Tilting At Windmills With the current need by our government to fight International Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Drugs, and other threats -- outlined in various official pronouncements and in the upcoming speech by DCI Tenet "21 Century Intelligence Challenges," -- we should applaud all efforts to successfully meet those threats. Unfortunately the CIA is led by a Cold Warrior unable to see how to correct [his intelligence failures] the problems and who instead holds on to the past. "Who did we recruit and what difference will it make?" is how he opens each morning's staff meeting -- when the emphasis on recruitment's and the inevitable lying it generates, has dumbed down the Agency in the past and now will continue to do so into the 21 Century. Numerous commentary, including some by CIA personnel and scholars, decry this phenomenon, yet the dumbed down Directorate of Operations (DO), and other elements carry the day. The CIA will never meet the challenges of the 21st Century until it accepts these realities and moves to alter its future. I have little faith that Tenet, or anyone else now in the CIA's leadership, understand the problems or can or will devise solutions. Tenet seems to be the lapdog of Congressional Neanderthals and writes intelligence to satisfy that learned constancy. Ralph McGehee http://come.to/CIABASE From CIABASE Web Site Front Page (Edited for Length) CIA is not now nor has ever been a central intelligence agency. It is the covert action arm of the president's foreign policy advisers. In that capacity it overthrows or supports foreign governments while reporting "intelligence" justifying those activities. It shapes its intelligence, even in such critical areas as Soviet nuclear weapon capability, to support presidential policy. Disinformation is a large part of its covert action responsibility, and the American people are the primary target audience of its lies." - Ralph McGehee "CIABASE remains a one-of-a-kind, extraordinary resource for serious scholars, journalists, and researchers, regardless of their political leanings and research interests." - John Macartney, American University "Essentially the CIA stopped all accurate info on Vietnam while conducting a propaganda campaign to keep us in this war that was unwinnable. If we are to avoid further "Vietnams" we need a good, reliable, trustworthy intelligence service." Neanderthal Intelligence Mary McGrory in a Washington Post (10/7/99 A3) article noted the buddy-binding over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty between the Know-Nothings of the Senate and the Know-Nothings of the CIA. She notes that Majority Leader Trent Lott supposedly saw the wisdom of ramming the bill [an anti-Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty] through the Senate after he heard from the Cold War mascot agency, the CIA, that certain low-yield atomic tests could not be definitively monitored. The CIA is revered by the Know-Nothings of the Senate. The agency may have missed the demise of the Soviet Union and gotten the address of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade wrong, but it thrills the reactionaries to be led up to the Senate attic and told secrets--like the one that low-yield explosions are hard to judge--that give them cover to vote against things they were going to vote against anyway. A Historical Whitewash (To a Large Degree) Researchers and relatives of victims of human rights abuses in Chile charged CIA is withholding information about its covert operations in that country, contrary to a White House directive. The National Archives is expected to make public hundreds of documents from the State Department, Pentagon and CIA relating to the military rule of Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet. But not any information about the CIA's involvement in a 1973 coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende or its support for Pinochet. Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at the National Security Archive, said CIA seems to have adopted a narrow interpretation of the administration's declassification directive. "Not a single word about CIA operations in support of the Pinochet regime" has been released -- "This is a whitewash of history, pure and simple." Moreover, the CIA succeeded in pulling back hundreds of documents on Chile discovered in the files of the Nixon White House. "These are the documents which detail the history of U.S. covert operations to foment chaos and violence inn Chile. And there's only one reason to withhold them--to continue to cover up this history." - Washington Post 10/7/99 A28. The "To a Large Degree," relates to a study produced by the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate dated 1975 -- entitled "Covert Action In Chile 1963-1973." This report includes some information on CIA operations to overthrow Allende. In 1976 I acquired a copy of the report that now may have disappeared from the Committee's holdings. History Teaches Us? Beginning shortly after World War Two, the United States supported an imported regime in Vietnam that ultimately led to the trauma of the Vietnam War. As a consequences of this war, the narcotics traffic in Vietnam and surrounding countries -- the Golden Triangle -- grew enormously -- accounting for majority of percentages of heroin and opium entering the United States. The war itself grew to such bitter proportions that it threatened the existence of our own form of government. Beginning in the early eighties we began supporting the Afghanistan Mujehedin, to fight what was estimated to be a massive Soviet push -- (our bad intelligence did not recognize the soon death of the USSR). Along with this CIA-supported Mujehedin, we created generations of new terrorists. Sadly our do-goodism created the Golden Crescent -- a new melange of countries exporting the majority percentages of heroin and opium entering the United States. Now we are told that we must fight the new drug threat by supporting a narco-terrorist counterinsurgency in Colombia. From that traffic, they tell us, 70 to 80 percent of the narcotics entering the U.S., emanates. Can this new war generate massive new percentages of drugs -- 170% to 180% -- flooding our shores? I fear that the new war on drugs will create agonies for the United States. What will be the impact of this narco-war on the streets of Los Angeles? I predict that this new war on drugs will enflame the entire region. Would it not be wise now, before the new war gets out of hand, to reconsider our policies. What does history teach us? Colombia & DCI Tenet In Colombia, one major consideration is how an increase in United States military involvement in Colombia reflects the Vietnam War. The population numbers of the two countries are similar, and the existence of revolutionary movements somewhat similar. How heavily have these movements organized that population? In Vietnam the Communists organized millions of South Vietnamese who committed themselves totally to their victory -- while our intelligence blinded itself and counted only a fraction. Are we doing this again in Colombia? Another major issue is the Colombian military which is corrupt, supports drug traffickers and sponsors death squads. Can such an organization demand the loyalty of the people and the unquestioning support of the United States? Does this not mirror Vietnam realities? Lastly, David Ignatius in a Op-ed piece asks the question how George Tenet is doing as DCI. He in writing the article apparently had the assistance of the CIA's staff. Yet in his piece there is no mention at all of analysis, analysts, etc. Tenet focuses entirely on operations and recruitment's -- the road to all the disasters of the past. Tenet opens each morning's staff meeting with the question -- who did we recruit and what difference will it make? To me the lack of analysis -- 1% -- one percent -- of the intelligence budget is allocated for all-source intelligence. This figure reflects his approach and foresees many more and possibly more disastrous intelligence failures under his reign. "Spinning The American Public." A former senior Clinton Administration official charged that the new multi-agency plan to control the dissemination of information abroad is aimed at "spinning the American public." Presidential Decision Directive 68, ordered the creation of the International Public Information (IPI) system -- and said "information aimed at the U.S. audience should be coordinated integrated, deconflicted and synchronized with the IPI to achieve a synergistic effect." PDD 68 does not distinguish between what would be done overseas and what would be done at home... it talks about a news war...The target is the American people." Washington Times 7/29/99 A1. PDD 68 orders top officials from the Defense, State, Justice, Commerce, and Treasury and the CIA and FBI to meet and set up a core group. Coordinating this massive agglomeration will inevitable produce fact-blindness especially when you include the misinformation operations of the CIA. If there is any plan to distinguish fact from fiction, IPI should know about CIA deception operations -- but CIA will never reveal those details to anyone. One major role for the CIA is the creation of false evidence to support its operations -- it refuses to share those details with other agencies. Internally it even restricts details of such operations using strict need-to-know and compartmentation policies. So when it conducts many and massive deception operations those deceits inevitably will end up in the domestic media and will shape our foreign policies. With the creation of the IPI these stories will be disseminated world-wide and especially domestically. What are some types of CIA False Evidence operations? The CIA forges documents and places them where they will be discovered and disseminated widely. (It effectively demonizes targets even the most honorable while glorifying sponsored "demons"). It sets off bombs, blaming them on targets. It plants "Communist" or now probably "terrorist" weapons shipments and arranges for them to be found as it broadcasts details of such widely. It buys foreign media and employees and book publishers, establishes policy-making think tanks and their publications, it employs foreign radio and television stations -- all used to disseminate its deceits. As one example -- It kept the media riveted for months as it told of Cuban troops in Angola raping Ovimbundu girls. The villagers were outraged, captured the Cubans, and over a period of months held a trial, proclaimed them guilty and then executed the Cubans with their own weapons -- the only thing wrong with the story was that it was all made up. Doctored photographs, false atrocity stories, falsely attributed scholarly books written criticizing or blaming this or that movement or target (over 1000 titles published in one period) make up more of its arsenal of lies. Its operations in academia sponsor or subvert thousands of domestic academicians and untold numbers of foreign academics. It also sponsors numerous politicians and their groups and media operations. (One sample of the massive nature of the deceptions it employs can be found here, those it used in Chile and they led to the empowerment of Pinochet.) I have had a number of experiences with the disinformation/ deception operations. Perhaps the most pervasive and destructive were CIA lies re Vietnam from 1950 through 1998. But I found that it also lied most effectively in its intelligence and -- in the facts that it suppressed. So this is what the American people can expect under the new IPI. To appreciate its terrible power I recommend reading George Orwell's classic "1984." Details of a group similar to IPI in the Reagan Administration that was declared illegal. DCI Tenet Claims Responsibility DCI Tenet told Congress yesterday that he takes "ultimate responsibility" for the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and promised to change the Agency's procedures to ensure that such a mistake cannot happen again. Tenet attributed the error to poor targeting procedures, inadequate review and faulty databases. "It was a major error," Tenet told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "I cannot minimize the significance of this." The Yugoslav Directorate of Supply and Procurement was the first target "unilaterally proposed and wholly assembled" by CIA. Tenet also gave new details about a mid-level intelligence analyst who challenged the targeting data before the airstrike. Washington Post 7/23/99 A16. A recent Admiral Jeremiah report followed up and concluded the CIA needed to be scrubbed from the top to bottom. A departing (conservative) case officer recorded the devastating intellectual inability's of the leadership of the CIA's Directorate of Operations. A number of high-level analysts left the CIA and wrote of its terrible intelligence. For example see: Lost Promise: How CIA Analysis Misserves the Nation by John A. Gentry. A former top Soviet affairs analyst, Melvin Goodwin, decries the CIA's analytical inability's. Yet from his first days, Tenet ignored the CIA's analytical needs and pushed ahead with his own non-intellectual tack. He called for increased operations and dismayingly overtly discussed his plans for increased covert actions against China. Contributing to the CIA's intelligence failures are the inability's of its Directorate of Operations. We have official testimony re Cuba's DGI running the Agency's entire stable of Cuban double agents, East Germany's STASI than ran hundreds if not thousands of CIA double agents; and, the KGB's known double agents loyal to the USSR who duped the CIA into reporting falsely on the Soviet Union's "super" weapons of mass destruction. Echoing these unbelievable (in the full meaning of that term) failures, is the CIA's dissemination of "intelligence" from a known Chinese double agent that documented the Cox report's conclusions and the negative impact of those on our national security. At this web site I include a number of recommendations on how to improve the CIA's performance -- using many examples taken from my own experience. Know-Nothing's It is obvious that the CIA is in the midst of a major officer recruiting campaign that will determine the future of that institution for the next few decades. In a number of articles I have quoted from case officers, to a director, to an Inspector General, all on the general state of disaster in the CIA -- its morale, procedures, operations and the deficiencies of its personnel -- most at the top of the Directorate of Operations (DO). These did not happen out of the mists -- the CIA in the past (and probably also now) has used psychological testing criteria to recruit the naive, the innocent, the team-player and the not too academically outstanding, to man its outposts. (In my case I and a large number of recruits came directly out of the manpower pool of rejected NFL hopefuls). It does not want the person who can see the implications of its actions. It wants the "know-nothing" who believes, or as the chant says, "I don't know and I don't care." It wants the "operator" not the intellect. Since leaving the CIA I have written a book, and began compiling a data base on relevant information about the CIA. As I processed information into the data base I was stunned to see the universal failure of its intelligence over the past fifty plus years. In short I discovered that the CIA used its intelligence as a means of bolstering its operations, while avoiding any data that challenged such goals. The CIA universally supported and supports militarized regimes around the world, and in so doing implicates itself in the work of death squads, drug smugglers, terrorists and other less than desirable elements. In so doing, it has destroyed many future "George Washington's." But now the situation is somewhat different. We are faced with international terrorism, there is a real need for real information, but you have against that need, the know-nothings of the DO and the know-nothings of other segments of the CIA. Do we want an operational or an intelligence agency? I should note the personal harassment that increases with my efforts to inform -- this in spite of the fact that CIA has written me numerous letters I may use any information in the public domain. - Letter from CIA's Publications Review Board Table of Contents Introduction Intelligence & Operational Analysis Covert action in Chile 1963-73 A model operation CIA's Paramilitary Operations Apocalypse now revisited CIA trained assassins The ends justify the means? How to counter terrorism An Updated Suggestion CIA Support For Terrorism Support for Guatemalan Ops Disembling, Deception & Lies Domestic propaganda operations The CIA's Illegal Domestic Ops Subverting Academia & the Media Intelligence Failure in Vietnam CIA disinformation kept us in the war The Vietnam War More about the war CIA personnel requirements A bizarre recruiting poster "Deadly Deceits" Excerpts from Ralph's book Past, Present & Future Economic intelligence & espionage Past, Present & Future Part II "We divide the world in two..." Congress against the CIA "Limited analytical capabilities" The Bay of Pigs Fiasco "Ignorant, Arrogant and Incompetent" Indian nuclear test The CIA was caught unawares Chase Manhattan memo on Chiapas Eliminate the Zapitistas! The CIA & the Price of Dissent Ralph's struggle with the CIA The CIA is in "Deep rot" "Needs to be scrubbed" from the top down CIA sex discrimination CIA use & abuse of women Paramilitary Operation in China Next stop - Beijing