Shadow of the Condor (3 page)

The coffee was cold, but drinking it gave the general something to do, an excuse for not meeting the old man's twinkling eyes.

The two men sat quietly for a long time. The old man watched the general. The general watched nothing in particular, occasionally taking small sips of nauseatingly cold coffee, hoping it would last, hoping he was successfully filling the awful void, hoping the old man would say the right thing or at least say nothing too dangerously wrong.

"Well," said the old man at last, "well. You do have a problem." The general winced, but said nothing. The old man continued.

"I really can't make heads or tails of the whole thing. It's a puzzle. I'm not even sure what to do or what I can do. Of course, the Staff Liaison Board and Forty will have a lot to say about that, for, as you know, I act only as their agent."

The general nodded and resigned himself to hell.

"But I'll tell you what I'll do," said the old man lightly. "I'll look over this file, maybe send a few questions over to your shop. I'll see if I can come up with any ideas. If I do, I'll check them out with Forty, informally, then get back to you. All right?"

The general wasn't sure if he was grateful, but he was relieved. After putting him through the hoops, the old man had at least dangled a bone in front of him. "Thank you, Phillip, thank you. I knew I could count on you."

The old man rose and escorted the general to the door. He walked spryly and his voice was light when he said, "You must remember me to your wife. Lovely woman, lovely woman."

"Of course, of course," replied the general, "and we should get together soon, informally, without all the mess of work with us."

"How true," said the old man as he opened the door. "How true. Do come again, General. And don't worry, I'll get back to you on this."

The general left the town house much more eagerly than he had come. He convinced himself everything was fixed, an easy task, since the general always accepted helpful interpretations. He had dumped -on the old man and gotten rid of a problem all at the same time, he thought. Not that the whole mess had been any of his problem in the first place or that the old man wasn't the one who really should handle the damn thing. The old bastard should thank him for all the help he had given him this far. Let him take the heat, thought the general, I have nothing to worry about.

Back in the red town house the old man sat smiling while the general strode gleefully toward his waiting car.

As the general slammed his car door, the old man began to laugh, lowly, slowly, sardonically. He laughed for a long time, long after the unmarked Air Force car slid out of its parking space carrying the general back to the Pentagon, where he would spend the rest of the day celebrating. The old man stopped laughing before the car reached the express highway encircling
Washington
and sat quietly while the car purred toward the Pentagon.

But his thoughts were deep. He reached for the thin manila file the general had left Ten minutes and two thorough-readings later he closed the file and leaned back in his chair. He shut his eyes to concentrate. This time he thought for almost half an hour. When he opened, his eyes, he picked up a note pad, reopened the file and began to write. Five minutes later he buzzed for his secretary.

The tall man entered the room quietly. He made little noise as he shut the door. He spoke softly, respectfully, sir?

"No more need to inquire about that mess we heard the Air Force had, Carl," the old man said. "The good general just gave me everything.

"I think we have something here. Something we can use to keep our hand in. It couldn't have come at a better time either. Forty is reviewing our budget in a month, and a little flurry of activity always pleases OMB. This should do nicely.

"I've made a list of information I want pulled from the pool. Check FBI first, then CIA, NSA, the service group, Treasury, Justice and Secret Service. Tell them we want it immediately. I'll be satisfied if we have the bureau and the agency [FBI and CIA] data by tomorrow and the rest the day after.

"We're starting an operation, stateside and European. We probably won't need a large number of personnel, but I want backup teams ready. We will mainly use agency people, although I imagine the bureau will insist on coming in when we work stateside. I've noted some suggestions. Call the agency's M&S [Directorate of Management and Services] and tell them we will be drawing personnel, equipment and funds.

"Today as soon as possible, I want to see Dr. Lofts and Kevin Powell-from the agency. Powell just got back from
Turkey
. He should be at
Langley
[the CIA Virginia headquarters complex]. You know where Lofts is. That should keep you busy until lunch."

"Yes, sir," Carl replied softly. He smiled slightly as he took the note pad from the old man's wrinkled hand. Carl has 'no note pads. He doesn't use thern because he doesn't need notes. Carl receives his very comfortable salary mainly because he has a 90 percent retention rate: For all "practical purposes" Carl has total recall. Carl also draws a high salary because his remarkable mind is void of almost all normal feelings except narrow and minimal loyalty, self-preservation, a slight desire for self-gratification, a trace of self-serving sadism, vindictiveness and snobbish pride.

"Is there anything else, sir?" asked Carl quietly.

"Yes," said the old man, "could you bring me some more coffee?"

"Of course sir," replied Carl. The tall secretary turned and left the room as silently as he had come. The old man relaxed in his chair and once more began to laugh.

World War II spawned a massive new phenomenon in American politics, a phenomenon which has since grown into an integral part of the American political scene. The experiences of World War II and the new perceptions adopted largely as a result of that war created the American intelligence community.

Before World War II the closest thing
America
had to an intelligence or security agency was the FBI. Thirty-five years later the American intelligence community consists of ten major agencies with more than 150,000 employees and an aggregate annual budget of just under $6.3 billion.

The best-known and most important member of the community is the Central Intelligence Agency, the department created by the National Security Act of 1947 to coordinate all of
America
's intelligence activity for the President. The CIA director runs his own agency and serves as the director of Central Intelligence (DCI), the titular head of the entire intelligence community. Officially the DCI overseees the Defense Intelligence Agency, the armed services' intelligence branches, the National Security Agency, the State-Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the. Internal Security Division of the FBI, the Atomic Energy Commission's Division of Intelligence and the Treasury Department's small intelligence unit. In reality, the DCI's fiefdom consists of fiercely independent bureaucratic entities resisting outside supervision. As Admiral Rufus Taylor, former head of Naval Intelligence and a former CIA deputy director,, noted,
America
's intelligence community resembles "a tribal federation."

The organizational chart of the
U.S.
intelligence community shows a maze of crossing communication and control lines, with management and liaison committees scattered in what the official bureaucratic cartographer and chief planner claim is a representative picture of orderly decision-making process. Since the orderly decision-making process is usually an unadmitted operating myth, any validity the chart has is purely coincidental.

On the subcommittee level alone, there are fifteen interagency groups whose job it is to coordinate the intelligence and security "product." On top of these small subcommittees sit eight important coordinating groups. Black lines on the organization chart connect all these groups to the various members of the intelligence community. All the black lines eventually lead to the President. A small box in the chart's upper left-hand corner encloses Congress. No black lines connect Congress to anything. The chart shows no place for the judiciary.

The most visible and prominent of the coordinating groups is the National Security Council, a group whose composition varies with each change of Presidential administration. The NSC always includes the President and Vice President, and usually includes most of the major Cabinet members. The NSC is the legislated overseer of, and policymaker for, the intelligence community.

But probably the most important group in the American intelligence community is the Forty Committee. Secret Order 54/12 created the Forty Committee early in the Eisenhower years. Its existence was virtually unknown to the outside world until reporters David Wise and Thomas Ross exposed it in their landmark book on the American intelligence community, The Invisible Government. Largely because of' that exposure, this committee, which was then known as the 54/12 Group, underwent a series of identity changes and at various times has been called the Special Group and the 303 Committee.

The Forty Committee is very small. Its composition also varies with each administration, but its duties remain basically the same. It is to the Forty Committee that agencies go for approval of their operations and plans, and it is the Forty Committee which is the major guiding hand for the intelligence community. The Forty Committee was originally created to help keep the mushrooming community under control. The degree to which the committee succeeds at that task is largely influenced by the President. It is the President who ultimately decides who will serve on the Forty Committee and how they will serve.

In the Kennedy and Johnson administrations the key man on the Forty Committee was George Bundy. The other members were McCone, McNamara, Roswell Gilpatric and U. Alexis Johnson. in the Nixon and Ford years by far the most important man in American intelligence was Henry Kissinger. Kissinger chaired the Forty Committee. Among others who served with Kissinger on Forty were CIA Director William Colby, Deputy Secretary of State Robert S. Ingersoll, Deputy Secretary of Defense William P. Clements, Jr., and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General George S. Brown.

The Forty Committee most recently came into national prominence when the cover blew off its approval of massive CIA covert activities against
Chile
's Marxist government, measures which contributed greatly to the 1973 coup which left Chilean President Allende dead and a tough military junta in power. The Forty Committee's major task, however, that of coordinating and governing the intelligence community, is still not understood by the majority of the American public.

The overseeing functions of the Forty Committee are a massive problem. To a large degree the committee must rely on the work of the other liaison committees and on the members of the community themselves. Its problem is a classic government dilemma: The overseers must depend on those they oversee for much of the information necessary for regulation. The Forty Committee usually acts as a ratifier of policy "suggestions" sent to it by those it supervises. It is like the farmer depending on the fox to help him guard the chickens.

The Forty Committee can also initiate policy. It must act through a system composed of jealously guarded bureaucratic empires. Even on those rare occasions when all the members of the community are working together, the fragmented authority of the agencies is a major obstacle. For example, if an American scientist spies on this country while employed by NASA then defects to
Russia
and continues his spying based out of
France
, which American agency is responsible for his neutralization? The FBI, since he began his activities under its jurisdiction, or the CIA, since he shifted to activities under its purview? In an area where petty bureaucratic rivalries escalate into open confrontations obscuring the original mission, such questions take on major import.

Shortly after it was formed, the Forty Committee tried to solve the problems of internal information and fragmented authority. Forty established a small special security section, a section with no identity save for that of the staff of the Forty Committee. The special section officially maintains an "informal" existence. The section is not shown on any organizational chart. The original Forty hoped this, "informer” status would keep the special staff group free of Parkinson's inexorable bureaucratic laws. Their successors on Forty still cling to that hope, although time and events have greatly eroded their optimistic base.

The special section's duties include liaison work, and the director of the special section serves on a liaison board composed of leading staff members from all intelligence agencies. The liaison board is usually referred to as Staff Liaison Board. The director has the power to arbitrate jurisdictional disputes, although his decisions are subject to review by the Forty Committee and the DCL The special section also has the responsibility of independently evaluating all the information given to the Forty Committee by the intelligence community. But most important, the special section is given the power to perform "such necessary security function as extraordinary circumstances might dictate, subject to Group [the Forty Committee] regulation.

To help the special section perform its duties, the Forty Committee assigned a small staff to the section chief and allows him to draw on other major security and intelligence groups for further personnel and authority.

Forty knows it has created a potential problem. The special section could follow the natural tendency of most government organizations and grow in size and awkwardness, thereby becoming a part of the problem it was created to solve. The special section, small though it is, has tremendous power as well as tremendous potential. A small mistake by the section could be a problem of great magnitude. Forty supervises its creation cautiously. Forty keeps a firm check on any bureaucratic growth potentials in the section, carefully reviews its activities, keeps the operational work of the section at a bare minimum and places only extraordinary men in charge of the section.