THE MAN FROM CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100100026-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2000
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: November 14, 1965
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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F A M I L Y W E E K L Y
Approved For Release 2000W8/03 : CJA Rt 75-000
 Approved For Release 2000/08/03 : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100100026-8
CPYRGHT
0
side in Nam Tha, North Vietnam, is a disguised
arsenal. These Items are used in compiling the
weekly list of targets to be bombed.
When President Johnson considers escalation
in the Vietnamese war, Raborn has the job of ' s
estimating Red China's and Russia's. possible re-
actions to US. moves. The evaluation must be,.:
old sea dog
and as the now
U. S. spy boss, he runs a
fast, ship on the dark waters I
of international espionage
W ILLIAM.. (RED)- RABORN is a short,.
barrel-chested admiral with a
florid face 'and a flair for getting one..,-
man to do the work of four.
As the new director of the U.S. Central Intelli-
gence Agency, the world's most extensive spy
network, he probably is driving himself and his
men harder than anybody else in Washington.
One Naval officer recalls: "After hearing Ra-
born talk, I knew I was ready to die for some-
one, but I didn't know or remember whether. it
was for the admiral, the President, my mother,
the head of the Boy Scouts, or whom=but,
brother, I was ready to die!"
If Raborn is rough' and demanding with his
men, he has reasons. America's security heavily
depends upon the agents he supervises. As. long
as the Communists seek to control the world, the
CIA must penetrate closed areas and secretly fer-
ret out strategic plans in advance.
Raborn has a huge, incredibly complex organ-
ization to run. His espionage network includes
"black" agents of many nationalities working in
legitimate businesses in Berlin, Istanbul, Hong :
a seventh-floor office in Langley, which, daily re-
filmed documents, many recordings of bugged
telephone conversations, and miles of undevel-
oped film taken by U-2 planes and concealed cam-
eras. In addition, some 1,000 nonsecret items
such as Communist political journals arrive each
day and are instantly translated by computers,
-CIA's 50 million documents.
From this avalanche of information, Raborn
and his top aides may, in the course of one day,
figure out some of the Communists' potential
moves in Korea or North Vietnam, decide wheth-
er a rabble rouser In Thailand is a Communist,
and determine the progress of a number of CIA-
subsidized undergrounds in sabotaging Commu-
nist plots. Such information is summarized on
five typed pages that are inserted into a black
loose-leaf notebook labeled "Confidential: for the
President's Eyes Only" and delivered before
6 p.m. each day to the White House.
Simultaneously, Raborn must collate all U.S.' E
intelligence and issue to the State and Defense
Departments a separate daily intelligence digest.
The digest may include such information as a
report that a barn with cows grazing out-
Kong, and even Moscow and Peking. It also in-
cludes persons In strategic positions in Commu-
nist governments who are spying for the CIA. -;
In addition, he supervises intelligence specialists
. operating from overseas diplomatic -offices and,
some 15,000 persons who work at the CIA's its-
mense headquarters amid 140,000. acres at Lang+,
ley, Va.
The 60-year-old CIA. boss himself works frons
Approved For Release 2000/08/03 CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100100026-8
 CPYRGHT
supported with details about Communist strength. 'peppery admiral was stealing their best men. He
Even the most minute facts ma be important. assembled a 500-man staff and put it on a seven-
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ment's Soviet affairs desk called Raborn's office plants, prodding, workers and contractors into
for background on the manager of a Russian fac-.putting out more work and warning that delays
tory. Shortly. afterward, he received a report could damage their reputation. When test missiles
which noted, among other things, that the Rua-'malfunctioned, Raborn was always there, de-,
sian, who was married, secretly had a girl friend manding reasons why they did.
who had dyed her hair three different colors in Finally the submarine George Washington de-
he past 19 months. scended 40 feet and fired the first undersea mis-
This indexed information on minor figures sile, the Polaris, and the grinning admiral ra-
is sometimes invaluable during fast-breaking'dioed the White House: "POLARIS FROM OUT
vents such as a coup in a South American or OF DEEP TO TARGET, PERFECT." Amazing-
sian country. After his staff determines wheth- ly, Raborn had pushed through Polaris' develop
r any key rebels* are Communists, Raborn tele- ment three years ahead of schedule!
hones either the White House's subbasement Congress and the White House were impressed
ituation room or, in potentially explosive situa- by the tough, balding admiral's ability to finish a
ions, the President himself. difficult job. Last April, President Johnson chose
When Communists seize control of a govern- ?Raborn to replace John McCone as CIA boss and
ent . and the President authorizes the CIA to invited him to the LBJ ranch.
ake action, Raborn sits down with Richard There Raborn showed he had one of the basic
elm, the CIA's crewcut deputy director for prerequisites for the job-the ability to .keep a
lans (plans is a diplomatic word for cloak-and- -secret. Reporters at the ranch asked him, "Are
agger work), and arranges discreetly to supply' you Admiral Raborn, and is the rumor of your
uerrilla. armies. CIA successes (the agency has, CIA appointment true?" The jaunty..old sea dog
verthrown Red regimes in Guatemala and Iran) replied, "I haven't heard a thing about It."
nnot be boasted about. But failures, as the' That perhaps was Raborn's last public state-'
world learned at Cuba's Bay of Pigs, usually are ment. A sign in CIA headquarters reads: "'No
well advertised by America's enemies. Comment' Is Our Only Comment."' Raborn avoids
Raborn, however, is not the kind of man to toler- reporters or any kind of notoriety. Shortly after
to failure. As the second oldest of eight children his appointment, he and his attractive brunette
eared in Marlow, Okla.,'he swore he wouldn't:wife were invited to a White House party. But
Bandon his goal of becoming a Naval aviator- the guest list deliberately omitted the Raborns'
vein after failing his eye test, He argued so.Lname. (Britain's intelligence chief also cannot
hemently that the examiner's vision might not'speak publicly and is known only'as M-1.)
e 20-20 that he was allowed to repeat the test- Raborn Is married to an ex-Navy nurse, and he
nd passed. :can thank his own aggressiveness for meeting
Later, as a gunnery officer at Kaneohe, Hawaii, her. Once, when he was still a captain and his
Raborn insisted upon keeping his squadron's ship was docked near New York, he decided that
fighter planes gassed and armed. Consequently he and his 22 officers needed entertainment. He
hese were the only planes to get into the air dur- drove to a USO and arranged for a dance which
Ing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. would be attended by 22 nurses.
Raborn excels under pressure. During World Arriving atthe dance, Raborn was exasperated
War II, he was an officer on the carrier USS to.find the officers and nurses standing on opposite
Hancock when a kamikaze plane ripped a hole sides of the room. His sunburned face seemed to
In the deck. Amid blinding smoke, Raborn turn a deeper red as he roared : "Only' rea-
upervised the fire-fighting and damage-control son you're here Is to meet these pretty little.
nits that repaired the hole, pushing his men ladies, and everybody's practically standing at at-
so hard that planes on a bombing mission were tention. I'm ordering each officer to march over
able to land safely only a short while later. 'to these ladies, give his name, and then socialize."
In 1955 he was the skipper of the USS Ben- Raborn led the procession and found himself
ington when an explosion engulfed both decks,. talking to the chief nurse, Commander Mildred
killing 103 and injuring 117. Raborn did not Terrill. They subsequently were married in one
abandon ship, as suggested. Instead, he radioed, of the four. weddings that resulted from the
for helicopters to evacuate the injured,.' then USO dance.
helped extinguish the blaze and brought the limp- Occasionally, Raborn finds time to spend a day
lug carrier into port. at home relaxing with Mildred. He sometimes sits
-Soon afterward, Raborn was summoned to the at his electric organ and plays by ear such num-
Pentagon office of Admiral Arleigh Burke, chief bers as "The Yellows Rose of Texas." Recently he
of Naval operations, and delegated unprecedented quit golf to raise a Japanese-style road garden.
responsibility: the development of a submarine He also has trained his dachshund Heinz to stand
that could fire ballistic missiles 1,500 nautical on his hind legs and salute when he hears the word,
miles while totally submerged. This would mean "Navy," and bow and cover his eyes in shame at
that, even if every U.S..missile. base were de- the sound of "Army." Nobody knows what*Helnz'
troyed, a submarine could continue to fire nuclear does when he hears "CIA."
warheads. ..I "But,,, quips an acquaintance, "it wouldn't our-.
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