SPYING ON SPARROWS ET AL.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200590006-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: October 17, 1969
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

TIME,
Approved For Release 2004/10%1 jcl P88-013 OROOO2OO59OOO6-4
new book It hat claims to reveal it dark
cloakful of hitherto secret tales of
derring-do.
Tully's most startling assertion is that
months in advance of the event it Pol-
ish traitor handed a U.S. Defense De-
partment agent detailed plans of last
year's Russian invasion of Czechosio-
vakia. Intelligence strategists, Tully as-,
serfs, then imaginatively suggested mak-
ing the plans public in an effort to
force a Russian change of heart. As
Tully tells it, Washington overruled the
idea on grounds that the U.S. could
not afford such dangerous brinkmanship
during the Viet Nato war,*
Button Microphone. Tully, it Wash-
ington columnist, has specialized in
books that "reveal the truth" about Gov-
ernment agencies, His purpose this time
is to demonstrate the pervasive and gi-
gantic nature of the U.S. espionage es-
tablishment. Tully credits U.S. espionage
,experts with remarkable success. To hear
him tell it, hardly a sparrow falls to
earth in the world without a U.S. spy
taking note, The book is filled with
what might be called incidental intel-
ligence. In Jordan, a U.S. ? agent was
told a week in advance of the. (late of
the planned 1967 Israeli offensive. (The
U.S. believed the information, but Nas-
ser, who heard it independently, still
had most of his planes on the ground
on the fateful morning.) In Viet Nam,
when an ARVN officer was suspected of
duplicity, special buttons were secretly
sewn onto his uniform: the top one con-
tained a microphone, the second it trans-
mitter, the third a battery; when his
guilt was confirmed by the hidden equip-
ment, he was perfunctorily executed;,
(with no Green Beret-style aftermath).
Finding out so much in so many
places costs $4 billion it year, Tully es-
timates, and involves 60,000 people. The
CtA is not even the largest (or most ex-,
pensive) spy shop, according to Tully.
That honor falls to the National Se-
curity Agency, which takes care of both
making and breaking cryptology codes
on a budget twice that of the CIA's.
Why is so much effort necessary? Tully
is not sure that it is. Even if it is ac-
cepted that the U.S. should secret-po-
lice the world, there is obviously much
wasteful duplication among the agencies.
Tully's popularly aimed Look is hardly;..
conclusive. The author raises questions
far better than he explores them, Con
ros
its
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of keep-
Spying on Sparrows of al. ing any real tabs on the intelligence
THE SUPER SPIES by Andrew Tully. funds it votes. It is possible that the
256 panes. Morrow, $5.95. only complete accounting of the elab-
Everybody loves a spy-unless, of lies in some busy and bulging file in
course, he happens to he real. Then no- Moscow.
body likes him or his dirty work, and
fewer still want to tell about it. Partly .* Both the State Department and the De
as a result, James Bond is a household fcnse Intelligence Agency refuse to comment
word while practically nobody knows ofliciatly, Unofliciauy, they say that they had
the names and numbers of the actual considerable advance knowledge about the de-.:
players in the cold underworld of in- gt?ce of preparedness of Red Army units
tern. t'~ naI 5p not~'ta Ins -and how the attack would be made if it
ApprgMSf`;rAI&{aQao2oeetoore&er
d is s or not the Kremlin would actually authorize
TAT
SITAT
uatton in it provocative and detailed. an attack.
 THE SUPER SPIES - Andrew 'f'ully I'D OCT
Approved For Release 2004/10/13: CIA-RDP