CIA EXPERT TRACES GROWTH OF SECRET OPERATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500110041-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 24, 2003
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: October 5, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

TIE VIRGINIA GAZETTE
Approved For Release 203 103 1A-RDP91-00901R0005
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By Ed Offley
The Central Intelligence Agency
has come a long way, although
some think it has taken the wrong
direction.
Originally enacted by Congress in
1947, the CIA was charged with
gathering and coordinating in-
telligence produced by it and other
federal intelligence agencies.
Today, the CIA is much, much more
than that: It has evolved into the
core of a shadow government,
whose edifice is unrecognizable and
whose power is unstoppable.
C That's the opinion of one
government official whose job
enabled him to learn more about the
CIA than most of its own employees
vever could. L. Fletcher Prouty
served as the Pentagon's chief
support officer for the CIA for nine
years from 1955 to 1963. As a full
colonel in the Air Force, he was not
constrained by the CIA's oath of
secrecy.
In Hate August, 1955, Prouty was
ordered to establish a CIA support
office in the office of the Secretary
of the Air Force. In 1960, he tran-
sferred the office to the office of the
Secretary of Defense, and later
expanded the support facility under
the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the
Pentagon. Prouty retired from the
Air Force Dec. 31, 14663.
Documented history
Prouty has written a documented
history of the CIA, which traces its
birth under the National Security
Act of 1947, throui h the "activist"
directorship of Allen NV. Dulles, who
brought the agency into clandestine
operations, and tlurous;h the CIA's
deceptive role in getting the United
States into the Vietnam %Var.
"The Secret -Team" (1973,
Prentice-Hail ), presents an in-
dictment against the CIA, saying
doing so has become a threat to
American democracy at home and
international stability abroad.
In an interview in Williamsburg
last Thursday with The Virginia
Gazette, Prouty said that- most
accounts of the CIA are misleading,
because few people know that only
10 percent of the agency's activity is
concerned with the gathering of
intelligence. "If you know what
you're talking about," Prouty said,
"You know that 90 percent of the
agency's activity is in clandestine
operations."
Power Of Exclusion
Prouty defined the "secret team"
as personnel who have access to
secret intelligence, which is "the
really powerful stuff - inside in-
formation, advance knowledge,
satellite data, agent data. This is
what breeds the team." He added
that the concept of "need to know"
extends a total power of exclusion to
those not on the team.
Who is on this team? Prouty
explained that it begins with the
National Security Council and the
top executives of the CIA, and
extends to a ring of Executive
Branch officials, senior military
officers, "think tank" analysts and
leaders of the education and
business worlds. "Henry Kissinger,
by law (in his role as Presidential
advisor for foreign affairs and
chairman of the National Security
Council), leads the team," Prouty
said.
The National Security Act of 1947,
as amended, states: "Powers and
duties of the CIA-403.(d)(5) to
perform such other functions and
duties related to intelligence af-
fecting the national security as the
National Security Council may
from time to time direct."
Loophole Used
telligence gathering and into
clandestine operations during the
early 1950s, Prouty said in his book.
The chief architect of clandestine
operations was Allen Dulles,
director of the CIA during 1950-1951.
In "The Secret Team," Prouty
wrote that Dulles' appointment as
head of the agency "foretold the
existence of a vast, secret in-
telligence organization, a top
echelon clandestine operations
facility at White House level, a
hidden infrastructure 'throughout
other departments and agencies of
the government, and the greatest
clandestine operational capability
the world had ever known...."
The Intelligence side of the CIA is
now little more than a "cover" for
the CIA's ultra-top secret
operations, Prouty told the Gazette.
Pouring It Out'
"They (intelligence branch) have
a job to do - to provide the
President with intelligence. So they
pour out their stuff day after day,
like a newspaper or magazine,"
Prouty said. "But their big gripe is
that people don't read it, and even if
they read it, they don't heed it."
Prouty explained that the main
function of the CIA's intelligence
branch has been the preparation of
the "national intelligence
estimate," an intelligence situation
report prepared for the President
and other top government officials
with the freshest information
gleaned from-the CIA's worldwide
network.
"Those reports are very matter-
of-fact," Prouty said. "They'll say,
for instance, 'We're sure there's
going to be a coup in Chile.' And the
.next day they'll say, 'Every ap-
pearance is'that the coup d'etat will
take place within the next 30 days.'
They keel) pouring this stuff out.
"We Told You"
"Well, sure enough, sooner or
later there's a coup d'etat, and they
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they still subject to the orders of the CIA? the
CIA would like to have it one way, and then to
have it overlooked the other way."
"Are thew men really former CIA men or
s -TJ-yxplosive as the Watergate revelations have been, no
disclosure has been more ominous than the 1970
Domestic Intelligence Plan attributed to the pen of
JL-j -font Charles Iluston. The plan, as revealed last
June, provided for the use of electronic surveillance, mail
coverage, undercover agents and other measures to an ex-
tent unprecedented in domestic intelligence gathering. This
program was to be directed by a committee of representa-
tives from all of the national intelligence agencies. It goes
far toward justifying the worst paranoia Americans have
felt during the past quarter century over the growth of
secrecy and deception in our government. Much of this
anxiety relates to what might be called "the CIA Men-
tality," the stealthy abuse of power and the practice of
deception of the American public--all performed under the
cloak of secrecy and often in the name of anticonununism
and national security. In fact, wnat makes the Watergate
L. Fteleluv Prouty was the stir Force officer in cliarce of ,tit Force
support of the C'A, a pori1iart lie' held front 1) 5 to I Qe,3. His
office pill 111111 in vot'Sla it contact ieitii the tore officers oJ, the
&ttrl/pence Cst:1/i iimelir, and lie has waggled to orrr ?0(1 ruuntrres
at ('Ft r, yriest. 1/c is one' of the Jo le prople teeth in.ri le /ou'nh' lire
of the (7.1 who tear not rce;iiircd to take a lit0 tine,' 0.:1l1 0] C.
I/is book, 'I he Sectct I e'.tnt, is puhlishcd b l'renticc?1Ja(1.
case different from other scandals is that the system and
methods used, the means by which it was all planned,
staffed with experts, financed clandestinely and carried out
was all taken from the operating method of the CIA.
The Central Intelligence Agency was created, and its
powers and responsibilities defined, by the Natior:al Secu-
rity Act of 1947. Its character was developed over span of
l l years by its greatest mentor and guiding spirit, Allen
Welsh Dulles. The "Frankenstein" product of this implau-
sible union of a well-intentioned law and of a scheming
opportunist is the agency as we find it today.
Before 195 when Dulles became the Director. Central
Intelligence (DCI ), the CIA was primarily concerned with
performing its assigned task: as the central authori:v for all
of the various intclli,ccnce organizations of the tiuveritment,
the CIA's business was to collect and interpret information
gathered by other intelligence units. But that ill soon
changed.
In 19-15, President Truman established a comrnitti'e to
review the CIA, to make reconuncndations for ,:ntie'vC-
mcnt and to evaluate its past pc`rtorntancc. -she nte'nb.rs of
this conunittee were Allen Dulles, \liithias (eeiiea, and \\il-
li,trn Jackson, and their repot was without question the
most important single document on this subject cvdr pub-
Approved For Release 2003/12/03 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500110041-9
by L. Fletcher Prt_olity
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