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[8]INTERVIEW WITH
[10]SAM HALPERN
[12]Ralph E. Weber . 23 October 1987
[13]30 October 1987
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[21]Interview with Sam Halpern
[23]23 and 30 October 1987
[25]INTERVIEWER: As one looks into the background of the Congressional
[26]investigations, what in your mind do you see as the most important factors for
[27]bringing about the Congressional Investigations in 1975? It is an awfully
[28]large area.
[30]MR. HALPERN: I think if you look into the history of the background of why
[31]the thing started it began long before the Seymour Hersh articles. The
[32]Congress was planning to go into something like this anyway for a whole
[33]variety of reasons. I think Morton Halperin and his group on the outside as
[34]well as the ACLU and liberal Senators (particular Senators) were itching to
[35]get at this for a long time. I am trying to think of the name of the Che is
[36]now a Washington Post reporter) investigative reporter (I'm trying to think of
[37]his name but I can*t) who was in Government for a while, didn't like what he
[38]saw largely as a result of the Vietnam War. Oh, Walter Pincus.
[40]INTERVIEWER: Walter Pincus? |
[42]MR. HALPERN: Walter Pincus had quite a bit, I think, to do in the background
[43]in organizing this whole effort. And not many people realize that the title
[44]Cit is a long winded title) of the Church Committee was actually a title that
[45]was prepared by the staff people months before the Church committee was even
[46]heard of or even Senator Church knew what was going on.
[48]INTERVIEWER: Is that right?
[50]MR. HALPERN: It will take’me some time to look for it but remind me to ook
[51]for it. I put together some language on this many years ago in terms of the
[53]inner-workings, what was going on behind the scenes among the staff people in
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[62]the Senate to look into intelligence across the board. CIA was just one of
[63]the targets, I guess one of the main targets,. but not ‘the only one. And it
[64]was just a happy (from their point of view), a happy combination of
[66]circumstances. Seymour Hersh was looking at different things and had access
[68]to different sources and wrote those two stories in December of '74, which
[70]just dovetailed beautifully with what they were trying to do and brought
[72]together what they needed and what. they wanted. And that is where the title
[74]came from something the Church group came up with the title. It was the
[76]staffers. and the various other committees who had worked this out months
[77]before. And by the summer and early fail of '74 these guys were ready to go
[78]and when views from the ‘Church Commi ttee “impetus came, there it was. They had
[79]the title, they had the paperwork, they had everything done, and they just
[81]pushed it through.
[83]INTERVIEWER: Do you feel their efforts along these lines even pre-date the
[85]Watergate investigation?
[87]MR. HALPERN: Well I don't know if it pre-dates: the Watergate or not. I can't
[88]say. I just don't know. I think there were some possibilities of going in
[89]tandem with the Watergate. But I don't think that. the Watergate problem
[90]itself was what these guys were interested in but I wish I could identify them
[91]better. They were targeting against intelligence as such and they succeeded.
[93]INTERVIEWER: And some of it was disillusionment with the... .
[95]MR HALPERN: Disillusionment with the Vietnam War. No question about that.
[97]‘There was another guy. The name was Paul and the reason I say that - the last
[99]name was Paul - because we;'in the working of the intelligence officer, we had.
[100]a hell of a time with two Congressional teams that used to go out for
[102]Congressional committees -- these were staffers. One was made up of Pincus
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[111]who later became the Washington Post guy. Pincus and Paul (I am trying to
[112]remember what the first name of Paul was) but we always regarded them Pincus
[113]and Paul: P squared. -
[115]INTERVIEWER: That is P-A-U-L? . .
[117]MR. HALPERN: P-A-U-L, yes. And they were problem children in terms of having
[118]to advise the field; the State Department had a similar problem advising the
[119]Embassies on how to handie these guys and how to brief them, what to brief
[120]them. We weren't trying to hide anything, or kid them or lie to them or
[122]anything like that, but it was a matter of how you really work with these
[124]. people to try to get them to understand what you are trying to do: These guys.
[126]were always traveling around Southeast Asia, in particular, and it was mostly
[127]during the Vietnam War problem. _And the second team (we called them L&Ms)
[128]first the L stood for - Lowenstein was the L (and I'll-be damned if I can
[129]think of what the M was). But. I think in looking into The New York Times in
[130]1973 and 1974 long before the Watergate thing and the Church Committee
[132]business began, these. guys were always floating around as Congressicnal
[134]staffers. I forget if they were the Senate or the House but anyway they had
[136]these two teams which were real problems in terms of the Executive branch of
[137]the government having to deal- with the Congressional branch of the
[138]government. The old conflict of foreign policy that lives in the
[140]Constitution. I think the Constitution was made that way, to. have the
[142]‘stresses and strains that we still see today.
[144]INTERVIEWER: Were these teams looking at the domestic?
[145]MR. HALPERN: No, no. This was all foreign. .
[147]INTERVIEWER: Oh, all foreign.
[149]MR. HALPERN:. They were all looking at foreign at that point. They had
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[158]nothing with the Church nonsense and MHCHAOS. It was all in the foreign
[159]affairs field. And they were mucking around all over the place trying to get
[160]into stuff which we held as classified both we the State Department, the
[161]Defense Department, what have you. Including the use of the Meo tribes in
[162]Laos, it came out some money was involved, people were using Air America was
[163]used, all that kind of stuff. These people were not representatives of the
[164]then Intelligence Oversight Committees and with the advice of the then .
[165]Oversight Committees (the four of them we had) we had to be careful as to what
[167]we told these peopte from different committees of the Congress. The four
[169]oversight committees were jealous of their prerogatives you could imagine
[171]particularly in the days when you had real strong men running the Congress and
[172]they did not want all of these other committees, in. terms of jurisdictional
[174]fights, mucking around in what they were supposed to be handling it. -And so
[176]~ somehow we were caught in the middle of the jurisdictional fights in the
[178]Congress at the same time we were handling classified stuff we didn't know how
[180]far you can go with these people. They weren't cleared for a lot of stuff.
[181]So they were real problem children. ‘And these two teams were the precursors
[182]to what later became the Church and Pike Conmittees.
[184]INTERVIEWER: Well, were these teams attached to particular committees or
[185]subcommittees?
[187]MR. HALPERN: Yes, well they were representatives of particular committees. I
[189]> just can't remember what.the committees‘ names were.
[191]INTERVIENER: OK, right.
[193]MR. HALPERN: It didn't really matter to us. They were not part of the four
[194]oversight committees. |
[195]INTERVIEWER: They were not?
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[204]MR. HALPERN: They were not.
[206]INTERVIEWER: OK. ——
[208]MR. HALPERN: And the oversight committees, maybe that was one of the
[209]problems, didn't do much oversight as you wel] know. And as a matter of fact
[210]I remember these reports from DCI's coming back saying, "I got nobody to talk
[211]to up on the Hill. They won't listen. All they want to do is give me money
[212]and personnel. -And they say, you know, "Go-do your job." And so this is
[213]true. I have heard. that from senior officers in the jobs I have held at staff
[214]meetings over and over again. The Director came back again and he doesn't
[215]have anybody to talk to. Nobody wants to listen. Nobody wants to: know. And”
[216]there is Senator Stennis and Saltonstal and ail. of those others.
[218]INTERVIEWER: And Russel]? . |
[220]MR. HALPERN: And Russell who sat on the floor of the Senate. You know there
[221]are certain things you have to just accept and not know. about. Or Goldwater
[222]even today, when he was chairman of the Senate Committee ‘said, "This Committee
[223]shouldn't exist." So the four oversight committees never gave us any trouble
[224]really except toward the end, they were very clear about one thing. I think
[225]it was Russell who told I think Dick Helms, DCI -- and you can check the
[226]record on this one I'm sure -- who told him, “this is the last year," (I
[227]forget what year it was, I guess it must have been '71 or something like
[228]that.) This is the last year we are going to fund those Meo tribes for you.
[229]It's getting too big. Turn it over to the military," you know, "and lose it
[230]in the Defense budget." Because it.got to over a hundred million dollars and
[231]“all that kind of stuff, I guess in those days that was a little big. |
[232]INTERVIEWER: Well did you have the impression besides Pincus that Paul and
[234]L&M were also Vietnam veterans or. . .?
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[243]MR. HALPERN: I don't know if they were Vietnam veterans as such. I think
[244]they did not like what was going on in Southeast Asia. And the so-called
[245]Secret War wasn't a secret in Laos. It wasn't a secret war, for God's
[246]sakes. How could it be secret if the press was writing about it?
[247]INTERVIEW: Sure. | |
[249]MR. HALPERN: It was the press that gave it the name Secret War. The Senators
[250]and the Representatives, they knew what the hell they were appropriating. I
[251]mean, at least the committee members did when they put down money into the
[252]budget, and all the budgets and all that-money was cleared by Congress. The
[253]CIA doesn't print its own money for God's sakes. Somebody had to appropriate
[254]the money, and it was there. And as a matter of fact it was (what the heck is.
[255]his name> Saltonstall, I think.
[259]“MR. HALPERN: Symington. I'm sorry. Symington was the guy who later got Dick
[261]Helms in trouble in ‘73 in front of the Church Multinational Corporation
[262]Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee and not his own committee. It.
[263]was Symington, Christ, he reviewed the troops out in Laos. Bob Jantzen who
[265]was then Chief of Station, Bangkok, arranged for (I forget who the heck was
[267]Chief in Laos and Vietnam), but anyway, he went up to the Meo tribes and
[269]reviewed them and then he goes, "I never heard of things like this." What are
[270]you going to do with them when they do when they do that? So, but that is
[271]much later. I mean, earlier than the Church Committee itself, the one we all
[272]know about. But this was all background in terms of, I think, it was the
[273]Vietnam war basically that ‘got people upset, the problem of the war.
[275]INTERVIEWER: Did you also have the feeling that there was a different
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[284]attitude that threat of the Soviet Union wasn't as great. Not necessarily
[285]seen that way in the Agency but outside the Agency? 7
[287]MR. HALPERN: Oh. By that time people were looking at Vietnam. They weren't
[288]looking at the Soviets. There is no question. I am talking ‘73, '74. There
[289]was no question about that. The spirit of Detente may have something to do
[290]with that. The spirit of Glassboro,. do you remember Glassboro, NJ?
[291]INTERVIEWER: Sure, yes.
[293]MR. HALPERN: Johnson, which began even before Henry and Nixon and what have
[294]you. But I think that all, I think, was totally overshadowed by Vietnam. I
[295]think that was one of the big problems, the Vietnam War. . |
[296]INTERVIEWER: And you saw this not only in the public but also in the Congress.
[297]MR. HALPERN: Uh huh. No question.. No question. I don't think Congress ever
[298]really understood -- well, I know they never understood what Jim Angleton was
[299]talking about on counterintelligence. Hell, for that matter very few people
[300]in the Agency I think really understood that one. And I didn't have any
[301]appreciation of it either until I got into the job as the Exec for the DOP.
[302]Because unless you see an overall world picture it is hard to imagine this big
[303]thing happening around you when you are worrying in one little area. But
[304]anyway, I honestly think it was Vietnam that upset the apple cart. Watergate
[305]just added to it. | .
[306]INTERVIEWER: Just added to it.
[308]MR. HALPERN: The frosting on the cake I suppose or the ‘whip cream on the
[309]banana split. Whatever you want to call it. But I think with Vietnam that
[310]hurt most of all. ° , -
[311]INTERVIEWER: So even if Watergate hadn't occurred, it was moving toward
[313]investigation.
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[322]MR. HALPERN: It would have been. No question. No question. Because if I
[323]remember it correctly, the P&P and L&M teams were concentrating on Southeast
[325]Asia and looking into what the US Government as a whole was doing, not just
[327]CIA, but they didn't like anything that was going on in that area and I think
[329]that is what began gnawing away at the thing and broke it apart.
[331]INTERVIEWER: OK. -
[333]MR. HALPERN: You know in terms of an operation these guys did a magnificent
[334]job in terms of their objectives. They, in effect, were able to stop the
[335]whole machinery of government and wreck the intelligence system in the entire
[336]community, not just CIA: And it is going to take of couple of generations to
[337]rebuild it. If we ever can. You can't go home again. That is for sure. But
[338]to rebuild what we had at one time is going to take at least a couple of
[339]generations. Hell, it took us 25-30 years, that's a whole generation to get
[340]the thing organized and’ then it came apart. It really came apart. And a lot
[341]of this, because of the Vietnam, also had an effect not just inside the
[342]government but it had the effect of the recruits you got. fven as early or
[343]late, whichever way you want to look at it, from about 1970 on, we had been in
[344]the war in Vietnam, for five years by then. The recruits, the new people
[345]coming in, who passed all the tests and what have you, and been through the
[346]first training courses and what have you, and they were on their first
[347]assignments from the desks or some of them even going overseas. for instance.
[348]The ones that I saw, and I made it my practice sitting in the DDP's office as
[349]the Exec, to talk to as many young officers as I could. Always had an
[351]excuse: a cable who was coming up for release by the DDP, or going up to the .
[352]DCI coming through the channels, I always was able to call the guy who wrote
[353]the thing. I didn't care about the guy who coordinated, I was interested in
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[362]who wrote it. And to talk to them. If you have to stop let me Know.
[363]INTERVIEWER: No, we are fine, keep going.
[365]MR HALPERN: Anyway, I used to talk to these fellows and women to see what
[366]made them tick and it was a very difficult job listening to them many times
[367]when they had all these bright ideas about intelligence, how you could do this
[368]and how you could do that. ‘And I had to bite my tongue and say, “Well, wait a
[369]minute. You know, we tried that 25 years ago or 20 years ago and it didn't
[370]work." And you couldn't just dampen their spirits by pouring cold water every
[371]time they would come up with an idea, and yet somehow you had to try to get
[372]them interested enough to look into the history of what happened and how you
[373]did this and how you couldn't do this and how, why certain things would seem
[375]beautiful when you dream them up and write them down on a piece of paper. In
[377]. the real world it just don't work. And we learned the hard way. All of us.
[379]Trial and error. But you hope that the next group coming up didn't have to go
[380]through that same torture if they would look at the record. And my concern
[381]was that very few people were borrowing stuff out of the registry. Very few
[382]people were interested in going back into the history of what took place and
[383]certain activities. And you can't get it all out of a classroom. :
[384]INTERVIEWER: Right.
[386]MR. HALPERN: And this was one of the things that bothered me while I was in
[387]that job for those last few years is that: how do you pass on the expertences
[388]so that people understand and learn without feeling that they are being pushed
[389]down, without feeling that they are being squashed? Because you want
[390]initiative. Half the business in dealing with human beings is initiative and
[391]I don't know enough about the technical side but I know enough about the human
[393]side. But you have to stop them. Why spin wheels? Why push a lot of paper
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[402]through if they're going to be disapproved anyway? And yet keep them
[403]interested enough. And that's a tough job.
[405]INTERVIEWER: And were these recruits, say, '70's - were they much different
[406]from those that you would have had in the ‘60's?
[408]MR. HALPERN: Yes, the early '60's.
[410]INTERVIEWER: The early ‘60's?
[412]MR. HALPERN: Before the Vietnam war. A lot of people were coming in, and I
[413]blame the educational system for this, in terms of the teachers they had. And
[414]I discovered this to my horror, as I mentioned earlier, about the Colorado
[415]business -- the teachers there were worse than the students. Facts don't mean
[416]anything to them. For example in Colorado it seemed to be, it was perfectly
[417]“all right for the students and the faculty to use the Church Committee .
[418]documents to prove one of their points about how bad CIA was or how. bad DIA
[419]was or what have you. But when I tried to use the same documents quoting
[420]different pages, that was wrong. I wasn't allowed to do that. “That's just |
[421]junk. That doesn't mean anything." And I looked at them and I said, "I
[422]thought I was at a university where you are supposed to be able to argue from
[423]text." No, it was all right for them to do it but not all right for me to do
[424]it. |
[425]INTERVIEWER: It fit in their pattern.
[427]MR. HALPERN: Yea, and so, you know, what do you do?
[429]INTERVIEWER: Were these recruits coming in in the early '70's and so-on --
[430]MR. HALPERN: The early 10's. .
[432]INTERVIEWER: Are they more’ questioning, are they . . .?
[434]MR. HALPERN: No, that was one of the things that bothered me. One of the
[435]things that struck me, both male and female, when they came in most of them,
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[444]when we got into discussions about operations or what have you, they seemed to
[445]be more concerned about when they were going to become a division chief, a
[446]station chief, and when they were going to become DOP and then eventually,
[447]“how do I get to be DCI?" And finally after all of that is over, “What about
[448]my pension rights?" — .
[450]"INTERVIEWER: That's already coming?
[451]MR. HALPERN: Yea, in the very beginning in ‘71, '72, '73, and.at least '70,
[452]‘71 and ‘72 when I was more concerned about talking to them because by '73 we
[453]were having difficulties with the Schlesinger turnover and what have you. But
[454]this was one of the things that struck me very strong, and I was bothered by
[455]it, and these were the best of the applicants. “They had already been through
[456]all of the machinery and all ‘the screening processes and what have you and
[457]these were the shining stars from the academe, and I was concerned about
[458]that. But again, what do you do?
[459]INTERVIEWER: Were others troubled as well?
[460]MR. HALPERN: Yea, some of my colleagues were. They picked it up the same way
[461]I did except ona different level. They were doing it in the branches or in
[462]the staffs, most in the branches, or in the area units and I was looking from
[463]across the board. But it was the same idea. We used to kick this around at
[464]lunch. How do you get instilled into the new group, the upcoming generation,
[465]the guys who are going to take over from us, that there is more to this
[466]business than worrying about your pension? I tried. to tell some of them, look
[467]‘some of us are going to be in this business their whole career and never see-
[468]the DCI's office let alone be the DCI. And so I said, "In all organizations .
[469]not everybody can be the field marshall. Some of them have to be privates and
[470]stay as privates our whole career." And that didn't go down at all.
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[479]INTERVIENER: It didn't go down? ~
[481]MR. HALPERN: No way. No way. You know it was frightening then and I guess
[483]it is even more frightening now. I don't know what the situation is now but
[485]its a bad show. I don't know. Maybe we were brought up in a totally
[487]‘different generation. I don't know different backgrounds. I don't know
[489]whether it was. things like the Depression or World War II or what, but we all
[490]had a different -- we all wanted to get promotions; sure, we all wanted more
[491]money: sure, we all wanted honors and titles and God knows what else and
[492]medals but. . 7 ; |
[493]INTERVIEWER: I wondered the same thing.
[495]MR. HALPERN: You didn't sort of aim what the hell you were doing. "Hey, if I
[496]do this right I'll get a medal." Or again, you may have thought maybe a
[497]couple of these good things I do I'll get a promotion or something like that.
[498]Yea, but that's normal. But you didn't do it for the purpose of the
[499]promotion. And here. these people are talking to me about: how do I get to
[500]this and how do I get to that. I guess it's called career planning or
[502]something. I have been through a lot of that, by the way, on career planning
[504]. froma personnel point of view, trying to chart out people's whole careers,
[506]and I thought that was for the birds. How do you sit there and say in 25
[507]years from now he is going to be in X, Y, and Z. Maybe you can do it.
[508]INTERVIEWER: That will come in with Schlesinger? -
[510]MR. HALPERN: That came in with Bill Colby. Management by Objective and all
[512]of. that kind of nonsense.
[514]INTERVIEWER: I've got some questions on that coming up.
[515]MR. HALPERN: But I remember specifically, and you had better cut and paste
[516]this tape I think, but I remember, for example, when Colby's Management by
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[525]Objective started coming out, one of the articles that was given to us,
[526]written by a Britisher I believe, had a whole series of things -- things not
[527]to do if you are going to go into Management by Objective. And we all looked
[528]at this thing -- we, I mean, all of my colleagues -- every single one of these
[529]points, things not to do before you go. into Management by Objective, we had
[530]already done. So how can we go into this thing? We went into it anyway.
[531]INTERVIEWER: Damn the torpedoes.
[533]MR. HALPERN: Oh yea. It was great stuff.
[535]INTERVIEWER: And was their a feeling -- again when you talk’ about these new,
[536]these young officers coming on in the early '70's -- was there still a feeling
[537]of family or is that a term that really. . .?
[539]MR. HALPERN: Yes, that is a good old term. “Band of Brothers" is a better
[540]term. We really felt, all of us did, we were a Band of Brothers. Oh, sure,
[541]we had arguments and fights and all of that kind of stuff, competition on who
[542]was going to get what job, who was gonna be chief of station or who was gonna
[543]do this, but we still felt ourselves a band of brothers. I Vike that term
[544]better than family. Maybe other people use family but we were different. We
[545]were guys who had gone through the war and had started from scratch, building
[546]an organization and building a concept which was mainly an intelligence
[547]service. And particularly us in the Clandestine Service, long before we got
[548]into this covert action nonsense but anyway we were interested in how you
[549]collect intelligence using human sources and with technical support, but
[550]anyway, we were building a service. We thought we were. An important one.
[551]And even though it only produces a very small percentage of the total take of .
[552]the US Government, we thought it was an important take. It was-never going to
[553]match something like Ultra or this overhead reconnaissance. You couldn't
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[562]‘possibly. But we were zeroing in what we called the hard targets and the
[564]intentions and plans more. than anything else. And as that kind of a group we
[565]were all, “We came up the hard way" kind of thing. And we felt closer
[566]together as a result of that.
[568]INTERVIEWER: | And did the Band of Brothers include everyone in the Agency or
[570]was it ~- ?
[572]MR. HALPERN: No, it was just the Clandestine Services.
[574]INTERVIEWER: Just the Clandestine Services.
[576]MR. HALPERN: And as a matter of fact a lot of us in the Clandestine Services,
[577]I wasn't one of them, a lot of us felt that we should not be part of CIA. We
[578]should be separate. Totally separate and not be involved with anybody else.
[579]And that was one of the fights that went on for a long time between the DDI
[581]and the DDP in that most of the DDI people felt (and the top brass
[583]‘ particularly. felt) that the ODP should be an adjunct of the DDI, responding
[585]only to ODI requests for information and in effect be the DDI's library and
[586]research staff. You know, find out if the bridge is still standing between
[587]"x" and "y" in the middle of Uganda or something like that. And we felt
[588]differently. The DDI felt that they were the national intelligence analyst
[589]group. and we felt that we’ were the national intelligence collector's group --
[590]human sources.
[591]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
[593]MR. HALPERN: And drew big arguments on that. Big fights. And DDI always
[594]felt that we (DOP) should disseminate intelligence that we collect only to the
[595]DDI. They would decide who else was going to get the information. We thought .
[596]that was a farce. We were everybody's collector from the President on down
[597]and it was up to the President to tell.us who else to give the information
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[606]to. And sometimes they did, like the Cuban missile crisis. And the President
[607]stopped the distribution all across. Completely.
[609]INTERVIEWER: Was there any feeling -- you talked about the Band of Brothers
[610]in Clandestine Service - was there any similar feeling in the DOI? |
[612]MR. HALPERN: I don't know. You'd have to ask somebody there that could tell
[613]you. Because I am in effect the Johnny-come-lately to the DDP because J
[614]started out in OSS and R&A, and then moved from R&A over into the SSU, the SI
[615]side -- the Secret Intelligence side. And I know when I was in R&A our
[616]feeling then was we were part of OSS, the whole thing, and even though the SI
[617]people didn't always tell us what they were doing, we found out later that we
[618]shouldn't know. At least I found out later. There was a good reason why we
[619]shouldn't know. We could work with them and we worked very wel] with them in
[620]terms of providing intelligence support for their operations in the field in
[621]Southeast Asia, which was my beat, and we would sit and work with the officers
[622]who were going out (not the agents) but the officers going out to do the job,
[623]and when I was in Ceylon (again R&A) we worked very closely together with them
[624]in terms of planned operations against various parts of Japanese held
[625]territory. And we wrote all kinds of papers for them and pulled together all
[626]kinds of stuff, and the question was in those days we felt more like we were
[627]all part of OSS and OSS was a brand new thing. At least that is the attitude
[628]I felt from talking to my friends about it, even as a part of R&A. But later
[629]when it became a bigger outfit (a peacetime outfit) it was more -- well, we
[630]were part of CIA in ODP but we felt for good and sufficient reasons that it
[631]would be better if we could-work out some decent cover 50 we'd be on the
[632]outside totally devoid and divorced from the government. I don't Know, the.
[633]number of times we had study groups planning on how to do this, to have a real
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[642]clandestine outfit working outside the government, with proper communications
[643]obviously and clearances and what have you. We talked about Colorado before
[644]in one of the papers -- go out to Colorado somewhere. You know, way out in
[645]nowhere. This was in the ‘40's -- the late ‘40's -- or go to some other part
[646]of the country and get hooked up by telephone or wire or what have you long
[647]before all of this computer nonsense. Or even get buried in New York City,
[648]Wall Street, or one of those huge monstrosities that existed even then as a
[649]private company somewhere. . And do actual company business ~- be a real
[650]business, but also run your operation. Well, this has been tried so many
[652]times in terms of study groups and nothing has ever come of it. Nothing.
[654]' INTERVIEWER: Didn't even come close.
[656]MR. HALPERN: No. You couldn't get people willing to provide you the money,
[657]the material, work out all of the legal aspects and it was really a hell of a
[658]job when you consider you have the salaries and social security and workman's
[659]compensation and how do you work out decent pensions for people and making a
[660]career out of it and ali that kind of stuff. You could do it for a few Cas we
[661]have done over the past years). We used to do anyway. We'd have decent
[662]proprietaries. We'd run our own insurance companies and all that kind of
[663]stuff and provide lifetime pensions for people and work on a system that would
[664]work. But you could do it for a few and we did. I don't know what they are
[665]doing today, and I am not interested in knowing. But to do it for a mass, it
[666]would be tough -- very, very, very tough. So when you talk about brothers or
[667]family, as we got bigger the DDP-DDI split was very evident and, as a matter
[668]of fact, at one time, believe it or not, in the very early days DDP case.
[669]officers on the desks were not even allowed to talk to DOI analysts because we
[670]thought, in those days, we thought the DDI analyst would be able to convince
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[679]the clandestine operator enough so that pretty soon the clandestine operator
[680]was captive of the analyst and would be doing his research for him. And we
[681]had plenty of calls from DDI analysts which in effect, the answers were in the
[682]Library of Congress, for God's sake go get them. We are not going down there
[683]and get them for you and we are not going -to burden the field peopte with
[684]going to get those kind of figures for you. They are right there. Go get
[685]them. And we had lots of fights about that. Oh yea. -
[687]INTERVIEWER: I suppose there must have been a lot of tension?
[689]MR. HALPERN: There was. There was. Because we kept saying the DDI analyst
[690]was supposed to do their own research; do your own job. And I said in the
[691]first place, and I remember I got into some arguments with some of them, and I
[693]am sure my colleagues did too, that collecting intelligence via a clandestine
[695]-mechanism is the most expensive, time-consuming way of collecting a piece of
[697]information. You have to have long lead time, you don't have a whole bunch of
[698]agents in various departments of foreign governments so that you can just
[699]press buttons and get answers out of them. And it takes time to identity what
[700]you are looking for. And our job is a selected job and you have to go for the
[701]hard targets. I am not interested in finding out the railway statistics for
[702]you or the tonnage of wheat that goes through ports, for God's sakes. We can
[703]get that from the. Department of Agriculture or Commerce or something. This is
[704]a very, very expensive way to do business. This is why we had to set up
[705]actually a requirements staff which screened requirements so that we wouldn't
[706]get flooded with this nonsensical stuff that should be done by somebody in the
[708]US Government, don't get me-wrong, but not the Clandestine Service. The
[710]collector has got to be so fine-tuned that it is only after you've tried
[712]everything else that you go for this particular thing. And don't expect the
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[721]answer tomorrow. morning. So we had a whole mechanism just in the screening
[723]“process. As a result the orders went out, “Don't talk to each other." Well,
[725]over a number of years we finally broke that down which I thought we should
[727]have.
[729]INTERVIEWER: When would you say what point of time was it pretty well broken
[730]down?
[732]MR. HALPERN: It began to be broken down -~ let me-give you two examples. One
[734]in.1957 and '58 when I was involved as the Exec then for Far East Division of
[736]the DDP. We were involved in an operation in Indonesia with the Colonel from
[737]Sumatra and later the Colonel from Celebes. I told my boss I was going to do
[738]this and he said fine. I personally knew from the war -- from the OSS days --
[739]the analyst jn the DDI, and I think it was OCI, who was on the Indonesian
[740]desk. And-I kept her very well clued on important developments in the
[741]operation as it was going along so that she wouldn't be caught short by things
[742]and would be able to watch what went into the President's Daily Brief and went
[743]into the daily stuff and I mean it, worked fine. But that was on a one-to-one
[744]basis. And how much she told the DDDI personally, that was up to her. I
[745]wasn't going to tell her how to run the show. But it never was on a DDP-DDI
[746]basis, you see, the two got together and said, "Here's the operation." No
[748]way. The second time. we were breaking it even more was after the Cuban
[750]' Missile Crisis. “After the Cuban Missile Crisis. 1963 now -- we have moved
[752]about five or six years.
[754]INTERVIEWER: Right.
[756]MR.. HALPERN: Des Fitzgerald was transferred from Chief of the Far East
[757]Division to take over from Bill Harvey on. the Cuban operation. Under Bill it
[758]was called TFH (Task Force W) and under Des Fitzgerald it was called Special
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[767]Affairs staff. This was after Operation Mongoose and Des had an uneasy
[768]feeling that the intelligence we were collecting on Cuba was just not being
[769]accepted by the analysts. And it wasn't. Well, it wasn't a picture and it
[770]wasn't COMINT. The analyst only believed pictures and COMINT. And maybe .
[771]today they believe telemetry or something, I don't Know, maybe if it's not a
[772]picture it is something else. Anyhow, if it wasn't technical in one way or
[773]another, Cuban sources, the hell with them. And they were just being washed
[774]out. And Des took it upon himself (and he was the kind of guy who would do
[775]these things without getting approval or clearances) He. decided he would ask
[776]the DDI to send a senior officer down to (I say down because we were in the
[777]basement of the building) to come to us on SAS,. and Des would make available
[778]to this one man (a very senior guy -- I don't remember who; my memory has gone
[779]bad), would make available true identities of all sources, and that created
[780]holy hell within the DDP because, obviously, it went up and down the line and
[781]Des' colleagues (as division staff chiefs) thought he was crazy, and it was
[782]just a really big battle -royal on this thing, but Des being Des said, “The
[783]hell with it, I'm going to do it. They're my sources, I'm responsible, it's
[784]my operation, and goddamnit, you have to give credit where it is due." Dick
[785]Helms supported him against the argumentation by all the other senior
[786]officers. Nobody else wanted to go along with this. :
[787]INTERVIEWER: Is that right?
[789]MR. HALPERN: So this guy came down and he sat for days, weeks, I don't know,
[790]and he had access, believe it or not. I thought he was crazy. I thought Des
[791]had lost his marbles. The one thing you protect is sources. Allen Dulles is
[792]supposed to have said, he would even lie to the President if necessary to
[793]protect a source. And that was sacrosanct. You don't telT anybody your
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[802]sources, for God's sakes. You don't even tell the guy who's sitting and
[803]working next to you who your source is. But anyway this was done and after (I
[804]wish I could remember his name), anyway, after this fellow had gone through
[805]all this nonsense and all the information, he came up with a report that
[806]simply, in effect, said to the DDI people involved, “You don't know what you
[807]are missing. These are honest, bona fide sources by and large and," he said,
[808]"I think you are crazy for not using them." So from that point of view it
[809]starts to break down. The animosity, the differences of approach on how you
[810]work this thing, and it was a good thing from that point of view, and I must
[811]say not one of our sources was ever revealed by this man. He kept it, you
[812]know - integrity.
[814]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
[816]MR. HALPERN: And he became one of us, in effect. OK, he knew the sources.
[817]He knew more than I did and I was the Exec. I never asked for sources. But
[818]Des also had another thing as part of this program. Des started to expand
[819]what is called the source description on the disseminations. We used to have
[820]just a one liner or something like that, the guy had access on it. And we
[821]ended up by writing a short paragraph about the source, without identifying
[822]the source, which in effect gave the reader some idea of the source's
[823]reliability, his access to this particular type of information, how Jong he —
[824]had been around with us, and, in effect, we're telling you this is good, bad
[825]or indifferent. ;
[827]INTERVIEWER: They were a tested source.
[829]MR. HALPERN: Yes. And without going into that numbering system or the
[830]grading system which is hard to work with. And this was a departure. And
[831]this was a test again. And only-on the task force we began that before it
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[840]became DDP-wide and the DDP hierarchy was opposed to that too. Because if you
[842]work with us long enough and you don't change these by-lines often enough,
[844]somebody can sit and pretty much zero in on who the source is. And it is a
[845]hell of a lot of extra work. Believe me, a hell of a lot of extra work. But
[846]Des insisted. Again being Des, and then when he became DDP, he put that
[847]system in effect throughout the DDP. And unfortunately he was in the DDP only
[848]a short period before he died in July of '67. So when you're talking about
[849]the time frame of breakdown, it began in ‘63. Des took that system into WH
[851]when he became the Division Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, as it's
[853]. called now LA. And then he took it into the DDP when he became DDP in '65.
[855]INTERVIEWER: My goodness.
[857]MR. HALPERN: And he remained there until 1967.
[859]INTERVIEWER: Gee. That's good background.
[861]MR. HALPERN: So best when you are talking about breakdown of the dispute, or
[863]the fight between the two, there were very valid reasons for both sides to
[864]Maintain the position that they had at the time. I can see their side.
[866]Having been from R&A, I can understand what their problem was, like I
[868]"understand our problem on the collecting side. And so, but gradually, I don't
[870]know what the system is today and how it works, but anyway we began to break
[871]it down, but it took, well, it began in ‘47 and took until ‘67. | 20 years. ©
[872]What you've got is. two different worlds. And this is one of the reasons I
[873]keep telling journalists who talk to me, we're both in the same business. You
[874]are collecting information, and you want to protect sources. That's what we | _
[875]are doing. You do it to get a Pulitzer Prize and we do it to protect the _
[877]United States.
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[886]It took all this time because of the very firm positions held by both sides.
[887]“It took al? this time to get a better approach, a more reasoned approach, to
[888]talk to each other, and both sides still maintained their respective jobs.
[890]INTERVIEWER: And Des was a key figure.
[892]MR. HALPERN: — Des was a very key figure in this and he was doing this mostly
[893]. on his own. He had a hell of a lot of opposition. And, as I say, even his
[895]closest allies, and I was his Exec, and I thought he was crazy. And I told
[897]him so. I said you know you are giving away the store.
[899]INTERVIENER: And Helms backed him?
[901]MR. HALPERN: Finally. It took a lot of doing, but Helms backed him. Helms
[903]said, "All right, let Des try as an experiment. He'll be the guinea pig.
[905]Let's see what happens." And I must say if the DDI man who was chosen Cit was
[907]a very senior, goddammit), he'd been around a long time and had a-marvelous
[909]reputation. Anda man of integrity and all of that, and boy he proved it.
[911]But if he had broken, if he had slipped even just telling the DDI himself the
[913]identities of some of the sources, the thing would have fallen right flat on
[915]its face. But simply because of this one individual being who he was in terms —
[916]of an honest man, Knew what the job was, he knew what had to be done and he
[917]kept it all to himself.
[919]INTERVIEWER: . Great.
[921]MR. HALPERN: He knew more about our sources when he: was finished with the job
[923]than Des did.
[925]INTERVIEWER: Is that right?
[927]MR. HALPERN: Well, Des didn't know what the sources were. He knew them by
[929]cryptonyms. You know, "Radiator," yea he is the guy from the army. You
[930]‘know. Or “Lamb,“ ‘he's the guy that gives the stuff on the Mig-22 or 21. You
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[939]know, that's all you needed to Know. But this guy knew who the sources were.
[940]He’ knew them by name, rank and serial number. And it was an unbelievable
[941]thing that was done. |
[943]INTERVIEWER: And no leaks:
[945]MR. HALPERN: Not a bit. That was the most important’ thing. And I guess he
[946]knew what he was up to and he knew what the consequences of leaking were. The
[947]experiment would have dropped dead in its tracks and nobody would have ever
[948]tried it again. Ever. So it worked. But that's what finally broke it. So,
[949]as I say, you-were up to ‘65, '66, '67 when Des was DDP. |
[950]INTERVIENER: Okay. Earlier we were just touching on Congressional committees
[951]and there are some critics who say the Congressional committees overseeing the
[952]Agency before 1975 were "blind and toothless watchdogs; that members of
[953]Congress were unaware or unconcerned about Agency excesses." What are your
[954]views with regard to Congressional oversight of the Agency?
[956]“MR. HAILPERN: Well, in those days the four committees were not blind, were not
[957]toothless and they were not whatever the other phrase you had there.. The four
[958]‘groups were largely controlled by senior members of Congress who really ran
[959]the Congress in those days. And their concern was: a) not themselves
[960]getting to know too. much of the secrets that went on; and b) they felt
[962]“largely, you pick good people: you give them a job to do, .you give them the |
[963]tools to do it and don't muck around with them. Particularly, in this
[964]particular field. Maybe it was ignorance. I don't know. But that was the
[965]general attitude. As I say and as I have said before, I have had enough
[966]reports from my. bosses. -The DCI was dying to talk substance with some of
[967]these leaders on the Hill, and they did not want to listen. And that, I
[968]think, was wrong. Maybe they could have helped. Maybe it would have been
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[977]different. I don't know. But they weren't blind and they weren't toothless.
[978]They were deliberate on that part. And they didn't deliberately blind .
[979]themselves. They were taken in a little, I think, sometimes when we used to
[981]show. them all kinds of little goodies and fancy gidgets and gadgets and secret
[983]“devices and what have you, just like show and tell. And I used to have to
[985]prepare some of these things or get the stuff from the agent or from rest of
[986]the DDP for the goodies -- and we called them goodies -- to show the Hill.
[987]Well, they weren't always interested in seeing even those things.
[989]INTERVIEWER: Is that right?
[991]MR. HALPERN: Well, "We Know you're doing a good job. Go. Go. Go."
[993]INTERVIEWER: These goodies might. be radios or. . .?
[995]MR. HALPERN: Could be radios, could be concealment devices, secret writing
[996]devices -- all kinds. of gadgets with different kinds of bugs in them. And
[997]obviously they got smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and smaller they got
[999]more and more.heisted into looking at them, but it also meant goodies in terms
[1001]_ of good intelligence we picked up. I differ completely with Admiral Turner
[1003]who said that the years he was a OCI he never saw a piece of intelligence that:
[1004]was worth the life of anybody. I. differ with him about that. There was some
[1005]intelligence which I think was worth more than the life of a person. I can
[1006]give you an example of that later. ‘But, the committees, I think, deliberately
[1007]didn't want to get involved. They weren't lined up or held us for fools. I
[1008]don't think they were fooled a bit. They knew what they were doing. They
[1009]wanted it that way. And they kept it that way. “And even in the staffs in
[1010]those days of those committee people were Timi ted staffs who were cleared for
[1011]all this kind of ‘stuff, and they were not interested in jogging, or pushing,
[1012]or goading their bosses into unnecessary mucking around of what the hell was
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[1021]going on. They just weren't. Usually the staff directors of each of the
[1022]small units were the only ones cleared for most of things and sat in on the
[1023]meetings. .
[1025]INTERVIEWER: They were cleared by the Agency?
[1027]MR. HALPERN: Oh sure.
[1029]INTERVIEWER: They went through the whole, the background. ..?
[1031]MR. HALPERN: I don't know if . . . They weren't given polygraphs. That's
[1032]for sure. At least I don't think so. How they did the clearances I never
[1033]asked. But anyway, they were cleared. So that, people say they were taken
[1034]into camp. I don't think that is the proper phrase. My own feeling is there
[1035]was a different attitude. They weren't out to do investigative reporting, in
[1037]effect, for themselves. They weren't looking for titles, they weren't looking
[1039]. for television headlines. They were just trying to do an honest day's. work,
[1041]quietly, peacefully and get enough information. to know about the budget then
[1042]they got all the budgetary information they wanted, all the budgets went
[1044]through them without an exception. . No question about that, they knew exactly
[1046]‘where every penny was and approved it and what have you and all these
[1048]so-called covert operations were always cleared with the proper committee.
[1050]The committees: had to alert. the OMB in those days, the BOB really, the Bureau
[1051]of the Budget. The BOB wouldn't release money for some of our activities
[1052]until they got the word from the committees on the Hill.
[1054]INTERVIEWER: Is that right?
[1056]MR. HALPERN: Yes, the four committees. So we didn't have a pot full of money
[1057]that we could just willy nilly use.
[1058]INTERVIEWER: Did you have a contingency fund? Modest.
[1060]MR. HALPERN: Well, the contingency fund was up on the Hill. I mean, it was
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[1069]controlled by the Hill. And it is today, I believe. But before you get money
[1070]released by the BOB, somebody up there had to say OK. And that happened on
[1071]every one of the operations I know about. In the Far East, I don't know about
[1072]the European ones, I am sure the system is the same. It was a well-oiled
[1073]machine. Sure, they didn't ask the kind of questions that are asked today,
[1074]but they knew what the operation was. .
[1075]INTERVIEWER: There was a feeling between the Agency and the Congress that
[1076]there was good. liaison? -
[1078]MR. HALPERN: Oh yes. It was overt. Completely. Always. It worked very
[1080]well indeed. And the system worked so that the Legislative Counsel, whether
[1082]it was Pforzheimer or John Warner or anybody else, they Knew who to call
[1084]_ within the DDP, for example. If they were sitting up on the Hill and one of
[1085]the members -- could be a Senator or Representative of the committees --
[1087]_wanted to know something, they knew who to call, and when I had the job they
[1089]usually called me for the DOP because I was able to get them the answer and it
[1091]‘worked very well. In case someone didn't know everything, they knew where to
[1093]get the information. And when Congress asked you gave it to them.
[1094]INTERVIEWER: Do you think this was also a reflection of the view that the
[1095]Agency and the Congress both: saw the Soviet threat as a real threat?
[1097]MR. HALPERN: I am not sure that was part of it. It may have been. But
[1098]that's a conjecture on my part. I think it was more the people we were
[1100]dealing with on the Hill had also been through the same things most of us had
[1102]’ been through. They are all part of the same generation. We were all working
[1104]together in terms of protecting the country. At least we thought we were:
[1105]protecting the country.. The business where some of this falls down is when we
[1106]started, because we had to, start working operations more in the United States
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[1115]in order to get assets to go abroad, and once you start that you're touching a
[1116]very sensitive area and we all knew that. And we'll talk about that later.
[1117]We'll talk about MHCHAOS.
[1119]INTERVIEWER: Yes.
[1121]MR. HALPERN: But until then the consensus was, you know, we've got to have a
[1122]united front, we've got to find out what's going on in the world, we're
[1123]getting more involved in the world, and we all need to help each other. And I
[1125]don't think -- yeah, the Soviet threat was there but it was different, I
[1127]_ think, it was a different -~ I mean, we weren't expecting the Soviets to march
[1129]over the border except very early in the late -- right after the war in the
[1131]‘40's when you had the Berlin blockade and that kind of stuff. Yeah, at that
[1133]time people were expecting the Soviet troops to come marching not only into
[1134]Bonn but also into Paris. ‘But that didn't last into the ‘50's. Tt was a
[1135]totally, sure there was a Soviet threat abroad and later a Chinese Communist
[1136]threat in Southeast Asia, no question of that. And there was a matter of, I
[1137]guess when Dean Rusk said many years later in the ‘60's, something about,
[1138]there is a dirty war going on in the alleys of the world in which we don't
[1139]see, but he said it's important, and, yeah, we were there. :
[1140]INTERVIEWER: Was there much more cooperation? ; ;
[1142]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah, it was total. What broke it down was the Vietnam war
[1143]again and I guess Watergate. When ‘74 came around, I mean the Congressional
[1144]elections of '74 came, and you had a totally different bunch of guys coming
[1145]in, and Congress became 435 on one side and 100 on another side. Totally
[1146]independent kingdoms and principalities. And you had no cohesion and no
[1147]control. I think that's when it all broke. You couldn't go to two or three
[1148]guys on the Congressional Hill and say, “Here are the facts, this is what we
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[1157]' think we ought to do about it. If you agree, fine; if you don't agree, fine.
[1159]Tell us." But these guys could sit up there and they could say, okay, they
[1160]can commit the Congress. As a cohesive unit, they could get those votes when
[1162]they needed them. And if somebody, some freshman Congressman said, “Hey, I
[1164]‘want to know about this." "We'll tell you later buddy, you can't vote." And
[1166]“it worked. ‘Today, there is no way you could do it. We haven't been able to
[1168]do it since the Congressional election of '74. But coming back to what I said
[1170]earlier though, those guys who were working in the committees in advance of
[1172]‘what. later became the Church Committee on Intelligence, they were with the old
[1174]crowd but they were beginning to break. apart then and they were working within
[1175]the framework, and what helped them, obviously, was a totally new Congress in
[1176]'75. And all hell broke loose. .
[1178]INTERVIEWER: Yes, yes, and it still...
[1180]MR HALPERN: And it still hasn't been put back together. Even Tip O'Neill
[1181]couldn't control it. In all what, he had 30 years up there or more, and he
[1182]couldn't control it. And until you get -- I'm not even talking consensus
[1184]now -- but until you get back to some kind of a better hold ona Congress so
[1185]that you don't have these independent kingdoms and fiefdoms and they work
[1186]together more as a cohesive unit on various activity -- talk about special
[1187]interest groups -~ that's where they need them up there. They have to get
[1188]together. I don't care whether it's a special interest group on social
[1189]security and on medicare and on intelligence and on something else and on
[1190]something else but you've got to have better control. ,
[1191]INTERVIEWER: It's really fragmented.
[1193]MR. HALPERN: It's very fragmented. You can't run a government that way.
[1194]Impossible. You don't know who to talk to. And even with the Intelligence
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[1203]Committee, I remember, for example, Senator Huddleston, who was on the Church
[1204]Committtee and later was:on the Intelligence Committee. During the days of
[1206]* the Church Committee he was talking about, “You can't just have CIA or the
[1207]intelligence people talk to a couple of people up on the Hill and that's it.
[1208]You've got to talk to everybody." After he'd been on the Intelligence
[1209]Committee for a while, and I've got his clippings somewhere in my stack of
[1210]clippings, Huddleston said, "The Congress, the members of Congress" -- he was
[1211]addressing his own buddies -- "the members of Congress have to accept us on
[1212]the Intelligence Committee as your surrogates." And that is all we were
[1213]trying to do. ‘In an intelligence community to have an intelligence committee
[1214]be the surrogate -- and there was four of them -- be the surrogate for the
[1215]whole Congress. But Huddletson when he was on the Church committee said, “You.
[1216]can't do that, you can't do that. We all have to know." Well, he found out
[1217]personally.
[1218]INTERVIEWER: He finally changed.
[1219]MR. HALPERN: He ‘changed his mind.
[1220]INTERVIEWER: That's neat. |
[1221]MR. HALPERN: So you Know, that's all they were saying. And it finally, it
[1222]took him a long while to get around to it, but he finally did it.
[1223]INTERVIEWER: Some get educated faster than others. |
[1224]MR. HALPERN: That's right. So when you talk about. . : The ‘74 break, I
[1225]think, was a big thing, a big thing. And I think if the election of Congress
[1226]in '74 had gone a little bit differently, and there hadn't been that total
[1227]break and disorder up on the Hill, the disarray Icall it, which all began So
[1228]with the Vietnam. business and aided by the Watergate -
[1229]INTERVIEWER: And Nixon resigning in ‘74,
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[1238]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, he did in '74. He was pardoned in, what, August of ‘74.
[1239]But I think if the election had gone differently, and there had been some
[1240]control under the Congress -- more cohesion --- the Church Committee and Pike
[1241]Committee might have been prepared a little better. I don't know. I'm just
[1242]guessing. Obviously we can't rewrite history.
[1244]INTERVIEWER: No reruns.
[1246]MR. HALPERN: No reruns, no reruns. None at all.
[1248]INTERVIEWER: Okay.- How about some indications that younger Agency officers
[1249]were troubled by certain domestic practices such as mail openings in the years
[1250]before 1974.
[1252]MR. HALPERN: That's correct.
[1254]INTERVIEWER: Were you aware of these tensions?
[1256]MR. HALPERN: Oh sure. They were all over the place. When the MHCHAOS
[1257]program began, I think it. began in what -- I'm trying to think now -- ‘69, ‘70
[1258]something like that?
[1260]INTERVIEWER: Yes. 7
[1262]MR. HALPERN: ‘70, something like that. Anyway, yes, this was very much feit
[1263]by all the officers, well not all but.a good majority of the officers. They
[1264]didn't like the idea of following Americans abroad unless we had some real
[1265]hard evidence that such and such was happening with an. American and Soviet —
[1267]agent or whatever. But then you had the old question of the chicken and the
[1269]- egg. -How do you find out whether the guy is alone until you follow him?
[1271]_ ‘Where do you begin? How do you get to the point where you Know he is involved
[1273]until you start somewhere?- Obviously rt got out of hand in terms of the
[1275]number of people we started to follow and look at. But it basically began as
[1277]"a way of getting support and finding assets in this country (leftists assets)
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[1286]who could go abroad as bona fide leftists as reporting.mechanisms. .It was all
[1287]targetted abroad. We never targetted it here in the United States. I think
[1288]the record of the Committee proves that, even the Rockefeller Commission or
[1289]what have you. And this was something new, we'd never tried before ona
[1290]massive scale, and we worked very closely with the FBI on this. And most of
[1291]the files we opened up.were names the FBI gave us with duplicate copies of
[1293]what they had in their files on a lot of these Americans with leftists
[1295]leanings and what have you. The officer corps in the DOP didn't like it,
[1297]thought we were going beyond our charter, obviously thought we were trying to
[1298]become a Gestapo, in effect, in the United States. And that was never the
[1299]case. The appeals from various officers from various levels, and it was.
[1301]intensive argumentation, both here and abroad, the appeals went up the line.
[1303]There was no intention of trying to dampen down the arguments or the
[1305]objections or the concerns. The appeals went up, not once, but several times
[1306]-- right up to Helms, the Director -- each and every time these things were
[1307]examined again, looked at again, and orders came down to continue in terms of:
[1308]our target is abroad, not the United States. Everything we are doing here has ©
[1309]to be geared to something abroad. And we even changed procedures on a lot of
[1310]this stuff. It was tightly held information, the cables were tightly held,
[1311]and MHCHAOS itself as an indicator. (The MH was just a digraph of the
[1313]DDP-wide activity.) Everything was done on special channels, special cable
[1315]channels, special pouch channels. It wasn't given wide distribution at all.
[1317]Well, everyone knew the program was going on. We had many a staff meeting
[1318]about this, ODP staff meetings. There was a lot of tension, no question about .
[1319]that.
[1321]INTERVIEWER: And was the tension just with the young officers or. : .?
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[1330]MR. HALPERN: No. It was up and down throughout.
[1332]INTERVIEWER: Throughout?
[1334]MR.HALPERN: Including some of the old hands who didn't like the system,
[1335]didn't like the program. And even those who understood that this was
[1336]basically geared abroad as a counterintelligence operation, just didn't think
[1337]that we should be involved in it. We preferred to have the Bureau or somebody
[1338]else get involved in it. But again, you talk about turf battles and equity or
[1340]what have you, a lot of the liaison services abroad -- the foreign liaison
[1342]_ services. -- we had a deal with. Many of them didn't want to work with the
[1344]Bureau and only wanted to work with us. And you can't have both agencies
[1346]suddenly hitting the same foreign service and asking the same questions. It
[1348]just gets silly. So there were lots of problems on this one and the officers,
[1349]as I say, even some of the old hands, didn't like it. ‘They wanted to go back
[1350]to doing the normal collection job and not go looking for what amounts to, you
[1351]Know, Bolsheviks with bombs under the. bed. And that tension was there and I
[1352]think it continues, and even under Bill Colby-who modified the program even
[1353]more in '73, in late or middle '73 with Schlesinger and Colby. But the
[1354]program by and large continued in a slightly reduced fashion and a different
[1355]terminology and with much more emphasis on doing that over there than in the
[1356]States. I think it's the kind of thing that, you know, you're damned if you
[1357]do and you are damned if you don't. I don't. think we ever convinced everybody
[1358]that what we were doing was within bounds and, obviously, we had the
[1359]information, the information wasn't going anywhere. Nobody was going to court
[1360]on it, nobody was going to get shot, nobody was going to get put in jail. I.
[1361]mean, we were just pulling it all together.
[1363]INTERVIEWER: Would-you say dozens of officers knew about this?
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[1372]MR. HALPERN: Oh, hundreds of them.
[1374]INTERVIEWER: Hundreds of officers.
[1376]MR. HALPERN: Sure. I think everybody in the DDP knew about it. They didn't
[1377]see the traffic, but they Knew about it. | |
[1378]INTERVIEWER: They knew about it?
[1380]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. It was common hall gossip and lunch room gossip and
[1381]what have you. And as I say, there was lots of opposition to it by senior
[1382]officers as well as -- well, in the first place a lot of the senior officers .
[1383]thought that we were taking our time and effort and our assets away from the
[1384]important job, which was the Soviet target. You know, it takes time, it takes
[1385]people, and it takes money. And you only have so much that you can do in 24
[1386]hours a day, and you can't do everything. That's why you end up with what we
[1387]used. to call a Related Mission Director for the priority - trying to do things
[1388]in some kind of priority order. And you can‘t just pick the easy ones. You
[1389]know, you would get a bad report card if you pick only the easy ones. You've
[1390]got to pick some of the hard ones too.
[1392]INTERVIEWER: Where was it thought that these orders came from, relative
[1394]to. .? . -
[1396]MR. HALPERN: Oh, they knew, people knew where the orders came from. They
[1397]knew it was a Presidential directive. Nothing was hidden from them, Oh, no
[1398]question about that. This was a part of the Johnson presidential
[1400]requirement. What he was looking for was evidence of Soviet or domestic
[1401]upheaval in the United States. We couldn't find it. And no matter, and every
[1402]time we told him that, he said, "Intensify your efforts." You know, and as .
[1403]Dick Helms has said, you know, “I only have one president at a time.. That's
[1404]where I get my orders." So what do you do? And if Dick said that I'm not
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[1413]going to do it, there would be a new DCI in 24 hours -- or thereabouts.
[1414]INTERVIEWER: And I think your point that it went up and down wasn't just the
[1415]younger. .
[1417]MR. HALPERN: No, no. It was up and down on the entire hierarchy. There were
[1418]pro and con argumentation and what have you. Now they say a lot of the older
[1419]hands are saying, you know, “We haven't got time to do everything for God's
[1420]sakes. Which is more important: the Soviet target or to find out if there
[1421]are a couple of bucks coming into the country? People are going to be in the
[1423]streets anyway whether they get Soviet money or not." I mean, it doesn't take
[1425]_ very much to get people into the streets in this country, as you can see. And
[1427]that is part of the breakdown. And that is Vietnam. Not Watergate. You
[1429]know, Kent State didn't happen until 1970. We'd been in the war since ‘65
[1431]basically. And I-remember arguing with my National War College colleagues,
[1432]the military and the State Department guys and what have you, and I said when
[1433]we went in. . . Let's see -- the Marines went in in March of ‘65 in Danang.
[1434]The class didn't start until August of ‘65. I was with the class of ‘66, so
[1435]we'd been in there a few months. And we went to a briefing in one of the
[1436]secure rooms down in the bowels of the Pentagon. And this was DCSLOGS (Deputy
[1437]Chief of Staff Logistics) DCSLOGS, and they had a big briefing for us. We
[1439]were all senior officers in the War College with clearances and what have you,
[1441]_ and they were telling us -- this is October of ‘65 -- they had the usual
[1443]Cotonels with pointers attached showing us the charts for what they were
[1445]planning for Vietnam. And the graphs were going like this for five years.
[1447]The number of troops that were going to be in Vietnam -- five years! I looked.
[1449]around at my buddies and I said, “What the hell is going on here? We just got
[1450]there! How the hell you are planning a five year war? You guys are crazy!"
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[1459]I said, “This country -- the only time it's had a war longer than four years
[1460]was the American Revolution. You are not going to have the support of the
[1461]American people ‘if you go that long. It's crazy! You can't plan five years
[1462]ahead." They had half a million men. “Five year plan. This wasn't out in
[1463]public, obviously, in October ‘65. If the American public or the Congress
[1464]knew about that, there would have been a revolt right then. And I told them,
[1465]I argued with my buddies who were members of the State Department a not
[1466]military, State Department. "Oh, Sam, you don't understand the American
[1467]people. They'll go along.with you as long as you do it. It'll be slow,
[1468]sure." I said, "No way. You mark my words. If you plan that way, it's
[1470]crazy. If you're going to go fight a war, fight a war. Don't tickle them."
[1472]Anyway, what you had there’ in ‘65 when we went into the war, and I think
[1474]Johnson thought with the American flag flying nobody was going to dare do
[1475]anything with him, and everybody melted in the background. But by '70 you had
[1476]lost the. consensus in this-country. Totally. And Kent State just added to
[1477]it.. I don't blame Nixon for Kent State. Obviously nobody can. Crazy
[1478]National Guardsmen with young kids, sensitive triggers, and unfortunate
[1479]deaths. But that just added to it. - :
[1481]INTERVIEWER: And you have all the street rioting and civil rights issues.
[1483]“MR. HALPERN: Civil rights is another one in '68. But that wasn't really part
[1485]of the Vietnam problem. That was a totally separate issue. And when you add
[1486]it all together, it was just bad. So that when Johnson says, "T want to find
[1488]out about Soviets supporting all of ‘this stuff," I think he was crazy. But -he
[1490]wouldn't listen. And so we had to: keep going. And so the Officer Corps in
[1492]the Clandestine Services didn't like being taken away from their job. And we
[1493]didn't like being. . . I know this was a big problem too, the Vietnam station
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[1502]got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger -- it was crazy.. We even had what
[1503]was called a Vietnam levy. Des Fitzgerald decided, when he became DOP, he was
[1504]going to have each..diviston and staff charged with producing so many bodies.
[1505]And I mean bodies. |
[1506]INTERVIEWER: To go over.
[1508]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. To go.to Vietnam. Because it got bigger and bigger and
[1510]you had to have men all over the bloody country. And so he wanted some good,
[1512]. some bad, and some middle. But he didn't want all bad. You know, and that
[1514]kind of stuff. And so, we were putting our assets into one little place and
[1515]it was the most important thing, sure, I understand, but that wasn't the main
[1516]target or what the hell CIA was in business for. “We weren't, at least the —
[1517]clandestine side wasn't supposed to be out there fighting a war.” It's crazy.
[1518]And so the people were objecting to that. The officer corps was objecting to
[1519]the Vietnam levy. On: top of that comes CHAOS. and CHAOS really takes us away
[1520]from more of our normal “activity and’ who the hell is going to worry about the
[1521]Soviet target in terms of intelligence .col lection. And by that time, more
[1522]than just Soviet targets, a lot of other targets too. So yeah, there was a
[1524]lot of opposition. ia
[1526]_ INTERVIEWER: Okay. Do have any feeling about the Presidents. Do you feel.
[1528]_that they knew about the mail opening program?
[1530]MR. HALPERN: Oh; in a general way.
[1532]INTERVIEHER: Ina general way.
[1534]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, Presidents don't ask detailed questions. They don't
[1535]normally ask that kind of stuff.- They just want to Know, they want to see a
[1537]piece of paper. They want to know what is going on. And if he is bringing in
[1539]. something hot, he might ask, “Hey, how'd you get this?" But, let me give you
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[1548]another example, not a President but a Secretary of State, Deaiy Rusk. We put
[1549]out at one point, Des was DDP at the time, we put out a very good report from
[1550]an asset from behind the Curtain, if I can stil] use the old phraseology. And
[1551]so, it was a good report. And suddenly we get a call, the DDPs, not the
[1552]office but the DDP mechanism, gets a call, a requirement he get a call from
[1553]somebody in the State Department asking for the identity of the source. The
[1554]guy comes hot footing it up to me and says, “Sam, the State Department wants
[1555]to know the source." I said, "Who in the State Department? State Department
[1556]wants to know. Tell me who." “Secretary wants to know." I said, “Oh, okay.
[1557]You have whoever. you were talking to tell the Secretary to call Des Fitzgerald
[1558]or Dick Helms. It's simple." "I can't say that." I said, “Well, if you
[1559]can't, I will. The man is crazy. We don't give sources." And so, I go in
[1560]and tell my boss that such and such is going to happen. He might get the call
[1562]from Dean Rusk on-the secure line. I tell him what the story is, and he says,
[1564]"Okay I will wait: for the call." And sure enough, I happened to be in the
[1566]office on something else when the call came later that day, and it was Dean
[1567]Rusk. And I could tel} from the conversation what is going on. And it points’
[1568]out that Dean Rusk didn't want to know the identity of the source, never asked
[1569]for the identity of the source, All he wanted to know was how good is this
[1570]piece of information. And Des said, "I'll put my arm in the fire up to the |
[1571]shoulder blade. It's a good source." Knew what he meant. End of
[1572]conversation. You know, Presidents don't ask, Secretaries of the State don't
[1573]ask for details that they shouldn't. They know that. And they've been around
[1574]long enough. I mean, I don't know about Jimmy Carter, but the other guys
[1575]don't. And so, I think Presidents knew in general terms that there was mail
[1576]opening, wire tapping, and that kind of stuff. Weill, they engaged it
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[1585]themselves for God's sake, not the mail opening but the wire tapping, and
[1586]bugging offices or bug somebody elses or tell somebody to bug somebody. Hell,
[1587]it started with Roosevelt himself, you know, nothing new. .
[1588]INTERVIEWER: Was the mat] opening program known very extensively in the
[1589]Agency? .
[1591]MR. HALPERN: No. TH give you an example. I didn't know it.
[1593]INTERVIEWER: You did not know it?
[1595]MR. HALPERN: I did not know it and even when I was Exec to the DDP I knew
[1596]some operational cryptonyms, and all I know was that they were good. sources of
[1597]information. I never asked beyond that. And nobody ever told me beyond that
[1598]and I had no reason to know. I didn't. As a matter of fact, to give you an
[1599]example of how naive I was, when I was called back, right after I retired in
[1600]early '75 to help on getting ready for the Congressional investigations, which
[1601]we didn't even know was going on at the time (this was January of '75), the
[1602]hewspaper stories were talking about mail openings and that kind of stuff.
[1604]And I was silly enough and foolish enough to say to the security guy I was
[1605]dealing with -- the security officer (the Office of Security ran HTLINGUAL) --
[1606]that what we were doing was in support of trying to get information about how
[1607]the Chinese or the Russians were operating and what it took to get .
[1608]documentation and all that kind of stuff -- what you needed. Hell, perfectly |
[1609]honest. I didn't know what the hell was going on. And all I know is that the
[1610]security guy said, "Yeah Sam yeah yeah that's a good idea. We'll think about
[1611]that yeah Sam that's a good idea yeah yeah we'll think about that." They
[1612]never said anything at that’ point that they were running a real mail coverage
[1613]and what have you. And I didn't know that I was doing the normal, you know.
[1614]This fs what you were in an operation for. But it was more than that,
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[1623]obviously. So, it was not widely known.
[1625]_ INTERVIEWER: No. No.
[1627]MR. HALPERN: Information. You might have had access like I did to
[1628]information and you knew a good source or a bad source.
[1629]INTERVIEWER: And you might know the information came from HTLINGUAL. —
[1631]MR. HALPERN: No. I never heard the cryptonymn.
[1633]INTERVIEWER: Never heard the cryptonymn. Okay.
[1635]MR. HALPERN: Didn't even need that. All I knew is that it was a good source.
[1636]INTERVIEWER: Okay. How would you characterize morale in the Agency in the
[1637]two to three years just prior to the Church and Pike Hearings. ;
[1639]MR. HALPERN: Oh, I think it was largely unsettled because in '73 you had the
[1641]. turnover under Schlesinger.
[1643]INTERVIEWER: Right.
[1645]MR. HALPERN: And it was unsettling, totally unsettling. In the end of '72
[1646]when Schlesinger was announced as the new man on the block and everybody knew
[1647]Helms was out, from there on it was utter turmoil and debacle. Both in the
[1648]DDP and God knows, where else.
[1650]INTERVIEWER: The worst you had seen?
[1652]MR. HALPERN: Oh yes. Totally. Never had anything that bad before.
[1653]Unbelievable. It was bad. And we had had reduction in forces before
[1654]throughout the Agency from time to time. We had a "701 Program," it was
[1655]called, one of them I remember. And several others from time to time. You
[1657]had reduction programs and it was bad in those days. But nothing like ‘73.
[1659]Absolutely nothing. All heil broke loose.
[1661]INTERVIEWER: Bad in the sense that he was going to cut a thousand or. two
[1662]thousand?
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[1671]MR. HALPERN: Bad in terms that the leadership had no trust in us.
[1673]INTERVIEWER: Which leadership are you referring to, Sam?
[1675]MR. HALPERN: . Schlesinger/Colby, obviously. Leadership no longer had any
[1676]trust in us. They were treating us like dirt. No appreciation of what we had
[1677]done or what we could do. No reason and no appreciation that we even exist.
[1678]They wanted to wipe us out. Then, of course, the personal aspect of it -- my
[1679]job and where am I going to go from here and do I get a pension or don't I get
[1680]a pension -- and so on. And it was awful. Unbelievably awful both here and
[1681]abroad. And I don't Know what happened when the Halloween Massacre under
[1682]Turner came around. That I guess must have been equally dramatic. But in ‘73
[1683]none of us had ever seen anything like that before. When, you know,
[1684]everybody's life work was suddenly up for grabs. And it was just a horrible
[1685]mess. .
[1687]INTERVIEWER: Well, was there a feeling: that President Nixon, while Helms was
[1688]Director, that President Nixon was supportive of the Agency?
[1690]MR. HALPERN: Yes, yeah there was. Largely because, I don't know if it was
[1691]Nixon, but it was Kissinger who supported the Agency. And most of us knew
[1692]that most of the foreign policy was coming out of Henry anyway. But with
[1693]Nixon's support of course. And he had Nixon's chops to do what he had to do
[1694]or wanted to do. But by and large we worked very closely, as an Agency with’
[1695]Kissinger. We provided all kinds of support, assets, did all kinds of things
[1696]at his request and so on. I was on the phone to Al Haig, for example,
[1697]although I never met him, but was on the phone almost daily when he was still
[1698]a Colonel on the Kissinger staff doing all kinds of things. And exchanging
[1700]papers with him via the new (I forget what it was called in those days) long
[1702]distance xerography but it. was totally encrypted. We had one machine up in.
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[1711]the Ops Center and he ‘had-one machine up in his Ops Center in the White House,
[1713]and at first we were standing at the machines separately waiting for the piece
[1715]“of paper (nobody else was allowed to see the paper). So, you know, we worked
[1717]together as a team. And the Agency, I mean at least the Clandestine Service
[1718]side of it worked very closely with them. And I remember right after Nixon
[1720]was sworn in in January of ‘69.
[1722]INTERVIEWER: '69 when he came in?
[1724]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, he came in in '69. There was a meeting -- Nixon,
[1725]Mitchell,.Kissinger, Helms, and Tom Karamessines in the White House.
[1726]INTERVIEWER: Was Rogers there?
[1728]MR. HALPERN: No.
[1730]INTERVIEWER: No, Rogers?
[1732]MR. HALPERN: You mean the Secretary of State? No. lho is he? He didn't
[1733]count. You know that. I mean the history books are full of that now. No,
[1734]Mitchell was there. T don't know why but he was the Attorney General but 1
[1735]don't know why he, at. least, the Attorney. General nominee. But anyway, he was
[1736]there. I got this from Tom. As Tom's Exec, Tom came back and reported on the
[1737]meeting. And there was a very close bond right there established. Nixon then
[1738]Kissinger asked a lot of questions as to our capabilities, our assets and what
[1739]we could do to help and what have you on different aspects, and Tom was asked
[1741]to give the details. Dick knew some but he didn't know all the details
[1743]. because he was out of the job for a number of years. “When they came back,
[1745]they had marching orders. It worked.
[1747]INTERVIEWER: So that in '73 when Helms is out, that's the big big change?
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[1756]MR. HALPERN: ‘Yes. As I say that began in ‘72 right after the election. ,
[1757]Nixon had his own raid but that is another story. But there was when :
[1759]Schlesinger came. in it was just a traumatic, reaily traumatic, experience.
[1761]INTERVIEWER: Was Schlesinger known to the Agency?
[1763]MR. HALPERN: No, just by reputation.
[1765]INTERVIEWER: Just by reputation. And that was?
[1767]MR. HALPERN: Bad. ‘Because of the things he had done in the Atomic Energy
[1768]Commi ss.ion and the Bureau of Budget. ‘And his whole approach. Totally
[1769]impersonal. The new “machine man" kind of thing, you Know, the mathematical
[1770]brain or whatever -- oh, I guess machine is a better stated cause.
[1772]INTERVIEWER: So that reputation was Known and therefore. . .
[1774]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah, not only known but it was, you know -- immediately the
[1776]phone calls went out all-over town asking, “What about this, who is this guy,
[1778]what's he like?" And everything we got back was bad. . Bad, bad, bad, bad,
[1780]bad. .
[1781]INTERVIEWER: And then Colby will support Schlesinger while. ..
[1783]MR. HALPERN: Oh, he not only supported him but he was one of the guys who
[1785]made inputs of the information for whatever attitude Schlesinger had on the
[1787]whole thing. Now Schlesinger’ S attitude about what he did totally changed
[1789]since he's out of government, since Helms' out: of government, and ‘everybody
[1791]else. It was 180 degree switch.
[1792]INTERVIEWER: For Colby?
[1794]MR. HALPERN:- No, for Schlesinger.
[1795]INTERVIEWER: Schlesinger. ©
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[1804]INTERVIEWER: Yeah. And I tried to tell them. See I was Exec to Colby for
[1805]about 3 months, and I tried to tell my friends -- who wouldn't believe it --
[1806]don't blame Schlesinger for what is happening to the DDP. Blame Colby. It
[1807]was all Colby. He's the guy who was pushing this. And in effect even says so
[1808]in the book,.if you read the book, where he says he told Schlesinger he'd take
[1809]care of cleaning up the DDP. You know, he knows that function. Well, yeah
[1810]that's true.
[1811]INTERVIEWER: What three months were you serving Colby?
[1812]MR. HALPERN: -February, March, April and part of May of ‘73. When I was his
[1813]Executive. ;
[1814]INTERVIEWER: And did the tensions simply grow after Schlesinger and Colby are
[1815]working away. . .
[1816]MR. HALPERN:. Oh yeah. It lasted until. . . Well, Schlesinger left early.
[1817]He left in June of 73. And it lasted even afterward. The thing didn't get
[1818]settled down for a long white.
[1819]INTERVIEWER: Continuing on?
[1820]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, it continued. Became public.
[1821]INTERVIEWER: And then people being separated from the Agency?
[1822]MR. HALPERN: And I saw how some of those separations of some senior officers
[1823]were done. And believe me, it was brutal. Brutal and awful.
[1824]INTERVIEWER: Brutal in the context of?
[1825]MR. HALPERN: No sense of personalities. No sense of humanity. No sense of
[1826]the dealing with individual problems. We used to be a Band of Brothers.
[1827]INTERVIEWER: Right.
[1828]MR. HALPERN: I think I said that before.
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[1835]INTERVIEWER:
[1836]MR. HALPERN:
[1838]MR. HALPERN:
[1839]INTERVIEWER:
[1840]MR. HALPERN:
[1841]INTERVIEWER:
[1842]MR. HALPERN:
[1843]INTERVIEWER:
[1845]MR. HALPERN:
[1847]better having
[1849]INTERVIEWER:
[1850]MR. HALPERN:
[1852]subjects.
[1854]It was awful.
[1856]SECRET
[1858]Yes.
[1860]That stopped with Schlesinger and Colby.
[1862]Now that stopped throughout the Agency or . .
[1863]I don't know about the rest of the Agency.
[1864]But it stopped in the clandestine . . .
[1865]Let me talk about what I know about.
[1867]Sure.
[1869]FE can conjecture about that other ...
[1870]Right, yes.
[1872]My ‘conjecture is almost as good as yours. Maybe a little bit
[1873]lived there all these years. .
[1874]Sure.
[1876]But, no, I am talking basically what I know about clandestine
[1878]I mean, even old friends were just, you know,
[1880]ignored, looked down upon. Given no consideration whatsoever. In the old
[1882]days we took care of each other as a Band of Brothers does. We helped each
[1884]other.
[1886]INTERVIEWER:
[1887]MR. HALPERN:
[1888]INTERVIEWER:
[1890]MR. HALPERN:
[1892]And this included what sorts of things?
[1894]You mean the helping?
[1896]Uh huh.
[1898]Oh, if a guy had a family problem, we'd worry about his next
[1900]assignment so that the family problem was taken care of. If a guy had-a
[1902]medical problem he didn't want people to Know about, talk about, we helped him
[1904]with that.
[1906]People with husband and wife problems, we'd help on that.
[1908]There
[1910]were even problems with kids. We'd help with that. Orugs, somebody
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[1919]impregnating somebody -- what do you do about that kind of thing. We'd try to
[1920]look out after each other. That didn't mean we didn't have professional
[1921]rivalry: and all of that. There was a lot of that, believe me. Who got what
[1922]job and who got what promotion. But basically, when the chips were down, we
[1923]were helpful to each other. We tried to find interpretations of rules and
[1924]regulations to assist each other, even financially, so that you weren't so
[1925]out-of-pocket on a lot things and the government might be able to help. If
[1926]somebody had a problem, you know, if he was abroad for example, and something
[1927]happened to a family member back here, we'd suddenly call the guy back on TDY
[1928]-~ we had a big important problem to worry about and discuss with him. You
[1929]know, that kind of stuff.
[1931]INTERVIEWER: Yes.
[1933]MR. HALPERN: All perfectly legal, and it was all, we used to, as a matter of
[1934]fact, we in the DDP used to look at some of our support officers and
[1935]administrators and what have you in terms of how well they were able to
[1936]interpret the regulation in order to help us out. with a job, whether it was a
[1937]personal thing, or a professional, or an operation or what have you, and I
[1938]remember one of them. I'd pick up the phone and say, "Charlie, here's my
[1939]problem: I've got to get from point A to point B and I‘ve got to do it
[1940]fast." "Jesus Christ. All right. I'll call you back." And within the hour,
[1941]or whatever it- took him, he'd say, “You go from A, to A Prime, to A Prime 2,
[1943]to A Prime 3, and then you end up in B over there, and you'l) get there and
[1945]~ you'll be fine and it won't take you any time. You'll just go. Just do it my
[1947]way." I said, "Fine. You ‘prepare the papers. I'l] sign them." And that's
[1949]the way it worked. You know, a Band of Brothers. We knew what we were doing
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[1958]in terms of trying to get the job done and stay within the bounds of the
[1960]Agency. . -
[1962]INTERVIEWER: And if somebody came up for retirement, and they might need
[1963]some. . .
[1965]MR. HALPERN: I think, we'd try to, well, in the early days when you didn't
[1966]have the bulk of people suddenly coming out, you'd even try to help them find
[1967]a job. Pick up the phone, call friends, connections, what have you. And it
[1968]was done. Now later, when it came into the hundreds, you couldn't do it,
[1969]obviously. And then everybody fell by the wayside. But it was a totally
[1970]different attitude; instilled right away when Schlesinger came along. Some of
[1971]his language is even being quoted in the newspapers and magazines. I don't
[1972]know if he said the words that way but anyway things like: "I am not
[1973]interested in people, I am interested in the United States taxpayer." Well,
[1974]we were interested in the taxpayer too, but that didn't come first. Maybe
[1975]that was wrong but at least we didn't think so. Considering the time and
[1976]effort most of us put into that place, I don't think Uncie Sam was ever on the
[1977]short end of the stick.
[1979]INTERVIEWER: And so someone being separated might not know he was being
[1980]separated until... |
[1982]MR.. HALPERN: Until it hit him.
[1984]INTERVIEWER: Until it hit him.
[1986]“MR. HALPERN: Yeah. I remember Colby, for example, taking home with him,
[1988]which he shouldn't have done but he did, stacks of personnel folders to, you
[1989]know, be the great decider.- This guy goes, this guy stays.
[1990]INTERVIEWER: ‘So the morale was: not very good?
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[1999]MR. HALPERN: Oh, it was nonexistent. Nonexistent, less than nonexistent.
[2000]INTERVIEWER: Gee.
[2001]MR. HALPERN: ‘73 was a bad year. A very bad year.
[2003]MR. HALPERN: Well, I don't know. In '74 it probably got a little bit
[2004]better. Things were settling down a little bit under Colby. And we weren't
[2005]quite so much under the gun. . About that time most of the people had been
[2006]separated. .
[2008]- INTERVIEWER: And was that harshly, that separation issue, is that Agency
[2009]officers were coming back from Vietnam.
[2010]MR. HALPERN: Partly that. But only partly. We had a program under Tom
[2011]Karamessines and under Helms. We knew that we were going to have to bring
[2012]back a lot of people from Vietnam gradually, and we started actually, believe
[2013]it or not, we started earlier than most people give us credit for to plan for”
[2014]this kind of reduction in force in Vietnam, the Far East Division, and
[2015]gradually try to sort of spread the officers back to their proper divisions —
[2016]and areas, and we knew it was going to take a long time. And we knew we were
[2017]going to have to reduce the total strength -- we were getting cut budget wise
[2018]anyway and personnel slot wise. But it was a long range program. We were —
[2019]going to do it over a period of time. We weren't going to do it in a day. —
[2020]And it was a totally different approach. One with humanity, one totally
[2021]without humanity. And I think we were right in feeling that we owed the guys,
[2022]after all of their years and effort, some consideration. And, you know, there
[2023]are perfectly legal ways and means of using the personne] rules and
[2025]regulations and financial rules and regulations to ease the passage.
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[2034]INTERVIEWER: And make it more gradual.
[2036]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, and make it more gradual and make it easier on people, and
[2037]what have you. And, look, even Schlesinger had to go to Congress to get the
[2038]humber of retirees’ positions opened under the CIA Retirement Act. He had to
[2039]get those numbers raised to take care of the mass of people he was suddenly
[2040]getting rid of. And he didn't even know that initially. And that was finally
[2041]brought to his attention, that a lot of these people could take us to court if
[2042]you just throw them out without giving them the CIRA benefits. And so they
[2043]went to Congress, and Congress upped the figures (with a little bit of
[2045]doing). I mean, that was one of the things, you know, just sheer humanity.
[2046]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
[2048]MR. HALPERN: You know.
[2050]INTERVIEWER: The Ramparts article on the Agency and the National Student's.
[2051]Association.
[2053]MR. HALPERN: ‘67.
[2055]INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Was that very harmful to the Agency?
[2057]MR. HALPERN: Yes. Very much so. .
[2059]INTERVIEWER: The flap was?
[2061]MR. HALPERN: It was a big flap obviously. We had to cut back on a lot of
[2062]operations. .
[2064]INTERVIEWER: Involving students?
[2066]MR. HALPERN: Well, the students was only one of it because if you remember
[2067]“the Ramparts exposure went far beyond student activity.
[2069]INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
[2071]MR. HALPERN: It covered all kinds of things -- labor unions, women's
[2072]organizations, religous groups -- you name them and we were involved in some
[2074]. 48
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[2081]way or another. And practically all of those had to be dismantied. The ODP,
[2082]then Des Fitzgerald,. just before he died as a matter of fact, came up with a
[2083]term.call "Surge Funding." S-U-R-G-E funding. And what we were able to do,
[2084]all legal.and all checked out with Katzenbach and the Attorney General and
[2085]everybody else, was in order to ease the way for a lot of these activities
[2086]that we were involved with, we gave them extra money, a pile of money kind of
[2087]thing, you know you are on your own from now on. Here, get going. Start up.
[2088]And $0 we really did a big dismantling job. And it was very, very painful.
[2089]Not only for the people involved in the activities, and including the officers
[2090]who were the case officers running the thing from inside, but it hurt the
[2092]overall effort. And one of the things, for example, even Congress finally
[2094]recognized the need and picked up the RFE and Radio Liberty -- or Radio Free
[2096]Europe and Radio Liberty -- and is now run by the government instead of CIA
[2097]funding it. It's still the same money from Congress, except they now call it
[2098]something else and they have a broadcasting committee that oversees it. You
[2099]know, no difference except it doesn't have those nasty letters -- CIA --
[2100]involved.
[2102]INTERVIEWER: Right.
[2104]MR. HALPERN: So that's the running of it. And that used to be one of the
[2105]biggest costs. of our covert action operations. Those and the any paramilitary
[2106]activity you get into. That's where the money goes.
[2108]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
[2110]MR. HALPERN: Intelligence operations don't cost much, propaganda operations
[2112]don't cost much and so on.- So it did have a tremendous impact, no question.
[2114]'67 Ramparts.
[2115]INTERVIEWER: And this was fairly new in Helms' term of office wasn't it?
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[2124]MR. HALPERN: Yes, Helms was the DCI then. Yes, '67.
[2125]INTERVIEWER: ‘Okay. How about, the question is raised sometimes: how are
[2126]reforms and real or potential abuses processed within the Agency in the
[2127]decades before 1975?
[2128]MR. HALPERN: In practically every case that I know of, at least it went
[2129]through the entire chain of command. Usually the IG was involved, and then
[2130]the Legal Counsel got involved. And people were demoted, people were fired,
[2131]people were reassigned. It all depended on what the gravity of the situation
[2132]was and there were all kinds of different activities including some people who
[2133]did nothing more than try to swipe.a few bucks. And some of those went to
[2134]court actually.
[2135]INTERVIEWER: Is that right?
[2136]MR. HALPERN: And, in those days, we could do, with the help of the judge,
[2137]have the trial in camera so it didn't get a lot of publicity. But we went ©
[2138]through all the ins and outs on a lot of this stuff and. depending on what the
[2139]situation was, the General Counsel would take it over the Attorney General if
[2140]necessary. ‘It all depended on what happened. But there was every effort made.
[2141]first to try to clean it up inside the organization, inside CIA if possible.
[2142]And if not you went outside and got whatever help you needed and invoked
[2143]whatever laws were necessary to make sure something like this didn‘t happen
[2144]_again, and people were told. Usually you didn't get the names of the
[2145]individuals involved, we always tried to protect that. And it wasn't just
[2146]because of privacy or anything like that, it's the nature of the business.
[2147]You don't talk about names. But the kind of activity were usually well
[2149]_ publicized at staff meetings and passed down the line. So you tell people so
[2150]these things don't happen again. You can't always be sure they don't, but you
[2152]try.
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[2160]INTERVIEWER: And how about -the comment I had read earlier that Helms was
[2161]betrayed by Nixon, that if Helms had gone along on Watergate and all that type
[2162]of thing he would have kept his job?
[2164]MR. HALPERN: ‘Well, that sounds, it's a plausible theory, but I don't think
[2166]so. I-don't think it was in the cards because my own feeling is that Nixon
[2168]~ was ready for a change, and he was ready to just clean house. Because look at
[2170]the rest of his changes on: personnel throughout the government after the ‘72
[2171]election. I mean, it was just all those crazy things. He just felt he wanted
[2172]to have.a new team. I personally don't think that that would have made much
[2173]difference with Helms. I mean, Nixon and Helms in terms of keeping him on the
[2174]job. I think he was ready for’ a new guy anyway. |
[2176]INTERVIEWER: Did you ever hear how Schlesinger happened to be chosen?
[2178]MR. HALPERN: No, I don't Know, except that in '70 or '71 he was the deputy in
[2180]_ OMB and he wrote a directive, well, he wrote a study and not a directive,
[2182]changing the intelligence community relationships and the Director's
[2183]relationships. to the intelligence community and therefore I think he was
[2184]considered an expert on the intelligence community and national security
[2185]policy and so on. And when they were looking for a new boss, I. would think
[2186]that there he was sitting over at Atomic Energy which Nixon probably didn't
[2188]know what he was doing over there anyway. And so he did in 1970 or '71, I
[2190]think it was ‘71, a study and a report and moved him over.
[2192]INTERVIEWER: Had it ever been mentioned that maybe he was Kissinger's choice?
[2194]MR. HALPERN: I haven't heard that. -I would doubt it. I would doubt it.
[2196]‘Very much. I just hadn't heard that one before.
[2198]INTERVIEWER: Okay. ‘All right.
[2199]MR. HALPERN: That's a new one. I presume some of your other sources .
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[2209]mentioned that to you.
[2211]INTERVIEWER: I don't know. There was: simply speculation.
[2213]MR. HALPERN: No, I don't think so. I would be very surprised if that turned
[2215]out to be the fact.
[2217]INTERVIEWER: Okay.
[2219]MR. HALPERN: Henry doesn't take credit for it in his books. That's for sure.
[2221]INTERVIEWER: And he would. |
[2223]MR. HALPERN: “And those are nice, big, two heavy tomes. If you forgot, I've
[2225]got them right down here. . .
[2227]INTERVIEWER: I haven't worked my way through all of them yet.
[2229]MR. HALPERN: He was supposed to have written a third one you Know. But he
[2231]never has.
[2233]INTERVIEWER: Is that right? -A third one is coming?
[2235]MR. HALPERN: The third one is going to be on intelligence and national
[2237]security. . . ;
[2239]INTERVIEWER: Oh really.
[2241]MR. HALPERN: But he never did it. .
[2243]INTERVIEWER: : . It has not been written? Not yet anyway.
[2245]MR.HALPERN: - Not yet. -
[2247]INTERVIEWER: How about the Schlesinger memo of May 1973 regarding improper
[2248]practices in the Agency?
[2250]MR. HALPERN: That's Colby's memo. Schlesinger put his name to it, but it's’
[2252]Colby's memo. . .
[2254]INTERVIEWER: Okay. So, written by Colby?
[2256]MR. HALPERN: Yes.
[2258]INTERVIEWER: And signed by Schlesinger?
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[2267]MR. HALPERN: Yes.
[2269]INTERVIEWER: And the resuits of the memo are sometimes called the "Family
[2270]Jewels" or "693 List"?
[2272]MR. HALPERN: That's right. That's right.
[2274]INTERVIEWER: How.was that memo received?
[2276]MR. HALPERN: Well, I think in several ways. One of the ways was some people
[2277]were shocked and surprised that anybody would put it al! on a piece of paper.
[2278]Number 1. Some accepted it as just another order. and filled out all kinds of
[2279]stuff. I accepted it: in. terms of reading the words that were in there. I
[2280]never responded to it. Because it didn't apply to me, as far as I was .
[2281]concerned, because none’ of ‘the things that I had ever done were, as far as I
[2282]was concerned, beyond the pale, beyond the law, beyond interpretation of the
[2283]law or anything like that. And so it depended on how you wanted to read and
[2284]interpret the language. Because if I remember correctly it said something
[2285]-about things that you did that you thought were beyond the charter or outside
[2286]the regulations or something like that. But I don't remember anything I ever
[2287]did beyond that, so.I didn't respond to the thing. ‘I never answered it. And ©
[2288]I'm sure that I wasn't the only one who didn't answer it. :
[2289]INTERVIEWER: Was there much talk about it at the time?
[2291]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah, a lot of talk. Obviously. What's this all about?
[2292]Why? All that kind of stuff. -
[2294]INTERVIEWER: Was it. thought that it was related to a management style or
[2295]related to Watergate or related to. . .?
[2297]MR. HALPERN: No, I think it was written in terms of the Watergate business, -
[2298]in terms of a CYA-type activity - "Cover Your Ass" Activity. I-heard, again
[2299]obviously, I talked about it to a lot of people, and they talked to me about
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[2308]it. And I told them what I was doing. I told them I wasn't going to reply to
[2309]the thing, I didn't need to as far as I was concerned, but I left it up to
[2310]each individual that talked to me to make it up in his own mind. I don't know
[2311]how many did or didn't, but I think it was in terms of a CYA thing, in terms
[2312]of: here's a new man on the block, Schlesinger, and he wants to know what
[2314]happened since Genesis. You know, doesn't he have anything else to do? He's
[2316], got a whole Agency and a whole new world to conquer. What the hell is worried
[2318]about all that stuff for? So, I think it was basically in terms of, at least
[2319]the guys I talked to or talked to me, it was a CYA activity on the part of
[2320]Schlesinger who didn't want to get blind sided by something that might have
[2321]happened that CIA would. be accused of. But the attitude was, what the hell is
[2322]he worried about, it is not on his watch. If there is something is wrong, and
[2323]even if CIA is accused of it, it's not on his watch. Nobody can hold him
[2324]responsible for it. If it happened, even two years ago, what the hell. I
[2325]mean, so. It might have happened under somebody elses aegis, and CIA takes
[2326]the heat, but he could say, you know, it wasn't me. I wasn't around. So that
[2327]was the general attitude. And as I say, a lot of people responded like good
[2328]soldiers and wrote all kinds of tomes about things they thought were wrong,
[2329]and not all of them were accepted. I mean that 690 whatever thing. . .
[2330]INTERVIEWER: Yes, it's a list which is simply the number of pages that. . 7
[2331]MR. HALPERN: Yes, and these things were each on a page if I remember
[2332]correctly. And these were the ones that Bill Colby finally accepted as going
[2333]quote beyond the pale unquote. But even then when Bill issued his kind of
[2334]after action directives, there were a whole bunch of stuff. He said, you
[2335]know, these don't count. Even though I've got them, these don't count because
[2336]they are not beyond anything -- they are perfectly legal and all that kind of
[2338]stuff and perfectly proper. In some of these he said, we are going to stop
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[2346]these completely, some of these we are going to modify Cand CHAOS was one of
[2348]them). He didn't stop it completely. At least not initially. And these, he
[2350]said, have no bearing. So his own orders, later after he got all this stuff
[2352]together, when he finally tallied them all up, they were just, you Know, "no,"
[2354]"maybe," “yes."—
[2356]INTERVIEWER: At the time the memo came out, was it known that Colby was the
[2358]author or the drafter of it? Do you recall by chance?
[2360]MR. HALPERN: My friends wouldn't:betieve me. I knew. But. .
[2362]INTERVIEWER: You knew that he drafted it? |
[2364]MR. HALPERN: His hand was there all the way. Now maybe he didn't do all the
[2366]drafting, but it was his initiative or what have you. .
[2368]INTERVIEWER: And your friends thought it was Schlesinger?
[2370]MR. HALPERN: Yes. Oh, Schlesinger was getting all of the rap, which I
[2372]thought was all wrong. All wrong. From-the firing of everybody -- ora lot
[2373]‘of people -- to this kind of stuff. And it was Bill who was the guy who was
[2375]pushing Schlesinger into this kind of stuff. And Schlesinger was willing to
[2377]be pushed, don't get me wrong, and he wanted to do a house cleaning and a -
[2379]sweep, and all that kind of stuff, but without Bill it wouldn't have gotten
[2381]half as far. I'm sure. |
[2383]INTERVIEWER: Why was Bill doing that?
[2385]MR. HALPERN: That's a good question. People have asked me that continuously
[2387]and I don't know. Some people have said that partly it was because of his
[2389]daughter's problem. And you know she died very early on when he was DDP --
[2391]DDO; sorry: I get my terminology confused by the dates. And I don't believe -
[2393]that because his daughter's psychological problem was there long before, even
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[2402]when he was in Vietnam and she was in Vietnam. So I really don't Know. Other
[2403]people say that Bill was just being a good novice. Some people said he's
[2404]going to end up in the monastery some day, even though he's got a new wife and
[2405]all that, new company, and what: have you. But, I've had all kinds of
[2406]interpretations, but I don't even know if Bill Knows why.
[2408]INTERVIEWER: And at that time it was as much a mystery as fod
[2410]MR. HALPERN: Well, at that time everybody thought it was Schlesinger.
[2411]INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. | a
[2413]MR. HALPERN: That Schlesinger was the Big Bad Wolf. And sure he was but he
[2415]. was aided, and abetted, and goaded by one William Colby. And why Bill did it,
[2417]I just don't know.
[2419]INTERVIEWER: Was there any sign of that before Schlesinger came in? In other
[2421].words while Helms was still there? Was Colby. . ..
[2423]MR.. HALPERN: Not to the same extent. But Bill first came -- when I first got
[2424]to know him'-- was in 1956.
[2426]INTERVIEWER: That early?
[2428]MR. HALPERN: ‘56, yes. ‘56. Des Fitzgerald met Bill Colby when Bill was a
[2429]case officer in. the Rome station. And Des came- ~ back thinking Colby walked on
[2431]water. The greatest thing since little apples. And he wanted him in the Far
[2433]‘East Division right away. Well, he made some arrangements, and he got Bil]
[2435]into the Far East Division and assigned him as Deputy Chief of Station of
[2436]Saigon. The Chief ‘then was Nick Natsios. And Bill went out as Deputy Chief.
[2437]And Vietnam then became his career -- God Knows how many years. Ten years or
[2438]more. And we in the Far East Division -- we the case officers and the
[2440]operators in the Far East Division, the troops -- while Bill was here in
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[2449]Washington getting acclimated to what FE was all about, who the people are and
[2451]what have you and the various talks and the various comments and what have
[2454]; you, and later while he was out in Saigon, we regarded him as a great “nation
[2456]builder" -- quote unquote. That he was not a clandestine operations officer
[2457]in terms of espionage or counterintelligence. He never understood
[2458]counterintelligence. Even to this day I don't think he understands .
[2459]counter intelligence. And I don't think he knew what a recruitment of an agent
[2460]was -- even the fact that I haven't recruited many: myself. But if you look at
[2462]his book, he: says the first agent he recruited in Italy was a member of the
[2464]. Communist Party. He recruited him as a reporting source, as strictly an
[2466]intelligence agent, not as a propaganda CA officer. - And you read his book and
[2467]he talks there about his, Bill's, problem -- whether this is the right thing
[2468]to do, aid: how can he live with himself, and manipulating a human being and
[2469]all that kind of stuff. And it's very clear that he is not an intelligence
[2470]operations officer, He is a great boy scout and he is a great guy for quote.
[2471]nation building unquote. . | . . .
[2472]INTERVIEWER: When you say nation butlding, what do you mean. by that, Sam?
[2474]MR. HALPERN: He wants to help other countries become like the United States.
[2476]He wants, you know, the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson . :
[2478]_ INTERVIEWER: Democracy.
[2480]MR. HALPERN: Yes, and everybody vote. -One man, one vote. Without any regard
[2481]at all for the history and the social mores and background and customs of the
[2482]country. Where votes in most cases don't mean anything. And it's silly. You
[2483]work by chieftains and what have you and tribal systems and the whole business..
[2485]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
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[2494]MR. HALPERN: But Bill wants to build nations. And its very laudable and
[2495]maybe some government agency ought to build nations. And maybe he ought to be
[2496]in the AID, or ICA in the old days, or the Red Cross or wherever. But not as
[2497]a clandestine operations officer, trying to collect intelligence and recruit
[2498]human beings to be your agent, your spy. A lot of us in the old FE Division
[2499]on the working level thought, there is going to be trouble with this guy.
[2500]INTERVIEWER: Did you meet him in ‘56 then? |
[2502]MR. HALPERN: Yes, sure. Yes I was Des' Exec then too.
[2504]INTERVIEWER: I see.
[2506]MR. HALPERN: | In FE. So, a lot of us thought this was a problem guy but Des
[2507]wants him around, and Des is the boss, so what the hell. There's nothing we
[2508]can do. You know, maybe he'll learn something under Nick we used to say.
[2510]Nick was a tough old Greek, old hand and he knew the business. In fact, he
[2511]was a poet. |
[2513]INTERVIEWER: So it was thought that maybe he'd change.
[2515]MR. HALPERN: . Yes, but he didn't. Bill never changed. And so a lot of us --
[2516]well, for example, Bill, when he was Division Chief in FE -- I wasn't even in ,
[2517]the Division at that point -- but Bill had an idea, for example, on how the
[2518]OCI's Daily Intelligence Report should look. He thought it ought to be like a
[2519]tabloid newspaper and even had a dummy made up for this thing. Well, it was:
[2520]laughed out of court at the time. Bill kept that dummy until he became DCI
[2521]and he put it into effect. It became what is now called the National
[2522]Intelligence Daily although I am told it is no longer in the newspaper
[2524]format. That was changed aS soon as Casey came aboard. But that is Bill for -
[2526]you. Once he gets something in his head, you don't change him.
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[2535]INTERVIEWER: Tenacious?
[2537]MR. HALPERN: Oh, very, very.
[2539]INTERVIEWER: Well did you have much contact with him after ‘56?
[2541]MR. HALPERN: Oh, I didn't have too much contact with him in '56 until 1961
[2542]when I was shot down by Dick Bissell and Des Fitzgerald. Bissell was then ODP
[2543]and Des was Chief, FE. I was enjoying life in Tokyo -- my one and only
[2545]overseas full time tour and I was having a good time in Tokyo.. And suddenly I
[2547]“got shot down to a place.called Saigon. Which I had known about before during
[2549]‘World War II and all that kind of stuff, but anyway, I got shot down ona
[2551]special operation-to work with the ASA teams, which is the Army version of NSA
[2552](Army component rather). ‘And this is because Ed Lansdale, who was then in
[2553]General Erskine's office at the Pentagon, had a bright idea. This was before
[2554]the US was fully committed. There were 3,000 Americans -- men, women and
[2555]children from all agencies -- including the military -- in Saigon in the |
[2556]summer of ‘61 when I got down there. Saigon was still a nice, sleepy, old
[2557]French town. It was a lovely place. There were parts of Saigon that you
[2558]couldn't go. And you couldn't go to parts of Chalons because there were VC
[2560]all over you, but anyway, it was a nice area. But this was a crazy idea that
[2562]“Ed Lansdale had sold the brass in Washington and it didn't make any sense, but
[2564]anyway, there we were. And I was shot down to work as liaison officer between
[2565]the station and the ASA teams. I got to make some very good friends, as a
[2566]matter of fact, as a result of that and Bill Colby was Chief of Station.
[2567]INTERVIEWER: Oh? .
[2569]MR. HALPERN: And one of the things we did, and the first thing, the first
[2571]place, I built the first war room, or officer room (if you want) in the ©
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[2580]Embassy. It didn't even have one at the time. The only one that was in town
[2581]was the one on G-2 under General McGarr. And what the hell was the G-2 .
[2582]officer, Colonel someone, I can't remember. Anyway, so I built a war room for
[2583]Bill so we could plot and have handy our own operations (we were running into
[2584]the North at that time and none of them worked but we tried) and at the same
[2585]time decided to take a look at what the hell the target was, what the enemy
[2586]was. And I built a second war room or had built rather a second war room in
[2587]the Embassy where me and my military friends, the head of the ASA team, the
[2588]SSO in Saigon, I forget his name, Major something or other, and we got sent
[2589]down to us from Japan, from the Army in Japan, an order of battle specialist
[2590]whose specialty was actually the Chinese Communist, the PRC army, a military
[2591]breakdown, and he came down to go over the order of battle aspects of the VC.
[2592]And I had put up on the wall, all four walls in this room that we built in the
[2593]Embassy, a 1-50,000 set of maps of South Vietnam only. And then we took all
[2594]of the information, from any source whatsoever, good, bad, or indifferent,
[2595]including COMINT, and all the liaison junk we were getting from the South
[2596]Vietnamese government, any of our own reporting, the US, all agencies and we
[2597]actually physically plotted every piece of information on maps. And the order
[2598]of battle specialist made his usual 5X8 order of battle cards and correlated
[2599]to the maps. So that you could look at the map and go to the card or take the
[2600]card and go to the map. And we came up with a figure of VC effectives in the
[2601]field of over 18,000. That doesn't sound like much today, but this was the
[2602]summer of ‘61. And the agreed-upon figure was 10,000. Everybody in the US
[2603]Government used the figure of 10,000. I think they've been using it ever
[2604]since the war began with the French. But anyway, 10,000 was the figure. And >
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[2613]we came up with almost double. All holy hell broke loose. Bill Colby -- and
[2614]I was on TDY from Tokyo. Dick Bissell had offered to have my family come with
[2615]me and all that kind of stuff but I said uh uh. I'll go down from Tokyo, the
[2616]family can go home. And they did. But when this 18,000 figure hit, the G-2
[2617]in Saigon refused to accept it, General McGarr refused to accept it,
[2618]Ambassador Nolting (I guess it was) refused to accept it, and Bill Colby
[2619]refused to accept it. And I said to Bill -- and they wouldn't let us send the
[2620]information out. They just refused. They thought it would be best to
[2621]transmit the information to our respective Headquarters. That is the NSA
[2622]type, the SSO type, and back to CINCPAC and so on. And I said to Bill, I
[2623]said, "Bill, this is silly. First of all, I'm here TDY. I've got my own
[2624]ticket, airplane ticket, I've got my own passport. I can be out of here
[2625]unless: you shoot me on the way out. I'l} be at Tan Son Nhut whenever I want
[2626]to. And you know me well enough, Bill. I'll get to the first available CIA
[2627]station, which is either Hong Kong, Manila, Bangkok, or Singapore. I get into
[2628]the Commo shack, and my message will be in Washington within minutes. And I
[2629]think you know that my relationship with Des is such that he will at least
[2630]listen to me -~ he may not accept what I am telling him -- but he will at
[2631]least listen. And I know in the meantime you can say, ‘Get the guys with the
[2632]white coats and what have you to get Sam. He's gone crazy, he's mad, he
[2633]doesn't know what he is talking about, he's gone beyond the veil.' I know all
[2634]of this, Bilt. But I think Des will give me a hearing even wrapped in one of
[2637]INTERVIEWER: Straight jackets.
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[2646]MR. HALPERN: Straight jacket. He looked at me and he Knew me well enough and
[2647]I knew him and he says, “Okay, Sam, what do you want to send?" “I want to
[2648]send. back we got 18,000. You know, and tell them how we got it. And give
[2650]- them the facts. I'm not trying to make policy. I'm just here to get the
[2651]information. We're the intelligence officers, that's what our job is." He
[2652]said he can't send 18,000. I said, “What is this? Some kind of a Persian rug |
[2653]merchant bargaining or something? What do you want to send? We can't go with
[2654]10 anymore. That's gone. We've got 18." Well, to make a long story short,
[2655]we ended up, just like Sam Adams later, many years later, but he was in the
[2656]hundreds of thousands, I was in thé tens of thousands, and so we ended up
[2657]whereby, I think we said something like -- we compromised, no question about
[2658]that -- something Tike 14, 15 effectives, plus support troops, just like Sam,
[2659]it's exactly the same play as Sam Adams except much smaller figures and much
[2660]earlier. This was 1961.- But the total figure, if you add it all up, you
[2661]ended up with an 18,000. That much I got through. But again it was a
[2662]stretched-out thing. So when the message finally went out, it went out in
[2663]several channels: I mean. to CIA, the military and to State Department.
[2664]Everybody got it. When it got to CINCPAC I'm told that. almost like a bomb hit
[2665]the place. And the next thing we knew was a message saying, "Colonel so and
[2666]so from CINCPAC Staff is-arriving to discuss this latest nonsense," or
[2667]something like that. It was just, you know, crazy. And this Colonel had been
[2668]on the Vietnam desk for CINCPAC, but he served in Vietnam -- with the French
[2669]when they were there. And he was. the expert as far as CINCPAC was concerned.
[2670]So when we were saying 10,000, we were in effect flying in his face. We were .
[2672]becoming idiots. It was off base. We didn't know this. guy from Adam. And to
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[2681]show you how we felt, me and my buddies, these three other military guys, when
[2683]‘the Colonel arrived -- I was the only civilian and these guys were all
[2685]majors.. They. were, you Know, "There's a colonel coming." So I was the guy
[2687]~ chosen to, and I volunteered too. Okay, we meet this guy and we bring him
[2689]in. And I said, "Colonel, here's the war room, there are the maps, there are
[2691]the order of battle cards. All the information is cross-indexed, so if you
[2693]“look at the cards you can find it on the map, if you look at the map, you'll
[2695]find it on the cards. We'll just leave you here. See where we went wrong."
[2697]We went off and got drunk. And I mean drunk. It was a bad one. But anyway,
[2699]we said, “The hell with this nonsense." I got my military buddies out of the
[2700]range of fire. And the four of us went off. We came back, I think it was the
[2702]next day, but anyway, when we came back the Colonel! said something to the
[2704]_ effect of, “I wouldn't have believed it." And I said, "We didn't make it up.
[2706]It's all there. You had it all in Honolulu. Everybody in Washington has had
[2707]the same information. We didn't make up any new stuff. -It's the same stuff
[2708]everybody is using. We just added it up.and. you guys didn't. That's all.
[2709]Everybody was using pieces; using the magic figure it appeared was made up
[2710]some years ago. Times have changed. The enemy has doubled its strength right
[2711]under our very noses." That was my one nice big session with Bill Colby.
[2712]That's what we started out on. And so that's when we finally sent the
[2714]messages out after this Colonel was here, then we sent the messages which had
[2716]. that 18,000. It was a long total, but anyway. And Bill and I have been ona
[2718]fighting relationship ever since, I think. I never mentioned it to him and he
[2719]never mentioned it to.me again. It was done and that was it. Then-I left.
[2721]INTERVIEWER: You left?
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[2730]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah, I left at the end of ‘61 -- well, not the end because I
[2731]arrived back in Washington. Well, even after that, Bill Colby made me in
[2732]effect the third man down in the station because he and his Deputy, Ed Barbier
[2733]who is now dead, were just swamped with paper -- release of documents, release’
[2734]of cables, relief of dispatches, what have you. They were working 20 hours a
[2735]day and it was getting crazy. I said, "Bill if it is one thing in the world I
[2736]can do -- and everybody Knows I can do it ~- I can move paper for you. Get it
[2737]out of here. And you Know damn well you'll see the ones you are supposed to
[2738]see. And let me get rid of the junk." And so he gave me. releasing |
[2739]authority. And I sat there as a station officer, because I said, "Bill, you
[2740]know, my job with the military is finished. And, you know, what do I do
[2741]next?" He wanted me to stay on and I didn't feel like staying on. And so I
[2742]sent a wire back to Washington, and he agreed. I said, in effect, “My job is
[2743]done here, I did what you asked me to do. What is my next assignment?" Just
[2744]like that. And they finally said, “Come on back to Washington." And I came
[2745]back to Washington and briefed everybody. But anyway, that was my
[2746]relationship with Bill. I knew him well enough then. He's just a different
[2747]opinionated, very firm in what opinions he holds, he holds, period. And it's
[2748]a hell of a job to try and get him to change his mind. an give you a simple
[2749]thing. He was running air operations, dropping agents into North Vietnam.
[2751]And one night I remember we were in the communications shack (communications
[2752]room). And he had sent an “Ops immediate" and didn't get an answer. The
[2753]plane was warming up on the field, waiting to go. And they had to get a "yes"
[2755]or “no" to go. I said, “Bill, they haven't answered in over an hour, for
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[2764]God's sakes, hit them again." He said, "Oh no, you can't do that." "What do
[2765]you mean you can't do. that? Send another message. What the heli, it doesn't
[2766]cost you anything. It doesn't hurt. Tell them you are still standing by."
[2767]And he said, “Well, they know that." And I said, "Bill, send them a message.
[2768]The message could have gotten Jost in Manila." He said, “Nothing like that
[2769]ever happens at Clark Field,“ actually. He said, "Nothing like that
[2770]happens.“ Well, in this case it did, it actually did get lost because of the
[2771]way they had to handle, “man handle," these tapes in those days. And I've
[2772]been there and saw the way these guys were working, down to there skin, I
[2773]mean, they didn't have their shirts on, even undershirts. \And it was sweaty
[2774]and hot even with the air conditioners going in those days (room air
[2775]conditioners). And these big perforated tapes were around their necks and
[2776]what. have you. One of them got lost and if it happened to be an “Ops M" then,
[2777]it was too bad. | |
[2779]INTERVIEWER: An Ops M?
[2781]"MR. HALPERN: Operational Media was the precedence. You had “Routine,”
[2783]"Priority," “Operational Media slash" something like that.
[2785]INTERVIEWER: Okay.
[2787]MR. HALPERN: There were several routing precedences, basically. And we got
[2788]to-call them Op M simply. because you didn't want to say Operational medta all
[2789]the time. And one of them got lost. You know, they weren't "Flash"
[2790]messages, which I hope won't get lost ever. But I finally had to convince
[2791]Bill just to send another message back saying, "I need an answer." And it
[2792]took a hell of a long while. It took longer than it should. It took aimost
[2794]two hours for me to tell him, “Get the goddamn message out." And we got a
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[2803]message back, and the first thing it says is, "Didn't get your reference.
[2805]_ What are you talking about?" So we had to hit them again. You Know, explain
[2807]what happened. And, but that's an example of. . . He's reluctant. You. know,
[2808]if he's got a firm view of something, it's tough to get him to change his mind.
[2809]INTERVIEWER: When did you work with him again after that?
[2811]MR. HALPERN: Oh, actually -- :
[2813]INTERVIEWER: Saigon.
[2815]MR. HALPERN: That was ‘61 and I guess the next time I worked with him again
[2816]very closely was when I was for three or--four months his his Exec. When he
[2817]came back from Saigon, and Dick make him the Executive Director Comptroller, I
[2818]had some dealings with him because I was the Exec in DDP and just working with
[2819]him. It wasn't that close in terms of the way I did in Saigon, the way I did
[2820]later in his own office. . . I just saw him the other day as a matter of fact
[2821]at a meeting. I was in town. We're still friends. We say hello to each
[2822]other.
[2824]INTERVIEWER: And you were his Exec for three or four months.
[2826]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, he took over from Tom in February of '73 and I was
[2827]reassigned out of his office, I think it was May '73. So it's March, April,
[2828]May -- three months for sure -- and a couple of weeks in February and a couple
[2829]of weeks in May. So it's roughly three, three to four months. .
[2830]INTERVIEWER: So you were there when that memo was being prepared?
[2832]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. |
[2834]INTERVIEWER: Uh huh.
[2836]MR. HALPERN: - That's why I keep saying, I keep telling my friends, “You're
[2838]blaming the wrong guy!"
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[2847]INTERVIEWER: You have reason to know.
[2849]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. ‘And you see part of my problem too was, and this was true
[2850]later when Bill took over, and even that summer, and later when he took over
[2851]as the DCI, he was talking in terms about one Agency. He wanted one big
[2852]Agency. He didn't want this split between DDI and DDP and the DDA and the DDS
[2853]then and now they have S&T. One big Agency. Everybody know everything. And
[2854]I said, "What are you going to do, tack all the cables up on the bulletin
[2855]board? Put all the operations up on the bulletin board so everybody can read
[2856]all this stuff?" And this lasted for a little while, like a couple of months,
[2857]I think. And finally it even finally began to sink inona guy called Bill
[2858]Colby. . Jesus, there have got to be some compartmentations somewhere. And
[2859]we've got to stop all this, everybody know everything. He wanted one Agency,
[2860]one Agency. All does not runa. .. That was part of Turner's problem. Read
[2861]Turner's book. And read my review of Turner's book if_you haven't. I'11 give
[2862]you a copy. Turner could never understand it. He couldn't understand why he
[2863]had all these different Directorates, which he for some crazy reason called
[2864]branches. And he still talks about it as branches. He didn't understand that
[2865]they're simply separate activities: Each one of those things, except the DDA,
[2866]can be its own independent Agency. Literally. And the DDA simply supplies
[2868]the men, money, material (the three m's) for everybody. And at one time, at.
[2870]least in the early days, 80-85% of what the DDA did for a living, they did for
[2871]the ODP.
[2873]INTERVIEWER: That high a percentage?
[2875]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, and that was before DDS&T came along.
[2877]INTERVIEWER: Right, yeah.
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[2886]MR. HALPERN: And I said, in those days, I said, "Well, why the hell don't we
[2887]just absorb them, make them part of us,.you know, as part of our command?"
[2888]And that led to another big hoorah, but we never did get command. But they
[2889]did. Eighty-five percent of their activity was for us.
[2891]INTERVIEWER: Did you, at the time Bill Colby was talking about one big
[2892]Agency. _ | a
[2894]MR. HALPERN: '73, ‘74.
[2896]INTERVIEWER: Yeah, why?
[2898]MR. HALPERN: Well, because of what we were talking about before. The
[2899]difference of views, the different cultures involved, in both what the
[2900]collector and the analysts. And then of course you had. the new thing called
[2901]technicians -- technical people -- which is a totally different aspect, even
[2902]for us in the DDP. Our technicians were our TSD types or the commo-types.
[2903]And we did some SIGINT of our own and that kind of stuff, but with the use of
[2904]the commo guy, the operators of the machines. We weren't into overhead
[2905]reconnaissance and things like that, for God's sakes, and other black box
[2906]activities, except even the black boxes, they asked us to deliver in many
[2907]parts of the world. We had to do the drops, we had to get. them in either by
[2908]hook or by crook and things like that into the right location and all that
[2909]kind of stuff. So there was a marriage there. But basically, as I said, each
[2910]one of these three Directorates could honestly, and you could come up with
[2911]good rationale for making separate Agencies of each one of them. And so when
[2913]Bill talks about one Agency, one big family, he was trying to merge us all
[2915]together and make us, like Turner says in his book, he wanted to make
[2917]everybody be able to do everybody else's job. Well, that is kind of silly.
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[2926]And as I point out in my review of his book, I said, “You don't take an.
[2927]artillery officer and make a submarine captain out of him. Or vice versa.
[2928]Sure, you can do it over a period of training, but if a guy wants to be a sub
[2929]captain, he goes into the sub service. He doesn't join the artillery. And
[2930]vice versa." And I said, “You know, people are not that changeable." "
[2931]INTERVIEWER: Were you surprised when Colby tried to do this?
[2933]MR. HALPERN: No. Not really. I am never surprised at anything 8111 Colby
[2934]wants to do. Never. _
[2935]INTERVIEWER: And that dates back to '56?
[2937]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. That dates back to 56. And I wasn't the only FE officer
[2939]who saw it in '56. Believe me.
[2941]INTERVIEWER: Is that right? That early on?
[2943]MR. HALPERN: You could spot it. We did. I am not unique in this. Talk to
[2944]some of the old FE hands and see what they tell you. Just don't take it from
[2945]me. Oo , -
[2947]INTERVIEWER: How about the, we will come back to that later, how about, did
[2949]you have much of anything ‘to do with the Rockefeller Commission?
[2951]MR. HALPERN::. No. I didn't have anything at. all. None of it. I read their
[2953]-report. I'll: show you my copy. It's all marked up. They've got so much
[2955]misinformation in there, it's ‘not even funny. I mean, even they're screwed
[2956]up. I mean the nature of the business. It's Tike Robin Winks, he's got a lot -
[2957]of misinformation in there, Ranelagh got a lot of misinformation. People just
[2958]can't get . . . If I wrote a book, I'd have a lot of things wrong if I
[2959]started to go outside of things I personal ly know about. You know, all you
[2960]can do is conjecture. And how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? You are
[2961]going to have a hell of a job. |
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[2970]INTERVIEWER: I think so. Okay. How about moving towards the Hearings. One .
[2971]writer said about Mr. Colby that Mr. Colby believed salvation for the Agency
[2972]lay in cooperation with the investigations, while other intelligence
[2973]professionals thought intelligence secrets were forever. .
[2975]MR. HALPERN: I'm with the second group.
[2977]INTERVIEWER: You are with the second group.
[2979]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. And I will refer you to Colby's own book in which he says
[2981]=- this is before the Church Committee was created —- January the 15th, 1975.
[2983]Colby went to testify in public before the, I think. it was the Armed Services,
[2984]it might have been Appropriations. I forget now. I think it was Russell or
[2986]Vinson, I forget the exact person. But anyway, and he says in his book after
[2987]he testified, after he testified in which he exposed for the first time, even
[2988]though ‘the law didn't require him to do that, by the law, as a matter of fact,
[2990]you're supposed keep secret the organizational structure and breakdown of
[2992]CIA. Colby blew it for the first time, exposed the whole organizational
[2994]structure in public and went far beyond even that. for the first time in public
[2995]testimony. And hevsays in his book, on the way back from the Hill going to
[2996]his office in Langley, it suddenly dawned on him that he might stop off at the
[2997]White House and alert them to what he has. just done so that the news doesn't —
[2998]hit them cold. And in my book, that in effect damned the hell out of Bill .
[2999]Colby. Because as a serving. officer, as a serving DCI, his first port of call
[3000]even before he went near the Hill would have been to go into the President's
[3001]office, I don't care who the President is, his boss and say, "Boss, this is
[3002]what I've been asked to do, this is what I intend to do. Is it okay with
[3004]you?" He never did. By the time it got to the White House, it was too late
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[3013]to do any kind of damage contro] or approach it a totally different way, and
[3014].the President may not have wanted to, because Ford wasn't the strongest guy in
[3015]the world, may not have wanted him to say anything. He may have wanted him to
[3016]invoke Executive immunity or whatever. But Colby by doing what he did, by
[3017]testifying first, cut the feet out from under the President. The President
[3018]had no choice except to continue. And after that Colby just went on and on
[3019]and on and.on and on. And never held back. And he had every reason to hold
[3020]back, particularly in the public hearings. Executive hearings, it might have
[3021]been different. But in public hearings, you know, in ny book he went far far
[3022]beyond what he needed to do.
[3024]INTERVIEWER: Was there ever any talk’ when these. .
[3026]MR. HALPERN: And I was out of the Agency by then.
[3028]INTERVIEWER: You were out?
[3030]MR. HALPERN: By ‘75.
[3032]INTERVIEWER: When the materials were gathered, “Family Jewels," ever any talk
[3033]about why that didn't get over to the White House or apparently he had
[3034]briefed, he Colby, had briefed some committee, but did not fill the White
[3035]‘House in. a _ - :
[3037]MR. HALPERN: I don't know.. I don't know. I was back in the Agency in
[3038]January ‘75, because I retired December 31, ‘74. My sidekick and buddy,
[3039]Seymour Bolton, who is now dead, unfortunately, may he rest in peace, also
[3040]retired December 31, '74, but he went back to work right after the new year.
[3041]To start, we didn't: know that a Church Committee and he didn't know that a
[3043]Church Committee was being treated and what have you, but he knew that there.
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[3052]was going to be problems in terms of the two Hersh articles. And Seymour
[3053]convinced several of the powers that be in the Agency, including Bill, and
[3054]then he finally convinced me to come on back to the Agency to help out,
[3055]pulling together the stuff, because they kind of felt that I knew where the
[3056]poop was. I knew roughly where it was hidden, perhaps even what safe it was
[3057]in,. and maybe what the hell the color of the paper was. And so I agreed to
[3058]come back, and so Twas in there in January of '75 and stayed on until about
[3059]March, I think, maybe April ‘75 when it dawned on me, that this is silly, a
[3060]waste of time on my part because I was getting responses to my queries from
[3061]all the Directorates, I mean, I was getting substantive responses from all the
[3062]Directorates except one -- the DDO. And I knew damn well where the hell the
[3064]information was, that they had the information. In most cases I did. And I
[3066]wasn't getting it. And the rationale I was given by several of the officers
[3068]' fn the ODO was that, "We're not sure" -- or roughly like this -- "We're not
[3070]sure what Bill Colby is going to do with this information. We don't trust
[3072]him. What do you want comment for?" So I mentioned this a couple of times to
[3074]Bill and he kind of said, “Okay, okay." I thought, “This is crazy." And I
[3075]finally wrote him a letter, and I sent it to his home, not to the office,
[3076]' because I know what the hell happens with paper shuffling. Because I've done
[3078]enough of it in my day. And I said to Bill, "I quit for a very.simple
[3080]reason. You are no longer the OCI." I said, "I agree with the guys in the
[3082]DDO in that nobody knows what you are going to do with this information. But
[3084]’ in my book you are still the-commanding officer. And it is up to us as troops
[3086]to give you the information you ask for. What you do with it is up to you.
[3088]It is your conscience, not. ours. So since you are not acting as the OCI and
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[3097]insisting that you get the information you need or you want, there's no point
[3098]in me hanging around. I'm retired and I'm going out of your life." And I
[3099]walked out. .
[3100]INTERVIEWER: My goodness. Was it Scotty Miler also, didn't he retire in
[3101]December?
[3102]MR. HALPERN: 31, 1974, and Bill Hood did too and Ray Rocca did too. Well a
[3103]“Jot of guys went out. I think there were over 200 of us from the DDO that
[3104]went out December 31, 1974. Largely, there was a lot of reasons, but one of
[3105]the big reasons was the fact of the numbers, the retirement numbers. Just
[3106]turned out to be right because there was a big increase coming up and if you
[3107]“left by that date you got a little bit extra and that kind of stuff. So
[3108]everybody walked out at the same time. I was surprised when -I got the figures
[3109]from the retirement people what the hell I would be getting. So I Figured I
[3110]might as well go out in December then, too. And this -was long before the
[3111]Hersh articles appeared that we put our papers in.
[3112]INTERVIEWER: That you had made your decision?
[3113]MR. HALPERN: Yes, we all did. Of course, you had to have your papers in ata
[3114]certain time anyway. And in my case, see, I wasn't on the CIARDs initially.:
[3115]And I had to write:a special memorandum to try to convince the powers that be
[3116]in DDO and in personnel and in the Director's office that the things I had .
[3117]done which were not. overseas -- I didn't have enough to qualify.
[3118]I had to explain and get their approval for the activities I had done earlier
[3119]done a lot of it in the States, even while serving in Washington.-- to equate
[3120]X number of years abroad that I needed. And I forget the exact figures. But -
[3121]anyway, and that paper had to be put in long before the Hersh article
[3122]appeared. And low and behold, they wanted to get rid of people and I was a
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[3131]super grade. I was a GS-17. They figured they would get another slot, and so
[3132]they let me go. They made me a member of CIARDS. And as a result of being
[3133]CIARDS, when I told the retirement people what would happen if I was CIARDS,
[3134]then they gave me a new Figure on my retirement which went up by a goodly
[3135]proportion. TI said, “I have no idea."
[3136]INTERVIEWER: - What is CIARDS?
[3138]MR. HALPERN: CIARDS is that Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and
[3139]Disability System.
[3141]INTERVIEWER: Okay.
[3143]MR. HALPERN: C-I-A-R-D-S. It's the name of the bill in 1964 which set up
[3144]this earlier retirement for certain people with certain qualifying service.
[3145]And so it's called CIARDS. And I can take it right out of the. title of the
[3146]act. It has been amended a number of times since then. ~
[3147]| INTERVIEWER: What would you say the most difficult demands were in conducting
[3148]“the Congressional investigations in '75 as you may have: sensed at the time?
[3149]MR. HALPERN: Sensed is a good word and also when I testified. I always felt.
[3150]that when proper people in Congress ask questions, you gave them the answers. .
[3152]'. That's why I'm opposed to this Ollie North/Pointexter nonsense and what they
[3154]did was wrong in the way they, you Know, handled the Congress. And 8111 Casey
[3155]was wrong on’ that. Congress, for good or bad, for good or evil, they are the
[3156]ones who set it up. They are the ones who make the rules. You've got to live
[3157]by the rules. Otherwise, you'd’ have chaos. And so the biggest problem I
[3158]felt, and stil] feel: today, and felt at the time that I was testifying, is
[3159]that yeah, I am giving you the. truth and it fs up to you, Mr. Congress, to
[3160]keep that information privileged. I don't want it all over the street. And
[3161]one of the worst things that I thought that Frank Church did was after every
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[3170]single executive session up on the Hill, including the one I was at, he had a
[3171]television show right after the meeting broke up. They were waiting for him
[3172]outside the door with cameras and lights. And we, you and I, as American .
[3173]citizens paid for all of the electricity involved because they were all
[3174]plugged into the walls. But I saw it there as I came out. Fortunately,
[3175]nobody ever stopped me going out. y don't know what the hell, what it-was,
[3177]but maybe it was because I looked so nondescript or so ignorant or whatever,
[3178]because when I left that meeting, I thought there they were in the hall and .
[3179]walked right by them. And they were waiting for some big shot. and I wasn't a
[3180]big shot. A little shot, or a little punk anyway. And I walked. in, walked
[3182]‘right by them, stepping over all the wires and all their legs because they
[3184]were sitting there leaning against the wall like this, you know, and snoring
[3186]some of them. And I went into the men's room, and I didn't have on my award
[3188]pin from the Agency and had just an ordinary dumb old. blue ‘suit, I think it
[3190]was. And I went right by them, went into the. john, did my business, came out,
[3191]walked by them the other way, and got out of there. And that night I see
[3192]Frank Church on television telling about all this stuff they had just heard.
[3193]Not once, he never mentioned my name. My name was never mentioned except, I
[3194]was told later, in the late edition, a late city edition of The New York Times
[3195]in New York, in one of the stories my name appeared. And I. was in the .
[3196]executive session.: Nobody should have known my name. Somebody gave somebody ,
[3197]somebody inside gave somebody outside, my name.. And it was there on one
[3199]line. Except I have gone to look at The New York Times index a couple of
[3200]times and they've got my name listed in that year, ‘75, but the page number is -
[3202]all wrong. So it's one of ‘those historical things that you will never find.
[3204]You'll never find it-unless you know exactly where to 100k. The index wil)
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[3213]not lead you to my name, even though it says that you should find it there.
[3214]It's not the only time I have had trouble with The New York Times index. So
[3215]when you talk about the biggest problem, the biggest problem is security and
[3216]leaks. That is the biggest problem on the Hill. And the Hill, I think, is
[3218]“beginning to realize that, maybe they have, and I think the more they talk
[3220]about the joint committee with a smal] professional staff, they will be going
[3221]in the right direction. I've argued for it and have written about that, too,
[3223]about a single committee, a joint committee, for years now, and maybe they'l]
[3225]get to it. It's going to be tough but maybe they'll get to it..
[3227]INTERVIEWER: What was your feeling in the executive session in which you were
[3228]being questioned?
[3230]MR. HALPERN: I felt that I was dealing with a bunch of nincompoops and idiots.
[3231]INTERVIEWER: On the part of the staff?
[3233]MR. HALPERN: Staff and the Senators present. Goldwater was the only one that
[3234]I thought had a feeling for what was going on. Schweiker was an ass.
[3235]Huddleston and Mondale were totally incompetent on this particular subject,
[3236]maybe because he was new. I testified in June of '75. I would have thought
[3237]by that time they would have gotten some briefings from their own staff as to
[3238]what the hell was going on. About what was going on. I'll give you an |
[3239]example. I mentioned somewhere along the way, I forget what the specific was,
[3240]but I mentioned something about female case officers. And I was interrupted.
[3241]by Mondale and Huddleston with kind of a learing kind of a question. “And
[3242]what do female officers do?" I just looked at him and I said, “What any other
[3243]case officer does. They do exactly the same thing. No more, no less.
[3245]They're Chiefs of Station, they're Deputy Chiefs of Station, they're ordinary
[3246]Case Officers, they pound the street, they write reports, they handle paper,
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[3255]they do everything everybody else does. They recruit people. They handle
[3256]people, they manipulate people. What else did you expect them to do?" You
[3257]know, the whole approach was, “Female case officers?" That really set me off
[3258]and if I hadn't been constrained to where I was, I would have really let go in
[3259]my better language, and I didn't. TI tried to hold off.
[3261]INTERVIEWER: | How did they happen to have you come and testify?
[3263]MR. HALPERN: I don't know for sure. I think it Was because Helms was being
[3264]called back so many times for the various committees, that he was almost like
[3265]a yo-yo from Teheran as Ambassador. And I think he practically had a commuter
[3266]ticket on some of the airlines the way he was coming back and forth. And on
[3267]one of his trips, he asked me to brief him, and Tom Karamessines, a matter of
[3268]fact, about the background on the Cuban Missile Crisis and some of the
[3269]activities during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The whole Operation MONGOOSE
[3270]thing. Particularly MONGOOSE which was very hot at that particular point.
[3272]And a few other details. The brass isn't suppose to remember details. That's
[3273]what they got guys like me around for. That's what I get paid for. Sol
[3274]talked to Dick and talked to Tom and gave them as much as I could. And I just
[3275]guessed that somewhere along the way in their private discussion or private
[3276]testimony the stuff that wasn't the public stuff, before you get in front of
[3277]the public television and what have you, Dick must have said or Tom must have
[3278]said, "and if you want any more detail get a hold of Sam." Or something like
[3279]that, I guess. And so sure enough, I get the call. I didn't care. I got
[3280]nothing to hide. Because I'm proud of what I did all these years. And so if
[3281]they don't like it, that's tough. Change the system. And that's how I think -
[3282]I got picked. And I remember when the Church Committee began, one of my
[3283]retired colleagues, and his wife who is also a retired colleague, his wife was
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[3292]on the Committee staff. She arranged a dinner party with several of the new
[3293]staff types - this is the Church Committee not the Pike Committee. Seymour
[3294]Bol ton called the Pike Commi ttee guys a bunch of young whippersnapper,
[3295]snot-nosed kids. Really. The staff on the Church Committee was a little bit
[3296]better. Anyway, at this dinner party, my wife came -along too. But anyway, I
[3297]was the target of the night, obviously, and everybody zeroed in on me, before
[3298]dinner and after dinner and everything else. In terms to the approach to this
[3299]whole business, where do we go from here and how. And I pointed out that
[3301]they were ih a totally different environment than they've ever been before,
[3302]telling them this was a.different kind of a game, and I said, "You are going
[3303]to be surprised at the fact that you are not going to find very much paper
[3304]around. And you are not going to find whole treatises like you do in law
[3305]cases and what have you." And I said, “You are going to see my name and my
[3306]initials on literally thousands of pieces of paper. But I'd be willing to: bet
[3307]you're. not going"to find more than a smattering of any substance before that
[3308]initial or before that name. You are going to. find all kinds of references to
[3309]"as we discussed' and ‘why don't we talk about this' and, you know,' let's see
[3310]what we.can do about this', ‘why don't we talk about this sometime in the
[3311]future’. You are going to find very meaningless comments." And the guy said,
[3312]"Don't you guys ‘ever put anything in writing?" I said, “We can, but if we can
[3314]avoid it, no." And he said, "Well, how do you get approvals for projects?"
[3316].And I said, “You write a project, and that you'll find. You'll find lots of
[3318]stuff, lots of projects that we did. Some of them are one pagers, some of them
[3319]are ten pages. But that's not what makes the whole place operate." And the
[3320]whole purpose was to try to get me, I suppose, to tell them how to find things
[3321]and what to look for. You know, I don't have to tell them. First of all, I
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[3330]wasn't witting there under oath, in the first place. And- when I got under
[3331]oath, yeah I told them the truth. They didn't like to hear it. I got into a
[3332]big shouting contest with a guy called Gary Hart. He was sitting in the
[3333]background. .He wasn't even _- he was sitting with the staff, asa matter of
[3334]fact. I guess’ that was part of his popularism or something. And he made some
[3335]remark in the back there and I shouted back at him. I didn't give a damn. I
[3336]made some remark about the Operation MONGOOSE we were talking about at the
[3337]- time and I said this was, as far as I Was concerned, this was American foreign
[3338]policy made by the President. And ‘this voice in the back, I Jater found out
[3339]it was Gary Hart, said something about, "Hey, well that doesn't make American
[3340]foreign policy." I said, "As far as I'm concerned if the President says that
[3341]- is what we are doing and the Attorney General agrees, that's what we are
[3342]doing. That's foreign policy." You Know, and Church cut off.
[3343]INTERVIEWER: Was Mathias there, do. you remember. at all?
[3344]MR. HALPERN: Yes, yes he was there. He didn't bother me much. I think it
[3345]was Mac that was there. I know Schweiker was there and'I know Goldwater was |
[3346]. there.
[3347]INTERVIEWER: Tower?
[3348]MR. HALPERN: Yes, Tower was there. He didn't say much.
[3349]INTERVIEWER: No. _
[3350]MR. HALPERN: It was mostly Church and, of. course, F.A.O. Schwarz as the Staff.
[3351]Director. Yeah, that was a funny one too. I'd been called to talk to Schwarz
[3352]‘on the Staff first in the morning, a crack of dawn kind of thing. And I got
[3353]down there. And this was ih. the old, oh, what the hell is the building, the -
[3354]Senate building, not the Rayburn Building, the other one.
[3355]INTERVIEWER: Cannon? -
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[3364]MR. HALPERN: No. No. The one next to the -- it's on the corner. Big
[3365]building, before they built the Hart Building. Well, I forget. It was the
[3366]guy who came up with that -- from Indiana, I think it was, or I1linois. -- but
[3367]anyway, they had taken over the auditorium in that building and they were a
[3368]so-called secure area. They had safes and what have you all over the place
[3369]and they had taken the seats out and what have you. And I was in there, I
[3370]went in there, talking to Schwarz and some of his cohorts, then suddenly out
[3371]of the clear blue sky he says, "Well, let's walk over to the Capitol
[3373]Building. The Committee is going to go into session and they. want to talk to.
[3374]you." And I said, “You mean.just like that?" He said, “Yeah, you got nothing
[3375]to hide, have you?" And I said, “No, I got nothing to hide." He said, "Yeah,
[3376]I was thinking you might as well go and talk to them directly." So after
[3377]spending a couple of hours with Schwarz and company, I was ushered across the
[3378]street and we walked all the way over to the Capitol Building and went up to
[3379]the fourth floor or whatever it was and testified that night. I was told to
[3380]stand up, and sworn in, and we went to town.
[3382]INTERVIEWER: And you didn't know that you were going to do that before? Oh
[3383]my. .
[3385]MR. HALPERN: I had no chance to talk to a lawyer or anything like that. Not
[3386]that I cared. It didn't bother me. But it was a lousy way to do business, .
[3387]and it wasn't according to the rules at the time, because I had the rule book,
[3388]procedures, and what have you and it wasn't what I was supposed to be able to
[3389]do. And they were supposed to give me a notice for that and that kind of
[3390]stuff. But I didn't want té stop the proceedings. .
[3392]INTERVIEWER: Was it a very long session that you were in?
[3394]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, it was all day.
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[3403]INTERVIEWER: The executive?
[3404]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, it was the executive session. I think it was, I don't
[3406]know, several hours. I mean, I got. out late in the afternoon. After five
[3408]- o'clock or later. -
[3410]INTERVIEWER: Was Bill Miller involved at all?
[3412]MR. HALPERN: Yes, Bill was there, yeah Bill was there. And Schwarz was
[3413]there, and a lot of the other staffers were in the back. That's why I thought
[3414]Gary Hart was a member of the staff. He was sitting with the staffers. And
[3415]it should have dawned on me that a staffer wouldn't have dared shout that way
[3416]across the heads of the guys in front of him -~ the Senators. And Schwarz was
[3417]at the table, too. But the rest of the guys were in the back. Why Gary Hart
[3418]sat in the back I'll never know to this day.
[3420]INTERVIEWER: Did you have any impression that what you had said in that
[3421]session went beyond that session?
[3423]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. Because I started to open up on MONGOOSE, on Ed
[3425]-Lansdale's connection, and the fact that this was not a CIA operation,
[3427]regardless of what anybody might want to tell them, that it was a
[3428]government-wide operation and it was run right out of Robert Kennedy's office,
[3429]by Robert Kennedy, and even Landsdale was not in charge. He was the chief of
[3430]staff to Kennedy, Robert Kennedy. It was run right out of Kennedy's office
[3432]and Robert and Jack Kennedy were one practically, and that McCone, McNamara
[3434]‘and Rusk had each refused to go along with one of Landsdale's ideas that even
[3436]Kennedy couldn't force on them. And that was, originally, Landsdale's idea -
[3437]for MONGOOSE was for each of the agencies in town to detail men, money, and —
[3438]material out of the Agency to what amounts to a new MONGOOSE agency under
[3439]Landsdale and Kennedy. And McCone was the first to have said, "Hell no." He
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[3448]said, "That money was appropriated by Congress under my command, my
[3449]responsibility. It stays with me. We'll work with you and we'll help you and
[3450]we'll be part of your team kind of thing. But I can't relinquish control over
[3451]men, money, and material as appropriated to me." And McNamara said the same
[3452]thing and Rusk said the same thing so that they didn't achieve creating a
[3453]brand new Agency in effect. And this was all brand new to the guys sitting
[3454]around that table. It might not have been new to Schwarz, who seemed to
[3455]understand something about Landsdale's role, because when I started to talk
[3456]about Landsdale being in command and being in direct communication with us and
[3457]issuing orders directly in the name of Kennedy, etc., etc., I remember Church
[3458]saying to Schwarz, “Is General Landsdale available anywhere?" And Schwarz
[3459]saying something, "Yes sir. We have tracked him down, he lives in..." I think
[3460]he said Falls Church or something. He lives in Virginia anyway, “and we're
[3461]trying to get in touch with him to have him come here." And a little later on
[3462]he did come and testify. But this was seen like brand new stuff to them.
[3464]This was June, mind you. And one of the things they were after was Rogue
[3466]Elephant running operations against Cuba. And it had been written about ‘quite
[3468]a bit and all that kind of stuff. And they didn't have a clue. And they
[3470]didn't like the idea that, as far as I was concerned, the Kennedy boys were in
[3471]charge. And they were running the war. And we were fighting a war against
[3472]Cuba, undeclared or otherwise, but we were fighting a war. .I said if we were
[3474]sending people in to create sabotage activities inside Cuba, we were blowing
[3476]things up, people got killed on both sides, on their side and our side. And I
[3478]said -- that's when I got into a fight with Hart. I remember that now. And
[3479]that was foreign policy as far as I was concerned. And that's Hart said, “It
[3480]wasn't, the Congressman is involved." I said, “The hell with that." I said
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[3489]Congress was providing the money. And we didn't create our own money. We
[3490]didn't create our own weapons. And they Knew what we were doing. And so,
[3491]that was, I remember now, that was the fight with Hart.
[3493]INTERVIEWER: And did they push the issue whether John F. Kennedy knew about
[3495]all these activities?
[3497]_ MR. HALPERN: Yeah, with me as far as I was concerned. Yeah, I said I assume
[3499]that the Attorney General reported to the President and Landsdale reported and
[3500]Landsdale did not leave his office. He was in General Erskine's office in the
[3501]Pentagon. And he didn't leave his office. He stayed there physically and in
[3502]that office but he directed activities from there in the name of the President
[3503]and the Attorney General. That was MONGOOSE, I said. And it is all written
[3504]up now in the Church Report. They finally got all the stuff straight, pretty
[3505]much straight. There are some errors in it. ut I try to correct them. It
[3506]doesn't always work. But that was, one of the things that bothered me, the
[3507]Senators themselves were being led around as they usually are, I think, by the
[3508]staff. They don't have enough time in the day I suppose to do all. of these
[3509]things. And the staff, even by June, is just beginning to get their feet wet
[3510]on something like this. And they were looking into other operations. One was
[3511]an Indonesian operation which was brought under Eisenhower's aegis. And I
[3512]think they were hoping to use that again as another example of a Rogue
[3513]Elephant. But my own feeling, and they never talked to me about that,
[3515]although they should have. They talked to a lot of other people and I guess
[3516]they figured by the time they talked to enough people they didn't have to talk
[3517]to me, because the record on that is ‘so complete. You talk about paper. ‘Now -
[3518]that one we had plenty of paper on, because everything was done by cables and
[3519]memos. And it was so complete and so accurate, in terms of starting with the
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[3528]President's approval, Eisenhower's approval, and all the things that we did
[3529]through the then 5412 Committee, and the ‘papers on that were clear, and all
[3530]the cable traffic was clear, that they figured there was no way they were
[3531]going to pin that on CIA as a CIA operation because that was again, State, CIA
[3532]and Defense all working as a-team. We were carrying the main load at that
[3534]level, but everybody was involved. No question. And all the record was
[3536]‘there, so I guess they couldn't use that as a Rogue Elephant operation. The
[3538]reason they hit the MONGOOSE one, I think, was because, Cuba being Cuba, the
[3539]assassination efforts and that kind of stuff, they had to keep it back.
[3540]INTERVIEWER: And it seemed to-me that there was some mention along the way
[3541]that the Agency was not going to call back people from retirement to
[3542]participate in the investigations.
[3544]MR. HALPERN: That's correct. And:the Agency did nothing to help anybody,
[3546]even serving officers without giving them any legal assistance. They were
[3548]told to go get their own lawyers.
[3550]INTERVIEWER: They didn't get support?
[3551]MR. HALPERN: And that also broke the Band of Brothers, and there wasn't
[3553]anything left by then. This was ‘75 now. But the Agency made it very clear
[3555]_ in their memoranda and the Notices, the Headquarters Notices they issue to all
[3557]employees that you are on: your own, you get your own lawyers, etc., etc. You
[3558]got no help from the Agency. Which was not true in the old days. Not true at
[3560]all. There was a completely adversarial relationship that was developed.
[3562]’ INTERVIEWER: So no legal support.
[3564]MR. HALPERN: None whatsoever. You can, hell, go ask Paul to get you the old |
[3565]Notices that was put out on the Commi ttee. No legal support whatsoever. Not
[3566]even advice. Colby released everybody from their oaths by the way -- from
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[3575]their secrecy oaths in terms of testifying to Congress. Well, hell, first of
[3576]all I think that was a silly thing to do because when you, even the oath
[3577]itself that you sign, the secrecy oath, look at the one you signed. It
[3578]doesn't say anyting about withholding anything from Congress. In addition to
[3580]which Congress has made it very crystal clear in the laws they passed since
[3582]then that nothing in here is to imply in any way you were to withhold any
[3584]information from Congress, through duly authorized Congressional requests.
[3585]Correct.
[3587]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
[3589]MR. HALPERN: $6 he shouldn't have issued that one about releasing you from
[3590]your oath when testifying before Congress. That's nonsense, utter nonsense.
[3591]INTERVIEHER: And I imagine the people were really, I suppose, surprised that
[3592]they didn't get any legal... ,
[3594]MR. HALPERN: -Oh, very much surprised. Particularly the retirees... Every time
[3596]‘a retiree, you know, tried to get in touch with the Agency to get some kind of
[3598]help or guidance, what do I say, what do T don't say. You got nothing. You
[3599]were on your own. | . .
[3601]INTERVIEHER: Were there any lawsuits that you were involved in?
[3603]MR. HALPERN: No. There were lots of lawsuits that other people were in. I
[3604]think Tom K's estate is still involved in several and I think Dick Helms is —
[3605]involved in several. So on: there goes it. I called them the kook cases, but
[3606]they are legal cases.
[3608]INTERVIEWER: And.they are real.
[3610]MR. HALPERN: And they are real. And they are going through courts and what
[3612]have you, no question about that.. The courts have not thrown them out. But,
[3614]in terms of testifying before the Congress, a lot of the people were called
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[3623]in. Like me, I'd never testified before Congress.
[3624]INTERVIEWER: It was your first time.
[3626]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. First time. And so far my only time thank the Lord. But
[3627]I don't care about going before them again. They walk on water, they don't
[3628]walk on water any more than I do. And the old story about they put on their
[3629]pants one leg at a time like I do. Well, what the hell.
[3631]INTERVIEWER: Did they contact you at all after the Hearing relative to any of
[3632]the testimony? .
[3634]MR. HALPERN: No. No. You are given copies-of the testimony and then you are
[3635]allowed to make corrections on it because: a. the tape doesn't always work,
[3636]and b. the guy who is listening and talks into it doesn't always get it. And
[3637]sometimes the repartee is so fast nothing can catch it. And that happened
[3638]with my argument with Gary Hart. That is totally missing from the written
[3639]record. But you know,.so, life goes on. But that is what you get and then
[3640]you are allowed to adjust it and send it back or you can take it back and
[3641]argue with them, or what have you.
[3643]INTERVIEWER: They didn't give any indication that you might have to come to a-
[3644]public hearing? -
[3646]MR. HALPERN: No. I'm not big enough for that. I'm all over the Church
[3647]Committee Report. I'm listed as the "Executive Officer to" or the “Executive
[3648]Assistant to" or whatever phraseology. And that has been blown by Tom Powers
[3649]and God knows how many other people. I didn't blow it but a lot of other
[3650]people did. So, it doesn't take long to put two and two together.
[3652]INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about some people say that the intelligence
[3653]collection and analysis were seriously impaired during the year of
[3654]investigation because of the man hours spent in preparing and transmitting
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[3663]responses to the committees. Did you...
[3664]MR. HALPERN: I wasn't in there so I can't say. But I would say based upon
[3666]what I know about the bureaucracy, it had to have a bad impact, a very adverse
[3668]_ impact on: a. the morale of the people, b. the initiative of the people,
[3670]which goes to zero or less than zero, you know, why should I stick my neck out
[3671]kind of thing. It's got to then badly impact on any prospective agent you
[3672]might want to recruit. A foreigner's got to have rocks. in his head to be
[3673]willing to work for the US Government these days in a clandestine capacity.
[3674]And if I were a Case Officer today, I'd have to. think about the sanity of the
[3675]guy I am trying to recruit. Doesn't he read the newspapers? Doesn't he watch
[3676]television? In my day, we were able to protect the identities of a source.
[3677]Really protect the identity of a source. And there were really, literally, no
[3678]more than a handful of people who knew the true name of an individual. They
[3679]might know something about the guy's background, his capabilities, his access,
[3680]that kind of stuff. A person might never ask but even if they did it would go
[3681]in one ear and out the other. We usually referred to sources by their
[3682]cryptonyms. And that was good enough for us. And that goes all the way up to
[3683]Director. True names were things that. you just don't talk about. And 50 in
[3684]this day and age though, I'm not sure they can protect the true name of an
[3685]individual. I was told, this is all hearsay, I was told that during the
[3686]Carter administration that true names of agents were requested by and given to
[3687]staff members of the White House staff. They obviously had the authority to
[3688]ask for it and somebody gave it to them. I don't know how often that was ~
[3689]done, but it was done enough. The mere fact that the cryptonym, mind you the
[3690]cryptonym, of Hussein, King Hussein, from Jordan was front page of The
[3691]Washington Post and that scared the pants off them. And that was early on in
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[3700]the Carter administration. That scared the pants off Carter and, what the
[3701]hell was his name -- Jody Powell, who was the press officer and Brzezinski ~-
[3702]to the point where they even made public statements about, you know, you've
[3703]got to protect all this kind of relationships and what have you and what have.
[3704]you. Where Senator Moynihan said Jimmy Carter suddenly discovered CIA, which
[3705]he campaigned against. You remember his litany about Watergate, Vietnam, and
[3706]CIA were part of Jimmy Carter’s campaign litany. Then Moynihan said something
[3707]to the effect of: "Jimmy Carter, despite the campaign, has suddenly
[3708]discovered that the CIA is now his.“ You know.
[3710]INTERVIEKER: "Sure.
[3712]MR. HALPERN: But, I think, so when you are talking about the impact inside
[3713]and the impact on operations, let alone what you do in terms of the amount of
[3714]paperwork that had to be generated to supply the requests from the Hill. God,
[3715]well, Scott Breckinridge, I guess you want to talk to him about that?
[3716]INTERVIEWER: Yes I will.
[3718]MR. HALPERN: Scott and Seymour Bolton were the team and they had a staff.
[3720]And it was created by Walt Elder, was part of that, to help funnel papers to
[3721]and from the Hill. And that became an industry all of its own. I'm sure, I
[3722]mean, just without even having been there, I Know enough about the bureaucracy
[3723]as to how it works. And it had to be. And it was a continuing operation.
[3724]And it creates a hell of a lot of trouble among the troops and the secretaries
[3725]and the clerks and everybody else involved. You don't have time to do
[3726]anything else. So how do you carry on the job of collecting intelligence?
[3727]INTERVIEWER: Was there any, in your last year or two with the Agency, that -
[3728]you knew of, comments by intelligence services of other countries? Any
[3729]indication that they were becoming anxious or apprehensive about .
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[3738]MR: HALPERN: Just the bare beginnings of that because, you see, the Freedom
[3740]of Information Act wasn't actually amended until '74 and didn't go into effect
[3742]“until, I think it was, December of ‘74. Just as I was getting ready to
[3744]leave. And we all knew that was going to be a problem. A real problem. And
[3745]it became a problem. All you've got to do is read the testimony of George
[3746]cary, John McMahon, Admiral Inman. Well, you can go through the old great
[3747]hearings. The amount of bad impact, adverse impact, it had with various
[3748]intelligence services around the world. Particularly our old friends. And
[3749]I'm sure it's gotten worse rather than better. With books like Woodward's
[3750]book and so on and the continuing leaks. But I nust say from where I sit on
[3751]the outside, and I am only guessing, most of the leaks seem to come from the
[3752]Executive Branch of government. I'm not just talking the White House but I'm
[3753]talking the whole slew at all levels rather than the Hill. The Hill has got
[3754]its problems but the Hin is doing more in terms of protecting itself, and
[3755]protecting the information that's given than the Executive Branch has been
[3756]able to do. . .
[3758]INTERVIEWER: More recently?
[3760]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. And over the last ten years. It's quite clear. You
[3762]just, you know, you do ‘this with a sixth sense and a gut feeling. You can
[3763]tell what's right and what's wrong and what's true and what's false. More or
[3764]Tess. You can't be totally right but you get a pretty good estimate or a feel
[3765]on this thing. And so help me, the Executive Branch is a rotten sieve all
[3766]over the place. Much worse than in my day.
[3768]INTERVIEWER: Is that right?
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[3777]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. It's not just me or my guys, it's all the way through
[3778]the government. The Executive Branch everybody talks, that's all. On all
[3779]kinds of stuff. It's not just. .
[3781]INTERVIEWER: Yeah, we're going to come back to that.
[3783]MR. HALPERN: All right. It's not just one Agency. By a long shot. And I
[3784]think the Hill is making better strides on this and think they are beginning
[3786]to realize and have for a number of years, a number of them anyway. Even what
[3788]_I told you about Huddleston. You know, you Members the Congress, trust us as
[3790]your surrogates. Well, okay, that's a step forward. Instead of trusting 535
[3792]guys, you gonna trust 135. Well, that's a big step forward. And I say 135
[3794]because I am adding up staffs as well as members of Houses and both
[3795]committees. And don't forget, and people -- most of them -~ do forget, that
[3796]in addition to the two intelligence committees, you still have Appropriations
[3797]in both Houses, you have Armed Services in both houses, and they still
[3798]jurisdictionally ain't going to give up. But they get clued in about what's
[3799]going on, but it's far more than just a two bit leak. Remember that.
[3800]INTERVIEWER: - In practice.
[3802]MR. HALPERN: In practice. Don't kid yourself. Far more people know and they
[3804]are better, they are beginning to learn, they are handling themselves much
[3806]better, they have control of the stuff. Look at the Iran/Contra stuff. Very
[3807]little stuff leaked from the Hill. What you've got is what they want you to
[3808]get. They are controlling that stuff. Very well indeed. They are
[3810]controlling the pieces of paper, they are controlling the reproduction
[3811]machines, the xeroxes and all that kind of stuff. Much better than the -
[3813]Executive Branch is doing. Yeah, sure, they are a smaller group. You know,
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[3822]they've only got 18 or 19 thousand people on the Hill to begin with and it's a
[3823]hell of a lot better than what CIA must have: at least 16,000 probably.
[3824]Alone. So look at the Pentagon, look at.the State Department.
[3826]INTERVIEWER: Isn't it interesting that time after time when one talks about
[3828]leaks or when one reads about it, frequently an article in newspaper stories,
[3830]‘the Congress is oftentimes the bad guy, the executive department is not very
[3832]bad. ;
[3834]MR. HALPERN: Well, that's why I'd take another look at that article and it
[3835]leaked the information in it and read it again. And sometimes you wonder,
[3836]hey, it probably didn't come from the Congress, because they are tightening
[3837]up. Not every staff member , for example, on the committees has access to all
[3838]the information anymore. That's been true for quite a while.. Not every
[3839]Senator or Congressman can come and -- well, they better not take anything
[3840]away from the Hill. None of them can. take even their. notes away. They're not
[3841]supposed to.make notes of what the hell they are reading. So the days of
[3842]looseness up on the Hill have long. since gone on this kind of stuff.
[3843]INTERVIEWER: There have been some .real improvements on it.
[3845]MR. HALPERN: They have learned the hard way. And they really mean it. And
[3846]they realize that their own reputations ‘are at stake. Which I think has a big
[3847]thing going for it. And I hope they get to a joint committee someday, and
[3848]remember that the House committee staff is, in effect, a small professional
[3849]staff now. It's not run the way the Senate committee is run. It's a smaller
[3850]group, they've been there a longer time and the staff director, Latimer, Tom
[3851]Latimer, has been there from the beginning. It's his second career. I knew
[3853]Tom when he was one of the guys up on the seventh floor in the Agency and over
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[3862]at the White House with Kissinger. And he worked his way up, but anyway, that
[3863]is another story. But he's been there as a pro, minding his P's and Q's. He
[3864]has a very small staff. I think there are a total of a dozen people, all
[3865]told. They are all pros.. I mean, former professionals from one agency or
[3866]another. Which is unlike the Senate committee which is still more or less
[3868]beholden to each Senator and the staff guy really is a Senator's appointee.
[3870]' And the staff director doesn't have much control over him. It's a different
[3872]story. So it will give you something to watch. And maybe as a result of the
[3873]Iran/Contra stuff, they must be having a hell of a time coming up with their
[3875]report. Oh God, they must be fighting like cats and dogs!
[3877]INTERVIEWER: That's the impression I get from snippits in the newspaper
[3878]column.
[3880]MR. HALPERN: The reports now are at least three weeks overdue. And you know,
[3882]they could have had a minority or majority report. They must be having a real
[3883]go through on that one.
[3884]INTERVIEWER: I just happened to think when you were mentioning the earlier
[3885]and, I'm not sure that it may be coming up a little bit later, were you
[3887]surprised when Mr. Colby agonized for a time over. Mr. Helms! testimony and the
[3889]- decision to turn the testimony over? Were you surprised at that?
[3891]MR. HALPERN: Uh huh. Really something.
[3892]INTERVIEWER: You didn't: think he would?
[3894]MR. HALPERN: I didn't think he would. I didn't think he should. But I'm
[3896]‘told by one of the principals involved, namely John Warner, who was then Legal
[3898]Counsel or General Counsel...
[3900]INTERVIEWER: Yeah, General.
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[3909]MR. HALPERN: ...that Bill had no choice at that point. I've talked to John
[3911]about this, I listened to ‘his argumentation. I'm no lawyer. And I still find
[3913]- it hard that something couldn't have been done about that.
[3915]INTERVIEWER: Yes, he spoke about that to me and put it on tape.
[3917]MR. HALPERN: Yes, John is an honest man. I'm not saying anything about
[3919]that. John said by the time it got to that point he couldn't advise Colby in
[3920]any other way from a legal point of view. He had to tell him to go. And that
[3921]I find very hard to accept. Although again, as we said before, times have
[3922]changed. ‘And times. change and poor Dick was caught in the middle. Absolutely
[3923]caught in the middle.
[3925]INTERVIEWER: He sure was. What about certain issues raised by the Church and
[3926]Pike Committees? What are your thoughts about certain of them such as mail
[3927]opening? .
[3929]MR. HALPERN: Well, I think they did not prove the case, that it was
[3931]illegal. And take as my text the fact that the Justice Department, in looking
[3932]into this after the Church Committee and after spending God knows how many
[3933]months and years looking into this thing, had to decide even under the Carter
[3934]administration there wasn't anything we could do. . There wasn't enough :
[3935]evidence one way or the other and when you had Postmasters General who
[3936]testify. Some testified it was totally illegal. But some say it was
[3937]perfectly legal. Nothing wrong with it. We knew what was going on and we
[3938]agreed. And that's got nothing to do with whether the President is approved
[3939]or not. When you have a difference of view from postmasters themselves, how
[3940]the hell can you go to court on that? So, oh sure, it was another one of
[3942]those head! ine grabbing things. And as somebody said, I don't know of anybody
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[3951]who was hurt by the fact that the mail was opened. Either physically, or
[3952]legally, financially or any other way. And in most cases, we didn't even know
[3953]it happened until years afterwards. And in some cases I think they had
[3954]perfectly good justification to go took at somebody's mail.
[3956]INTERVIEWER: All right. And how about the drug experimentation. Did that
[3957]come as a surprise to you?
[3959]MR. HALPERN: That was a surprise to me and it was a surprise to a lot of
[3960]people. And a lot of people, I think, took very great personal affront in the
[3961]fact that they, because they were a part of CIA, were now and forever more
[3962]tarred with this kind of thing. I don't like it. I didn't like it when I
[3963]heard about it for the first time. Particularly some of the nasty details
[3964]about the two-way glass and getting a drunk in a bar and giving him something
[3965]and following him to see what he.did and that kind of stuff. But I also know
[3966]the people involved in some of it and I know Sid Gottleib very well and I know
[3967]Knoche very well and I can't imagine them doing this because they are a bunch
[3968]of sadist or a bunch of Dr. Frankensteins who like to pull wings off of flies
[3969]and watch the flies flop around. Nothing like that at all and I think if you
[3970]look at Sid's testimony, at Gottleib's testimony, before the Kennedy Health
[3971]Committee a couple of years after all this nonsense, in which he pointed out
[3972]that we were really trying to find out what the hell the Soviets might have
[3973]been up to when they used drugs. LSD was a completely new and untried
[3974]substance. We didn't know what the hell it was. All we knew was that the
[3975]Soviet were buying up a hell of a lot of it out of the Swiss drug houses,
[3976]pharmaceutical houses. We didn't know what the hell it was going to do. We -
[3978]didn't know what the hell it was going to do to anybody. And we had to find
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[3987]out. Sid's example of American diplomats being disoriented when they were in
[3989]Moscow coming out and not knowing what the hell hit them. And I think that
[3991]what we were trying to do, or what they were trying to do rather, was to find
[3993]out what the hell it was all about. And what was this new weapon that was
[3994]going to be possibly used against us: a. How could we defend ourselves, and
[3996]b. how would we use it if it was.a proper weapon. And yeah, I was surprised.
[3998]“ But I didn't take it the way alot of guys took it. I remember during those
[4000]several months when I was in there in early '75 in the building trying to get
[4001]some answers for Colby, which he kind of didn't want, when some friends of.
[4002]mine stopped me in the hall and started to berate the living hell out of me,
[4003]because since I worked in the DDP's office, therefore, I knew everything. But
[4004]obviously I didn't. They didn't know that. But anyway, and therefore, I was
[4005]part of this thing. ‘And how could I and how dare you and all that kind of
[4006]stuff. And really a shouting match in the hall.
[4008]INTERVIEWER: And they figured you knew.
[4010]MR. HALPERN: oh yeah. Well, that didn't bother me. But I knew I didn't
[4011]know. And they were also attacking Sid through me and they knew I was a good —
[4012]friend of Sid's. And I was trying to defend the point as I did just a few
[4013]minutes ago with you. They wouldn't listen. And these were old friends. Go
[4014]way back. I mean, a part of my generation. It was just something that they
[4015]felt was beyond the pale. And maybe they are right, but I don't think so. I
[4016]was asked once without knowing it at the time, I was asked by Sid if I would
[4017]partake in a drug experiment where I would be given something and I would not
[4018]know what I was given or when I was going to be given it. And I said, "Sid,
[4020]I've got other things to do with my time. I've got to be responsible for the
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[4031]forces, the people who are down there. I can't be out of action. I don't
[4032]know what's going to happen. Maybe nothing will happen. But I can't take a
[4033]chance."
[4035]INTERVIEWER: And he was talking about you taking the drug at work then?
[4037]MR. HALPERN: He didn't say.
[4039]INTERVIEWER: Oh that's right.
[4041]MR. HALPERN: He didn't. All he said was, "If you are willing to take part in
[4042]the experiment, you will be given a drug. You won't know what it is and won't
[4043]know when you get it. I said, “Sid, I can't take a chance. I've got too many
[4045]important things here. Not that. the world is on my shoulder or anything like
[4047]that. But I've got a job to do and I can't take that chance."
[4048]‘INTERVIEWER: Was the Olson case new to you?
[4049]MR. HALPERN: Totally, absolutely totally.
[4051]INTERVIEWER: You knew nothing about that earlier?
[4052]MR. HALPERN: Al] I know is what I have read. It was quite clear. Olson had
[4054]agreed to do exactly what I had agreed not to do. He was a scientist for
[4056]God's sakes. He was a medical guy or somethjng. At least he knew drugs and
[4058]he knew what the hell he was getting into. He let himself in. He was going
[4059]in as a guinea pig in an experiment. And sure, I'm sorry that something
[4060]happened to him but he knew what he was letting himself in for.
[4062]INTERVIEWER: But you had heard nothing about it until the case broke?
[4064]MR. HALPERN: No. This was one of those things that everybody assumed because
[4065]I was in the job I held for seven years that I knew everything in the
[4066]Clandestine Service. And it was the furthest thing from the truth. Quite
[4067]often, you can ask my wife about this, quite often I'd be held in the office
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[4076]long after, without even being able to. do my own paperwork, because my door
[4077]was always open, everybody knew it. And people would come in at all hours,
[4078]particularly after hours, and they'd want to sit and talk. And I was told
[4079]more things about things. I should never have known about. Had no reason to
[4080]know. Didn't want to know. Had plenty on my mind. And I couldn't do
[4081]anything about it. But they wanted to talk. .And in a way they were letting
[4082]off steam. And in a way they expected me to screen whatever their problem was
[4083]to give to the DDP. And little did they know that very little of what they
[4084]told me ever got to the DOP. He had plenty of things on his plate, too. But
[4085]in any case, it is the kind of a job where you have got to be available to
[4087]everybody. At least the way I ran it. And you learn a lot of stuff. Very
[4089]unofficially, you know. But it never went anywhere. And so my head was full
[4091]of a lot of stuff but not everything. ‘And I remember once my boss came down
[4092]from the Hill -- this was Fitzgerald. And this was that time that Colonel
[4093]Grogan who was the public affairs officer had written a letter in Helms‘ name
[4094]attacking Senator Fulbright. Remember that crazy thing?
[4096]INTERVIEWER: Yeah. . a
[4098]MR. HALPERN: Well anyway. Dick had signed it or Grogan had signed it or
[4100]something like that. All hell broke loose and Helms had to apologize and Des
[4102]“came down from the morning staff. meeting and he called in me and he called in
[4104]the secretary and he said, “I don't want to ever see a piece of paper that Sam
[4105]hasn't seen first." And I said, "That's crazy, Des." He said, “What's the
[4106]matter, can't you take the work?" And I said, “Yeah,” you know better than
[4107]that. But that's wrong." I said, “Your staff chiefs and your division chiefs .
[4109]have got to know that they've got a private line to you personally without my
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[4118]-kibitzing. After you've seen a piece of paper if you want to give it to me to
[4119]staff out I'll do whatever you want me to do with it. Fine. But they've got
[4120]to be able to talk to you privately." And he looked at me and he said, "Yeah, -
[4121]yeah." And he never said anything about it again. So, I didn't know
[4122]everything. But I didn't need to know everything. That's crazy. Oh sure,
[4123]while Des was there I ran-operations for Des as his case officer and case
[4124]officer for him. He didn't tell his deputy, Tom Karamessines, who didn't know
[4125]anything about it. It was up to me after Des died to go in and brief Tom on a
[4126]bunch of activities that Tom may have known about but. not officially and to
[4127]clue him in. And then he had to do the same thing in turn to Cord Meyer when
[4128]Cord became the deputy. Sono, I didn't know everything that went on. And I
[4129]never claimed that I did. The only thing I couldn't do was that I couldn't
[4130]stop people from unloading on me. -They had to have somebody to talk to so I
[4131]let them talk. .
[4133]INTERVIEWER: Nice to have somebody. How about the assassination. Did that
[4134]business surprise you when. it came out?
[4136]MR. HALPERN: No, because I was involved with one. Some of the others that I
[4137]hadn't known about, yeah sure, it wasn't in my area. So I wasn't involved and
[4138]I didn't know. The one I was involved-in was the one, I guess the (I'm
[4140]- forgetting the crypts for these), the one against Castro. One of the ones
[4141]against Castro. I did not know about the use of the Mafia by Bill Harvey.
[4142]INTERVIEWER: You didn't Know about...
[4144]MR. HALPERN: .No, Bill, you think I was tight lipped. He could run rings
[4145]around me. |
[4147]INTERVIEWER: I can imagine.
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[4156]MR. HALPERN: He'll teach you lessons in how to keep your mouth shut. Oh
[4158]brother, that guy was great. No, but I wasn't the only one personally. I was
[4160]-the one who testified on that to the Church Committee. I was one of the guys |
[4162]that testified about that to the Church Committee. AMLASH. And I know the
[4163]case officer involved, the doctor involved who prepared the hypodermic pen, ©
[4164]etc. So, you know, yeah, that didn't surprise me at all. And the fact that
[4165]there were other attempts on other people around the world, that didn't
[4166]surprise me what had happened. Because I knew enough about what the hell the
[4167]system was all about and I remember that one of the reasons I was even less
[4168]surprised is in those several months that I came back in early ‘75, I saw the
[4169]original papers about the ZR/RIFLE activity and the fact that one of the first |
[4170]things that John Kennedy, John, not Robert, asked Dick Bissell for in January
[4172]'6l after he had gotten inaugurated, one of the first things was an
[4174]assassination capability. Nobody in particular in mind. Just an
[4176]assassination capability. “Create one please." And that's when Bissell got
[4177]ahold of Bill Harvey and ZR/RIFLE was created. I didn't know, I'd never heard
[4178]of it until after the thing hit in ‘75. But I had seen the original paper, so
[4179]by the time the Church Committee had announced it all, yeah, I was aware of it.
[4180]INTERVIEWER: And LASH. You got involved in that one?
[4182]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. I remember that one. I didn't see, I didn't know
[4183]LASH. I don't -speak Spanish. But I know the case officer, and I was the one
[4184]who took the case officer to see the doctor and there was another thing the
[4185]Committee , the Church Committtee guys, when I was talking to them, couidn't
[4186]understand a medical doctor getting involved in the preparation of a
[4188]hypodermic to kill somebody. And they wondered, was he a medical doctor? I
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[4197]forget which one of the guys said that. But I said, “Yeah, he was an MD."
[4199]His job was to help us in operations from a medical point of view. He wasn't
[4200]a Ph.D, he was a medical doctor. "Oh really." You know, they just had signs
[4201]of and visions of Buchenwald and Auschwitz and God knows what else. But yeah,
[4202]I took the case officer to see the doctor because I knew the doctor pretty
[4203]well. A lot of activity. A lot of assassination activity. We needed medical
[4204]support of al] kinds. You'd be surprised how much you need medical support in
[4205]operations. And it was the doctor who came up with idea of the Black
[4207]Leaf-40. I don't think the Church Committee should have published that. As
[4208]it was I don't know whether it's still, available but it was a publicly
[4209]available poison that you could buy in any drug store. And to tell the whole
[4210]world how to use it to kill somebody I thought was crazy. Totally unnecessary
[4211]to get their point across. They did not have to reveal that. I thought that
[4212]was ill advised on their part. But yeah, I took the case officer there and
[4213]the doctor who spent, I think he was up all night making that damn acid, which
[4214]LASH didn't take anyway to begin with. He thought it was crazy. -It may have
[4215]been. But you know, the assassination didn't surprise me.
[4217]INTERVIEWER: Had there been any of that. kind of talk before Kennedy, in other
[4218]words, the Eisenhower Administration? |
[4220]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah, sure. If you look at the Church Committee report
[4221]you'll see it's there. | |
[4223]-INTERVIEWER: Last time we were talking about, just as we were winding up, we
[4224]were talking about assassinations and’ LASH,. and so on, and wondering at that
[4225]time, that time being discussing. LASH, was there much of a sense of anxiety
[4227]about this kind of approach?
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[4236]«MR. HALPERN: Oh, if by anxiety you mean concern that the thing
[4238]might leak...
[4240]INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
[4242]MR. HALPERN:: Yeah. There always was and this is why.it was so
[4243]tightly held. . If you are thinking about using anxiety in terms
[4245]of morality, no. Because as far as we were concerned, I think’
[4247]most of the guys on the Task Force, we were at a war with
[4249]Cuba. I mean, when you start sending in people to shoot up
[4250]somebody else's country and blow up parts of somebody else's
[4251]country and they take losses, I mean human losses, and we take
[4252]human losses, that's war as far as I am concerned. ‘I don't
[4253]care what you call it, call it police action, call it something
[4255]else, but anyway, we were at war. And of course, some people
[4257]‘could even call it by today's terminology, terrorism. .
[4258]’ International t4rrorism. We weren't targeting market places,
[4260]though, and bus stations and things like that obviously. We .
[4262]were going after industrial plants, power plants, sugar
[4264]plants. Things like that. ‘But people did. get hurt on both
[4266]sides. So yes, there: was that kind of an anxiety in terms of
[4267]keeping our hand out-of: the assassination plots as much as
[4268]possible. Having been involved in only one of them, I have no
[4269]idea, for example, if Bill Harvey was mucking around with
[4270]Rosselli of. the Mafia. Bill knew how to keep a secret. And
[4271]even though I was his Exec, I had no idea and I know his deputy
[4273]had no idea at all. And as a matter of fact the deputy didn't
[4275]have any. idea of the AMLASH operation.
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[4284]INTERVIEWER: Did not?
[4286]MR. HALPERN: Did not. There were four people that I knew of.
[4287]Oh, I think the deputy knew ‘that the case officer involved was
[4288]meeting with AMLASH sure. But that was strictly as an
[4289]intelligence operation. And maybe as a political action
[4290]operation. But. not assassination. There were four people who
[4291]knew about the assassination aspects. I think I mentioned to
[4293]you. The case officer, me, the doctor to whom I introduced the
[4295]case officer to prepare the pen, ‘and my boss, Fitzgerald.
[4297]Those were the four. And I don't even think that Des told
[4298]Helms about the pen. That's a technical detail. How much else -
[4299]he told him, I have no idea. I never asked him, he never
[4300]mentioned, so we went on ahead and did our business. But yeah,
[4301]there was anxiety in terms of trying to maintain a secure
[4302]operation, a sensitive operation, and that was it. I. mean, we
[4303]were really trying to hang onto what the heck we were doing.
[4304]INTERVIEWER: How about when the Hearings occurred. Suppose
[4305]those Hearings, this is an iffy question --
[4307]MR. HALPERN: Go ahead.
[4309]INTERVIEWER: Had occurred back in '62 or ‘63.
[4311]MR. HALPERN: Well, it would be into ‘63 because that's when we
[4313]started.
[4315]’ INTERVIEWER: Okay, ‘63, '64. You think the quote outrage
[4317]unquote would have been different?
[4319]MR. HALPERN: It's hard to say. It would depend upon the
[4320]circumstances in which the Hearings were held. And what kind
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[4329]of a circus atmosphere there was. If it were a simple
[4330]executive session kind of look-see and the Senators or the
[4331]Representatives involved. were not running for President -- some.
[4332]of them like Church did, and others -- depends on a whole
[4334]atmosphere. It's hard to say. I think, and if our own
[4336]_ President hadn't been assassinated, with or without attribution
[4338]to Cuba or Oswald or KGB or God knows what else. If it were
[4339]just simply an operation gone bad and Congress was looking into
[4340]it, I just doubt in the ‘60's, the early ‘60's I'm talking
[4341]about '60-'65, whether there would have been quite as much
[4342]brouhaha about the whole thing. People wouldn't have liked it
[4343]when you talk about assassination, obviously, but remember when
[4344]it took place in ‘75, ten years Tater, you've got to remember
[4345]there is a whole Watergate, ten years worth of Vietnam, and a
[4346]couple of years worth.of Watergate involved. The Vietnam thing
[4347]worst of all changed the attitudes completely. Because we only
[4348]went in with Marines in ‘65. Sure we were in Vietnam long
[4349]before that; we've been there ever since ‘54, for God's sake,
[4350]but actually before that, from '45 on until the end of the
[4352]war. But I think. it would have been a totally different
[4354]atmosphere. You know, conjecture.
[4356]INTERVIEWER: Sure, yeah.
[4358]MR. HALPERN: A “What if . . ." kind of thing.
[4360]INTERVIEWER: But I think your point about the assassination of
[4361]Kennendy is .
[4363]MR. HALPERN: Made a big difference.
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[4372]INTERVIEWER: Yes.
[4374]MR. HALPERN: And Vietnam made a big difference.
[4376]INTERVIEWER: Yes.
[4378]MR. HALPERN: After 10 years of that stuff, people were fed
[4380]up. | .
[4382]INTERVIEWER: Were you surprised in ‘75, '76 about the
[4383]Congressional reaction. to this topic - the assassination?
[4385]MR. HALPERN: Oh yes, yes, yes. But only surprised in the
[4386]sense of its vehemence more than anything else. And not all of
[4387]the Senators and not all the Representatives involved had that
[4388]same attitude. There were some of them, like Barry Goldwater,
[4389]for example, for good or for bad, and others. You know, I
[4390]understand that this is what sometimes has to happen with
[4391]governments. And. even when, well, take it up to today when you
[4392]have Metzenbaum, this great liberal that prides himself as
[4393]being a liberal of the liberal. And he says, “You know, it
[4395]might not bea bad idea to knock off Qadhaafi." Where the hell
[4397]‘is he coming from? You know. And who the hell is going to do
[4399]it if not something like CIA? But you talk to him about the
[4400]morality aspects of it, it's like Church being pro-covert
[4401]action and anti-covert action. So is Metzenbaum for
[4402]assassinations or isn't he for assassinations? If he is going.
[4403]to pick and choose then that isn't all right. I mean, this is
[4404]silly. But that Kind of attitude has always bugged the hel]
[4405]out of me.
[4407]INTERVIEWER: Me too.
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[4416]MR. HALPERN: I don't mind, like Hersh, you're against using
[4418]human spys? Fine, stay that way all the way through.
[4420]INTERVIEWER: Right, be consistent.
[4422]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, that's right. But don't go saying it's all
[4423]right to shoot somebody, but not shoot somebody else. Or
[4424]whatever, however the hell else you want to do. And I remember
[4425]we were arguing even at the time of '75 and '76 when we were
[4426]discussing, how do you think Admiral Yamamoto died during World
[4427]War II? We picked up, using COMINT, where the hell Yamamoto
[4428]was going to be. And we deliberately sent out P-38s at extreme
[4430]ranges of the P-38s with just enough gas maybe to come back on,
[4432]if they were lucky enough with no maneuverability really. They
[4434]had to know the exact spot to go get them. And the orders were
[4435]"Get Yamamoto." That's killing a guy. That's deliberate
[4436]murder. Sure, we were in the middle of a war where people get
[4438]killed all the time. Well, as far as we were concerned on
[4440]Cuba, we were at war. Castro was a target. I don't see no
[4442]difference, I don't see any difference between going after and
[4443]specifically killing the leader of a country, or killing some
[4444]poor Joe private at the end of the line and I don't even know
[4445]his name. And I'm shooting at him and he is shooting at me. I
[4446]mean, that's ridiculous. I mean, what the hell, you are going
[4447]out there the kill somebody. I don't care what you call it.
[4448]INTERVIEWER: They keep looking for a declaration of war.
[4450]MR. HALPERN: Well, that went out with the Indians, a thousand
[4452]years ago. The Japanese didn't.use it against the Russians in
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[4461]1905, they didn't use it against us in 1941. I mean, this is,
[4462]you know, archaic that's all. Life doesn't work that way. And
[4463]the Germans didn't do it against Poland in 1939 either. | And
[4464]the British and the French did it against Germany after that,
[4466]~ but that was silly. People are, you know. . . You asked
[4468]about, was I surprised? ‘Yeah, I was surprised because IT...
[4469]INTERVIEWER: You didn't expect that?
[4471]MR. HALPERN: I didn't expect that kind of hypocrisy. That's
[4472]all. On the part of so-called leaders of a country. And these
[4473]guys claimed to be leaders of a country. And that's being .
[4474]sheer hypocrites. |
[4476]INTERVIEWER: That theme continues on. a
[4478]MR. HALPERN: As I say, Metzenbaum, what was it, 1985 when, we
[4479]hit Lybia, or '86, whatever? And Metzenbaum suddenly, of all
[4480]people, to suddenly say, “It'd be a good idea to knock off
[4481]Qadhaafi." .
[4483]INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about employing journalists. Did that.
[4484]topic... |
[4486]MR. HALPERN: Journalists to us are the same as any other human
[4487]being. They are a source. Or an access to the source. And if
[4488]the guy wants to work for you, why stop him? I think any
[4489]American citizen or. non-American citizen, I don't care who he
[4491]is, if they want to help the United States Government, more
[4493]power to them. I don't care whether he wears a collar turned
[4495]around or whether it's a woman or a child or anybody. If you
[4496]start breaking up and defining certain groups of people that
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[4505]_you don't touch, pretty soon you can fine-tune that to the
[4507]point where there isn't anybody in the world you are allowed to.
[4508]go talk to, do any work. for you. And that is crazy. From the
[4509]very beginning, we always had rules against using Peace Corps,
[4510]Ford Foundation, Red Cross, I don't know, a whole bunch of
[4511]humanitarian organizations. And that we understood. So we
[4512]didn't. You know, we followed orders. No problem with that.
[4513]Because certain activities were just off limits. But we never
[4514]sorted journalists. Journalists and clandestine operators. are
[4515]in the same business. We're trying to get information. We
[4516]protect sources. That's the whole purpose. You know, that's
[4517]the first thing the journalist says -= protect the source.
[4518]That's what we do. Except we don't use the terms, you know,
[4519]talk on background and all that kind of stuff.
[4521]INTERVIEWER: What about the reaction to that? Did that
[4522]surprise you? . |
[4524]MR. HALPERN: No that didn't surprise me. I knew the hypocrisy
[4525]on that was going to be quite clear and always was. It's like
[4526]academics. I.mean, that's crazy. .
[4528]INTERVIEWER: That was the next one I was going to bring up.
[4529]Same thtng.
[4531]MR. HALPERN: Same thing..
[4533]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
[4535]MR. HALPERN: I mean, an academic. We're not forcing people to
[4537]do these things. No point in forcing anybody. If you get an
[4539]“agent that you are forcing to do something, I'd question the
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[4548]value of the information that he gives you. But if somebody
[4549]volunteers and wants to work for you, I don't care what he does
[4550]for a living. ‘Except if ‘you are keeping him we are staying
[4551]away from the humanitarian, eleemosynary organizations. Okay,
[4552]that's a ground rule. We'll live with it. And we stay away.
[4553]And we've had people from those kinds of organizations come and
[4554]offer help and we tell them, "Sorry, we can't do it. If you
[4555]want to go give the State Department whatever information you
[4556]pick up, go ahead. They will be glad to have it. But we can't
[4557]do it." :
[4559]INTERVIEWER: Good.
[4561]“MR. HALPERN: You know the thing that the whole ‘75, '76 circus
[4563]era, and I call it circus era, confirmed to me is that maybe I
[4564]am just being a cynic. It just confirmed to me the hypocrisy
[4565]of the political world. It's just unbelievable.
[4567]Unbelievable. They hold executive sessions -- they mean
[4569]- executive session -- they're supposed to. And Frank Church
[4571]comes out after every single one of them for the cameras and
[4572]gives a brief summary of what took place. That's not, in my
[4574]opinion, that's not executive session. Executive session is,
[4576]you know, no comment. You walk away from the cameras. You
[4578]don't go near the cameras if it's executive session. If not,
[4579]what the hell, make it a public session. He's doing it
[4581]anyway.
[4583]INTERVIEWER: What about the Church Committee and its focus on
[4584]covert action? One view that was expressed is that there was a
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[4593]worldwide network of offices engaged largely in what -- this
[4595]again was a critic's view -- largely excessive, self-defeating
[4597]’ busy work.
[4599]MR. HALPERN: Oh, that's nonsense.
[4600]INTERVIEWER: Nonsense?
[4602]_ MR. HALPERN: Utter nonsense. Most people didn't go near
[4604]covert action in any sense of the word. Not even political
[4605]action. Most people were trying to do a simple job of |
[4606]intelligence collection basically. A few were trying to do
[4607]counterintelligence, but it was a tougher job, much tougher
[4608]job. And these others who were involved in covert action in
[4609]terms of planting editorials or news stories or working with
[4610]political parties in foreign countries and what have you. It
[4611]wasn't busy work. _ None of this stuff was made up by anybody.
[4612]These are all approved activities up and down the line. Sure,
[4613]not all the nitty-gritty, the details of everything were
[4615]approved up on an upper level then what are you going to even
[4617]‘approve back here in Washington by a desk officer. The guy in
[4619]the field has got to have some leeway in what he does and how
[4620]he does it. You can't tell him where to meet an agent and you
[4621]can't tell him how many drinks to have when. he goes out to
[4622]dinner with him and things like that. Although some people
[4623]tried. ‘And it pretty soon backfired. Particularly it.
[4624]backfired if the guy who was on the desk before was trying to
[4625]tell somebody what to do or not to do when he got out in the
[4626]field. He found out soon enough on his first tour of duty that
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[4635]you don't do that.
[4636]INTERVIEWER: Memory was there.
[4638]MR. HALPERN: But boy, I'1] tell you. But on the other hand I
[4640]don't think it was busy work any more than it was busy work to
[4641]try to collect intelligence. Most of the stuff was done
[4642]against requirements. Somebody wanted some information,
[4644]somebody wanted Something done. And the guy in the field had
[4646]to figure out how to do it. And some of it was very wasteful.
[4648]It's like a'war. War is a wasteful business. And this is a
[4649]wasteful business. As I think I mentioned the other day,
[4651]collecting intelligence by clandestine means is the toughest,
[4653]“most expensive, most time-consuming way to collect
[4655]intelligence. But it has got to be done. And you are going to
[4656]make a lot of mistakes. And you are going to loose a. lot in
[4657]the way. And you are going to waste a lot of time and effort
[4658]and money, no question about that, to collect the little bit of
[4659]information. And a lot of the information you are going to
[4660]collect is going to be useless, totally useless. But there is
[4661]going to be a few nuggets somewhere along the way. I think we
[4662]have figured out, people have estimated -- God knows he can't
[4664]do it -- for the non-denied area countries, I think it was
[4666]estimated that clandestine collection produces no more than.
[4668]5-10 percent of the total take. That's a small percentage when
[4669]you consider the amount of information that rolls into this
[4670]government. And particularly with overhead reconnaissance and
[4671]with SIGINT. That's a hell of a lot. of stuff that's pouring
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[4680]in. And maybe Seymour Hersh is right. Maybe you can do
[4681]without that 5 percent. I don't know. But I don't want to
[4682]try. He is willing to try. But a lot of it is wasteful. No
[4683]question about that. You got an Army, you got a Navy, you got
[4684]an Air Force. If. that ain't waste, my God. But when you need
[4685]them, oh, you need them.
[4686]INTERVIEWER: It takes time.
[4688]MR. HALPERN: You've got to have lead time. And this is why I
[4689]remember we were talking in terms of clandestine collection. —
[4690]Why we try so damn hard, particularly in the beginning, being
[4691]purists to not even talk to the DDI analysts because we might
[4692]get captured by them and become their researchers or their
[4693]legmen, running around in the middle of Africa finding out
[4694]where the hell the wheat fields were or the bridges were up or
[4695]down or the railways weren't operating or what. And you can go.
[4696]to the Library of Congress and spend two or three months and
[4697]dig it all out. So we'd try to keep away from those guys for
[4698]years. And the whole requirements mechanism was created to_
[4700]screen all these requests. - And from all over the government
[4702]for information on things happening abroad. And I'm sure the
[4704]analysts. thought we were a bunch of nuts not wanting all these
[4705]things to do. But we didn't. You know clandestine collection
[4706]is a tough goddamn job if you are going after hard targets.
[4707]It's not cocktail gossip. ‘In fact, the Russians used to say,
[4708]get me a piece of paper, get me a document. That's what you
[4709]want. You want some foreign government's document. You don't
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[4718]want somebody's opinion or ideas of what the heli he thinks is
[4719]happening in a cabinet meeting. You want the minutes of the
[4720]cabinet meeting. And we are theoretically in business for
[4721]strategic intelligence, not even tactical stuff. We left that
[4723]- for the military and the State Department.
[4724]INTERVIEMER: So just strategic?
[4725]MR. HALPERN: We were designed as a collection of strategic
[4726]intelligence. That means the top stuff. That means
[4727]intentions. Much more so than counting trucks or counting
[4728]airplanes. And we did both. We pulled the overhead
[4730]- reconnaissance. And it's the worst kind of way to collect
[4731]information. That's all I keep saying. So, this so-called
[4732]busy work, I think is a misinterpretation of the fact that a
[4733]lot of the work that was done was utterly useless. But that's
[4734]the nature of this business. And it still is to this day.
[4735]INTERVIEWER: Very good.
[4736]MR. HALPERN: Sorry.
[4738]_INTERVIEHER: No, very good. What about any reflections on the
[4739]competence of the Senate members on the Church Committee?
[4740]MR. HALPERN: Of the Committee members themselves?
[4741]INTERVIEWER: Uh huh.
[4742]MR. HALPERN: Well, I don't remember all the Committee members.
[4743]INTERVIEWER: Church, and we've got Mondale...
[4744]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, go ahead.
[4745]INTERVIEWER: And Goldwater, -and Philip Hart, and Gary Hart,
[4746]Huddleston, Mathias, Schweiker, and Morgan and I think I
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[4755]mentioned Mondale. Howard Baker.
[4757]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, Baker.
[4759]INTERVIEWER: Any of those at the time strike you as. .
[4761]MR. HALPERN: Well, I can't taik from personal knowledge except
[4762]that one time that I testified before them. I think I
[4764]mentioned to you, Huddleston and, this was in June of ‘75,
[4766]_ maybe they were just new guys on the block for all I know, but
[4768]they theoretically were on business since the end of January or
[4769]early February at least. And maybe they didn't have decent
[4770]staff officer to. brief them. But the impression I got was that
[4771]this was being done by these guys solely on gut feeling, pure
[4772]emotion, thinking in terms of James Bond, and no real knowledge
[4773]or feeling, even, for an appreciation of what the business was
[4774]all about. It was all out of books. In terms of Ashenden, the
[4775]secret agent, goes way back. But it was that kind of fiction
[4776]stories, and movie impressions that these guys were using in
[4777]terms of asking the questions and in terms of what they thought
[4778]intelligence was all about. They had no concept. I would have
[4779]thought by June, at least, they would have had some chance to
[4780]have talked to people -- knowledgeable people and fair people
[4781]-- to just learn what the hell the business is all about. What
[4782]are we talking about, including covert action. But it was all
[4783]in terms of a circus atmosphere, I think. I mean, it was just
[4784]-- I was appalled. I shouldn't have been. I should have known
[4785]better. Basically, in terms of some of the quys who never even
[4786]bothered to find out what they could, or even the few members
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[4795]who were on the four committees that were, or theoretically,
[4796]doting oversight. And it wasn't there. No appreciation at
[4797]all. And every time something came up, it was always “OH,
[4798]REALLY!" You know, great astonishment when you were trying to
[4799]tell them a fact. Like when I mentioned the fact, you know,
[4800]we've got female case officers as deputy chiefs of station and
[4802]chiefs of station. And that came as a great shock and surprise
[4804]to them. I don't know what they thought. I wasn't able to get ©
[4806]into their brains and find out. But this was not true of
[4807]Mathias, though. Not true of Barry Goldwater.
[4809]INTERVIEWER: Tower? |
[4811]MR. HALPERN: I don't Know. , Tower didn't sit in the day I was
[4812]sitting there. This is based with the guys around the table.
[4813]I mean, they were in kind of a horseshoe and I was in a long
[4814]table facing the horseshoe. And I was alone. And here were
[4815]all of these guys with their staffers and what have you around
[4816]them, behind them, mutterings and what have you. Schweiker,
[4817]oddly enough, Schweiker made some sense. ‘He seemed to have a
[4818]better appreciation than Huddleston or Mondale. Gary Hart was
[4819]just a fly flitting in and out, Kind of. He didn't really know
[4820]what the hell it was all about. Phil Hart, again, was very
[4821]moralistic about the whole thing, including collecting
[4822]intelligence using human sources. He was quite sure that that
[4823]was the way to go. At least that was the impression I had.
[4824]Maybe I am wrong, but that was what I feit. Mondale was the
[4825]worst, I thought, in terms of his approach to the thing. Then
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[4834]again, I don't know who his staff officer was or who was
[4835]briefing him beforehand.
[4837]INTERVIEWER: When you say worst, you mean; informed or not
[4838]informed? |
[4840]MR. HALPERN: It seemed to me il] informed.
[4842]INTERVIEWER: | 111 informed. |
[4844]MR. HALPERN: Il] informed. And by the time they were talking |
[4845]to me, as I say, I think it was June of ‘75, hell, I'ma junior -
[4846]officer of all of the brass that went up: to that place for
[4847]debriefings or testimony or what have you. I would have
[4849]thought by that time they would have had a better appreciation .
[4851]_ of what the hell the world is all about. And how foreign
[4853]policy is made and conducted. And what international relations
[4854]is all about. And just, I'd send them back to International
[4855]Relations 101 in Political Science 101 or some junior college
[4856]somewhere. It was just pathetic. I'm.no great brain. But at
[4857]least I went through City College in New York where I had some
[4858]decent professors who taught me what the hell the world was
[4859]like. —
[4861]INTERVIEWER: What about the Pike Committee?
[4863]MR. HALPERN: I had nothing: to do with the Pike Committee.
[4864]INTERVIEWER: Nothing at all?
[4866]MR. HALPERN: Thank the Lord! Nothing. All I know is what I
[4867]heard from friends of mine, including Seymour Bolton who had a
[4868]lot to do with them because he was the Agency contact with
[4869]them. And both committees as a matter of fact. He and Scott
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[4878]Breckinridge and, I guess, Walt Elder were involved, too.
[4880]INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
[4882]MR. HALPERN: And just to listen to the kinds of -- well, the
[4884]_ Representatives themselves were bad enough but. on top of that
[4886]they hired, I think Seymour used the phrase something like
[4887]"kids with dri ppy noses who weren't even out of their swaddling
[4888]clothes." And these were the staffers who were running around
[4889]like crazy. You know, they were having fun in their bare feet
[4890]trying to upset all the apple carts and what have you: And it
[4892]was just, he said it was impossible: to talk. to any of them.
[4894]You know, intelligence officers, my God, they were worse than
[4896]the devil. Which was not quite, true’ of the guys on the Senate
[4897]staff. The. Senate staffers ware deliberately involved, I
[4898]think, in wrecking the intelligence communi ty. I think for
[4899]whatever reason -- political or whatever -- but I think, as I
[4900]said before, in terms of the buildup as to what was happening,
[4902]including in December of '74 even before the Hersh stories,
[4904]- having a bill to create the same committee that the Church
[4906]Committee finally turned into with the same title, they were
[4908]doing this deliberate work. And so the Senate staffers always
[4909]seemed to be better read, better educated, better organized.
[4910]They were deliberately doing something. They knew what they
[4911]were after. And I must say they ran a very good operation. A
[4912]good covert operation. They go to the head of the class.
[4913]Whereas the House staffers, the Pike Committee, they were just
[4914]a bunch of kids mucking around causing trouble. Didn't know
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[4923]what the hell they were doing.
[4925]INTERVIEWER: And the motivation of the Church staff members?
[4926]MR. HALPERN: I wish I could prove one way or thé other. I
[4927]just don't know. It all seemed to end up at one point, which
[4928]was destroy, destroy, destroy. Muck up, muck up, muck up. And
[4929]they. did. They were very effective at it. And all I say is,
[4931]you know, if it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, squawks
[4933]“like a duck, it's got to be a duck. And I don't know whether
[4935]they were involved with the far left or the far right or what
[4936]have you, but there sure looked like some political motivation
[4937]there somewhere. I can't prove what I am saying. It is just a
[4938]conjecture. It is a theory.
[4940]INTERVIEWER: And you felt that at the time?
[4942]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. Yeah. Felt that very much at. the
[4944]time. And since, I have never gotten that out of my head.
[4946]They were deliberately active in destroying something. And I
[4947]think my theory, and it is a theory, in reference back is
[4948]probably correct because it's quite clear that after the circus
[4949]and after the Senate and the House both created their
[4950]respective committees, the Senate in '76 and the House in ‘77,
[4951]in very short order, wiser heads prevailed among the Senators
[4952]and the Representatives. I don't know about the staffers. But
[4953]the. staff, some of it changed. There's some of. them stil] |
[4954]there. And if you take a look and you'll see that even under
[4955]the later years of the Carter administration, talking about '79
[4956]and ‘80, the Committees started to give the Intelligence
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[4965]Community more and more and more budget and personnel slots.
[4966]More money and more people. I think they were trying in some
[4967]way repair the damages that they saw themselves -- finally when
[4968]they saw and new faces that had been done and I think they were
[4969]kind of feeling guilty about the whole thing. ‘As a body.
[4970]INTERVIEWER: You think the hostage situation in Teheran?
[4972]MR. HALPERN: [I think that helped. That helped in terms of
[4973]getting concerned. But it was more than that and it happened
[4974]before the hostages began. They started to come around in
[4975]terms of, and I know just from friends, in terms of the
[4976]Intelligence Community as a Community was starting to get more
[4977]money and slots than they could handle -- than they really
[4978]needed. Congress was just “Use it, use it, use it.“ And so by
[4979]the time Casey. comes along in ‘81 and he gets lots of credit
[4980]for more money for the community. Baloney. Well maybe he
[4982]did. He did. But the momentum was there beforehand. You
[4983]Know. And Congress was pushing stuff into the Community. Not
[4984]just CIA, but the whole Community. Look, the Pike Committee
[4985]and the Church Committee, I think both of them, maybe just the
[4986]Church Committee recommended abolishing DIA. Well, take a look
[4987]at DIA today with a brand new building and everything else. I
[4989]mean, Congress insisted to keep it that way after the circus
[4991]_ period. And so there is a whole new attitude that came after
[4993]this ‘75/'76 circus era. And it was just a bloody mess. But
[4994]the damage was done. And you don't build intelligence
[4995]organizations overnight. Again, you need time. It took us in
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[5004]my generation a whole generation. And we had a war to start
[5005]with to help us go and get off the mark a make connections and
[5006]contacts and friends and all that kind of stuff abroad. And
[5007]that one was destroyed. Whether it's ever, I don't know, maybe
[5008]it will take another generation to rebuild. Who knows. Or
[5009]more. So the attitude, I think, was that maybe we in Congress
[5011]went too far. And we've got to redress to balance. Which is
[5013]what they were doing for a good long while.
[5015]INTERVIEWER: You sense any role of President Carter in this?
[5017]MR. HALPERN: I'm not sure. I don't know. All I know is the
[5019]end result was the money started to come and the slots started
[5021]to come. Well, for example, I think it was in ‘77, Congress
[5023]‘refused to give the FBI additional slots for
[5025]counter intelligence officers. And that is public's
[5026]information. It was brought out in hearings and what have you
[5027]and you've got to be a nut to read.all that crud. But when you
[5028]get interested in a subject, you browse through it. “I've got
[5029]some. I haven't got anywhere near what Walter's got. I may
[5030]have 1 percent of what he's got. But you read it in the
[5032]newspapers. You know, you don't have to go very far. And
[5034]Congress deliberately and literally said "no" to the request
[5036]from the Bureau for more personnel to watch all these Soviets
[5037]and satellite countries and their. offices in this country.
[5038]INTERVIEWER: In 1977?
[5040]MR. HALPERN: I think it was ‘77. And later on, of course,
[5041]they were part of the Intelligence Community, they got their
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[5050]slots, they got their money. Just like CIA did, DIA did,
[5051]every... . NSA did, everybody. But now I guess with everybody
[5052]tightening up the belt they will suffer too. And maybe it is
[5053]about time. You can do just so much. It takes, for example,
[5055]you talk about rebuilding. I have estimated, and I think other
[5057]people have estimated similar figures, it takes about seven
[5059]years before a clandestine service officer in intelligence
[5060]collection, let alone counterintelligence, can be considered to
[5061]have been around long enough to be a decent officer.
[5062]INTERVIEWER: Seven years?
[5064]MR. HALPERN: Well, look at it. You come in. You got about a
[5066]year, off hand, about a year of training. You've got a first
[5068]tour of duty on a desk or maybe overseas. But anyway, and .
[5069]that's a two or three year hitch. That gives you four years.
[5070]You ought to have a little bit more training somewhere along
[5071]the way. Like another half year, at least. That isn't much.
[5072]Preferably another year. That's five years. Your second tour,
[5073]whether on a desk or overseas. You can't do both at the same
[5074]time. So one has to be here and one has to be abroad. Another
[5075]two or three year hitch. Have I got my seven?
[5077]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
[5079]MR. HALPERN: And then some . So it doesn't happen. overnight.
[5080]And you. can't expect, particularly in this day and age, you.
[5081]can't expect a guy you bring in, I don't care if he's got a
[5083]Ph.D. and he's got Phi Beta Kappa and he's got everything else
[5085]- under the sun. And he's a great academician. He's been
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[5094]through everything. He knows it all. ‘And- he knows all the
[5095]sixteen languages you need to have before you bring him in.
[5097]You don't have to waste. time teaching him a language. You
[5099]can't suddenly throw him overseas and say, "Okay aboard
[5101]operations, collect me the intelligence on what the hell the
[5102]Saudi's are going to do about oil prices tomorrow." It won't
[5103]work. It just won't work. You've got to have a feel for what
[5104]the hell is going on. They've got people on the desk now, I'm
[5105]told, who've never been in the country that they are assigned
[5106]to. They don't even know-what the hell is going on there.
[5107]They may know it from books. But that is not good enough.
[5108]INTERVIEWER: You have to build up your contacts.
[5109]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. And take over contacts from somebody else
[5110]and be able to prove to the foreigner you are dealing. with that
[5111]you are as good as the guy who recruited you. Things like
[5112]that. You see I make one of those points in that book review I
[5113]gave you on Turner's book. You can't do it overnight. . It won't
[5114]work. And it didn't work. So when you are talking about seven
[5115]years for an officer, that's a minimum -- seven years before he
[5116]is even ready to really do something and become a decent..all
[5117]around officer, both Headquarters and field. You've got a long
[5118]way to go before you rebuild when you suddenly lose 200 people
[5119]at one pop. Or with Turner, 800 slots get wiped out like
[5120]that. 820 as a matter of fact.
[5121]INTERVIEWER: Was that the number that left?
[5122]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, you'll see why -- I've got to make a note
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[5130]on that number. I'm not going to give it to you now. You'll
[5131]read it. And when peopte up on the Hill or other people say,
[5132]you know, "What's so tough about going out and collecting
[5133]intelligence?" Try it. It just doesn't work the way it is
[5134]done in the movies.
[5136]INTERVIEWER: It takes a lot of experience.
[5138]MR. HALPERN: You need experience, you need to have somebody
[5139]you can talk to, somebody who has been around before.
[5140]INTERVIEWER: Judgment. .
[5142]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. And initiative. Lots of initiative. And
[5143]that's where you get people who say, because of that
[5144]initiative, "Look at that idiot. He spent six months and
[5145]nothing has come out of it." Yeah, it's wasteful. You've got |
[5146]to try. But I would rather have a guy go out on his ewn trying
[5147]things, than me having to sit at a desk or using a bull whip to
[5148]push him out, or dragging him out by the ears. He's got to
[5149]have enough initiative to go out and do it on his own. This is
[5150]what all these things that have happened. And are still
[5151]happening. And all the attacks on the Intelligence Community
[5152]people and what have you. ‘I don't care whether it is CIA or
[5154]FBI or what have you. It's all the same problem. You know,
[5156]the officer who has got to start saying, “You know, why should
[5158]I stick my neck out? You know, if I could just do it the
[5159]careful way I'll get my promotion. IN move ahead slowly.
[5160]I'll push the paper.“ But collecting intelligence is not a
[5161]paper job. You've got to go out and talk to people. It's
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[5170]talking to human sources. It's working with humans. It's
[5171]different than sitting in the taboratory coming up with a black
[5172]box. And some of the black boxes, at least, we used to have to
[5173]have humans put the black boxes in the right places. Some of
[5174]the operations that we had where we were trying to drop. them in
[5175]the right places from overhead -- as a matter of fact, to give
[5176]you. some idea of the problem, ‘one of the operations was called
[5177]JAVELIN. -You know what a javelin is?
[5179]INTERVIEWER: Yes, sure.
[5181]MR. HALPERN: And that's what we were trying to do at one point
[5182]for our operation with black boxes. To get the black box in
[5183]the precise point where the black box had to be. Technical
[5185]stuff is very good when it works. But it's got to be so damn
[5187]“precise many of the times that it is almost impossible. It
[5189]works in the laboratory. Fine. Beautiful. And you can set up
[5190]experimental conditions and demonstration conditions. Easy
[5191]when you -have total control. Try to do it in the real world.
[5192]INTERVIEWER: Yes, with it's traffic lights.
[5194]MR. HALPERN: Just use your imagination.
[5196]INTERVIEWER: Sure.
[5198]MR. HALPERN: Try to do it in the real world. And so the
[5199]problem of training an officer and experience of an officer and
[5200]getting people back into the business and -making your contacts
[5201]and all that goes with it.” Yeah, our generation was not bad.
[5202]INTERVIEWER: It's truly a profession isn't it?
[5204]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. That's what we have been trying to tell
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[5213]people. And that is why we have been trying, I think with a
[5214]little bit of success, very little, starting to get in academe,
[5215]in this country at least -- it's pretty hard in some other
[5216]countries -- but in this country to try to get academics to
[5218]understand government, history, political science courses,
[5220]- international relations courses, you name it. After all these
[5222]years they have been missing abet in terms of the impact of
[5223]intelligence by all governments, I don't care who they are, on
[5224]foreign policy and foreign activities. You read history books
[5225]in the 1930's, ‘40's, '50's, ‘60's. And then in the '70's
[5226]beginning barely to mention the fact that there might have been
[5227]some intelligence action, that some information a government
[5228]didn't know or did know, which made a big impact. And until
[5229]ULTRA broke in '72, I think it was, nobody had a clue. ‘And yet
[5230]thousands: and thousands and thousands of people had been
[5231]involved in ULTRA.
[5233]INTERVIEWER: Yeah, somebody called it the missing dimension,
[5235]_ the intelligence rote.
[5237]MR. HALPERN: That's it. Sure it's a profession. It has been
[5238]a profession for a couple of thousand years that I know of.
[5239]The people haven't regarded it as such.
[5241]INTERVIEWER: Textbooks just .. .
[5243]MR. HALPERN: Totally ignored it. Way off in Timbo.
[5244]INTERVIEWER: I still, from time to time, look at different
[5245]diplomatic textbooks. There is no mention in them about the
[5246]Black Chamber that Yardley was running out of New York City in
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[5255]the 1920's. They don't mention it.
[5256]MR. HALPERN: It wasn't mentioned. It wasn't thought of. It's
[5258]impact on the Washington Naval. Conference. We knew what the
[5260]hell the outside was going to do. And the fact that, for
[5261]example, we had some good operations in terms of -- and not all
[5262]intelligence is strictly politics or military. Economics is a -
[5263]big one. We had some good, but I won't even tell you which one ©
[5264]it is, even though it's on a classified tape. But you can find
[5265]it later. We had a good penetration of a foreign government's
[5266]economic delegation through a conference of ours on trade. And
[5267]we had dead to rights, we had the text of their negotiating
[5268]positions, what. they could say, how far they could go.
[5269]Everything. The whole “shmear." The State Department
[5270]Ambassador and the Deputy Chief of Mission from that particular
[5271]country, our Ambassador from DCM, refused to believe the
[5272]information we gave them. Literally, said, "That's
[5274]impossible. You couldn't possibly have gotten this. Somebody
[5275]is making it up for you. And you are paying them good money"
[5276]and all that kind of stuff. But we weren't paying him any
[5277]money. The guy didn't know and we weren't about to tell him.
[5278]This was one of those things where the agent, it was done
[5279]simply on friendship and loyality of the case officer which had
[5281]developed over a long period of time -- family relations,
[5283]family friends.and all that kind of stuff. Anyhow, the State
[5285]Department said this is nonsense. The US Trade Representative
[5286]said this is nonsense. “If the Ambassador wouldn't believe it,
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[5294]why should I believe it." Well, the negotiating went on bit
[5295]by bit, bit by bit, day after day. It developed everything.
[5296]All they had to do was look at the information and the guy was
[5297]following the text. It was unbelievable. And fortunately,
[5298]fortunately, before the conference was over the US
[5299]representatives believed what the hell we had told them and
[5300]were able to work out a deal in such a way that the US
[5302]benefited by it by $700 million. It's a simple little watering
[5304]operation. So it takes time to work these deals in terms of
[5306]not all sources require lots of money. And not all sources are
[5307]the kind of people you just walk in and say, “You work for
[5309]me." It takes time to develop and what have you. And the guy
[5310]was doing it simply out of friendship and loyalty to an
[5311]individual. It wasn't the US he was concerned about... And it
[5312]wasn't his own country he was concerned about. Just mutual
[5313]friendship. Maybe they have got them today, too. Maybe they
[5315]have got that operation, too. I hope so. It takes time.
[5317]INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I think some textbooks almost present the
[5319]world as though everything that's said in the United Nations,
[5321]that's the sum total of what's going on about all the
[5322]backstages .. - -
[5324]MR. HALPERN: Well, it's more than backstages, too, Ralph,
[5325]because I remember’ Professor Janowsky at City College. He
[5326]said, you know,.we all sit around and we study things. Great
[5327]documents, like the Monroe Doctrine. And as if somebody sat
[5328]around and thought this up one day. And it's like coming off
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[5337]of Mount Sinai. You know. And he said, “Most of these things
[5338]are done by people like you and me." He said, “I don't know
[5339]what you had for breakfast. Whether you had a fight with your
[5340]wife. Whether you had a cold and a headache that day." And a
[5341]lot of these decisions are done this. way. And they are made at
[5342]the spur of the moment. They are human decisions by human
[5343]beings. And I remember very clearly, I was still wet behind
[5344]the ears, this is 1948 or '49, '49 I guess it was. I happened
[5345]to be the desk officer in Indonesia (Clandestine Services).
[5346]And we had very good operations. This was, oh yes, the Dutch
[5347]police action, I guess, in ‘49. And we had a very good agent
[5348]tn Indonesia who was able to follow and keep us very current,
[5349]almost minute by minute, actually hour by hour the location of
[5350]where the Dutch were taking the Indonesian political leader
[5351]that they had captured in Jakarta. And where they were moving
[5352]him, from city to city to city to city or town to town to town
[5353]to town and where they finally put him. And I was going over
[5354]regularly because I didn't want to trust the telephone. And I
[5355]was going over from the old building around the well known
[5356]Reflecting Pool. I was grabbing the intelligence and it was in
[5357]raw form. We didn't even bother going through the Reports
[5359]Board in those days which had to clear everything go out, be
[5361]-sure the commas and the semicolons were in the right places and
[5363]what have you. And I had some hot intelligence that I got..
[5364]permission from my boss just take it over to my opposite--well,
[5365]he was more than my opposite number, he was the Chief of the
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[5374]South East Asia desk -- all the Southeast Asian countries --
[5376]William S.B. Lacey, W.S.B. Lacey. Nice guy. Nice big
[5378]moustache.
[5382]MR. HALPERN: L-A-C+E-Y I think. Yeah, Bill Lacey. And I was
[5383]all of 26 or 27 at that time. And I kept bringing this stuff
[5384]over to him. Piece by piece. As we got it. I was wearing a
[5385]path between us and the State Department and the Reflecting
[5386]Pool where we were. And I saw how US policy toward the Dutch
[5387]and hanging onto Indonesia, how that changed like that. Bill
[5389]Lacey said to me, he said, "The Dutch should have told me --
[5391]not the US -- should have told me that they were going to do
[5393]this and’ what they were going to do with the political
[5395]leaders. They should not have surprised me.“ Sure, Bill. I
[5396]said, “I'm not involved in that, I‘m just giving you ‘the poop.
[5397]You are making the policy." He says, "You're damn right,
[5399]Sam." He says, “As of now Indonesia is going to be a free
[5400]country. And. we are not going to stop the Indonesians. We are
[5401]not going to help the Dutch anymore. They didn't tell me that
[5402]they were going to do this." .
[5404]INTERVIEWER: Oh wow.
[5406]MR. HALPERN: There's American foreign policy.
[5408]INTERVIEWER: . Yeah, exactly. .
[5409]MR. HALPERN: Right there. ° You know, Bill didn't have to sit
[5411]around with a lot of people, a lot of staff. I'm sure he went
[5413]‘and got whatever he needed to do to get the thing approved and
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[5422]nobody knew the difference.
[5424]INTERVIEWER: Good point.
[5426]MR. HALPERN: So. You know. And the academics in this country
[5427]have never caught on. Maybe they are catching on slowly now.
[5428]INTERVIEWER: Slow. oe
[5430]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, very slow. That there is an impact on this
[5431]stuff. You got humans and humans and humans. And that's all
[5432]there is. And I think, for example, Roy Godson, started in
[5433]1978, at Georgetown on the National Strategy Information
[5434]Center. And he has a number of academics come. almost every
[5435]year up in Maine.
[5437]INTERVIEWER: And he is running another one this summer.
[5439]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. Okay, that's beginning to have an impact.
[5440]I don't Know how many thousands of academics there are in the
[5441]colleges and universities. But he is just barely scratching
[5442]the surface. And it has taken him 10 years.
[5444]INTERVIEWER: He ran the first one up at Bowdoin in ‘81. I was
[5445]up there. | ; .
[5446]MR. HALPERN: Okay. There is one. I was one of the guys -- he
[5447]asked me to come to tell them about the intelligence of '78
[5448]which I did. And unfortunately Angelo Codevilla got a hold of
[5449]him too and so changed Roy Godson's views, but at least we got
[5450]started on this thing. And I attended a lot of those seminars
[5451]that he started in '78 and‘'79 and so. Oo
[5452]INTERVIEWER: . Were they local?
[5454]MR. HALPERN: They were all here, but he brought in people from
[5456]all over and they had a good foundation.
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[5464]Godson was the first guy to get a group together. And you
[5465]know, he is now regarded as a great intelligence expert. And I
[5466]keep kidding him about that. But he doesn't -- you know, he
[5467]Knows something. But he has never been in the business. He
[5468]doesn't really appreciate it. Anymore than Angelo Codevilla
[5469]knows what the hell is going on. But at least he had the
[5470]foresight to start something like this going. And he got a lot
[5471]of good people involved. From former intelligence officers, to
[5472]current intelligence officers, he got a lot of people with a
[5473]Tot of experience to write good papers and mediocre papers and
[5474]bad papers. Mine's a lousy one that I did, the first one on
[5475]clandestine collection, because it was being done -- I mean, I
[5476]did it -- for the lowest common denominator. You know, it's
[5477]like trying to teach somebody ABC's. There's no point in using
[5478]a lot of high "Falootin" jargon. So it is, from an
[5479]intelligence professional point of view, it's a very weak paper
[5480]-- mine on clandestine collection. Because it just barely
[5481]skims the surface. It doesn't go into the details at all like
[5482]we've been discussing. But at least Roy was very good in
[5483]pushing this idea, trying to get academics to look at this new
[5484]dimension. And it has to be. There has been a tremendous
[5486]gap. Just like there was a gap on the military aspects of
[5487]World War II until you got a hold of the ULTRA aspect. And as
[5488]somebody said, they have to rewrite all the history books.
[5490]Sure they do. . And they ought to rewrite all the history books
[5491]for everything else in terms of the missing dimension of
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[5500]intelligence and its impact throughout history. Whether it's
[5501]Moses or...
[5503]INTERVIEWER: Or George Washington.
[5505]MR. HALPERN: . Anybody. And people are beginning very slowly to
[5506]pick it up. Very slowly.
[5508]INTERVIEWER: Yes, I am encouraged. Slow.
[5510]MR. HALPERN: It's is going to take a generation in there.
[5511]Easily. Easily. And I am told that there are still academics
[5512]in this country who won't touch intelligence.
[5514]INTERVIEWER: I am told that too.
[5516]MR. HALPERN: They think it is a dirty name and a dirty
[5517]business. You don't have to be involved in it, for God's sake,
[5518]to do some research and look at what the heck happened. And
[5519]what made people come up with certain decisions or not come up
[5520]with a decision. You know, it's been there.
[5522]INTERVIEWER: Strange. They sometimes will deal with Congress
[5523]and Congressional elections and there is an awful lot of
[5524]skulduggery that goes on in that process. And they don't. seem
[5525]to realize that that happens.
[5526]MR. HALPERN: That happens all the time. And I guess maybe
[5528]what you need is an Ida M. Tarbell to do a study on politics or
[5530]intelligence or foreign affairs like she did on Rockefeller.
[5532]You Know, wake people up. Or even do a Beard -- economic
[5533]interpretation of the Constitution. Do an intelligence
[5534]interpretation of foreign affairs. I don't care what you call
[5535]it. But it is there. Nobody is hiding it. Not any more we
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[5544]aren't. And you can go back, Tike you did in your book, you
[5545]can go back, it's there in the record book. Go find it. It's
[5546]a hell of a job. It's a lot of work. A tremendous amount of
[5547]work. I don't envy anybody wanting to go into the OSS records,
[5548]those that have been declassified in the Archives now.
[5549]Horrible, horrible.
[5551]INTERVIEWER: They will. Little by little.
[5553]MR. HALPERN: Little by little.
[5555]INTERVIEWER: What about this, Sam. Earlier, well, the late
[5556]'70s in an interview one of the Agency Directors said that the
[5557]Agency is part of the President's bag of tools, and my question
[5558]is: Do you see the Agency as also part of Congress' bag of
[5559]tools? . |
[5561]MR. HALPERN: No, it is the President's pretorian guard and
[5562]everything that means. It's an executive tool. of the
[5563]government. Well, it's a tool of the executive branch of the
[5564]government. It is not a tool, in my opinion, of the |
[5565]legislative branch of the government anymore than it is the.
[5566]judiciary branch of government. You've got three branches in
[5567]this system. And I know a lot of my friends do not agree with
[5568]me. And a lot of my close chums have testified on the Hill
[5569]about, if the Congress should be in with the President on
[5570]directing: a. foreign policy, b. intelligence, c. the
[5571]military, etc., etc. I don't think you can work that way. Our
[5572]system can't operate that way. You've got to have an executive
[5573]on top who is. answerable to the people and to the Congress for
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[5582]his actions. But you can't have 535 so-called elected
[5583]representatives plus 18,000 staffers second-guessing what the
[5584]President and his entire government bureaucracy is doing day by
[5585]day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second. It
[5586]won't work, it just can't work. The Executive has to take the
[5587]responsibility in my opinion. For what it does, the good, the
[5588]bad, and the indifferent. Not everything the Executive does is
[5589]right in my opinion. For example, I think that the mining of
[5590]the harbors in Nicaragua was the silliest goddamn thing those
[5591]guys ever did. And I was involved in operations similar to
[5592]that -- deliberately and directly. But you target. If you
[5593]want to go for ships target the bloody ships. We did. We made
[5594]some successes, we had a lot of failures. A lot of waste
[5595]motion. No question. And I remember some of my buddies who
[5596]had been retired were called back -- a few of them had been in
[5597]Latin American affairs, and also covert action, paramilitary
[5598]affairs, and covert action affairs and political action, also
[5599]covert action -- were called back for a session with the guys
[5600]running the Nicaraguan activities. And among the things they
[5602]were beating the bull about was, what about mining the
[5604]harbors. And without exception, I am told every single guy
[5606]they called back for consultation in this meeting -- 4, 5,
[5607]maybe a half dozen -- every single guy said, "Oh Christ, don't
[5608]go anywhere near that. That's silly." At the end of the
[5609]conference they were told the mining of the harbors had already.
[5610]started. And as one of my friends said, "What the hell did you
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[5619]call us in for, then?" So not everything the Executive does is
[5620]right. Obviously. At least I don't think it is right.
[5622]Nixon's forcing the Agency to go after Allende in 1970 without
[5623]any kind of lead time, at the last second, was absolutely
[5624]stupid. And we told them that. But the orders were to go, so
[5625]we went. And there are lots of other examples of that. But
[5626]again, under our system you've got to have. the Executive make
[5627]the errors. You can't have Congress sitting around and
[5628]deciding what the President, what the hell he is supposed to
[5629]do. It's like, take Metzenbaum and Qadhaafi. So one day
[5631]Metzenbaum says, “Yeah, we go after Qadhaffi, let's go get
[5633]him." The next day there is another problem with somebody:
[5635]else, Mr. XYZ in some other country, and Metzenbaum says to the
[5637]President, "Oh no, you can't touch him, he's a friend of
[5639]mine!" Well, what the- hell. You can't have that kind of
[5641]nonsense. The President is responsible. I don't care who the
[5642]President is. “Whether it is Reagan or you or me or the next
[5643]guy. That's the system we've got. And I don't think that CIA
[5644]or the Intelligence Communi ty has got to or should be part of
[5645]the side pocket of the reference library of the Congress.
[5647]Sure, give them the intelligence reports that you give
[5648]everybody else. You go up and tell them what's going on in the
[5649]world. They can have NIE's if they want to: read NIE's. They
[5650]can have Special NIE‘s if they want to read those. But when it
[5651]comes to decision making, based upon that stuff, uh uh. That's
[5652]the President's responsibility. ‘And whether it's covert action
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[5661]or whether it's collecting intelligence, that's his job. It
[5662]was up to Ike Eisenhower, for example, to tell them, “Okay, fly
[5663]the U-2. I know I'm going to see Khrushchev in Paris. Go fly
[5664]that U-2." And he did. Can you imagine trying to ask? Who do
[5665]you talk to in Congress? Which committee do you go to? In the
[5666]old days, at least, you had maybe a handful of guys in each
[5667]House who had some kind of control over the House or the
[5668]Senate. And you could work with them. Who do you go to
[5670]today? Look at what happened yesterday. Jim Wright couldn't
[5671]even get a bill through. And he had to muck around with the
[5672]clock -- literally change the clock of the calendar day on the
[5673]business of the tax bill. So one minute they have to announce
[5674]that the vote is, I think, 206 to 205 against, and Jim Wright
[5675]stops the day's activity -- literally stops it on the. clock --
[5676]gets ahold of some guy -- I forget the Representative's name --
[5677]twists his hands or his arms or his balls for all I know, and
[5679]the next thing you know there is another vote. And the vote is
[5681]now 206 to 205 and the bill is passed.
[5683]INTERVIEWER: In favor.
[5684]MR. HALPERN: . You know. But who the hell do you go and talk to
[5686]in Congress when you say, should the Agency be part of the
[5688]Congressional team? No, it can't be.
[5690]INTERVIEWER: Then how about this statement, this is a
[5691]statement someone made: "Since the mid-1970's, some say, the
[5692]CIA is poised nearly equidistant between the Executive and the
[5693]Legislative branches and Congress may actually have more
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[5702]influence today on CIA priorities and how much money is spent
[5704]rather than the Executive Branch."
[5705]MR. HALPERN: I've seen that statement. I know who made it and
[5706]I don't agree with it. It may be the truth. He may be
[5708]absolutely right in what the situation is today. I think
[5710]that's wrong. I realize CIA and every other member of the
[5711]Communi ty has to go to Congress to get his money, his men, and
[5712]hisi material. I understand that. And you've got to play
[5713]Favor ites and you've got to butter-up people and all that kind
[5714]of stuff. But as far as being in between the Congress and an
[5716]Executive in terms of running an intelligence organization,
[5718]“it's dead wrong. It belongs to the Executive. It's a part of
[5720]the Executive. And it is in every other country that I know
[5721]of. It's not the Congress that runs the business. It's the
[5722]President that runs the business. You can't be in physically,
[5724]and literally, and actually they may be in between. He is
[5726]- absolutely right. But that's a wrong system. And if that's
[5728]the way it is going to continue, you are not going to have an
[5729]intelligence organization.
[5731]INTERVIEWER: Really in trouble.
[5733]MR. HALPERN: I think so. Who is your boss? If Congress tells
[5734]you to do something and the President says don't do it, what do
[5735]you do?
[5737]INTERVIEWER: Your're equidistant like the old story of ancient
[5738]times that if you put a mule midway between two stacks of hay,
[5739]the mule would starve to death.
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[5748]MR. HALPERN: I am serious. What do you do? Congress says do
[5749]this. The President says don't do that. What do you do?’ Do
[5750]you go to the Congress, listening to some of the guys on
[5751]television and reading what they say and listening to some of
[5752]their speeches, or.if the President telis me to do something
[5753]that I don't think is right, I'll come running up here to the
[5754]committee right away and tell you all about it. Okay, then the
[5755]President has no confidence in the man and there is a new
[5756]Director. Okay. On the other hand if the Congress teljs the
[5757]Director to do something and he doesn't tell the President,
[5758]then what? So, if you've got a strong President, that Director
[5759]is out on his ear too. And I use specifically Bill Colby in
[5761]1975. On January 15th, 1975, and it's in his book, so I am not
[5763]saying anything special. Bill Colby goes to the Hill before
[5765]the Stennis Committee, the Senate Armed Services, and blows his
[5766]gut all over the place. The entire organization of CIA, men,
[5767]women and children are all laid out for everybody to see,
[5769]despite the fact that the law, the Central Intelligence Agency
[5771]" Act of 1949 says he doesn't have to do this. So he just gives
[5773]the whole store away. Maybe ‘no great damage was done, but
[5774]anyway, he does it. "On their way back from the Hill," says
[5775]Bill in his book, “something dawned on me. Gee, I'd better
[5776]stop off at the White House and tell them what I've done.". Now
[5777]if I had been President Ford, there would have been a new
[5778]Director that afternoon. Btil worked for the President. He
[5779]doesn't work for himself. His commanding officer is the
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[5786]‘tied. He may have agreed with Bill. He may have disagreed. I
[5788]SECRET
[5790]President of the United States and not. the Congress of the
[5791]United States. And he should of at least had the decency, the
[5792]plain ordinary decency and courtesy, on the way to the Hill, to
[5793]stop off at the White House and say, "Hey, this is what I plan
[5794]to do on the way up." He does it in reverse and there-isn't a
[5796]thing that the President can do at that point. His hands are
[5798]don't know. But that's not the way you run an organization.
[5799]INTERVIEWER: He had no options by the time he found out about
[5800]it.
[5802]MR. HALPERN: That's not the way you run an organization.
[5803]INTERVIEWER: It's a good example.
[5805]MR. HALPERN: So coming. back -~ if that's where they are today
[5806]and if Judge Webster is now equidistant between the Hill and --
[5807]well, Gates is in between. ‘I know who's involved. If they are |
[5808]at equidistant now, they are nowhere. _ Absolutely nowhere. .
[5809]They either work for the President, or they don't work. And
[5810]I've used the term "pretorian guard," and I mean that. And it
[5811]may be the wrong way to run the system. Then my comment is,
[5812]"Change the system." That's all. And I am perfectly willing
[5813]to take a look at any system they want to propose.
[5815]INTERVIEWER: What about this statement: "Sharing intelligence
[5817]. with Congress is one of the surest guarantees of CIA's
[5819]independence and objectivity."
[5820]MR. HALPERN: No way. I don't understand that at all. I don't
[5821]see how the two have anything to do with each other.
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[5830]INTERVIEWER: .I think that was made in a recent speech.
[5832]MR. HALPERN: Yes, it was. I know. But I still don't
[5833]understand how that can follow. If the comment is meant to
[5834]refer to the fact that a DCI can cook the books like Casey has
[5835]been accused of doing, in terms of presenting the information
[5836]to the President, I don't see how that is going to wash. If
[5837]you've got an analyst who believes in one view of a certain
[5838]event, and the Director tells him to change his view, you're a
[5839]lousy analyst. Sure, he might want to keep his job and all
[5840]that kind of stuff, but going up to the Congress and telling
[5841]them, I think such and such and my Director thinks differently,
[5842]is not going to keep things honest in any sense of the word.
[5843]The Director can still tell the President what he thinks. And
[5844]that's where the decision is made on any particular activity.
[5845]I don't think even the crazy people in Congress say they are
[5846]going to make all the decisions. Take a look at the case of
[5847]John Horton on the Mexico business. I don't know the details
[5848]at all. I know John. very well and he has never talked about
[5849]any of this stuff, except what he said in the public press. I
[5850]read that and I've seen him on television and what have you.
[5851]But even when the House Committee, the Intelligence Committee,
[5852]after the brouhaha of John having left, when the House
[5853]Intelligence Committee examined the situation to see whether
[5854]Bill Casey actually did cook the NIE as was alledged -- John
[5855]never alledged this but other people have -- if I remember
[5856]correctly, and I think I've got the clipping somewhere, the
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[5865]House Intelligence Committee said they had looked at all their
[5866]drafts, they looked at the final version, and there wasn't any
[5867]cooking. So what the hell are people talking about, the best
[5868]way to insure objectivity is to bring Congress into the act.
[5869]This is nonsense. That's the trouble with a lot of this
[5870]stuff. People think that’ you have got to get the Congress to
[5871]look at things, and therefore everybody be very careful,
[5872]otherwise somebody is going to say, “Well, you didn't do it
[5874]right." Well, this is nonsense.
[5876]INTERVIEMER: Why do you think there is so much more talk about
[5878]the Congress being involved in the process?
[5880]MR. HALPERN: Oh, Congress has always been, always wanted to
[5881]be, in the history of the country, ever since the Constitution
[5882]was written they've wanted to be involved. Go back to the Jay
[5883]Treaty, when the House of Representatives insisted on seeing
[5884]all the documentation of the Jay Treaty. And the President
[5885]said, “No way, the Senate gets it." And the Senate got it.
[5886]The Senate got everything they wanted: It was months later.
[5887]before they decided what to’ do with it. But you start with
[5888]Washington. |
[5889]INTERVIEWER: And they debated that whole treaty in secret.
[5891]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. That's right. -But the House wanted to
[5893]get into the act. And thank the Lord we had a strong President
[5894]who said, "The Constitution is very clear. I have to work with
[5895]the Senate on advise and consent. Not you, the House. Go
[5896]away."
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[5905]INTERVIEWER: Do you feel the Congress is more involved in the
[5906]last 10 years?
[5908]MR. HALPERN: Oh, they've been pushing harder and harder and
[5909]harder and harder. Now again, let's change the system if you
[5910]don't like it. It's been a rough one starting out, you know,
[5911]200 years. They have been battling the same fight. Nothing
[5912]has changed. If you haven't seen it, you ought to take a look
[5913]at three volumes done by Professor Goldsmith called The Growth
[5914]of Presidential Power.
[5916]INTERVIEWER: I haven't seen them.
[5918]MR. HALPERN: Well, I've got them if you want to look at them,
[5919]take the time later. You can browse through them. And it
[5920]starts out with this business of the Jay Treaty and goes right
[5921]on through. It doesn't cover every minute of the government's
[5922]history.
[5924]INTERVIEWER: “The. tensions between. .
[5926]MR. HALPERN: This book is dated 1974 so it stops with the
[5927]Huston Plan. But I don't see Congress, at least the way I.
[5928]understand the system and the way it operates. Congress has a
[5929]chance to do more than they have been doing. I think it's
[5930]wrong for them to get into the act. They always have the power
[5931]of the purse. That is very clear. And they can stop what they
[5932]don't want to see happen. - They haven't got the guts most of
[5933]the time to do that. This ‘is what happened, you Know, in
[5934]Vietnam. ‘Nobody declared war. You know, Vietnam conflict, I
[5935]suppose, is a fancy word for it, or the Korean police action or
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[5944]Or whatever you want to call it. Ask the poor guys who were on
[5945]the other end of the line who are dead. But whatever you call
[5946]it, Congress didn't have the balls to cut it off when they
[5947]wanted to cut it off. It took them until '75, ‘73 first, to do
[5948]it. Well, by jingo, you can't run governments this way. You:
[5949]know, you've got the power of the purse, use it. If you want
[5950]to get into the act of being an executive, goddammit, stop
[5951]paying the President of the United States. Don't send him any
[5952]checks. . |
[5953]INTERVIEWER: I bring this up in class.
[5955]MR. HALPERN: Sure. Close his bank account. Take away his
[5956]credit card... Don't give him any money. Close down the White
[5957]House. Paint it black. You know, make up your mind what you
[5958]want. to do. If you want to follow this system, there's going
[5959]to be tension between the two branches of government forever.
[5960]And the judiciary sits on the side, and look at the tension
[5961]that was there initially before you had the great decisions
[5962]about whether or not the Supreme Court. is going to declare
[5963]something unconstitutional or not. Nobody was -sure how that
[5964]was going to work. And that always hasn't worked smoothly
[5965]either. Now we've come to accept it more and more and more and
[5966]more. And everybody has calmed down about it. In terms of the
[5967]role of the Supreme. Court, it wasn't written into the
[5968]Constitution. It developed. Now as far as executive and
[5970]legislative, nobody has come up with a simple way of ‘handling
[5972]that one.
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[5981]INTERVIEWER: Do think that more intelligence data and so on
[5982]has been going to Congress in the last decade? Is it your
[5983]impression?
[5985]MR. HALPERN: My impression is that it has. Just by reading
[5986]the newspapers you can tell that the stuff has been going up
[5987]there by, not by the bushel basket loads, it has been going up
[5988]by the truckload. And I wouldn't be surprised if their
[5989]computers are hooked up so the stuff goes instantaneously. So
[5990]I'm sure. First of all they are on distribution for the NID,
[5991]The National Intelligence Daily, as I am told, I mean, I read
[5992]in the paper. Even that shouldn't be available to me and the
[5993]press. Why the hell should I know about it? It doesn't do me
[5994]any good as a citizen to know that my Congressman can read the
[5995]National: Intelligence Daily along with another 1,000 or 1,500
[5996]people in the Executive Branch. What the hell good fs that
[5997]going to do? And I don't know how many people on the Hill have
[5999]access to it. And I shouldn't know. I hope they don't get the
[6001]PDB. At least in my day we used to use the. PDB as a vehicle
[6003]for providing the President and a handful of other people, like
[6004]the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, with
[6005]intelligence which didn't normally get into the normal
[6006]distribution channels. It was a very simple, convenient method
[6007]for doing that. And we did it specifically with President
[6008]Nixon. From the very first, well, he was inaugurated on the
[6009]20th. The 21st there was a meeting in his office, and it was
[6010]agreed right then and there that we would put certain: sensitive
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[6019]information in the PDB only and he would be able to tell by a
[6020]certain phrase we used. And nobody else except those several
[6021]people in the room knew it. So that even the other people that
[6022]got copies of the PDB didn't know exactly what the hell that
[6023]phrase meant. And it was good hot intelligence from a good
[6024]source. You can't, you know. If they give that kind of stuff
[6025]to the Congressional people, including the committee,
[6026]specifically just the intelligence committees, I don't see
[6028]why. ‘There is no reason for it. They are not involved with
[6029]the day to day running of the government as much as they'd like
[6030]to be. In which case leave the Senate and become President.
[6031]INTERVIEWER: Maybe more of them are trying to play a larger
[6032]role in making foreign policy.
[6034]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, okay. They've got a perfect right to give
[6035]their advice to the President of the United States. He,
[6037]theoretically, makes the policy, whoever he may be. His staff
[6039]doesn't, the Secretary of State isn't supposed to do it, and
[6041]nobody else is. According to the way I read the rule book the
[6042]President of the United States makes foreign policy.
[6043]INTERVIEWER: What about this statement, Sam, an officer said,
[6044]“Congressional investigations in 1975 especially were like
[6045]being pillaged by a foreign. power only we had been occupied by
[6046]the Congress with our files rifled, our officials humiliated,
[6047]and our agents exposed.”
[6049]MR. HALPERN: Right on. Absolutely correct.
[6051]INTERVIEWER: You feel that is an accurate appraisal?
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[6060]MR. HALPERN: It was exactly the same way as when the Soviets
[6061]got into the Tsarist's files and exposed all the secret
[6063]treaties and everything else. It's exactly the same thing. I
[6065]we |
[6066]have no objection to their coming in and looking at the stuff.
[6068]I have great objection to their taking a bunch of stuff and
[6069]splattering it all over the television tube and the front pages
[6070]of all the newspapers. There is a big difference. I see no
[6071]reason why you can't clear the necessary people on the Hill to
[6073]do whatever is necessary in terms of the oversight. But that
[6075]doesn't mean they're coming into camp, but then damn it, handle
[6077]the information exactly the same way the rest of us have always
[6078]handled the information.
[6080]INTERVIEWER: How. about: the Church Committee Report?
[6082]MR. HALPERN: I thought that was awful. And if you read the
[6083]Congressional Record, and if you haven't you should take a look
[6084]at it, but the Congressional Record of the executive session -—-
[6085]it was first an executive session of the Senate -- to discuss
[6086]whether the committee Report should be released. And as one. of
[6087]the Senators, I forget who he was now, maybe I can dig it up,
[6089]said that when you've got a hundred copies of your Report
[6091]“(printed Report) already on each one of our desks, there is no
[6093]way that this Report is going to stay secret even if we vote to
[6094]keep it secret. And it was that kind of discussion that went
[6095]on all morning. . To show you what they finally did, they
[6096]finally released the Congressional Record right away, after
[6097]they made their vote. . And they pointed out, this is silly, you
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[6106]can't stop this thing. It should have never been printed.
[6108]The point was made that this thing should never have been
[6109]printed until we had voted. And we should have read this thing
[6110]kind of in draft, in typescript form. Not even everybody
[6111]having a copy. I mean, some of the Senators had some sense.
[6113]If you've got this kind of decision to make, whether a
[6115]Congressional document is to be published, don't publish it. I
[6117]mean, don't print the damn thing first and then ask us. Ask us
[6119]first. And Church's view was, “As a committee chairman, I had
[6120]a right to do it." Well, under the rules of the Senate that's.
[6121]true. You know, judgment. Well, obviously, this stuff came
[6123]out and it shouldn't have come out. I use a very simple -
[6125]example. There is no. reason under God's green earth why they
[6127]had to. talk about Black Leaf-40 being the chemical to-be used
[6128]by AMLASH. Why couldn't they just say some commercially
[6129]available insecticide or pesticide, whatever it was? Why
[6130]specifically name that thing? I don't know how many people
[6131]even read the thing. . But, you know, some idiot could’ pick up
[6132]Black Leaf-40 and decide, “Hey, this is a good way to kill
[6133]somebody." It's got nothing to do with intelligence. And
[6134]that's why I think that it was irresponsible, and I think that
[6135]statement is an absolutely good statement and is absolutely
[6136]correct. And particularly as far as the Pike Committee is
[6137]concerned. That thing was a shambles. And those kids-were
[6138]running around in their bare feet, not even their stocking
[6139]feet, in their bare feet having a ball. Throwing the stuff up
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[6148]in the air.
[6149]INTERVIEWER: How about a couple of the Senators, Church and
[6151]Mondale, have emphasized that accountability to the President
[6153]_ and to the Congress was needed. And they were referring to the
[6155]Agency...
[6156]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, I think you have to have accountability.
[6157]And we always thought -we had accountability. We went and got
[6159]our money from Congress to do al? the convert action that
[6161]- everybody is objecting to now. They didn't object then. I
[6163]mean, those handful of guys didn't. I mean, the so-called Laos
[6164]Secret War. They provided every penny. We don't make our own
[6165]money. We don't print our own money. We might print somebody
[6166]else's counterfeit money but that is another story. But the
[6167]Congressional leadership knew. Again, under the ground rules
[6169]that the Congress laid down we always had oversight. Four
[6171]oversight committees. _We reported to those four oversight
[6173]committees. If they didn't want to listen, if they didn't want
[6175]to ask questions and if they didn't want to know more, that's
[6177]‘their problem, not ours. We've got a war to-fight, kind of.
[6179]‘But we keep on going. When they stop us, we stop: And yeah,
[6181]you've got to have Congressional Oversight. The system we've
[6182]got, fine. But oversight is oversight. Oversight does not
[6184]mean management. ‘Not in my opinion: anyway. Oversight does not
[6186]‘mean daily running of the office. And I am told that there are
[6188]guys on the Hill, and they've got badges just like the next
[6189]guy. They've got all the clearances. They've got badges and
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[6198]they go in. They run around. They have access to
[6199]everything. And I think that's crazy. That ts micro
[6200]managing. And there is no reason for that. None at all. I
[6201]just don't believe in mucking up the system. If you want to
[6202]change systems, say so. All the way around. “Tf you want to
[6203]run the government, get rid of the President and have it. We
[6204]always didn't have a President running things. There was
[6205]something in the old days, the Continental Congress. - They ran
[6206]everything. The President of the Continental. Congress was in
[6207]effect the President. And you had Congressional Committees
[6208]that ran things. But even they operated in secret when it came
[6209]to intelligence. Look at the record. And they didn't tell
[6210]everybody everything in Congress. The Congressional people
[6211]Knew in the Continental Congress that the small committees that
[6212]they created to handle the confidential and secret stuff were
[6213]their surrogates. And hell, I think I mentioned to you the
[6214]other day, Huddleston finally, on a committee, the Senate _
[6215]Intelligence Committee, turned to his Congressional colleagues
[6216]and said, "You have to accept us on your Committee
[6217](Intelligence Committee) as your surrogates and you can't Know
[6218]all the things that we know." Well, that's what we have been
[6219]saying all along. Not everybody can Know everything. And you
[6220]can't have tt that way, that's all. And I must say, the. Senate
[6221]Committee, I think which is better even than the House
[6222]Committee in some things, does not allow its staffers equal
[6223]access to all papers, even now. They've learned. It's
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[6232]compartmented. -This is the way it should be. Yeah, so talking
[6233]about Congressional Oversight, yes, if it's oversight. Not
[6234]management.
[6236]INTERVIEWER: Bob Woodward in his last book, Veil says the
[6238]‘Church investigation plus the Carter Administration crushed the
[6240]spirit of the CIA.
[6242]MR. HALPERN: Well, not having been inside during the period,
[6243]it's hard to talk. In terms of being on the outside looking in
[6244]with some vague idea of what the hell it is like inside, I
[6245]would say yes. There is no question about that.
[6247]INTERVIEWER: Did you see it, did you witness any crushing in
[6250]MR. HALPERN: Well, I was on the outside.
[6252]INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that's right. You went back.
[6254]MR. HALPERN: This has to be impressions and gut feelings and
[6255]that kind of stuff in talking to people. Yeah, it was a bad
[6256]time, no question about that. Very bad. Including guys who
[6257]were retired like me who were under the gun for the kinds of.
[6258]things we did. And also I have been“talking to people inside
[6259]who felt that if it wasn't for guys like us, the new guys
[6260]inside wouldn't be under the gun now. And therefore they
[6261]turned their venom on us. And I was specifically attacked by a
[6262]couple of guys, I mean, verbally attacked, for some of the
[6263]things, in terms of, you know, if you guys hadn't done all
[6264]those nasty things, we wouldn't be under fire now.
[6266]INTERVIEMER: And these were Agency officers?
[6268]"MR. HALPERN: Agency officers. Serving officers at the time.
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[6276]And that's quite clear. Read Harris Greene's book, Inference
[6277]of Guilt. And if you read that you get a feeling for what some
[6278]of the insiders felt about us former insiders. I think his
[6279]last job was Deputy IG before he retired. He'd been around for
[6280]a long time. He's written a lot of books. All fiction so
[6282]far. All except for one, he hasn't published it yet. He is
[6283]trying to find a publisher. But this gave you, this Inference
[6284]of Guilt gives one a very. good feeling, I think, of how the
[6285]insiders, serving officers, male and female, felt about us
[6286]old-timers who were now out. ‘And it was a very strong feeling
[6287]that, you know, if they hadn't done it we would be all right.
[6288]So there wasn't any great love lost between...
[6290]INTERVIEWER: That must have been a miserable time.
[6292]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, it was pretty rough. And I think for both
[6293]sides. And a lot of the officers, even the retired guys, as
[6294]well as the serving guys, who didn't know a lot of the
[6295]activities. And I didn't know of the activities either. Hell,
[6296]I didn't know about the. MKULTRA, the drug thing at all, even.
[6297]where I sat. We used to have compartmentation in those days
[6298]because even as the Exec to the DDP, there's lots of things I
[6299]didn't know about until I read about them in the Church
[6300]Committee and other places. I just had a better way of putting
[6301]them into context. But anyway, yeah, there were lots of things
[6302]that were going on that I didn't particularly like when I read
[6303]about them. I have a better feeling for why the people had to
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[6312]do what they were doing at the time. What they did and why
[6313]some of these things took place. Where that's not true of many
[6314]of my colleagues and friends who even in a kidding way would
[6316]say to me things like, "What the hell did you do that for,
[6318]Sam?" And I pointed out, “Number one, I didn't do it; number
[6320]two, I didn't even know it was going on; but. number three,
[6321]yeah, I approve now and I know what happened." And I gave
[6323]them a defense for it. That didn't wash at all. So it's kind
[6325]of rough even among. .
[6327]INTERVIEWER: Was this in the period '75, ‘76?
[6329]MR..HALPERN: ‘75, ‘76, ‘77.
[6331]INTERVIEWER: There is practically none of that feeling now?
[6332]MR. HALPERN: I don't know what it ts now. I Know Harris
[6333]Greene stayed on until the late '70's, I think, maybe. even the
[6334]early '80°S? And so Harris’ book, Inference of Guilt, wasn't
[6335]even published then. Could you cut that off for a second...
[6336]Inference of Guilt came out in '82, so he probably stayed on
[6338]until at least ‘80, something like that.
[6340]AD
[6341]es
[6343]INTERVEEWER?” Okay. Good, I'11 look at the book.
[6344]MR. HALPERN: It will give you some idea. I wrote a brief
[6346]review,of ‘that somewhere, I think it appeared in Periscope or
[6348]something. * you'll get, I think, a feeling for this
[6350]relationship of the serving officers versus the old hands.
[6351]INTERVIEWER: All right, the Church Committee believed the
[6353]overall intelligence budget should be published. Was that
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[6362]viewed as a serious issue in the Agency? By those ...
[6364]MR. HALPERN: Who were then serving? From what I gather it
[6365]was. And the Agency even under Turner objected to it. The
[6366]Carter Administration even objected to it. And even going back
[6367]into that period, Colby objected to it when he testified. All
[6368]the Directors have objected to it. You can't do it even with
[6369]an overal| figure. The only budget figure that I know of that
[6370]is actually published every year is the budget figure for the
[6371]Intelligence Community Staff. And that doesn't matter whether
[6372]they have a hundred people or a thousand people. What the
[6373]hell. That's simple enough because they don't get engaged in
[6374]any activities. You can't split the CIA budget up into this
[6375]much for DDI, this much for S&T and this much for so on and so
[6376]forth. The minute you start mucking around with that, you take
[6377]the next year and the year after that and the year after that,
[6378]people start asking. iots of questions. And foreign governments
[6379]try to figure out, why is it going up, why is it going down?
[6380]And pretty soon there is going to be demands for more and more
[6381]more and more breakout. And you can't have that kind of stuff
[6382]if you're going to run an intelligence organization. I
[6383]remember many years ago the British Parliament use to pass a
[6384]one penny, a one penny, budget for confidential matters.
[6385]Period. And the British penny, not our penny. But anyway, one
[6386]penny. That's the best way to do it. The country wants a
[6388]budget figure, we'll give them a budget figure.
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[6397]INTERVIEWER: That was their solution.
[6399]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, give them a one cent figure. I don't
[6401]care. Or a dollar figure. One dollar. No more. But you
[6402]can't start putting out a bunch of figures like that.
[6403]INTERVIEWER: I don't know if we touched on it last time or not
[6404]-- the murder and funeral: of Richard Welch and it's impact on
[6405]the Congressional Committee's work. Some say this lessened the
[6406]Committee pressure and won public opinion over to the side of
[6407]the Agency. Did you? |
[6409]MR. HALPERN: Well, being on the outside and having been at
[6410]Dick's arrival at Andrews field that night when his plane came
[6411]in, I don't know whether it lessened pressure from Congress. I
[6412]think it did have an impact on publtc opinion, and I think that
[6413]can be checked by looking at the old tapes in the old news
[6414]broadcasts and looking at the headlines and the stories in the
[6415]responsible newspapers -- The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago
[6416]Tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc. -- and
[6417]ordinary papers across the country and Walter Cronkite's
[6419]broadcast and things like that. And I think you will find
[6421]overall, there was a pulling back from the constant drumbeat of
[6423]CIA being evil, CIA evil, CIA-evil. I'm not sure if it had too
[6424]much of an impact on Congressional Hill. Particularly the
[6425]Church Committee and the Pike Committee. Particularly the Pike
[6426]Committee more than the Church Committee. It had some, but I
[6428]don't think it really stopped them. They kept going.
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[6437]INTERVIEWER: All right, what about your impressions of Mr.
[6438]Colby's cooperation with the Church and Pike Committee.
[6440]MR. HALPERN: I knew you were going to ask that sooner or
[6441]later. I think Bill was wrong. Dead wrong. Obviously he
[6442]thinks he was right. Two different approaches, two different
[6443]men looking at the same problem. ‘I don't think Bill had to go
[6444]out of his way to, in effect, open up everything without by
[6445]your leave from the President. It was his. way of doing it from
[6446]the very beginning from January even before the Church
[6447]Committee began, from January 15th with Stennis. He did it.
[6449]He carried on that way. Why he did, I don't know. I never
[6451]_asked him. He probably feels if he hadn't, things would have
[6453]been worse rather than better. But I don't think so. Henry.
[6454]Kissinger held the line on the Pike Committee getting access to
[6455]a lot of State Department stuff. He gave in some. But there .
[6456]was a big fight about it. ‘And I would have preferred to see a
[6457]big fight made by Colby on getting access to all the stuff on
[6458]the Agency rather than just give it away. First of all I would
[6459]rather have seen a President. take this to the Supreme Court.
[6460]The whole business. And maybe he would have lost. Who
[6462]knows? Again, we are at a "What if . . .“ question. But I
[6463]think Colby was dead wrong to go as far as he went. Absolutely
[6464]dead wrong. To this day there are a lot of people who think he
[6465]was wrong. A lot of peoplé defend him. And I have friends on
[6467]both sides. And everybody knows where I stand. And I still
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[6476]. see Bill from time to time. We are still friends and all that
[6478]kind of stuff. We say hello, sit at the same table, and.
[6479]everyting else. We just have a different view on how to run
[6480]the show, in other words.
[6482]INTERVIENER: And it. never did go to court, did it?
[6484]MR. HALPERN: No. No President had the guts. Well, talking -
[6485]about Congress not having the guts to use the power of the
[6486]purse. The other side, the Presidents don't like to go to the
[6487]Supreme Court for this kind of stuff. Particularly after Nixon.
[6488]lost on the tapes. It's a tough one. They went to the Court
[6489]the Pentagon Papers and they lost that one. And they might
[6490]have. Jost the next one. I don't know. But that is the only
[6491]way you find out in this system. And we've got to find out.
[6493]Otherwise we are just going to keep on this ballet we were
[6495]‘involved in forever. And-you know, I can ballet. with the next
[6497]guy. But sooner or later you're going to have to. a
[6498]INTERVIEWER: The ballet is still on?
[6499]MR. HALPERN: Oh sure, it's still on. But somewhere, somehow,
[6501]you're going to have to make a decision someday. And I'm
[6503]-afraid we're going to make a decision only after some great
[6505]catastrophe. And that's not the way to do it, I don't think.
[6506]If we have to wait for a catastrophe every time we are going to
[6507]be really down the tubes. _I'l1 give you another simple one. .
[6508]Lincoln suspened habeas corpus. The Constitution says you
[6510]can't do this. He did it. And he said, you know, "Sooner or
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[6519]later, if we lose the war, there won't be any country to worry
[6520]about anyway. And I'll take my chances with Congress
[6521]afterwards." He had the guts, the fortitude to be President
[6522]and make a decision. Nobody stopped him during the war. And
[6523]after the war it was approved. Don't give a damn and all that
[6524]kind of stuff, but anyway, it's the same thing here. Somebody
[6525]has got to decide. You've got to go and Find out, otherwise —
[6526]you are going to have this ballet all the time. And I can't
[6527]see Judge Hebster standing up better than Bill Colby on
[6528]something like this. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong.
[6529]First of all, I hope we never get to that again. But it's a
[6530]possibility. You've got to fight it. I'm glad to see, for
[6531]example, that the Administration and: Judge Webster has come
[6532]forth and objected to the Glenn Bill on putting the GAO, in all
[6533]of its glory and majesty, right in the middle of CIA's
[6534]finances. I don't know where that bill is going to go but it
[6535]is somewhere in committee now. But at least initially the
[6536]Administration said, "No way." But we'll see what happens.
[6537]INTERVIEWER: As far as the cooperation by Colby at the time it
[6538]was going on, tn other words, it was going to the committees,
[6539]you were surprised?
[6541]MR. HALPERN: I am never surprised at anything that Bill Colby
[6542]does. Never. I've been around Bill long enough and-.close
[6543]enough not to be surprised. I objected to it. I mean; I
[6545]couldn't go ahead and grab him by the scruff of the neck or
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[6554]anything. I was in no position to do that. But I was loud and
[6555]vociferous in my statements to the people who were willing to
[6556]listen among my colleagues. Some of them said, "Bill had no
[6557]choice. He had to do that." And I kept saying, “Not that
[6558]way." He may have had to reluctantly and over a period of time
[6559]give up a piece of paper and another piece of paper and another
[6560]piece of paper. But you don't suddenly open the door to the
[6561]safe and say, "Go in, fellas, and enjoy yourselves.“ He took
[6562]stuff up there by the bushel barrel full. It was crazy.
[6563]INTERVIEWER: Now some of the records had been gathered for the
[6564]Rockefeller Commission and then were moved over to the Senate
[6565]Commission wholesale.
[6567]MR. HALPERN: That's true. That was by Presidential Order.
[6569]The President runs the show. It's perfectly okay. It's like I
[6570]said in early ‘75 when I was trying to collect stuff for Bill
[6571]Colby, the DCI, information in answer to all the charges that
[6573]were coming up in the press in those days. I didn't know what
[6575]he was going to do with them.. And I had the same qualms that
[6576]my buddies had, ‘in terms of, if we give it to Bill, God knows
[6577]what the hell he will do with the stuff. My answer was simply,
[6578]"He's the boss. You've got to give it to him. And if you
[6579]don't, you might ruin your job. Okay the stuff, just give it
[6580]to the Rockefeller Commission." There was a Presidential
[6581]Commission reporting to the President. The documents belong to
[6583]the President. It's up to him if he wants to put themona  .
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[6592]bulletin board out in front of the White House. That's up to
[6593]him. That's his job. He's got the legal power to declassify
[6594]every piece of paper in the government. Fine, go ahead and do
[6595]it. You are the boss. I think you are crazy, but go ahead and
[6596]do it. And the same difference between the Congressional
[6597]Committee , Presidential Commission. I'm sorry. Maybe I'm
[6598]simplistic in my approach to the legalisms involved or the
[6599]operation of an organization. Somebody has got to make rules
[6600]and regulations and procedures. And somebody has got to follow
[6601]them. Not everybody can be all things ‘to all men at all times.
[6602]INTERVIEWER: What about the suggestion by someone that Mr.
[6603]Colby was responsible for exposing the CIA to the public?
[6605]MR. HALPERN: Well, that's just the consequence of what he
[6607]did. That's all. It's easy. He did that, as I say,. from
[6608]January 15th, ‘75, when for the first time the entire |
[6609]organization of the Agency was laid out for public view.
[6610]INTERVIEHER: Do you think he was hopeful that the material he
[6611]was supplying would not be publicized, would not be given out
[6612]by the Committee? _
[6614]MR. HALPERN: He was in an open session. He knew it.
[6615]INTERVIEWER: Well, that one.
[6617]MR. HALPERN: The Stennis Committee. He knew exactly where he
[6618]was. Open session. And that's why. it dawned on him as he
[6619]left, as he says in his book, "On the way back from the Hill it
[6621]dawned on me, that's probably on the ticker tapes now, on the
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[6630]wire services now. I better go stop by and tell somebody what
[6631]I have just done."
[6633]INTERVIEWER: Did you see any signs of that sort of attitude
[6634]earlier on with Bill?
[6636]JMR. HALPERN: With Bill? No, not to that extent. Not in the
[6637]sense of kind of freewheeling. No, that never came through.
[6638]But I wouldn't have been surprised at whatever Bill] did on that
[6639]kind of stuff. It always surprised the hell out of me. I
[6640]mean, it never surprised the hell out of me, what he did. It
[6641]‘was strange in many cases, but he was a strange man. Probably
[6642]still is.
[6644]INTERVIEWER: Okay, how about relationships between Colby and
[6646]Angleton. Strained?
[6648]MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. Very strained. Very strained. I don't
[6649]Know low far back it goes as far as the Italian business is
[6650]concerned, because Italy was one of Jim's early bailiwicks.
[6651]INTERVIEWER: I mentioned before lunch, Angleton-Colby
[6652]relations. Angleton-He lms relations?
[6654]MR. HALPERN: Very, very good. ;
[6656]INTERVIEWER: Very, very good?
[6658]MR. HALPERN: Always have been.
[6660]INTERVIEWER: Good working relationship between the two of
[6661]them.
[6663]MR. HALPERN: Oh sure, they had their differences in views on
[6664]lots of subjects including the Nosenko case and a lot of
[6665]others, but by and large it was excellent.
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[6674]INTERVIEWER: Other than Mr. Colby, who was the most
[6675]influential person from the Agency in dealing with these
[6676]Committees? _ .
[6678]MR. HALPERN: I have no personal knowledge of that so I am not
[6679]sure. I would’ guess that the three guys who were set up to be
[6681]the liaison. Breckinridge, Bolton and Elder I presume were the
[6683]' most influential.guys because they were in daily touch with the
[6685]staff as well as the Senators and Representatives. I forget
[6687]who was technically the boss. I think it was probably Scott.
[6689]_ The boss of the office on the paper. And Seymour was a
[6691]consultant or contractor or rehiree or whatever it was because
[6692]he had retired. |
[6694]INTERVIEWER: Oh, he had? I didn't know that.
[6696]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, he had retired with me and 250 other guys
[6697]from the DDP on December the 31st, 1974. ;
[6698]INTERVIEWER: Oh, he had too.
[6700]MR. HALPERN: And then he ‘got called back and rehired on |
[6701]January the Ist or January the ond, whatever it turned out. to
[6702]be, for this kind of stuff even before the Church Committee was
[6703]created. So I guess of all of those in terms of staff
[6705]officers, I guess those three were the guys who were more
[6707]intimately involved than anybody else. But I may be, you know,
[6709]dead wrong on that.
[6711]INTERVIEWER: And that was°200 plus that left at the end of
[6712]December? |
[6713]MR. HALPERN: Yeah, regular retirement. I mean, the retirement
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[6722]computations asa result of the cost of living allowances: that
[6723]were then growing along every six months or so made it so that:
[6724]it was economically crazy, not to retire. You were better off
[6725]to do what Seymour did, which was retire one day and come back
[6726]on contract the next day because it worked out that way much
[6727]better. Better financially, that is. Soa lot of guys just
[6728]took advantage of it long before the business of the Church
[6729]Committee came into existence. And you had to have your papers
[6730]in quite a while before the December 31st retirement date so
[6731]that they could do all the processing and everything, get the
[6732]approvals and processing and what have you because it wasn't
[6733]automatic. You had to go through the usual bureaucratic chain
[6735]of command to get approval to retire. So most of these people
[6737]had been thinking about retirement for some time. It had
[6739]nothing to do with the Schlesinger cleaning up in '73, this was
[6740]a year later in '74. Soa lot of guys were planning it and
[6741]just kept on looking at the financial statistics from the
[6743]retirement branch to see when the best. time was to go. And so
[6745]. it suddenly ended up with about 200 or 250 from the DDO alone.
[6747]And we all went out at the same time.
[6749]INTERVIEWER: You served Tom Karamessines until February of '73?
[6750]MR.. HALPERN: That's right. And then Bill Colby after that.
[6751]INTERVIEWER: Then Colby after that?
[6753]MR. HALPERN: Until about May of '73. .
[6755]INTERVIEWER: Until May of ‘73. And then what Sam?
[6757]MR. HALPERN: Then my next asstgnment was as the Senior
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[6766]Personnel Officer. . Mainly, my job was worrying about
[6767]assignments for senior personnel.: That means the super grades,
[6768]GS-15s° and above for the DDO. I prepared all the necessary
[6769]paperwork and make recommendations to the DDO as to next
[6770]assignments and what have you. I did that for, well, sorry,
[6771]correction. I first was given a job by Colby and Bill Nelson
[6772]who was then the DDO while Bill was in Timbo waiting to get
[6773]sworn in. I mean, Colby was in limbo. My next assignment,
[6774]actually, was to do a study of DCS which Colby had just
[6775]incorporated into the DDO. It had been under the DDI for
[6776]years. And the DDO, that is, the Directorate suddenly had
[6777]another component, totally new component. They didn't know
[6779]what to do with it. For years they had been trying to get
[6781]their hands on it, we had béen, even under Tom K. And -no
[6783]decision had been made. And Colby, one of the first things he
[6785]did was to just transfer. The same time he transferred TSD,
[6787]- the technical people into the DDS&T, he transferred the DCS
[6789]into the DDO. And so I was asked to look into it and come up
[6790]with a paper saying, you know, what's this animal we now own?
[6791]What do we have here? And so f did it and I think it took me
[6792]two or three months to do a study. And I visited quite a
[6793]number of the field bases, field offices throughout the
[6794]country. Talked to a lot of people and talked to a lot of
[6795]people in Washington and wrote a paper. And then it was after
[6796]that that I was made the Senior Personnel Officer -- or officer
[6797]for senior officers -- in the DDO. And one of the conditions
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[6806]that I had made in doing the study on DCS, that come what may
[6807]with my report, whether it was a good report or a lousy report,
[6808]I didn't want people to assume that once I made the report that
[6810]I would move in and take over DCS, you know. Being charged
[6812]‘with having doctored the report, I said, “I want it clearly
[6814]understood I am not going to be assigned to the DCS when this
[6816]is over." And everybody agreed. Scouts honor, cross my heart
[6818]and hope to die, ali that kind of nonsense. Hand on the Bible
[6819]and what have you. And after I did my personnel job, which I
[6820]am not a personnel officer and I didn't like it but I did it
[6821]as long as I was told to do it. And so and behold, when I was
[6822]stirring around saying, you know, “This isn't my job. There
[6823]must be something else you guys have for me to do." And
[6824]behold, when Jim Murphy retired in ‘73 and Jack Horton was
[6825]moved up from Deputy Chief of DCS to Chief of DCS, I was
[6826]detailed as the Deputy to Jack Horton. And so in early ‘74,
[6827]late '73, early 74, I was made Deputy Chief of DCS and then
[6828]made another trip to the stations for other reasons, because I
[6829]was looking at them from two different points of view. And
[6830]that's what I was doing. And then when I retired, I retired as
[6831]Deputy Chief of DCS.
[6833]INTERVIEWER: Good, I didn't have that gap. As you look to the
[6834]past, how was counterintelligence affected by the Hearings?
[6835]MR. HALPERN: I think that were affected, I'm just guessing
[6836]again, because on was on the outside, but my guess is it was
[6837]probably affected even more drastically than the rest of the
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[6846]shop largely because of the MHCHAOS program, the mail opening
[6847]program, and because of Jim Angleton being charged with being
[6848]the gray eminence and spook and God Knows what else. I think
[6849]it was probably badly hurt. Much more so than the others.
[6850]INTERVIEWER: Badly damaged?
[6851]MR. HALPERN: Badly damaged. And particularly with Colby
[6852]saying that he never got anything out of counterintelligence.
[6853]Jim Angleton could never convince him about
[6854]counterintelligence. Bill just didn't understand it, that's
[6855]all. |
[6857]INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about Mitch Rogovin? Any notions as
[6858]to how he influenced the... .
[6859]MR. HALPERN: I have no idea. No personal knowledge whatever.
[6860]What I would be giving you is hearsay. BO
[6861]INTERVIEWER: “Okay, how about Director Schlesinger's relations
[6862]with Congress? | 7
[6863]MR. HALPERN: Well, as far as I know Jim was only in the job
[6864]from February ‘73 to June '73. I have no idea what those _
[6865]relations were. First of all, I was bouncing around mostly -as
[6866]Colby's Exec and we had enough troubles worrying about what to
[6867]do with Jim. Colby knew pretty well because it was mostly
[6868]Colby's ideas that Jim was signing-off on as it affected the
[6869]DDO. I just don't know what his relationships were really. I
[6870]wasn't close enough to get near. I can give you a gut
[6871]feeling. But that's no help.
[6873]INTERVIEWER: And how about during that time, Colby's relation
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[6882]with Congress?
[6884]MR. HALPERN: I don't know. I don't think there were very
[6885]many. I think everything was handled through Jim. Because in
[6886]those days, officers below the rank of the Deputy Director and
[6887]Executive Director, very few officers as such ever had any
[6888]direct relations with the Congress. Bill Broe as the IG, under
[6889]Schlesinger, was the first guy, first officer below that top
[6890]level who was directed to testify in Congress on the Chile
[6891]affair because Bill had been Chief of the WH Division when it
[6892]ali took place. And so, Bill's contacts with Geneene of ITT,
[6893]for the substantive of issue, I believe Bill was the first guy
[6894]who... Schlesinger changed the ground rules right away.
[6895]And I think he was the first guy. Other Directors had taken
[6896]officers up there with them to testify in executive session,
[6897]classified hearings and briefings. Dick Helms took. Ted
[6898]Shackley, for example, to testify about a number of things. I
[6899]think one of them was the Laos war and another one on Vietnam
[6900]and so on. But aside from that kind of, the Director doing the
[6901]briefings with a staff officer to assist him, in effect, I
[6902]think Bill Broe was the first, I believe he was the first,
[6903]officer to testify in his own right under oath, etc. And then
[6904]his testimony was declassified almost immediately and published.
[6905]INTERVIEWER: And the Director was present?
[6907]MR. HALPERN: I don't remember whether he was present or not.
[6908]INTERVIEWER: So this was a. .
[6910]MR. HALPERN: It was a change.
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[6919]INTERVIEWER: Big departure?
[6920]MR. HALPERN: Vast change. I believe Bill in '73 was under
[6922]' Schlesinger, the first guy. I'm almost certain of that.
[6924]INTERVIEWER: Do you happen to know who was Congressional
[6925]liaison at that time? | .
[6927]MR. HALPERN: It would have to.be . . . I don't know who the
[6928]heck -- I don't know offhand. I don't remember. John Warner
[6929]would Know. Give John a buzz and ask him. Or the record would
[6930]show in the Agency who the heck was on what job. I'm trying to
[6931]think and I don't remember offhand. It may be in the public
[6932]hearings for that matter. I just don't know. I've got them in
[6933]there somewhere. But I think it would be easier for you just
[6934]to check. Because that was -a wide thing and it was an
[6935]unclassified officer. .
[6937]INTERVIEWER: Okay how about, some suggest, I approached it a
[6938]little bit differently a little bit ago, that Mr. Colby's
[6939]cooperation saved the Agency from very. serious harm.
[6941]MR. HALPERN: Run that by me again.
[6943]INTERVIEWER: Some suggest that Mr. Colby's cooperation saved
[6944]the Agency from very serious harm. Some going so far as to say
[6945]it might have been dismantled. Is that a common view?
[6947]MR. HALPERN: Well, I'l] tell you, if it is.it's a new one on
[6948]me. I know it's a view,” but all I can say to those who hold
[6949]that view is, what the hell-do they regard as damaging to the
[6950]Agency? If Bill didn't do the damage to the Agency, what the
[6951]hell did? I don't think the Congress would have dismantled the
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[6960]Agency under any circumstances. If, by dismantling, basically
[6961]you say get rid of the clandestine side, because I think even
[6962]the silliest guy on the Hill always said you've got to have
[6963]analysis, research and analysis. That's DDI. And I think they
[6965]are all pretty smart enough. to’ say, “Well, we've got to have
[6967]’ those bloody things up in-the sky. And we've got to have
[6969]technical. stuff." You know everybody is for technical stuff.
[6970]And the DOA simply provides the the money and the office space
[6971]and the paper clips. So the only thing that would be
[6972]dismantled would be to wipe out clandestine activities. And I
[6973]don't think anybody on the Hill seriously considered wiping it
[6974]out completely. Controlling it, reducing it, putting it under
[6975]some kind of further Congressional constraints, yeah, that was
[6977]going to happen. Moving it out of CIA and making it a brand
[6979]new agency by itself, yeah, there was talk about that kind of
[6981]thing. But where the heli would they put it? In the White
[6982]House? Well, that's possible. Look at the nice mess with got
[6984]with North ahd you can imagine that in spades. So those people
[6986]‘who hold the view that Colby's frankness, if that's the word to
[6988]use, or cooperation with the Congress, saved the Agency from
[6989]real damage, I don't know what the hell damage is then. Sorry
[6991]Ralph, you asked.
[6993]INTERVIEWER: I asked, you bet.
[6995]MR. HALPERN: I think people like that have got rocks in their
[6996]head. I don't know what the hell they are imagining. .
[6997]INTERVIEWER: Tell me, on a scale from 1 to 15, with 15 tops,
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[7006]how would you rate Mr. Colby's work in the investigation?
[7008]MR. HALPERN: In the investigation? .
[7009]INTERVIEWER: In the investigation: -- Congressional, Pike,
[7010]Church.
[7012]MR. HALPERN: In relation to what? I am not trying to hold:
[7013]back. In relation to what? In relation to harm to the Agency,
[7014]harm to the communi ty? Helping in Congress? Hurting the
[7015]President? I'm not sure.
[7017]INTERVIEWER: In relation to the Agency, and if you will the
[7018]health of the Agency, the strength of the Agency.
[7020]MR. HALPERN: Oh, I'd give him no more than a 5. Nomore. My
[7021]Lord. I think he did a lot of damage. I think he aided and
[7022]abetted the kinds of anti-intelligence activities, and
[7023]anti-intelligence feelings on the Hill. And I forget, whether
[7024]it was Kissinger or Rockefeller who made that, maybe it's a
[7025]apocryphal remark, to Colby about, you know, do you have to go
[7026]to Confession all the time? That's my attitude as far as Colby
[7027]is concerned. . .
[7028]INTERVIEWER: I'd like to read a statement and see what you
[7029]think of it. This is a statement that was made to Mr. Colby in
[7030]December of 1975. And I am quoting, “It has been my experience
[7031]and judgement that if you, Mr. Colby, are asked precisely the
[7032]right questions, you will. give an honest answer. You do not
[7033]lead us into those areas which would help us know what the
[7034]right question was to ask. You do not make it easy for us to
[7035]ask the right question." This is a Congressman, Sam.
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[7044]MR. HALPERN: I know.
[7046]INTERVIEWER: “Anyone who thinks you have been running back and
[7047]forth to Capital Hin with briefcases bulging with secrets
[7048]which you are eager to bestow upon us hasn't sat on my side of.
[7049]the desk."
[7051]MR. HALPERN: Do you want me to comment?
[7053]INTERVIEWER: Yes.
[7055]MR. HALPERN: I think the person who made that comment didn't
[7057]_ realize how much he was getting. He may have been ignorant of
[7059]what the intellicence business was all about, what the
[7060]profession was all about, what the Community was all about.
[7062]And he may have thought that Colby wasn't giving him the keys
[7063]to the guardhouse. But in fact I think he was. Again, I
[7064]wasn't there at the time so I am only guessing. But I think he
[7065]did give them keys. I think the Congressman who made that
[7066]comment thought that there should have been a hell of a lot
[7067]more. I think he was living in a dream world. He didn't
[7068]realize how much he was getting from Bill. As I said before, I
[7069]would have preferred if the Congressmen really had to dig and.
[7070]burrow and argue for every piece of paper.. That's a personal
[7071]view and I think that I would, if I had been there I would have
[7072]tried to see what we could do to keep it that way. I must say
[7073]I can image Seymour Bolton trying to convince Bill Colby about
[7074]not pushing things forward ‘and not rushing things. And maybe
[7075]he succeeded in holding back some stuff or at least delaying
[7076]production of some stuff. But I can imagine Colby totally
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[7085]overruling Seymour most of the time or some of the time. I
[7087]don't know. But I can't imagine Bolton, knowing Seymour very
[7088]well indeed, that Seymour would want to go rushing foward with
[7089]this thing because if nothing else, Bolton was a political |
[7090]animal. He had the best political sense of many guys there.
[7091]INTERVIEWER: He did? .
[7092]MR. HALPERN: Oh, he was terrific on this. He was basically a
[7093]political action officer and always was. And particularly in
[7094]Germany, he knew the German scene very well indeed. And the
[7095]German leaders very well indeed, some of whom were on his
[7096]payroll]. But that is another story. Or had been on his
[7097]payroll, let me put it that way. Years ago. Anyway, I can see
[7098]Colby saying, "Oh I know better than that, Seymour. I know how
[7099]to handle those guys. Let me handle it my way. And I'‘11
[7100]handle it my way.“ But. Seymour would be a good staff officer
[7101]and provide Colby with all the information that Colby should
[7102]have. And it would be up to Bill then to make the decision on
[7103]what to do. That Congressman, I think, thought there was much
[7104]more and thought that probably Bi11 was holding out on him. My
[7105]own gut feeling, and it is purely that, was that Bill did not
[7106]hold out. And he wasn't trying to hold anything back. 1 think
[7107]he really believed, probably to this day, that he did the right
[7108]thing by making things easier by showing a cooperative spirit,
[7109]by putting things forward, and I think the other apocryphal
[7111]statement I made, you know, about, do you have to go to
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[7120]confession everyday is the other side to that same question.
[7121]And the Congressman, I think, was just full of delusions.
[7122]That's about all I can say.
[7123]INTERVIEWER: How about your reflections on media coverage of
[7124]the Congressional investigations? Do you feel they were
[7125]objective? |
[7127]_ MR. HALPERN: Well, obviously not. They were not objective.
[7128]They were all hype. Nothing but hype. If you looked at some
[7129]of the stories that appeared in. the print media and the radio
[7130]“and television media, the headline always had to have those
[7131]three nasty letters, CIA. I don't care what it was. They
[7132]always dug up a CIA headline. You take a look at the obituary
[7133]pages of The Post and New York Times and invariably if somebody
[7134]died -- God knows where and God knows how long they'd been
[7135]sick, with cancer or had an accident, got killed in a car crash
[7136]-- and if they nappened to have been fn CIA even as a logistics
[7138]. officer or a finance clerk or a courier, and if they could dig
[7139]out the word CIA, that would be in the headline. “CIA Courier
[7140]Dead" or "CIA Officer Killed" or so and so. It was always the
[7141]CIA. It use to make me sick to my stomach to watch these
[7142]things on television. To this day I can't watch Tom Brokow
[7143]without remembering some of his absolute awful, asinine.
[7144]statements that he made as a great pontificator on all of this
[7145]stuff. Dan Rather was bad enough but he wasn't on top then.
[7147]It was Walter Cronkite. But Dan was always covering
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[7156]this thing. He was bad, but he wasn't quite that bad. I think
[7157]Brokaw was the worst.’
[7159]INTERVIEWER: Daniel Schorr, was he...
[7161]MR. HALPERN: Schorr was a bad one all the way through. They
[7162]were aiways looking for that CIA headline. It could have
[7163]something to do with some other Agency but if it was
[7164]intelligence, CIA always got the hook. Let me give you a
[7165]perfect example of what I am talking about. You remember, I'm
[7166]sure, the famous picture of that so-called assassination gun?
[7167]The dart gun -- .
[7169]INTERVIEWER: Right.
[7171]MR. HALPERN: --that Church was holding up and Tower was
[7173]. looking over the side and what have you. And first of all,
[7175]Bill Colby should never have brought that up on the Hill. He
[7177]‘shouldn't have taken it up there. But it was labeled to this
[7179]day, and it's even in the John Ranelagh book, and I tried to
[7180]get him to correct it in the paperback but he couldn't because,
[7181]I think, because of the fact that there was a caption under a
[7182]photograph and to change a plate like that is very expensive
[7183]for a publisher. John tried to make some changes in the text,
[7184]not the caption under the photograph, but in the text itself to
[7185]indicate what I was trying to tell them, that by dammit, it was
[7186]not the CIA gun. The gun happened to have’ been found in one of
[7187]the safes at CIA when these young kids were running around in
[7189]the safes in their bare feet. And in the testimony on the Hil]
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[7198]‘before the Church Commi ttee , it appears in the bloody same book
[7200]that the testimony of Colby's in, two days later, two or three
[7201]days later, Dr. Senseney of the Special Operations Division of
[7202]the Department of the Army at Fort Dietrich, Maryland, Dr.
[7203]Senseney testified. And in high dudgeon practically when he
[7204]said, "That's not a CIA gun. I'm the guy who developed .the
[7205]gun. I developed it and not for CIA. I developed it for the
[7206]entire US Government and it had nothing to do with Operation
[7207]MONGOOSE or Cuba. It wasn't even developed then. I developed
[7208]it for the Special Forces in Vietnam in 1965. It's my gun. He
[7210]‘did it. It's an Army gun." But no, you'll never find it in
[7212]history today. It's always a CIA gun. It's going to be a CIA
[7214]gun until you and I are dead and tong after. They can't
[7216]‘correct the history books. And it's all in the same bloody,
[7218]green covered set of hearings where Dr. Senseney says, "It's my
[7219]gun." . . |
[7220]INTERVIEWER: How does Senseney spell his name? You know?
[7222]MR. HALPERN: I'll give it to you. Hold on.
[7224]INTERVIEWER: The machine is back on.
[7226]MR. HALPERN: | I'm not making this up. This is Volume I of the
[7228]Church Committee Hearings and oddly enough the title of the
[7230]Volume is "Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents." And that
[7232]subject has got nothing to do with the dart gun. Anyway, Bill
[7233]testified with that dart gun nonsense and he had with him at
[7235]the time Sayre Stevens and Mitch Rogovin on September the 16th,
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[7244]1975. On September the 18th, 1975, two days later, Dr. Charles
[7245]A. Senseney, spelled S-E~N-S-E-N-E-Y. He was Department of
[7246]Defense employee formerly in a Special Operations Division at
[7247]Fort Dietrich, Maryland. ‘And if you'll wait a minute I'll give
[7248]you the actual page number of that. I've been trying to. get
[7249]this damn thing. People won't listen to me and nobody will,
[7250]INTERVIEWER: Well I am and the machine is and we'll get it out
[7251]to the public.
[7253]MR. HALPERN: If you'll] hang on one minute -- here it is. This
[7254]is what I wrote to John Ranelagh and I sent it to him in this
[7255]form. He took 80 percent of these 38 pages when he put out his
[7256]paperback. Anyway, I'm saying this, “Re the phato of Senator
[7258]Church holding a dart gun. The gun was not a CIA gun. It was
[7260]not developed in the early 60's. It was not developed.as part
[7262]of Operation MONGOOSE. ‘See Church Committee Hearings, Volume
[7264]I, Testimony of Charles A. Senseney, Department of Defense,
[7266]Special Operations Division, September 18, 1975, Pages 159 to
[7268]“177... The gun was developed long after MONGOOSE which was
[7270]run from Octobér 1961 to October 1962. It was developed in
[7272]1965 for Special Forces in Vietnam and was available for all
[7274]‘interested government agencies." Quote unquote. And there's
[7275]the text. But the media two days later never mentioned a word
[7276]about, "Two days ago we gave you a report about that dart gun.
[7277]We called it a CIA gun. Oops, we made a mistake. It's not a
[7278]CIA dart gun." You think Colby as DCI even tried to put out a
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[7286]correction to the press, a notice saying, "Hey fellas, please
[7287]put even a little half-inch box in somewhere on page 55." CIA
[7289]didn't do a thing. And I hold Bill responsible for that and
[7291]-I'm sorry to be so strong about it. But that is Bill's fault.
[7293]He brought that bloody gun up there. He knew what they were
[7294]doing. He saw the headlines as well as you and me, and the
[7295]print media and the television media, the electronic media and
[7296]the radio. He never did anything at all to try to correct the
[7297]record. At the time it might, big might, big question mark,
[7298]might have had some impact on some of the media to say, “OOPS,
[7299]it wasn't a CIA gun, it was a Department of Defense gun."
[7300]Never. Never! I tried to do it in my own little way. I
[7301]didn't have a chance to even start. I've told everybody that I
[7302]could think of including Bill Colby the same story I am telling
[7303]you. I said, "I am not making it up. It's all in the same
[7304]green document." |
[7306]INTERVIEWER: Does he mention that in his book? I don't
[7307]remember that. Does he mention that in his book? Does Bill
[7308]Colby mention this? I don't think so.
[7310]MR. HALPERN: He never made any attempt to correct. the record.
[7311]Sure the gun was there. I'm not denying that. But it wasn't a
[7312]CIA dart gun or the CIA assassination gun. Nobody in the media
[7313]tried to correct the record. Church didn't, obviously.
[7315]Never. But the guy who should have done something is Bill
[7317]Colby. And I hold Bill personally responsible for not doing
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[7326]anything about it.
[7328]INTERVIEWER: I'm glad to get it on the record.
[7330]MR. HALPERN: It's on the record. I've had it on the record so
[7331]many times with people. I've told this to Seymour Hersh. But
[7332]he didn't believe me until he did his own homework. He didn't
[7333]even believe in looking at my copy. It wasn't here in this
[7334]house. I was out with him. I do my homework. And when I've
[7335]got, you know, I said, "I'm not saying this. Here, you read
[7336]it." He had to do his own homework and he finally told me at
[7337]another subsequent session, he said, “Yes, you were right,
[7338]Sam." I said, "I didn't make it up." And I don't know
[7339]Senseney from a hole in the wall. You got me at the wrong
[7341]moment.
[7343]“INTERVIEWER: I'm glad to get it.
[7345]MR. HALPERN: I'm getting hot under the collar.
[7347]INTERVIEWER: That's fine. That's fine.
[7349]MR. HALPERN: I don't mind, you know, taking blame for
[7350]something we did. And there is no blame in having a dart gun,
[7351]by dammit. I think Senseney was right to have perfected one.
[7352]The fact that we didn't use it and nobody else used it, that's
[7353]another one of those wasted things, wasted efforts maybe. But
[7354]if suddenly somebody needed -- well, we did use it, I'm
[7355]sorry. But not as an assassination weapon. We used it against
[7356]dogs.
[7358]INTERVIEWER: Right, guard dogs.
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[7367]MR. HALPERN: The guard dogs were put to sleep in at least one
[7368]operation. .
[7370]INTERVIEWER: You know in Spy Catcher there is mention of a
[7372]‘dart gun. And I wondered when I read. that whether the British
[7374]had worked on it and then we did? I wasn't sure.
[7376]MR. HALPERN: According to Senseney, he did this on his own.
[7377]He and his laboratory types. I don't know Senseney. It's all
[7378]in here. Read the written report.
[7380]INTERVIEWER: All right. I'm going to.
[7382]MR. HALPERN: You know, it's like this business I told you
[7383]about my being out in Boulder, Colorado at the World Affairs
[7384]Conference. Perfect example. . It's okay for somebody to use
[7385]the Church Committee Reports to damn CIA, but I can't use the
[7386]same bloody report to defend CIA. So where the hell do you go?
[7387]INTERVIEWER: In one hell of a circle, that's for sure.
[7389]MR. HALPERN: That's for sure. Round and round and round.
[7390]Anyway, you caught me ata wrong moment.
[7392]INTERVIENER: No, it's fine. Tell me, why do you think the
[7393]press was playing all CIA up and playing CIA. . .?
[7395]MR. HALPERN: I think part of the same business of being
[7396]anti-establishment, anti-government. Remember, this is after
[7397]Vietnam, after Watergate. It all adds up. Attack, attack,
[7398]attack, attack, attack.
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[7409]MR. HALPERN: Well, partly. Sure. Remember, the Freedom of
[7411]Information Act was just beginning to be used. And it's part
[7413]_of the whole business, it's against the establishment. And one
[7415]of the guys who was on the Church Committee staff, one of the
[7417]staffers, Rick Inderfurth, I think is his name.
[7419]INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
[7421]MR. HALPERN: Okay, you know that name?
[7423]INTERVIEWER: Yes, I do.
[7425]MR. HALPERN: Well, after the Church Committee business, his
[7427]‘next job was in the media on television as a correspondent.
[7429]INTERVIEWER: Oh, I didn't know that.
[7431]MR. HALPERN: Guys were looking for other jobs. So, you know
[7432]looking out for their future. I don't object to that but 1
[7433]hate for them to have gotten ahead over the dead bodies of the
[7435]Intelligence Community. I mean, it's a little bit beyond the
[7437]pale as far as I'm concerned.
[7439]INTERVIEWER: Okay, how about the writings of Seymour Hersh.
[7440]Significant factor? .
[7441]MR. HALPERN: Yes. If nothing else The New York Times -- and
[7442]The New York Times still has an impact -- and when you have two
[7443]big front page stories like that, it's going to make an
[7444]impact. And it did make an impact. And particularly when he
[7445]had the help, and he admits it, and Colby admits it, he had the
[7446]help of the DCI, Colby, who confirmed to him a lot of the stuff
[7447]he had about some of the activities in New York, some of which
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[7455]were wrong. And-Colby didn't even know they were wrong. But
[7456]Colby went ahead. This is part of Colby's problen again -—
[7457]giving away more than he has to give away. Why the hell he
[7458]talked to Hersh’ beats the hell out of me.
[7460]INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about certain newspapers. Were they
[7461]especially harsh in their treatment of CIA during the time?
[7462]MR. HALPERN: Yeah. I don't know of any that wasn't. There
[7464]may have been some around the country.
[7466]“INTERVIEWER:  Christain Science Monitor, maybe?
[7468]MR. HALPERN: Nope. Oh no, ‘no, no, no. The Monitor was along
[7469]with everybody else. They were a part of the pack. And I've
[7470]got all the clippings. The Monitor was part of the pack.
[7471]INTERVIEWER: Wall Street Journal?
[7473]MR. HALPERN: That I don't know. I don't read the Wall Street
[7475]Journal religiously. I used to read The Monitor, The Post, and
[7477]The New York Times very religiously. I found that I: a.
[7478]couldn't afford ‘them all, and b. my clippings were overflowing
[7479]the room anyway, and I just read The Monitor and The Washington.
[7481]Post_and, of course, Time magazine.
[7483]_ INTERVIEWER: Washington Star? Was that .
[7485]MR. HALPERN: The Washington Star was going but they were all
[7486]on the attack. Nobody wanted to be left out. Everyone, they
[7488]_all wanted to be part of the show. And that's why you had the
[7490]_ television and the radio, all the different channels. I don't
[7492]care what, all the news broadcast. It was almost as if
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[7501]everybody said, “This is the time fellas and we are all going
[7503]to make headlines." ‘And they were all looking for headlines no
[7505]matter what it was. Good, bad, or indifferent. They didn't
[7506]care about the facts. This was one of the reasons that AFIO
[7507]was created -— we called it ARIO when we first began under Dave
[7509]Phillips -- to try to put some kind of moderation and some. kind
[7511]of factual sense into some of these guys who had absolutely no
[7513]concept of what the hell they were doing, what they were
[7514]talking about. It was just Tike the Representatives and the
[7515]Senators who didn't have any idea except that they all thought
[7516]this was James Bond fun and games stuff. And there was no
[7517]leavening of any kind of criticism. And what we were trying to
[7518]do, at least in the AFIO side or the ARIO side, was to have a
[7520]place where the media could come and talk to us. And we
[7522]‘weren't going to give away any secrets. And we didn't. But to
[7524]put things in perspective, put things in context. Try to
[7525]explain to them what the hell that terminology was, what the
[7526]definitions were, what covert action was. You know, nobody
[7528]Knew.
[7530]INTERVIEWER: AFIO or ARIO ran a questionnaire with its.
[7532]membership. Do you know whatever happened to the questionnaire?
[7533]MR. HALPERN: The questionnaire was put out at the request of
[7534]one of the members who was doing some kind of a study -- a
[7536]Ph.D. or a Masters or something. He was doing a paper. And |
[7538]this was a part of his paper. And I don't know what the
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[7547]results were.. I never saw the finished product. But you can
[7548]check with the office and see if they have it.
[7550]INTERVIEWER: I saw some mention in one of the Congressional
[7552]- documents, Dave Phillips in testimony, maybe for government
[7554]operations.
[7556]MR. HALPERN: Well, it may have been. But again, Dave wasn't
[7557]running the questionnaire. That was an individual member's
[7558]effort and using AFIO as a means of getting it out to the
[7559]membership in Kind of one fell swoop. He didn't have any way
[7560]of getting -- I don't know what the membership was, maybe a
[7561]thousand or fifteen-hundred something like that -- he wouldn't
[7562]have any way of reaching that many people as a private
[7563]individual. So we sent out the questionnaire that he
[7564]prepared. And asa matter of fact I don't think I even
[7565]responded to it because I thought some of the questions were
[7566]silly. And I didn't see any point in answering silly .
[7567]questions.
[7569]INTERVIEWER: You didn't save it? .
[7571]MR. HALPERN: No, I didn't. I'm sorry.
[7573]INTERVIEWER:. I'm just curious because from the testimony there
[7574]are some percentages.
[7576]MR. HALPERN: Dave may have. You might ask Dave. Dave may
[7577]have saved it. I don't know if the office itself saved it.
[7579]They weren't very history-minded in the office.
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[7588]INTERVIEWER: | How about your impressions regarding support from
[7590]the White House during the Congressional investigations?
[7592]MR. HALPERN: Again, from the outside looking in. .
[7593]INTERVIEWER: Right.
[7595]MR. HALPERN: I don't think the White House was very
[7596]supportive, or at least as supportive as they might have been.
[7597]But I think I've always thought that they might have been more
[7598]supportive if Colby had been more honest with the White House
[7599]in the very beginning. And the beginning to me is January 15,
[7600]1975, before the Church Committee. And read Colby's book about
[7601]that. I mean, he himself says, you know, says he was out of
[7602]step, basically. And if I were sitting in the White House, why
[7603]would I suddenly think that this guy was going to work with
[7605]me. You Know, he cut my feet off at the stumps, at the hips,
[7606]the first time around. And there is no way I can pull him back
[7607]now. I think the White House was concerned, I think Henry
[7608]Kissinger was concerned about the fact of the loss of emphasis
[7609]and the loss of capability in the Intelligence Community and
[7610]how to stem that particular problem. And if you remember, Ford
[7611]came out with his own plan of reorganizing the Community and
[7612]took a bit of the wind out of the sails of the Church
[7613]Committee, which I thought was a smart thing to do. It may
[7614]have been cosmetic and it may have been simply a deal. But by
[7615]that. time he was dealing with Bush in '76, a different kind of
[7617].
[7618]a guy. And well, an Executive Order came out under Ford in
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[7627]February of ‘76 and it's called the Bush paper. It wasn't. I
[7628]mean, Bush couldn't possibly, even with his staff, have written
[7630]a. new Executive Order in the couple of weeks that he was in the
[7632]office. It had to be the one that was prepared by Colby and
[7634]his staff or his staff officers. So that was basically the
[7635]order that came out in ‘76. with a Bill Colby related order, an
[7636]attempt to do something. But-again, why should the White House
[7637]and all of it's parts gone out of its way to work with a guy
[7638]they weren't sure of? Now when Bush took over in ‘76 it's a
[7639]different story. But by-that time the damage had been done.
[7641]It was '75 when the damage was done, not '76, because by '76
[7642]the Hearings had died down, the coverage had died down, and it
[7643]was only starting to come up again when they started to show
[7644]these green books. and the reports and the Hearings and by that
[7645]time it was the middle of '76. But it doesn't take long to
[7646]destroy an Intelligence Community. You know, boom.
[7647]INTERVIEWER: Did you ever hear anything of the role of Mr.
[7649]MR. HALPERN: Not much. Not much. At least I don't remember.
[7650]I think by that time Al was out of town. Wasn't he in Europe
[7651]at that time? By ‘76? |
[7653]INTERVIEWER: By '76, he would have been.
[7655]MR. HALPERN: Yes, he would have been in Europe by that time. |
[7657]So I don't remember hearing-of Al very much.
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[7666]INTERVIEWER: That's right. He went off to Europe. How about
[7668]this: A number of observers believe the Congressional Hearings
[7670]in this year of investigation were a real watershed in CIA
[7671]history. .
[7673]MR. HALPERN: Oh sure. ‘Before the deluge and after the
[7674]deluge. No question. “No question. We thought we had a
[7675]problem in '67. “That's about nine years earlier, eight years
[7676]earlier when we had the Ramparts flap. And that was a
[7678]tremendous flap. And I think we discussed that last time and
[7680]I'mon tape on that. But that was the first big real problem
[7682]we had, big- war issue. I mean, the Bay of Pigs was bad enough,
[7683]but that: was limited, by comparison, to the Ramparts flap which
[7684]was worldwide in its significance; and covered a whole variety
[7685]of subjects, in terms of the different covers we had used and
[7686]in terms of the different things we had done. Even though it
[7687]was all covert action. But by '75 we weren't just talking
[7688]covert action. The Bay of Pigs was also covert action. It
[7689]just happened to be paramilitary activity of covert action, but
[7691]it was covert action. But by ‘75 you are.getting into
[7693]‘intelligence, you are getting into counterintelligence, you're
[7695]getting the whole “shmear," let alone the CA stuff, the covert
[7696]action stuff. So '75 was the first time there was across the
[7697]board from A to Zed and back again. And it was the kitchen
[7698]sink, soup, apples, nuts, everything. And it wasn't just CIA,
[7700]it was the entire Community, which even hurt worse than that.
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[7709]It included things like NSA, which up until then had been
[7710]really sacrosanct.. And they blew stuff in NSA like, I wish I
[7711]knew the detail. But all you've got to do is read the stuff
[7713]and can have a feel for what the hell went wrong there. They
[7715]‘blew more than they. should have.
[7717]INTERVIEWER: There was a comment by Bob Woodward in Veil that
[7719]Bill Colby in the Hearings, his real success was that he
[7721]protected NSA.
[7723]MR. HALPERN: Oh, I've got hearings in there about NSA and NSA
[7724]being on the firing line, and: I know the staff officer who
[7725]helped prepare most of the testimony by the Director of NSA at
[7726]the time, General something or other. I forget his name right
[7727]now. The guy who did most of the work had been a college
[7728]classmate of mine at the National War College, Jack Harding.
[7729]And it hurt very badly all the way around. And Colby couldn't
[7730]have .possibly protected them.
[7732]INTERVIEHER: Woodward overstated it.
[7734]MR. HALPERN: And as a matter of fact, 1 think part of the
[7736]problem, again sitting on the outside, was that each of the
[7738]agencies in turn had to protect their own domain and their own
[7739]"activities. And no DCI, I don't care who he was, could have
[7741]. been able to coordinate and alter the extent of trying to come
[7743]up with a solid front. I think if he did there might have been
[7745]some law which said you are: in collusion. So you can't, you
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[7754]Know, you are not allowed to defend yourself together. I don't
[7755]know, I'm just guessing.
[7756]INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about the Congressional investigations
[7757]-- affect Agency morale a lot or . _
[7759]MR. HALPERN: Well, I can only assume again from the outside
[7760]that they had to. I know people talked tome about it from
[7761]people who were inside; talking to me on the outside, in terms
[7762]of what its done in terms of morale. I think as I said before,
[7763]the feelings of, if you guys who had been here before hadn't
[7764]done those nasty things, we wouldn't be under the gun. We are
[7765]back to square one on that. .
[7767]INTERVIEWER: Sure. Okay. The issue of oversight. Do you
[7769]believe that oversight by two select committees is preferable
[7771]to the earlier oversight by six to eight committees? .
[7773]MR.. HALPERN: We never had six to eight as such. There were
[7775]four committees of Congress which had oversight, two in the
[7776]House and two in the Senate. There was under the Hughes-Ryan
[7777]Amendment six to eight committees we reported to. I wasn't)
[7779]involved anymore. But anyway, the Agency had to report on
[7781]_ covert action. It was a separate subject.
[7783]INTERVIEWER: Right, good distinction.
[7784]MR. HALPERN: So that there never were more than four oversight
[7786]committees as such. And now we are down to two. And I have
[7788]been on public record and in print favoring one committee. As
[7790]long as you are going to have committees, have one.- But people
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[7799]forget that even when you have only two now, we still have to
[7800]-- remember the Agency still reports to Foreign Affairs, briefs
[7801]them on foreign affairs. The House Armed Services Committee
[7802]still gets special reporting. The Appropriations Committees in
[7803]both the House and the Senate are always involved with
[7804]everything. So you've got four committees right now anyway.
[7805]Minimum. In practical daily life. You've got to go to
[7806]Appropriations and nobody in Congress is ever going to keep
[7807]Appropriations out of anything. And on top of that, then there
[7808]is Government Operations. I could go on forever. So boiling
[7809]it down to even one joint committee, it'll help some, but it
[7810]won't solve the problem. But it is better than having two,
[7811]with two separate staffs.
[7813]INTERVIEWER: Okay how about, do you think it is practical for
[7814]the Congress to be informed of the covert activities of the
[7815]Agency? .
[7817]MR. HALPERN: Yes, within limits, within reason. They are not,
[7818]as I said before, they are not part of the Executive and they
[7819]are not going to be -- I hope they are not going to be -- in
[7820]charge of or as part of making the decision whether you are
[7821]going to do something or not. And whether that is cover action
[7822]or whether that is sending the Marines in, you can't have them
[7823]sitting there telling you you can do it or you can't do it.
[7825]Not if you are going to be a President.
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[7834]INTERVIEWER: Okay, what about this one, Sam, and you've really ~
[7836]been very, very patient. I really appreciate it. What are the
[7838]lessons that you think are to be learned from the Church and
[7840]‘Pike investigations? Either institutional lessons, that is the
[7842]Agency or. . .
[7843]MR. HALPERN: I think first of all you need one, I think if you
[7844]are going to have an oversight it should be one joint
[7846]committee, a small oversight committee, not very many numbers
[7848]either in staff or in Representatives and Senators. The
[7850]‘Director has to be honest with these guys. He has got to tell
[7852]them lots of things that he normally wouldn't tell them, I
[7853]think. And what he tells them has to be cleared with the
[7854]President before he tells them, except for the normal mundane
[7855]things like normal budget stuff and normal personnel figures.
[7856]No President should get involved in that. It's silly. But in
[7857]terms of specific activities, whether intelligence collection
[7858]or counterintelligence or covert. action, don't dummy up with
[7859]Congress. On the other hand, you've got to build a rapport
[7860]where there are certain things they are not going to ask you
[7861]about -- they shouldn't ask you about -- such as identities of
[7862]agents; and that kind of thing. Such. as the kind of liaison
[7863]arrangements you make with foreign governments. Yeah, they
[7864]might consider it as a treaty and, therefore, it comes under
[7865]the treaty making power. It's advise and consent powers of the
[7867]Senate. But I think they've got to bite the bullet themselves
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[7876]and realize that certain things are not for discussion even at
[7877]that level. I think a DCI has to glad-hand the people on the
[7878]Hill -- not all 100 of them in the Senate or 435.in the House,
[7879]obviously. But the House and the Senate have got to have some
[7880]delegation of their responsibilities, their authority and what
[7881]have you to a handful of people And that can't change every
[7882]six months or every two years. There are going to be some guys
[7884]who are going to stay there for a while. And that's why the
[7886]‘arguments against the joint committee because the House of
[7888]Representatives has an election every two years. But a lot of
[7889]guys are in there for life, basically. They come from safe,
[7890]what the British would call safe boroughs, you know, safe
[7891]districts. ‘It's only the rare. thing that's going to change
[7892]it. So there has got to be some kind of give and take on
[7894]this. And they've got to grow into this real world, on the
[7896]Hill, that certain things you just don't ask about particularly
[7898]in the intelligence and the counterintelligence field. You
[7899]know, if a Congressman says, “Tell me who the Soviet spies, who
[7900]the Soviets have recruited on my staff." Uh uh. You don't
[7901]tell them that if you've got any good hard information, not
[7902]until you. are absolutely certain and not until you've got some
[7903]kind of an operation running to control the damn thing and play
[7904]them back or whatever the situation is, because these guys, the
[7905]first thing they do is fire the guy. That's the last thing in
[7907]the world you want to do if you are running a>
[7909]counterintelligence operation. So you've got to have give and
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[7918]take on this kind of stuff. You've got to play games with
[7919]these guys on the Hill. You've got to wine them and dine them
[7921]and breakfast them, or whatever the phrase is. I think the
[7923]‘DCI, whoever he is, has got to be able to work with a select
[7925]group of people on the Hill who have got to have the confidence
[7927]of the rest of their colleagues, whom they can trust and who
[7928]can understand, like Huddleston says, that not everybody in
[7929]Congress is going to know everything that these guys are going
[7930]to Know. These guys in turn are going to have. to understand
[7932]that they can't know everything either. There are some things
[7934]' that you just don't talk about. “And.I'm not talking about
[7936]these big covert action operations and what have you. They'll
[7937]hear about those when it comes to passing the money for a ;
[7938]particular political action operation or a paramilitary
[7940]operation. Those things take lots of dough. It's like in the
[7942]_ old days the Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty took lots of
[7944]money to run those radios. And Congress knew what the hell was
[7945]going on. And Congress knew that RFE and RL were advertising
[7946]in this country from the very beginning for American donations
[7947]by American citizens to fight Communism-via the radio
[7949]airwaves. And I don't know if that was legal or not to this
[7950]day, but I guess nobody. objected. And they didn't object in
[7951]the Church Committee to this thing. Except that now that it is
[7952]run by another part of the US Government, that makes it okay. |
[7954]It's the same thing.
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[7963]INTERVIEWER: Same government.
[7965]MR. HALPERN: Same government. Same people involved. Same
[7967]appropriations and all that kind of stuff. I don't understand,
[7969]honestly, as a citizen, what the hell the big difference is.
[7971]So, but in terms of the future, there has got to be some kind
[7972]of better rapport. than developed as a result of the Church and
[7973]Pike Committee which was strictly adversarfal. And you can't
[7974]have that and run intelligence. I don't care whether it's NSA,
[7975]DIA, CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, Drug Enforcement
[7977]Agency. Any of them. And what is it, there are 1] or 12
[7978]components in the Communi ty at the moment and all of them have,
[7979]you've got to understand, what in the hell the world is all
[7980]about. And you can't have all of this stuff going up on media
[7981]coverage. And you can't have it be.used to help somebody's
[7982]election prospects. — 7
[7983]INTERVIEWER: Both in the Executive and in the Congress:
[7985]MR. HALPERN: And the Congress. ‘And the leaks, I am sorry to
[7986]say, most of the leaks come from the Executive side. I'm sure
[7987]of that. And I've been writing on that, too. And at least
[7988]from sitting on the outside, and I don't know whether I am
[7989]right or wrong, but my own gut feeling is. that the leaks as
[7990]they appear in the press -- and I don't know for the last 10
[7991]years what, you know, what really is classified. I've got a
[7992]feeling for it, that's all. After 32 years in the business you
[7993]kind of understand some of this stuff. But most of the stuff
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[8002]is coming off of the Executive Branch. Somebody is trying to
[8004]get some kind of yea or nea. Or some pluses. And you can't
[8006]. run it that way. I'm sorry. I'm not looking for an Official
[8008]Secrets Act, but something that has a better control over who
[8010]says what, how, where and when. So Church and Pike Committees,
[8012]if there is going to be any pluses out of those two circuses --
[8014]-and they were nothing but circuses -- it's got to be along
[8016]those lines. A greater confidence, greater working together,
[8017]and a better understanding between the ‘two branches of
[8018]government that this is a serious life and death business,
[8019]particularly these days. And if you've got some decent
[8020]intelligence, I don't care whether it's technical or human --
[8021]intelligence is intelligence -- it might save us all in the
[8022]Tong run if we know in advance and then can use it in. advance.
[8023]Lots of times Presidents have misused good intelligence. Or
[8024]wouldn't believe good intelligence. I gave you one example,
[8025]not a President, but senior officials at the State Department
[8026]refused to believe intelligence. And I can give you plenty of
[8027]examples within CIA, the pol wouldn't believe human source .
[8028]intelligence because it wasn't a picture and it wasn't SIGINT.
[8029]And. chapter and verse, over and over again. And plenty of
[8030]times the human source reporting was wrong. I'm not saying
[8031]it's right every time. But there are lots of examples where it
[8032]was and it wasn't accepted.” But there has got to be a better
[8034]acceptance that this is a profession, not just in CIA. I'm
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[8043]talking about the Community. Around the world there are
[8044]thousands of people involved and they are all not out to butter
[8045]their own sides on this thing. - And they are trying to help.
[8046]And you've got to give them a chance. And you've got to work
[8047]with them and you've got ‘to trust them. As I said many years
[8048]ago to somebody, I forget, and he put it in the newspaper and
[8049]he shouldn't have; but he did, I used the phrase something
[8050]about, "Someday somebody has got to trust somebody ,sometime" or
[8051]something like that. And that may come out of all these damn
[8052]hearings. Take a look at the Iran-Contra Hearings which really
[8053]just blew you away on the kinds of things that were going on.
[8054]And partly because the people involved in the White House staff
[8055]had no concept of what the hell it was al! about, what the
[8056]intelligence business was all about, what covert: action was all
[8057]about. And when you had Senator, oh, who the hell was it,
[8058]Senator Nunn, I think it was Senator Nunn, try to explain to
[8059]Admiral Poindexter what the principle of plausible deniability
[8060]was all about, so help me, Poindexter didn't have a
[8062]cotton-pickin' clue! I sat here watching this thing and got
[8064]sick. Watching it. He had no concept of what he was talking
[8066]about. Senator Nunn knew a hell of a lot more than he did.
[8067]And he was trying gently to lead him to the correct conclusion
[8068]of what the definition is. And these guys were from hunger.
[8069]Neither North nor Poindexter had ever had any experience in
[8071]intelligence work at all. And here they were running this
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[8080]country's separate intelligence network. And it was
[8081]unbelievable and.frightening. Very frightening.
[8083]INTERVIEWER! You think also, in these lessons to be learned
[8084]that the telationships between the Agency and the press -- of
[8085]course, the Agency can only offer, I suppose offer —- and what
[8086]I am suggesting here is how one develops trust between the
[8087]Agency and the press. .
[8089]MR. HALPERN: And the press?
[8091]INTERVIEWER: ‘Yeah, and the same thing maybe with the public.
[8092]MR. HALPERN: It's hard. It's hard. I think it's easier for
[8093]something like AFIO to do that kind of creation of trust
[8094]because AFIO-has got no ax to grind. It's true, we know less
[8095]and less about what's actually going on inside specific
[8096]operations. “And that 1s as it should be. Even though a guy
[8097]might retire one day and come into AFIO the next day and start
[8098]talking to the press, he has got enough sense not to get
[8099]involved in specifics. And it took AFIO a long time to develop
[8101]a spirit of cooperation and integrity with the media that are
[8103]the, more or less, solid media, the honest media--- not the
[8105]kooks -- to accept an AFIO statement about something in terms
[8106]of, you know, good, bad, or indifferent. At first they
[8108]didn't. It took us several years to develop this rapport and I
[8110]‘give Dave Phillips a lot of credit for this -- whereby you talk
[8112]to these guys and try to prove, you know, we've got no axes to
[8114]grind. We're not trying to hide anything. We've got nothing
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[8123]to hide. And try to help them understand why some of these
[8125]activities go on. the way they do.
[8127]INTERVIEWER: And the same thing with the universities and
[8128]colleges? | |
[8130]MR. HALPERN: You try. You try wherever you can. But that's a
[8131]tough job. Particularly if you get universities and colleges
[8132]that don't want to have anything to do with intelligence.
[8133]That's a dirty thing. And there a lot of them like that.
[8135]Well, you heard Bob Simmons at the AFIO convention talking
[8137]about the use of academics and intelligence work and all that
[8139]kind of stuff as if they are a separate breed of cat. Well,
[8141]they are not, not in my opinion anyway, even though they might
[8142]think they are. You know, dirty their linen and tar one
[8144]academic, and no academic can go abrodd anymore because
[8146]_ everybody will assume that they are all intelligence agents.
[8148]Nonsense. Nonsense. If you are going to Russia or you're
[8149]going to Africa or wherever you go, if you start asking the
[8150]wrong questions even if you are an honest-to-goodness, nothing
[8151]more than a political scientist trying to do a research job in
[8152]the middle of Wagadodo, you ask the wrong question there,
[8153]you're: going to get your head handed to you. You don't have to
[8154]be in any way even near the United States Government. Or any
[8156]other government. Sure, the easiest way the Russians have it
[8158]is if they charge that everybody in the Peace Corps ts a CIA
[8160]agent, which they did at one time. And a tot of people
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[8169]believed them. Or everybody in the Red Cross is a CIA agent or
[8170]everybody who is an academic from wherever is a CIA agent. And
[8171]pretty soon, you know, everybody is a CIA agent. One of the
[8172]problems I think Casey had with the Congressional Hill, and
[8173]again this is sitting from the outside, is he kind of gave them
[8174]the back of his hand, which automatically creates an
[8175]adversarial situation. I don't know how much time he spent
[8176]wining and dining them. I mean, having them out to breakfast.
[8177]I remember Directors like Allen Dulles or Dick Helms or McCone
[8178]and others used to have members of Congress up there on the
[8179]Agency top floor at the dining room where they had lunch, or
[8180]breakfast in the Director's dining room. And, you know, tried
[8181]to talk to them man to man. And tell them a thing or two that
[8183]they'd want to know and ask them questions. And try to -work
[8185]out some kind of dual relationship without having them bécome
[8187]co-equal managers. That's the big problem. I've got no
[8188]objection to telling a guy who is an elected Representative of
[8189]the United States, if he is one of a handful of people picked
[8190]by his colleagues to be privy to all the secrets they need to
[8192]know to help run the place, within limits, without
[8194]micro-managing the thing. Yeah, bring them into the thing.
[8196]Tell them a thing or two. Try to teach them what it is all
[8197]about and why it is important that they keep their bloody
[8199]mouths shut.
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[8208]INTERVIEWER: Do you think, again from the outside, in the last
[8209]10-12 years, in other words, since the investigation, do you
[8210]think the Agency has changed much, has learned much?
[8212]MR. HALPERN: Well, if Casey is the example, no. I don't know
[8213]what has happened since, but I would hope that somebody is
[8214]trying to work out some kind of better relationship.
[8215]INTERVIEWER: Do you think Turner?
[8217]MR. HALPERN: Oh, I don't think Turner had any real, maybe he
[8218]did, but I can't see it.
[8220]INTERVIEWER: It wasn't evident. .
[8222]MR. HALPERN: I think Turner is such a blow-hard that I don't
[8223]see how in the hell he could have done. it, really. I watched
[8224]and listened. I was up there several times when he was up
[8226]there testifying on a number of bills, on charter legislation
[8228]-and things like that, which ts a tough time to be around. I.
[8230]think that AFIO, with all due modesty, AFIO people like Walter
[8231]Pforzheimer and Larry Houston and John Warner and others who -
[8232]had good connections’ on the Hill going back to the year one on
[8233]the subject and who were believed up on the Hill and accepted
[8234]on the Hill -- even some of the staffs couldn't dent that
[8235]particular characteristic of these three guys -~ I think they
[8236]‘had a very good chance and. they did influence some people
[8237]because they were listened to. They didn't have to be accepted
[8238]all the way through, obviously, but at least when these guys
[8239]talked, people on the Hill, most of the staffers —
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[8248]‘particularly on the Senate side, not the House side, which was
[8250]a mess -- and the Senators themselves understood that these
[8252]were three men of integrity and honesty. And who were trying
[8253]to explain things to them: And who literally had no axes to
[8254]grind. They weren't going to get a promotion out of this.
[8255]INTERVIEWER: And they trusted them.
[8257]MR. HALPERN: And.they trusted them. And they were honest.
[8259]~ And my own feeling is, you know, you don't lie to the
[8261]Congress. . Literally, you don't tell them a baid-faced lie. I
[8262]would never have done what North did or what Abrams did. I
[8264]mean, it was absolute nonsense. It's not only heresy, it's
[8266]‘suicide. If you can't tell them, you say, “I can't tell you."
[8268]Pure and simple. “I cannot tell you. And if you want to know,
[8269]please talk to my boss. Ask my boss that question." -Well, I
[8270]know the law says that I am supposed to tell you. I've got to
[8271]tell you. Well, okay sometime along the way you have to take a_
[8273]chance and say, “I can't tell you. And if I go to jail, I go
[8275]“to jail." But that is not easy to do, obviously. But you
[8277]don't deliberately lie to these people. :That's all. And the
[8278]system is, if you've got to tell them and then they blow it,
[8279]well, okay, it's on their head and you've blown it. This is
[8280]one of the things about it 1s hard to be an intelligence
[8281]officer in terms of, these days, trying to be sure you can
[8283]convince the guy you.are trying to recruit or the person you
[8285]are trying to recruit, male or female, that you can protect
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[8294]their identity. And I'm not so sure that's possible these
[8295]days. Maybe it is. I hope itis. I knew it was possible in
[8296]the old days. But I'm not so sure after what I read so much
[8297]these days whether it is or isn't.
[8298]INTERVIEWER: Which is’ again an important observation relative
[8300]to the last 10-12 years.
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