THE SPIES WHO ARE BEING KICKED OUT IN THE COLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120042-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2007
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: November 23, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/08/20: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120042-5
ST. LOUIS GLOBE-DEfOCI>~AT
23 N ove:nber 1977
CIA's pink slips a bonus to Reds
The spies who pre being kicked out erg the cold
(CMS). These boards are tant, longtime friend and spe-
SMITH HEMPSTONE
By
rector Stansfieid Turner has
accomplished in less than a
year what the Kremlin has-
been unable to achieve in 30
years of Cold War: the shat-
tering of the morale of his
own agency's top-secret Di-'
rectorate of Operations.
In his memo DDO.77-8855,
dated Oct. 7, CIA Deputy
Director for Operations Wil-
liam W. Wells informed the
4,500 officers of the agency's
.clandestine services, which,
handle covert operations such
as espionage, counterespion-
age and political and paramil-
itary operations, that they
faced a two-stage purge that
will reduce their ranks by
nearly 20 per cent within the
next 15 months.
In his memo, Wells admit-
ted that "there is no easy way
to accomplish this reduction
of personnel," and conceded
that among the spies to be
kicked out into the cold were
"a number of individuals"
who have made "a valuable
contribution" to the agency
and the security of the United
States.
According to. the Wells
memo, those to be forced out
of the CIA were to be selected .
on the basis of their past
seven years's standing rated
by yearly evaluation boards
conducted by. the agency's
Career Management Staff
grades senior to those being
rated.
Under a curious point sys-
tem-developed by the C:tiMS, a
senior. CIA agent who has
reached supergrade rank and
lived up to his potential has
almost no way of avoiding
vulnerability to the purge: the
only three ways an officer can
accumulate positive points to
wipe out any negative ones is
by having been promoted in
fiscal years 1976 or 1977, or
being evaluated as ..-having
"highest potential" or "may
develop high potential," all of
which are unlikely for any
officer much over 50.
The first 198 CIA agents got
their pink slips in the unpubli-
cized Halloween Massacre of
Oct. 31, and will leave the
agency by March 1 (two of.
them are threatening class-
action suits). Another 622
clandestine operatives will get
their walking papers by June
1, and be out by the end of
next year. And in DDO-77-
8855, Wells warns that if the
normal attrition. rate factored.
into Turner's planning should
lag, "additional employees"
of the Operations Directorate
will be fired in 1978.
Wells, a career CIA officer,
is not the villain in this
weakening of our country's
security. Architect of the cuts
was Robert D. ("Rusty") Wil-
liams, a management consul-
cial'assistant to the 53-year-
old Turner. Williams and
Turner reportedly were urged
on by David Aaron of the
National Security Council, a
former Mondale aide and staff
member of the Church Com-
mittee that cut up the CIA in
1975.-
There is, of course,, some-
thing to be said for thinning
out the senior ranks of any.
organization to avoid harden.
ing of the bureaucratic arter-
ies and to make room at the
top for younger men. That
officers of the Directorate of.
Operations since 1964 have
been able to retire at 70 per:
cent of their pay, at age 50
after five years of hazardous
service would seem to indicate
that many "burned-out cases"
were anticipated.
Yet according to at least
one CIA source who is not
being dismissed, some agents
who are virtually irreplacea-
ble are being forced out of the
agency. If so, the Halloween
Massacre and next year's
purge of the Directorate of
Operations could well cause
the collapse of some vital U.S.
spy networks in Europe and
the Middle East.
In fairness to the Queeg-like
Turner, it has to be said that
his two immediate predeces-
In short, what the U.S.
needs is a balanced intelli-
gence capability. It needs sat-
ellites and electronic inter-
cepts, historians and physi-
cists, psychologists and soil
experts.
But the U.S. also needs
tough, dedicated clandestine
operatives willing and able to
go out into the backalleys of
the world to play the danger-
ous and sometimes dirty
game forced on us by our
enemies.
Admiral Turner and his co-
terse of black-shoe Navy men
may be right in what they're
trying to do. But they're cer-
tainly wrong .in the way
they're going about it
If a cut-back is desirable, it
ought to be phased. over a
longer period. And men who
have given years of brave and
honorable service to this coun-
try deserve something more I
than a two-sentence pink slip
telling them their careers are
at an end. . i
sors, William Colby and
George Bush, also were com--
milted to deemphasizing the
clandestine services in favor'
of technological intelligence.
gathering devices such as sat
ellites and electronic inter-
cepts. t =` .
In part, this was no more
than recognition of the ad-
vances made-by science In
this area. But It was also
linked to a post Vietnam, post-
Watergate revulsion for cov
ert operations such. as the
"destabilization" of the Al-:
lende regime in Chile.
But if the "cowboys" who-
graduated from General
"Wild Bill" Donovan's war-
time Office-of Strategic Serv--
ices into the. CIA had their
faults of excess, technology,
also has its limits. A satellite
can tell much about an ene-
my's capabilities, but it can
say nothing about his inten-
ing of hunter-killer satellites..
indicates the vulnerability- of
STAT
STAT
Approved For Release 2007/08/20: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120042-5