Inside the CIA Read online

  INSIDE THE CIA

  Revealing the Secrets of the World’s Most Powerful Spy Agency

  “This tour is never dull, especially since it features so much 007 gadgetry, from water-spraying silent drills to eavesdropping devices that work by zapping laser beams through windows.”—Los Angeles Times

  Ronald Kessler’s explosive bestseller, The FBI, brought down FBI Director William S. Sessions. Now, in this unparalleled work of investigative journalism, Kessler reveals the inner world of the CIA. Based on extensive research and hundreds of interviews, including two with active Directors of Central Intelligence, William H. Webster and Robert M. Gates, and with three former DCI’s INSIDE THE CIA is the first in-depth, unbiased account of the Agency’s core operations, its abject failures, and its resounding successes. Kessler reveals how:

  •CIA analysts botched the job of foreseeing the Soviet economy’s collapse

  •the Agency spies on every country in the world except Great Britain, Australia, and Canada

  •the CIA undertakes covert action to influence or overthrow foreign governments or political parties

  •the Agency trains its officers to break the laws of other countries

  INSIDE THE CIA is an extraordinary guide to the world’s most successful house of spies.

  “Mr. Kessler has written an overview that my spook friends say is an accurate account of the way the Agency does its business.”—Joseph C. Goulden, Washington Times

  “...definitely one of the most important books on the U.S. intelligence community in some years.”—Booklist

  Expanded and updated: Includes details of the CIA’s colossal incompetence that allowed Aldrich Ames to spy for eight years

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  LOOK FOR THESE OTHER EYE-OPENING EXPOSÉS FROM NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR RONALD KESSLER

  INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE

  THE FBI

  INSIDE THE CIA

  ESCAPE FROM THE CIA

  THE SPY IN THE RUSSIAN CLUB

  MOSCOW STATION

  SPY VS. SPY

  All available from Pocket Books

  PRAISE FOR

  RONALD KESSLER

  and

  INSIDE THE

  CIA

  Revealing the Secrets

  of the World’s

  Most Powerful Spy Agency

  “Writing with the cooperation of active and retired personnel, Kessler offers a working portrait of the contemporary CIA. His background in journalistic study of intelligence, augmented by an unusual array of other resources, enables him to provide an account unique for balance, perspective, clarity of writing, and the large amount of factual material.”

  —Booklist

  “An appraisal of the Central Intelligence Agency in as much detail as the organization and the law will allow. . . . Kessler is quite clear that the Agency violated its charter in times past, and suspects it might do so again, given the proper circumstances. . . . INSIDE THE CIA . . . does lift the veil of secrecy just a tad, and that is all for the better.”

  —Salem Press (Pasadena, CA)

  “The main value of INSIDE THE CIA lies in its exploration of the CIA’s organization and its difficulties in trying to function in a democratic and open society. . . . The American public may not like the CIA, but as Kessler shows, it is an agency that, despite its errors and excesses, the United States cannot do without.”

  — Virginian-Pilot-Ledger-Star (Norfolk)

  “Ronald Kessler’s INSIDE THE CIA probes the entire Agency and gives the reader a balanced look at how the Agency operates by detailing the four chief directorates: operations, intelligence, administration, and science and technology. Kessler’s account of the CIA bureaucracy is sprinkled with previously unpublished operations that keep the pages turning quickly. His extensive interviews with CIA employees give the reader a better understanding of the people who work for the Agency and how they view their mission.”

  —Bangor Daily News

  “Ronald Kessler aims in these pages to offer a realistic, evenhanded overview of the Agency. . . . Mr. Kessler is generally successful, concisely summarizing the Agency’s short history. ...”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “One cannot but admire the depth and breadth of Kessler’s knowledge of spy operations.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Mr. Kessler’s book is important because it apparently marks the first time that the agency cooperated with an author on a book about the CIA. He has authoritative, sober accounts of the workings of the CIA’s main directorates.”

  —Washington Times

  “Kessler, who is the first journalist to be accorded the full cooperation of the CIA, here reveals more about the Agency’s structure, policies, and key personnel than any previous writer has. ... A largely objective, evenhanded, highly informative survey.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Mr. Kessler is a first-rate ferret and an industrious interviewer. He knows the teritory. . . .”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “A veteran espionage writer, Mr. Kessler is sharp on the fine points of spying. ...”

  —The Wall Street Journal

  “Ron Kessler (is) a reporter of keen instincts and rare investigative skills.”

  —Nicholas Gage, author of Eleni

  Books by Ronald Kessler

  Inside Congress *

  The Sins of the Father

  Inside the White House*

  The FBI*

  Inside the CIA*

  Escape from the CIA*

  The Spy in the Russian Club*

  Moscow Station*

  Spy vs. Spy*

  The Richest Man in the World

  The Life Insurance Game

  * Published by POCKET BOOKS

  For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or [email protected]

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1992 by Ronald Kessler

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN 13 : 978-0-671-73458-9

  eISBN: 978-1-4391-4077-2

  ISBN 10 : 0-671-73458-X

  First Pocket Books paperback printing February 1994

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Cover art by Tom Cushwa

  For Pam, Rachel, and Greg Kessler

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Introduction

  PART I

  The Directorate of Operations

  Chapter 1: The Real CIA

  Chapter 2: Bikinis

  Chapter 3: Courtship

  Chapter 4: Falling in Love

  Chapter 5: Castro’s Beard

  Chapter 6: Weather Balloons

  Chapter 7: New Targets

  Chapter 8: The Rogue Elephant

  PART II

  The Directorate of Science and Technology

  Chapter 9: Seeing Through Clouds

  Chapter 10: Crateology

  Chapter 11: James Bond

>   PART III

  The Directorate of Intelligence

  Chapter 12: Mirror-Imaging

  Chapter 13: Trying to Cook the Books

  Chapter 14: Too Little, Too Late

  Chapter 15: Triumph

  PART IV

  The Directorate of Administration

  Chapter 16: Laundering Money

  Chapter 17: Langley

  Chapter 18: Keystone Cops

  Chapter 19: Getting the Bugs Out

  Chapter 20: Charisma

  PART V

  The Office of the Director of Central Intelligence

  Chapter 21: Three Hats

  Chapter 22: 00-14

  Chapter 23: The Munchkins

  Chapter 24: X-Rated Chowder

  Chapter 25: Selling the Agency

  Chapter 26: The Lawyers

  Chapter 27: The Future

  Epilogue

  Photo Insert

  Directors of Central Intelligence

  Notes

  Selected Bibliography

  Glossary

  Index

  Acknowledgments

  My editor, Paul D. McCarthy of Pocket Books, came up with the idea for this book, provided strong encouragement throughout the project, guided me through difficult decisions about organization, and brilliantly edited the manuscript. An editor with his range of talents is rare. I owe him a tremendous debt.

  In the early stages, people who were particularly helpful were Col. Russell J. Bowen, Dr. Lee S. Houchins, David D. Whipple, the late John A. Bross, and several others who cannot be named.

  As explained in the author’s note, once the book was well under way, William H. Webster, then director of Central Intelligence, gave approval for limited CIA cooperation—the first time the CIA has cooperated on a book about the agency. He and Joseph R. DeTrani, E. Peter Earnest, and Gwen Cohen of the CIA public affairs office are due special thanks.

  A number of former employees of each CIA directorate, of the office of the director of Central Intelligence, and of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, read portions of the manuscript. While some cannot be named, they include Herbert F. Saunders, Robert R. Simmons, Nancy D. McGregor, John B. Bellinger, Russell J. Bruemmer, and Roland Inlow. The fact that they read portions of the book does not mean that they agree with everything in it. However, by investing their time and energy, they helped to make it a richer and more accurate book.

  My wife, Pamela Kessler, applied her sharp editing eye to the manuscript and improved the quality of the book. My friend Daniel M. Clements also read the manuscript and came up with insightful advice on themes and organization.

  By being both friend and professional colleague, Pam Kessler did more than anyone to make this book a reality. My children, Greg V. Kessler and Rachel Kessler, now pursuing their own careers, have been a source of pride that helped sustain me.

  The book would never have been written without the valuable time devoted to it by those who consented to be interviewed. While all of them cannot be named, those who were interviewed or who helped in other ways include:

  John (Jay) T. Aldhizer; Moria Arsenault; John P. Austin; Dr. William Bader; William M. Baker; Howard T. Bane; Isabella Bates; Sean Beeny; David W. Belin; Bestor T. Bell; John B. Bellinger III; Abram Bergson; Igor Birman; Richard M. Bissell, Jr.; Nancy H. Blanchet; Sylvia Blanchet; Lane Bonner; Col. Russell J. Bowen; the late John A. Bross; Russell J. Bruemmer; Dino A. Brugioni; Coralie Marcus Bryant; Donald F. Burton; and Plato Cacheris.

  Vincent M. Cannistraro; Leo Carl; Francis D. Carter; Douglass Cater; David Chavchavadze; Walter M. Clark; John Clarke; Dr. Ray S. Cline; Gwen Cohen; William E. Colby; George C. Constantinides; Elizabeth M. Cooke; Alexandra Costa; Robert T. Crowley; James Currie; Kenneth E. de-Graffenreid; Joseph R. DeTrani; John T. Downey; E. Peter Earnest; Walter N. Elder; Stephen Engelberg; Andrew T. Falkiewicz; David E. Faulkner; Richard G. Fecteau; Horace Z. Feldman; and Charles Fenyvesi.

  Harry E. Fitzwater; Dr. Harold P. Ford; Gary E. Foster; Thomas B. Fricke; Graham E. Fuller; Robert M. Gates; Clair E. George; Cathie Gill; Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham; John K. Greaney; James W. Greenleaf; Howard W. Gutman; Samuel Halpern; Howard P. Hart; William T. Hassler; Richard Helms; Allan Bruce Hemmings; Herbert E. Hetu; William Hood; Eugene J. Horan; John B. Hotis; Dr. Lee S. Houchins; Lawrence R. Houston; Col. David L. Huxsoll; and Roland Inlow.

  Adm. Bobby R. Inman; Donald F. B. Jameson; Louise R. (Lisa) Jameson; F. Peter Jessup; Paul Joyal; D. Barry Kelly; Charles M. Kerr; Richard J. Kerr; William Kucewicz; Conrad E. LaGueux; George V. Lauder; William T. Lee; Stanislav Levchenko; Arthur C. Lundahl; Douglass S. Mackall II; Henry C. Mackall; Andrew W. Marshall; John L. Martin; Linda McCarthy; Rep. Dave McCurdy; Nancy D. McGregor; John N. McMahon; Clayton E. McManaway, Jr.; and Ann Medinger.

  Cord Meyer; Herbert E. Meyer; William G. Miller; Judge William H. Orrick; Phillip A. Parker; Thomas Polgar; Edward W. Proctor; Oliver (Buck) Revell; Juan Antonio Menier Rodriguez; Steven Rosefield; Henry S. Rowen; Jim Sanborn; Richard Sandza; Herbert F. Saunders; Daniel F. Sheehan; Joe Shimon; Rear Adm. Donald M. “Mac” Showers; Rep. Bud Shuster; Rep. Robert R. Simmons; Russell Jack Smith; L. Britt Snider; Bruce Solie; Mary Spaeth; Judge Stanley Sporkin; Sol Stern; Gen. Richard G. Stilwell; Philip Stoddard; Lawrence B. Sulz; John E. Taylor; and Eric Tobias.

  Adm. Stansfield Turner; Robert N. Walewski; John S. Warner; Doris Webb; Lynda Jo Webster; William H. Webster; David D. Whipple; John Wiant; Donald Wortman; F. Mark Wyatt; Dr. Keith R. Yamamoto; Roger S. Young; and Norman A. Zigrossi.

  They have my gratitude.

  Author’s Note

  My introduction to the spy business came in the fall of 1986, when Regardie’s, a Washington magazine, asked me to write a piece about an espionage case that had been investigated by the FBI. Having written off and on about the FBI for twenty years, I knew a good deal about the bureau but nothing about its counterintelligence program, which entails catching spies.

  To my surprise, the FBI’s Washington Metropolitan Field Office allowed me to interview the agents who had worked on the spy case and go out in their cars as they checked out Soviet establishments. From the agents, I learned firsthand how intelligence and counterintelligence really work.

  The world of spies was entirely different from anything I had encountered. It was not at all like the portrait that emerges from most spy novels. While just as exotic, it was governed by rules understood by both sides. Unlike murder or drug cases, intelligence cases were pursued by the superpowers of the world, not by punk drug dealers.

  I expanded the magazine piece into Spy vs. Spy, a book about the FBI’s counterintelligence program. To round out the picture, I interviewed the other side—Karl Koecher, a Czech Intelligence Service officer who became a mole in the CIA. After he had been caught, he was traded for Anatoly Shcharansky.

  I went on to write other spy-related books—Moscow Station, about the security breaches at the American embassy in Moscow; The Spy in the Russian Club, about a Navy spy who defected to Moscow and committed suicide there; and Escape from the CIA, about the 1985 defection and redefection of KGB officer Vitaly Yurchenko. For that book, I again obtained the other side’s view by interviewing Yurchenko for fourteen hours in Moscow.

  Each of the books touched in some way on the CIA. Most of the references painted the agency in an unfavorable light. In Yurchenko’s case, I wrote that the CIA had treated him coldly and as a prisoner; William J. Casey, then CIA director, had leaked stories about his defection to the press. In the area of counterintelligence, I wrote that James J. Angleton, the CIA’s chief spy hunter, was an amateur at catching spies and in fact, had never caught one in the U.S. Moreover, Angleton had paralyzed the agency with his paranoid theories.

  Like those of most Americans, my impressions of the CIA had been formed during the 1975 and 1976 Church Committee hearings, which depicted agency officers as bumblers who were a law unto themselves, administering LSD to unknowing subjects. FBI counterintelligence agents, who were in natural competitio
n with the agency, reinforced those impressions. The only other notion I had was that the agency was adrift—paralyzed by the devastating impact of the Church Committee hearings and weighed down by bureaucracy.

  These impressions came from secondhand or thirdhand accounts. Until I was well into the book about Yurchenko, I had never spent any time with a modern-day CIA officer. That was soon to change.

  When I finished the Yurchenko book, my editor, Paul D. McCarthy, senior editor at Pocket Books, suggested as my next book Inside the CIA. The book would tell what the agency is all about—its failures, successes, and secrets—and depict CIA officers and what they are like.

  No book like this had ever been done before. John Ranelagh’s The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA was an excellent and authoritative history. But it did not really tell what the CIA does and how it does it.

  Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks’s 1974 book, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, had attempted to give an inside view of the CIA. But because Marchetti had previously worked for the agency, the book had been censored by the CIA. It was one-sided and was now out of date.

  Other books by former CIA directors and officers, while exceptionally well done, had had to go through prepublication review by the agency. As a result, they could reveal little of the CIA’s operations. Moreover, most of the books had focused on one or another of the CIA’s directorates, or on personalities within the CIA. None had portrayed in detail how the directorates work together.

  At first, the idea seemed overwhelming. Each directorate was a book in itself. How would I penetrate each of these areas in an agency where practically everything is, after all, classified? But having developed CIA sources in researching the book on Yurchenko, I decided that I could do it.

  After discussing the idea further with Paul McCarthy and with retired CIA officers, I decided to focus primarily on the modern agency—the CIA since the Church Committee hearings. The last detailed look at the CIA’s operations came during the Church Committee hearings. What had the agency done since 1976? At the same time, by referring to past events, the book would serve as a history of the agency.