THE SECRET WORLD OF RICHARD HELMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200050002-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 17, 2004
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 3, 1979
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Release 2004/10/13: CIA-RDP88-013508 b?2 @05OO02 7
BUSINESS WEEK
3 December 1979
Books
The secret world .
of Richard Helms...
Much of the fascination with that perdu-
rable literary form, the spy novel, stems
from . the popular . conviction that. the
surface appearance of things is. not the
real way of the world. We want to know
Through the DDP, the CIA's chief (some
would say only) client-the President of
the: United States-has . been able to
operate on that level of raw reality that
fascinates. Beset by the "long twilight
struggle," as John F. Kennedy put it in
his inaugural address, Presidents have
sought to deal with intractable problems
by using agents of the U. S. government
who act in secret and are accountable,
ultimately, only to him.
Clandestine intervention has long
been accepted as the way things have to
-be.Secrecy is an operational necessity
which the cu was heavily, although not
exclusively, involved. Lansdale's memo
requested the CIA's liaison to Mongoose
to draft a number of anti-Castro
programs, "including liquidation of lead-
ers." The CIA man protested vehemently
to Lansdale the "stupidity of putting
this type of comment in writing in such a
document." Suffice it to say, the lan-
guage was deleted, but the planning .
went on.
The 'message, Powers says, is clear:
Some matters are so sensitive that they
are never recorded or discussed aloud.
what is going. on, but we,,.believe that,,,. not. merely. because it. is a contradiction , The regular spiel is that the CIA doesn't
reality is so harsh, its-rules so Byzan- in termsto carry on clandestine activi- consider or cooperate in assassination..
tine, its demands so unremitting,. that it. :ties while one's opponents watch, but The reality is something else again. The
can be dealt. with only, behindclosed. also, :.equally important, because. the CIA follows orders, -transmitted by
ing and cant that : saturates :ordinary would not stomach all that was carried..; rection.. Powers concludes, without
lives. We cling to pious platitudes of law out in its name. So deep-rooted is the explicitly saying so, that John F. Kenne-
and - morality. ,because'. they,, are so "- need for secrecy: that it is practiced even ;dy and his brother Robert were the
V"Opi
Powers shows also,Ahat view of reality, 'Aug.,'110, 1962,, in- the , prelude to the well, more often badly, but never as a
is critically flawed and has led in large , Cuban; missile crisis, Robert S. McNa- rogue agency out of control. When
part: to.Ahe? crisis. in, coinfidence 'about '-mara suggested-hypothetically, we are caught, as the CIA. eventually was, the
intelligence services through which we told--at,a meeting in Secretary of State honorable thing to do.was to clans up, as
ciated with 'the nation's' intelligence for example, that it does not assassinate tuxes around the world, the CIA was not
service since its founding during World `or'. cooperate: in the assassination of acting on its own. It was carrying out a
War II shared this view of reality., Yet as"' ''America's political enemies.: Thus on - highly specialized service;, sometimes
the Secrets, virtually every-person asso- .?-'on."the regular spiel": The CIA will say, In involving itself in myriad adven-
As Thomas Powers shows in: his, Powers calls the -technique for divert- as Eisenhower had demanded the liqui-
what needs to be done. n :insulated from the public source of the order to"get" Castro, even
much. more bearable than: facing up to within ;layers of ; government `already ..
he 1Wan YYho' K;6pt the Secrets
y Thomas Powersy
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y Knopf 393 pp ~a.`f~$i2 95
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Y,;"'the
Central -,Intelligence, Agency'rhas had' -torpedoed?the suggestion as'totally out
three fundamental missions: , "intelli- of order. John McCone, director of the
gence-gathering and "analysis, the pro- CIA, agreed with Murrow The minutes of
tection of its own.. integrity (or counter ? { the;-meeting omitted any reference to
intelligence), and political interventIon..",: :McNamara's appalling idea... McCone
political consequen { ~~3n: V1AnR[JP$*961i350f 2b@W?OQthe agency's
known. ? ~, U ~_ e - ite Iaf use to get rid of Castro in In one of his rare public speeches
the CIA),' and countless ;other acts of 'Edward G: Lansdale, who headed "Oper- committee. His story is the CIA's story
Of the three, Powers concentrates on the "even phoned McNamara later. that same sential intelligence - operative. He be-
last-the special operations division long "day to protest that such talk was repre- lieved in the CIA's mission-if not in-
known as, the Directorate for. Plans '.,hensible and., that. McCone wouldn't - each of his, assignments. He was a
(nor), which brought u& the Shah of stand for any more of it: talented
administrator and a skillful
Iran, the, Bay ,of Pigs, vast: turmoil' in Nevertheless, that' did "not -put the .' player `of ' Washington's, high-pressure
Chile, several.attempted assassinations . kibosh on plans to terminate Castro-as bureaucratic game, and he knew when to
of political leaders (e.g, Castro, Lumum- : ? . the modern idiom has it-with extreme keep his mouth shut, even-when it would
ba, and Diem, some of whom eventually :=prejudice." Two days after the Aug. 10 result in his. conviction for a misdemea.n- .
were killed, although note necessarily ?by ;meeting, a memo appeared from General or -akin' to perjury before a Senate
1-1111-1
kill 'h'
4 r.. w?at4least theearly:1960s at is the way
toi?of``the~U` S Information ;Agency, many, 'of'the things ;they`.most.xr want .11
Thirty years in the CIA, 's`employ, six as
its director (longer'than' any other man
save Allen Dulles,' who was one of its
-founding fathers), Helms is the quintes
 Approved For Relea+Wi