U.S.A. - RALPH MCGEHEE
[[December 1997? From the www.parascope.com site,
which in 2003 appears not to be available]]

On 5 December, Jon Elliston, dossier editor of the online
magazine, "Parascope" (at http://www.parascope.com/
articles/1197/mcgehee.htm), published a lengthy article on the
problems and harassment of well-known CIA "dissident" Ralph
McGehee by his former employer which once awarded him a medal
for his 25 years of good work in intelligence.  Entitled, "The
Price of Dissent - Ralph McGehee and the CIA", the report notes
that "loyalty is perhaps the most prized quality within the
Agency.  For those CIA officers who break ranks, there is a
price to be paid."  McGehee, 69, believes that some official or
semi-official group -- perhaps current and former CIA officers
-- is mounting a campaign to harass him for his dissent and has
described several such incidents in detail.

The CIA recruited McGehee in 1952 at age 23, shortly after he
completed studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he was
a star football player.  "They wanted me to be a paramilitary
officer," McGehee stated, but he was instead groomed as a
covert operations officer and intelligence analyst for work in
Asia in the CIA's anti-Communist crusade.  McGehee took the
crusade seriously and, in northern Thailand, worked with the
Thai national police setting up a systematic village survey
method involving open-ended interviews.  In a short time,
McGehee was able to prove that he had mapped out the
clandestine structure of local and regional Communist
organizations and associated "sympathetic" groups.  The results
were solid ... but horrific.  "The CIA, prior to my operation,
had been saying there were only about 2,500 [Communists] in the
entire country," McGehee stated.  But his estimates showed that
there were that many Communist activists in just one province -
- and Thailand had 72 provinces.

McGehee also disproved the CIA's sacred knowledge that "the
Communist Party consisted of only armed guerrillas who were
going into the villages, terrorizing the people and stealing
money, kidnapping people, the regular old story."  In reality,
McGehee found the insurgents had widespread civilian support
manifested in the form of various popular groups, composed of
farmers, young people, women, etc.  The Agency's reaction soon
came and in 1967 "I was jerked out and the program was shut
down."  As McGehee says, he realized that "it wasn't Thailand
that was the problem, it was Vietnam," because his methods,
applied to Vietnam, would have shown that the entire American
effort was doomed from the very beginning.

After retirement and five years' work, he published "Deadly
Deceit" in 1983 describing his work and disillusionment with
the CIA.  Throughout the 1980s McGehee went on protest missions
and the lecture circuit around the United States.  He then
decided to compile a computerized data base of all the
publicly-available information on the CIA which the Agency did
its best to keep him from obtaining.  The compilation of
intelligence information is called CIABASE and has often been
reviewed in "Intelligence" (INT, n. 65 5).  In recent years, he
has maintained that his dissent has brought down the wrath of
the national security establishment on him in the form of
surveillance and harassment ranging from bugging his home to
following his car to unleashing hostile security guards on him
when he goes shopping in Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William,
and Louden counties near his home and CIA headquarters in
Virginia.  McGehee has protested to Herndon city officials
where he lives, and written letters on to officials including
former CIA director, John Deutch, and President Bill Clinton,
but the situation doesn't seem to change.

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