textfiles-politics/src-xml/ciactrlf.xml

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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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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</p>
      <p> . . . Control of a good share of what the Pentagon is doing is
more important to the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> than control over the government of
Jordan or Syria. . . .
When the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>
had orders from the NSC or perhaps even from the President, when in
fact it did not.</p>
      <p> the following appeared in the 7/75 issue of "Genesis:"
_____________________________________________________________________
How the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> Controls President Ford
by L. Fletcher Prouty
reprinted here with permission of the author</p>
      <p> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> agents were spiriting the Dalai Lama out of
Lhasa, <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>. 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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:</p>
      <p> "Frank Hand, 61, a former senior official of the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, died in
Marshall, Minn. . . . (he was) a graduate of Harvard Law
School. He had served with the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> from 1950 until
retirement in 1971."</p>
      <p> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>. (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 <ent type='NORP'>Cubans</ent>, Haig, <ent type='GPE'>Butterfield</ent> and others all had
<ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>. When the chips are down, the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> than control over the government of Jordan or
Syria.
Once, when the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>. 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>.
Frank had a regular office in the Pentagon.
No sooner had the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>'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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>.
Then he would drop out of the picture for awhile to travel back
to the old <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> really operates and what it believes is its top priority.
The propaganda being spread around today by the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> and its
propagandists that, "What the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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
<ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>) war in Laos had
become such a disaster that the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 50000 or more miserable Laotian <ent type='NORP'>Meo</ent>
tribesmen the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> had moved into the battle zones of Laos and then
had deserted with no plans for their protection, resupply, care or
feeding. The <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>'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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> and for those who
wished to contain the agency. If those who wished to put the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>
genie back in the bottle had been able at that time to prevent the
move of those <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>'s other best agent, Major
General Edward G. Lansdale, who had long served in the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>. 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>
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
<ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>
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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, and they learned that the
<ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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
<ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> did step up use of helicopters to the extent
that one of the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>'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 58000 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, it is important to understand
the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> and to put it all in the proper perspective. It is not the
President who instructs the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> concerning what it will do. And in
many cases it is *not* even the Director of Central Intelligence
who instructs the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>. The <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>) 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
<ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>. It can easily dispense with a James Angleton
or even a Helms or a Colby (just look at the list of <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>--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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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.</p>
      <p> 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</p>
      <p> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> had sent him there.
This is one of the most important "truly confidential"
roles of the agency. The <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, as was Allen
Dulles' <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, is one of the true bastions of power as a
servant of the American and transnational business and
financial community.</p>
      <p> --ratitor</p>
      <p> ______________________________________________________________________
| 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
<ent type='GPE'>Buffalo</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent>.
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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>." The use of helicopters in Laos was a
clandestine operation of the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>.
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
<ent type='GPE'>Buffalo</ent> 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 <ent type='GPE'>Buffalo</ent>.
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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> had sent him there.
This is one of the most important "truly confidential"
roles of the agency. The <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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
<ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> 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 <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, as was Allen
Dulles' <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>, is one of the true bastions of power as a
servant of the American and transnational business and
financial community.
|____________________________________________________________________|</p>
      <p>--
daveus rattus </p>
      <p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
      <p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
      <p> 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.
</p>
   </div>
</xml>