VICTOR MARCHETTE INTERVIEW ON NEW YORK CITY TV CHANNEL # 7 - SEPT. 13, 1971 ('A. M. NEW YORK')

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74B00415R000400160017-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2005
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: September 13, 1971
• Content Type: TRANS

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SUBJECT: Victor MARCHETT4
Interview on New York City
TV Channel #7 .. Sept. 13, 1971
("a. n-i. New York")
NOTE: Interviewer not. identified but believed to be John B. Tucker.
TUCKER: When you think of the spy game you think of the
glamorous life of James Bond. Behind the glamor someone runs
the spy game - one of these organizations is the CIA. My next
guest is Victor MARC=IETTE, high ranking officer in the CIA, he
was, left C1. after 14 yearn and he has just written a novel called
the Pope Dancer which I will show you in a xr oarent. How comae
you wanted to write a novel?
M:ARCHETTE: Well, recently I wanted to write a non-fiction.
book - it would have been a critical analysis of the CIA. and the
intelligence business but at the time I resigned after 14 years I was
loaded up with loyalties to the Agency and n-;y friends so I decided "to
do it this way and this book is very realistic - it will give the
reader a feel for ~.wrhat life is like in an Agency like CI.A, what the
mentality of the officers are, What xmotivates thorn and what some of
the hanky-panky is that goes on behind the scene,. Of course it is a
good story.
TUCKER: I met t WO people from the CIA you and a young
girl who tried to recruit me when I was in the Army.
MARCHETTE: You probably met more people from the CIA.
only you didn't know it. If a fellow was presently overseas he cannot
advertise to hiu friends that he is a CIA man he has to go and say he
is with State Department or a business of some sort,
TUCKER: l-low do you get in the CIA? and were you as high
ran king as I introduced you as being?
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lvIARCI:ETTE: I think it would be a better phrase to say I
was a highly placed official. I had been a rank equivalent of full
Colonel when I left. The last few years I had been in the Executive
Suite, executive assi :ta.nt to the number two n an in the Agency
then Admiral Rufus Taylor.
TUCKER: This was in ashingt,-.,n in the CIA Headquarters
which is in Langley, Virginia e beautiful s tting.. Not too well
disguised is it'.?
ZVIARCHETTE: No. They make no attempt to disguise It. It
is surrounded by trees - to get to the building one has to drive about
a quarter of a mile off the. main road. ) verybody that lives there,
knows it icy CIA.
TUCKER: Now you don't do recruitin.U do you?
MMMAi11CI-HETTE: No. I recruited a couple of people.
TUCKER: How do you decide you want that man for. CIA? "
Z A.RCHETTE: There are two ra ys. One is rccri-Aters in the
field have been told in advance the hind c i p=sople the Agency needs at '`.
any point and time. They also know there is a general type of person
who could be useful to the Agency. Take,- rrry case for cxan. plo j I had
been in military intelligence for a numb--!r of years and I had lived in
Europe and then I can :back to school and studied Russian civilization.
One of the professors was probably a cl --ared consultant with the
Agency or cleared contact and he finger:-d ze. One da.y I got a phone
call from somebody who said he was a friend of my brother's and could.
I meet hin., at a hotel and not ask the dcs.k clerk but coir2e right up to
the room and it turned out that he was a recruiter for CIA. He asked
me if I would like to work with them after finding out to his own
satisfaction that I was patriotic and all that, they tested me, and I had
some interviews and I was hired and I wont to work for them. Then I
went into training.
TUCKER: What did you do? What were some of the jobs you had
with there?
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MARCHETTE: VTell, I Spent sorne time in operations which is
the romantic side of the business, but mostly I was in the intelligence
analysis side of it. I did research w- I did current intelligence - and
I worked in the field of National Estimates. This is the highest form
of intelligence where we sit down and try to answer questions. What is
the status of the Soviet Strategic Strike System, what are the Soviets
planning in the field of anti-11a.llistic m- sissile development?
really ?
TUCKER: Did you ever start any revolutions? Do they 'do that
MARCHETTE: No, pot I. I think it is done - obviously some
of them have been very highly advertised, such as the Guaternalai)
volution, the two in Iran, the D .-)y of
TUCKER: 1-:lovw about Malaysia? Were you guys in on that?
MARCHETTE: They may have been, but not to rimy knowledge.
Obviously deeply in Vietnam and is Laos they virtually have a private
war going on in Laos. There are no US troops there but CIA is there
in force; helping the Maws to try to hold off the North Vietnamese
and is the process of which, are destroying a lot of innocent people.
eT'UCILI .: You quit, obviously.
IviARCHHETTE: Yes, I quit. This was just one.item that was
eating at inc. I joint d up in the days of the cold war and I was highly
patriotic and I wanted to be in the first line of defense, However, as
the times changed, great oncio-political changes going on in the world
the. Agency stall lived as far as I could see, back in they 50 Is, and this
is true of the intelligence unit in general. The military intelligence
units as well. It began to eat at inc I got bothered and I was in a
position where I could speak out and perhaps try to get some changes
made and I thought maybe cut down the size of the Agency as well as
the community - reduce the military influence which is trexr ene ous.
Actually most of the intelligence community is owned by the Pentagon.
TUCKER: 14 is?.
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IARCI- li:TTE: Yes. About 55 per c{=nt of the intelligence
community is actually under the direct or indirect control of the
Secretary of Defense. Mr. Helms, who rur. = the CIA, actually only
controls about 15 per cent of th assets - people and money. Ire
controls the most romantic aspect of the bu.-Aness and also one of the
,most influential parts - which is the int?c-'ligence unit.
`~UCKE : About how much is the total CIA of the intelligence
coa.r 01rar: unity
111ARC,HE T-13: About 15.
TUCKER: It is only l5?
MARCHE E: For e,:ampio the intelligence community coasts
the Government today - depending on vih>::~e figures you go by - about
six billion dollars a. year of which CIA oily liar about 15 p, r cent.
That is a lot of money.
TUC:? nit: --and they still have this- war going on in Laos -
with 15 per cent they do pretty Well S
MARCIJETTE: Well, with the JitIle games that are played
behind-the scenes of ceurue. A lot of th?; CIA expenditures for Laos
and Vietnam are not charged off to their account, they are charged
off to the military account.
TUCKER: I a*t sure it xrjust have ha :opened - but I'm not sure
you being a patriotic ;-nan I'll ask you - clo-::s it ever bother you that
they foment a tzar _ ..
MAILGEIETTE --not foment -- they make a.xvar In Laos and they
don't look and say that Congresa will pass a war. it certainly does
bother xr:e. There arc suite a fev people who become very angry
particularly the people who are on the wialytical side, the intellectuals
in the Agency, the people who are studying foreign nations and trying to
determine trends. ` hese lat o ,le are bothered very much by it, however,
that is only the tip of the iceberg - the t:ulk of the iceberg is the
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clandestine side of the Agency and these are the people who have
the power to get involved in things lilts Tao Now when the CIA
I shouldn'.t say the CIA - excuse me, when the United States went
into Cambodia recently after a coup had occurred and the U. S.
went into Cambodia, there was such a stir created within the CIA
the Director actually had to call a meeting in the auditorium and
speak, largely to the younger officers, and try to explain the facts
of life to them.
and they will do it in a clandestine fashion, the best possible way they can.
TUCKER: We need more time to talk on this. Can we Yr-Lett agair}?
TUCKER: In other words saying that our country has taken
our war away from us. Was that what he was saying,?
MAPCI-IETTE: No. What be was saying is the President of
the United States calls the shots and if the President of the United
States orders the U. S. armed forces into Cambodia, as a good
soldier you go into Cambodia, even though you may disagree and that
in the CIA. one cannot be political, he eras tellira.g them you may believe:
so?x-netlhin; personally and you are free to vote whichever way you % ant
to but you cannot let that interfere with your work. In your work you
have to be as objective as possible and you have to follow order c This
iE how they get involved in coups for crarnplc, there is a very small.
suction of the National Security Act of 1947 which says that CIA will
do anything else that the National Security Council instructs thorn to do
from time to time. Well, from time to time they may be instructed
to cause some trouble somewhere - if they are it is their duty to do it
MARCI-IETTE: I would love tO.
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