Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
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SECRETbulletin board out in front of the White House. That's up tohim. That's his job. He's got the legal power to declassifyevery piece of paper in the government. Fine, go ahead and doit. You are the boss. I think you are crazy, but go ahead anddo it. And the same difference between the CongressionalCommittee, Presidential Commission. I'm sorry. Maybe I'msimplistic in my approach to the legalisms involved or theoperation of an organization. Somebody has got to make rulesand regulations and procedures. And somebody has got to followthem. Not everybody can be all things to all men at all times.INTERVIEWER: What about the suggestion by someone that Mr.Colby was responsible for exposing the CIA to the public?MR. HALPERN: Well, that's just the consequence of what hedid. That's all. It's easy. He did that, as I say, fromJanuary 15th, '75, when for the first time the entireorganization of the Agency was laid out for public view.INTERVIEWER: Do you think he was hopeful that the material hewas supplying would not be publicized, would not be given outby the Committee?MR. HALPERN: He was in an open session. He knew it.INTERVIEWER: Well, that one.MR. HALPERN: The Stennis Committee. He knew exactly where hewas. Open session. And that's why it dawned on him as heleft, as he says in his book, "On the way back from the Hill itdawned on me, that's probably on the ticker tapes now, on the
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SECRETwire services now. I better go stop by and tell somebody what I have just done."INTERVIEWER: Did you see any signs of that sort of attitude earlier on with Bill?MR. HALPERN: With Bill? No, not to that extent. Not in the sense of kind of freewheeling. No, that never came through. But I wouldn't have been surprised at whatever Bill did on that kind of stuff. It always surprised the hell out of me. I mean, it never surprised the hell out of me, what he did. It was strange in many cases, but he was a strange man. Probably still is.INTERVIEWER: Okay, how about relationships between Colby and Angleton. Strained?MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. Very strained. Very strained. I don't know how far back it goes as far as the Italian business is concerned, because Italy was one of Jim's early bailiwicks.INTERVIEWER: I mentioned before lunch, Angleton-Colby relations. Angleton-Helms relations?MR. HALPERN: Very, very good.INTERVIEWER: Very, very good?MR. HALPERN: Always have been.INTERVIEWER: Good working relationship between the two of them.MR. HALPERN: Oh sure, they had their differences in views on lots of subjects including the Nosenko case and a lot of others, but by and large it was excellent.
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SECRETINTERVIEWER: Other than Mr. Colby, who was the mostinfluential person from the Agency in dealing with theseCommittees?MR. HALPERN: I have no personal knowledge of that so I am notsure. I would guess that the three guys who were set up to bethe liaison. Breckinridge, Bolton and Elder I presume were themost influential guys because they were in daily touch with thestaff as well as the Senators and Representatives. I forgetwho was technically the boss. I think it was probably Scott.The boss of the office on the paper. And Seymour was aconsultant or contractor or rehiree or whatever it was becausehe had retired.INTERVIEWER: Oh, he had? I didn't know that.MR. HALPERN: Yeah, he had retired with me and 250 other guysfrom the DDP on December the 31st, 1974.INTERVIEWER: Oh, he had too.MR. HALPERN: And then he got called back and rehired onJanuary the 1st or January the 2nd, whatever it turned out tobe, for this kind of stuff even before the Church Committee wascreated. So I guess of all of those in terms of staffofficers, I guess those three were the guys who were moreintimately involved than anybody else. But I may be, you know,dead wrong on that.INTERVIEWER: And that was 200 plus that left at the end ofDecember?MR. HALPERN: Yeah, regular retirement. I mean, the retirement160SECRET
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SECRETcomputations as a result of the cost of living allowances thatwere then growing along every six months or so made it so thatit was economically crazy not to retire. You were better offto do what Seymour did, which was retire one day and come backon contract the next day because it worked out that way muchbetter. Better financially, that is. So a lot of guys justtook advantage of it long before the business of the ChurchCommittee came into existence. And you had to have your papersin quite a while before the December 31st retirement date sothat they could do all the processing and everything, get theapprovals and processing and what have you because it wasn'tautomatic. You had to go through the usual bureaucratic chainof command to get approval to retire. So most of these peoplehad been thinking about retirement for some time. It hadnothing to do with the Schlesinger cleaning up in '73, this wasa year later in '74. So a lot of guys were planning it andjust kept on looking at the financial statistics from theretirement branch to see when the best time was to go. And soit suddenly ended up with about 200 or 250 from the DDO alone.And we all went out at the same time.INTERVIEWER: You served Tom Karamessines until February of '73?MR. HALPERN: That's right. And then Bill Colby after that.INTERVIEWER: Then Colby after that?MR. HALPERN: Until about May of '73.INTERVIEWER: Until May of '73. And then what Sam?MR. HALPERN: Then my next assignment was as the Senior
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SECRETPersonnel Officer. Mainly, my job was worrying about assignments for senior personnel. That means the super grades, GS-15s and above for the DDO. I prepared all the necessary paperwork and make recommendations to the DDO as to next assignments and what have you. I did that for, well, sorry, correction. I first was given a job by Colby and Bill Nelson who was then the DDO while Bill was in limbo waiting to get sworn in. I mean, Colby was in limbo. My next assignment, actually, was to do a study of DCS which Colby had just incorporated into the DDO. It had been under the DDI for years. And the DDO, that is, the Directorate suddenly had another component, totally new component. They didn't know what to do with it. For years they had been trying to get their hands on it, we had been, even under Tom K. And no decision had been made. And Colby, one of the first things he did was to just transfer. The same time he transferred TSD, the technical people into the DDS&T, he transferred the DCS into the DDO. And so I was asked to look into it and come up with a paper saying, you know, what's this animal we now own? What do we have here? And so I did it and I think it took me two or three months to do a study. And I visited quite a number of the field bases, field offices throughout the country. Talked to a lot of people and talked to a lot of people in Washington and wrote a paper. And then it was after that that I was made the Senior Personnel Officer or officer for senior officers in the DDO. And one of the conditions
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SECRETthat I had made in doing the study on DCS, that come what may with my report, whether it was a good report or a lousy report, I didn't want people to assume that once I made the report that I would move in and take over DCS, you know. Being charged with having doctored the report, I said, "I want it clearly understood I am not going to be assigned to the DCS when this is over." And everybody agreed. Scouts honor, cross my heart and hope to die, all that kind of nonsense. Hand on the Bible and what have you. And after I did my personnel job, which I am not a personnel officer and I didn't like it but I did it as long as I was told to do it. And so and behold, when I was stirring around saying, you know, "This isn't my job. There must be something else you guys have for me to do." And behold, when Jim Murphy retired in '73 and Jack Horton was moved up from Deputy Chief of DCS to Chief of DCS, I was detailed as the Deputy to Jack Horton. And so in early '74, late '73, early '74, I was made Deputy Chief of DCS and then made another trip to the stations for other reasons, because I was looking at them from two different points of view. And that's what I was doing. And then when I retired, I retired as Deputy Chief of DCS.INTERVIEWER: Good, I didn't have that gap. As you look to the past, how was counterintelligence affected by the Hearings?MR. HALPERN: I think that were affected, I'm just guessing again, because on was on the outside, but my guess is it was probably affected even more drastically than the rest of the
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SECRETshop largely because of the MHCHAOS program, the mail opening program, and because of Jim Angleton being charged with being the gray eminence and spook and God knows what else. I think it was probably badly hurt. Much more so than the others.INTERVIEWER: Badly damaged?MR. HALPERN: Badly damaged. And particularly with Colby saying that he never got anything out of counterintelligence. Jim Angleton could never convince him about counterintelligence. Bill just didn't understand it, that's all.INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about Mitch Rogovin? Any notions as to how he influenced the . . .MR. HALPERN: I have no idea. No personal knowledge whatever. What I would be giving you is hearsay.INTERVIEWER: Okay, how about Director Schlesinger's relations with Congress?MR. HALPERN: Well, as far as I know Jim was only in the job from February '73 to June '73. I have no idea what those relations were. First of all, I was bouncing around mostly as Colby's Exec and we had enough troubles worrying about what to do with Jim. Colby knew pretty well because it was mostly Colby's ideas that Jim was signing-off on as it affected the DDO. I just don't know what his relationships were really. I wasn't close enough to get near. I can give you a gut feeling. But that's no help.INTERVIEWER: And how about during that time, Colby's relation
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13-00000SECRETwith Congress?MR. HALPERN: I don't know. I don't think there were verymany. I think everything was handled through Jim. Because inthose days, officers below the rank of the Deputy Director andExecutive Director, very few officers as such ever had anydirect relations with the Congress. Bill Broe as the IG, underSchlesinger, was the first guy, first officer below that toplevel who was directed to testify in Congress on the Chileaffair because Bill had been Chief of the WH Division when itall took place. And so, Bill's contacts with Geneene of ITT,for the substantive of issue, I believe Bill was the first guywho . . Schlesinger changed the ground rules right away.And I think he was the first guy. Other Directors had takenofficers up there with them to testify in executive session,classified hearings and briefings. Dick Helms took TedShackley, for example, to testify about a number of things. Ithink one of them was the Laos war and another one on Vietnamand so on. But aside from that kind of, the Director doing thebriefings with a staff officer to assist him, in effect, Ithink Bill Broe was the first, I believe he was the first,officer to testify in his own right under oath, etc. And thenhis testimony was declassified almost immediately and published.INTERVIEWER: And the Director was present?MR. HALPERN: I don't remember whether he was present or not.INTERVIEWER: So this was a. .MR. HALPERN: It was a change.165SECRET
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SECRETINTERVIEWER: Big departure?MR. HALPERN: Vast change. I believe Bill in '73 was underSchlesinger, the first guy. I'm almost certain of that.INTERVIEWER: Do you happen to know who was Congressionalliaison at that time?MR. HALPERN: It would have to be . . . I don't know who theheck -- I don't know offhand. I don't remember. John Warnerwould know. Give John a buzz and ask him. Or the record wouldshow in the Agency who the heck was on what job. I'm trying tothink and I don't remember offhand. It may be in the publichearings for that matter. I just don't know. I've got them inthere somewhere. But I think it would be easier for you justto check. Because that was a wide thing and it was anunclassified officer.INTERVIEWER: Okay how about, some suggest, I approached it alittle bit differently a little bit ago, that Mr. Colby'scooperation saved the Agency from very serious harm.MR. HALPERN: Run that by me again.INTERVIEWER: Some suggest that Mr. Colby's cooperation savedthe Agency from very serious harm. Some going so far as to sayit might have been dismantled. Is that a common view?MR. HALPERN: Well, I'll tell you, if it is it's a new one onme. I know it's a view, but all I can say to those who holdthat view is, what the hell do they regard as damaging to theAgency? If Bill didn't do the damage to the Agency, what thehell did? I don't think the Congress would have dismantled the
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SECRETAgency under any circumstances. If, by dismantling, basically you say get rid of the clandestine side, because I think even the silliest guy on the Hill always said you've got to have analysis, research and analysis. That's DDI. And I think they are all pretty smart enough to say, "Well, we've got to have those bloody things up in the sky. And we've got to have technical stuff." You know everybody is for technical stuff. And the DDA simply provides the the money and the office space and the paper clips. So the only thing that would be dismantled would be to wipe out clandestine activities. And I don't think anybody on the Hill seriously considered wiping it out completely. Controlling it, reducing it, putting it under some kind of further Congressional constraints, yeah, that was going to happen. Moving it out of CIA and making it a brand new agency by itself, yeah, there was talk about that kind of thing. But where the hell would they put it? In the White House? Well, that's possible. Look at the nice mess with got with North and you can imagine that in spades. So those people who hold the view that Colby's frankness, if that's the word to use, or cooperation with the Congress, saved the Agency from real damage, I don't know what the hell damage is then. Sorry Ralph, you asked.INTERVIEWER: I asked, you bet.MR. HALPERN: I think people like that have got rocks in their head. I don't know what the hell they are imagining.INTERVIEWER: Tell me, on a scale from 1 to 15, with 15 tops,167SECRET
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SECREThow would you rate Mr. Colby's work in the investigation?MR. HALPERN: In the investigation?INTERVIEWER: In the investigation -- Congressional, Pike, Church.MR. HALPERN: In relation to what? I am not trying to hold back. In relation to what? In relation to harm to the Agency, harm to the community? Helping in Congress? Hurting the President? I'm not sure.INTERVIEWER: In relation to the Agency, and if you will the health of the Agency, the strength of the Agency.MR. HALPERN: Oh, I'd give him no more than a 5. No more. My Lord. I think he did a lot of damage. I think he aided and abetted the kinds of anti-intelligence activities, and anti-intelligence feelings on the Hill. And I forget whether it was Kissinger or Rockefeller who made that, maybe it's a apocryphal remark, to Colby about, you know, do you have to go to Confession all the time? That's my attitude as far as Colby is concerned.INTERVIEWER: I'd like to read a statement and see what you think of it. This is a statement that was made to Mr. Colby in December of 1975. And I am quoting, "It has been my experience and judgement that if you, Mr. Colby, are asked precisely the right questions, you will give an honest answer. You do not lead us into those areas which would help us know what the right question was to ask. You do not make it easy for us to ask the right question." This is a Congressman, Sam.
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SECRETMR. HALPERN: I know.INTERVIEWER: "Anyone who thinks you have been running back and forth to Capital Hill with briefcases bulging with secrets which you are eager to bestow upon us hasn't sat on my side of the desk."MR. HALPERN: Do you want me to comment?INTERVIEWER: Yes.MR. HALPERN: I think the person who made that comment didn't realize how much he was getting. He may have been ignorant of what the intelligence business was all about, what the profession was all about, what the Community was all about. And he may have thought that Colby wasn't giving him the keys to the guardhouse. But in fact I think he was. Again, I wasn't there at the time so I am only guessing. But I think he did give them keys. I think the Congressman who made that comment thought that there should have been a hell of a lot more. I think he was living in a dream world. He didn't realize how much he was getting from Bill. As I said before, I would have preferred if the Congressmen really had to dig and burrow and argue for every piece of paper. That's a personal view and I think that I would, if I had been there I would have tried to see what we could do to keep it that way. I must say I can image Seymour Bolton trying to convince Bill Colby about not pushing things forward and not rushing things. And maybe he succeeded in holding back some stuff or at least delaying production of some stuff. But I can imagine Colby totally
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# SECREToverruling Seymour most of the time or some of the time. I don't know. But I can't imagine Bolton, knowing Seymour very well indeed, that Seymour would want to go rushing foward with this thing because if nothing else, Bolton was a political animal. He had the best political sense of many guys there.INTERVIEWER: He did?MR. HALPERN: Oh, he was terrific on this. He was basically a political action officer and always was. And particularly in Germany, he knew the German scene very well indeed. And the German leaders very well indeed, some of whom were on his payroll. But that is another story. Or had been on his payroll, let me put it that way. Years ago. Anyway, I can see Colby saying, "Oh I know better than that, Seymour. I know how to handle those guys. Let me handle it my way. And I'll handle it my way." But Seymour would be a good staff officer and provide Colby with all the information that Colby should have. And it would be up to Bill then to make the decision on what to do. That Congressman, I think, thought there was much more and thought that probably Bill was holding out on him. My own gut feeling, and it is purely that, was that Bill did not hold out. And he wasn't trying to hold anything back. I think he really believed, probably to this day, that he did the right thing by making things easier by showing a cooperative spirit, by putting things forward, and I think the other apocryphal statement I made, you know, about, do you have to go to
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SECRETconfession everyday is the other side to that same question.And the Congressman, I think, was just full of delusions.That's about all I can say.INTERVIEWER: How about your reflections on media coverage ofthe Congressional investigations? Do you feel they wereobjective?MR. HALPERN: Well, obviously not. They were not objective.They were all hype. Nothing but hype. If you looked at someof the stories that appeared in the print media and the radioand television media, the headline always had to have thosethree nasty letters, CIA. I don't care what it was. Theyalways dug up a CIA headline. You take a look at the obituarypages of *The Post* and *New York Times* and invariably if somebodydied -- God knows where and God knows how long they'd beensick, with cancer or had an accident, got killed in a car crash-- and if they happened to have been in CIA even as a logisticsofficer or a finance clerk or a courier, and if they could digout the word CIA, that would be in the headline. "CIA CourierDead" or "CIA Officer Killed" or so and so. It was always theCIA. It use to make me sick to my stomach to watch thesethings on television. To this day I can't watch Tom Brokowwithout remembering some of his absolute awful, asininestatements that he made as a great pontificator on all of thisstuff. Dan Rather was bad enough but he wasn't on top then.It was Walter Cronkite. But Dan was always covering
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SECRETthis thing. He was bad, but he wasn't quite that bad. I thinkBrokaw was the worst.INTERVIEWER: Daniel Schorr, was he . . .MR. HALPERN: Schorr was a bad one all the way through. Theywere always looking for that CIA headline. It could havesomething to do with some other Agency but if it wasintelligence, CIA always got the hook. Let me give you aperfect example of what I am talking about. You remember, I'msure, the famous picture of that so-called assassination gun?The dart gun --INTERVIEWER: Right.MR. HALPERN: --that Church was holding up and Tower waslooking over the side and what have you. And first of all,Bill Colby should never have brought that up on the Hill. Heshouldn't have taken it up there. But it was labeled to thisday, and it's even in the John Ranelagh book, and I tried toget him to correct it in the paperback but he couldn't because,I think, because of the fact that there was a caption under aphotograph and to change a plate like that is very expensivefor a publisher. John tried to make some changes in the text,not the caption under the photograph, but in the text itself toindicate what I was trying to tell them, that by dammit, it was*not* the CIA gun. The gun happened to have been found in one ofthe safes at CIA when these young kids were running around inthe safes in their bare feet. And in the testimony on the Hill
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SECRETbefore the Church Committee, it appears in the bloody same bookthat the testimony of Colby's in, two days later, two or threedays later, Dr. Senseney of the Special Operations Division ofthe Department of the Army at Fort Dietrich, Maryland, Dr.Senseney testified. And in high dudgeon practically when hesaid, "That's not a CIA gun. I'm the guy who developed thegun. I developed it and not for CIA. I developed it for theentire US Government and it had nothing to do with OperationMONGOOSE or Cuba. It wasn't even developed then. I developedit for the Special Forces in Vietnam in 1965. It's my gun. Wedid it. It's an Army gun." But no, you'll never find it inhistory today. It's always a CIA gun. It's going to be a CIAgun until you and I are dead and long after. They can'tcorrect the history books. And it's all in the same bloody,green covered set of hearings where Dr. Senseney says, "It's mygun."INTERVIEWER: How does Senseney spell his name? You know?MR. HALPERN: I'll give it to you. Hold on.INTERVIEWER: The machine is back on.MR. HALPERN: I'm not making this up. This is Volume I of theChurch Committee Hearings and oddly enough the title of theVolume is "Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents." And thatsubject has got nothing to do with the dart gun. Anyway, Billtestified with that dart gun nonsense and he had with him atthe time Sayre Stevens and Mitch Rogovin on September the 16th.