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1 June 1973
MEMORANDUM FOR: Mr. William E. Colby
SUBJECT: ·
Special Activities
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1. Following our recent conversation, I have
searched my memory and Mr. McCone's files for examples
of activities which to hostile observers or to someone
without complete knowledge and with a special kind of
motivation could be interpreted as examples of activities
exceeding CIA's charter.
2. First, as we discussed, on 7 March 1962,
DCI McCone, under pressure from Attorney General Robert
F. Kennedy, agreed to tap the telephones of columnists
Robert S. Allen and Paul Scott in an effort to identify
their sources for classified information which was appear -
ing in their columns. Because the primary source appeared
to be in the Department of Defense, McCone ordered me
personally to brief General Joe Carroll, Director of DIA,
orally, which I did. I understand more complete information
on this operation is available from the Director of Security.
I, personally, managed to avoid gaining any knowledge of
what precise actions were taken, what information was gained,
what was done with it, and when the operation was terminated.
3. As a result of a developing relationship with
Philippe de Vosjoli, the SDECE representative in Washington,
and also as a result of certain information conveyed by
Anatole Golitsen, James Angleton, with the approval of
Dick Helms, agreed to mount a counterespionage operation
against the French Embassy in Washington. This involved
breaking and entering and the removal of documents from
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the French Consulate. On 18 June 1962, DCI McCone and
Helms briefed Secretary of State Rusk generally on the
operation without going into operational details. Later
on the same day, President John F. Kennedy was briefed.
Actual breaking and entering occurred somewhat later, and
on 15 April 1963, DCI McCone met with President Kennedy
alone and briefed the President on the details of this
new phase of the operation. On the same day, the Attorney
General was briefed and he agreed that he would not
mention it to the FBI unless the FBI themselves raised
it with him. On 3 February 1964, DCI McCone met alone
with President Lyndon B. Johnson and briefed him on the
operation. On 4 February McGeorge Bundy was briefed.
On 6 February 1964 in a briefing of Secretary of State
Rusk on the results of the operation, Rusk expressed
reservations about the propriety of such an operation.
He raised this same concern in subsequent conversations
with McCone on 17 April 1964, 28 May 1964, and 14 June
1964. On 12 September 1964 Rusk continued to express
grave reservations and repeatedly suggested that the
French be informed directly that we knew about their
espionage operations in the United States and ask them
to desist. In a meeting on 28 May 1964 Rusk expressed
these reservations in the presence of DCI McCone and
President John F. Kennedy Secretary of Defense McNamara
was also present, and there is no record that he had
previously been made aware of this operation.
4. Although certain activities never got beyond
the planning stage, there are, I believe, three examples
of such planning which could be subject to misinterpretation.
One involved chemical warfare operations against the rice
crops in both Cuba and North Vietnam. A second involved
a paramilitary strike against the Chi-Com nuclear instal-
lations. Outside the United States Government, General
Eisenhower was briefed on such planning. A third, which
assumes a new significance today, involved a proposal by
Angleton and Helms for a greatly increased intelligence
collection effort against foreign installations in this
country. This planning also involved a scheme for selected
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exposure of KGB activities and counteractions against the
Soviet intelligence service. The reasons are still unclear
to me as to why the FBI chose to brief the PFIAB to the
effect that CIA was planning to wiretap extensively and
indiscriminately in this country, to greatly increase
the Agency representation in the Moscow Embassy, and
generally to use KGB-type tactics, also extensively and
indiscriminately. This led to a heated exchange between
DCI McCone and Mr. Belmont of the FBI, one such meeting
taking place in the presence of the Attorney General.
It is clear that the FBI was opposed to any such proposal
then, as now, and the plan never went forward.
5. During the period when Des FitzGerald was in
charge of the Cuban Task Force, DCI McCone's office
learned, quite by accident, that FitzGerald had secured
the cooperation of several prominent US business firms
in denying economic items to Cuba. There was no question
but that the businessmen were glad to cooperate, but know-
ledge of this operation had to be rather widespread.
6.
On 17 April 1964, Mr. Robert B. Anderson came
to DCI McCone on behalf of American business interests,
offering to insert some $300,000 to try to secure a
favorable result in the elections in Panama. Shortly
after this approach, Mr. Clyde Weed of Anaconda Copper
Company made a similar proposal to McCone in connection
with elections in Chile. On 12 May 1964 at a meeting of
the 303 Committee, it was decided that the offers of
American business could not be accepted, it being neither
a secure way nor an honorable way of doing such business.
This declaration of policy at this time bears on the recent
ITT hearings, but I am not surprised that McCone has
forgotten that he helped to set the precedent of refusing
to accept such collaboration between the Agency's operations
and private business.
.7.
At the direction of Attorney General Robert
Kennedy and with the explicit approval of President Kennedy,
McCone injected the Agency, and particularly Cord Meyer,
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into the US labor situation, and particularly to try
to ameliorate the quarrel between George Meany and
Walter Reuther. Cord Meyer steered a very skillful
course in this connection, but the Agency could be
vulnerable to charges that we went behind Meany's back,
or were somehow consorting with Reuther against Meany's
wishes.
8. There are three examples of using Agency
funds which I know to be controversial. One was the
expenditure of money under Project MOSES in securing
the release of Cuban Brigade prisoners. Details of
this operation are best known to Larry Houston, Mike
Miskořsky, George MacManus, and James Smith.
Second,
as you well know, when Lou Conein received his summons
to report to the Joint General Staff Headquarters on
1 November 1963 a large amount of cash went with him.
My impression is that the accounting for this and its
use has never been very frank or complete. Third, at
one of the early Special Group meetings attended by
McCone he took strong exception to proposals to spend
Agency funds to improve the economic viability of West
Berlin, and for an investment program in Mali. His
general position was that such expenditures were not
within the Agency's charter, and that he would allow
such spending only on the direct personal request of
the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense,
the White House.
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9. I raise these issues of funding because I
remember the Agency's being severely criticized by the
House Appropriations Subcommittee for having spent $3,000
for stamps in connection with a program to buy tractors
to secure the release of prisoners from Cuba.
10. Under the heading of old business, I know that
any one who has worked in the Director's office has worried
about the fact that conversations within the offices and
over the telephones were transcribed. During McCone's
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tenure, there were microphones in his regular office,
his inner office, his dining room, his office in East
Building, and his study at his residence on White Haven
Street. I do not know who would be willing to raise such
an issue, but knowledge of such operations tends to
spread, and certainly the Agency is vulnerable on this
score. ·
11. Also under the heading of old business, I
well remember the hue and cry raised, especially by Carl
Kaysen in the White House, when the Agency injected a
contaminating agent in Cuban sugar bound for the Soviet
Union. Shortly after the Cuban missile crisis, there was
a disposition in Washington to reexamine the Bay of Pigs,
and the fact that several Alabama National Air Guard
officers lost their lives in the Bay of Pigs was surfaced
with surprisingly little excitement at the time.
12. During my stint on the 7th floor there was
a special arrangement with the Office of Communications
whereby the Director's office gained access to non-CIA
traffic. This surfaced briefly at one point shortly after
Admiral Rayborn became DCI. He had visited the Signal
Center and removed a copy of a telegram from the Embassy
in the Dominican Republic for Under Secretary George Ball,
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discuss this telegram with George Ball who was naturally
quite curious as to how Rayborn knew about it, and also as
to how Rayborn had it in his possession before Ball did.
Ben Read in the Secretary of State's office and I spent
several weeks putting this one to rest.
13. Finally, DCI McCone, as you and I well know,
operated on a very lofty plane, and I think certain of
his activities could be misunderstood. One example was
his decision in July of 1964 to have Aristotle Onassis and
Maria Callas flown from Rome to Athens on Air Force KC 135.
Their arrival in Athens in this airplane attracted the
attention of the local press and in due course Mr. John
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Hightower, Chief of the Associated Press Bureau for
Washington, came to see me to ask about the propriety
of this action.
14.
The use of Fairways Corporation aircraft
has been remarkably secure, but DCI McCone himself
forgot about the cover arrangement and became quite
exercised when he saw Candidate Goldwater land in the
San Francisco airport for the Republican National Con-
vention in 1964 aboard the Grumman Gulf Stream with
the highly visible tail number N 8 E. This was, I
explained to him carefully, a perfectly legitimate
charter, but he didn't like it.
15.
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McCone dealt quite extensively with newsmen
in Washington. In fact, they gave him a gift and a
luncheon when he left Washington, which is perhaps
indicative of the press's relations with him. However,
in the case of the Ross and Wise book, The Invisible
Government, he did try to bring pressure on the publisher
and the authors to change things. They did not change
a comma, and I doubt that this old saw will ever sing
again.
16. Finally, and this will reflect my Middle
Western Protestant upbringing, McCone's dealings with
the Vatican, including Pope John X X III and Pope Paul
VI,
would and could raise eyebrows in certain quarters.
17 The above listing is uneven, but I have a
sinking feeling that discipline has broken down, and that
allegations from any quarter which cast these things in
the wrong light would receive great publicity and attention,
and no amount of denial would ever set the record straight.
If I may be of any assistance in tracking down further
details, I am of course at your disposal, but I would point
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out that I was very much in the position of the
enlisted man who knew that the commissioned officers
were aware of these activities and better able to
judge their propriety and possible impact or misinter-
pretation.
Welder
WALTER ELDER
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