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- Article: 571 of sgi.talk.ratical
- From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
- Subject: How the CIA turned `being directed by the NSC' into `getting approval'
- Keywords: the compartmentalized "need to know" security lid locks up the govn't
- Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
- Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 18:01:36 GMT
- Lines: 573
-
-
- . . . Control of a good share of what the Pentagon is doing is
- more important to the CIA than control over the government of
- Jordan or Syria. . . .
- When the CIA wants to do something for which it does not have
- prior approval and for which it does not have legal sanction, it
- works from the bottom, using all of its guile with security and
- "need to know"--a euphemism for "keep the scheme away from anyone
- at any level of government who might stand in its way." Hand and
- Lansdale, among others, were almost always able to line up enough
- support in the right places to make it possible for the CIA to get
- a favorable reading from the "Forty Committee" on any subject,
- legal or not. In fact, this is the great weakness of such a
- committee. Rather than working to control the agency it works the
- other way. The procedure makes it possible for the agency to win
- approval from a lesser echelon of the NSC intrastructure, and then,
- by clamping on a security id, it makes others believe that the CIA
- had orders from the NSC or perhaps even from the President, when in
- fact it did not.
-
-
-
-
- the following appeared in the 7/75 issue of "Genesis:"
- _____________________________________________________________________
- How the CIA Controls President Ford
- By L. Fletcher Prouty
- reprinted here with permission of the author
-
-
- In this monstrous U.S. government today, it's not so much what
- comes down from the top that matters as what you can get away with
- from the bottom or from the middle--the least scrutinized level.
- (Contrary to the current CIA propaganda as preached by William
- Colby, Ray Cline, Victor Marchetti and Philip Agee, who say,
- incorrectly, "What the Agency does is ordered by the President.")
- As with the Mafia, crime is a cinch if you know the cops and the
- courts have been paid off. With the Central Intelligence Agency,
- anything goes when you have a respected boss to sanctify and bless
- your activities and to shield them from outside eyes.
- Such a boss in the CIA was old Allen Dulles, who ran the Agency
- like a mother superior running a whorehouse. He knew the girls
- were happy, busy, and well fed, but he wasn't quite sure what they
- were doing. His favorites, all through the years of his prime as
- Director of Central Intelligence, were such stellar performers as
- Frank Wisner, Dick Bissell, George Doole, Sheffield Edwards, Dick
- Helms, Red White, Tracy Barnes, Desmond Fitzgerald, Joe Alsop, Ted
- Shannon, Ed Lansdale and countless others. They were the great
- operators. He just made it possible for them to do anything they
- came up with.
- When Wisner and Richard Nixon came up with the idea of mounting
- a major rebellion in Indonesia in 1958, Dulles saw that they got
- the means and the wherewithal. When General Cabell and his Air
- Force friends plugged the U-2 project for Kelly Johnson of
- Lockheed, Dulles tossed it into the lap of Dick Bissell. When Dick
- Helms and Des Fitzgerald figured they could play fun and games in
- Tibet, Dulles talked to Tom Gates, then Secretary of Defense, and
- the next we knew CIA agents were spiriting the Dalai Lama out of
- Lhasa, CIA undercover aircraft were clandestinely dropping tons of
- arms, ammunitions, and supplies deep into Tibet and other planes
- were reaching as far as northwestern China to Koko Nor.
- While he peddled the hard-won National Intelligence Estimates to
- all top offices and sprinkled holy water over the pates of our
- leaders, Dulles dropped off minor miracles along the way to
- titillate those in high places. If you win the heart of the queen
- and convert her to your faith, you can control the king. This
- works for the Jesuits. It worked well for the CIA. Allen Dulles
- was no casual student and practitioner of the ancient art of
- religion. He was an expert in the art of mind-control. He learned
- how to operate his disciples and his Agency in the ways of the
- cloth.
- But for every Saint and every Sinner in the fold there must be
- an order of monks, and the Agency has always been the haven for
- hundreds of faceless, nameless minions whose only satisfaction was
- the job well done and the furtherance of the cause. One of the
- most remarkable--and surely the best--of these was an agent named
- Frank Hand.
- In my book, "The Secret Team," written during 1971 and 1972, I
- mentioned that the most important agent in the CIA was an almost
- unknown individual who spent most of his time in the Pentagon. At
- that time I did not reveal his name; but a small item in a recent
- obituary column stated that:
-
- "Frank Hand, 61, a former senior official of the CIA, died in
- Marshall, Minn. . . . (he was) a graduate of Harvard Law
- School. He had served with the CIA from 1950 until
- retirement in 1971."
-
- After a life devoted to quiet, effective, skillful performance
- of one of the most important jobs in the worldwide structure of
- that unparalleled agency, all that the CIA would publicly say of
- Frank Hand was that he was a "senior official."
- Ask Dick Helms, Ed Lansdale, Bob McNamara, Tom Gates or Allen
- Dulles or John Foster Dulles, if they were with us today, and they
- all would tell us stories about Frank Hand. They would do more to
- characterize the nature and the sources of power which make use of
- and control the CIA than has ever been told before. He was that
- superior operative who made big things work unobtrusively.
- You might have been one of the grass-green McNamara "whiz kids,"
- lost in the maze of the Pentagon Puzzle Palace, who came upon a
- short, Hobbit-like, pleasant man who knew the Pentagon so well that
- you got the feeling he was brought in with the original load of
- concrete. Thousands of career men to this day will never realize
- that Frank Hand was a "Senior Official" of the CIA and not one of
- their civilian cohorts. To my knowledge he never worked anywhere
- else. I was there in 1955 and he was there. I left in December
- 1963, and he was at my farewell party. He must have spent some of
- his time at the agency; but it must have been before 1955. If he
- had a dollar for every trip he made in those busy years between the
- Pentagon and the CIA he would have died a very wealthy man. He
- popularized the Agency term "across the river" and the "Acme
- Plumbers" nickname for agents of the CIA. (A term later to be
- confused by Colson and John Ehrlichman, among others, with the use
- of the term "White House Plumbers" of Watergate fame. Someone knew
- that Hunt, McCord, the Cubans, Haig, Butterfield and others all had
- CIA backgrounds and connections and therefore were "Plumbers."
- Only the insiders knew about the real "Acme Plumbers.")
- Frank was as much at home with Allen Dulles as he was with the
- famous old supersleuth, General Graves B. Erskine, and as he was
- with Helms, Colby, or Fitzgerald. Ian Fleming may have popularized
- the spy and the undercover agent as a flashing James Bond type;
- but in the reality of today's world the great ones are more in the
- mold of Frank Hand and "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold."
- There has long existed a "golden key" group of agency and
- agency-related supermen. They came from the CIA, the Pentagon, the
- Department of State, the White House and other places in government
- or from the outside. They have kept themselves inconspicuous and
- they meet in the evening away from their offices. They are the men
- who open the doors of big government to industry-banking law and to
- the multinational corporate centers of greed and power. Their
- strength lies in their common awareness of the ways in which real
- power is generated in the government, the real power that controls
- activities of the government. In many instances this is the power
- of being able to keep something from happening, rather than to make
- it happen. For example, if the President is murdered, real power
- involves the control of government operations sufficient to make
- any investigation ineffective and to assure that the government
- will do nothing even if the investigation should turn up something.
- Real power is the ability to keep the government bureaucracy from
- going into action when the price of petroleum and wheat is doubled
- or tripled by avaricious international monopolies.
- Some of these "gold key" members have surfaced and have accepted
- publicity, as did Des Fitzgerald, Allen Dulles, Tracy Barnes and
- others. Frank never did. He was so anonymous that even his
- friends could not find him.
- The Agency covered for Frank Hand as it did for few others. The
- James Bonds of this world may be the idols of the Intelligence
- coterie; but if you are a Bill Colby, Dick Helms, or Allen Dulles,
- you know the real value of an indispensable agent. Frank was their
- man in the Pentagon, and the Pentagon was always the indispensable
- prime target of the CIA. When the chips are down, the CIA could
- care less about overturning "Communism" in Cuba or Chile. What
- really matters is its relative power in the U.S. Government.
- Control of a good share of what the Pentagon is doing is more
- important to the CIA than control over the government of Jordan or
- Syria.
- Once, when the CIA wanted to move a squadron (twenty-five) of
- helicopters from Laos to South Vietnam, long before the troubles
- there had become a war, I turned down the request from the Deputy
- Director of Central Intelligence in the name of the Secretary of
- Defense for no other reason than the fact that I did not find that
- project on the approved list of the National Security Council's
- "Forty Committee" (then called the 5412/2 committee). That meant
- the agency had neither been directed by the National Security
- Council to move those helicopters into Vietnam, nor had it received
- authorization for such a tactical movement. In other words, the
- planned intervention into South Vietnam with a squadron of
- helicopters would at that time have been unlawful as an
- intervention into the internal affairs of another country.
- This denial then, in 1960, effectively blocked the CIA from
- being able to move heavy war-making equipment into Vietnam. The
- helicopters were actually U.S. Marine Corps property on "loan" from
- Okinawa to the CIA for clandestine operations in Laos.
- At that time my immediate superior was General Graves Erskine,
- the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Special (Clandestine)
- Operations, and the man then responsible for all military support
- of clandestine operations of the CIA. Also at that time, Frank
- Hand, "worked for" Erskine. Of course, this was a cover
- assignment--"cover slot" as it was known to us and to the CIA.
- Frank had a regular office in the Pentagon.
- No sooner had the CIA request been turned down than someone near
- the top of the agency called Frank and told him about it. In his
- smiling and friendly way he came into my office, carrying two cups
- of coffee, and began some talk about music, travel, or golf. Then,
- as was his practice, he would get the subject around to his point
- with such a comment as, "Fletch, who do you suppose took a call
- here about the choppers in Laos?" and we would be off.
- The special ability he possessed was best evidenced by the
- process he would set in motion once he discovered a problem that
- affected the ambitions of the agency. He would talk about the
- choppers with Erskine. Then he would drop in to see the Chief of
- Naval Operations and perhaps the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
- He would talk with some of the other civilian Assistant
- Secretaries. In other words, he would go from office to office
- like a bee spreading pollen, titillating only the most senior
- officers and civilian officials with the most "highly sensitive"
- tidbits about the CIA's plans for Vietnam. In this manner he would
- find out what the real thinking in the Pentagon might be, and where
- there might be real opposition to such an idea--such as in the
- Marine Corps, which knew it would never get compensation for those
- expensive helicopters and for the loss of time of all their support
- people. He would also find out where there would be support, as
- with the ever-eager U.S. Army Special Forces, most of whose senior
- officers had been with the CIA.
- Then he would drop out of the picture for awhile to travel back
- to the old CIA headquarters, on the hill that overlooks what is now
- the Watergate complex, for a long talk with Allen Dulles or the
- Deputy Director, General Cabell. On matters involving the
- clandestine services he would also stop by the old headquarters
- buildings, that lined the reflecting pool near the Lincoln
- Memorial, to talk with Dick Helms, Desmond Fitzgerald, and other
- operators. Within a day or two he would have them fully briefed on
- the steps to be taken in order to win over the Defense Department;
- or failing that, how to overpower and outmaneuver the Pentagon in
- the Department of State and the White House.
- The foregoing is a "case study" on the important subject of how
- the CIA really operates and what it believes is its top priority.
- The propaganda being spread around today by the CIA and its
- propagandists that, "What the CIA does is ordered by the
- President," is totally untrue in all but .00001 percent of actual
- historical cases. It is much more factual to say that, "What the
- CIA does is to find ways to initiate major foreign policy moves
- without having the President find out--or at least without
- discovery until it is too late."
- "It is in precisely that manner that the CIA today works around,
- beneath and behind the White House to effect policies that could
- influence the survival of the nation and the world. "Gold Key"
- operatives are, at this very moment, carrying out CIA game plans
- entirely outside the power of President Ford's ability to affect
- their activities. He is totally without knowledge of most of them,
- and therefore powerless to stop or alter them.
- In the case of the helicopters, Frank Hand was able to convince
- Allen Dulles that the disapproval from the Secretary of Defense,
- via my office, was real and that the Secretary would, at that time,
- be unlikely to change his mind. Frank also could report that the
- position of other top-level assistants was so cool to stepping up
- the hardware *involvement* of the military in Vietnam, in 1960,
- that none of them would likely attempt to persuade the Secretary to
- change his policy of limited involvement.
- Fortified with the information gleaned by Frank Hand, Allen
- Dulles would have two primary options: drop the idea of moving
- helicopters into Vietnam, or bypass the Secretary of Defense for
- the time being by going to the White House for support. In 1960
- this was a crucial decision. The huge attempt to support a
- rebellion in Indonesia had failed utterly, the U-2 operations had
- been curtailed because of the Gary Powers incident, the far-
- reaching operations into Tibet had come to a halt by Presidential
- directive and anti-Castro activities were limited to minor forays.
- And at that time the large-scale (large for CIA) war in Laos had
- become such a disaster that the CIA wanted no more of it. Dick
- Bissell, the chief of the Clandestine Services, had written strong,
- personal letters to Tom Gates, the Secretary of Defense, wondering
- openly what to do about the 50,000 or more miserable Laotian Meo
- tribesmen the CIA had moved into the battle zones of Laos and then
- had deserted with no plans for their protection, resupply, care or
- feeding. The CIA badly wanted to be relieved of the war that they
- had started and then found they could not handle. They wanted to
- transfer and thus preserve the agency's assets, including the
- helicopters, to the bigger prospects in Vietnam.
- So, in 1960, if Allen Dulles dropped the idea of moving his
- assets from Laos, he would not only have lost those helicopters
- back to the Marine Corps but he would have seriously jeopardized
- the CIA's undercover leadership role in the development of the war
- in Vietnam, which it had been fanning since 1954.
- This was a crucial decision for both the CIA and for those who
- wished to contain the agency. If those who wished to put the CIA
- genie back in the bottle had been able at that time to prevent the
- move of those CIA assets into Vietnam, Dulles would have had to
- disband them: helicopters, B-26 bombers from the Indonesian
- fiasco, tens of thousands of rifles and other weapons, C-46, C-54
- and other Air America-supported heavy transport aircraft, U-2
- operations over Indochina, radar and other clandestine equipment,
- C-130's specially modified for deep Tibetan operations, and much
- more. From the point of view of the CIA, the helicopters were
- simply the tip of the iceberg, and the decision was its most
- important in that decade.
- Typically, in his unwitting Mother Superior-style, which
- included bulldog tenacity, Dulles chose the route to the White
- House. Here again he could rely strongly on Frank Hand. Working
- with Hand in Erskine's office was the CIA's other best agent, Major
- General Edward G. Lansdale, who had long served in the CIA. Like
- Hand, he had unequalled contacts in the Department of State and in
- the White House. In support of Dulles, they contacted their
- friends there and began a subtle and powerful move destined to
- prepare the way for what would appear to be a decision by President
- Eisenhower. This was an important feature of the "case study":
- The *apparent* Presidential decision.
- When the CIA wants to do something for which it does not have
- prior approval and for which it does not have legal sanction, it
- works from the bottom, using all of its guile with security and
- "need to know"--a euphemism for "keep the scheme away from anyone
- at any level of government who might stand in its way." Hand and
- Lansdale, among others, were almost always able to line up enough
- support in the right places to make it possible for the CIA to get
- a favorable reading from the "Forty Committee" on any subject,
- legal or not. In fact, this is the great weakness of such a
- committee. Rather than working to control the agency it works the
- other way. The procedure makes it possible for the agency to win
- approval from a lesser echelon of the NSC intrastructure, and then,
- by clamping on a security id, it makes others believe that the CIA
- had orders from the NSC or perhaps even from the President, when in
- fact it did not.
- Thus it was that, about two weeks from the day that I received
- that first call requesting the movement of the squadron of
- helicopters, received word from General Erskine that he had been
- "officially" informed that the White House (Forty Committee) had
- approved the secret operation. The helicopters were moved into
- Vietnam. They were the first of thousands.
- The great significance of this incident is to point out how the
- CIA works powerfully, deftly, and with great assurance at any level
- of our government to get anything it wants done. But the anecdote
- shows only the surface coating of the application of the CIA
- apparatus.
- One year earlier, in 1959, Frank Hand had directed a Boston
- banker to my office. At that time I worked in the Directorate of
- Plans in Air Force headquarters and my work was top secret. Few of
- my contemporaries in the Pentagon knew that I was in charge of a
- global U.S. Air Force system created for the dual purpose of
- providing Air Force support for the CIA and for protecting the best
- interests of the USAF while performing that task. My door was
- labeled simply, "Team B"; yet that Boston banker knocked and
- entered with assurance. Somehow he knew what my work was and he
- knew that I might be able to help him.
- In 1959 there were very few helicopters in all of the services,
- and military procurement of those expensive machines was at an
- all-time low. The Bell Helicopter Company was all but out of
- business, and its parent company, Bell Aerospace Corp., was having
- trouble keeping it financially afloat. Meanwhile, the shrewd Royal
- Little, President of the Providence-based Textron Company, had a
- good cash position and could well afford the acquisition of a
- loser. Textron and the First National Bank of Boston got together
- to talk helicopters. Neither one knew a thing about them. But men
- in First Boston were close to the CIA, and they learned that the
- CIA was operating helicopters in Laos. What they needed to know
- now was, "What would be the future of the military helicopter, and
- would the use of helicopters in South East Asia escalate if given a
- little boost--such as moving a squadron from Laos to Vietnam?" The
- CIA could tell them about that, and Frank Hand would be the man who
- could get them to the right people in the Pentagon.
- The banker from Boston phrased his questions as though he
- believed that the helicopters in Laos were somehow operating under
- the Air Force, and then went on to ask about their tactical
- significance and about the possible increase of helicopter
- utilization for that kind of warfare. This was at a time when not
- even newspapers had reported anything like the operation of such
- large and expensive aircraft in that remote war. We had a rather
- thorough discussion and then he left. He called me several times
- after that and visited my office a month or two later.
- As the record will show, Textron did acquire the Bell Helicopter
- Company and the CIA did step up use of helicopters to the extent
- that one of the CIA's own proprietary companies, Asia Aeronautics
- Inc., had more than four thousand men on each of two bases where
- helicopters were maintained. Most of those men were involved in
- their maintenance--Bell Helicopters, no less!
- Orders for Bel Helicopters for use in Vietnam exceeded $600-
- million. Anyone wanting to know more about how the U.S. got so
- heavily ($200-billion and the loss of 58,000 American lives)
- involved in Indochina need look no further. This was the pattern
- and the plan.
- At the present time, when the White House, the House, and the
- Senate are all investigating the CIA, it is important to understand
- the CIA and to put it all in the proper perspective. It is not the
- President who instructs the CIA concerning what it will do. And in
- many cases it is *not* even the Director of Central Intelligence
- who instructs the CIA. The CIA is a great, monstrous machine with
- tremendous and terrible power. It can be set in motion from the
- outside like a programmer setting a computer in operation, and then
- it covers up what it is doing when men like Frank Hand--the real
- movers--put grease on the correct gears. And in a majority of
- cases, the power behind it all is big business, big banks, big law
- firms and big money. The agency exists to be used by them.
- Let no one misunderstand what I mean. It was President Lyndon
- B. Johnson who on more than one occasion said that the CIA was
- "operating a damn Murder Inc. in the Carribean." In other words,
- he knew it was doing this--and he was the President! This
- knowledge has been recently confirmed by Defense Secretary James
- Schlesinger (who is a former head of the CIA) and others by their
- admission that they told the agency to end all "terminations." But
- Lyndon Johnson was powerless to do anything about it. This is an
- astounding admission from a President, the very man from whom, the
- CIA says, it always gets its instructions.
- The present concern over "domestic surveillance" and such other
- lean tidbits--most important to you and me as they are--is not
- important to the CIA. It can easily dispense with a James Angleton
- or even a Helms or a Colby (just look at the list of CIA bigwigs
- who have been fired--Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner, Dick Bissell, Dick
- Helms, and now perhaps Colby); but the great machine will live on
- while Congress digs away at the Golden Apples tossed casually aside
- by the CIA--the supreme Aphrodite of them all. Notice that the
- agency cares little about giving away "secrets" in the form of
- cleverly written insider books such as those by Victor Marchetti
- and Philip Agee. The CIA just makes it look as though it cared
- with some high-class window dressing. Actually the real harm to
- the American public from those books is to make people believe that
- certain carefully selected propaganda is true.
- In the story of Frank Hand we come much closer to seeing exactly
- how the CIA operates to control this government and other foreign
- governments. It is still operating that way. Today it is
- President Ford who is the unwitting accessory.
-
-
-
- * * * * * * * *
-
-
-
- the following is taken from an article Fletcher Prouty wrote
- for the February 1986 issue of "Freedom" magazine, entitled,
- "Why Vietnam? The Selection and Preparation of the
- Battlefield For America's Entry into the Indochina War," Part
- 7 in a Series on the Central Intelligence Agency. i include
- it to amplify on the curious visit Colonel Prouty received in
- 1959 from the vice president of the First National Bank of
- Boston and how it demonstrates that
-
- There was only one way that vice president of the First
- National Bank of Boston could have come directly to my
- office in the Pentagon. The CIA had sent him there.
- This is one of the most important "truly confidential"
- roles of the agency. The CIA is the best friend of the top
- executives of America's biggest businesses, and it works for
- them at home and abroad. It is always successful in the
- highest echelons of government and finance. . . .
- Translated into everyday terms, Casey's CIA, as was Allen
- Dulles' CIA, is one of the true bastions of power as a
- servant of the American and transnational business and
- financial community.
-
- --ratitor
-
-
- ______________________________________________________________________
- | |
- | Helicopters in Vietnam |
- | |
- | Toward the end of World War II, a small number of |
- | helicopters made their appearance in military operations. |
- | During the costly battle for Okinawa, in the summer of 1945, |
- | General Joseph Stilwell--famed for his role as commander in |
- | the China-Burma-India theater of the war--began to use an |
- | early model of the Sikorsky helicopter as a"command car." |
- | During the early 1950s, the Korean War gave the |
- | helicopter industry a much needed boost and several models |
- | were used there. After the Korean War, the use of |
- | helicopters in all services was severely curtailed by high |
- | costs of procurement and by the enormous amounts of time and |
- | money required to keep them in operation. By 1959 almost |
- | all helicopter manufacturers were broke, or at least on very |
- | hard times. This included the Bell Helicopter Company in |
- | Buffalo, New York. |
- | The helicopters used on operational missions into Laos, |
- | mentioned in this article, were the only military |
- | helicopters anywhere in the world getting regular and |
- | frequent tactical use. However, their very existence in |
- | Thailand and their employment in Laos were secrets. They |
- | had been moved from Okinawa to Thailand and were supported |
- | by my office in the Pentagon. |
- | One day, in 1959, a man entered my office to discuss |
- | helicopters. |
- | Because of the nature of the work my office was doing, |
- | this was an infrequent event. Outside the door of the |
- | office there was a small blue card that read: |
- | |
- | Air Force Plans |
- | "Team B" |
- | Chief--Lt. Col. L. F. Prouty |
- | |
- | That card by the door drew little attention, and it was |
- | meant to be that way. Then how did this civilian visitor |
- | from the outside world know that "Team B" was the place he |
- | wanted to visit--for business purposes? |
- | He introduced himself as a vice president of the First |
- | National Bank of Boston. He said he was interested in the |
- | tactical utilization of helicopters. Somehow he had been |
- | directed to "Team B." "Team B" had been established in 1955 |
- | to provide "military support of the clandestine activities |
- | of the CIA." The use of helicopters in Laos was a |
- | clandestine operation of the CIA. |
- | My visitor knew quite a bit about the helicopters in |
- | Thailand. He wanted to know if this utilization of large |
- | helicopters on tactical missions was a harbinger of more |
- | helicopters or was it simply a make-work project? Then he |
- | got to the reason for his visit. |
- | He said that the Textron Company of Providence, Rhode |
- | Island, was a major customer of his bank. Textron was in a |
- | good cash position and the bank was advising them to |
- | diversify and acquire a marginally viable company for tax |
- | purposes and with an eye to future value. |
- | To the First National Bank of Boston the helicopter |
- | business and specifically the Bell Helicopter Company in |
- | Buffalo appeared to be a prime prospect on both counts. |
- | Textron was interested. The only problem was the market. |
- | Would there ever be an interest in and a need for |
- | helicopters by the military, meaning in big numbers? The |
- | Laotian operation was the only show in town. |
- | Because of the role being played by my office in support |
- | of the use of helicopters in Southeast Asia, I already knew |
- | the Bell people well both in Washington, D.C., and Buffalo. |
- | I knew Bill Gesel, the president of Bell Helicopter. I knew |
- | they were competent, but in trouble for lack of orders. |
- | I described the helicopter as a useful vehicle of limited |
- | potential, but rather well suited for covert operations. In |
- | simple terms, the helicopter was too costly for the regular |
- | military budget, but, as a rule, covert operations had money |
- | to burn. That was the kind of money helicopters needed. |
- | Because of the trend of covert operations in Southeast Asia, |
- | I believed the demand for helicopters would increase. |
- | As events later transpired, the First National Bank of |
- | Boston, of which this man was a vice president, was |
- | instrumental in getting Textron to acquire the Bell |
- | Helicopter Company. This was the beginning of the Textron |
- | acquisition of Bell and of the great success Bell had in |
- | selling helicopters for use in Indochina. As we all know |
- | now, the Bell "Huey" helicopter was the unsung hero of the |
- | struggle in Vietnam. Thousands were used there. |
- | On one occasion, while I was at lunch at the Army and |
- | Navy Club in Washington, Bill Gesel, still president of |
- | Bell, came by my table and pulled a check out of his pocket |
- | that was in the range of nine figures--hundreds of millions |
- | of dollars. Needless to say, Bell was doing well. Textron |
- | was doing well. The First National Bank of Boston had |
- | earned its fees and, as a result, the remains of hundreds of |
- | Hueys are scattered all over the countryside of Vietnam. |
- | The Huey had become the famous "gun ship" of that war. |
- | There was only one way that vice president of the First |
- | National Bank of Boston could have come directly to my |
- | office in the Pentagon. The CIA had sent him there. |
- | This is one of the most important "truly confidential" |
- | roles of the agency. The CIA is the best friend of the top |
- | executives of America's biggest businesses, and it works for |
- | them at home and abroad. It is always successful in the |
- | highest echelons of government and finance. |
- | This is the way things were more than 25 years ago. You |
- | may be assured these successes have not diminished under the |
- | current director of central intelligence, William J. Casey, |
- | a true friend of business. |
- | During a speech, delivered in December 1979 before an |
- | American Bar Association workshop on "Law, Intelligence and |
- | National Security," Casey said that he would like to see the |
- | CIA be a place "in the United States government to |
- | systematically look at the economic opportunities and |
- | threats in a long-term perspective, . . . [to] recommend, or |
- | act on the use of economic leverage, either offensively or |
- | defensively for strategic purposes." |
- | Translated into everyday terms, Casey's CIA, as was Allen |
- | Dulles' CIA, is one of the true bastions of power as a |
- | servant of the American and transnational business and |
- | financial community. |
- | |
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- daveus rattus
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- yer friendly neighborhood ratman
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- KOYAANISQATSI
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- ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
- in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
- 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
-