Evening star., 1960-03-06
OUR MOST SECRET AGENCY
BY J. F. TER HORST

ONcT No. E11AlCA A1NoAA
tary power is a tweedy chap with
a pipe in his teeth and the un-
likely title of master spy.'
The Soviets call him sinister,
evil man.
Hitler pooh-poohed his ability
until it was too late.
President Eisenhower calls him
"amazing."
His parents christened him Allen
Welsh Dulles nearly 81 years ago
in Watertown, N. Y, and he runs
one of the most shadowy opera
tions in the world: the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The CIA serves as the most SEN
sitive eyes and ears of the White
House. the Pentagon and the
State Department in every corner
of the world. And Mr.. Dulles is
its chief scout.
He could write a million-dollar
check on the United States Treas
urv. if he wanted.
Only a handful of people know
how much CIA spends for espio-
mage or how many agents and en-
ployes it has. And they are sworn
to secrecy.
Ton Secret Trosh'
Mr.. Dulles can make a public
speech and have his photograph
in the papers. But it takes a pass
to buy a candy bar in a CHA snack
shnn. Even the waste paper is
classified; it must be bagged.
STABBED and burned at specified
times.
For every shift in United States
foreign policy, behind the deploy-
ment Of troops abroad. the 60
ahead on a new missile, a cutback
on manned bombers. a note to
Russia's Khrushchev or Cuba's
Castro. the CIA has played key
role.
How good is the CIA? How does
it operate? Who are the people
that work for it-without credit,
without faces and sometimes with
great hardship and danger?
Understandably, the CIA doesn't
maintain a public relations officer
to brag about its successes in
finding out what Americas enc
mics are up to.
Nor can it reply when Congress
sional critics think they see a
CIA blunder.
Entered Missile Debate
But Mr.. Dulles did step in pub
hcly-in a way he hoped would
be nonpartisan and professional
to meet charges that the Eisen-
hover administration is down.
grading Russian missile superior
ity on the basis of new kind Of
intelligence estimate which rates
Soviet intentions" instead of So
Wet capabilities.
Both kinds of estimates are i'm
portant. he told the Institute Of
Aeronautical Sciences at a New
York meeting January 26. 1T is
not new or novel procedure"
he said.
Every estimate regarding
military hardware goes
through this general process of
analysis in the intelligence COM
munity and has done so for many
years.
First we assess the Soviet ca
pabilities in each of these fields
and then, as the evidence &C
cumulates and as a pattern be-
gins to emerge, we reach our esti-
mate as to the likely construction
program"
Gathering intelligence data
from behind the Iron Curtain, or
any other place in the world, re-
quires painstaking and some
times dreary accumulation of
mountains of data from every
conceivable source: official
speeches and announcements,
scientific journals, commercial re-
ports, photographs.
Tnis is the day-to-day ther-
mometer reading of every nations
activities.
But more dramatic and immedi-
ate is CLA's constant watch for
what Mr.. Dulles calls a crisis
indicator" any place on the globe
"a sudden event or discovery that
may push the thermometer up to
fever level.
Here's where the CIA relies
heavily on its legion of secret
agents. They must report fast
and accurately.
The Classic Mold
In the classic mold of intelli-
gence operators everywhere, its
man in Havana or in Budapest,
Moscow or Peiping-could be liv-
ing as an artist, student, a mu-
sician, a housewife or a scientist.
In some cases, the CIA appears to
have placed agents inside sensitive
government Offices.
But Mr.. Dulles won't talk about
that-any more than the Russians
will advertise their agents here.
There could be Communist
agent inside the CIA itself. Mr..
Dulles doubts one could pene-
trate his agency's inner security,
but he is taking no chances. So
the CIA naturally assumes" that
Russia is always trying to in
filtrate.
And that's one Of the reasons
why the CIA is the only Govern
ment agency which uses the lie
detector on a mass scale as a regu-
lar tool of personnel policy.
Every person who wants a job
with CIA must be prepared to take
lie test. 1t isn't mandatory, but
there is scant chance of getting
in If one refuses.
1--WE use it as an indicator, not
as evidence" explained one of Mr..
Dulles aides. tits value is partly
psychological"
Some top agents have taken lie
tests several times, as part of