MAN WHO SET UP C.I.A.'S AIRLINES IS HONORED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500140026-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 1, 2000
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: December 29, 1985
• Content Type: NSPR

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NEW YORK TIMES
ARTICLEAP.EA$ED 29 December 1985
ON PAGE J --
Man Who Set Up C.I.A.'s Airlines is Honored
Special to The New York Timu
PHOENIX, Dec. 29 - The ano-
nymity that George A. Doole Jr. culti-
vated in life very nearly followed him
to the grave.
Mr. Doole founded the Central Intel-
ligence Agency's network of covert air
operations, including Air America, Air
Asia, Civil Air Transport and several
subsidiaries such as Intermountain
Aviation and Southern Air Transport.
In peak periods in the Vietnam War
years, Mr. Doole's' air operations are
said to have employed 23,000 people,
more than the parent agency's esti-
mated 18,000 employees worldwide.
Mr. Doole died of cancer last March 9
in Washington Hospital Center in the
District of Columbia. He was 75 years
old and unmarried. His death went
largely unnoticed. Private family serv-
ices were held in Liberty, 111.
Plaque on Remote Hangar
Today a bronze plaque on the wall of
a new 60,000-square-foot hangar at a re-
mote airport in the central Arizona
desert is the only permanent public ac-
knowledgment of Mr. Doole's connec-
tions over more than 20 years with the
intelligence agency.
The $3 million hangar was built by
Evergreen International Aviation at
Pinal Air Park near the town of Mara-
na, Ariz., midway between Phoenix
and Tucson and far from the interstate
highway connecting the cities.
The huge airfield was built and oper-
ated by the C.I.A. It is now owned by
Pinal County and serves as a storage
facility for 60 surplus' civilian jetliners,
as well as a maintenance center for
Evergreen, which is one of the world's.
largest jet aircraft-leasing concerns.
Mr. Doole was on Evergreen's board
of directors at the time of his death,
and was a consultant to Evergreen as
well as having other aviation interests.
The plaque acknowledges that among
his aviation achievements he was
"founder, chief executive officer,
board of directors of Air America Inc.,
Air Asia Company Ltd., Civil Air
Transport Company Ltd."
The Mystery Lingers
Although Mr. Doole's connections
with the C.I.A. and his role in founding
the agency's air operations have been
documented in books and by Congres-
sional reports, the C.I.A. does not ac-
knowledge the relationship.
According to a spokesman at the
agency's headquarters at Langley,
Va., Mr. Doole's name is not listed on
any official file.
However, Richard Helms, a former
Director of Central Intelligence, said of
Mr. Doole: "He was very competent at
his job. He had a passion for anonymi-
ty. It was a difficult job he handled
without fanfare. And nobody had done
it before."
Mr. Doole retired from intelligence
work in 1971.
A large quiet man with a pixie sense
of humor, Mr. Doole interrupted a new
career as a pilot with Pan American
World Airways in the 1930's to obtain a
master's degree in business adminis-
tration at Harvard University.
Early Days at Pan American
He returned to Pan American, where
he became a master pilot, and helped
chart new routes through South Amer-
ica.
In the late 1940's he left Pan Amer-
ican to begin his long career in intelli-
gence activities. In 1950, "he chartered
the Pacific Corporation in Delaware. It
was the parent company to the airlines
Mr. Doole would later create.
Air America and Air Asia, the best
known of the operations, concentrated
their activities in Southeast Asia.
Nearly 200 aircraft of all sizes were
used for hauling personnel and
materiel in several countries, includ-
ing Laos.
At one point, Mr. Doole was able to
make a profit for the agency by acquir-
ing civilian freight contracts to help
maintain deception about the real pur-
pose of the operations.
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E 7J, 4 8 December 1985
SPYING
AMONG
By Gilbert A. Lewthwaite
FRIENDS
"Most of the world's 400 or more intelligence and security services are targeted
to one degree or another on U.S. military, diplomatic and intelligence personnel,
facilities, and technology.... One should remember, as some intelligence practi-
tioners put It, there may be friendly countries. but there are only other intelli-
gence services."
- Intelligence and Policy, by Roy Godson, 1985.
"We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are
eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."
- Lord Palmerston. 1848.
Israel, In recent days, has given fresh focus to what an American intelli-
gence expert wrote just this year and a British statesman declared last
century.
Israel today, much to its own embarrassment and confusion, stands
accused of pursuing its own interests by paying an American spy to divulge
the secrets of its staunchest supporter and richest patron.
If two such closely bound and beholden friends cannot trust each other, who
can?
It is not the first time an ally has been caught spying on the United States, or
that the United States has been accused of spying on an ally.
In 1954, the Dutch Embassy in Washington admitted receiving secrets from
Joseph Sydney Petersen Jr., a research analyst at the top-secret National Securi-
ty Agency. The Dutch said they thought the information transfer was authorized.
Petersen pleaded guilty to unlawfully taking secret information and was sen-
tenced to seven years.
In 1956, the United States reportedly monitored British code messages to keep
abreast of developments during the United Kingdom's Suez Canal invasion.
Communication interception, even among allies, has become almost routine.
In recent years, U.S. diplomats have been expelled from South Africa (1979)
and Spain (this year) for allegedly spying.
The current Israeli case is particularly disturbing because of the closeness of
the relationship. The question it provokes is: How common is the practice of ally
spying on ally?
Intelligence experts agree that it certainly goes on when circumstances con-
vince a government that the information it needs, albeit from an ally, can be
acquired only by espionage. But they doubt that allies, particularly those formally
aligned, as in NATO. routinely finance spying operations against each other.
"As the length of alliance and strength of alliance varies, you have greater and
ter probability of having human agents (spies] being run against countries,"
ys Jeffrey T. Richelson, an American University expert on intelligence who
uggests, by way of illustration, that the United States would be less likely to spy
n the British than to spy on the traditionally more independent French.
But he adds: "Even with the strongest and closest of allies you always have a
certain amount of intelligence going on."
The Soviet Union, for example, is widely held to regard even its closest Warsaw
Pact allies as Intelligence targets. The United States, however, has generally
preferred a system of close intelligence liaison, although this has been frequently
compromised by leaks and security breakdowns In allied security services, nota-
bly the British.
Does the United States spy on its allies these days?
Richard Helms, a former CIA director, says: in the world of espionage, usually
allies don't spy on each other. On the other hand, there may come an occasion
when something Is going on in an allied country that it is in the national interest
to find out about.
"And maybe the only way to find out would be doing a little bit of spying. But It
would be done on a case-by-case basis."
William Colby, another former CIA director, says: "You can't answer that
question. It's too hard to answer. Who are your allies? You have to look at the
particular situation.
"You would be out of your mind if you spied on Canada. If you want to find
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predict policies. to study personalities, to
read every available tea leaf.
something out about Canada, go up and ask
them. Other countries are more secretive
about things."
Mr. Colby and other intelligence experts
say the basic equation behind any decision
to indulge in espionage against an ally is
likely to be: Is the information to be obtained
worth the potential of the acute embarass-
ment of discovery?
"Obviously, each nation is going to have
to make its own decision about its own secu-
rity. But when you do a secret operation in
another country, you obviously have to
weigh the value of the information you hope
to get against the risk of being caught," says
Mr. Colby.
"That means in many countries the im-
pact would be so serious you wouldn't do It.
But you also have a problem here of control
of the intelligence services."
When the French secret service decided
to sink the Greenpeace yacht in New Zea-
land earlier this year to scuttle a planned
anti-nuclear protest at France's nuclear test
ground in the Pacific. the blame was eventu-
ally laid on the defense minister and the
chief of intelligence. Both lost their jobs in
the diplomatic furor that engulfed the scan-
dal.
It was not exactly spying, but it was a
hostile intelligence action taken on friendly
territory, and it shows the lengths to which
intelligence services are prepared to go in
pursuit of their own perceived interests.
Other documented examples of hostile in-
telligence activities among allies would be
the South Korean and Filipino governments'
activities against dissident groups residing
in the United States - undertaken with
official blessing of the foreign governments
but despite U.S. protest.
In the Israeli case, the Intelligence outfit
allegedly responsible for retaining the U.S.
spy was apparently operating without the
knowledge of Prime Minister Shimon Peres
and other Cabinet members. The potential
of political embarassment appears, there-
fore, to have been left out of the scales when
the espionage decision was made.
According to one NATO ambassador
based in Washington, intelligence services
frequently operate In such an autonomous
fashion that political leaders are not always
privy to their activities.
In the United States, however, such
loose-cannon activity is less likely. The Intel-
ligence services here are required by law to
inform the congressional Intelligence over-
sight committees of any particularly signifi-
cant actions or developments. This puts
clear political restraints - frequently re-
sented - on them.
There is, of course, a fundamental differ-
ence between intelligence-gathering and
spying. Every embassy, of an ally or an ad-
versary, is in the business of snooping, of
finding out as much as it legally can of what
is happening in its host country. That is why
embassies have political, economic and mili-
tary experts to glean whatever information
is available, to analyze trends, to dissect and
"What would our [intelligence[ station
chief do in Britain?" asks Richard H. Shultz,
who teaches an intelligence course at Tufts
University's Fletcher School of Law and Di-
plomacy. "Obviously he is going to be collect-
ing a lot of open-source information. He is
going to be working with his British counter-
parts against adversaries. Would he be re-
cruiting British officials [to spy]? The answer
Is: I really doubt it."
Mr. Shultz says, "Generally, what your
intelligence (operators will do is attempt to
Identify people who can provide information
that Is helpful in terms of the external dy-
namics of a system. Do they really recruit
them and pay them off in the ways the Israe-
lis [allegedly] did? I don't think so. Generally,
it's a little different. It's what is called in the
trade 'having a close contact.' You don't
have this guy in tow. You are not paying
him. It's pretty deep in the background."
This is all diplomatically de rigueur. It
stops short of Illegal espionage.
But when you find, finance and control
an agent who is channeling secret docu-
ments to you. you are spying.
That is what the Justice Department al-
leges Israeli Intelligence officials did in the
case of Jonathan Jay Pollard, a Navy count-
er-terrorism expert.
The information Mr. Pollard allegedly
sold to the Israelis - largely details of Arab
military strengths, as perceived by the Unit-
ed States - has prompted some American
Jews to suggest that it was the sort of intelli-
gence the United States should have been
willing to share with Israel anyway.
The problem here Is that, in peacetime,
the United States maintains close military
contacts with some Arab nations, notably
Saudi Arabia. Jordan and Egypt. Indeed, so
close is the current U.S. relationship with
Egypt that three U.S. officers attached to the
U.S. Embassy In Cairo accompanied the
Egyptian commandos on their mission to
Malta to try to rescue the passengers in the
hijacked EgyptAir plane last month.
That sort of cooperation would be Impos-
sible if Egypt thought the United States was
routinely passing along military information
to the Israelis. Here U.S. national interests
clearly take precedence over Israeli intelli-
gence requirements - at least In peacetime.
The Israeli government has instigated its
own inquiry into the Pollard affair, and it
has promised to forward the results to the
Reagan administration, and to return any
documents Illegally obtained. Despite its
original "dismay" over the espionage case,
the Reagan administration is still ready to
take Israel at its word as a close and trusted
ally.
Roy Godson, a Georgetown University ex-
pert. says. "The point is that in the history of
international relations, allies have spied on
each other. It would be remarkable if that
didn't exist to some exldnt in the closinj
years of the 20th century."
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Israel's apology
Israel's statement after two Americans were charged with spying for Israel, issued Sunday by Prime Minister Shimon Peres:
The Government of Israel is determined to spare no effort in investigating this case thoroughly and
completely and in uncovering all the facts to the last detail no matter where the trail may lead. The full
inquiry is still incomplete and therefore the Government of Israel is not yet in possession of all the facts;
but the inquiryis progressing vigorously.
The Government of Israel assures the Government of the United States that in the wake of the inqui-
ry, if the allegations are confirmed, those responsible will be brought to account, the unit involved in this
activity will be completely and permanently dismantled, and necessary organizational steps will be tak-
en to ensure that such activities are, not repeated.
Our relations with the United States are based on solid foundations of deep friendship, close affinity
and mutual trust. Spying on the United States stands in total contradiction to our policy. Such activity to
the extent that it did take place was wrong and the Government of Israel apologizes. For the time being,
we have nothing further to say on this.
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lfiti'OM BALTIMORE SUN
4December 1985
Spying: Everybody Does It
It is prudent to assume that all nations attempt
to spy on all other nations to the extent that their
capacities and interests dictate. United States in-
telligence agencies would not be doing their job if
they failed to introduce moles or recruit agents in
sensitive sectors of both friendly and unfriendly
governments. The FBI would be derelict if it were
not trying to identify and capture the moles and
agents of allies and enemies attempting to spy on
the United States.
Espionage is another form of war and diploma-
cy. both of which are used by governments in the
pursuit of national objectives. Citizens who sell out
.their own countries are regarded with contempt
while those who use every means, legal or other-
wise, to ferret out secrets of foreigners are heroes.
In a moral gray area are zealots who put their own
particular causes above loyalty to country.
Intelligence agencies around the world treat
each other gingerly since detectives or defectors
can blow the cover on the most valuable of
operations. They form a special fraternity in
which a respect for professionalism vies with a
love-hate emotionalism that is the stuff of thrillers,
real and fictional.
"Espionage has always been illegal since the
beginning of time," former CIA chief Richard
Helms has observed. "Countries do it, they try not
to get caught, if they do get caught then that's bad.
But if they don't get caught, it's a fine thing, and
the people who run these agents enjoy it."
The Helms statement is a welcome antidote to
the hypocrisy being disgorged since the arrest of
Jonathan Jay Pollard, a U.S. citizen, on charges of
selling U.S. secrets to Israel. The specific material
Mr. Pollard allegedly peddled was said to deal with
classified U.S. information on Arab military and
terrorist capabilities. Israel knows more about this
subject than does the United States, but because
its survival is at stake it has an unquenchable
thirst for additional information.
This set of circumstances cannot excuse
treachery on the part of Mr. Pollard, a civilian
employee of the Pentagon. Nor does It take off the
hook gung-ho spymasters in the Israeli intelli-
gence network who lost sight of the risk-reward
ratio. Nothing Mr. Pollard might have furnished
could possibly be worth the damage to the Ameri-
can-Israeli relationship that both governments are
so feverishly trying to patch over.
While officials piously wring their hands, know-
ing full well that the United States and Israel are
bound to spy on one another, worldly wise Ameri-
cans had better keep their attention focused on
where the real danger lies. Of the 13 spy cases
that have come to light so far this year, nine in-
volved Americans accused of passing highly clas-
sified information to the Soviet Union. Here is an
area in which U.S. survival, not Israeli survival,
could be at stake.
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