From: Ralph McGehee Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk Subject: Book: A Spy For All Seasons Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:47:29 -0800 (PST) ======================================================================== /* Written 8:44 AM Feb 21, 1997 by rmcgehee in igc:alt.pol.org.ci */ /* ---------- "Book: A Spy For All Seasons" ---------- */ Duane Clarridge's book, A Spy for All Seasons: My life in the CIA," is an Agency- and self-justification. Clarridge presents himself in a most favorable light and could have entitled this book after another pro-CIA work, "The Spy Who Saved the World." In Clarridge's case it would be "The Spy Who Could Have Saved the World Had it not been for the Media, Congress and the American People." The book's cover says, "we follow Dewey Clarridge on his trajectory through the CIA. His no-holds-barred style carried him to Nepal, India, Turkey, Italy, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq and beyond....With legendary candor (sic), Dewey describes...the inner workings of the CIA; the creation of his brainchild, CIA's Counter-Terrorist Center; his admiration for William Casey...and his alleged involvement in the Iran-contra affair, for which he was indicted and then pardoned." In "All Seasons" it is difficult to separate fact from fiction -- and determine how much of what Clarridge says he actually believes. The book omits primary events, slides over others while echoing CIA propaganda justifying covert operations. It is frightening to realize that the CIA puts forth volumes of propaganda, intelligence and policy papers justifying covert operations that its officers take into their hearts and minds as reality. One informative section notes that the first planning for the war on Nicaragua was per Clarridge, "to take the war to Nicaragua and start killing Cubans." Clarridge from his description apparently decided our Central American policy of overthrowing the Sandinistas and DCI Casey told him to prepare a Presidential Finding to cover and fund his operation -- here is the "intelligence" agency making policy while accurate intelligence fell to his policy initiative. Clarridge's war on Nicaragua employed three main elements: propaganda, political action and paramilitary. In the first requirement, propaganda, the domestic and world audience was to be treated to a barrage of propaganda and prodded to "hate" the target of latest choice. The ability of the CIA to overnight change perceptions about a country, political party or individual, matches the images of George Orwell's "1984." Clarridge "forgets" the U.S. governmental group that illegally aimed its propaganda re Nicaragua at the U.S. audience. The House Foreign Relations Committee Report of September 1988, said senior CIA officials, were deeply involved in domestic political propaganda. A senior covert CIA operative to the National Security Council, Walter Raymond, established the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean. This office used all possible mechanisms to push and publish lies/propaganda in the United States about events in Central America. Stories apparently given further credibility by Clarridge's book. Any number of propaganda themes flooded the media and resounds as fact in Clarridge's book. Reports of the Sandinistas sending a flood of arms to the El Salvadoran leftists. Graphic maps with arrow shafts as wide as the countries depicted the air, sea and land weapons superhighway from Nicaragua to El Salvador. The United States set up the most sophisticated technical and physical monitoring system to detect and intercept this weapons superhighway. One lone CIA analyst tired of hearing that the purpose of our operation was to force the Sandinistas to cease subverting their neighbors, left the CIA and proclaimed the CIA had not been able to discover a single weapons shipment. This analyst, David MacMichael, later testified at the World Court, but the drum beat of propaganda overcame much of his impact. All of this escapes Clarridge's notice. Later, after MacMichael went public, a number of "captured Communist weapon" shipments were discovered and given widespread media coverage. Planting "Communist weapons shipments," is an art form of the Agency's covert operators. A number of other manufactured themes involve a probable CIA deception/propaganda operation wherein teams from Nicaragua, reportedly invaded El Salvador and lost themselves in the surrounding areas. Then Ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White, said this was a staged event, accompanied by much ballyhoo but forgotten by the author. As the CIA bombed, mined the harbors, blew up bridges, fired artillery barrages, air dropped supplies to armed teams in Nicaragua, all designed to neutralize and kill off opposition, we can appreciate the impact on that small and relatively defenseless country. Clarridge over and over again says the purpose of the operation was to make the Sandinistas negotiate in good faith. Negotiate what -- their own execution? The Clarridge-devised operation later led to the Iran/Contra arms scandal that divided our nation and threatened the presidency. For his role in the shipment of arms, Clarridge was indicted on felony charges of perjury and making false statements to Congress. The indictment charged he committed perjury when he testified before committees from both houses concerning his knowledge of hawk missile shipments. Clarridge claims he was only telling the truth. President Bush pardoned Clarridge and others in a general amnesty. Clarridge repeats his "negotiations" charge re the tiny island nation of Grenada where according to Clarridge we were up against the Cubans and the Soviets once again. He says Cuban workers on the Grenadian airport were paramilitary construction workers -- in fact they were middle aged men. We, per "All Seasons," wanted to pressure the Grenadians into reasonableness re the evacuation of medical students studying medicine at a school on the island. Clarridge sent Linda Flohr, a case officer with State Officer Ken Kurze and a British representative to Grenada to collect intelligence. She met with a representative of the new government in "fruitless negotiations" to allow students to leave the island. Contemporary reporting noted that the United States stopped all commercial airline and cruise lines visits to Grenada. Since the island had no navy, air force or even a commercial airline, the students had no way to leave -- even if they wanted to -- which many apparently did not want to do. Clarridge's entire discourse on Grenada is so loaded with propaganda themes that one can dismiss most all of his account. (A few months prior to the U.S. invasion of Grenada, I visited the island and far from being a Soviet and Cuban bastion it was a tiny, poor, island nation with nothing save a failed market in its number one product, nutmeg). This "threat to American security" would pose little threat to a Boy Scout gathering. After the invasion, two staged propaganda events helped sell the CIA-generated invasion. One showed the U.S. military shelling a mountain "wiping out pockets of Cuban resistance." A reporter, the only one that escaped a U.S. embargo on the media, later said the military was shooting at a deserted spot -- and was making a TV tape to show the home audience. The military spent about a week on the tiny island before finding the American students they had come to liberate. An emotional scene was the focus of all U.S. news media as the students flew into a Florida air base. One student was so glad to be saved that in front of all the TV and other cameras he dropped out of the plane fell to the ground and kissed it. The entire event was apparently staged (I have to say apparently as I cannot locate media coverage of this student later protesting he was not paid for action as promised by the military -- so I cannot prove it to be true). Clarridge forgets to mentions this and the numerous other propaganda scenarios practiced to sell the invasion to the world and the American audience. Clarridge omits any reference to a car-bombing that he and the CIA apparently played a major role. On 3 August 1985, a group of Lebanese intelligence personnel and foreigners who had received CIA training set off a car bomb in Beirut that killed 80 and wounded 200 but missed its main target. Per contemporary media coverage, Clarridge of CIA's Counterterrorism group had detailed knowledge of program which included CIA training of another group in another country. Both programs dissolved after the car bombing -- I can find nothing in "All Seasons" that mentions this catastrophe. One story he tells is of a CIA deception operation that induced paranoia in the terrorist Abu Nidal to such a degree that over three hundred hard-core operatives were murdered on Abu Nidal's order. "On a single night in November 1987, approximately 170 were tied up and blindfolded, machine-gunned, and pushed into a trench prepared for the occasion." This I find difficult to believe and it may be the only reference to such an event. I was fascinated by Clarridge's discussion of what makes a good CIA case officer. I have frequently wondered at the inability of CIA's case officers to analyze information, I had been told it was psychological testing that weeded out such talent. Clarridge confirms this: You don't have to be Albert Einstein to be a good case officer -- officers with Ph.Ds were not usually successful in Directorate of Operations because they rarely can see black or white, only complex murky grays. Their ability to overanalyze prevents them from acting. Clarridge explains that psychological testing for case officers drew up profiles of successful recruiters and then applies them to recruit new case officers. I believe that case officers' analytical inabilities also allows them a clear conscience when they do not understand the true purpose of their efforts and their consequences. This inability, of course, leads to failed intelligence on a massive scale. I do agree with "All Seasons" recommendations for counterterrorism procedures that should be adopted for all intelligence operations. He reports that CIA had four problems dealing with terrorists. The first is psychological -- our defensive mentality; second bureaucratic or organizational; third analytical and the fourth technological. Bureaucratic and psychological problems were the most serious. Mounting operations against terrorists takes a lot of analytical work. No operating division has the manpower in either quantity or quality to do the required analytical work. Most intelligence assistants and analysts in the Directorate of Operations have come up through the ranks; some were not bright enough. Often they lacked advanced education and training and there were not enough of them. But the Directorate of Intelligence had analysts both in quantity and quality. Clarridge established a Counterterrorist Center (CTC) organized across directorate lines but met opposition from various Agency elements. Adequate analytical input, in my view, should be part of any effective intelligence service. "All Seasons," tells much about the CIA and its personnel primarily in the way it sees, reports and reacts to its perceived reality. It proves the need for massive reform of this flawed institution. Ralph McGehee CIABASE ------------------------------ end --------------------------------------