NEW BOOK: TO MOVE A NATION BY ROGER MILEMAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R001600030025-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 10, 2003
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: June 8, 1967
• Content Type: MF

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MEMORANDUMR: Director of Central Int.Utgeuce
SWISECT
New Nook: To Move A Na
_
Hileman
1. This memorandum is for informat on only to invite your
attention to a new book entitled To Move A Nation by Roger Hillman
Garden City, New York: Doubleday h Company. Inc.. 1967). Mr.
Nilsinan is now a professor in the Columbia University School of
International Affairs. His career as Director of the State Department's
of Intelligence and Research and as Assistant Secretary for Far
Eastern Affairs is, of course, well known to you.
2. ReadIng through this 580 page book is something like
trying to plow through a fteld of rocks, and this reviewer has not read
all of it as he wished to bring it to your attention as quickly as possible.
The book is not helped by rather small print and slightly off-white paper
that make. it a typographical monstrosity. As the author himself notes.
it is partly a theoretical study in political science, part history, and
part memoir. in a television interview, the author refused to answer
directly a question as to whether the Department of State had cleared
the book for publication but he does say in his preface and in his inter-
view that it was reviewed by "qualified specialists" to ensure against
security breaches. He adds that all his documentation. notes of meetings,
memoranda for the record and telephone conversations . which have been
his sources in the, book, have been left in his personal papers at the
Kennedy Library. One wonders whether this deposit includes some intel-
ligence material to which even future scholars should not have access.
3. Mr. lineman seems obsessed with what he calls "the
rivairiss of the great Executive departments. State. Defense, and the
Central Intelligence Agency, as they clash in the actual making of
policy (F. 13). Again. in talking of the problems of the State
Department. Hilernan states:
!Mt whichever alternative the President finally
chose, it had to take into account the personalities
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involved?Dean Rusk. Robert S. McNamara, McGeorge
Bundy. John A. McCone, the man chosen to replace
Alien Dulle? as Director of CIA1 and, finally, the
President himself." (pp. 38-39).
Again, on page 0, he talks of "The personality equation... had five main
variables," listing above named offtcials. Again, he notes the President's
need to "maximise strengths and compensate for weaknesses" in these
officials. adding:
"McCone'e qualities as a fighter would make
Mm invaluable in keeping the intelligence community in
line but the President had also to be sure that McCort*
did not stray beyond those responsibilities, as well as
to find means to ensure that intelligence estimates and
reports continued to be balanced and objective if there
was indeed the risk corn* people feared in McCone's
militant anti-Communism." (p. 49)
4. At pages 46-47, Hilsrnan gives his personal evaluation of
Mr. McCone noting that at the time of his appointment "many of us were
afraid the administration was buying trouble." To calm his own fears.
Hillman called Senator Henry Jackson who spoke very highly of Mr. McCone;
Hilsrnan condescendingly admits that
... "I did indeed come to like him as a man.
He was very ambitious, but disarmingly candid about it.
his intelligence judgments and policy predi-
lections were toward a selective discriminating application
of toughness, tailored to the particular situation. ... I'm
sure there was a streak of the alley fighter in McCone, but
there was also a rough and ready sense of decency."
5. It is apparent that Secretary Rusk is not Mr. Hillman's
favorite character and,in trying to explain the Secretary, he repeats many
anti-Rusk remarks and statements. In the end. Hilsrnan feels that
President Kennedy had no other choice but to be his own Secretary of
State and Hillman notes that
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" ... it was increasingly clear that the State Department
and the Secretary did not have a very firm grip on the ball,
nor were they going to run with it." (p. ZS).
In fact, Hilsman's "hero" appears more likely to be Chester Bowles, of
whom he says that
"He had in those few months done more than any other
man in the administration to correct the imbalance that
bad existed in the previous administration between the
State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency." (p. 36)
6. In discussing the State Department's establishment of its
Operation. Center (which he considered a "gimmick"). Hillman notes
that 'Even the CIA had modern communications and coding equipment"
but that the State Department's cryptographic equipment was obsolescent.
He also notes his reorganisation of INR which included developing the
philosophy of policy-oriented research and intelligence papers.
7. Hilsman devotes a few pages to the Bay of Pigs (pgs. 30-34).
One of the factors which he assigns as the cause of the failure of the Bay
of Pigs was that Mr. Dull*. and Mr. Bissell had become "emotionally
involved. Hilsrnan states that hi knew nothing of the plans "until one
flay in a meeting Allen Dulles let drop a remark that made me realise
something was up." Hillman went right to Secretary Rusk and said
that such plans must be based on a CIA expectation that the Cuban people
would rise and requested the Secretary's permission to put INR personnel
to work on the problem. The Secretary refused permission because the
operation was being so tightly held. Hilsman assigns a part of the debacle
at the Bay of Pigs to the failure of the Secretary in "not insisting that
experts who had a contribution to make should be allowed to make it",
and adds that
"My personal lesson from the Bay of Pigs is that in
such circumstances an official should not ask to be per-
mitted to do a study, but should simply go ahead with
whatever study seems necessary on his own authority.
... there was no risk from (INR personnel] of a break in
security."
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He notes that Mr. Amory was also kept in the dark and that this meant
"that the President was denied the judgment of CIA's own estimators
on the research side of the organization." It is also }Woman's opinion
that the cancelation of the so-called "second strike" did not doom the
Bay of Pigs operation, because it was doomed from the beginning.
8. Hilamest devotes a major portion of his book to studies of
particular crises areas. These include Laos. the Cuban missile crisis.
the Congo, Communist China, the Indonesian area and Vietnam. In
discussing the Vietnamese situation, he denies some of the reckless
charges made against John Richardson and the latter advises me that
Hilsman's comments in this connection and in connection with Richardson
recall are substantially accurate except for Hiisman's comments that
certain allegations of the CIA "split" in Vietnam were leaked to the press
by CIA personnel in disagreement with Agency or U.S. policy. Hilsman
states of CIA in Vietnam that
"The notion that they took policy into their own hands
against the policy of Washington made its way into almost
every paper in the United States. But in fact. Richardson
and the agency were meticulous in clearing even routine
matters they thought might have political repercussions."
The section on the Congo concerns events prior to CIA's involvement in
Congo affairs. I have asked for Mr. Colby's comments on the section of
the book which deals with Far Eastern affairs.
9. Part III of To Move A Nation consists of three chapters on
"President Kennedy and the CIA" and is ZS pages long. A separate
analysis of this section is attached as Tab ".A".
Walter Pforzheimer
Curator
Historical Intelligence Collection
Attachment
Tab "Al;
Distribution:
Orig & 1 - Addressee w/book 1 -DCl/Nipe (Mr. Bross) w / bk
1 - DDCI w/book 1-OGC 1 - DDP I Iwibk
1 0* Ex. Dir. 1 - IG 1- DDI w/bk 1 -D/Sec
1 - Asst. to Dir (Goodwin) 1 - DDS 1 - D/OCI 1 - CI (
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Tab "A"
SUBJECT: Analysis of Part III. "President Kennedy and the CI,A" in
To Move A Nation by Roger Hilsman
1. Part III comprises chapters 6, 7 and 8: "The Problems of CIA;"
The Kennedy Compromise;" and "Secret Intelligence in a Tree Society. "
Mr. Hilsman commences chapter 6 by quoting President Kennedy s,s stating.
after the Bay of Pigs. that "we will have to deal with the CIA." He then
quotes at length from President Truman's well...published article about the
CIA which was published on 22 December 1963. [Mr. Hillman presumably
has not been apprised of President Truman's subsequent private statement
that ize did not write the article personally. and that it did not represent
his views.) Milsman then sets forth the usual list of shopworn charges
against the Agency made in various public media and also quotes in pass-
ing from The Invisible ?overt:anent by "two responsible journalists." He
notes that
"Some of these charges were undoubtedly motivated by
nothing more than sensationalism. But some of the concern
was very real. ... The root fear was that the CIA repre-
sented a Staatsim-Staat, a state within a state, and certainly
the basis for fear was there." (p. 64)
Hilsmnan tries to balance these comments by declaring tha
"From my own personal experience. I know that ...
moat of the more extreme chimps about C/A were not valid.
... it has succeeded in bringing an objectivity that was
previously unknown in the American government's analyses
of events abroad. The United States, in fact, owes the men
and women of CIA an extraordinary debt." (p. 65).
But Hilsman immediately follows these statements by saying that "the CIA
still represented a most serious problem. as President Truman said."
To Hilsman, this problem is summed up in one word -- power.
2. The author describes what he considers to be the various elements
of CIA power. The first element is that CIA had people, usually more
numerous and more able than their opposite interdepartmental numbers.
"What is more." he states, "the people in CIA were outstandingly able,
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which %vas itself a source of power." (In some cases abroad1 he notes
subsequently, the Chief of Station may be more able than the Ambassador.)
Hilsman's second ingredient is that CIA had money together with freedom
from normal accounting procedures, which gave it flexibility. Hilsmen
notes that while certain of our activities would be acceptable if State
Department funds were utilised they become "sinister.' when CIA money
Is used. (One of the items he includes in his "sinister" category is buying
books abroad!) Other ingredients in his power picture include CIA's corn.
mand of information and its need for secrecy. A further element of CIA's
alleged power is that its function is "politically appealing" and brings about
a natural alliance with the congressional power center. As a final element
of CIA power, Hilsman lists the fact that the Secretary of State and Allen
Dulles were brothers. He feels that this relationship has become the focus
of the high resentment of CIA in the Foreign Service and the Department;
although he adds that Allen Dulles "probably never presumed" on the
relationship. Hilsmim also points out that State people often did not realize
that there was a basis for resentment against them in CIA. as well. He
avers that all of these matters were of concern to the Kennedy administra-
tion but that the paramount issue was the power and role of the Agency.
3. In Chapter 7, Hilsman notes that shortly after he became
Director of INR in February 1961, Secretary Rusk called him together with
David Bell. then Director of the Bureau of the Budget, to talk about the
problems of the intelligence community. "apparently at the instigation of
the White House." The Secretary assigned two tasks: One was for Hagman
to get INR in shape; the second was for Hilsrnan and the Bureau of the Budget
to look at the role of intelligence abroad and the interdepartmental procedures
for coordinating foreign policy and intelligence activities to see if they could
be improved.
4. In describing his reorganisation of INR, Hillman notes that the
transfer of the National Intelligence Surveys, biographic and other "pedestrian"
functions to CIA removed dependence on CIA for about 40% of the INR budget.
He adds that transferring these functions created some opposition in the
House Foreign Affairs Committee. which, Hilsman claims, shared many of
the Department's resentments of the Agency for many of the same reasons
as well as for the additional reason of the Agency's "special relationship"
with its "secret subcommittee." (p.71) By reducing his functions, lineman
was able to concentrate INR's research in three categories: "the traditional
intelligence estimating, including State Department participation in the
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National IntelligenEstimates; " evalual in g current developments; and
"policy-oriented" research. Modestly. Itilsman adds that "the results
were visible almost overnight- -we began to get, as I said, just the right
kind of crisp. taut, to-the-point analyses that were needed." (p. 72)
5. Hilsman then turns to the problem of coordination of Intel
g.nce operations and places a part of the blame for certain failures on
the organisation within the Department itself. He therefor. recommended
that all coordination for intelligence and covert action should be coneoli-
dated in IN but remarks that this idea was immediately blocked by Allen
Dulles himself; Secretary Rusk was reluctant to take the matter to the
White House although Under Secretary Bowles urged this course. Another
problem which lineman considered in INK was the role of CIA in the Con-
duct of foreign policy. He felt that there were "too many CIA people
abroad, in a word, doing too much and doing it too successfully. "(p. 77)
Thus, at the time the Kennedy administration took office, CIA. in Hillman a
opinion, was being credited for almost everything that happened abroad --
good or bad -- because it combined too many of the resources and instru-
ments of foreign policy. lineman felt that the ideal solution was along
British lines which kept research and analysis functions separate from
secret intelligence collection and subordinated the latter "very sharply"
to the Foreign Office. He notes that this proposal would have involved
Legislation which would have been impossible "in the face of CIA's natural
strength with the coalition of Southern Democrats and conservative Repub-
licans that dominated Congress." (p. 77) As a result, there was a
general stalemate in thee* plans until the Bay of Pigs.
6. Following the Bay of Pigs, Hillman reports that Arthur
Schlesinger spent considerable time on the problem of the Agency sand
finally proposed taking CIA research and estimating and all other overt
activities out of CIA; taking Ilfk out of State; and combining them into a new
agency. This would have left a renamed CIA with covert functions and
would have placed it directly under the State Department for "policy
guidance.' State Department studies pointed in the same direction.
[These proposals ironically contained many of the same ingredients as
those proposed in 1946 by Secretary of State Byrne. which were rejected
by President Truman. a As these studies progressed. RiiiMart suddenly
become aware of two more 'threats." One was Mr. McCone himself,
whom Hilsman quotes a. intending to become "a power in this administration'
the second was the establishment of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He
adds that
rf mTpp.
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"The State Department did not want the Director of
CIA to be so strong as to dominate foreign policy, but it
certainly wanted him to be strong enough to prevent the
Defense Intelligence Agency from dominating foreign
policy." (p. 81)
Hu, man admits that
? McCone was restrained in his use of the
power of CIA. ... And McCone was equally restrained
In exorcising his power within the intelligence community.
... But the long-run problem of the CIA remained." (p. 82)
7. In Chapter 8. Hilsman turns to his concepts of secret intelligence
in a free society and states that
"The CIA is not a threat to our liberties and never
has been. It is composed of dedicated officers of extremely
high standards of integrity and patriotism." (p. 83)
He notes the problem of CIA secrecy and reports the old canard that
Ambassador .Adlai Stevenson was ignorant of the planned invasion of Cuba
and several similar well-worn charges.
8. While Hilsman feels that the U.S. must oppose Communist tactics
of subversion in third countries and use the methods of secret intelligence
for this purpose, it is his opinion that covert political action became a fad
and was used when other alternatives existed. It is his opinion that covert
action "was really nothing more than a gimmick. In very special circum-
stances, it was a useful supplement, but nothing more." (p. 86) Despite
thee. thoughts, Hilsrnan feels that there ars "some advantages to having
the kind of centralized intelligence setup which CIA represents." (p. 87)
9. Hulsms.n recommends that certain changes in CIA functions and
powers be slowly and deliberately made. One is to begin the reduction in
the number of covert action operations. [This book was presumably written
before the Ramparts exposis; in any event, no reference to them is made.]
A second is to "concentrate clandestine intelligence collection operations on
matters of true threat to the nation and put the savings into improving the
quality." The third step is to reduce the numbers and visibility of CIA over-
seas personnel and "permit a freer transfer of able CIA people into the
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foreign service sooner." And finally encourage the State Department to
assert policy control and guidance more vigorously. When these steps
are accomplished. Hilsman feels that the proposals outlined by Schlesinger
(noted in paragraph 6) should be considered.
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