'ARROGANT' CIA DISOBEYS ORDERS IN VIET NAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP65B00383R000200170023-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 24, 2003
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: October 2, 1963
• Content Type: NSPR

~~1TL NEWS, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2,19'63--S
..................
'SPOOKS' MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR AMBASSADOR LODGE
..
Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in
By RICHARD STARNES Scripps-Howard staff Writer
stand what he is doing at U. S. military headquarters
SAIGON, Oct. 2-The story of the Central
Intelligence Agency's role in South Viet Nam is
a dismal chronicle of bureaucratic arrogance,
obstinate disregard of orders, and unrestrained
thirst for power.
Twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out Instruc-
tions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, accord.
ing to a high United States source here.
In one of these instances the CIA frustrated a plan
of action Mr. Lodge brought with him from Wash-
ington, because the agency disagreed with it.
This led to a dramatic confrontation between Mr.
Lodge and John Richardson, chief of the huge CIA
apparatus here. Mr. Lodge failed to move Mr. Rich-
ardson, and the dispute was bucked back to Wash-
ington. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and CIA Chief
John A. McCone were unable to resolve the conflict,
and the matter is now reported to be awaiting settle-
itient by President Kennedy.
In Defense- Secretary Robert McNamara's report to
Mr. Kennedy.
Others Critical, Too
Other American agencies here are incredibly bit-
ter about the CIA. .
"If the United States ever experiences a `Seven Days
in May' it will come from the CIA, and not the Pen-
tagon," one U. S. official commented caustically.
("Seven Days in May" is a fictional account of an
attempted military coup to take over the U. S. Gov-
CIA "Spooks" (a universal term for secret agents
here have penetrated every branch of the American
most ?eem to be suffering a CIA psychosis.
An American field officer with a distinguished
combat career speaks. angrily about "that man at
headquarters in Saigon wearing a colonel's uniform."
He means the man is a CIA agent, and he can't under-
here, unless it is spying on other Americans.
Another American officer, talking about the CIA,
acidly commented: "You'd think they'd have learned
something from Cuba but apparently they didn't."
Fea+v Know CIA. Strength
Few people other than Mr. Richardson and his
close aides know the actual CIA strength here, but
a widely used figure is 600. Many are clandestine
agents known only to a few of their fellow spooks.
Even Mr. Richardson is a man about whom it is
dilfipult to learn much in Saigon. He is said to be
a former OSS officer, and to have served with dis-
tinction in the CIA in the Philippines.
A surprising number of the spooks are known to
be involved in their ghostly trade and some make no
secret of it.
"There are spooks in the U. S. Information Service,
in the U. S. Operations mission, in every aspect of
American official and commercial life here," one of-
ficial-presumably a non-spook-said.
"The represent a tremendous power and total un-
accountability to anyone," he added.
Coupled with the ubiquitous secret police of Ngo
Dinh Nhu, a surfeit of spooks has given Saigon an
oppressive police state atmosphere.
The Nhu-Richardson relationship is a subject of
lively speculation. The CIA continues to pay the
special forces which conducted brutal raids on Bud-
dhist temples last Aug. 21, altho in fairness it should
be pointed out that the CIA is paying these goons
for the war against communist guerillas, not Bud-
.dhist.bonzes (priests).
Viet Nan,
Aug. 21 raids caught top U. S. officials here and in
Washington flat-footed.
Nhu ordered the special forces to crush the Bud-
dhist priests, but the CIA wasn't let in on the secret.
(Some CIA button men now say they warned their
superiors what was coming up, but in any event
the warning of harsh repression was never passed
to top officials here or in Washington.)
Consequently, Washington reacted unsurely to the
crisis. Top officials here and at home were outraged
at the news the CIA was paying the temple raiders,
but the CIA continued the payments.
It may not be a direct subsidy for a religious war
against the country's Buddhist majority, but it comes
close to that.
And for every State Department aide here who will
tell you, "Dammit, the CIA is supposed to gather
information, not make policy, but policy-making is
what they're doing here," there are military officers
who scream over the way the spooks dabble in
military operations.
A Typical Example
For example, highly trained trail watchers are an
important part of the effort to end Viet Cong infil-
tration from across the Laos and Cambodia bor-
ders. But if the trail watchers spot incoming Viet
Longs, they report it to the CIA in Saigon, and in
the fullness of time, the spooks may tell the military.
One very high American official here, a man who
has spent much of his life in the service of democracy,
likened the CIA's growth to a malignancy, and added
he was not sure even the White House could control
it any longer.
Unquestionably Mr. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell
Taylor both got an earful from people who are be-
Hands Over Millions ginning to fear the CIA is becoming a Third Force,
co-equal with President Diem's regime and the U. S.
Nevertheless, on the first of every month, the CIA Government-and answerable to neither.
dutifully hands over a quarter million American dol- There is naturally the highest interest here as to
lars to pay these special forces. whether Mr. McNamara will persuade Mr. Kennedy
Whatever else it buys, it doesn't buy any solid something ought to be done about it.
information on what the special forces are up to. The (See editorial on Page, 32.)
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tide on Page 3 today. ? The CIA agents represent a tre-
mendous power and are totally unac-
.And the mess he, has found isn't Viet countable to anyone. They dabble and
Namese. It is American, involving bit-
ter strife among U. S. agencies-which interfere in military operations, to the
may help explain the vast cost and lack frustration of our military officials.
Of satisfactory progress in this opera- The bitterness of other American
tion to contain communist aggression. agencies in Saigon toward the CIA,
The whole situation, as described by Starnes found, is "almost unbelievable."
Mr. Starnes, must be shocking to Amer- On the basis of this last statement
scans who believe we are engaged in a alone, there is something terribly wrong
selfless crusade to protect democracy in with our system out there.
this far-off land. ,Defense Secretary McNamara j us t
He has been told that: has finished his investigation on the
ground in Viet Nam and is preparing to
0 The U, S. Central' Intelligence report to the President. Mr. McNamara
Agency (CIA) has flatly refused to is a tough man of decisive action. It
carry out instructions from Ambassador may be assumed he now is in a position
Henry Cabot Lodge, frustrating a plan to assess the blame for this quarreling
of action he took from Washington. and back-biting inside the American
11 J is a brutally messed up. state of af- Who are we fighting there anyhow?
fairs that our man, Richard Starnes, The communists, or our own. people?
,reports from South Viet Nam in his ar-
faanrly-whether it falls on the CIA or
Secret agents, or "spooks," from other agencies which accuse the CIA.
~ ~ x w~.a}lcxl VJ. tine way or t
heads chonlrl 1 n
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