[104-10217-10221.pdf — page 14]
# SECRET/KAPOK## OFTA 2555right on up the line." Needless to say, STEBONY/1 seemed most happy to know that RODICAST was concerned for his welfare.30. RODIGAST feels that he can manage S/1's self-assertion and dynamism, and LCPIPIT points to RODIGAST's record of handling "difficult" agents. RODICAST's experience is reassuring in this connection, and we have no reservations about RODICAST's ability to keep STEBONY/1 motivated in the months ahead.31. A last word on the matter of handlings turn-over, So far S/1 has dealt with KATZENBACH, TIFFANY, and RODICAST and has been forthcoming with all. There is no indication at this early stage that he has placed his relationship with KUBARK on a person-to-person plans nor are we sure he should be encouraged to do so. As representatives of ODYOKE the three persons mentioned above have apparently earned S/1's trust, and anyone introduced to him by one of there would probably be accepted with the same degree of confidence should the introduction of another case officer become necessary. In effect, then, we foresee no handling problem with S/1 as far as a change in case officers might be concerned. We would point out, though, that S/1 has been handled sympathetically and without hostility to date and that those who have dealt with him would strongly advise firm intelligent direction and against a provocative or heavy-handed approach to such a complex and self-centered personality.### SECURITY:32. S/1's very background is enough to pose all the security problems one would want to contend with in any operation. At the same time it is that very background that makes him valuable to KUBARK. Therefore we can discount many logical apprehensions about his personal loyalty and motivation (discussed previously) and proceed to questions of operational security.33. First of all, S/1 has been denounced as a KUBARK agent since the mid-1950's when, to the best of our knowledge, he wasn't actively involved in revolutionary activities. He traces this original denunciation to an incident in which he resorted to some rather unscrupulous practices (forgery and false denunciation) to get an erstwhile friend and CFUSA member (with whose wife he had become involved) discredited in France. (See Attachment to ORLA 43,272). The upshot was that S/1 was considered by many who knew him in Paris to be a KUBARK agent who had informed on his communist "friend" to the French police. From that time to the present the KUBARK tag has stuck in certain circles, though STEBONY/1 feels those who really know him, and those important revolutionaries and communists whom he knows and who are his potential targets as a KUBARK agent, have largely discounted the possibility that this could be so. There is no denying the fact, however, that this denunciation is a handicap. It has been used fairly effectively by his last employer, IDEN A, to burn him in a number of places where he was probably previously unknown. Certainly the publication of the denunciation in IDEN C did not raise his stature in some quarters. LOND 7620 indicates S/1's enemies have little desire to let sleeping dogs lie.34. Furthermore, IDEN A seems at this moment to hold as great a grudge against S/1 as S/1 holds against him, and IDEN A may still have better connections in the national liberation movement than S/1. This is especially so in view of the 19-20 June 1965 downfall of the Ben Bella regime in Algeria. IDEN A was not a Ben Bella man, and his fortunes declined sharply in inverse proportion to the rise of Ben Bella's. IDEN A's closest link to Algeria's power elite has long been Rabah Bitat, according to S/1. In the papers of 22 June we read that, in a "startling development," former Vice-President Mohammed Ritat flew into Algiers from exile in France and said he was ready to "assume his responsibilities." We presume that IDEN A will seek to move quickly to derive personal advantage from this sudden change in Algeria. As if operating in the Algerian security climate were not hazardous enough, S/1 may well have to contend with a vendetta mounted by IDEN A.