SPOOKED SPOOKS AT THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120039-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2007
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: November 28, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/08/20: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120039-9
A : y; Gii ,APPEAR E~
Spooked Spooks at the CIA
Dismissal by Xerox and unauthorized history
The Nation
throw governments and spying
on U.S. citizens, have damaged
the reputation of the CIA. But
only a small minority of agents
were involved in such skuldug-
gery, and a far larger "part of
the directorate's job has been
the basic covert gathering of in-
telligence about potential ene-
mies. Among those being fired
are veteran officers with distin-
guished careers as undercover
agents abroad.
CIA Director Stansfield Tur-
ner and his top aides have been
jolted by the intensity of the
protests from the fired spies.
Yet the outcry is partly Turner's
used infrared devices to spot the
cooking pots of Che Guevara's
guerrillas in Bolivia. Concludes
one angry agent "A lot of guys
will wind up selling real estate."
The agency is in turmoil be-
cause at least 800 of its employ-
ees are to be "terminated." All
are members of the CIA's 4,500-
man Directorate of Operations,
the clandestine branch whose
activities, such as trying to over-
hat's a spy to do when he gets fired?
Some 200 CIA secret agents
who have received pink slips in the first
wave of a planned two-year cutback in co-
vert personnel have been hitting the
streets in search of jobs. But who really
needs experts on secret information gath-
ering, conspiracy and political subver-
sion? "Hell, we are simply unemploy-
able," complains one such agent. "No one
will have us."
A number of the fired intelligence of-
ficers are fluent in difficult languages
-Hindustani, Arabic, Japanese, and so
forth-but colleges are -reluctant to hire
CIA veterans as teachers. Some of the
agents have hopes of selling their services
to industrial-security companies that of-
fer protection for multinational executives
and their plants. The CIA is trying to help
its cashiered officers, instructing them in
how to write a r6sum6 without explain-
ing in detail that a previous job, for ex-
ample, was to lead airborne missions that
not even a 'Thank you and on to hell.' "
CIA Director Stansfield Turner
Below, copy-machine dismissal memo sent
to some 200 agents. Blacked-out words
contain name of employee's supervisor.
Despite all the complaints,
the cutbacks will continue, and
the CIA's covert branch will
grow leaner, if not tougher. Per-
haps the ultimate worry is one
STAT
TIPlF
28 November 1977
William W. Wells -
Deputy Director for Operations
technological capability for gathering in-
telligence had improved so much that far
fewer field agents were needed.
The CIA has become proficient with
observation satellites, interception of for-
eign radar and microwave communica-
tions, and other secret esoterica, but the
notion that technology can extensively re-
place manpower in intelligence work is
hotly disputed. Contends James Angle-
ton, former chief of counterintelligence at
the agency: "Technical intelligence de-
void of human intelligence is dangerous.
Lacking vital on-site inspection, you must
have the capability to penetrate the en-
emy's deception plans." Agents also argue
that U.S. satellites can now be knocked
out by Soviet "hunter-killer" satellites and
thus could be rendered useless in a crisis.
One former high-level insider warns: "We
would be blinded. We would have no ad-
equate staff on the ground to do intel-
ligence or counterintelligence."
Separation
Memorandum for all DO Employees from
DDO dated 7 October 1977; Subject: rY 78
and FT 79 Reductions -- lrnplanientation
This in to inform you of my intent to recommend to the
Director of Personnel your separation in order to achieve the
reduction in operations Directorate strength ordered by the DCf.
1 er my designee will first review
fault. He had William Wells, his deputy
director for operations, send out brusque
photocopied dismissal slips that began
"Subject: Notice of Intent to Recommend
Separation." The typical reaction of one
recipient: "All there was in that goddamn
piece of Xerox was my notice of termi-
nation. Nothing about what I had done,
raised by a U.S. cotinterintelli- '
gence expert: "If the situation
were reversed, and I learned
that the Soviet KGB was firing
more than 800 people, I would
expect our Moscow station chief
to recruit somebody-or be
fired himself." -
Carrying complaints to the
point of disloyalty may be hard
to imagine, but the CIA got a
firm reminder that not all its ex-
agents play by the old-boy-net-
work rules. Last week Random
House published Decent Inter-
val. a 592-page book by Frank
Snepp, 36, an eight-year CIA
veteran who had been a senior
analyst in Viet Nam and was
one of the last Americans to
leave Saigon as it was falling to
the Communists in 1975. Snepp
charges that the CIA and the
State Department inexcusably
botched the evacuation. He
of paring. In a post-Viet Nam retrench- claims that the U.S. not only abandoned
ment ordered by President Nixon, Schle- about 60,000 Vietnamese who had served
singer chopped 750 Operations employ- American agencies, including, in some
ees. Colby and Bush passed on to Turner cases, the CIA, but also failed to destroy se-
a plan to cut another 1,400-roughly 30%0. cret intelligence documents identifying
of the branch-over five years. Turner re- many CIA informers who were left behind,
duced that cutback to 820, but is tying Snepp quit the agency in 1976. The -
to win a reputation for efficient manage- CIA charges that he has both violated his
ment by carrying it out in just two years. secrecy agreement. and gone back on a-,
Four successive Cl- Airwrmm-Jamm I insides in the aeenc v insist that the dis- vromise to Turner that he would submit
Approved For Release 2007/08/20: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120039-9 _ce. Sne a i