H-L-S OF THE C.I.A.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00161R000400210106-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 21, 2014
• Sequence Number: 106
• Publication Date: April 18, 1971
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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d'A pv
ne ail L.
Sy BENJAMIN WELLES
? ; ?
Ray S. Cline, Director of the
Bureau of Intelligence Research
WASHINGTON.
EGECAN tell when he walks in the
door what sort of a day it's
been," says his wife, Cynthia.
"Some days he has on what I call his
'Oriental look' ?totally inscrutable.
I know better than to ask what's
happened. He'll talk when he's ready,
not before, but even when he talks
he's terribly discreet."
The Director of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, Richard Helms, appar-
ently brings his problems home from
the office like any other husband?at
least to hear Cynthia Helms tell it.
And these days Helms's job is defi-
nitely one of the most problem-ridden
in Washington.
Successive budget cuts, balance of
payments restrictions, bureaucratic
rivalries and press disclosures that
have hurt the C.I.A.'s public image
have all reduced its operations con-
siderably. President Nixon has re-
cently ordered a fiscal and manage-
ment investigation into the Intelli-
gence "community," a task which
may take longer and prove more
difficult than even Nixon suspects
because of the capacity of the intelli-
gence agencies to hide in the bureau-
cratic thickets. Both Nixon and his
principal foreign affairs adviser,
_ BENJAMIN WELLES covers national
security affairs as ? correspondent in the
Washington bureau of The Times.
HS/NC- 241_
A
34
Lieut. Gen. Robert E. Cushman Jr.,
Deputy Director of the CIA
Healy Kissinger, are said to regard
the community as a mixed blessing;
intrinsically important to the United
States but far too big and too prone
to obscure differences of opinion?
or, sometimes, no opinion?behind a
screen of words.
Considered a cold-blooded neces-
sity in the Cold War days, the agency
now seems to many students, liberal
intellectuals and Congressmen, to be
undemocratic, conspiratorial, sinister.
The revelations in recent years that
have made the agency suspect include
its activities in Southeast Asia, the
Congo, Guatemala, the Bay of Pigs;
the U-2 flights; its secret funding
through "front" foundations of the
National Student Association plus
private cultural, women's and law-
yers' groups, and, finally, two years
ago, the Green Berets affair.
The 58-year-old Helms knows all
this, better than most. As the first ca-
reer intelligence officer to reach the
top since the C.I.A. was created In
1947, his goal has been to profession-
alize the agency and restore it to re-
spectability. In fact, one of his chief
preoccupations has been to erase the
Image of the Director as a man
who moves in lavish mystery, jetting
secretively around the world to make
policy with prime ministers, generals
and kings, and brushing aside, on the
pretext of "security," the public's
vague fears and Congress's probing
William C. Sullivan,
Deputy Director of the F.B.I.
questions. If Helms rules an "invisible
empire," as the C.I.A. has sometimes
been called, he is a very visible
emperor.
While he tries to keep his lunches
free for work, for example, he occa-
sionally shows up at a restaurant
with a friend for lunch: a light beer,
a cold plate, one eye always on the
clock. He prefers the Oceidental, a
'tourist-frequented restaurant near the
White House where, if he happens to
be seen, there is likely to be less
gossip than if he were observed enter-
ing a private home.
' He likes the company of attractive
women?young or old?and they find
. him a charming dinner partner and
a good dancer.
"He's interesting?and interested
in what you're saying," said Lydia
Katzenbaoh, wife of the former Dem-
ocratic Attorney General. "He's well-
read and he doesn't try to substitute
flirting for conversation, that old
Princeton '43 routine that some of
the columnists around town use."
Some of his critics complain that
he is too close to the press?even
though most agree that he uses it,
with rare finesse, for his own and
his agency's ends. Some dislike the
frequent mention of Helms and his
handsome wife in the gossip columns
and society pages of the nation's
capital.
. Yet, If he gives the appearance of
insouciance?he is witty, gregarious,
friendly?the reserve is there, like
a high-voltage electric barrier, just
beneath the surface. Helms is a mass ,
of apparent contradictions: inwardly '
self-disciplined and outwardly relaxed, -
absorbed in the essential yet fasci-
nated by the trivial. A former foreign
correspondent, he observes much and
can recall precisely what few Ameri-
can husbands ever note in the first
place?what gown each woman wore
to a dinner and whose shoulder strap
was out of place. Nevertheless, no
one is more conscious than Helms,
who also has the broader role of
Director of Central Intelligence, of
the strict security laws that designate
him the official responsible for set-
ting and enforcing security standards
throughout the intelligence commu-
nity.
These responsibilities often create
tense moments for him, as Helms
acknowledges in a story he tells
about himself: He had taken his wife
to an alumni fund-raising evening at
his alma mater, Williams College.
After cocktails and dinner the alumni
and their ladies crowded together on
small wooden seats for speeches by
John Sawyer, the Williams president,
and other luminaries. Helms and his
wife were seated in the midst of the
attentive throne when,, to their bee-
(Continued on Page 37)
? THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
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Tie full name is Helms?Richard Helms--and he is the man at right.
Ac head of an "invisible empire," he is not quite a public celebrity,
y4t he is known as a man-about-Washington trying to overcome his
asency's sinister image. Below are shown some of the numerouf
Government intelligence directors over whom he presides.
Howard Brown, Assistant General
Manager of the A.E.C.
?
Lieut. Gen. Donald V. Bennett,
Director of the DIA.
1177
?. k
. .
Vice Adm. Noel Gaylor,
Director of the N.S.A.
One of Helms's functions is briefing
the President on developments
abroad. Probably because of his
agency's sensitive position, he tries
to stick to plain facts without recom-
mending policy; in that area, one
source says, Helms "tends to hunker
down." Here, he is seen, for left,
at a meeting with Henry Kissinger,
Secretary of State Rogers, Mr. Nixon,
Secretary of Defense Laird, and Adm.
Thomas Moorer, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.
APRIL IS, 1971
r
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H?L.--S
of the C.I.A.
(Continued from Page 34)
ror, they heard President Saw-
yer begin to laud the next
speaker:
"I am now going to call on
a man who needs no introduc-
tion to any cf you," Sawyer
began. "You have all followed
his career with pride. Your
president leans on him in-
creasingly in these difficult
days."
Helm's position makes it
virtually impossible for him
to speak in public?never ex-
temporaneously?and he was
looking for a way out when
to his infinite relief he heard
Sawyer ccnclude, ". . . I now
introduce Larry Cattuzzi, our
football coach."
HELMS wears three offi-
cial hats. First, as Director of
Central Intelligence (D.C.I.),
he is the senior intelligence
adviser to the President and
Congress. Second, he is the
President's representative (and
chairman) on the United
States Intelligence Board, a
loose conglomeration of agen-
cies handling high-grade intel-
ligence and spending between
them more than $4-billion
yearly. And third, he is Di-
rector of the C.I.A.
In some ways, the C.I.A. is
the tail that wags the intel-
ligence dog. Under the Na-
tional Security Act of 1947
which created it, the C.I.A.
alone carries out services
"common" to the other intel-
ligence agencies. This is its
charter for such "black tricks"
as the National Security
Council may order it to per-
form, from bugging a diplo-
mat's bedroom to overthrow-
ing a hostile government. Di-
rector Helms, in his triple
role, assigns data collec-
tion priorities for the com-
munity and ? in theory ?
screens all intelligence before
it passes to the President.
The C.I.A. is only a mem-
ber, indeed, a comparatively
small member of the huge,
sprawling, costly, complex of
agencies represented on the
United States Intelligence
Board, which includes the De-
fense Department's Intelli-
gence Agency (D.I.A.); the
State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research
(I.N.R.); the Atomic Energy
Commission (A.E.C.); the Fed-
eral Bureau cf Investigation
(F.B.I.) and the National Se-
curity Agency (N.S.A.) which
eavesdrops electronically on
APRIL 111, 1971
?
The
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Central IntellIcence Agency McleanVa .--351-1100
Employment Ofc
1 0 N FLIgr.,122A,,I;
SERML STORY?Beginning on this page (and continuing
on the following pages), the adventures of a fictional
intelligence agent whose name just happens to be derived
from the C.I.A. phone number. And now read on . . .
tFOLLOW HIM
THROUGH SOME
PINE-TINGLING CAPERS
THERE'LL BE
PLENTY OF SUPPORT
DOWN HERE WHEN THE
EXILES ARRIVE!
foreign government broadcast
communications.
In addition, the Intelligence
Board exercises a vaguely de-
fined step-parental supervision
over the National Reconnais-
sance Program, which runs
the spy-in-the-sky satellites,
and the National Photo In-
terpretation Center in Wash-
ington, which studies the reels
of pfhotographs that are tossed
overboard periodically by the
orbiting monsters and col-
lected in mid-air by highly-
trained Air Force crews.
The intelligence communi-
ty's size and spending are, of
course, secrets, but competent
authorities say the C.I.A. em-
ploys about 15,000 Americans,
plus several thousand foreign
agents, and spends slightly
less than $600-million yearly.,
By contrast, according to
APRIL 111, 1971
Robert F. Froehlke, Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Ad-
ministration, the Defense In-
telligence Agency spends $2.9-
billion yearly. Its code-crack-
ing N.S.A. at Fort Meade near
Baltimore spends more than
$1-billion of this and employs
110,000 persons. The satellite
program, in which the C.I.A.
has a voice but not control,
Is said to spend at least $500-
million a year.
In his role as Director of
Central Intelligence, Helms
must be constantly prepared
to give the President, on short
notice, the latest information
on what's really happening in
such matters as Soviet-Chi-
nese tensions, Soviet naval
activities in the Caribbean
and arms shipments to the
militant Arab states, Arab
moves against Israel, Chile's
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development under its new
Marxist Government, the lat-
est Russian advances in weap-
onry, and so on.
As chairman of the United
States Intelligence Board,
Helms rides herd on an unruly
team. His authority over the
other agencies represented on
the board, apart from his own
C.I.A., has never been clearly
defined by Congress or by
successive Presidents, and so
his effectiveness depends
chiefly on his own compe-
tence, patience and tact. Al-
most every Thursday he takes
his place at the head of the
table at the weekly board
meetings and acts as the Presi-
dent's arbiter between con-
flicting claims often based
on bureaucratic rivalries. (At- -
these meetings the C.I.A. is
represented by Helms's depu-
ty, Lieut. Gen. Robert E. Cush-
man Jr. of the Marine Corps.)
Helms operates somewhat
like a managing editor of a
maior newspaper or television
network, reviewing the over-
all picture, spotting gaps in
the coveraee, identifying pri-
orities, assigning tasks and
weighing the views of his
associates.
The C.I.A., for example, may
have picked up word of sus-
picious troop movements in
the Middle East. Helms might
ask the N.S.A. to listen in to
radio communications in the
area; possibly he will call on
the F.B.I. to "bug" certain
Washington embassies for in-
formation or will request that
the Pentagon assign U-2's to
provide photographs of the
troop zones involved. It will
be Helms's task to coordinate
the work of the various agen-
cies to provide fast, accurate
data. Sometimes it works;
sometimes not.
In April and May, 1967, for
Instance, the C.I.A. and the
D.I.A. reported the possibility
.of an Arab-Israel conflict and
both predicted an Israeli vic-
tory in seven days?only one
day off.
On the other hand, the
ceasefire plan between Israel
and its Arab opponents, pro-
posed by Secretary of State
William P. Rogers on June 19
and suddenly accepted both by
Israel and the United Arab Re-
public a few days before it took
effect Aug. 7, brought about
an intelligence breakdown.
Rogers, who pays scant at-
tention to intelligence and
wanted political credit for the
"victory," did not solicit C.I.A.
help. He and his deputy for
Middle Eastern affairs, Joseph
Sisco, virtually ignored, al-
most until the very hour the
ceasefire was to begin, the
pleas of their own State De-
partment intelligence men for
U - 2's to provide "base - line
photography" that could spot
possible violations of the
? truce.
Days were spent prevailing
on President Makarios of Cy-
prus and the British to allow
, the U-2's to fly round-trips
? over the Suez Canal from
British bases in Cyprus; and
more days were wasted sooth-
? ing Israeli fears about such
missions. When the flights
were finally agreed to, bad
weather delayed them further.
Ultimately, U-2's and satel-
lites began providing proof
that the U.S.S.R. and U.A.R.
were violating the ceasefire
terms by moving more SAM-2
and SAM-3 missile sites into
the stand-still zone. But the in-
telligence was consistently ig-
nored for political reasons:
Rogers and Sisco were ? less
concerned with violations than
with getting a ceasefire under
way and maintaining it.
In fact, it was not until a
? month later?early in Septem-
ber ? when Mr. Rogers re-
turned from the summer
White House at San Clemente
. to Washington and was per-
suaded to spend three hours
visiting the vast National
Photo Interpretation Center,
that he became an enthusiast
for photographic intelligence.
For days and weeks after he
would regale visitors with his
astonishment over the miracu-
lous accuracy of pictures
taken 15 miles above the
earth.
APKIL 111, 1971
HE Central Intelligence
? Agency itself has two major
? tasks: to collect intelligence,
openly or covertly, and to
evaluate it for the President.
The agency's Plans Director-
ate (DD-P) collects clandes-
tinely and also carries out
certain "covert" functions,
such as organizing, training
and arming anti - Communist
guerrillas in Laos. The Intel-
ligence Directorate (DD-1)
collects open intelligence (it
monitors foreign broadcasts
and interviews American busi-
nessmen returning from
abroad), but its main task is
to evaluate everything from
all sources?overt and covert.
The agency: not only ob-
tains, analyzes and reports on
mountains of information
from published sources (there
are 20,000 journals published
yearly in the world just on
the life sciences) but also from
State and Defense Department
attachds, from such "techni-
cal" collectors as the spy
satellites and, finally, from
agents. The daily input is de-
rived 50 per cent from overt
sources such as periodicals,
35 per cent from electronics
?
ON A CLEAR DAY
I CAN SEE THE
BORSCHT ON
NIKITA'S
TABLE!
--.-?
ABOARD A U-2 OVER RUSSIA...
DOCTORING ICHRUSHCHEV'S SECRET
DESTALINIZATIONPEECH
tk
YOU GUYS WANT
To READ WHAT
HE REALLY
THINKS OF YOU
NoNALIGNED
FINKS?
and the remaining 15 per cent
from agents.
? A Senate veteran with an
intimate knowledge of mili-
tary affairs remarked not long
ago, "On a clear day we get
? as much from a satellite as
we get from an agent in a
year."
To handle this flow of in-
? formation, the agency has
enough analysts on its staff
to form a medium-sized uni-
? versity. At least half of them
have advanced degrees and a
third a doctorate. Their com-
bined specialties cover 281
? major fields. Piecing together
the bits of information from a
bewildering range of sources
into the nation's daily intelli-
gence picture is a break with
the classic practice of relying
primarily on agents' reports.
The U.S.S.R., Red China, Brit-
ain, France, West Germany
and other veterans in the in-
telligence business still lean
toward the agent, but the
United States has been relying
more on the researcher and
the evaluator ever since World
War II.
"There was a time, if you
wanted information on the
Turkish railway system, you'd
set out to bribe a Turkish
railway official," says Sher-
man Kent, a Yale professor of
history who was recruited by
the Office of Strategic Serv-
ces (0.S.S.) daring World
War II. "Now you'd probably
find a 10-volume tome in the
Library of Congress. The in-
,
formation's there. The secret
is knowing where to find it."
Using such research tech-
niques, the C.I.A. helped con-
vince President Kennedy that
the Russians could not be hid-
ing missiles in Cuban caves
after the October, 1962, crisis.
Ray Cline, then head of the
Intelligence Directorate, dis-
covered that one of his of-
ficers had located a volumi-
nous file on Cuban caves com-
piled well before the crisis.
When Kennedy and McGeorge
Bundy continued to worry
that the Russians might be
cheating, Cline drove to the?
White House, dumped on the
President's desk a huge file
with photographs, and con-
vinced Kennedy that there
was not a subterranean cavi-
ty that the C.I.A. did not
know about.
COVERT action is gener-
ally political and means, in
effect, helping friends of the
United States abroad. "Some-
times it's subsidizing friendly
politicians or parties, or run-
ning newspapers, or running
cover businesses ? in other
words doing covertly what the
State or Defense Departments
can't do publicly," explains
one authority.
Both covert action and es-
pionage sometimes involve no ,
greater risk than passing funds
surreptitiously to a foreign -
cabinet minister. At other (
times they involve such com-
monplaces of the spy's reper-
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toire as eavesdropping, now
made more efficient by mod-
ern gadgetry which permits,
for instan, the "bugging" of
windowpane vibrations so that
speech in a locked room can
be overheard; or even of
typewriters, from a distance,
so that in all important United
States embassies abroad there
must now be special rooms in
.which secretaries type top-se-
cret material.
Yet only the agent, espe-
cially a key agent In a foreign
government, can fill in the
gaps. Only he knows What to
look for. The C.I.A.'s informa-
tion on Soviet and Chinese
military installations gathered
by spy satellites and studied
daily by photo-interpreters is
immense, high officials say.
But while our policymakers
must know the Soviet Union's
strength, they would rather
? know its intentions. This, in
intelligence jargon, is "hum-
int"?fh uman intelligence?and
for this the agent remains in-
valuable.
Among its many tasks,
Helms's Plans Directorate also
runs "disinfcrnnation"?stra-
tegic deception intended to
keep the K.G.B. (Soviet secret
police) off balance. One of the
more successful, if little-
known, spying adventures of
this sort came after Nikita
Ithrushehev's celebrated "se-
cret" speech of Feb. 24, 1956,
to the 20th Communist Party
Congress in Moscow.
Stalin's death three years-
before had left world commu-
nism leaderless. Finally emerg-
ing as the top man after a
power struggle, Khrushchev
sprang on a surprised party
the epochal "de-Stalinization"
speech that was to rend the
movement and promote the
Sino-Soviet split. Stalin's dis-
ciple now publicly rejected the
Soviet past, demeaned the na-
tional hero, challenged secret-
police .rule and forecast a
purge of Stalinists.
Within weeks dissension
and confusion spread through-
out Communist parties across
the world. Some approved;
some condemned; some strad-
dled.
In Washington, meanwhile,
Allen Dulles was offering up
to $100,000 to anyone- who
would turn over a copy of the
document, and three months
later, for a considerably lower
sum, agents directed by Helms,
who was then deputy chief of
"CS.," Clandestine Services,
obtained one from East Euro-
pean sources. Some C.I.A. of-
ficials wanted to keep their
prize secret and to exploit, by
classic diplomacy, the grow-
ing rift in the Communist
-world uncovered by the speech.
Others argued for publishing
. this self.indlotment of the So- ??
viet system, and Dulles finally
agreed.
Four days later, the "secret
speech" was leaked in full to
The New York Times as a
C.I.A.-State Department pol-
icy decision. But even as the
editors studied and restudied
the text, Helms's experts,
timing their plans to the an-
ticipated date of publication,
prepared their own, partly
fabricated version. The speech,
as delivered by Khruslichev,
had contained nothing on So-
viet foreign policy. Helms's
men, rapidly assembling Krem-
lin views on foreign countries
acquired through a variety of
secret sources, including au-
thentic damning statements
made by Soviet leaders about
rulers and governments in the
nonaligned world, made a to-
tal of 32 inserts.
The real text was printed
in The Times on June 5, 1956,
and the C.I.A. leaked its fuller
version simultaneously, exact-
ly as if It had been photo-
graphed surreptitiously by'a
Minox "spy" camera and then
enlarged. It was distributed
at strategic spots around the
world and for months foreign
ministries puzzled over which
was the true version..
"Eventually most govern-
ments decided that The New
York Times version was that
which Moscow had 'sanitized'
for foreign Communist par-
ties," recalled one source.
"They decided that the other
[the C.I.A.] version with its-
damaging references was the
real thing. The Kremlin took a
long time living this down."
DESPITE the global scope
of his job, Helms spends al-
most all his time in Washing-
ton, either in his C.I.A. head-
quarters at Langley, Va., or
before the Congress, to which
he is often summoned to brief
committees, or in the Presi-
dent's "Situation Room," the
global communications center
in the basement of the White
House.
Helms's first exposure to
Congress was a near-disaster.
On taking office, June 30,
1966, he found on his desk and
incautiously signed a pile of
letters, prepared by an aide,
which thanked various well-
wishers for their congratula-
tions. In one letter Helms
thanked the editor of The St.
Louis Globe-Democrat for an
editorial entitled "Brickbats
for Fulbright" that had re-
joiced because the Senate had
just overwhelmingly defeated
Fulbright's first demand to be
admitted to the senatorial
watchdog committee on the
CI.A. then headed by Richard
Russell of Georgia. The vote,
said the editorial, was a
"comeuppance for the crafty
Arkansan." Its adoption would
-
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
have meant ". . . the end of
? the C.I.A. if, the agency were
subject to the claws of the
militant doves on Fulbright's
committee." The C.I.A. letter,
expressed Helms's "pleasure"
that the Globe Democrat had
[printed] the news "impartially
Without regard to party poli-
? tics." The letter was mailed,
and his pleasure was short-
lived.
Before long Senator Eugene
McCarthy, a leading critic of
the C.I.A., was reading the
letter to an astonished Senate.
Helms's missive, declared Mc-
Carthy,- was "entirely out of
place" and smacked of "in-
volvement in domestic poli-
tics." Helms, he said, owed
the Senate an apology.
Promptly, the Senate club
began drawing together. Sen-
ate Majority leader Mike
Mansfield declared acidly that
he was "more than a- little
surprised" by Helms's act.
'Senator John Stennis, an in-'
fluential C.I.A. sponsor, called
? the letter "very unfortunate."
Lyndon Johnson, chagrined
by his protege's blunder, told
Helms to consult with Attor-
ney General Nicholas de B.
Katzenbach, whose own tact
in Congress had done much to
help pass important civil
rights legislation. Katzenbach
recommended that Helms ad-
mit his gaffe and apologize
-for it. Helms promptly tele-
phoned Massachusetts Sena-
tor Leverett Saltonstall, an-
other C.I.A. patron, and of-
fered to apologize to the Sen-
ate either in person or in
writing. When Saltonstall told -
the Senate that Helms had ad-
mitted the blunder, the , air
began clearing. An admission
of error and apology from
a Director of Central Intelli-
gence was unprecedented in
the Senate's memory.
Over the past four years
Helms has worked hard to
improve the C.I.A.'s standing
with Congress and most in-
formed observers would agree
that he has made headway. He
is a good witness who tells
the "watchdog" committees in
Congress everything they want
to know and alerts them to '
coming events.
"There are constant rumors
that Nixon --is about to can
Helms and put a Republican in
his place," said an experienced
Senate staff official not long
ago, "but I discount these.
Helms is great with Congress.
He admits when he doesn't
know something. He never
lies. He tells them Ile per cent
of what he knows is going on
?and he somehow lets them
guess the remaining 10 per
cent."
And Fulbright, whose be-
lief In the need for a C.I.A.
Is at best lukewarm, told the
Senate last November, after
Ifehns testified with Defense
Secretary Laird on the A.B.M.-
MIRV controversy: "[He] has
given the committee . . . the
best available information.
That Is what inspired in us
gested to an Inquiring report,
a half-dozen potential souro
for an article. "After thost
he said, "you'll find you're rt
sucking any oil."
In such ways, Helms cot
treys precisely what he wan{
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SOME ADVICE ON DISPOSING OF A
VIETNAMESE DOUBLE-AGENT
trust and confidence in the
integrity, honesty and judg-
ment of Mr. Helms."
!ALL, slender, his hair still
dark and only beginning to
recede at the temples, Richard
Helms gives the impression
of a man totally under con-
trol and at ease. The open,
mobile face is often creased
by a broad grin, for Helms
has an irreverent, irrepres-
sible sense of humor. He
Is a smoker who carries bat-
tered cigarette packs from
Which he flicks cigarettes di-
rectly into his mouth and
often, when talking, will crum-
ple a matchbook in his long
fingers.
His language reflects the
current Government jargon.
Once when asked whether the
late Ho Chi Minh was respond-
ing to secret American peace
approaches, for example, he
laughed and replied casually,
"Ho's got our telephone num-
ber. When Ho tickles our feet,
we'll know' it" He once sug-
?
to convey and no more. With
his own staff he is a stickler
for tight writing, correct spell-
ing and punctuation ? and
punctuality. His precision and
concentrative powers have
surprised technical advisers
called on to brief him on com-
plex details of missilery or
nuclear science. Helms has no
scientific background ? "he
can't put a washer on a fau-
cet," his wife once joked?
but he absorbs detail.
The efficient sang-froid is
balanced, however, by a, hu-
man concern for the hundreds
and thousands of Americans
In the C.I.A. whose lives are
closely controlled?and often
hidden--by their chosen ca-
reer. He watches closely for
signs of strain among his sub- '
ordinates. For instance, he
tries to see every returning
C.I.A. station chief, from the
largest to the smallest capi-
tals, and studies them closely. -
"When people live, copulate,
die, you can't be in his place
without encountering tremen-
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Declassified and Approved
For Release
dous human problems," said considerable privilege. 1st
a friend. "You've got to have ternal grandfather, Gates
an open door for persons In. Garrah, was a leading inter.
tragedy. ? Dick can detect tional banker and his fat)
changes in people; he doesn't Herman Helms, was an Ali
just sit on his hands." executive who moved i.-.
r.?0ME who have known ties. Helms spent a format
Helms well consider him a year at the fashionable
deeply democratic man who is Rosey School in Switzerlat
constantly concerned lest his learning French and Germ
? agency's clandestine opera- and how to move arno
tions overstep the 'boundaries young nobility and the scio
of morality. He has said that of international wealth, t
murder and torture, for in- also studied in Germany.
stance, cannot be condoned,
Upon the Helms famili
not only because they are im-.
return to the United State
. moral but because they are
he entered Williams, grade's
in and unnecessary.
ine in 1935 with an outstan
That is what he told news- i -
ng record. He was Phi Bet
men when the C.I.A. was ac-
Kappa, president of his clot
cused of having a hand. in the ..most likely to succeed," ed
murder of a Vietnamese dou- tor of the class newspaa
ble-agent by the Green Berets and?prophetically ? "cla
C. 3 sly to Europe in the mid-hrl
in 1969. Helms said that politician."
his men had advised the Be-
rets to turn the man over to Armed with a liberal art
South Vietnamese police for - degree and two foreign Ian
disposition. guages,. Helms found a ja
Former Green Beret Robert as a cub reporter in Europ
F. Marasco claimed recently with the former United Press
that he had killed the suspect Hitler was rapidly rising it
after "a vaguely worded exe- Germany and Helms soon woc
cution order" was passed to the commendation of his so
his superiors in Saigon by a periors by obtaining an et
"C.I.A. operative." Marasco elusive interview with du
said his anger over the Calley Fiihrer. This period made a big
conviction moved him to make impression on Helms, for 'he
the disclosure, but C.I.A. has never lost his preoccupa
sources had another interPre- tion with the potential fa
tation. They noted that it co- 'good or evil in the German
melded?perhaps on purpose? character.
with the publication of a novel Even as Helms was begin.
about the sensational case fling to gather momentum as a
entitled "Court - Martial" and foreign correspondent, how.
? written by Henry Rothblatt, ever, personal and financial
one of the defense lawyers, problems forced his return to
and Robin Moore, author of the United States and he
The Green Berets."
Helms, when told of Maras-
co's confession, reiterated that
the C.I.A. had no authority to
order the killings and, more-
over, cannot give the Army
orders "even in Vietnam."
Unhappily for Helms, the
story of the Green Beret epi-
sode first leaked out as a re-
sult of one of his infrequent
luncheons with newsmen. His
explanation of the C.I.A.'s role
was supposed to be "deep
background"?not for publi-
cation ? but reporters who
were not there, and did not
feel bound by the rules, broke
the story. "Goddamitl" Helms
exploded to his luncheon host
over Use telephone, "I can
handle security In my own
agency, but I expect you peo-
ple to handle it at your end.
This is the last time I'll ever
meet with newsmen again."
Helms has, of course, met
with newsmen since; and he
. will continue to do so. He is
too skillful, too wise a bureau-
crat to think that' the C.I.A.
wound up as national adver.
Using manager for The Indi-
animas Times. At the same
time he married Julia Bretz.
man Shields, a young horse-
woman, sculptor and heir-
ess to the Barbasol shaving
fortune. A son, Dennis, now a
lawyer in New York, was born
of this marriage, which ended
in divorce.
(Two years ago, after a
long, painful separation from
his first wife, Helms married
Cynthia McKelvie, an attrac-
tive English redhead who was
formerly the wife of a promi-
nent Washington surgeon. The
present Mrs. Helms has four
children of her own?two boys
and two girls, all of either col-
lege or post-college age, with
whom Helms gets along well.)
World War II altered the
pattern of Helms's life. As a
naval reserve officer, he was
called to duty with the East-
ern Sea Frontier headquarters
In New York where he was
put to work plotting the pasl-
can, or should, operate in a tion of German submarines In
total news blackout. the Western Atlantic. Eager
..17R1CHAND ?11,tedAltitAff ation switched to the newly
for more dynamic xvorle, he
HELMS was born ,at St. created O.S.S. in Washington
David's, Pa., Into a world of
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(Continued from Page 28)
and there, in the planning di-
vision, he became absorbed
with espionage as a career.
At the war's end he found
himself in Berlin as part of
the remarkable team of that
remarkable man, Allen Dulles,
the father of modern Ameri-
can espionage. Working for
Dulles, who became Director
of Central Intelligence in
1953, taught Helms a great
deal. Dulles's contagious zest
for life and interest in people
of all kinds?at all hours?im-
pressed Helms. Yet an anec-
dote about Dulles that is men-
tioned in the training course
for all new C.I.A. agents con-
cerns an occasion when he
did not have time to see some-
one. As a young intelligence
attache in Switzerland during
World War I, he passed up a
tennis game with an importun-
ate and unknown visitor who
turned out to be the revolu-
tionary Lenin. Thus, he per-
haps lost a chance to influence
the course of the Russian Rev-
olution.'
BY the nineteen-fifties, ?
Helms was a deputy to the
head of Clandestine Serv-
ices, Frank Wisner. In this ca-
pacity he supervised an in-
genious scheme in the divided
city of Berlin that marked him
as a man on his way up.
On a snowy morning in late
April, 1955, an alert Russian
guard in the Soviet-controlled
Eastern sector of Berlin might
have noticed a curious dark
streak. running through the
snow about 500 yards be-
tween Rudow, a suburb of
West Berlin, and Alt-Glienicke,
a suburb of East Berlin.
Light snow had fallen, dur-
ing the night: and closer in-
spection might have revealed
that the snow had melted in
a line as straight as an arrow.
But neither Soviet nor East
German patrols happened that
morning to notice the phe-
nomenon.
Twenty-four feet under-
ground, teams ' of United
States and British engineer
troops were completing a tun-
nel: the purpose of their mis-
sion was to tap the main
I Soviet telephone trunk lines
connecting Moscow with the
East German Government
offices, the Karlshorst head-
quarters of the K.G.B. and the
Russian Army Command. At
the tunnel's mouth in Rudow,
Helms and his colleagues had
'built a warehouse in which to
pile the shoveled dirt; they
informed Soviet authorities
that it would eventually house
"radar" installations to help
guide civilian air traffic into
the United States sector. Since
the weather had turned sud-
denly cold, blowers were in-
troduced into the tunnel to
keep the hard-digging troops
comfortable. The difference in
temperature melted the snow
directly over the tunnel, but
soon thawing weather had ob-
literated the telltale streak
and saved the project from
detection.
For the next 11 months and
11 days, the C.I.A. eaves-
dropped on Moscow's conver-
sations with its proconsuls
in East Germany and Poland.
Finally, as the C.I.A. tells it,
an East Berlin workman look-
ing for a routine fault struck
his pick accidentally into the
Allied tap, and the game was
over. The Soviet press erupted ?
in outraged indignation and
for months Russian and East
German authorities ran guided
tours to expose this example
of Allied "perfidy."
Both Wisner and Helms had
deliberately cut their visits
'in Berlin to the minimum so
as not to attract Soviet curi-
osity. But Helms had been
the project chief Washing-
ton, personally supervising
the tunnel operation from
start to finish.
Along with such smashing
successes, Helms has had a
few setbacks in his career.
Dulles passed him over for
promotion to head of the
Plans Directorate in favor of
Richard M. Bissell Jr., a bril-
liant former Yale economist
who had attracted attention
as deputy chief of the Mar-
shall Plan in Paris. Both Bis-
sell and Dulles, the men most,
responsible for the Bay of
Pigs, were retired by Presi-
dent Kennedy. His new Direc-
tor of Central Intelligence,
John McCone, spotted Helms
and in 1962 promoted him to
DD-P. In 1965 when McCone
resigned he recommended that
Helms succeed him, but Lyn-
don Johnson selected Admiral
William Reborn Jr. Even this
proved a boon. "It would
have been a disaster had Dick
succeeded McCone in 1965,"
said a colleague. "Reborn
made him look great by com-
parison."
Appointed Raborn's succes-
sor by Johnson in 1966. Helms
served a tough apprenticeship
under a mercurial, secretive
and often domineering boss.
Then, after the 1968 election,
President-elect Nixon named
a secret task force, headed by
Franklin A. Lindsay of Itek
Corporation, to investigate the
C. I. A. and recommend
changes. Lindsay's task force
recommended, among other
things, leaving Helms as Di-
rector of Central Intelligence
for another year. Now that
two years have passed one
can reasonably assume that
Nixon values his services.
HELMS'S predecessors
came to the D.C.I.'s job from
outside the C.I.A. and with
national reputations, personal
fortunes, political influence, or
all three. In contrast, he lives
on his salary ($42,500 a year)
and before being named D.C.I.
was unknown to the public
and only slightly though fa-
vorably known to leaders of
Congress. The easy, friendly
manner, the quick smile?too
quick, some think ? that
greets important Senators,
Congressmen and officials, and
the Government jargon that
conceals what he wants to
conceal, arc perhaps conces-
sions to his vulnerable posi-
tionie
. i can be stubborn, though,
when he believes the national
interest is involved. In 1967,
for instance, he began to
question euphoric Air Force
claims about the efficacy of
its bombing of North Viet-
nam. He also, grew increas-
ingly dubious about glowing
reports of the success of the
pacification program in the
South.I
In
time Defense Secretary
Robert S. McNamara also be-
gan to weigh Helms's reser-
vations against the claims of
the Air Force; and McNa-
mara's own conversion?a
shift which deeply angered
Lyndon Johnson and helped
pave the way to McNamara'S
ouster?is said to have
stemmed in large part from
Helms's analyses.
His views on Vietnam also
brought him into increasing
conflict with Walt W. Rostow,
whom Johnson had chosen to
succeed Bundy as his chief
foreign affairs adviser. Ros-
tow's passionate belief in the
use of force to halt spreading
Communism in Southeast Asia
was exceeded only by Secre-
tary of State Rusk's. He kept
in intimate touch with a C.I.A.
task force on Vietnam, headed
by George Carver, from
whose reports he would ex-
tract items likely to confirm
President Johnson's confi-
dence in his own policies.
These items were passed not
only to the President but also
to friendly columnists.
One day Helms read in a
nationally syndicated column
that the C.I.A.?and, by impli-
cation, its Director?were "ap-
peasement-minded." Charac-
teristically, he said nothing
to the President but quietly
visited Rostow in his White
House basement office; what
happened is known only to
the principals, but the press
leaks alleging C.I.A. "defeat-
ism" ceased.
RESIDENT NIXON. who
has known Helms for some 20
years, is said to respect him,
although he treats him in the
same arm's-length, bloodless
way that he treats most sub-
ordinates. Helms can exercise
his statutory right to see the
President on urgent business
but, being experienced and
?
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wise i c matters, he
reports normally to Kissinger,
through whose brain all in-
telligence for the President is
screened. Whatever may be
the consensus of the six-
agency intelligence commu-
nity, it is Kissinger's interpre-
tation, say members of the
White House staff, that Nixon
listens to. Some shrug this off
as understandable; others find
it potentially dangerous.
Kissinger is a former Army
counterintelligence operative
who served in Germany dur-
ing World War II, as well as
a recognized authority on So-
viet policy, Western Europe,
nuclear strategy and disarma-
ment. Thus he understands
intelligence and consumes
large amounts of it daily,
though much of it bores him.
He often condemns as bland,
and sends back for revision,
the magisterially researched
National Intelligence Esti-
mates, which are prepared by
pooling the input of the en-
tire intelligence community on
such topics as Soviet missile
development.
At the same time Kissinger,
whose intellectual respect for
the foreign policy views of
the Secretaries of State and
Defense is reportedly limited,
gets along well with Helms.
Both he and the President ap-
preciate Helms's "succinct
lucidity," which Rostow once
cited as the reason he first
came favorably to Lyndon
Johnson's attention. Current-
ly, Helms's close ties with At-
torney General John Mitchell
?they share a high regard for
each other?have helped keep
the C. I. A.'s primacy among
the intelligence-gatherers in-
tact.
Nixon went out of his way
last May 8 to emphasize
Helms's role as one of his chief
advisers before a national
television audience. Asked
during a news conference
whether the Secretary of
State or Dr. Kissinger had op-
posed his incursion into Cam-
bodia, the President replied,
"Every one of my advisers?
the Secretary of State, Secre-
tary of Defense, Dr. Kissinger,
Director Helms?raised ques-
tions about the decision."
However, Nixon carefully
skirted disclosing whether or
not his advisers, including
Helms, had supported or op-
posed his strike into Cam-
bodia last year, purportedly
to capture the Communists'
secret headquarters for the
war in South Vietnam.
It is significant that he made
no similar reference to Helms in
his public comment following
the abortive Sontay raid into
North Vietnam on Nov. 21.
Government sources who
talked to Helms soon after the
Sontay bungle say he was "in-
formed" by Laird not long be.
fore the operation but not
"coasulted." Asked. what
Helms's reaction had been,
one source responded with a
chuckle, "He looked the other
way."
In any event, Nixon's citing
of Helms as a close adviser
in May only partially explains
the true relationship. Rogers,
Laird and Kissinger are "pol-
icy" advisers; Helms is not.
Ilelms is a nonvoting "ad-
viser" to the National Secur-
ity Council and, through it,
to the President, its chief. He
carefully avoids recommend-
ing policy.
He virtually always leads
off N.S.C. meetings at the re-
quest of the President (oi? of
Kissinger, if the President is
absent) with an intelligence
briefing. Laying out the in-
telligence picture in each of
the world's hot spots, he pre-
dicts the reactions of the
U.S.S.R., China, North Viet-
nam and other "hostiles." He
raises questions but there he
stops and, as one source notes,
"tends to hunker down."
IS reluctance to offer
policy advice is not always
appreciated by policymakers
faced with tough decisions
who, as one source recently
put it, "like to glob around
intelligence as a comforting
hand in the enveloping gloom."
Still, he points to the neces-
sity of having an impartial
agency winnow the millions
of words flowing into Wash-
ington daily and evaluate
them objectively for the Presi-
dent.
In the U.S.S.R., he has ob-
served, there is no such sys-
tem. Each intelligence agency
reports to its own political
patron: the K.G.B. to the Com-
munist party chief, Leonid I.
Brezhnev, the Armed Forces
Intelligence (G.R.U.) to De-
fense Minister Andrei A.
Grechko, and so forth. No-
where in the Soviet Union,
Helms has told Congress, is
there "a bunch of guys with
no ax to grind and beholden
to no one sitting down in a
back room and deciding what
the raw intelligence means."
Yet there are those who
suggest that the President
himself may 'feel that Helms's
objectivity does not always
fit into the Nixon political
program. Some shrewd ob-
servers suspect that Nixon
appointed his former aide,
General Cushman, as Helms's
deputy to keep an eye on the
Intelligence community. A few
go so far as to say Cushman
was put there to keep Helms
aligned to the Administra-
tion's support for the A.B.M.
system and to prevent him
from telling Congress, for in-
stance, that no available intel-
ligence from the U.S.S.R.
would justify spending $40-
billion or more on the system,
despite pressures from the in-
dustrial-defense complex for
lucrative contracts. U
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