THE RISE AND FALL OF RICHARD HELMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030033-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 5, 2011
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: December 16, 1976
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/05: CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030033-6
~XR-T1CLE 4PPP=IRF.DD ROLLING STONE
ay P_46IG 44 16 DECEMBER 1976
The only genuine anecdote I heard about Helms came from a man
:who did not like him, and he had to think a long time before he could
ICHARD McGARRAH HELMS BELIEVED IN come up with it. Before the Director's daily meeting, the man said,
secrets Of course, everyone in the American intelligence
Helms would read an intelligence brief describing what had come in
community believes in secrets in theory, but Helms really ::overnight. The names of all agents, intelligence officers, operations
believed in secrets the way Lyman Kirkpatrick believed in =and -the- like were. replaced by code words, of course, but for the
secrets. At one point years ago they were rivals in the Director's convenience there were little tags attached at the edge of
Central Intelligence Agency. But they had certain things Ithe page providing the true identities. One day there Wasran itemfrom -
in common and one of them.was a belief in secrets. They the Chief of Station (COS) in Frankfurt and the-tag beside the code
did not like covert action operations-subsidizing poll -
name for the COS said, "Ray KI>ne
ticians in Brazil,. parachuting into Burma, preparing Helms allowed himself to smile broadly at this, according to the
poisoned handkerchiefs for inconvenient'Arab colonels, man_~vho told me the story, because the officer in charge of the brief
all that sleight of hand and derring-do of World War 11 -
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- vintage which certain veterans of the Office of Strategic Helms-rival, a
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,. S rvie ei (OSS) brought into the CIA-because covert action open --paused, and said, Poor Ray. Howsoon they forget, how soon they'
ations had a built-in. uncertainty factor- They tended to go wrong, -forget..'
and even when. they succeeded they tended to get out. Too many A -)man has been stepping very lightly indeed, who does not leave
people knew about them. You couldn't keep them secret; not just deeper tracks than that
confidential for the life of the administration,like so many secrets Helms' personal background}was atypical of the CIA in two wags
in Washington, but secret, in . Lyman Kirkpatrick's phrase, "from He went to schoolir'rEurope (Le Rosey in Switzerland, a posh social -
inception to eternity.' _ . = = :institution where Mohammed Riza Pahlavi, later shah of Iran; also
As Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from June 1966 until-
wentjand he-had no money of his own.: The practical importance of
February 1973, Helms was as close to anonymous as a senior gov- this fact was that Helms; unlike many early CIA people, needed his
ernmentolFcial:can be. In political rriemoirs-of the period Helms is : job'He-could not afford to resign -if- her got mad and he knew it. In
often-in the index, but when you check the text he is only a walk-on, all other iespects-race; politics and'social backgroundHelmswas
one of those names in sentences which begin, "Also at the meeting typical of the Eastern, old family; old money, WAS? patricians:who
wre.If it were not for a little bad luck :::Helms would be ran thegreat financial institutions the Wall Street law firms the
as faintly remembered now as Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter or a ' '
Foreign Service and the CIA.:.'
General Hoyt Vandenberg, two early DCIs
No one tells "stories about Richard Helms. He had allies within the At