WHEN GOOD GUYS TURN INTO BAD GUYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100070092-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 92
• Publication Date: July 13, 1975
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

_A
STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100070092-5
13 JULY 1975
tsy SUm LJUwl1110 HtV1J Ir l rc.Cr4Y L. J at L 1JtUVlucu
Washington Star Staff Writer prophetic, if ignored, lesson in a somber Indeed, it is instructive tq glance
Men learn from history that men ne der . novel, he was no less prescient in his 1958 through the men's magazines on the
learn anything from 'history, Hegel rue- Cuban "entertainment", -."Our Man in newsstands in' recent months. The gov-
fully observed.. .. Havanna.". E. Howard Hunt, the Bay of eminent spooks and gumshoes who were
Assuming that a democratic society .:Pigs Mastermind; the.poison meals and :.once the staple of male romantic fanta-
that maintains governmental agencies to.. cigar for Fidel; the comic exploits of the sies are now pictured either as buffoons
snoop on its cwn citizens and eliminated CIA-hired Mafia:-Gana- that Coundn't or villians. No memoirs of two-fisted G-
vexatious foreignerss. at some variance Shoot Straight- they are all but the his- Men out gunning the mob, no sagas of
i
with.its own historical: lessons, it seems torical progeny of Green's Wormold, the CIA operatives seducing some Soviet Ni-
pointless to quarrel. with Hegel. -Indeed, English ? vacuum cleaner salesman i Kn remlain's the nuclear better to secretsmake off with the
the proof of his. dictum is that we. should Havanna.; who is co-opted by_ ..British Kreml. Far from it.
be so astonished at the recent sordid.dis- intelligence .-to supply espionage details The -soil in: which FBI-CIA. clownish- . :
closures about the, U.S._intelliaence com- of :Batista's - Cuba and in desperation ness and/or wickedness originally took
munity. After all', 'evidence of the'amok sends London. the blueprint of his vacuum root was, of course, Watergate. Liddy,
qualities of the CIA'-and. FBI has. lain . sweeper The blueprint is: taken for-the. ? McCord and Baldwin were former FBI
about largely unrernarked for years: The 'design of a Cuban nuclear weapon - in a agents; Hunt and McCord were ex CIA
'-CIA' assassination:, attempt on Prince bizarre historical foreshadowing- of the-. men and Barker, Sturgis. Martinez were
Sihanouk has been known for a decade; Cuban Missile Crisis. contract employes. As it turned our, this
similarly, the FBI:bug on Martin Luther "Greene has. Wormold. -reflect on- ' the '') CIA-FBI Old Boys' Club. Mission for
King. The CIA's use of foundations:andCold War lessons of the vacuum cleaner Nixon was not without Gestapo over-
labor unions as cash conduits, the agen- industry: "Take Phastkleaners and Nu- tones, though the group's execution of it
.'cy's financial relationship with the Na-! cleaners. .There's not much difference had a kind of Keystone Cop ineptitude.
tional Student Association and the New. between the two machines any more than And so, as Watergate exposures spread, I
York Police Department - these are but there is between two human beings, one ultimately entangling the FBI's COIN-
a few .ancient. examples of the CIA'S Russian - or German - and one British. TEL and the CIA's domestic'intelli ence s
domestic :-intelligence., operations.. that..:-. There. would. be no competition and no ope ratio ns
arid ass ssin [ion plots, t the flourished with a headline and faded with war if it wasn't. for the ambition of afew- d. P b
a shrug: -(men in.both firms. Substitute CIA for averetfigure of ridicule;
snoopers
. - lon, trite
"Phastkleaner" and KGB for "Nuclean_ other,
EVEN THE REPORTED principal othey :G ere a secret government, a p . er and you have the secret dynamic that national civil liberties menace.
item. in the CIA assassination dossier drives an espionage. agency, ours and.
prepared by the Rockefeller Commis ' theirs alike. THE JUNE ISSUE of True-a rnaga-
sion, th agency's assistance in the, 1961 ., Art and History? The are fine things,
shootinge of Rafael Trujillo, turns out to ' ;-but- not teachernot-at least in the tine that formerly rated CIA F131 feats of
have been published with convincing de pervasive sense required to force at- derring-do in the same league with deep ?
sent ass the society irony . sea, fishing, grand prix race driving and
-tail in the April 13;..1963. edition of The titudinal changes in a mass
1Vew Republic - though at the time the There is, of course, at pr big game hunting -- exploits, the comic
e
magazine. saw fit-. to. delete President. g ificantl aspect of the U.S. espionage nexus. We
-that we are receptive - sign y, for. starters, the `:Iater "dirty.
Kennedy's possible knowledge:, of _ the.. some. say overly receptive - to the dis- get,
trickster" memoirs the IWatergateKelly, Don plot::'Che article caused. so little stir..that closure of the scope of governmental n .
The. New Republic's own editors- had to egregiousness, both in grand designs like' Segretti's operative in the Florida. pri-
be reminded of their own considerable:: Vietnam and in petty ones like the CIA's [nary. black-propaganda campaign
and. ;..and ..FBI's statutory and constitutional against Sen. Edmund ivluskie. In'breath-.,,
scoop a mere decade after the fact
::. -Alas, the problem-with.the FBI the abuses. That feverish intensity which less collegiate terms' Kelly tells readers .
---..CIA has. not. been'a derth of information-, traditional) enlightens the end? how he set off stink bombs at Muskie Pic-'. about them, but rather a kind of cheerful? Y a ;.. _ nits; hired. a nude co-ed to parade in
sometimes even avainglorious. indiffer front of Sen. 'Ed's Gai:zsv'Ile. motel,` I
BE THAT AS it may something of a ?
:ence to their historical mearling:_ re-learning process is underway in the shouting ' I love Muskie; unleashed
. mice, birds, and tricky questions at
`And if Wien learn from history.. that
pop culture and mass journalism that
conferences, and even
hey learn nothing from it, what do they dominate our whole society with an Muskie planned a prereipss to contheferent s an Confer- even :learn from art? 'About the same. In..the' immediacy that history and art can
_.. . , _ -._ .___ _ ence in order to sign Le Duc '1'hn's name
.:one key prophylactic text for our policy
makers there was Graham Green's 1955
Vietnamese novel, "The Quiet Ameri-
'can." The American of the title is Alden
Pyle, an apposite upper-class,.-Ivy,
.League CIA kind of name. Pyle, as
.Greene describes' him, "was impregna-
,.'?bly armoured by his good intentions and
'his ignorance." He is our old friend, the
American Innocent, determined to carry
the day overseas by his well-intentioned
arrogance born . of'- enfeebled ..Puritan
heritage. The British journalist Fowler
tells Pyle: "You and your like are trying
to make a war.,with the help of people
who just aren't interested . . . they don't
want our white skins around telling them
what they want ... Isms and Ocracies."
Fifty thousand American lives later, it
sounds a bit like Dr. Kissinger's recent
address to the Janan Society..
make mucn onierenae 1J 111VUL. 11, -, - Kelly's tale is related in-,.an enthusiastic
for example; a fact that-the Vietnam War.. frat-house tone, its hortatory impact on a
was. universally perceived as a? tragic more subliminal level is to remind us
loss for years ,before its final terming- through comedy of the exceedingly cian-
tion. This perception was drummed into v:eb.;;e weave when First we
the public consciousness not only by gerous
practice to deceive,
newspapers,'. magazines, and TV news- 'As an ever: more jocular reinforcement
casts,:- but, by popular- music,- television of this point, True also treats'us to a
talk shows -and even sitcoms. Still, the first-person account of the Great Duch
war dragged on. ess County, New York Drug Raid on
Nevertheless, just as the wickedness of Timothy Leary in 1966. The author, who
the Vietnam War long ago became a led the lawmen's bust, was none other
does. espionage - particularly the sort
ant DJ
practiced by the CIA and the FBI - par-
ticularly the 'sort practiced by the CIA continued.
and the FBI - seem to be having a nega- .
five renaissance of its own.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100070092-5