasoned,
would not be so incredibly careless with agent correspondence.
It followed, then, that he did not know the contents, that he
received the letters sealed and posted them without opening.
It was also evident that Budapest had provided him with no
instructions in the art of mailing letters, or else he had ignored
complicated orders concerning what seemed, after all, a per-
fectly simple, straightforward matter.
The letters were checked for secret writing, photographed,
and resealed. The mailman again serviced the box; and at the
next appointed time its contents, including the twelve letters
so briefly missing, went to the post office.
Surveillance of Ujszaszy and Co. was continued for three
more days. No more letters were mailed.
The photographs of the eight letters were examined closely.
It was immediately apparent that they were part of a corre-
spondence that had continued for a long time. The addressees
were scattered throughout Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia.
Petproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
ApprovffileFgra5eimeMitya/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
The subject-matter included acknowledgements of reports re-
ceived, new instructions for communications channels from an
agent's base, firm reminders of unfulfilled assignments, and,
ironically, security instructions and safety warnings for the
agents. One letter contained a considerable sum of money, of
which more later.
Now how to be sure that the Budapest goose kept those golden
eggs rolling along? The Hungarian headquarters might re-
vamp its channels to and from its agents in the CSR, by-passing
Colonel Ujszaszy. Any such change, fortunately, would become
apparent within two weeks. Barring contingencies, however,
the continuity and duration of this source would depend upon
the discretion of Czech tactics in lifting the letters and exploit-
ing their contents. It was therefore obvious that no agent of
the Hungarians could be arrested except on solid evidence un-
related to the Budapest correspondence.
Prudence and Impatience at the Snare
The highest and most difficult art in counterintelligence is
knowing how to wait. The Czechs service was good at it. Or-
ders went out that all persons mentioned in the intercepted
letters were to be placed under surveillance. The search was
not to be confined to indications of espionage; just as important
was the uncovering of other illegal activities which would fur-
nish an independent basis for arrest. The Czechs realized that
the most important agents probably would not maintain com-
munications through the military attach?n Prague, but would
have direct channels to Budapest. It was therefore necessary
to follow the eight recipients with care and patience in an
effort to learn the identities of bigger fish mentioned in the
letters by cover names, or not at all.
This prudent plan was nearly ruined at the outset. The Chief
of the General Staff wanted to be informed promptly of the
results of the operation, and on the evening of the same Satur-
day summoned an elderly, senior intelligence official to report.
The latter produced the photographic copies of the letters.
After the first shock, the general beamed. "Now you can arrest
every last one of them! " he exulted. Told, however, of the plan
to render the spies harmless without compromising the source
of the information, he allowed himself to be persuaded. Then
he began to flip through the photographs. Suddenly he stiff-
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022000g
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
The Mail from Budapest
ened. He held out the letter which had contained a sizeable
sum in cash, a letter addressed to one Josef Skladal in Prague.
"Is this Staff Captain Skladal?" he demanded.
"Yes, sir." The intelligence officer had already done his
homework.
"But I know him personally," said the General.
The intelligence officer knew this fact too. Skladal was as-
signed to the staff of the First Army. He worked on mobiliza-
tion plans. He had never been under suspicion, and his su-
periors described him as an efficient, devoted, and promising
officer.
"He must be arrested immediately!" ordered the General.
"I shall not tolerate an enemy spy in so delicate an assignment.
We could never recover from the damage that he could do. I
want him locked up in one hour's time."
"But then, sir, we should lose our chance to catch the others,
some of them probably more important than Skladal."
"Arrest him."
"Sir, could he not be transferred to a less important assign-
ment, a routine job, so that we can prepare the action on other
grounds?"
"Arrest him."
"Yes, sir. But if we just?"
"Arrest him now! And bear this in mind in the future.
There is always a category of suspects that must be arrested
right away. I wish to be informed of every such case im-
mediately. That is all."
Fortunately, the incriminating letter would not reach Skladal
before Monday. Feverish efforts to find some legitimate basis
for a house-search ? careful examination of all possible files,
questions asked of Skladal's friends by other acquaintances
over the week-end, a twenty-four hour surveillance ? were all
fruitless. But there was no alternative. The major who en-
tered Skladal's apartment shortly after eight on Monday morn-
ing produced a search warrant and prayerfully began his quest.
Although he immediately recognized the letter on the desk as
that which had been in his hands on Saturday, he paid it no
attention. His search was aimed at other evidence, and it was
successful. Three other letters from Budapest were found, as
nproved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
ApprovnieFffal5e0,grapta17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
well as a large sum in Hungarian pengoes and Italian lira for
which Skladal could give no satisfactory explanation.
The traitorous captain hesitated for a short while after his
arrest, but soon made a full confession. He had betrayed to the
Hungarians everything he could put his hands on, including
several important communications concerning Czech mobiliza-
tion plans. Painfully he explained that his wife's beauty was
matched only by her extravagance. He was told that suspicion
had indeed arisen about him because he and his wife had lived
beyond their means. This precaution, however, was unneces-
sary: Captain Skladal never came to trial. Some days after
his arrest he hanged himself in his cell.
There remained the possibility that Budapest might change
its procedures after Skladal's arrest and suicide not because it
suspected that the attach?hannel had been compromised but
just as a matter of general principle. It was therefore with
great relief that inconspicuous surveillants saw the dapper
Colonel Ujszaszy emerge from the Hungarian Embassy, two
weeks after his last appearance, promptly at eleven a.m. and
march across the street, eight letters in his left hand. In fact,
the entire incredible performance remained unchanged for two
years. Fifty-three times the Czechs picked up the post every
second Saturday from the same mailbox. Once the Hungarian
colonel was ten minutes late for his entrance on scene with the
letters, frightening the Czechs quite badly with this radical
departure. But the aberration was not repeated.
The Catch
During those two years, summer of 1936 to summer of 1938,
the Czechs arrested 253 Hungarian agents without tipping their
hand. All categories were picked up: sub-sources, sources,
couriers, cut-outs, bird-dogs, letter-drops, W/T operators, and
the rest. Some were important and others were comparatively
insignificant, but all were dangerous. Yet some were allowed
to remain free, under close observation; these were agents
whose main task it was to report on the course of Czechoslovak
mobilization and the movement of troops. They were all ar-
rested later in 1938, the day before mobilization was proclaimed.
The accumulation of letters had provided a wealth of detail
about these spies. Czech intelligence knew their names and
addresses, their targets and assignments, their communications
99
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-.RDP78-.03.921A00Q300220001-0
me marl trom Budapest
inside and outside the CSR, the extent to which Budapest was
pleased or dissatisfied with their work. The base for which
each worked was known: Miskolcz, Komarom, Budapest,
Jaeger, and outpost Vienna. For many even the amount of
pay was determined.
The Hungarians had introduced secret ink for the protection
of their major assets. But this ink, always the same, could be
brought out readily by an ordinary developer or by ultra-violet.
Every agent was provided with this same ink and with its
developer. The process was so unsophisticated that the Czechs
would have worried about provocation or a saturation operation
had not the information derived from surveillance and arrests
set their minds at ease. And the secret ink and developer, in
turn, greatly facilitated arrest, for the search of the agent's
quarters never failed to unearth both, and the effect of the dis-
covery was usually so shattering that confession followed
quickly.
Nine secret Hungarian transmitters were pinpointed on
Czech soil. Armed with information from arrests and surveil-
lance, the Czechs moved in on the six of these which were used
for peacetime reporting. They seized the codes and operating
instructions for each set, doubled each W/T operator, and kept
the Hungarian cryptographers busy decoding well-planned de-
ception material. The remaining three sets, which had orders
to maintain silence until mobilization, were not picked up until
the political tension reached its peak.
Of the two hundred and fifty-three agents some were espe-
cially dangerous for Czechoslovakia:
Lt. Colonel Opocensky was a general staff officer of excep-
tional ability. After fulfilling a very important assignment in
the First Section of the General Staff, the section dealing with
organizational matters, he became Chief of Staff of the Fifth
Infantry Division in Ceske Budejovice. He was a personal
friend of the chief of Czechoslovak military intelligence. He
had served in the Serbian Army in World War I and had been
known ever since as a brave soldier and profound patriot. The
Czech General Staff, rocked by his arrest, remembered uneasily
the case of Colonel Alfred Redl, the treasonable Austrian coun-
terintelligence chief who committed suicide after his exposure
shortly before World War I.
Mroved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
ApprovfhdeFArar ifeoarriapalL13/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Lt. Col. Opocensky had not been compromised by Col. Ujsza-
szy's letters. Budapest had communicated with him directly,
by courier. The courier, a stranger, was spotted in conversa-
tion with Opocensky, and after a quick preliminary check was
picked up for questioning. Though he said nothing about
Opocensky, he did confess that he worked for the Hungarian
service. Czechoslovak counterintelligence then planned a full
surveillance of the lieutenant colonel, but again the Chief of
the General Staff intervened with an order for immediate ar-
rest. Opocensky explained his single contact with the courier
plausibly, but while the interrogation was going on Czech
counterintelligence beavers were at the old job of mining the
files. Among the books they examined was one kept by the
duty officer, in which anyone who entered the General Staff
building during off-duty hours had to sign his name, the time
of entry, and the time of departure. The interrogator himself
knew that in 1936 Opocensky had visited his office one Satur-
day evening and spent more than an hour there. There was
no corresponding entry in the register. Skillful exploitation
of this slender lead finally elicited from Opocensky the admis-
sion that he had been an agent of the Hungarians for more
than two years. Soon thereafter, and before the interrogation
was concluded, he died of a heart attack. The cause of his
treason was established, however, before his death: he had been
deeply in debt.'
Lt. Colonel Josef Kukla had worked for the Hungarian serv-
ice for five years before his arrest. He had been recruited while
stationed in a Slovak garrison in Banska Bystrica. The dam-
age which he did to his country was far less than that done by
Opocensky, because Kukla's highest post, deputy commander of
the First Cavalry Regiment in Terezin, had not enabled him to
become privy to major secrets. In consequence his correspond-
ence from Budapest had passed through Colonel Ujszaszy. As
in the other cases, Czech intelligence carefully prepared inde-
pendent evidence through surveillance before moving in to
A year after Opocensky's death a member of a surveillance squad
rushed into headquarters, white-faced, to report that he had seen
Opocensky clamly strolling down a Prague street at high noon.
The squad captain eyed him coldly, unable to decide whether the
report was born of dementia praecox or demon rum. But a quick
check of the files showed that Opocensky had had an identical twin.
101
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
The Mail from Budapest
arrest him, but it turned out that these collateral facts were
not needed: Kukla confessed promptly and fully. In return
the Czech service told him how to preserve his pension for his
wife and three children. He followed the advice and commit-
ted suicide before his trial.
Antonin Medricky, who lived in Sternberg, Moravia, was a
wealthy man, much respected in his home town for both his
charity and his cash. He too was uncovered through the
Ujszaszy intercept program. But Czech counterintelligence,
having prepared the case carefully, ran into an unexpected
barricade: police cooperation was essential because Medricky
was a civilian, and the local police stoutly refused to believe
that so upstanding a citizen could be a spy. When this diffi-
culty was finally surmounted and Medricky was tried, he was
sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Not long thereafter,
however, when the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia, Medricky
the Magnificent was freed and undoubtedly served his libera-
tors well.
Other cases can be capsuled by the dozens: the drunkard
Burda, for example, who was useful to the Hungarians be-
cause he served as a non-commissioned officer in a border-
guard battalion. Or the former Austrian, Captain Stoces, who
held one of the three radio transmitters that were supposed to
go on the air when war started. Both were hanged. But to-
day's reader of these files is likely to find the repetitive tales
of treason less interesting than the precision with which the
Czechs exploited the patterned regularity of procedure adopted
by Hungarian naivet?Then abruptly, in the regular sim-
plicity of these patterns, a jagged gash was torn.
Epilogue
In the late summer of 1938 the beautiful young mistress
of Colonel Ujszaszy was found dead in his villa ? murdered.
The colonel, confronted with this delicate situation, made a
straightforward decision: he consulted the chief of Czech
counterintelligence. The latter managed to call off the police,
a simple matter because those involved were Hungarians and
because Ujszaszy was on the diplomatic list. This episode gave
the Czechs a hold on a hostile attach?hich should have
afforded them monumental opportunities. But how could
Ujszaszy possibly serve them better than at present? Forcing
Anroved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approves( For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
he Mail tram Budapest
him to serve as a witting accomplice would have been a sure
way to destroy the valuable operation in being.
While the Czechs were wracking their brains over this prob-
lem, Ujszaszy and Kovacs were recalled from Prague. Kovacs
was recruited by the Czechs before he left. Ujszaszy, for his
arduous and subtle labors, was suitably rewarded by a grateful
government. He was made the G-2, Chief of the Second Sec-
tion of the Hungarian General Staff.
The colonel's successor in Prague was a Major Somogyi, and
the Czech counterintelligence operatives discovered soon after
his arrival, to their grumbling dismay, that they would have to
start earning their salaries. Major Somogyi left the embassy at
unexpected times, drove his own car, and dropped the letters
one by one in widely spaced and constantly changing mail
boxes, some of them far outside the city. He also checked for
signs of surveillance. His conduct was so circumspect that
the rueful Czechs concluded that, unlike Ujszaszy, he had
never been trained by the Hungarian intelligence service. The
intercept operation became so complicated that efficiency
dropped sharply, and the number of letters recovered grew
smaller and smaller.
The dwindling operation was soon overtaken by history. The
situation of Czechoslovakia turned from critical to tragic.
Hitler screamed his demands for the incorporation of the
Sudetenland into the Third Reich. Chamberlain went to
Munich in Operation Umbrella. The Germans moved in. Life
went on under the shadow of the Gestapo; and when the Com-
munist secret police, after a brief interregnum, replaced the
Gestapo in 1948, they put their trainees to studying the story
of the Mail from Budapest, that they might derive instruction
from the blunders of the one side and the skills of the other.
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220M-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
THE GREATER BARRIER
Among the practitioners of the Intelligence Arts there are
few who will be surprised when the mechanical translation of
languages leaves the laboratory and becomes operational. In-
deed, this breakthrough of the foreign language barrier is so
close upon us that some of our forward-looking administrative
assistants should be working now on appropriate staff studies
? "The Redistribution of No-Longer-Necessary Personnel," for
example.
It is not the purpose of this paper to analyze the vast intelli-
gence implications of the availability of mechanical translation,
but one cannot contemplate the subject even in passing with-
out catching a glimpse of the inevitable extrapolation of its
techniques as it progresses from bulky machines and visual
translation to pocket-size portables and instantaneous audible
translation. The foreign language barrier, once breached, will
be utterly shattered; foreign language competence will become
largely academic and archival, and the foreign language spe-
cialist will join the buggy whip and the piston-driven aircraft
engine as a relic of yesteryear.
There are, of course, those cynics who doubt the operational
practicability of mechanical translation. One of them re-
cently published a probably spurious account of a laboratory
performance of the translation mechanism. According to the
story, the laboratory scientist had selected for the trial run ? to
take its place in history alongside "What hath God wrought?"
and "Come here, Watson, I want you" ? the sentence, "The
spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." The machine, the
source reports, hummed for a few seconds and produced a for-
eign language statement to the effect that "the liquor is agree-
able, but the meat is insipid."
We scarcely need remind these doubting Thomases of all the
great new ideas at which their spiritual ancestors laughed.
Mechanical translation will come. The handwriting is on the
wall ? and it matters not in what language.
Perhaps, then, the time is upon us when we should face and
begin to penetrate a barrier even greater than that of foreign
languages ? the English language barrier.
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200Nti
MORI/HRP
from pg.
105-112
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
The Greater Barrier
The Invisible Curtain
The perceptive reader will have noted the duality of our
verb ? "face and begin to penetrate." The implication is, and
is intended to be, that we have a dual mission: we must first
face the English language barrier before we can begin to pene-
trate it. For it is in facing it and recognizing that it does, in
truth, exist that we become conscious of how formidable this
Barrier is.
Our first reaction to the proposition that the English lan-
guage is an imperfect tool of communication is one of tolerant
dismissal of the preposterous. We point to the vast treasury
of literature in the language. We mention a few of the great
masters ? Chaucer, Shakespeare, Conrad, O'Neill, Wolfe, Spil-
lane. We may even quote a sentence or two to demonstrate
the capability of the language to convey great meaning with
few words ? "The time is out of joint," for example. And
this reaction would be quite proper if we were discussing the
English language as an instrument of evocation. It is indeed
an evocative language. Only music, perhaps, has greater pow-
ers of empathy. But how good is the language as a precision
tool in communication? How well does it do the job that is
the basic one in the intelligence business ? the ordering, re-
porting, analyzing, and interpreting of information?
To provide an oversimplified illustration of the problem, let
us meet ourselves on our own ground. The reporter who
ascribed the lament that "the time is out of joint" to a certain
source also ascribed to him the admonition ? addressed to an
attractive young lady ? to "get thee to a nunnery." Now most
readers would interpret that exhortation as the compassionate
solicitude of a sensitive young man, acutely aware of the out-
of-jointness of the times, the rottenness of his environment,
and the duplicity of humankind, for the welfare of his beloved,
anxious that she seek sanctuary in some unsullied cloister.
The student of Elizabethan semantics, however, knows that in
the language of the day the word "nunnery" was commonly
used to refer to a bawdy house and the young man was in effect
telling the young lady to go jump in the lake ? a piece of advice
which, you will remember, she took.
We shall not belabor the point. Let the reader accept for
the moment an at least eminently defensible proposition: in
144,roved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
ApproveiVcOsIgaseray/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
the English language it is extremely difficult to use words in
contextual sequence which mean to all people precisely what
the user intended them to mean; it is extremely difficult to use
the language so that it cannot be misunderstood; the lan-
guage, therefore, is an imperfect tool of expression and con-
stitutes a Barrier to communication.
Granting the existence of the Barrier, we may be inclined to
dismiss it as one of life's inevitabilities ? like death, taxes, and
power lawnmowers. These things we have always with us; we
get along with them as best we can, and it is folly to fight them.
Now this attitude of resigned complacency may be acceptable
in most walks of life. It may be a firm enough foundation on
which to base the equanimity that satisfies most of us as a
substitute for a real corning-to-terms with life. But is it ac-
ceptable in the intelligence business? Can we admit the ex-
istence of the Barrier and then do nothing about it? Consider
for a moment just a few phases of our business in which we
bruise ourselves against the Barrier.
Behind the Curtain
Take first the most critical end-product of intelligence, its
predictive conclusions. By the very nature of their subject-
matter these conclusions must be qualified ones; they are
guesses supported in varying degrees by information of varying
accuracy supplied by sources of varying reliability. And the
guesses themselves are made by men of varying perceptivity.
In lieu of more explicit language, we call these guesses "esti-
mates." Estimates of future situations are useful only when
coupled with indications of the degree of certainty attached to
their predictions, and this predictive certainty is expressed in
qualifiers. It follows, then, that an estimate is useful only to
the extent that it is precisely qualified.
Now, what tools do we have to work with to make these
precise qualifications? Well, we have the words "probable,"
"possible," "likely," "certain," and their antonymic forms; we
may qualify these qualifiers with the words "very," "slightly,"
"surely," "almost," "highly"; we have the phrases "it is be-
lieved that," "it is concluded that," "the available evidence
indicates that," and a dozen others. These, then, are the tools;
and considering the importance of the job that has to be done
with them, they are very dull tools indeed.
107
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-013921A0Q0300220001-0
The Ureater Barrier
For example, let us consider "possible" and "probable." Our
estimate is to the effect that "it is possible that A (a substantive
element) will B (a predicative element) " or that "it is probable
that A will B." Just how much information has been com-
municated? Practically anything is possible; and how prob-
able is probable? In order to make these expressions meaning-
ful, we have to set up a mathematical scale of possibility-prob-
ability: possible means less than a 50-50 likelihood that A will
B, and probable means more than a 50-50 likelihood that A will
B. By the addition of the qualifying words that qualify the
qualifiers ? barely, slightly, highly, certainly ? and the as-
signment of values to these, we can calibrate our scale down,
perhaps, to units of tens. But thus we have left the realm of
language and sought succor in mathematics in order to arrive
at the crudest kind of precision.
Now let us consider "the available evidence indicates that . . ."
? often the only honest thing an intelligence analyst can say
about an estimate. Even though his statement is buttressed
by meticulous documentation, his communication has been ap-
proximate rather than precise. Like the history pupil's gen-
eralization that "Queen Elizabeth was the Virgin Queen of
England; as a Queen she was a great success," the analyst's
statement contains implications of inadequacy. The word
"available" suggests, of course, that probably there is a large
body of evidence not available, evidence that may or may not
"indicate that . . ." The word "indicates" may have a flavor
of certainty, like "shows," or carry an odor of doubt, like "sug-
gests." In short, the limitations of the language prevent the
analyst from communicating that fine balance of scholarly
honesty and intuitive conviction which underlies the estimate.
Now we still might plead for tolerance of the Barrier on the
grounds that the estimative phase of intelligence is inherently
precarious, that no tool of communication could be devised
which would probe the shadowy recesses that lurk behind the
intelligence estimate, that perhaps it is better left imprecise.
But such a plea is stilled by even a cursory glance at the lan-
guage in action in virtually any other phase of our business.
Consider the fitness report. The Barrier is so formidable
here that again we have been forced to seek the aid of math-
ematics. And even with digital assistance we cannot avoid
108
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approra FdieMpim39p4/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
inadvertent damnation or beatification. Consider chain-of-
command memoranda. An Assistant Director informed a Divi-
sion Chief that he was "forwarding the following papers . . .
which may render themselves to the fulfillment of the concept
described in the referenced memorandum" -- not only a lofty
flight against the Barrier but a resounding proclamation of its
existence. Consider the compounding of confusion that is the
inevitable result of any attempt to define and use the word
"capability," an attempt that must always end with Humpty
Dumpty's assertion that "it means just what I choose it to
mean ? neither more nor less."
Spying the Land
Having established the existence of the Barrier and having ?
reluctantly, perhaps ? admitted that something should be done
about it, the next phase of our mission should be doing some-
thing about it. But let us not be hasty. Let us not attack so
formidable a foe without careful reconnaissance. The actual
penetration of the Barrier is a massive task; an impetuous
frontal attack might lead us into the familiar fatuousness of
the Carnegiens, who simply obscure the Barrier with a cloud of
sound swirled about by calesthenic agitation, or into the folly
of the plain-words, plain-letters pedants, who counsel blindness
to the Barrier and restriction to the parochial borders of our
current verbal competence.
Our first cautious step in reconnaissance might be the deter-
mination of the point at which the Barrier should be attacked.
In the intelligence business the major medium of communica-
tion is written English. Oral communication is important, of
course, but it is definitely a secondary medium, and virtually
every oral communication emerges from, passes through, or
enters into written form. Oral communication, moreover, is
not language alone. It is language supported by the sub-
stantial crutch of audio-visual aids ? aids that range from the
rising inflection and the raised eyebrow to the blackboard and
the animated flow chart. It is in written communication that
we must rely wholly upon the language; it is here that the in-
adequacy of the tool is most apparent; it is here that the Bar-
rier must be attacked.
109
Approved For Release 2004/12/17: CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDPH-e0We1h9r0 913a0r9a0 0 0 1 -0
Now perhaps the next step in our reconnaissance is an ap-
praisal ? agonizing, if you like the clich? of some of the fac-
tors in our past failures to achieve a breakthrough. Obviously
there are a host of these factors, and within the scope of this
paper we can do little more than identify some of the major
ones.
First of all, certainly, is the factor of self-exculpation. Those
of us who admit and lament the inadequacy of written English
are confident that we are not the ones for whom the bell tolls.
Our defenses are manifold and manifestly shallow. We are
well educated, we say, with our tendency to equate writing
ability and education. Actually, there is little relationship be-
tween them. One can ? and many do ? acquire two or three
academic degrees without ever having mastered even the rudi-
ments of effective written language communication. Some of
us base our defense on pragmatism: we have got along in life
quite well with our ability to write; therefore that ability must
be of a rather high order. With equal logic we could claim
competence in electronics on the basis of having used radios
successfully. Individually, of course, we have different degrees
of culpability, but there is a difference in degree only. None
of us is without sin.
A second significant factor is the Literary Bent. Most of us,
when we put pencil to paper or fingers to typewriter, are in-
fused with the compulsion to create literature ? to relegate
communication to a secondary role and to feature the elegant
phrase and the meaningful metaphor. In its mildest mani-
festation the Literary Bent makes us write "inception" when we
mean "beginning," "terminal" when we mean "last," and "pe-
nultimate" when we mean "next-to-last." As the Bent be-
comes stronger, instead of "joining," "finishing," and "separat-
ing" things, we "marry," "consummate," and "divorce" them;
the Freudian overtones no doubt lend sophistication to the lan-
guage. In its most purulent form the Literary Bent leads us
into juicy phrases such as these, which prosaic editors have
culled from the finished drafts of intelligence reports:
Gone were the halcyon days of loose talk about the mighty
upsurge in the output of consumer goods . . .
The veil of secrecy is so thickly meshed in the Iron Curtain . . .
The New Lands was a virgin area pregnant with possibilities
for development.
Aailoved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
The Greater Barrier
Still another factor is the vaunted Viability of our lan-
guage ? its ability to grow, to change, to adjust itself to the
needs of the times, to cast off the grammarian's chains and
take flight into new spheres. This Viability, incidentally, has
been rediscovered with tiresome regularity by bright young
university instructors who write Sunday Supplement articles
which advise us that we should not hesitate to judiciously split
an infinitive should we choose to and that a preposition is not
a bad thing to end a sentence with and that there is no real
need to end a sentence anyway until we have said everything
that seems to be related to the idea that we are concerned with.
Now this linguistic chameleonism is all very well when we are
concerned with the evocative power of the language, but it
wreaks havoc with communication. We hold no brief for slavish
conformity to the dicta of the grammarians; we split infinitives
at times, we end some sentences with prepositions, and we be-
gin some sentences with coordinating conjunctions. But we
feel that unilateral and indiscriminate departure from accepted
patterns defeats the purpose of language. Too often the re-
lationship between writer and reader becomes a game of "what's
my meaning?" A decade or two ago the word "since" meant
since and the word "while" meant while; now, "since" may
mean either since or because and "while" may mean either while
or although ? depending on the writer's intention, an intention
often determined only by a brisk deciphering exercise. Ex-
amples of this take-your-choice kind of diction are literally
legion (the word "literally" here means literally, not figura-
tively) and the language game has just about reached the point
at which the writer should provide parenthetic guidance ?
"Since (meaning because) the ore body lies under (meaning
beneath) over (meaning more than) 160 feet of overburden (in
this term, over means above [meaning on top of (referring to
position in space) ] ) and is under (meaning less than) 6 per-
cent metallic content, it is not too (meaning very) profitable
to exploit."
Self-exculpation, the Literary Bent, and the Viability of the
language are a few of the many factors that adversely affect
our capability to penetrate the Barrier. The reconnaissance
should be exhaustive, and it must be if we are to begin our at-
tack with any degree of confidence in the outcome.
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220ii1-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
The Greater Barrier
It is at this point, perhaps, that the strategist should retire
and leave the field to the tactician. And surely, with the very
life of the intelligence business at stake, the tactician who has
plotted the destruction of the foreign language barrier will rise
to this greater challenge posed by the English language.
Aqwved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
ApprovegAsMmet8014/1EggisCIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
COMMUNICATION TO THE EDITORS
Dear Sirs:
The rather iffy article on the origin and consequences of An-
tietam that appeared in the Winter 1958 issue of Studies merits
some comment. In their haste to turn the Confederate tide
at Sharpsburg, its authors have fallen into significant errors
of fact and interpretation. Several basic facts were not quite
as they presented them; certainly, the consequences of An-
tietam were at once both minimized and overstated.
It is fair to say that the discovery of Special Orders 191
brought on the battle at Antietam Creek if this means it got
McClellan out of his camp chair and onto his horse. To that
extent, at least, the finding of the lost order was an intelligence
coup. The authors, unfortunately, have little to say about ?
although they do hint at ? the effect of earlier, false intelli-
gence reports on the outcome of this battle.' Antietam dem-
onstrated the damage that can be done by false intelligence,
even long after it is reported.
McClellan's intelligence chief, Allan Pinkerton, had earlier
convinced him that Lee's forces greatly outnumbered the Army
of the Potomac. Perhaps this false intelligence played in some
way on a fatal flaw in McClellan's character. In any case, it
had permitted General J. B. Magruder's song-and-dance on the
road to Richmond during the earlier Peninsula campaign, when
the lines before the Confederate capital were? held by Ma-
gruder's drum-beating, bugle-blowing companies marching
around and about to raise clouds of dust, while Lee shifted the
bulk of his forces to McClellan's flank. Bemused by his intel-
ligence service, McClellan saw these play-actors as a vast army.
1 The authors' original manuscript, before it was cut for publication
in the Studies at the editors' request, did in fact touch on these
intelligence failures, referring to the "120,000 seasoned troops which
Pinkerton reported to be under Lee's command" and noting that
"Lee's soldiers tended to straggle, and Lee never could count effec-
tively at any given moment on more than 75 percent of his total
listed force. . . ." ?Editor MORI/HRP
from pg.
113-117
113
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : &AM Va A0e0gNi0210001-0
McClellan's deliberate movement across South Mountain and
his slow deployment along Antietam Creek on 16 September
show this same fatal psychology at work. Instead of the divi-
sions that peopled McClellan's imagination on 16 September,
his host faced not more than 18,000 men, poorly equipped in
everything save courage. McClellan simply waited around
while Jackson came in from Harper's Ferry. On the following
day, the Army of the Potomac paid the bloody price that is
sometimes demanded by poor intelligence, and threw away an
opportunity to win a decisive victory.
Meanwhile, what of Lee? Several days earlier the Army of
Northern Virginia in its turn had been misled by false informa-
tion: a report that a Union column was advancing south from
Chambersburg. Lee's scattered force were further dispersed by
the dispatch of Longstreet to hold Hagerstown in the face of
this imaginary threat. News of McClellan's unexpected ad-
vance beyond Frederick brought in by J. E. B. Stuart ?
forced Lee to quick decisions. He moved D. H. Hill back to
South Mountain, ordered all units to concentrate at Sharps-
burg and urged the quick reduction of Harper's Ferry. Lee's
plan at the moment called for retreating his army across the
Potomac-without giving battle. Only the fall of Harper's Ferry
on 15 September and the prospect of rapid concentration of his
scattered units decided Lee to make a stand. The final deci-
sion to fight at Antietam, therefore, was made by Lee alone.2
He was not cornered against the river and forced to fight.
The authors seem to be wrong also in their belief that Lee
was spurred to action by knowledge that McClellan had found
Special Orders 191. Tradition has it, to be sure, that a citizen
of Frederick reported the discovery to Stuart, who passed the
information at once to Lee. But the fact is, according to Doug-
las S. Freeman, the foremost authority on Lee's military career,
'The full version of Lost Order, Lost Cause stands in oblique agree-
ment with this last sentence: "Lee's limitations in numbers of men
and quantity and quality of equipment were not so great as to en-
courage him to jettison his original plans. Strategic considerations
still remained in favor of the South. . .." It also takes into consid-
eration one of Mr. Rondeau's later points: "Lee's limitations lay in
the bare feet and empty stomachs of his troops. . . . Daily marches
of 15 miles on hard, gravelly Maryland roads with a diet. of green
corn and green apples. . .." ? Editor
114
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Communication to the Editors
that Lee knew nothing of his loss until the publication months
later of McClellan's report on the battle (R. E. Lee, II, 369,
note 72).3 Lee, then, made his decisions in the light of the
situation as he saw it, and without knowledge that his order
had been lost. That romantic document has had more effect
on later generations of scholars than upon the course of events
at Antietam.
It is not, in my opinion, correct to consider Antietam an un-
qualified Union victory. It was, rather, a stalemate. Lee re-
remained on the field, a whole day after the battle, awaiting
McClellan's attack. McClellan, in his turn, apparently ex-
pected Lee to take the offensive. The retreat across the Poto-
mac resulted from Southern shortage of men and supplies, and
from the necessities of maneuver. An army which inflicted
on its adversary casualties equal to one-half of its own strength,
stayed a day on the battlefield, and then quickly stamped out
a timid effort at pursuit was not "sent reeling back into Vir-
ginia." The men who went back across the river may have
damned "My Maryland," but they did not consider themselves
defeated.
Your authors have likewise misinterpreted the significance
of Antietam. It was not the high noon of the Confederacy.
The Confederate invasion of the North and the Southern cause
were doomed to ultimate failure for reasons more prosaic than
Yankee gallantry at Sharpsburg. As early as September 1862
the basic cause of the ultimate Southern defeat was fore-
shadowed in the appearance of the Army of Northern Virginia
as it crossed the Potomac: tattered, shoeless men, hungry
horses, broken wagons, inadequate artillery. The only neat
thing about these storied "tatterdemalions" was their gleaming
muskets. On 16 September, while McClellan deployed along
Since this letter went to press the writers of Lost Order, Lost Cause
have called my attention to Douglas Freeman's later conclusion that,
during the night of 13-14 September, Stuart had notified Lee of the
Federal discovery of S.O. 191 (Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants, II, ap-
pendix I). I appreciate their correction of my oversight. Lee's
knowledge of his loss, however, beyond possibly giving greater ur-
gency to his decisions, seems to have played little part in subse-
quent events. He made his decision for a stand in Maryland,
nevertheless. McClellan and his commanders must bear the respon-
sibility for failure to exploit their intelligence find. ? J. R.
Approved For Release 2004/12/17: CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022004%
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Communication to the Editors
Antietam Creek, Lee himself rode down the line to caution his
artillery against wasting shells in aimless bombardments.
Northern industrial strength, coupled with the blockade of
Southern ports (the effects of which were already visible), and
later Northern ravaging expeditions brought about ultimate
Southern defeat. Antietam, Gettysburg and Vicksburg were
not themselves decisive battles, but rather reflected the true
cause of growing Southern weakness.
Southern straggling must also be considered in any audit of
the books of the first invasion campaign. Thousands of South-
ern troops did not approve of an invasion of the Union; they
had enlisted only to defend their homes. They voted against
the campaign simply by remaining behind the river. Other
thousands fell out because they could not march on the stone
roads of Maryland without shoes. Hard Maryland roads were
a major reason for the failure of the first invasion. An army
that numbered 53,000 after Second Bull Run could muster less
than 40,000 on the Antietam a few weeks later. It is interest-
ing also that the high command of the Army of the Potomac
seemed never to take into consideration the mass Southern
straggling, at least in Maryland, which must have been evident
to many Union sympathizers. Wasn't this, too, a failure of in-
telligence?
I agree that the Army of Northern Virginia failed to arouse
great sympathy among invaded Marylanders. This failure, I
think, had three causes: the tattered condition of Lee's army,
the route of invasion, and the Union occupation of Maryland.
Certainly, many a Marylander must have had second thoughts
about joining this ragged horde (a victory for the blockade) .
The facts of geography dictated that the Army of Northern
Virginia should invade Maryland precisely where Union senti-
ment was strongest. If the invasion could have been mounted
to the south and east, its reception might have been different.
Demonstrations of such Southern sentiment as existed in West-
ern Maryland were undoubtedly inhibited by fear of future
Union reprisals, a factor that Lee himself recognized in his
dealings with the inhabitants.
Although not the decisive military conflict that your authors
claim it to be, Antietam did play a significant intelligence role.
It served as a backdrop for Lincoln's masterpiece of psycholog-
A010roved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Communication to the Editors
ical warfare: the Emancipation Proclamation. For that rea-
son alone, the war was never the same after this battle had
been fought. As Bruce Catton puts it, Antietam sounded forth
the bugle that never called retreat. It was, if you will, the
psychological watershed of the war. Therein, I think, lies its
grip on American imagination.
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A00030022006170
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
WE SPIED . . .
We have spied very few new books worthy of note in this
issue: the summer months are usually slow ones for publishers.
The exception, to which we are devoting this column, is entitled
They Spied On England.' Title notwithstanding, spies and
espionage are a minor element in this book based on the war
diary of Maj. Gen. Erwin von Lahousen, the Austrian intelli-
gence officer who was brought into German military intelli-
gence after the German-Austrian anschluss and became chief
of the Abwehr's Section II. Section II was responsible for
sabotage operations, and the misleading title arises from the
authors' habit of equating "saboteur" with "spy," writing for
example, ". . . where the submarines which had been detailed
to take the spies to America were berthed. There the saboteurs
were accommodated in a small dockside hotel. [Emphasis
supplied.] "
Although it is thus devoted primarily to the operations of
saboteurs who occasionally engaged also in the reporting of
information, the book does include at least one case-history in
the field of espionage. The authors have supplemented their
main source, the 400 typed foolscap pages of General von
Lahousen's diary covering the war years 1939 to 1943, by inter-
viewing many of the persons involved in the events it describes.
General von Lahousen was close to Admiral Canaris, the head
of the Abwehr, and must have been aware of Canaris' connec-
tions with those engaged in the plot against Hitler. The book
cites the evidence pointing to Von Lahousen as the man who
supplied (from English stock he had seized) the bomb fuses
used in two of the attempts on Hitler's life, evidence similar
to that brought out by Gisevius 2 in discussing the unsuccessful
1943 plant in Hitler's airplane. After hearing Von Lahousen's
testimony for the Allied prosecution at the Nuremburg trials,
according to the authors, Goring, in the dock, exclaimed,
"That's another of those we forgot to hang, Ribbentrop!"
By Charles Wighton and Gunter Peis. (London: Odhams Press
Ltd., 1958. 320 pp. 18s.) Also under title Hitler's Spies and Sabo-
teurs. (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1958. $3.95)
To The Bitter End, pp. 468-9.
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A0003002200u11:119-0
MORI/HRP
from pg.
119-121
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
We Spied
They Spied on England describes several of Section II's par-
ticular operations, including one not covered by that unfor-
tunate title. This was the submarine landing of saboteurs in
the United States, four on the Florida coast and four on Long
Island, where George Dasch promptly turned himself over to
the FBI and blew the whole operation. A chapter on the Nazi
attempts to utilize the Irish Republican Army and other dissi-
dent Irishmen to stir up trouble for the British traces the
Abwehr's growing disenchantment with this project: the Irish
kept asking for arms and supplies but concentrated on advanc-
ing their own cause without regard to German interests. The
story of the Welsh spy Arthur Owens illustrates the similar
Nazi effort to exploit the fanaticism of Welsh nationalists.
"Johnny," as Owens was known to the Abwehr, carried on suc-
cessful espionage until his nerves gave way and destroyed his
usefulness in 1941. The sabotage and paramilitary activities
of the South African Olympic boxer, Robey Leibbrandt, are
detailed in another chapter. The 1936 Olympic Games in
Berlin had convinced this extreme Afrikaner nationalist that
Nazi life was the life for him, and about a year after winning
the South African heavyweight championship he returned to
Germany to be trained for sabotage activities in the dominion.
The German Foreign Ministry was also interested in him; it
looked upon him as potential !Wirer of a South African fifth
column. His operations were successful for a time, his defiance
and evasion of the South African police becoming a public
scandal, but in the end his movement was penetrated by an
agent of the government and he was captured. He was not
released from prison until after the Malan government came to
power in 1948.
The book devotes a good deal of attention to tradecraft, espe-
cially recruiting, training, and cover; the authors believe, in
particular, that the problem of cover was not thoroughly
thought through by the Abwehr. The kind of cover used was
often appropriate enough, but the Abwehr was not always care-
ful to provide backstopping or to brief the agent in sufficient
detail to withstand interrogation. It is pointed out that in
one case when the German agents were forced to live their
cover for a short time before undertaking their mission, British
interrogation officials were never able to crack them. The
British remained suspicious of these men and kept them in-
Aigicl-oved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved Eor Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
We Jpied
terned for the duration, but at least their lives were saved.
Another episode of interest from the tradecraft point of view
is the story of two Norwegians infiltrated into England. Just
as the Abwehr was on the point of sending them out, a Nor-
wegian infiltration agent of the British service fell into its
hands. From the information gained through this lucky
catch, the Abwehr was able to launch successfully a sabotage
penetration which otherwise would probably have ended in
failure.
The access the authors had to Von Lahousen's diaries and
their elaboration of the material make this book an interesting
addition to the literature of intelligence operations.
121
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDVIOAL
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-0392 A 0 .0,.001-0
wiltelttml"`
Articles and book reviews on the following
pages are printed without classification and with-
out identification of the writers, for the conven-
ience of readers who may wish to detach them
from the classified body of the Studies.
Counterintelligence for National Securitr
In laying the first stones for a clearer concept of
counterintelligence than has yet been consolidated
within the intelligence community, this article
examines the function sometimes called "executive
counterintelligence" exercised with a view to more
or less immediate executive security measures.
The Mail from Budapest
A prewar Czech operation against Hungarian espi-
onage provides a study in counterintelligence
tradecraft.
Page
The Greater Barrier
The need for a precision tool in intelligence is here
whimsically called to the attention of those who
treat language with the disrespect a do-it-your-
selfer displays toward his screwdriver.
87 25X1
93 25k1
105
25X1
Communication to the Editors . . 113 25
Debates the antecedents and consequences of
Antietam.
We Spied Walter Pforzheimer 119
The curator of CIA's Historical Intelligence Collec-
tion evaluates an addition to the intelligence
bibliography.
MORI
Approved For Release 2004/12/10NWRDP78-03921A000300220001-0
CONFIDENTIAL
25X1
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0
Approved For Release 2004/12/17 : CIA-RDP78-03921A000300220001-0