BOOK FINALLY ISSUED TELLS STORY OF '54 CIA FIRING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400150003-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 4, 1999
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 1, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

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OCT 11966'-
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP
I'dr " ~Ssue
Story ?5 'a--CIA F:- nrm
By WARREN HOGE
Star Staff Writer
only the names altered, the
work chronicles Miss Press'
interrogation and dismissal.
But the firm took the manus-
cript and apparently printed it,
Miss Press said, she never could
find out what happened to the
copies nor did she receive a
penny in royalties. .
The next time she heard from
an editor was last winter when
Esquire magazine called to tell
her that a "source who is in a
position to know" had informed
the magazine that the CIA had
suppressed the book's sale. ,
By this time Miss Press had
become a public relations'
adviser in New York and had
tried to put her CIA experience
behind her.
In the May Esquire, Malcolm
Muggeridge wrote a favorable
review, which encouraged
Bantam Books, Inc. to issue the
book in paperback this last
summer.
Miss Press still has little idea j
why she was singled out.
Dulles' comment about her
lack of candor suggested one,'
possible reason-that the agency
objected to her having lived with
a man years before she came to
Washington in a common law
arrangement as she cites in the
book.
Soft-spoken and motherly,
Miss Press now can relate her,!
experience with composure. But..
sie hasn't forgotten. "It was a
terrible and hideous mistake,"
she said,", and I still hope
snmarlag to y,+at a rahnarine '
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000400150003-5
in a 000{ nrst suppressea
now issued, a former CIA intelli-
gcnce cificer claims that the
agency arbitrarily fired her 12
years ago to satisfy the whims
of the late Sen. Joseph McCar-
thy.
In addition, she says, it was
,agency officials who successful-
ly prevented the sale of the
original publication of he
account of the incident.
The writer, Sylvia Press, re-
turned to Washington yesterday
for the first time in a decade,
eager to tell her story but in-
sistent that she is not "anti-
CIA. "
The episode began, she said
one morning in May, 1954, whe
she received a telephone cal
directing her to drop everythin
and report to the agency'
internal security division. At th
time, she was a 12-year vetera
in intelligence work and carrie
top secret clearance.
Security Investigation
Arriving at the division min
utes later, she was confronts
by two expressionless men who
thrust two other officers' applications for employment at he
and asked sternly whether she
had signed them as a witness.
One signature was hers, the
other not, she said, but it didn'
matter to her examiners. Thi
initial exchange was typical o
the kind of questioning she wa
to undergo for the next sevei
,weeks, she added.
After the July 4 weekend, sh
reported as she had for the las
seven weeks to the bare room i
the security division. But tha
day there was no more question
ing. A dismissal form citing he
as a "security, risk" rested o
the table.
She demanded and obtained
meeting with the then-director
Allen Dulles.
"What am I guilty of?" Mis
Press asked. Dulles said she ha
not shown enough "candor.'
;The phone rang, she was asks
i to excuse herself, and the con
Terence was over, she recalled.
Wrote Book
In the next few years sh
wrote her book, "The Care o
Devils," and in 1958 the Beaco
Press agreed, to publish it. Wit