SPIES NEED A UNION AND FRINGE BENEFITS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600400010-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 25, 1999
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: September 1, 1960
• Content Type: NSPR

DENVER (Colo.) SEP 1 1960
POST Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-0014
Circ.: e. 254,519
S. 336,330
Front Edit Other
Page Page Page
CPYRGHT
FOIAb3b
Jack Guinn Says:
And Fringe Benefits
NYWAY you look at it, the spy game has Tasty Treat
l
t
7_'J ?
?1 l
f i+
-__~ t Tl'
ost
o
o
s
roma it c
L enough to get caught, but now comes a fel-
ow named Robert Berlin of Chicago and says the
entral Intelligence gency w 'him to work
of not h "-,...y,..,
According to the As, ociated Press,
r erlin says he.,vas planning an
nnoce'nt, ay trip to Russia when
e was :approached by an agent of
he CIA and asked to"make "cer-
ain' mental observations" of what
as going on in the Soviet Union.
hat's all. N0 camera the size of a
igaret lighter to make photographs
f the secret fortifications; no
p e c i a f code for valuable notes;
o poison needle; no money.
s he didn't think
Mr Berlin sa
y
. Gunn
it was right for a tourist to be
oing around making certain mental observations,
o he went to a ri'6 sp1aper, the Chicago American,
and-told on the CIA.
So there you have a situation worth the attention
f the philosophers who ponder the psychology of
modern chrome-plated America. It is sad that~8-v
Id Mr. Berlin couldn't have had enouh?advegture
n rs sour`i o_ enter into the spirit of the thing, even
o Tht much risk. Anybody with a
oker face and a stiff upper lip can get by the police
rtd the customs people without disclosing the hiding
lace of his certain mental observations.
But what's for worse is facing up to the news that
Ieasant Work
Now that the two National Security Agency
ode-experts have disappeared and are presumed
;y Washington to have gone over to the Com-
munists, . a tourist in Moscow could have himself
time if it weren't for the fact the CIA is so stingy
,'t its f.....
Imagine wanderi ~m~oloon to saloon on a
IA .account, ordering a te
n-9-hollering out in comradely fashion: "Any of you
ellows seen old Bernon Mitchell or William Martin?"
by Comm nist nilAi'on; aic it 'was enjoyabl'e
although not particularly remunerative employ-
ment. Actually all I did was work for a wire
service and scratch around for something inter-
esting to write about. What annoyed the Commu-
nists was that they were ' doing all the interesting
things.
But even such run of the mill spy work as this
has its rewarding moments,such as the time the Hun-
garian Secret Police, all Communists, misplaced three
of their finest agents.
These f e 11 o w s had been assigned to track
down a group of smugglers who were believed to
be operating out of a cave near the Austrian bor-
der, evading the high export. tax by sneaking into
the, hungry Vienna market such delicacies as
apricot and cherry brandies, canned ham and very
tasty Hungarian sausage.
In any secret organization, as the American intel-
ligence people keep learning all the time, there is
always some fun-loving or resentful soul who likes to
sit around. with the enemy, sampling the refreshments
and smoking up the cigars, and I had such an old
buddy in the Secret Police. One day he said they had
lost the fellows watching the smugglers and that a big
investigation was under way.
This went on for days and my f r i e n d kept
reading the official reports, making certain mental
observations and a few humorous handwritten
notes which he passed on from \ time `to time.
Finally the investigation ended and the mystery
was solved, but it had many complications and the
Communists had gotten to the point where they
wished they. had never heard of it.
For one thing, a very high-placed Communist of-
ficial was getting rich off the smuggling operations.
Probably less important, but so entertaining that
the Communists went into a rage of denial after publi-
cation of the report horrified all of Austria, was the
fact that the three missing policemen. had been incor-
porated into the tasty Hungarian sausage.
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000600400010-4