Inside the CIA by Kessler Ronald

Author:Kessler, Ronald [Kessler, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2012-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

18

Keystone Cops

WHEN PEOPLE PICTURE THE OLD CIA, THEY ARE MOST likely thinking of the Office of Security. It was the CIA’s Office of Security, starting in 1967, that illegally infiltrated and spied on dissident groups in Washington, D.C., in order to protect agency buildings. It was the Office of Security that illegally wiretapped the telephones of three newsmen in 1959 and in 1962 in order to determine their sources. It was the Office of Security that illegally incarcerated Soviet defector Yuri I. Nosenko, who defected from the Soviet Union after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, for three and a half years beginning in 1964. It was Office of Security that arranged for the Mafia to try to assassinate Fidel Castro and that ordered poison pills for him to take. And while investigating CIA employees, the Office of Security illegally conducted twelve break-ins and installed thirty-two wiretaps and thirty-two bugs.

Nor has the office’s heavy-handed approach changed appreciably. As recently as 1985, it contributed to the decision of KGB colonel Vitaly Yurchenko to redefect to the Soviet Union by treating him as a prisoner. When Yurchenko’s handlers complained to the Office of Security about the treatment, they were told that was the way things were; there was nothing to be done about it.171

As director of Central Intelligence, William Webster had more problems with the Office of Security than any other office. He found it to be still operating in the dark ages and most resistant to change. Sometimes, Webster’s aides felt that perhaps the Office of Security considered Webster to be a security risk.

“Their attitude is, ‘This is the way we do things, and we aren’t going to change,’” a former Office of Security official said.

Even letters sent out by the Office of Security to notify employees that they had failed polygraph tests were clumsy. The letters said “you have been deemed deceptive” on the issue of providing information to a foreign government. At the suggestion of an assistant, Webster had the office change the letter to say “you evinced physiological reactions” and the matter was resolved “in favor of the national security.” In plain English, that meant, “You’re fired.”

Of all the office’s functions, none is more important than preventing espionage. While the CIA’s Counterintelligence Center works overseas to thwart opposing intelligence services that try to recruit CIA officers, the Office of Security is charged with protecting CIA facilities and people from penetration.

It is, to be sure, an impossible task. No one can expect that the KGB and other hostile intelligence services will never have any successes in the silent espionage battle. Nor are statistics meaningful. Since 1975, the Justice Department has prosecuted fifty-six spy cases, of which six involved CIA employees or employees of CIA contractors. A seventh case, that of Edward Lee Howard, a former CIA officer, has never been prosecuted because Howard fled to Moscow, where he now lives. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. Of the fifty-six prosecutions, all but one has brought a conviction.

The

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