The Family Jewels by John Prados

Author:John Prados
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2013-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

8

PLUGGING THE DIKE

A disturbing episode in the CIA’s war on books concerned one of its own, Victor Marchetti, who resigned in frustration during 1969. A fifteen-year veteran, Marchetti had wide experience, including as a photo interpreter and as special assistant to the CIA director. In retirement he wrote a novel called The Rope Dancer, portraying CIA machinations in a harsh light. Then Marchetti teamed up with John D. Marks, a former State Department intelligence analyst, to offer publishers a nonfiction exposé of the agency’s roles and missions, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence.1 Meanwhile, in conjunction with the appearance of his novel, Marchetti had given a highly critical interview to the wire service United Press International, printed in the newsweekly U.S. News and World Report. That put him on Langley’s radar screen. In late 1971 the Marchetti interview became a point of contention among agency officials concerned the CIA had become excessively involved in domestic activities.

Director Helms ordered Marchetti placed under surveillance on March 23, 1972. Under Project Butane, Howard Osborn’s Office of Security kept the Marchetti watch up for a month. Hysteria increased another notch in early April when the former spook put an article in The Nation depicting the CIA as the loyal tool of presidents. Again, Langley saw national security damage where, just a couple of years hence, it would come under wide attack as the infamous “rogue elephant” careening out of control. More reflective officers must later have wished Marchetti’s arguments had survived CIA’s attempts to discredit him. Meanwhile, Langley soon learned the agency veteran and his coauthor Marks were planning a more ambitious manuscript.

Worried sick, the CIA acquired a copy of Marchetti’s book proposal. Helms secured the cooperation of Nixon’s White House, enlisting the Department of Justice for a Pentagon Papers–like effort at prior restraint. Agency lawyer John S. Warner went to U.S. District Court with an affidavit from deputy director Tom Karamessines, arguing the CIA’s special duty to protect “sources and methods” under the Central Intelligence Act of 1949. Warner obtained a court order compelling Marchetti to submit his manuscript to prepublication review. The filing was made without even notifying the defendant, and the temporary restraining order of April 18, 1972, would be the first Marchetti knew that his writing was at issue.

The authors, so far at work for only a few months, subsequently encountered numerous roadblocks. Marchetti had to clear each piece of his work with Langley, which slowed down John Marks as well. The agency called for deletion of roughly 20 percent of the entire text. Marchetti’s lawyers tried to quash the injunction and suppress the demands. The Justice Department argued it was enforcing the contract Marchetti had signed as a CIA employee, not abridging Marchetti’s First Amendment rights. A hearing took place on May 15. Karamessines appeared in a wheelchair, demanding his testimony be taken in secret, and the federal judge went along. Historian Angus Mackenzie obtained the trial transcript and reports Karamessines “insisted that Marchetti had to be censored so the other U.

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