JACK ANDERSON [THE TONIGHT SHOW INTERVIEW]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00498A000600100006-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 10, 2000
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: December 8, 1976
• Content Type: MF

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ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional) ""r
Jack Anderson
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John F. Blake
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to whom. Draw a line across column offer each comment.)
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610 USEDITIONSUS
F-1 SECRET ^ CONFIDENTIAL ^ INTERNAL
^ UNCLASSIFIED
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 RAP!0 TV REPORTS, INC.
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4435 WISCONSIN AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20016
The Tonight Show
December 1, 1976
Interview With Jack Anderson'. Ctll ri LC cum
D'D
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WNBC T4
NBC etw,ork(f 1
JOHNNY CARSON: My next guest this evening is...
[Applause]
CARSON: Jack Anderson, I think, is probably the
country's top investigative reporter. He's syndicated nationally
in about a thousand newspapers, and he's heard on his own radio
program daily. Would you welcoVplease, Mr. Jack Anderson,
[Applause]
CARSON: Every time I see someone approaching with a folder
I think it's a subpoena or something like we're going right to
deposition. We talked about this briefly the last time, and I
would assume this is probably part of the CIA's investigation into
you while you were publiling stories. They got a little steamed
because they couldn't figure out where all this information was
coming from.
.
JACK ANDERSON: Th4('s right. There is a CIA file on me
r
The file's about that thick,:/ This is just a small part oi it,
but I really brought it as sort of a comic opera.
CARSON: I'm interested in what they actually do.
ANDERSON: What happened is that the CIA had...
CARSON: So they have to do this on orders from someone
obviously, or do they take it upon themselves to do it?
ANDERSON: Johnny, I think that they would have had to
have orders. Because you see it's against the law. It's a
OFFICES IN' NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT e AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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violation of U.S. statutes for the CIA to conduct any investigation
or any surveillance within the boundaries of the United States. Now,
what this is, what this shows is a blatant and brazen violation of
the law, but what they did was set up a commande post just outside
of my office. They called it Nest, and took pictures of everyone
going in and out, apparently bugged my office, I say apparently
because they referred to Cellutex II which is some kind of mysterious
code name. Well, the ceiling of my office was made of Cellutex,
and of course experts in bugging tell me that if you put it above.
you, you get more of the conversation than if you place it bow.
Then they referred to -- well, they had eighteen radio cars --
eighteen of them actually -- eighteen radio cars follwing my
reporters and me around.
CARSON: Right.
ANDERSON: And then there's a reference to some mysterious
electronic gear. It's so mysterious that even the secret papers
do/ t really discuss it and the only clue I had to it is -- my
erated electonically. He reported that during this time. it
that o
p
would mysteriously go up and down at two and three o'clock in the
morning.
ANDERSON: I know. It was the only clue we had.
CARSON: So they were doing this obviously to find. our
where you were getting your information, and from whom, et cetera.
ANDERSON: Yes. Here you can see part of it. This is
Project Mud Hen.
CARSON: That's you, right?
[Laughter]
CARSON: You don't object to that, do you? It's not a
bad code name, I mean.
ANDERSON: It's appropriate.
[Crosstalk]
CARSON: Can I read part of this?
ANDERSON: Sure, but first you've got to introduce the
cast of characters.
CARSON: Memorandum for the record, subject, Project Mud
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ANDERSON: Well, these are code names.
CARSON: I love this one..
ANDERSON: Brandy is me.
CARSON: The following Sugar coverage will be initiated
on idents. Brandy and Cordial.
ANDERSON: That's me. Cordial is Les Whitten.
CARSON: In order to determine general behavior patterns,
possibility of counter-Sugar in the direction of any other governmental
component or of principal idents. That's government language right
there
ANDERSON: They started off as you see with only eight
automobiles but they increased it to eighteen a litte later.
CARSON: Brandy, that's you, right?
ANDERSON: Right.
CARSON: Were assigned five agents, fast automobiles. I
guess they just ran along the side there.
[Laughter]
CARSON: Probably the new agent, breaking him in. Cordial
11 ad four agents, four automobiles, location, proximity of
residence and offices. Seven dogs coverage during daylight hours,
and so forth and so on and so on, and it tells about the techniques
and what they're supposed to do.
In other words, they spend all this time and money on
the private citizen.
ANDERSON: Here's a typical...
CARSON: How did you get them?
ANDERSON: Oh...
CARSON: I see.
[Laughter]
CARSON: Right, Brandy.
[Laughter]
ANDERSON: Now, this is a typical sheet, giving the
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hours of the day, showing what I was doing.
CARSON: Home.
ANDERSON: Twelve-thrity, Brandy leaves home in Cadillac.
It's an old Cadillac...
[Laughter]
ANDERSON: Twelve-fifty, Brandy parks Madison Garage.
Twelve-fifty-two, Brandy enters Madison Hotel. Fourteen-ten, they
got me at the office with an envelope and attache case. This is
the part I like. Sixteen-fifteen, Brandy departs office, takes cab,
lost...
[Laughter]
ANDERSON: Eighteen radio cars.
CARSON: And they lost the cab.
ANDERSON: Yes.
[Laughter]
CARSON: Don't you feel more secure, folks? They lost
a cab in Washington.
Now, with all of this going on, what did -- you know,
as a columnist who spends a good deal of your time investigating
things and trying to uncover malfeasance and corruption and what
the hell is going on. You have to keep your own skirts pretty
well starched and clean, don't you? I mean, they could really do
a number on you. I assume that's what something this is Eor, to
check into your personal life, your moral character, who you're
seen with. Have they gone through your whole life?
ANDERSON: Yes. In fact, one of the things that disturbs
me about the whole CIA is what they found out. In fact, they
even had my name wrong. They had me -- the file, they had me
listed in the file as Jackson Anderson. That is not my name. I've
never even been called Jackson.
CARSON: Right.
ANDERSON: There are so many things that are wrong. The
greatest excitement was on March 17th, 1972. On this occassion,
I had lunch with the CIA Director, Richard Helms.
CARSON: Right.
ANDERSON: And even though we were -- even though the
CIA Director was there, look what they did. It was proposed to
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the Director of Security that certain limited Sugar coverage should
be affected in the Montpelier Room during the meeting between Brandy
and the Director. They were spying on the Director.
ANDERSON: Yes. Two teams of two agents each will also
lunch at the restaurant and maintain careful Sugar observation.
CARSON: It gets to be a little...
ANDERSON: At no time should the Director be made aware
th t Sugar Coverage was in the restaurant.
GUEST: Like "Get Smart."
CARSON: Yes, it does sound -- it's almost...
ANDERSON: As I said...
CARSON: It becomes rather ludicrous, doesn't it?
ANDERSON: It's comic opera, and then the bulk of the Sugar
team will be positioned in the vicinity of the hotel to be ready to
resume full and effective Sugar coverage on Brandy to the conclusion...
CARSON: Of course this requires a lot of time, money
spent, which obviously is the taxpayers' money. God only knows
how much money the CIA gets. Nobody has really been able to
determine how they are funded directly.
ANDERSON: About a quarter of a million dollars for this
one instance.
ANDERSON: This operation alone, eighteen radio ca:7s.
It's a very expensive operation.
CARSON: Which was illegal to begin with because they had
no right to do any domestic surveillance whatsoever. Let me
take a break here, Jack, and we'll be right back after this.
CARSON: This almost becomes ludicrous but we might do
one more thing here to show you -- you carry this, ad infinir_um,
you had -- while you were being photographed by these agents
and followed by the CIA people, you had your own children, just
for the fun of it, I guess, fo our and take pictures.
ANDERSON: I found out that they were following me, Johnny.
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CARSON: Right.
ANDERSON: In fact, one of my sources gave me the license.
numbers of the cars. That helped. So I put my kids to work
and they did a little counter-surveillance.
CARSON: Not only did they do it, but the CIA also
reported on their surveillance..
ANDERSON: That's right. It's -- this is an urgent memo
on 4th April, 1972, they'd been at the Concorde Methodist Parking
Lot, overlooking my house, and they had a couple of agents there.
CARSON: They were preparing to leave at 0315 when a
station wagon with an unidentified female, your daughter, pulled
into the lot. She brought up a camera, rested it on the dash and
through the front window took a picture of agent so-forth. She
continued around the circle, stopped behind agent and took a picture
of that agent through the open window on the driver's side. She
attached sketch.
CARSON: Shows you how she put a camera and took it
through -- now, this is really incredible.
[Laughter]
CARSON: The woman drove west on River road, east -o--p-vtc)(4
Burdette Road, and parked on the right. She got out of the vehicle
and used what appeared to be a movie camera to take pictures of
agent so-and-so's car as he went by going on River Road, in other
words, they were reporting on your children reporting on them.
R Look, lest we be accused of vilifying the CIA, they
serve obviously a useful purpose and we have to have foreign
surveillance and foreign intelligence, but how does one put a
stop to the government, especially the FBI and the CIA, getting
into matters that they have no right getting into and putting
surveillance on private citizens?
ANDERSON: I think by putting the spotlight on it, by
doing what we're doing here. Poking a little fun at them. I
think after we laugh at them a little bit, after we point out
the comedy of the whole thing, the course of the whole thing, that
they probably aren't going to do it again. You people get visions
of my neighbors garage going up and down at two-thirty in the
morning, and my kids taking pictures of CIA agents who in turn
are taking pictures. At one point, CBS-TV was following around,
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for the 60 Minutes show, taking pictures of me, and we. have
from the CIA files pictures that the CIA tool, of CBS taking
pictures of me.
[Laughter]
CARSON: Well, that does approach absurdity.
ANDERSON: It is ridiculous, but the CIA...
CARSON: Who controls the CIA? Is the President able
to say, hey, I'm going to go over and walk into the CIA and say
I think I'll take a look and see what's going on?
ANDERSON: Yes. They try to get the -- they try to get
the President deniability (?), but there is no question that the
President is able to control. If he wants to, he can order the
CIA to do anything he wants. If he wants, he can see any CIA file
he wishes, and there's no question that the President is still in
charge.
And, I guess it probably ought to be said that the CIA
has done some good work. They're awfully good with some of their
technology. For example, I've actually seen transcripts of
conversations inside the Kremlin between Kremlin leader. They
weren't too enlightening, but at least we're able to do it. In
other words...
CARSON: They had the technology. They were able to
electronically...
ANDERSON: That's right.
CARSON: Of course the Russ ians obviously have the same
capability, I would assume.
ANDERSON: I would assume that they might. They bombard
our embassy there with microwaves.
CARSON: Do you ever talk on telephones? How do you
handle information over the phone? I. think you would be foolish
to talk on the telephone. to anyone who had any kind of infor( ration
that would be confidential.
ANDERSON: I play whatever games my sources want to. One
of them wanted to meet me at midnight in an alley. So, I thought
it was ridiculous. I was -- I was afraid I'd get mugged, but
if that's what they wanted to do, that's what we'd do. As far
as telephones, no, we wouldn't use the telephone with a good source.
As a matter of fact, to show you -- because I do want to read..
CARSON: I thought you had a recorder on you for. a moment.
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ANDERSON: I want to reassure my sources here. Let me
turn to -- after eighteen radio cars and all this, here is the memo --
that's not the one. I wanted you to know what you get for
your two and a half million dollars. Your two hundred and fifty --
quarter of a million dollars.
CARSON: Your informants?
ANDERSON: If I could just find it.
CARSON: We've got to get your files in order first, Jack.
GUEST: There's a CIA man behind the curtain.
[Laughter]
CARSON: Try taking the picture over here. He can tell
you where it is. In other words, they found out no knowledge...
ANDERSON: I wanted to read it to you, but after spending
about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, after all this, all
the photographs and all the. wiretapping, they found nothing, except
they did discover that my secretary had cone out and had met a low
level Air Force employee and got in a car with him, and so they were
successful for a quarter of a million dollars in discovering who my
secretary's -- one of my secretary's boyfriends was.
CARSON: You think there'll be less need -- and I don't
want I:o get you in a political side here, but you think there'll
be less need for investigative reporting under the new administration,
or do you think the press should be an adversary all the time. Should
they not?
ANDERSON: Yes, I believe in investigative reporting and
the adversary role of the press. Sure, I think probably there will
be less need, simply because there are more investigative reporters
now. They've suddenly been fashionable. There was a time when
we were just about the only ones doing it. There were a few
other. Now, most of the major newspapers are engaged in investigative
reporting.
CARSON: I would think the. Watergate thing and the revelations
that came out would make people very reluctant to carry, to have
more malfeasance in office.
ANDERSON: That's right. I think that the Watergate
was wholesome, when you look back over it. We did make the President
accountable. We threw out a President, forced him out of office in
the middle of his term. Probably no other country could have done
that, without bayonets, without an armed crew.
CARSON: So all the unpleasantness you feel was a kind
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of catharsis.
ANDERSON: The democratic process has worked.
CARSON: Right. It's held up pretty well through all
this, hasn't it. We'll take a break.
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