When George H.W. Bush first sought the Republican nomination for president, a friend announced that he was leaving a high-ranking Central Intelligence Agency job to help the man we now know as Bush One and Bush 41.
“He was the best director we ever had,” and was certain to be a great president, my Agency pal insisted.
Easily said; less easily done. Bush was vice president for eight years before winning the top spot on the ticket and four years in the White House.
The jury is out on whether Bush will be rated one of our best presidents, but it’s safe to say that if he’s the best of 21 bosses of the CIA and its predecessor agency, he must have been very good, indeed.
Begun as the World War II Office of Strategic Services, the agency has been run by generals, admirals, federal judges, a respected Congressman and men with storied names in the world of public service, such as Allen Dulles.
World War I hero Gen. William “Wild Bill” Donovan filled his OSS with “gentlemen spies” – Ivy Leaguers and other well-educated men, lured by the glory and importance of cloak-and-dagger work that often sent them far behind enemy lines to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage.
Postwar euphoria saw the OSS disbanded and its duties given to the State Department, but President Truman soon saw that mistake and the CIA was born in 1947.
For decades, the agency and its work were super-secret. Its funds, known as “black entries,” were hidden in budgets of other agencies. There were no signs directing motorists to its Virginia headquarters.
When a top Associated Press writer finally got permission to visit, the officer who briefed him set ground rules: “This location does not exist and this interview never took place”.
To this day, the headquarters’ “Wall of Honor” has blanks among plaques honoring personnel who died in line of duty; some names and dates of death are considered still too sensitive to reveal.
While top-ranking officials are known and testify before congressional committees, most CIA personnel and work are abroad and “covert” – using jobs in U.S. missions and in private-sector work such as export-import firms for cover. With the notable exception of Nixon, Presidents have honored federal law forbidding the CIA from doing espionage inside this country. Domestic spying is the FBI’s territory.
Outside the States, I met many whom I knew to be CIA personnel and others whom I believed were on that payroll. I’ve been accused often of having worked for them, and if that were true, I’d acknowledge it proudly, but I never did.
I can say as an outsider that anyone claiming to pigeonhole our intelligence-gatherers is wasting the time of their readers or listeners. Agency personnel come in all adult ages, both sexes and all races and ethnic groups (most people working for the agency are foreign nationals reporting to U.S. “control officers”).
Most of those whom I’ve known were highly professional researchers and analysts, whose skills I often envied. One predicted the Marxist takeover in Chile a full two years before Allende became president, infuriating our ambassador who was telling the State Department just the opposite.
In fact, independence is one of the agency’s most valuable assets. Its people aren’t infallible – as they readily admit – but like our military attaches, they supply perspectives that often are missing from State Department reports.
Some remain among our most valued friends, and I wish that we had stayed in touch with others whom I respected greatly. A very small minority were creepy or comical or sometimes both
Among those, one of my favorites was a short, intense man who couldn’t remember his cover. Asked at diplomatic functions what he did, he would tell one person that he was in the economic section, say to the next that he was a consul and inform a third that he was a political officer.
Another was tall, slender and acted as if he’d seen too many 1930s spy films. He wore a rumpled trench coat with turned-up collar, and instead of walking calmly out of the embassy, he flattened himself against a wall and peered furtively up and down the street until he was satisfied it was safe.
Some from other branches of government, the business community and news media derided agency people as “spooks,” but that was unfair to the vast majority. Most are genuine pros, and we’re a better and safer country because we have them.