'OPERATION SPLINTER FACTOR' TELLING IT LIKE IT WASN'T

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200160008-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: May 1, 1974
• Content Type: NSPR

11OUSTON POST
Approved For Release 2004nn'1'3 : 1C71A-RDP88-0135
r ? ~ ~ /.. ,n analysis
6 era dolt hinter Facto j4'' telling
through his war-time Commit
There- is always a market Soon, Noel Field, a former 's pur-
for serious books on foreign American diplomat, was ar-. Dist contacts. war-time
affairs, always an interest in rested in Prague and mmpris- pose vas to have the nation-
clandestine operations. The o n e d f o r several years. alist leaders replaced by Sta-
bulk of such material is pro- Field's wife, his brother and linist henchmen so brutal that
duced by actual participants a young girl to whom he the populations would arise
-retired diplomzfts or offi- was a guardian, - e n t e r e d and throw out all the Commu-
cials and the like - or acade- the Soviet bloc in efforts to nists.-
micians with a broad grasp of negotiate his release. All were Aside from the fact Dulles
the background material. arrested and held incommuni-
cado for lengthy prison terns. was in private law practice in
An occasional journalist, if New York until late 1950 (ac-
he is well qualified and has Field was a State Depart- cording to Steven merely a
some respect for the rules. of meat employe from 1925 to "cover"), it is hard to know
evidence, will also make use. the late 1930s, given to far wnere to start. The historical
ful historical contributions. left humanitarian causes in record means nothing to Ste.
an era when such activity veil. If facts are useful he
But, from time to time, a aroused few suspicions. He
writer blunders into the field was in contact with Soviet es- uses them, if inconvenient he
whose major asset is imagi- pionage, but drove his recruit- ignores them and when he
nation, whose objective is to ers wild by a capricious inde- can't.ignore them he blithely.
present a lurid, spectacular pendence in what he would states they weren't so.
alight of imagination as fact, and would not do.
_
and whose powers of -re- Nothing is sourced (except
search, analysis and under- During the war, he man- to unnamed officials), and all
standing are either weak or aged civilian relief activities the names and terminology
deliberately supressed. in Vichy France, making con- for organizations and depart-
tacts with . refugee Commit- meats are a glorious, in-
Such a writer is an English n}sts from all over Europe. accurate misspelling mish-
whosalist, Stewart Steven, He had several OSS contacts, mash.. No speculation is too
whose latest effusion ("Qper- but was in no sense an offi- ludicrous to toss out as fact.
ation Splinter Factor," 243 cial of the U.S. government, Steven even lays the Korean
pages. New York: Lippincott- let alone an intelligence. offi War at the feet of the non-ex-
$7,93), is selling briskly at cer.
the moment to the same pub- I s t e n t "Operation Splinter
he which made best sellers of Field's arrest coincided Factor." There was no such
"Worlds in Collision", "Chari- with Stalin's crackdown oil operation, nor has such a
ots of the Gods" and any t h e post-war "nationalist" cryptonym ever before been
number of books attacking Communists who were run h e a r d b y American in-
the Warren Commission or Ding most of the satellites. telligence officials.
proving the innocence of the This crew was notoriously in- But mentalities that will be-
Rosenbergs. dependent of Moscow's dirge lieve Stalin personally started
raga, and the Soviets routed the Korean NVar to tighten his
Steven hangs his scenario them out ruthlessly, replacing
on Allen Dulles, for whom lie them with more amenable grip on the European satel-
claims an anti-Communist puppets. lites will believe even swill
mentality rarely encountered like this.
o u t s i d e the John Birch It Is Steven's contention
Society. Very briefly, in 19-19 that Dulles fiendishly engi-
the Central Intelligence Agen- veered the crackdown, using
cy had (wit.h British help) Swiatlo to convince Stalin
managed- to recruit Josef that held was a dangerous
Swiatlo, a high-ranking Polish A m e r i c a n agent master.
security official. minding an anti-soviet revolt
0
like it wasn't
STAT
Approved- For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01350R000200160008-9