BOOKS OF THE TIMES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200050020-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 17, 2004
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: October 11, 1979
• Content Type: NSPR

ON PAGE 13.Li' 11 `. g
Ors E ~ Approved For e
THE MAX WIiNli KEPT THE SECRETS.
Richd-d,Helms and the C.I.A. By
Thomas" Powers. 393 pages. Knopf.
$12.95.
HE least interesting person in
Thomas Powers's splendid new
book is Richard Helms himself.
He was, for 30 years, a dedi-
' cated "spook," "a good soldier" who
took orders from "one President at a
time," someone so disadvantaged that
he could not "resign on principle and;,
live on dividends." A compromiser who ".
knew, '.you: have. to go along to='get:?'
along.`::"_He"buckled. no swashes. From.,;
his beginning in the:Office of Strateggiic
Services during World War II`until the
i end in November 1972,. when: Richard,'
M. Nixon dismissed him as Director of,
Central Intelligence for having been in-
sufficiently.,, tos the ."team" that
gave us Waterrggaate, hhe.ooppl~t~so covert
operations while oing, almost exactly
A child of his next-door neighbors re.=`=
ported in 1947 to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation that "he doesn't. have any
hair on his chest, and,I think:::`:`. waxes,?
it." Daniel Schorr, after Mi "Belms's; ?.
testimony in 197 ''before the- Senate's
Church committee ; 'investigating
American- intelligence = activities, re-
ported: "It turned out as Helms said,
that .no foreign, leader was directly .
killed- by the C.I.A. But it wasn't for
Banalityvs. Swashbuckling
was'
Mr. Helms lacked flair. He
whom seemed to have gone toGroton
before graduating to one or another of:.::
the Ivy League colleges, managed ill-r"
their enthusiasm" to betray the Ukrain-
ians in the Soviet Union, the Nationalist
:Chinese in Burma, the Sumatrans in In.
donesia, the Khambas in Tibet, the
Cubans in Miami, the Meos in Laos, the
entirely incompetent. They -got rid of
Mossadegh in -Iran and Arbeliz =in
1 -falled.to nail own Sukarno, Lumumba
Dwight 'D. Eisenhower, -John Fosters
Dulles,was obsessed with ""neutralists"`
like Nehru; John and Robert Kennedy,
not-to mention Robert-S. McNamara,
wanted? to- separate. President Castro
squired lights at the end ot.the tunnel-he rrom mesiar;ain irauy,.u1e cviu wiu
was digging, and Mr. Nixon insisted on , .was what the C.LA. was all about: let's`.
- a certain amount of silent complicity in ' ._,.-try to buy a Government.. Later on,, the :-
'?the 'occasional, wiretap, nand.ssecond . Government was; Chile.;,. Mr. -: Helms
_---- " __ __ - - -ro
ed f k-
away around o
his desk .
.
v
p
n
-all cam- the contaminating..pt sugar ex - -- - - - -- - - -
ports, the poisoned pens :and handker un :dersderse, he seemed, genuinely', not tb
chiefs and scuba-diving, wet suits and unthnd what all the fuss was about.
=Hadn t he kept his mouttt`shut most of.
cigars, the exploding seashells and the the time? Why weren'this-friends tar
'11d-f4- De..l.aws h
.vn...im .1.-.,+ +h- r
e
in the Indian Himalayas.: He is no `t n as ua.aaa pond a~ as ay awa
longer permitted to consult "Walnut," His sentence e "was suspended; so that he
,thc rnrnnntar avatar" that ran "nnn nut could go to the Kenwood Country Club,.:y
Contrast this blankness with a James
Jesus. Angleton who, while an" under- _
graduate at Yale, published a literary';;
magazine called Furioso, full of poems--
by Ezra Pound; with a Frank Wisner;
who called. Philip Graham ,'of The.,
Washington Post in the:watches of they
night, froln a hospital-bed," to suggest a !,
Herblock, `cartoon about Nehru, had ;
several nervous breakdowns, and , . them
shot himself; with a William Harvey;
who claimed to have gone to bed with a x .
woman every day since he was 12 years
old and who- always, played with a X;
loaded gun on his desk; with a flapiboy-
ant Richard Bissell, who gave us the
U-2 and the Bay'of Pigs; ;with a Miles
Copeland, who delivered .S3 ' million . to
Nasser in a suitcase in Egypt without
asking for a. receipt;`'with. a -William.:,
Bundy who" contributed $400 to a de,
Tense fund for Alger Hiss, and with Des.
mond FitzGerald, 'who perished play-
ing tennis ju
-
. 6,av.a u.,va. -1 ;
Ian Fleming and E. Howard Hunt, Jr '?". ""' --- " var. a
g
e' .the futility and stupidity of left-win
'
Carr
etestedJohn W.s t
novels: He
a,. terrorism in this country, - Diana:. The.
The Spy-i Vho Came ; in: Fromc the? ?
Cold "One ofhis predecessors;. Allen ,*Making of aTerrorist;l has ,written an:~
n
al-
" ,
Dulles, used to pass on plots to Helen : excellent book on blankness and ba
itv: the .heat honk on the C-i-A. C ever.
n tr
f
cte
ca e
s
bl
a
ess o
waa:a a
/ Ya
m.
i
The Russians use umbrellas to kill r
..4, t,
eed an people Is this significant? "~ G o,. should gather and evaluate in. 6
:_tormation,.asit.noes, ana submit its;:
disinterested conclusions Its client,
them : It ought to enlist scientists,: not
crusaders., or- opportunists. It mighf`
STAT
Approved For. Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01350R000200050020-7