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Authors' Prefaces
I
My introduction to
the intelligence business came during the early
years of the Cold War, while serving with the U.S. Army in Germany.
There, in 1952, I was sent to the European Command's
"special" school at Oberammergau to study Russian and the rudiments
of intelligence methods and techniques. Afterward I was
assigned to duty on the East German border. The information we
collected on the enemy's plans and activities was of little
significance,
but the duty was good, sometimes even exciting. We
believed that we were keeping the world free for democracy, that
we were in the first line of defense against the spread of communism.
After leaving the military service, I returned to college at Penn
State, where I majored in Soviet studies and history. Shortly before
graduation, I was secretly recruited by the CIA, which I officially
joined in September 1955; the struggle between democracy and
communism seemed more important than ever, the CIA was in the
forefront of that vital international battle. I wanted to contribute.
Except for one year with the Clandestine Services, spent largely in
tr.aining, most of my career with the CIA was devoted to analytical
work. As a Soviet military specialist, I did research, then current
intelligence, and finally national estimates-at the time, the highest
form of intelligence production. I was at one point the CIA's-and
probably the U.S. government's--leading expert on Soviet military
aid to the countries of the Third World. I was involved in uncovering
Moscow's furtive efforts that culminated in the Cuban missile crisis
of 1962 and, later, in unraveling the enigma of the "Soviet ABM
problem."
From 1966 to 1969 I served as a staff officer in the Office of the
XII AUT H 0 R S' PRE F ACE S
Director of the CIA, where I held such positions as special assistant
to the Chief of Planning, Programming, and Budgeting, special
assistant to the Executive Director, and executive assistant to the
Deputy Director. It was during these years that I came to see how
the highly compartmentalized organization pedormed as a whole,
and what its full role in the U.S. intelligence community was. The
view from the Office of the Director was both enlightening and
discouraging.
The CIA did not, as advertised to the public and the
Congress, function primarily as a central clearinghouse and producer
of national intelligence for the government. Its basic mission
was that of clandestine operations, particularly covert action-the
secret intervention in the internal affairs of other nations. Nor was
the Director of CIA a dominant-or much interested-figure in
the direction and management of the intelligence community which
he supposedly headed. Rather, his chief concern, like that of most
of his predecessors and the agency's current Director, was in overseeing
the CIA's clandestine activities.
Disenchanted and disagreeing with many of the agency's policies
and practices, and, for that matter, with those of the intelligence
community and the U.S. government, I resigned from the CIA in
late 1969. But having been thoroughly indoctrinated with the
theology of "national security" for so many years, I was unable at
first to speak out publicly. And, I must admit, I was still imbued
with the mystique of the agency and the intelligence business in
general, even retaining a certain affection for both. I therefore
sought to put forth my thoughts-perhaps more accurately, my
feelings-in fictional form. I wrote a novel, The Rope-Dancer, in
which I tried to describe for the reader what life was actually like
in a secret agency such as the CIA, and what the differences were
between myth and reality in this overly romanticized profession.
The publication of the novel accomplished two things. It brought
me in touch with numerous people outside the inbred, insulated
world of intelligence who were concerned over the constantly
increasing size and role of intelligence in our government. And
this, in turn, convinced me to work toward bringing about an open
review and, I hoped, some reform in the U.S. intelligence system.
Realizing that the CIA and the intelligence community are inAuthors'
Prefaces • xiii
capable of reforming themselves, and that Presidents, who see the
system as a private asset, have no desire to change it in any basic
way, I hoped to win support for a comprehensive review in Congress.
I soon learned, however, that those members of Congress
who possessed the power to institute reforms had no interest in
doing so. The others either lacked the wherewithal to accomplish
any significant changes or were apathetic. I therefore decided to
write a book-this book--expressing my views on the CIA and
explaining the reasons why I believe the time has come for the U.S.
intelligence community to be reviewed and reformed.
The CIA and the government have fought long and hard-and
not always ethically-first to discourage the writing of this book
and then to prevent its publication. They have managed, through
legal technicalities and by raising the specter of "national security"
violations, to achieve an unprecedented abridgment of my constitutional
right to free speech. They have secured an unwarranted and
outrageous permanent injunction against me, requiring that anything
I write or say, "factual, fictional or otherwise," on the subject
of intelligence must first be censored by the CIA. Under risk of
criminal contempt of court, I can speak only at my own peril and
must allow the CIA thirty days to review, and excise, my writingsprior
to submitting them to a publisher for consideration.
It has been said that among the dangers faced by a democratic
society in fighting totalitarian systems, such as fascism and communism,
is that the democratic government runs the risk of imitating
its enemies' methods and, thereby, destroying the very democracy
that it is seeking to defend. I cannot help wondering if my government
is more concerned with defending our democratic system or
more intent upon imitating the methods of totalitarian regimes in
order to maintain its already inordinate power over the American
people.
VICTOR MARCHETTI
Oakton, Virginia
February 1974
XIV AUT H 0 R S' PRE FA C E S
II
Unlike Victor Marchetti, I did not join the government to do
intelligence
work. Rather, fresh out of college in 1966, I entered the
Foreign Service. My first assignment was to have been London, but
with my draft board pressing for my services, the State Department
advised me that the best way to stay out of uniform was to go to
Vietnam as a civilian advisor in the so-called pacification program.
I reluctantly agreed and spent the next eighteen months there, returning
to Washington just after the Tet offensive in February 1968.
From personal observation, I knew that American policy in Vietnam
was ineffective, but I had been one of those who thought that
if only better tactics were used the United States could "win." Once
back in this country, I soon came to see that American involvement
in Indochina was not only ineffective but totally wrong.
The State Department had assigned me to the Bureau of Intelligence
and Research, first as an analyst of French and Belgian
affairs and then as staff assistant to State's intelligence director.
Since this bureau carries on State's liaison with the rest of the
intelligence community, I was for the first time introduced to the
whole worldwide network of American spying-not so much as a
participant but as a shuffler of top-secret papers and a note-taker
at top-level intelligence meetings. Here I found the same kind of
waste and inefficiency I had come to know in Vietnam and, even
worse, the same sort of reasoning that had led the country into
Vietnam in the first place. In the high councils of the intelligence
community, there was no sense that intervention in the internal
affairs of other countries was not the inherent right of the United
States. "Don't be an idealist; you have to live in the 'real' world,"
said the professionals. I found it increasingly difficult to agree.
For me, the last straw was the American invasion of Cambodia
Authors' Prefaces • xv
in April 1970. I felt personally concerned because only two months
earlier, on temporary assignment to a White House study group,
I had helped write a relatively pessimistic report about the situation
in Vietnam. It seemed now that our honest conclusions about the
tenuous position of the Thieu government had been used in some
small way to justify the overt expansion of the war into a new
country.
I wish now that I had walked out of the State Department the
day the troops went into Cambodia. Within a few months, however,
I found a new job as executive assistant to Senator Clifford Case of
New Jersey. Knowing of the Senator's opposition to the war, I
looked at my new work as a chance to try to change what I knew
was wrong in the way the United States conducts its foreign policy.
During my three years with Senator Case, when we were concentrating
our efforts on legislation to end the war, to limit the
intelligence community, and to curb presidential abuses of executive
agreements, I came to know Victor Marchetti. With our common
experience and interest in intelligence, we talked frequently about
how things could be improved. In the fall of 1972, obviously disturbed
by the legal action the government had taken against the
book he intended to write but which he had not yet started, he felt
he needed someone to assist him in his work. Best of all would be
a coauthor with the background to make a substantive contribution
as well as to help in the actual writing. This book is the result of
our joint effort.
I entered the project in the hope that what we have to say will
have some effect in influencing the public and the Congress to
institute meaningful control over American intelligence and to end
the type of intervention abroad which, in addition to being
counterproductive,
is inconsistent with the ideals by which our country
is supposed to govern itself. Whether such a hope was misguided
remains to be seen.
JOHN D. MARKS
Washington, D.C.
February 1974
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