MEMORANDUM TO(Sanitized) FROM DCI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003300310062-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2004
• Sequence Number: 62
• Publication Date: December 4, 1978
• Content Type: MF

STAT
Approved FRelease 2005/01/13: CIA-RDP80B0
Tape 20
Side A, 1 1/4 - 1 5/16
4DEC 1978
STAT
STAT I ' d like to s eel
I please.
L~~
STAT
Approved For Release 2005/01/13 : CIA-RDP80BO1554R003300310062-8
 Approved For Release 2005/01/13 : CIA-RDP80B01554R003300310062-8
...The top-secret papers linked President
Thieu to international heroin smuggling ..."
Saigon as he saw fit, in preparation for
congressional testimony. He also says
that Lawrence Eagleburger, then dep-
uty undersecretary of state for manage-
ment, and Brent Scowcroft, then assis-
tant to the president for national-recur.
ity affairs, knew of his possession of
the papers and had cleared it. But
Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Eagleburger
tell a vastly different story..
Kissinger, reached at his Center for
Strategic Studies offices, said he has "no
knowledge of what Ambassador Mar-
tin is talking about. There is a proce-
dure for declassifying documents, but
I was not involved and I knew noth-
ing about Mr. Martin's papers." Kis-
singer went to check his records and
reported back that he could find no ref-
erence to any documents in his commu-
nications with Martin after the fall.
Scowcroft is more adamant still: "I,
first of all, was in absolutely no posi-
tion to authorize anything of that char-
acter. Classified papers and their. dis-
position is a very technical kind of
business. The only one of us that
would be at all in that kind of posi-
tion would have been Eagleburger."
Eagleburger, now U.S. ambassador
to Yugoslavia, expressed incredulity
at Martin's claim, characterizing it as
"absolutely untrue." He explained that
"if there was any clearance process, it
clearly would have had to be in
writing."
Martin further claims that "as am-
bassador I had the power to declassify
anything." However, a State Depart-
ment legal officer familiar with the case
describes Martin's statement as "utter
bullshit." Martin was required, as all
retiring Foreign Service officers are, to
sign an affidavit swearing he had sur-
rendered all classified documents at the
time of his separation from service.
Martin's alleged intention to donate
the papers to the Lyndon Johnson Li-
brary is equally suspect. Harry Middle-
ton, the LBJ Library director, reached
in Austin, says that Martin got in touch
with the library only in mid-February of
this year, after the FBI had recovered
the documents. Any earlier plans to
give the papers to the library elude
verification.
So why did Martin have the papers?
A State Department official familiar
with the final 'days in Vietnam and
Martin's career hazards a guess: "Gra-
ham Martin expected to get into a
pissing match with Kissinger after Sai-
gon. He always suspected that Kissin-
ger would try tAp %dsah fetid N@l@tsdhl ()*5/f /cW
I MmFs 8915 5
the fall of Vietnam on him. He thought
that Vietnam was his show, his respon-
sibility, totally. I guess he expected to
get left holding the bag when the after
action evaluations were done. So he'
took a load of documents that he could
use to discredit other people in State
-particularly Kissinger-if they went
after him. He must have thought, 'If
they smear me, I'll smear them right
back.' You know, that isn't all that rare
with chiefs of mission in sensitive or
controversial assignments. A lot of
them have done it."
This hypothesis receives some cre-
dence from those acquainted with Mar-
tin's career. "He always loved to play j
politics," says a former USIA official
who worked with Martin in Thailand.
"He had this kind of 'Terry and the
Pirates -.cloak-and-dagger-attitude to-
ward everything. He used to take great
glee in telling me how each member
of the Thai cabinet could be approached
and compromised." When Martin was
ambassador to Rome in the early seven-
ties, he was discovered to have pid-
vided secret funds for the Christian
Democratic party, much to the ein-
barrassment of U.S. policymakers.
"Graham is Machiavellian," accord-
ing to a Foreign Service officer who
served with him in Italy. "He is the
craftiest political actor I've ever met."
Martin was particularly suspicious
of Kissinger after the evacuation of
Saigon, some observers close to him re-
port. Kissinger had cabled orders to
Martin to make no statements to the
press while he was still on the USS
Blueridge en route to Manila. "Graham
thought Kissinger was buying time to
set him tip as the fall guy for Vietnam.
He never trusted Kissinger and, I guess,
he got a little paranoid during the
final days," an embassy intimate sug-
gests. Others who .knew,. Martin in
Washington before his retirement tell
of his claiming that Kissinger was
"spreading rumors to reporters all over
town" that Martin was "insane." Mar-
tin's pique extended to others around
Kissinger, whose entourage he took to
calling "those low bastards," especially
Philip Habib. "When Habib was made
undersecretary," a.. State Department
associate of Martin's recalls, "Graham
thought it was part of a conspiracy
to deprive him of his place in history."
Regardless of Martin's motives, his
mere possession of the documents may
have violated the U.S. Code and. his
handling of the papers-including their
provisions of Title 18, Section 793 (f):
Whoever, being entrusted with -
or having lawful possession or con-
trol of any document.... relating
to the national defense, (1) through
gross negligence permits the same
to be ... lost, stolen ... or (2) hav-
ing knowledge that the same has
been illegally removed from its
proper place of custody or deliv-
ered to anyone in violation of his .
trust, or lost, or stolen ?... and fails -
to make prompt report of such loss,
[or] theft ... to his superior offi-
cer-
Shall be fined not more than
$1,000 or imprisoned not more
than ten years, or both.
On the. surface, it appears that en-
trusting a trunk full of classified docu-
ments to a secretary to transport to
Manila, storing the trunk in a hallway
of a villa in Rome, or leaving it in the
trunk of a 1973 Fiat with the keys in
the ignition is "gross negligence." Mar-
tin's failure to report the theft of the
documents to the FBI appears to come
under Title 18, Section 793 of the U.S.
Code. On the face of it, the failure of
the Justice Department to-initiate pros-
ecution is only slightly less incredible
than Martin's possession of the papers.
John Martin, the Justice Department
official in charge of the case, refused to
discuss its details, saying only that "the
matter is under investigation and no
disposition has been made." However,
Justice Department sources suggest a
complex. set of maneuvers behind the
scenes to ensure that Martin is never
indicted.
"The man has lung cancer," one
Justice Department lawyer says. "He's
old and tired and nobody wants to give
him any more grief."
"Don't let anybody kid you. Mar-
tin's health has nothing to do with
Justice's stalling," another federal law-
yer suggests. "Martin is part of a net-
work that has run U.S. foreign policy
for 30 years. If they go after him,
he can turn up a lot of skeletons. If
they go after him, no one could be
certain they wouldn't be next. Don't
be surprised if a number of high-
.ranking men in State have called Jus-
tice to put in a word for Martin. They
don't want a precedent on this kind
of thing set." r
With civil litigation continuing against
Frank ne and action contemplated
against other former officials who have,
perhaps, embarrassed polIC)rmakers
while not revealing any classified mate-
rial, the justice Department's failure to
proceed against Martina ears increas-
ingly suspect. Perhaps there is one law
R003~bassadors, and another