STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000800120132-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 52
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 132
• Content Type: STUDY

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Materials in the Studies are in general to he r -r ed tr
xcrsonnel holding appropriate clearances. The existence ,l . his not ::,1
, . to be treated as information privy to the US official c:r::,unit ail
opies of each issue beginning Summer` 1964 are nuns ie d set iiv
,end subject to recall
Central Intelligence Agency or, "any other component of ti
All opinions expressed in the Studies are those of the ruthor
They do not necessarily, represent the-official views of tl
intelligence community.
Sensitive Intelligence: Sources. and Metl ocss Invol ed
g
NATIONAL SECURITY. INFORMATI:- N
Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to.4 Crtminol :Sane :xis
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NOFORN
The tumult and the shouting dies?
THE MYTH OF TIIE ROGUE ELEPHANT INTERRED
John Waller
:he
in
As the first session of the 95th Congress came to a close, Senator Daniel K. Inouye
of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported to the Senate on the work of
the committee which he had chaired for a year and a half. His remarks were ,i good
tonic to a long-beleaguered CIA. While he commented that "There is no uuestion that
a number of abuses of power, mistakes in judgment, and failures by the intelligence
agencies have harmed the United States," he made the significant point: "In almost
every instance, the abuses that have been revealed were a result of direction from
above, including Presidents and Secretaries of State." "Further," he added, "in almost
every instance, some members of both Houses of Congress assigned the duty of
oversight were knowledgeable about these activities."
't'hese remarks should have finally laid to rest the myth of the "Rogue Elephant.'
What seems to have been lost to the press and public in the welter of sensationa
sounding disclosures was essentially the same conclusion reached by the (liurcl
Committee in its final report following the intensive investigation of CIA. It may be
interesting and currently useful to revisit some of the key conclusions of the 197(.
Congressional investigations of CIA. This may serve as a reminder that the employee
of CIA never deserved the image of amoral practitioners, much less uncontrolled
delinquents, and the excesses committed by the Agency were not the product W.
inadequate control. If anything, the Agency's problems could be traced to the tradition
of strong discipline and responsiveness to direction from above.
The Senate Select Committee chaired by Senator Church, in pursuing it
mandate, focused on three broad questions, one of which bore on command anti
control: "whether the processes through which the intelligence agencies have bee).
directed and controlled have been adequate to assure conformity with policy and th-
law."' The processes referred to are of two kinds: (1) the process of external contro ,
and (2) the process of internal control.
A general conclusion which appeared in the Senate Select Committees final
report is: "The Central Intelligence Agency in broad terms is not `out of control,'
although the Committee found that "there were significant limits to this control"
from above S the CIA. Pursuing farther the thesis that the problem lay in external, n( t
internal, control are the following additional quotes from the "General Findings" of
the SSC Report:
The Committee finds that United States foreign and military
intelligence agencies have made important contributions to the nation's
security, and generally have performed their missions with dedication and
' Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with liespect '
Intelligence Activities-United States Senate, Book 1, "Foreign and Military Intelligence;" 26 April 19-6
(Report No. 94-755) (hereafter cited by short title, SSC Final Report), p. 4.
E Ibid., p. 427.
' All emphasis in this article has been added by author.
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distinction,' The Committee finds that Congress has failed to provide' the
necessary statutory guidelines to ensure that intelligence agencies , arry
out their missions in accord with constitutional processes.'
In addition to blaming Congress for inadequate external control, the Senate Se'e t
C
ommittee, in its final report, blames the Office of the President:
The degree of control and accountability exercised regarding covert
action and sensitive collection has been a function of each particular
President's willingness to use these techniques .... 6
Presidents have not established specific instruments of oversight to
prevent abuses by the Intelligence Community. In essence, Presidents have
not exercised effective oversight.'
In general terms, the Senate Select Committee's History of the Cent,-ca
Intelligence Agency (Section IV) states at the outset a conclusion which suggests that
CIA activities have not always been viewed in relationship with foreign police
The current political climate and the mystique of secrecy surrounding
the intelligence profession have made it difficult to view the CIA in the
context of foreign policy.,
Book I of the Senate Report admits to misconceptions about CIA and stag's
The CIA has come to be viewed as an unfettered monolith, defining ,nd
determining its activities independent of other elements of government and
of the direction of American foreign policy. This is a distortion. During. its
twenty-nine year history, the Agency has been shaped by the course of
international events, by pressures from other government agencies, and by
its own internal norms. An exhaustive history of the CIA would demand an
equally exhaustive history of American foreign policy, the role of Congress
and the Executive, the other components of the intelligence community, and
an examination of the interaction among all these forces."
The House Committee on Intelligence (Pike Committee), although failing to gain
Congressional approval for release of its final report, arrived at the following eveii
more categoric conclusions concerning the control of CIA (if we are to believe drafts
of its report shown the CIA and the version of the report appearing in The Villag,'
Voice):
All evidence in hand suggests that the CIA, far from being out of
control, has been utterly responsive to the instructions of the President and
the Assistant to the President for Security Affairs. b0
Congressman Pike, in effect, accused CIA of being a supine elephant, not a rogut
elephant. In his eyes, CIA was too responsive to higher authority-its abuses were
committed as a result of too demanding command control, not too passive o;
permissive control.
'Ibid., p. 424.
' [bid., p. 425.
Ibid., p. 427.
' Ibid., p. 429.
' SSC Final Report, Book IV, "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Foreign and \4ilitary
Intelligence," p. (1).
[bid;, Book I, p. 97.
"The Village Voice, 16 February 1976. This passage refers mainly to covert action.
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Rogue Elephant
What neither Congressional committee stressed adequately was the significant
fact that all abuses or illegal activities, except two specific cases in the chug
experimentation field, were identified, decried, and corrected by CIA itself before the
investigations began, and before the press published its sensational charges. The rolx? of
the committees, essentially, was not one of original discovery but one of airing past
abuses, already discovered and rectified. While this may have been useful to serve as a
basis for new legislation, it would have been helpful to the Agency's image if more
credit could have been given in the Senate's report to CIA's own efforts to get its house
in order.
Described below are some Congressional conclusions of a more specific nahire.
First, the subject of control over covert action" is summarized. The Senate Select
Committee found:
The CIA has not been free ... to carry out covert action as it sees fit.
The Committee's investigation revealed that, on the whole, the Agency has
been responsive to internal and external review and authorization
requirements."
In the case of Chile, singled out for a separate, in-depth report, the Senate blamed
the ('resident for by-passing the 40 Committee machinery in the case of the so-called
"Track II" part of the operation, but did not consider this to be an example of CIA out
of control. It was noted that other aspects of the Chile operation were carefully cleared
by the 40 Committee. And the SSC's question: "Did the threat to vital U.S. national
security interests posed by the Presidency of Salvador Allende justify the several major
covert attempts to prevent his accession to power?" was answered in its report by the
statement: "Three American Presidents and their senior advisors evidently thought
so." " The SSC report on Covert Action (Volume 7) states categorically: "Executive
command and control of major covert action was tight and well-directed." " The SSC
did criticize the procedures in which CIA itself determined which covert action
projects were submitted to the 40 Committee, and it felt that certain intelligence
operations not submitted to the 40 Committee had political action implications
requiring 40 Committee approval. But the Senate did not charge that covert action
operations had been carried out without the knowledge and approval of at least the
D i rector.'s
The House Committee disagreed with some of the covert action operations
performed by CIA but concluded, as mentioned above, that the Agency was "utterly
responsive to the instructions of the President and the Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs" and was not "out of control." The draft report added: "it is
further clear that CIA has been ordered to engaged in covert action over the Agem?y's
strong prior objections." 'S
The draft Pike Committee report allegedly made the following comment which
makes clear that in those instances in which the 40 Committee did not specifically pass
on CIA's recruitment of individual stand-by covert action assets (sometimes called
"Covert action was not considered by the Senate in the abuse category except in the case of
assassination plots.
SSC Final Report, Book I, p. 447.
Senate Select Committee Report, "Intelligence Activities," Senate Resolution 21, Volume 7, "Covert
Action," p. 198.
Ibid., V. 199.
" Ibid., p. 199.
1e The Village Voice, loc. cit., p. 84, "Covert Action."
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"infrastructure") or other minor action operations, at least the l)ireit(--not
subordinate officials-provided approval:
. _ - the CIA Director determines which CIA-initiated covert aciiol
projects are sufficiently `politically sensitive' to require Ptesider,ti-I
attention. 17
Assassination planning was an especially reprehensible case of abuse in the s overt
action field. These cases were completely aired by the SSC. There were split ot-inions
on whether or how much successive Presidents knew and approved such opt,r itions.
While the SSC quite correctly believed that the doctrine of plausible denial, the use of
euphemisms to describe "assassination," and the theory that authorities granted l) one
Director could be assumed to cover subsequent Directors all created "the rk of
confusion, rashness and irresponsibility in the very areas where clarity and '.oher
judgments were most necessary," 18 it did not suggest that such actions ei er took place
without at least approval at the top of the Agency."
Intelligence activities affecting the rights of American citizens understan.iabiv
loomed large in the abuse category of the Senate Select Committee. This isseiuded
infiltrating and surveilling groups of American dissidents, dissemination of material
collected on these groups, and covert action designed to disrupt or discredit ';U3,11
groups. The following general statement by the SSC seems to he a fair one aiti' (Inc
which places the blame where it belongs:
We must acknowledge that the assignment which the Covernment has
given to the intelligence community has, in many ways, been impossible to
fulfill. It has been expected to predict or prevent every crisis, respond
immediately with information on any question, act to meet all threats, and
anticipate the special needs of Presidents. And then it is chastised for its zeai
Certainly, a fair assessment must place a major part of the blame uison th:~
failures of senior executive officials and Congress.20
The SSC blamed the excessive power of the Executive built up over the Yeats ind
the failure of Congress to exercise the Congressional check and balance role whir It is
essential. But whatever the problem, the picture here is not one of a Ci-r,tral
Intelligence Agency out of control.
The CIA did not restrict itself to servicing FBI requests for information on
Americans, but "under White House pressure" 21 the CIA developed its ou n dome, is
counterintelligence program-Operation CHAOS. According to the Senate Select
Committee final report (Book 11), "Former CIA Director Richard Helms testified that
he established the program in response to President Johnson's persistent interest in lie
extent of foreign influence on domestic dissidents." 22 In 1969, President Nb,cr~'s
1' ibid.
''Senate Select Committee Report, "Alleged Assassination Report Involving Foreign Leatlc:.
20 November 1975, Report No. 94-465, p. 277. CIA took exception to the SSC definition and anplicati?e, of
"plausible deniability." CIA felt it was legitimately intended to make it possible for the governrliet,
including the President, to disclaim something, while the SSC tended to say it permitted internal (1k
records to cloud the facts.
"In the case of the assassination plot against Lumumba, the Senate found that when Mr. Mci:ene
became Director, he may not have been informed by the Deputy Director of CIA of this p?a~,
2?SSC Final Report, Book II, "Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans," p. 290
21 ibid., p. 99.
22 Ibid., p. 100. The MHCHAOS domestic counterintelligence was concerned with making file en lb;-:
on certain dissident Americans. The operational aspect of MHCHAOS was overseas, i.e., inve;tigatio,
dissident Americans overseas who might have foreign intelligence ties-
4 -ECRE 1
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White House required the CIA to study foreign Communist support to American
protest groups. `In 1972, the CIA Inspector General found `general concern' among
the overseas stations over what appeared to constitute a monitoring of the politi,,al
vices and activities of Americans....... 23 This led to a reduction in the program, but
it was not terminated until March 1974.
1 iowever questionable this program may have been, even considering the context
of the times, it is clear that it was undertaken and sustained by two successive
Presidents, and the Inspector General machinery did at least what it could to mitigate
the program despite Presidential pressure. Inadequate control was not the problem.
The opening of mail in the U.S. Postal Service was understandably criticized by
the Senate Select Committee. This program, however, was condoned by the FBI and
Justice Department for many years. The FBI not only was aware of this program, but
relied on the CIA for the product from it. The FBI, in fact, tasked the CIA.24
The Attorney General's findings on this program 25 are interesting. 1'he report
dated 1.1 January 1977 (White Paper) concluded that it was highly unlikely that
prosecutions based on CIA mail openings would end in criminal convictions and
recommended, therefore, that no indictments be sought:26
... prosecution of the potential defendants ... would be unlikely to
succeed ... because of the state of the law that prevailed during the course
of the mail openings.... It would be mistaken to suppose that it was always
clearly perceived that the particular mail opening programs of the CIA were
obviously illegal.-
The report continues:
... this case involves a general failure of the government, including the
Department of Justice itself, over the period of the mail opening programs,
ever clearly to address and to resolve for its own internal regulation the
constitutional and legal restrictions on the relevant aspects of the exercise of
Presidential power. The actions of Presidents, their advisors in such affairs,
and the Department (of Justice). itself might have been thought to support
the notion that the governmental power, in scope and manner of exercise,
was not subject to restrictions that, through a very recent evolution of the law
and the Department's own thinking, are now considered essential. [it such
circumstances, prosecution takes on an air of hypocrisy and may appear to
be the sacrifice of a scapegoat.28
The report chronicles the authority implicit in successive high officials' action,-. In
1958, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover approved the program. In t961, Postmaster
General Day was informed in some degree.28 Director Helms, "a cabinet officer," and
a person then serving on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB)
have all stated that Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were aware of the East Coast
mail opening program.30 In July 1969, the CIA Inspector General recommended that
Ibid., p. 102.
ibid., p. 107.
zs Report of the Department of Justice Concerning its Investigation and Prosecutorial Decisions with
Respect to Central Intelligence Agency Mail Opening Activities in the United States, 14 January 1977.
z6 ibid., p. 2.
2' Ibid., p. 3.
2, Ibid., p. 5.
Z9lbid., p. 13.
90 Ibid., p. 15.
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senior officials of the Nixon Administration should he informed, and ira tune 1971,
Director Helms briefed both Attorney General John Mitchell and I'ostmesr=?r General
Blount." Former President Nixon has stated he was aware of CIA's rnonit,,raog of mail
between the U.S. and the USSR and PRC, but there is no direct evidence that he was
specifically informed of mail openings. The product available at the White House,
however, made it quite clear that such had to he the ease. 31
In sum, CIA was acting with both implicit and explicit higher autlrotity in the
mail opening programs.
The program for testing chemical and biological agents was the only area where
clearly inadequate control was found by the Senate Select Committee. It ,oncluded
that this program raised
. serious questions about the adequacy of command and Antrol
procedures within the Central Intelligence Agency and military intelligence.
The CIA's normal administrative controls were waived for pr i ams
involving chemical and biological agents to protect their security.... 1'hey
prevented the CIA's internal review mechanism . from aden,uately
supervising the programs."
Excessive compartmentation of the program was also criticized by tie Senate
Select Committee. An observation made by the CIA Inspector General that "the
knowledge that the Agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have
serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles . . ." 3, went r.=frheeded.
Early drug-testing programs such as Project BLUEBIRD in 1950 . nd Project
ARTICHOKE in 1951 were approved by the Director and enjoyed good intro-Agency
coordination and control. MKNAOMI, begun in 1967 and ended in 1970, Kid Director
approval and was conducted with the cooperation of the Army's Special Operations
Division at Fort Detrick.
MKULTRA, the principal CIA program involving the research and dt dopment
of chemical and biological agents capable of being used in clandestine operations to
control human behavior, was approved by the Director on 13 April 19`.3 Various
aspects of the program were carried out in cooperation with universities,
pharmaceutical houses, hospitals, state and federal institutions, and private research
organizations, although some of the activities were conducted without their CIA
sponsorship being known. The National Institute of Mental Health and the l+Erreau of
Narcotics also played important roles.
In 1963, the Inspector General learned that under the MKULTR< grogram
surreptitious administration of LSD to unwitting, non-voluntary human sr.brects was
being carried out. This program was then known to and approved by t1 e then-
Director. As a result of the Inspector General's protest, the. testing was halted and
tighter administrative controls imposed. The program was completely teno:rrated in
the late 1960s.
The tragic case of Dr. Frank Olson in 1953 does reveal a problem of c=,niniand
and control. Despite explicit warnings by the Deputy Director for Plans (')1 iP) that
his approval had to be given before LSD human experiments were- condo, sera, the
head of the Technical Services Division (TSD) of the DDP without such authorization
" Ibid., p. 17.
Ibid-, p. 18.
" SSC Final Report, Book I, p. 386.
8, Ibid., pp. 385-386.
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went ahead with an experiment in which Dr. Olson unwittingly ingested LSD without
being told in advance. Olson had a severe emotional breakdown shortly afterward and
either jumped or fell to his death from a hotel room in New York. The atmosphere (2f
the times probably lcd the approving officer to believe that lie had implicit license ti)
conduct such experiments. Ile has testified that he does not remember .i DDE'
nreinorrndurn requiring DDP authorization.ss The General Counsel concludes,
however. that there seemed "to be a very casual attitude on the part of TSD
representatives to the way this experiment was concluded. . .
The shellfish toxin case was cited by the Senate Select Committee as thce other
specific failure of command and control in the drug experiment area. That an Agenc:
scientist failed to do away with 11 grams of shellfish toxin and instead kept it in CIi!
classif icd storage despite a Presidential order that all such material had to be de.troyed
is indeed a lapse of control. Yet this seems to be an individual human failing, not an
organizational failing." It should also be noted that it was the CIA itself which
discovered the store of toxin and brought it to the Senate Select Committee's attention
Abuses committed by CIA over the years which were subjected to close st rutim
by the Church committee investigation should not be minimized, much less condoned
\or should misjudgments of any kind, which took place through the years, he allowed
to recur. There were certainly instances of reprehensible conduct on the hart o
individual officers and examples of the Agency taking advantage of lax oversight of
loosely defined authority to commit excesses. It is not the purpose of this paper to
chronicle past faults, however, but rather to put into perspective the issue of past
control and accountability as seen objectively by Congress.
The problems facing the Agency today are enough without adding to them at
unwarranted burden of guilt, or stifling CIA with the incubus of additiona'i
restrictions. The findings of the 1976 Congressional investigations, confirmed by the
statement of Senator Inouye at the conclusion of a year and a half of Senatorial
oversight, should be persuasive confirmation of CIA's own views of past abuses and
their causes. As charter legislation is being formulated, it may be hoped that the
lessons of the past will not be misread, and that oversight machinery and law will not
go . beyond that which is constructive and necessary.
35 Ibid., V. 395, footnote 34.
35 Ibid., p. 398 (Memorandum to the Inspector General from the General Counsel dated 1/4/54).
" With the perspective of time, the knowledge that this rare multi-million dollar item now is being
used for the good of humanity by a U.S. Government public health laboratory perhaps mitigates t,, some
extent the scientist's failure to carry out orders.
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No Foreign Dissem
1'he economic analyst as middleman
lx t weep collector and consumer in
narcotics intelligence
ANALYST IN A HELICOPTER
I was used to the jungle and the mountains. My nerves were steady, and my heart
no longer jumped to see the rocky clearing-surely too small for our assault
helicopter-rushing up at us. Still, thought and breath stopped as the pilot sideslipped
betwcen the mountains and put us down on a barren knoll among the trees. Whil' my
companion collected her purse, I pushed open the door, partially blocked by the thick
vegetation, and helped her to the ground.
I leavily armed Thais emerged from the silence of the jungle. "It's okay," I said,
more to myself than to Mathea. "They're our escort."
'I'hc clandestine morphine refinery was only a few hundred yards away, but it
Was it good 20-minute sludge down the rain-slippery mountain path. The elephant
grass closed over our heads as we slithered through the mud. It would he hard going
for Mathca's dress and high heels, I found myself thinking.
Suddenly, I was sliding, gaining momentum, headlong toward the precipice
where the path turned sharply to the right. I clawed at the grass and the rock:, but
could get no grip. This time you've done it, Eddie, I said to myself. Film clips of past
missions passed before my eyes-the party circuit in Geneva, facing the machine guns
of nervous soldiers on the Singapore waterfront, listening to the beep of a secret
transmitter hidden in an opium-carrying wooden saddle, chasing pigs and cows off a
precipitous mountain runway.
Then I felt Mathea's fingernails gripping my arm. My slide slowed and stopped
only feet from the edge of the cliff. Mathea's spike heels, dug inches into the mud, had
saved me. Thank Cod for elegant women, I thought.
Sound like something out of James Bond? Or a war story spun by a DDO veteran
at the end of it cocktail party? Well, it's nothing of the sort; it's just a day in the life of
an. analyst in NFAC's Office of Economic Research. Let me tell you how it all started.
Hooked by the Drug Trade
For eight years I have had a rare-for an NFAC officer-and interesting
assignment in the field of narcotics intelligence. My responsibility has been research
and reporting on the narcotics situation in the Golden Triangle. Over the years, the
assignment has widened and now covers the spectrum of the intelligence production
process from personal involvement in intelligence collection activites with case officers
in the field to presentation of finished analysis to policy makers in the White I-louse
and in the Department of State.
My involvement in the narcotics intelligence effort grew out of a decision made
by the White House in the late 1960s to try to stem the flow of illicit narcotics into the
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United States by attacking the foreign sources of these products. The role ph yr d by
the Golden Triangle in supplying the U.S. military market in South Vietnam .v as of
particular concern to the President. I was initially selected to work on the pro;ratn
because of my experience, as a China agriculture analyst in OER, with -')jects
utilizing overhead photography for crop detection and measurement and be ciuse I
had also written one of the earliest CIA reports on narcotics production in Contra.unist
China. My job was to start from scratch in developing an intelligence resource rr-:e for
the U.S. Government's new initiative in this area.
The Golden Triangle is the term used to describe the conjunction of the b~rders
of Burma, Thailand, and Laos, one of the largest illicit narcotics producing areas in the
world. (See Map.) Since World War II this vast acreage of opium poppy cujusation
has been controlled or contested by Communist, Nationalist Chinese, and ,-,rious
insurgent organizations, by independent traffickers, and various tribal groups The
area has been a cockpit of anti-Burmese government insurgency for years, muc; of it
financed by earnings from narcotics trafficking. The situation is further comp rcated
by political and military relationships between local governments and the into o gents
and tribal groups in the area, relationships shot through with official corrupti n at all
levels.
The type of information required for analyzing the narcotics situation co 1d be
obtained only through penetration of the narcotics syndicates arid smuggling :r=.arkets
involved in the traffic, and at first we were forced to rely almost exclusively or; Truman
source reporting. Fortunately the DDO had a number of fairly reliable ::s,-ts in
Southeast Asia who could be assigned to narcotics targets in addition to the-ir other
responsibilities. Soon thereafter, many of these assets were assigned exclu..'i" aly to
narcotics targets.
One of the first priority intelligence requirements placed on the field when I was
assigned to this task was the collection of wholesale narcotics prices at various ovations
within the Golden Triangle and adjacent areas. It was our contention that to ,measure
the impact of narcotics control programs effectively, it was necessary to develo some
understanding of the factors affecting prices of illicit narcotics. In time, a stanoduct. In
recent years, however, this trademark has been copied by most refiners in the area
regardless of the quality of the product.
Despite the police efforts at surprise, the operators of the refinery had escaped
into the bush when they heard the helicopters roaring into the zone Nevertheless, the
troops maintained an armed guard around us as we made the arduous climb back to
the landing zone. At Chiang Mai we boarded a waiting defense attache place for our
flight back to Bangkok. Muddied and shoeless, Ms. Falco and I spert =he flight
exchanging observations from our tours of north Thailand.
On the Road to Mandalay, April 1977
My next stop in 1977 was- in Rangoon, where Ambassador Osborn was most
interested in Washington's assessment of Burma's narcotics control grog arn. After a
day of consultations and briefings at the mission, I was given a plan- ticket to
Mandalay and told to make contact with the U.. Consulate.
The consulate in Mandalay is the northernmost extension of the U.S Mission in
Burma, and it was and remains the source of considerable intelligence on narcotics25X1
activities in the northern and central Shan States.
Despite the shortness of my stay in Mandalay, I got a very detailed hriefing on
the narcotics intelligence support, provided by the consulate, and then I d.~briefed a
knowledgeable Burmese government official on the 1977 opium poppy Harvest. The
information I obtained was decisive in adjudicating a heated disagrees eiit between
Rangoon and Washington over the size of the harvest. This source also a=ovided me
with useful background information on the load capacities of narcotics caravans,
which has continued to serve as the basis for estimating the quantity c 1 narcotics
moving between the Shan State of Burma and the Thai border.
Mission Across the Border, January 1978
Returning to Chiang Mai, Thailand in January 1978 1 had expected a rather
routine visit to ~iscuss intelligence aps and Washington priorities. I wa' pleasantly
surprised when invited me to accompany hum ou two aerial
photographic intelligence collection missions along the Burma-Thailand herder. These
missions were in response to a request from Rangoon for an update on the location of
heroin refineries in the area.
Our first mission departed Chiang Mai by Porter aircraft early Sun1;i,, morning.
Our flight path took us due north over the military bases of the Thine and Fifth
Chinese Irregular Forces, the Shan United Revolutionary Army, the Shan United
Army, and the Shan States Revolutionary Army. (SSRA). Our primary targets were on
the Burmese side of the border around Lao Lo Chai and Doi Long, where centers for
the refining of illegal heroin had long been concentrated. To get good=ertical and
oblique photography we had to make a broad sweep across the border, limbing to
5,000 feet over the target area to avoid hostile fire. Around Doi Long v spotted a
refinery run by the SSRA and photographed it from every angle. Flying