MEMORANDUM TDY TO MEXICO CITY
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
From: C/WH/3
To: CHIEF, FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE
Document date: 10/2/63
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

104-10413-10035

2 October 1963

MEMORANDUM FOR:

SUBJECT:

Chief, Foreign Intelligence

TDY to Nexico CIty

1. After taking a good look at LlENVOY and LIVFAT, I would agree

with the persons I talked with in Mexico, they maintaln that any well-

run tap operation should produce substential Intelligence information,

provided the targets are of Intelligence Interest, and provided also

there are people at the station who look for 1t and are able to recog-

nize 1t. The case of LIFEAT 18 interesting in this respects It has

been deprived of its most productive lines In favor of LJENVOY, and

yet Its intelligence production compares favorably with that of the

other productive taps, except LIENVOY.

2.. Mexico has people who can detect any 11ttle 1tem of 1ntell1-

gence significance.

This Includes the Chief of Station, who goes over

the highlights of the previous day's take every morning and marke

certain Items for action by station case officers or reports officerss

The reports officers work on copies of the take at the same time.

there are several aspecte of hiiivor that make it an excellent

operation and an outatanding producer of intelligence. I will describe

them in detail when my notes get here from the station.

The principal

factors in the success of LIENVOY seen to be the following.

a, The agreement made with top Mexican officials, unlike

many such agreements elsewbere, 1s as much in effect today an it

was at the start:

the targeting 1a not based on personal politica;

the Intercept staff has stayed on the job; the equipment 1e con-

sidered to be on loan from CIA.

b. The native monitoring staff has reached a peak of effec-

tlveness that everyone at the station praises very highly.

c. The station 1s organized to handle the take speedily as

soon as it comes 1n.

The Chief of Station, the case officers, the

reports officers, all work on it at the same time and exchange

vows on hot items. They do not let reports backlogs accumulate.

...u

---

## Page 2

13-00000

d. Each new item on a target person is linked to a past

history; what appears as a fragmentary bit in a conversation

becomes a meaningful development in a continuous story. Conti-

nuity on the job makes this possible.

The equipment is kept in good working order by complete

cleaning and checking of each unit once a month. The 32 units

in use today are those installed in 1959.

4. A detailed description of. LIENVOY and Its counterpart LIFEAT

hould provide good models with which to compare other tap operations

It should give criteria for good procedures. It should give some ide

of the desirable size of such operations, considering the available

targets, the size of the station, and the other taske and operations of

the station. It should show what the station puts into 1ts tap opera.

tions and what it gets out of them.. LIENVOY and LIFKAT are an interesting

example of two Interacting operations, one joint and the other Independ-

ent.

5. My stay in Mexico was as interesting and fruitful as 1t was

enjoyable. And I hope It was not too great a burden on the station.

yc

cc: C/WH/3

---