 |
| HOOVER |
The same Intelligence challenge was the case in the Western Hemisphere which was the realm of the FBI: [J. Edgar Hoover] and the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (Nelson Rockefeller) who demanded that the OSS not operate in their "Spheres of Influence".
[Hoover "died suddenly" of "Heart Stoppage" in 1972; some attribute his death to CIA which acted on the part of the Deep State to eliminate his obeisance to a foreign power.]
As a result, officially, the OSS operated only in Europe; but due to these restrictions, Donovan directed his OSS to conduct Covert operations globally in addition to their Overt visibility.
{My association with retired OSS operatives derived from my family whose work associates in WW2 included Military personnel supporting Donovan. Many of whom visited as dinner guests of my parents in Fort Leavenworth, Fort McPherson, Fort Bragg, and Washington, DC. Several became luminaries in the creation of the post-WW2 Military Intelligence Branch and senior Staff positions [e.g., Assistant Army Chief of Staff - Intelligence}
Running parallel to the OSS were Infantry officers who were both Staff Intelligence Officers [S2/G2] and the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) -- which was composed primarily of foreign nationals (e.g., Henry Kissinger) recruited into the US Army based on their language skills. They were both interpreters and interrogators - but, generally with little or no Intelligence operational skills. Injured Infantry officers became rear-echelon staff analysts and strategists - but were highly skilled with combat experience and could recognize threats, as they emerged.
These rear-echelon strategists worked closely with Donovan's staff to design psychological operations, false flag operations, and tasked recruited prisoners of war to become highly valuable double agents.
One valuable operation was Operation Dixie Cup, still not revealed in released Intelligence documentation.
It was a dual pronged project in which two OSS officers were assigned to China to befriend the two Chinese leaders in their operations against the Japanese. Willis Bird, a former Sears Roebuck executive, was tasked with "advising" Mao Tse Tung on operations against Japanese forces in China and Southeast Asia, to include establishing deep-seated espionage and sabotage networks from India, to Burma, to Indo-China (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam), Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
[John Singlaub, later promoted to major general (and fired by President Carter), describes in his memoirs the varied operations he conducted with Chiang Kai-shek, most of which ended badly.
MG Singlaub, a hero to the OSS society, was less than a hero. I had dinner with him and Bird's daughter shortly before the 911 attack on the Pentagon during which I heard him on the phone discussing the use of a "bunker-buster". His comment was "That should do it!" [Some years later, as we analyzed the 9/11 9/11 events did it become clear that the Pentagon's new hardened wedge was struck with a "bunker-buster" missile, not a commercial airliner.)
Those OSS networks continued to function throughout the Vietnam War, during which I became heir to Bird's operations. I delighted in exploiting his espionage network throughout Indo-China, creating accurate operational reports linked to networks 30 years in the making.
As World War II drew to a close, many of these highly skilled American OSS officers reverted to their pre-War civilian occupations, although the deep seated covert operations connected to the Italian Mafia in the US and Italy carried over into the post-war period as the CIA emerged as the stepchild of the OSS to carry out legal and illegal espionage operations, to include the assassination of foreign leaders.
The new Intelligence organization, initially a subset of the State Department, consisted of second and third string case officers who enjoyed the status of diplomats without portfolio, without the expertise of their previous superiors in the OSS. As the CIA grew, more case officers and agent handlers were required, and the CIA recruited State Police, ATF, BNDD (later the DEA), and academics. In fact, the OSS recruitment of Mafia chiefs during WW2 to infiltrate and sabotage Nazi operations in Italy led to the corruption of the OSS and to the basic structure of the CIA.
As the Mafia's involvement in illegal activities mushroomed into the narcotics trade, so too did the CIA in protecting the Mafia. In fact, when the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs [BNDD] was created, former street cop and police chief John Ingersoll, worked closely with the CIA to penetrate narcotics operations in the US and Europe. Eventually, the BNDD became immersed in scandal, Ingersoll "resigned" and the BNDD was renamed the DEA.
The footnote to this phase was the saga of CIA involvement in the drug operations [Black Helicopters, et al], which was coordinated by the young CIA case officer [George H.W. Bush] who worked with the Colombian cartels in the 1960s. He moved heroin through Burma, up to the Golden Triangle (his term), and down into Vietnam, targeting two million young US troops smoking marijuana laced with heroin, which became the basis for the Opium Epidemic in the US.
As these troops returned home, they found the local marijuana lacking in the kick they'd experienced with the Vietnamese and Mafia suppliers were eager to meet the newly created demand.
[Notably, Military Counter-Intelligence agents who reported the heroin content in Vietnamese marijuana were ridiculed by CIA Station Chiefs in Vietnam and Thailand and were transferred to assignments elsewhere - eliminating their reporting from reaching the national level.]
In the meantime, the CIA was growing on parallel paths; one was dedicated to espionage and paramilitary operations [e.g., in Vietnam and Laos, and Africa], while the other worked hand-in-glove with the Cartels. In the background, Bush rose through the political ranks, becoming the Vice President under Reagan [whom he failed to assassinate], and was appointed the Drug Czar - a position in theory designed to combat the narcotics operations in the US. In fact, Bush quietly continued his manipulation of the drug trade in his new position at the White House where he was privy to the Top Secret briefings he received on Military Counter-Narcotics operations.
To cover the tracks of Bush's narcotics movements, he created the Iran-Contra scandal, complete with leaks to the Washington Post, and installing an attractive (though intellectually deficient) Marine officer to draw the heat of Congress - and the full attention of the American public. Meanwhile, Bush's Central American narcotics trafficking, managed by the CIA Station Chief (Joe Fernandez), continued un-observed; Joe was rolled up on Iran-Contra charges, but not on narcotics trafficking.
[Among those briefings were monthly updates on the US Southern Command operations which I provided in the Old Executive Office Building on a monthly basis. In fact, Bush's invasion of Panama to arrest Noriega was based on my desk-side brief to Bush detailing Noriega's global network of 325 front companies engaged in trafficking narcotics, weapons, and humans. (Bush was the White House insider identified in Clancy's "fiction book" Clear and Present Danger). Bush, by arresting Noriega, gained control of those 325 Front Companies, and maintained Noriega in a Florida jail cell as his proxy director of those companies and their trafficking.
(I became aware of Bush's narcotics role only after I retired from the Military in 1990) when a variety of information pieces and inexplicable events (to include multiple attempts on my life) came together forming a discernible pattern leading back to GHW Bush.]
But, now you have a slightly better view of the CIA.
That is not to say there were/are not highly professional officers in the CIA today; there are superb analysts, strategists, and operations managers who have nothing to do with narcotics. On the other hand, sometimes it's hard to tell.
 |
| Then Director of CIA |
In 1980, I was selected as the DCI
Exceptional Intelligence Analyst by DCI
Stansfield Turner, and was assigned to a highly coveted CIA position in the State Department
Bureau of Intelligence and Research [
aka: INR] as a financial and economic analyst (
in civilian clothes) providing weekly briefs to
Secretaries of State Al Haig, and later
George Schultz, as a State Department/CIA officer "
without portfolio". Since my position reported directly to the
Secretary of State, and to the US Ambassador at Large {
Vernon Walters}, and ostensibly to the
Director of Central Intelligence {DCI} {Bill Casey}. My powers were undefined and virtually unlimited, as were my finances to travel the world and meet with ambassadors and CIA
Station Chiefs with unlimited discretion.
My travels were always preceded by a State Department official message (which I authored - and signed by the Secretary of State) designating my status as a "representative of the Secretary of State and the Director of CIA". Naturally, this announcement served me well in my visits abroad.
[Adding to my status was a luminary former director of the Westinghouse Nuclear Division {a colleague from Oxford University} at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), led by David Abshire, a personal friend of President Reagan. (Abshire and Senator Helms approved the nominees for Ambassador, so, I was sure to include a reference to Abshire in my introductory messages).
 |
| Vernon Walters (OSS Vet) |
Ambassador-at-Large LTG Vernon Walters (
an old OSS officer) invited me to be his clandestine intermediary with
News Media luminaries to convey
Top Secret information (
which President Reagan had quietly declassified) for publication in the
New York Times and
Washington Post.
I would carry the material in an envelope, concealed in a folded newspaper, take a seat at the bar in the Mayflower Hotel, place the newspaper on the bar while I sipped my scotch. The designated journalist would sit down at the bar, order a drink, and I would finish mine, leave my paper on the bar for the journalist, and exit.
The next day, the "Top Secret" report would be published, front page, above the fold, in the NYT.
My position was quite powerful, as I was able to direct collection operations and programs, often with a simple phone call to CIA, NSA, or to the Pentagon. At that time, the CIA published an unclassified daily [sometimes only weekly] regional report, supposedly drawn from local news outlets in countries around the world, - ostensibly to monitor local sentiment and below the international radar of global outlets.
After examining this publication, I determined the content came from Agence France-Presse {AFP}, a highly respected French news outlet; but hardly what the analysts thought they were getting [i.e., they thought they were reading raw local news, not an international news syndicate's interpretation of local news reports around the world. In essence, this document was nothing more than reading the equivalent of USA Today's reporting with their Leftist political twist - or rather, the French version of foreign events, and the French interpretation of their significance..
I called the editor at CIA and advised her of my position at INR as the DCI Exceptional Intelligence Analyst (and formerly Editor of the Black Book at the Pentagon) and that I was stunned that she was passing off the French press services as raw Intelligence. If we wanted the French view of world affairs, we could subscribe to the AFP news service and shut down CIA's analytical division.
 |
| OSINT HQ is somewhere in here |
The editor followed my directive and passed it along to CIA Station Chiefs (COS) around the world, after which the Intelligence Community began receiving
Raw reporting from each COS.
Thus began what would later morph into a new Intelligence Collection Specialty now called the Office of Open Source Intelligence, in which Intelligence officers throughout the Intelligence Community specialize in "reading the newspapers" (OSINT). {One might say the movie Three Days of the Condor was a prequel to this specialty, so I can't take full credit for this creation.}
It was in that assignment that I learned that the INR was more powerful {albeit sub-rosa} than CIA's Director of Operations. Thus, after conducting a two year research assessment on political stability in emerging nations, I found that General Walters had recommended me to create and direct the US Southern Command's HUMINT operations. I was to coordinate with the newly appointed Deputy Director of Operations [Dewey Clarridge] for Latin America, and was to report to General Paul Gorman, formerly serving as Pentagon Liaison to the CIA, who was promoted to four stars by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) John Vessey {with whom I had briefly worked in Laos}.
I arrived in Panama in 1983, assuming I was to be merely a staff intelligence officer. Much to my surprise, I was greeted at my hotel room by General Gorman's Aide {a Special Forces major}, who advised that the General had asked that I stop in to see him "at your convenience". Growing up in the Military, my interpretation of "my convenience" was immediately, so I changed into uniform - to which the Aide responded "No, he meant it - at your convenience"; that was a hint that my status had shifted upwards a bit, so, off we went to the SouthCom headquarters in Quarry Heights.
I was installed as General Gorman's "Special Intelligence Advisor" (without portfolio), unlimited budget and open (global) travel authorization, a team of NSA operatives, and a SpecOps team which would eventually grow into the US Special Operations Command, and TS/C credentials at the Pentagon, State Department, and the CIA. At my disposal were the Special Agents of the 470th MI Group in Panama, and all the resources of the SouthCom staff officers. In essence, no one on the staff was certain of my rank, but I was the target of the senior Army Staff officers who regarded me as a threat.
[In one situation, I was challenged by the G-1 (Personnel Chief) on an action I was conducting. I ran the operation anyway, and that colonel received a call from the Pentagon advising him that my actions were authorized by the Army Chief of Staff, CJCS, and the Secretary of Defense. He was royally chewed out for attempting to interfere with my mission and advised that his Military future was now in jeopardy. I only learned of this back story through the colonel's staff who had all covertly listened in on the Pentagon phone call. They were all stunned to see this arrogant colonel braced on the phone. - he was universally hated. A sergeant from that office visited me in my quarters and recounted, in detail, the humiliation their colonel had endured. He was universally hated and I became the hero of his staff.]
In my official capacity, I had free access to any CIA Station Chief, Ambassador, DEA chiefs, Coast Guard, or "combined" compartmented operations. The latter opened the door to British Intelligence (MI5 & MI6) operations in Latin America, which led to the identification of Noriega's global network of front companies involved in Human and Drug trafficking - which became President GHW Bush's justification for invading Panama and "arresting" Noriega - to use him as Bush's personal drug runner.
Director of Operations: DOD Clandestine Service [DCS].
1) Developed the foundation for the DCS based on Congressional
approval of US SouthCom Plan Green.
2) Coordinated with
b) Assistant Secretary of the Army [
Bill Clark (
son of GEN Mark Clark)],
3) Developed MOUs and MOAs with the Intelligence Community,
DOJ, NSA, and DEA for cooperative and efficient coordination of
intelligence operations [1984 - 90].
4) The SSCI cited the DCS operations as exceptional, producing
"extraordinary" intelligence products.
