Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 69]
SECRETAnd as I point out in my review of his book, I said, "You don't take an artillery officer and make a submarine captain out of him. Or vice versa. Sure, you can do it over a period of training, but if a guy wants to be a sub captain, he goes into the sub service. He doesn't join the artillery. And vice versa." And I said, "You know, people are not that changeable."INTERVIEWER: Were you surprised when Colby tried to do this?MR. HALPERN: No. Not really. I am never surprised at anything Bill Colby wants to do. Never.INTERVIEWER: And that dates back to '56?MR. HALPERN: Yeah. That dates back to '56. And I wasn't the only FE officer who saw it in '56. Believe me.INTERVIEWER: Is that right? That early on?MR. HALPERN: You could spot it. We did. I am not unique in this. Talk to some of the old FE hands and see what they tell you. Just don't take it from me.INTERVIEWER: How about the, we will come back to that later, how about, did you have much of anything to do with the Rockefeller Commission?MR. HALPERN: No. I didn't have anything at all. None of it. I read their report. I'll show you my copy. It's all marked up. They've got so much misinformation in there, it's not even funny. I mean, even they're screwed up. I mean the nature of the business. It's like Robin Winks, he's got a lot of misinformation in there, Ranelagh got a lot of misinformation. People just can't get . . . If I wrote a book, I'd have a lot of things wrong if I started to go outside of things I personally know about. You know, all you can do is conjecture. And how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? You are going to have a hell of a job.
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 70]
SECRETINTERVIEWER: I think so. Okay. How about moving towards the Hearings. One writer said about Mr. Colby that Mr. Colby believed salvation for the Agency lay in cooperation with the investigations, while other intelligence professionals thought intelligence secrets were forever.MR. HALPERN: I'm with the second group.INTERVIEWER: You are with the second group.MR. HALPERN: Yeah. And I will refer you to Colby's own book in which he says -- this is before the Church Committee was created -- January the 15th, 1975. Colby went to testify in public before the, I think it was the Armed Services, it might have been Appropriations. I forget now. I think it was Russell or Vinson, I forget the exact person. But anyway, and he says in his book after he testified, after he testified in which he exposed for the first time, even though the law didn't require him to do that, by the law, as a matter of fact, you're supposed keep secret the organizational structure and breakdown of CIA. Colby blew it for the first time, exposed the whole organizational structure in public and went far beyond even that for the first time in public testimony. And he says in his book, on the way back from the Hill going to his office in Langley, it suddenly dawned on him that he might stop off at the White House and alert them to what he has just done so that the news doesn't hit them cold. And in my book, that in effect damned the hell out of Bill Colby. Because as a serving officer, as a serving DCI, his first port of call even before he went near the Hill would have been to go into the President's office, I don't care who the President is, his boss and say, "Boss, this is what I've been asked to do, this is what I intend to do. Is it okay with you?" He never did. By the time it got to the White House, it was too late
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 71]
SECRETto do any kind of damage control or approach it a totally different way, andthe President may not have wanted to, because Ford wasn't the strongest guy inthe world, may not have wanted him to say anything. He may have wanted him toinvoke Executive immunity or whatever. But Colby by doing what he did, bytestifying first, cut the feet out from under the President. The Presidenthad no choice except to continue. And after that Colby just went on and onand on and on and on. And never held back. And he had every reason to holdback, particularly in the public hearings. Executive hearings, it might havebeen different. But in public hearings, you know, in my book he went far farbeyond what he needed to do.INTERVIEWER: Was there ever any talk when these. . .MR. HALPERN: And I was out of the Agency by then.INTERVIEWER: You were out?MR. HALPERN: By '75.INTERVIEWER: When the materials were gathered, "Family Jewels," ever any talkabout why that didn't get over to the White House or apparently he hadbriefed, he Colby, had briefed some committee, but did not fill the WhiteHouse in.MR. HALPERN: I don't know. I don't know. I was back in the Agency inJanuary '75, because I retired December 31, '74. My sidekick and buddy,Seymour Bolton, who is now dead, unfortunately, may he rest in peace, alsoretired December 31, '74, but he went back to work right after the new year.To start, we didn't know that a Church Committee and he didn't know that aChurch Committee was being created and what have you, but he knew that there
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 72]
SECRETwas going to be problems in terms of the two Hersh articles. And Seymour convinced several of the powers that be in the Agency, including Bill, and then he finally convinced me to come on back to the Agency to help out, pulling together the stuff, because they kind of felt that I knew where the poop was. I knew roughly where it was hidden, perhaps even what safe it was in, and maybe what the hell the color of the paper was. And so I agreed to come back, and so I was in there in January of '75 and stayed on until about March, I think, maybe April '75 when it dawned on me, that this is silly, a waste of time on my part because I was getting responses to my queries from all the Directorates, I mean, I was getting substantive responses from all the Directorates except one the DDO. And I knew damn well where the hell the information was, that they had the information. In most cases I did. And I wasn't getting it. And the rationale I was given by several of the officers in the DDO was that, "We're not sure" or roughly like this -- "We're not sure what Bill Colby is going to do with this information. We don't trust him. What do you want comment for?" So I mentioned this a couple of times to Bill and he kind of said, "Okay, okay." I thought, "This is crazy." And I finally wrote him a letter, and I sent it to his home, not to the office, because I know what the hell happens with paper shuffling. Because I've done enough of it in my day. And I said to Bill, "I quit for a very simple reason. You are no longer the DCI." I said, "I agree with the guys in the DDO in that nobody knows what you are going to do with this information. But in my book you are still the commanding officer. And it is up to us as troops to give you the information you ask for. What you do with it is up to you. It is your conscience, not ours. So since you are not acting as the DCI and72SECRET
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 73]
SECRETinsisting that you get the information you need or you want, there's no point in me hanging around. I'm retired and I'm going out of your life." And I walked out.INTERVIEWER: My goodness. Was it Scotty Miler also, didn't he retire in December?MR. HALPERN: 31, 1974, and Bill Hood did too and Ray Rocca did too. Well a lot of guys went out. I think there were over 200 of us from the DDO that went out December 31, 1974. Largely, there was a lot of reasons, but one of the big reasons was the fact of the numbers, the retirement numbers. Just turned out to be right because there was a big increase coming up and if you left by that date you got a little bit extra and that kind of stuff. So everybody walked out at the same time. I was surprised when I got the figures from the retirement people what the hell I would be getting. So I figured I might as well go out in December then, too. And this was long before the Hersh articles appeared that we put our papers in.INTERVIEWER: That you had made your decision?MR. HALPERN: Yes, we all did. Of course, you had to have your papers in at a certain time anyway. And in my case, see, I wasn't on the CIARDs initially. And I had to write a special memorandum to try to convince the powers that be in DDO and in personnel and in the Director's office that the things I had done which were not overseas -- I didn't have enough to qualify.I had to explain and get their approval for the activities I had done earlier done a lot of it in the States, even while serving in Washington -- to equate X number of years abroad that I needed. And I forget the exact figures. But anyway, and that paper had to be put in long before the Hersh article appeared. And low and behold, they wanted to get rid of people and I was a
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 74]
SECRETsuper grade. I was a GS-17. They figured they would get another slot, and so they let me go. They made me a member of CIARDS. And as a result of being CIARDS, when I told the retirement people what would happen if I was CIARDS, then they gave me a new figure on my retirement which went up by a goodly proportion. I said, "I have no idea."INTERVIEWER: What is CIARDS?MR. HALPERN: CIARDS is that Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System.INTERVIEWER: Okay.MR. HALPERN: C-I-A-R-D-S. It's the name of the bill in 1964 which set up this earlier retirement for certain people with certain qualifying service. And so it's called CIARDS. And I can take it right out of the title of the act. It has been amended a number of times since then.INTERVIEWER: What would you say the most difficult demands were in conducting the Congressional investigations in '75 as you may have sensed at the time?MR. HALPERN: Sensed is a good word and also when I testified. I always felt that when proper people in Congress ask questions, you gave them the answers. That's why I'm opposed to this Ollie North/Pointexter nonsense and what they did was wrong in the way they, you know, handled the Congress. And Bill Casey was wrong on that. Congress, for good or bad, for good or evil, they are the ones who set it up. They are the ones who make the rules. You've got to live by the rules. Otherwise, you'd have chaos. And so the biggest problem I felt, and still feel today, and felt at the time that I was testifying, is that yeah, I am giving you the truth and it is up to you, Mr. Congress, to keep that information privileged. I don't want it all over the street. And one of the worst things that I thought that Frank Church did was after every
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 75]
SECRETsingle executive session up on the Hill, including the one I was at, he had atelevision show right after the meeting broke up. They were waiting for himoutside the door with cameras and lights. And we, you and I, as American.citizens paid for all of the electricity involved because they were allplugged into the walls. But I saw it there as I came out. Fortunately,nobody ever stopped me going out. I don't know what the hell, what it was,but maybe it was because I looked so nondescript or so ignorant or whatever,because when I left that meeting, I thought there they were in the hall andwalked right by them. And they were waiting for some big shot and I wasn't abig shot. A little shot, or a little punk anyway. And I walked in, walkedright by them, stepping over all the wires and all their legs because theywere sitting there leaning against the wall like this, you know, and snoringsome of them. And I went into the men's room, and I didn't have on my awardpin from the Agency and had just an ordinary dumb old blue suit, I think itwas. And I went right by them, went into the john, did my business, came out,walked by them the other way, and got out of there. And that night I seeFrank Church on television telling about all this stuff they had just heard.Not once, he never mentioned my name. My name was never mentioned except, Iwas told later, in the late edition, a late city edition of *The New York Times*in New York, in one of the stories my name appeared. And I was in theexecutive session. Nobody should have known my name. Somebody gave somebody,somebody inside gave somebody outside, my name. And it was there on oneline. Except I have gone to look at *The New York Times* index a couple oftimes and they've got my name listed in that year, '75, but the page number isall wrong. So it's one of those historical things that you will never find.You'll never find it unless you know exactly where to look. The index will
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 76]
SECRETnot lead you to my name, even though it says that you should find it there. It's not the only time I have had trouble with *The New York Times* index. So when you talk about the biggest problem, the biggest problem is security and leaks. That is the biggest problem on the Hill. And the Hill, I think, is beginning to realize that, maybe they have, and I think the more they talk about the joint committee with a small professional staff, they will be going in the right direction. I've argued for it and have written about that, too, about a single committee, a joint committee, for years now, and maybe they'll get to it. It's going to be tough but maybe they'll get to it..INTERVIEWER: What was your feeling in the executive session in which you were being questioned?MR. HALPERN: I felt that I was dealing with a bunch of nincompoops and idiots.INTERVIEWER: On the part of the staff?MR. HALPERN: Staff and the Senators present. Goldwater was the only one that I thought had a feeling for what was going on. Schweiker was an ass. Huddleston and Mondale were totally incompetent on this particular subject, maybe because he was new. I testified in June of '75. I would have thought by that time they would have gotten some briefings from their own staff as to what the hell was going on. About what was going on. I'll give you an example. I mentioned somewhere along the way, I forget what the specific was, but I mentioned something about female case officers. And I was interrupted. by Mondale and Huddleston with kind of a learing kind of a question. "And what do female officers do?" I just looked at him and I said, "What any other case officer does. They do exactly the same thing. No more, no less. They're Chiefs of Station, they're Deputy Chiefs of Station, they're ordinary Case Officers, they pound the street, they write reports, they handle paper.
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 77]
SECRETthey do everything everybody else does. They recruit people. They handlepeople, they manipulate people. What else did you expect them to do?" Youknow, the whole approach was, "Female case officers?" That really set me offand if I hadn't been constrained to where I was, I would have really let go inmy better language, and I didn't. I tried to hold off.INTERVIEWER: How did they happen to have you come and testify?MR. HALPERN: I don't know for sure. I think it was because Helms was beingcalled back so many times for the various committees, that he was almost likea yo-yo from Teheran as Ambassador. And I think he practically had a commuterticket on some of the airlines the way he was coming back and forth. And onone of his trips, he asked me to brief him, and Tom Karamessines, a matter offact, about the background on the Cuban Missile Crisis and some of theactivities during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The whole Operation MONGOOSEthing. Particularly MONGOOSE which was very hot at that particular point.And a few other details. The brass isn't suppose to remember details. That'swhat they got guys like me around for. That's what I get paid for. So Italked to Dick and talked to Tom and gave them as much as I could. And I justguessed that somewhere along the way in their private discussion or privatetestimony the stuff that wasn't the public stuff, before you get in front ofthe public television and what have you, Dick must have said or Tom must havesaid, "and if you want any more detail get a hold of Sam." Or something likethat, I guess. And so sure enough, I get the call. I didn't care. I gotnothing to hide. Because I'm proud of what I did all these years. And so ifthey don't like it, that's tough. Change the system. And that's how I thinkI got picked. And I remember when the Church Committee began, one of myretired colleagues, and his wife who is also a retired colleague, his wife was
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 78]
SECRETon the Committee staff. She arranged a dinner party with several of the new staff types - this is the Church Committee not the Pike Committee. Seymour Bolton called the Pike Committee guys a bunch of young whippersnapper, snot-nosed kids. Really. The staff on the Church Committee was a little bit better. Anyway, at this dinner party, my wife came along too. But anyway, I was the target of the night, obviously, and everybody zeroed in on me, before dinner and after dinner and everything else. In terms to the approach to this whole business, where do we go from here and how. And I pointed out that they were in a totally different environment than they've ever been before, telling them this was a different kind of a game, and I said, "You are going to be surprised at the fact that you are not going to find very much paper around. And you are not going to find whole treatises like you do in law cases and what have you." And I said, "You are going to see my name and my initials on literally thousands of pieces of paper. But I'd be willing to bet you're not going to find more than a smattering of any substance before that initial or before that name. You are going to find all kinds of references to 'as we discussed' and 'why don't we talk about this' and, you know, let's see what we can do about this', 'why don't we talk about this sometime in the future'. You are going to find very meaningless comments." And the guy said, "Don't you guys ever put anything in writing?" I said, "We can, but if we can avoid it, no." And he said, "Well, how do you get approvals for projects?" And I said, "You write a project, and that you'll find. You'll find lots of stuff, lots of projects that we did. Some of them are one pagers, some of them are ten pages. But that's not what makes the whole place operate." And the whole purpose was to try to get me, I suppose, to tell them how to find things and what to look for. You know, I don't have to tell them. First of all, I
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 79]
SECRETwasn't witting there under oath, in the first place. And when I got under oath, yeah I told them the truth. They didn't like to hear it. I got into a big shouting contest with a guy called Gary Hart. He was sitting in the background. He wasn't even -- he was sitting with the staff, as a matter of fact. I guess that was part of his popularism or something. And he made some remark in the back there and I shouted back at him. I didn't give a damn. I made some remark about the Operation MONGOOSE we were talking about at the time and I said this was, as far as I was concerned, this was American foreign policy made by the President. And this voice in the back, I later found out it was Gary Hart, said something about, "Hey, well that doesn't make American foreign policy." I said, "As far as I'm concerned if the President says that is what we are doing and the Attorney General agrees, that's what we are doing. That's foreign policy." You know, and Church cut off.INTERVIEWER: Was Mathias there, do you remember at all?MR. HALPERN: Yes, yes he was there. He didn't bother me much. I think it was Mac that was there. I know Schweiker was there and I know Goldwater was there.INTERVIEWER: Tower?MR. HALPERN: Yes, Tower was there. He didn't say much.INTERVIEWER: No.MR. HALPERN: It was mostly Church and, of course, F.A.O. Schwarz as the Staff Director. Yeah, that was a funny one too. I'd been called to talk to Schwarz on the Staff first in the morning, a crack of dawn kind of thing. And I got down there. And this was in the old, oh, what the hell is the building, the Senate building, not the Rayburn Building, the other one.INTERVIEWER: Cannon?
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 80]
SECRETMR. HALPERN: No. No. The one next to the -- it's on the corner. Bigbuilding, before they built the Hart Building. Well, I forget. It was theguy who came up with that -- from Indiana, I think it was, or Illinois -- butanyway, they had taken over the auditorium in that building and they were aso-called secure area. They had safes and what have you all over the placeand they had taken the seats out and what have you. And I was in there, Iwent in there, talking to Schwarz and some of his cohorts, then suddenly outof the clear blue sky he says, "Well, let's walk over to the CapitolBuilding. The Committee is going to go into session and they want to talk toyou." And I said, "You mean just like that?" He said, "Yeah, you got nothingto hide, have you?" And I said, "No, I got nothing to hide." He said, "Yeah,I was thinking you might as well go and talk to them directly." So afterspending a couple of hours with Schwarz and company, I was ushered across thestreet and we walked all the way over to the Capitol Building and went up tothe fourth floor or whatever it was and testified that night. I was told tostand up, and sworn in, and we went to town.INTERVIEWER: And you didn't know that you were going to do that before? Ohmy.MR. HALPERN: I had no chance to talk to a lawyer or anything like that. Notthat I cared. It didn't bother me. But it was a lousy way to do business,and it wasn't according to the rules at the time, because I had the rule book,procedures, and what have you and it wasn't what I was supposed to be able todo. And they were supposed to give me a notice for that and that kind ofstuff. But I didn't want to stop the proceedings.INTERVIEWER: Was it a very long session that you were in?MR. HALPERN: Yeah, it was all day.80SECRET
[104-10324-10002.pdf — page 81]
SECRETINTERVIEWER: The executive?MR. HALPERN: Yeah, it was the executive session. I think it was, I don't know, several hours. I mean, I got out late in the afternoon. After five o'clock or later.INTERVIEWER: Was Bill Miller involved at all?MR. HALPERN: Yes, Bill was there, yeah Bill was there. And Schwarz was there, and a lot of the other staffers were in the back. That's why I thought Gary Hart was a member of the staff. He was sitting with the staffers. And it should have dawned on me that a staffer wouldn't have dared shout that way across the heads of the guys in front of him -- the Senators. And Schwarz was at the table, too. But the rest of the guys were in the back. Why Gary Hart sat in the back I'll never know to this day.INTERVIEWER: Did you have any impression that what you had said in that session went beyond that session?MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah. Because I started to open up on MONGOOSE, on Ed Lansdale's connection, and the fact that this was not a CIA operation, regardless of what anybody might want to tell them, that it was a government-wide operation and it was run right out of Robert Kennedy's office, by Robert Kennedy, and even Landsdale was not in charge. He was the chief of staff to Kennedy, Robert Kennedy. It was run right out of Kennedy's office and Robert and Jack Kennedy were one practically, and that McCone, McNamara and Rusk had each refused to go along with one of Landsdale's ideas that even Kennedy couldn't force on them. And that was, originally, Landsdale's idea for MONGOOSE was for each of the agencies in town to detail men, money, and material out of the Agency to what amounts to a new MONGOOSE agency under Landsdale and Kennedy. And McCone was the first to have said, "Hell no." He