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CIA Americas Secret Warriors 1/3 — Transcript

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0:06For 50 years, the Central Intelligence
0:09Agency was the vanguard of America's
0:11cold war against the Soviet Empire. Its
0:14heart and soul lay in its ground troops,
0:16the men of the DO, the directorate of
0:19operations.
0:21Secrecy was their shield. Covert action
0:23and espionage their weapons.
0:26He used to call it the great game, but
0:28it was an extremely serious game of life
0:31and death between two superpowers.
0:34You could get killed. It's a dangerous
0:36job.
0:38If you don't, you'll come home having
0:40said it was the best job you ever had.
0:42>> I said, tell Abu Abbas that I'm coming
0:45after him, and when I get to him, I'm
0:48going to kill him.
0:501997 marks a half century for the CIA.
0:55America's secret warriors are finally
0:57emerging from the shadows to tell the
0:58stories of their battles against
1:00communism.
1:02Today, the agency confronts a new world
1:04order fraught with terrorists, global
1:06organized crime, and illegal drugs. It
1:09must now pass its most crucial test yet.
1:11Learning from its past, finding a new
1:14role for the future. The two oldest
1:16professions in the world are
1:17prostitution and espionage. They go back
1:20to biblical times.
1:23They've always been done in exactly the
1:26same way for centuries.
1:29Now, does anybody think they're going to
1:31be changed in the 21st century just
1:34because the American people don't like
1:36the idea?
1:58The body of William Colby, director of
2:00the CIA in the mid1 1970s, washed up
2:02today on a river bank in southeastern
2:04Maryland. A police spokesman said that
2:06Colby had apparently drowned while
2:08canoeing more than a week ago.
2:20When William Colby died in May 1996,
2:24some saw his memorial as the last rights
2:26for the CIA itself.
2:29William Colby served his nation as a spy
2:32who saw himself firstly as a public
2:35servant, especially during that sinister
2:38political season we called the Cold War.
2:42They were a brotherhood, a bold and
2:45secret fraternity respected, feared, and
2:47reviled throughout the world.
2:50William Colby was a charter member who
2:52personified its highest aspirations and
2:55presided over some of its most brutal
2:57failures.
3:00>> He has been called a soldiered priest or
3:02a soldier monk. But I would say that the
3:04combination of those two qualities makes
3:06a very good intelligence officer. A
3:08combination of having the moral high
3:10ground and a an ability to be ruthless
3:13when you have to be.
3:20For the secret warriors, the world was
3:22the battleground. They were the
3:24guardians of the AY's mystique and
3:26reputation.
3:28A small cadre who fought the covert wars
3:30of sabotage, propaganda, and subversion.
3:35These were the men of the DO,
3:37the Directorate of Operations.
3:41The essence and the soul of the CIA is
3:44in the Directorate of Operations. You
3:46know, that's what's special about CIA.
3:48>> The DO is the CIA. Without the DO, the
3:51CIA looks like Rand Corporation or
3:53anything else.
3:54>> The director of operations has become
3:57really the president's last centurions.
3:59They will march for him. Whatever party
4:02he comes from,
4:05>> the Secret Warriors marched for nine
4:07presidents during the Cold War. Today,
4:09their legacy is tarnished and faded. But
4:12in the beginning, they were among
4:13America's best and brightest.
4:23It started with Pearl Harbor.
4:27The surprise attack that brought America
4:29into World War II should have been no
4:31surprise at all.
4:33The military had compiled enough
4:35intelligence to know that the Japanese
4:36were coming, but failed to put the
4:39pieces together.
4:42William Wild Bill Donovan, a World War I
4:44hero and Wall Street lawyer, was brought
4:46in by President Roosevelt to head the
4:48Office of Strategic Services, the OSS.
4:52Donovan's mission was to bring America's
4:54intelligence operations under one roof.
4:57He had a tremendous field for people. He
4:59had that knack. He remembered every
5:01name. He remembered every scene. So when
5:03Roosevelt gave him the go-ahead to set
5:05up this office, why he wrote to the top
5:07university people, to the top banking
5:08people, to the top business people, to
5:10the top scientists, the top engineers,
5:12he got them all to come to Washington
5:14like a pipe piper to the tables at
5:19the place where
5:21the dear old
5:25>> Yale University spawned many officers of
5:27the OSS and later the CIA.
5:31It was a world of establishment ties and
5:33secret societies, small elite
5:35fraternities that became the model for
5:37the intelligence brotherhood.
5:40>> The senior societies are very important
5:42at Yale. There was about 90 people out
5:44of 700 who graduated who were in them
5:47and they were not all the outstanding
5:50people but they tended to be people who
5:52had accomplished something and it was I
5:55guess that horrible word male bonding
5:57but I mean you got to know these people
5:59very very well. We are poor little lambs
6:02who have lost our way.
6:08>> Jack Northrup graduated from Yale in
6:101943. From his class alone, 42 men went
6:14into the intelligence service. Among the
6:16insiders, the OSS earned the nickname oh
6:20social.
6:21A lot of these Ivy Leaguers, the sons of
6:24JP Morgan and various others, all
6:26collected around OSS because they
6:29thought, "This is going to be
6:30interesting work. Donovan's a leader.
6:32We'll get in there and win the war."
6:36>> Richard Helms, a Williams College
6:38graduate, played a key role in
6:40organizing Donovan's European Spy
6:42Network, the intelligence gathering arm
6:44of the OSS.
6:47William Colby came out of Princeton and
6:49worked the covert action arm of the OSS.
6:53>> You were dropped into some resistance
6:55area and then you were supposed to bring
6:57in more guns and more explosive and so
7:00forth and report intelligence that you
7:02learned, help them organize, train them
7:05on some of the new weapons that they'd
7:06never seen, that sort of thing.
7:10When World War II ended, the United
7:13States hoped its victory would usher in
7:14a new era of peace. The armed forces
7:17were demobilized and the OSS was
7:19disbanded.
7:23But Stalin's Red Army occupied Eastern
7:26Europe and the Soviet Empire was taking
7:28aim at capitalism around the world.
7:33Here was another totalitarianism,
7:36the same kind of threat that we'd faced
7:38from Hitler. same expansionist
7:40totalitarian power that we had to stand
7:43up to. Well, obviously intelligence is
7:45part of that.
7:46>> Old enemies became new friends as the
7:49free world faced the communist threat.
7:52General Reinhardt Galen had been
7:54Hitler's commander of intelligence
7:55against the Soviet military. He was
7:57recruited by US intelligence to head a
7:59team of ex-Nazis who were paid to be
8:01America's eyes and ears behind the Iron
8:04Curtain. It was the first in a long
8:06history of unholy alliances.
8:09>> You never like to use Nazis, but we
8:11needed their information. They had a a
8:13very good intelligence operation on the
8:16Soviet army and on the board and they've
8:18been working there for a long time. I
8:20just felt it was a necessary thing to
8:21don't like to kill people either, but
8:23you know, if you're in the Marine Corps
8:25and you're on a coral reef, you're
8:26attacking a Carl reef, you don't worry
8:28too much about the fact you're killing
8:29Japanese to take the island. The world
8:33is tired of political fanaticism.
8:37>> National security became the national
8:39priority. In July 1947, President Harry
8:43Truman signed the act that gave birth to
8:45the Central Intelligence Agency.
8:49The CIA's mandate was to help the
8:51president of the United States contain
8:53the Soviet menace. When diplomacy or
8:56military action was inadvisable or
8:57impossible, the president could turn to
9:00his secret warriors. Their operations
9:02would be hidden not only from America's
9:04foes, but also from its elected
9:06officials and its citizens. If a covert
9:09action was discovered, the president
9:11could disavow knowledge of it. This
9:13doctrine came to be called plausible
9:15deniability.
9:20At Republican headquarters, a tremendous
9:22ovation greets the president-elect and
9:24the next first lady, a deeming Ike and a
9:27radiant baby. The long campaign is over.
9:30The American Eisenhower took office. He
9:32brought with him two brothers to run a
9:34foreign policy dedicated to stopping
9:36communism in its tracks.
9:38John Foster Dulles, a Wall Street power
9:41broker, took over as Secretary of State.
9:44Allan Dulles, a dapper Princeton OSS man
9:47with an appetite for covert action, was
9:49his shadow counterpart at CIA.
9:52Allan loved the great game. He'd had
9:54tremendous experience as a really as a
9:56case officer as head of OSS in
9:58Switzerland during the war. and uh he
10:00had a tremendous enthusiasm, great
10:03charm.
10:04He was sometimes called the great white
10:06case officer.
10:09Only months after taking office, the
10:11Eisenhower Dulles covert action program
10:14began to pay dividends.
10:19Former Premier Mussed's ruined house is
10:22a mute testimony to three days of bloody
10:24rioting culminating.
10:25>> In 1953, when Iran's prime minister
10:28threatened to nationalize British
10:29American oil interests, the CIA took
10:32action. A few agency officers hired a
10:35local mob to protest against the
10:36government. Mosedc was toppled. The
10:39pro-American sha was returned to power.
10:42The Brotherhood had orchestrated its
10:44first coup. The sha who had fled to Rome
10:46comes home. Iranian oil may again flow
10:50westward.
10:53>> In Guatemala a year later, it was
10:55bananas instead of oil. A popularly
10:58elected left-wing government threatened
11:00to seize property to give to the
11:01peasants. The plantations belonged to
11:04Guatemala's largest land owner,
11:05America's United Fruit Company. The
11:08Dulles brothers, who had close ties to
11:10the corporate giant, saw a communist
11:12menace looming south of the border.
11:15It wasn't anything but business
11:16interest. Had nothing to do with
11:18communism. It just had the fact that the
11:20the government had taken over land that
11:23belonged to the United Fruit Company and
11:25they can't do that.
11:27>> Philip Reinger, a former marine, was one
11:29of the CIA's men assigned to Guatemala.
11:32The CIA disguised old American planes to
11:34look like Guatemalan rebel aircraft and
11:36faked radio reports to create the
11:38illusion of a mass revolt.
11:41There were several stations being
11:42broadcast and they staged things like uh
11:45uh uh colonel now move your troops over
11:48this way and then uh Colonel so and so
11:50and then uh and then try and of course
11:52they didn't have any colonels or
11:53anything but they would would make it
11:55sound like there was there was a regular
11:57army invasion. It was a wild you know I
12:01thought at the time I said this cannot
12:02work which won't work but it did work.
12:08The assault has begun on the
12:09dictatorship of Fidel Castro. Cuban army
12:12pilot.
12:13>> The Brotherhood led by Alan Dulles was
12:14on a roll, but the great game ran a
12:17ground in 1961 at Cuba's Bay of Pigs.
12:20The CIA trained and armed a brigade of
12:22Cuban exiles to attack the island in the
12:24hope of provoking the people to
12:25overthrow Fidel Castro.
12:29The illconceived operation was a
12:31disaster, and worse, the agency failed
12:33to conceal its role. There was no
12:36plausible deniability for the new
12:37president, John F. Kennedy.
12:39>> As I've said from the beginning, the
12:40operation was a failure and that the
12:43responsibility rests with the White
12:45House.
12:46>> Kennedy was livid. Privately, he said
12:48that he wanted to smash the CIA into a
12:51thousand pieces. A few months later, he
12:53fired Alan Dulles. The man who molded
12:56the CIA's mission and mystique was
12:58shamed. The Brotherhood was no longer
13:01invisible or invincible.
13:07Let the word go forth from this time and
13:10place to friend and foe alike
13:15that the torch has been passed to a new
13:18generation of Americans.
13:20>> The clarion call of John Kennedy's
13:22presidency inspired a new generation of
13:25college students. ask not.
13:27>> We had an incredibly large amount of
13:30faith in the institutions of government
13:32at the time. And within every campus
13:34just about in the United States were a
13:36number of of educators uh professors
13:40that were in fact spotting for CIA, for
13:43Peace Corps, for anybody the the the
13:45foreign service. And we had an America
13:47incorporated that had a common goal of
13:49some sort. what I I saw my life as is uh
13:53advancing the interests of the American
13:55people or government in foreign affairs
13:59and and really it was you can say as as
14:02naive and as simple as that.
14:04>> I can't get over the feeling that I had
14:07when I showed up. This was an outfit
14:10that had an image that only the best and
14:12brightest from the Ivy League schools
14:13with tremendous political connections
14:15got in the door. And the truth of the
14:17matter is I was really grateful to be
14:19there.
14:20>> I considered the agency at that time as
14:23something like an adult boy scouts who
14:26were looking then for young active men
14:30to handle their paramilitary operations.
14:35>> America's young commander-in-chief was
14:38also James Bond's most famous fan.
14:40Though he had been burned badly by the
14:42Bay of Pigs, Kennedy was still intrigued
14:44by the possibilities of covert action.
14:47Kennedy brought forth the romance of
14:52counterinsurgency warfare to fight this
14:54new type of warfare, this secret
14:56warfare, and we in essence were the
14:59secret warriors caught up in his
15:01movement. Security of all Southeast Asia
15:05will be endangered if Laos loses its
15:09neutral independence.
15:10>> As the countries of Southeast Asia began
15:12to liberate themselves from colonial
15:13rule, the US government worried that
15:16they would turn to communism. A crucial
15:18test came in the tiny country of Laos.
15:23By 1961,
15:25communist insurgents were beginning to
15:27make headway against the American backed
15:28ocean government. Kennedy ordered the
15:30CIA to keep them at bay. The secret
15:33warriors went high into the mountains to
15:35recruit and train native Mung tribesmen.
15:37They would be taught to counter the
15:39Soviet back gorillas, the Pathet Lao.
15:43One of the first men there was Tony Poe,
15:46a hardrinking marine veteran of Ewoima
15:49and Korea. He had also taken part in a
15:51daring rescue of the Daly Lama from the
15:52communist Chinese.
15:55Some claim he was the model for Colonel
15:57Curts, the character played by Marlon
15:59Brando in Apocalypse Now.
16:02>> Why the old moon wine pota
16:05looking eastward to the sea. There's a
16:09Burma girl sitting and I know she thinks
16:12of me for the wind is in the palm trees
16:16and the temple crying all that crap.
16:19>> A lot of people who were on their way to
16:20Laos wanted to work with Tony. He had
16:22that kind of reputation. I was, I
16:25suppose, a little bit in awe of him. He
16:27was a little bit larger than life.
16:31>> George, I'm going to give you a
16:32>> I was the new kid on the block and he
16:34was a big, strong, aggressive individual
16:37and demanded an awful lot of the people
16:40working for him.
16:40>> Do you remember when I first came to
16:42know you?
16:42>> Yeah.
16:42>> You got off the airplane
16:44>> and you picked me up and threw me back
16:45on the airplane. Is that what you did to
16:48really do that?
16:49>> Yes, he did. George Kenning got out of
16:51college, wanted action, and made the
16:53grade in the CIA. He heard about Tony
16:55Poe and became his protege.
17:00Colin Thompson was an idealistic Yale
17:02man who also signed on for the secret
17:04war in Laos.
17:06To me, at that age, sounded a lot more
17:08interesting than than walking the
17:09streets in Berlin or someplace. So I
17:12went up country, got in my little
17:14airplane with Air America and flew up
17:16and circled around in the mountains
17:17allows waiting for the clouds to lift so
17:19we could pop them down into Long Chang,
17:21which at that time was really very
17:22primitive.
17:24And Tony was living in a tent really. He
17:27used parachutes for his ceiling. And
17:28that was very sexy. Frankly, we thought
17:31that was pretty pretty hot stuff.
17:33>> To supply the war, the CIA set up its
17:36own secret airfleet, Air America.
17:41Masquerading as a civilian airline, Air
17:43America was manned by a collection of
17:45XGIs and chopper jockeyies.
17:51>> For many of Air America's pilots, Laos
17:54was the defining experience of their
17:56lives.
17:5730 years later, they still gather every
18:00year to relive their exploits.
18:02>> I don't know what they saw, but the
18:04flying saucer went like that. I don't
18:05think the F84s even saw it.
18:07>> A missionary flying for the Christians
18:09in action.
18:10which is the CIA.
18:12>> Yeah. He said they're going to kill you.
18:14I said, "Hey, bae.
18:17>> Nobody kills Tony Poe."
18:19>> Yeah.
18:20>> Tony Poe remains their hero. A living
18:23legend.
18:24>> Hey, if I told you some of the things
18:26that I did, you wouldn't. You say you're
18:28a liar. You couldn't do it. I was
18:31involved in the most beautiful
18:35killing operations of
18:39No. and but I could do it
18:41>> because uh I'm a little bit
18:43unconventional.
18:45>> So they're always asking Tony, "Well,
18:47how do you know you killed so many
18:49people?"
18:51And Tony would basically say, "Well,
18:53that's my word. You don't trust me? You
18:55know, send me home." Hey, the guy say,
18:58"How many did you kill today?" The body
19:00count on the radio at night time. I had
19:02a machine gun section.
19:06Well, I said, "I've got eight pair of
19:08ears on my belt here." I said, "How's
19:10that?" He said, "Well, I want to see
19:12him." Plain Manila envelope arrives from
19:15up country addressed to Charlie to
19:17Whitey as he was known, Whitey. And uh
19:21from Tony and I just happened to be in
19:24his office at the time and he opens up
19:26the office, opens up the envelope, and
19:28outspill about two dozen years.
19:31Yeah.
19:33>> OH, NO. 2000 800 400
19:39>> I think even looking back if I had it
19:41all to do over there again I wouldn't
19:42have wanted any other job
19:45>> those days I jumped a lot even without a
19:46helmet
19:47>> that's probably what's wrong with me now
19:50>> Bill Lair a native Texan who still lives
19:53in Thailand was the CIA's key strategist
19:55in Laos it was Lair who trained the M to
19:58fight the communist guerrillas he chose
20:01Van Pow a local leader to head the CIA's
20:04proxy the army which eventually grew to
20:06number some 30,000.
20:08>> When they approved to arm the first 300
20:10men, we asked Wangpa to pick a place
20:13that was as far away and difficult to
20:14reach as possible to give us time to to
20:17drop the the first 300 weapons and to
20:19train the people. And I asked him, you
20:21know, how long would it take the
20:22communist to get up there? Cuz once we
20:24start dropping, they're going to know.
20:25And he said about 3 days. So we said,
20:27"All right, we'll come up with the 3-day
20:31training."
20:36The communist forces came right on
20:38schedule
20:39and the moon routed them very easily.
20:44>> There were early signs of success in
20:45Laos, but in 1965, the US decided to
20:49pursue a more conventional military
20:51strategy in Southeast Asia.
20:55Kennedy's secret warriors were
20:57overshadowed by Lynden Johnson's B-52s
21:00and American GIS.
21:02Bill Lair saw where things were heading
21:04and decided to leave Laos in 1968.
21:08>> My expertise was in the pure guerilla
21:10warfare and that sort of thing. this was
21:12going in a different direction and uh
21:15somebody else could do it as well as I
21:17could
21:18and it was probably better for me to
21:20leave because I wouldn't have uh felt
21:22good doing something I didn't believe
21:23in.
21:25>> Many of the CIA officers in Laos were
21:27dismayed by the US abandonment of their
21:29guerilla adventure.
21:32They left behind 80,000 dead M allies
21:36and the scattered remains of an ancient
21:37culture.
21:39>> It was very depressing. Had they
21:41continued with the paramilitary type
21:43program, it certainly would have been at
21:45a far less cost in lives and uh
21:48everything else. In other words, we we
21:50could have lost a lot cheaper.
21:54>> Everybody said we lost the goddamn
21:57[ __ ]
21:57>> Good for you.
21:58>> The goddamn politicians lost it.
22:00>> The Brotherhood's secret war in Laos was
22:03eclipsed by a much more public war. All
22:05eyes turned to a neighboring country,
22:08Vietnam.
22:24William Colby had commanded the CIA's
22:26operation in Laos. In 1968, he was
22:29reassigned to Saigon, where he set up a
22:32covert action to root out communists in
22:34the South Vietnamese countryside. It
22:36would become one of the most notorious
22:38operations in the CIA's history.
22:41>> I ran the so-called pacification program
22:43there, which was again a business of
22:46helping the people to defend themselves
22:48with local forces to back them up. I was
22:52responsible for handing out 500,000
22:55weapons to the people in the villages in
22:58Vietnam. Not to the soldiers, not to the
23:00police, but to the people.
23:03Ralph McGee, a veteran CIA officer, was
23:06assigned to Phoenix and soon had grave
23:08doubts about the program.
23:10>> The Phoenix program was based on the
23:12concept that the communist movement in
23:15Vietnam consisted of gerillas who were
23:18terrorizing people, forcing them to
23:20cooperate, when in essence the uh the
23:24majority of the villagers were loyal
23:27communists who would dedicate their
23:28lives to fighting the Americans.
23:32So we were fighting a war in Vietnam
23:35that had nothing to do with reality.
23:41Thousands of innocent people were swept
23:43up in an operation that grew more and
23:45more out of control.
23:51The Phoenix program was a real
23:54nightmare. People were being arrested,
23:56interrogated, tortured. The Phoenix
24:00teams were being sent out to assassinate
24:03and capture the leadership of the
24:05communist movement. The ace of spades
24:08was the calling card for Phoenix teams
24:11that killed an estimated 40,000
24:13Vietnamese.
24:16For McGee, Phoenix took a devastating
24:19personal toll.
24:20>> Here was my faith in the this wonderful
24:23organization I was part of. Here's my
24:25faith in my country that I was so proud
24:27of. Here is my faith and everything we
24:30were doing I was so proud of. It just
24:31shattered at at one point. Uh I was
24:36sitting in my villa and I was drinking a
24:38martina martini and I oh my god I just I
24:41just threw my my glass at the wall and
24:44it shattered and uh I thought about my
24:48gun upstairs that that I should
24:50considered uh killing myself.
24:54Ralph McGee eventually left the agency
24:57and has been an outspoken critic ever
24:59since.
25:09>> By 1968, the Vietnam War was bitterly
25:12dividing America. So too did it tear at
25:15the heart and soul of the CIA
25:16Brotherhood. Its unquestioned mission
25:19was beginning to unravel.
25:35In the 1960s and 70s, Latin America was
25:39exploding.
25:43The CIA's biggest fear that Fidel Castro
25:46would export revolution was coming true.
25:49We financed operations wherein they
25:52placed bombs in churches in different
25:55parts of the country and left behind
25:56prouba propaganda.
25:58This would then stimulate uh enormous
26:01demonstrations against communism.
26:03>> Philip AG was among the promising young
26:06CIA officers helping military
26:08governments stem the revolutionary tide.
26:10He was stationed in Uruguay where his
26:12agents infiltrated communist groups for
26:14the local police.
26:16I was uh in the police chief's office
26:18with my boss at the time, John Horton,
26:21and suddenly I hear something strange.
26:24It's like a a wailing coming through the
26:27walls.
26:31It got louder and louder and screaming
26:33and then uh moaning and horrible sounds
26:36and it was quite clear that somebody was
26:39being tortured and we were hearing it. I
26:42realized what I was working to support
26:46and I didn't want to do that anymore.
26:49>> In 1969,
26:51Ag did the unthinkable. He quit the CIA
26:54and decided to write a diary that
26:56exposed secret CIA operations.
26:59No one inside the Brotherhood had ever
27:01broken his oath of secrecy.
27:03>> It was not enough simply to describe
27:05what the CIA does. It was important to
27:08neutralize and I don't mean kill I mean
27:11neutralize the effectiveness of
27:12everybody doing it and that's why I was
27:15involved after my first came book came
27:17out in the exposure of hundreds and
27:19hundreds of CIA people around the world
27:22he betrayed everybody he knew every
27:25person that thought he was a friend or a
27:28colleague he betrayed
27:30>> John Horton was station chief in Uruguay
27:32AG's boss and one of his confidants
27:36>> isn't just a matter of his giving away
27:38secrets. He was spoiling the lives and
27:40careers of people that knew him and
27:42trusted him. Think of betrayal. And I
27:45think you can understand uh how I feel
27:48about Ag.
27:54Ag branded a defector and traitor by the
27:56brotherhood went into exile in Europe.
27:59His book was part of an avalanche of
28:02revelations hurled down on the agency as
28:05the press began to focus on 30 years of
28:07proxy wars and dirty tricks. In
28:10September of 1974, as the book went to
28:12the printer, the revelations came out
28:14about the CIA's intervention in Chile to
28:18provoke the overthrow of Salvador Aende.
28:23President Richard Nixon had ordered the
28:25CIA to destabilize Aende's socialist
28:28democracy.
28:33The agency orchestrated strikes, food
28:35shortages, and finally the coup that
28:38killed the Chilean leader.
28:49When the story broke in 1974, Congress,
28:52fed up with the lies of Vietnam and
28:54Watergate, went after the CIA with a
28:57vengeance.
28:58The attitude in the White House seemed
29:00to be, "If in the wake of Vietnam, I can
29:03no longer send send in the Marines, then
29:06I will send in the CIA."
29:08>> Inquy into the
29:09>> The Senate investigation headed by
29:11Senator Frank Church began to blow the
29:13Brotherhood's secret operations wide
29:16open. A shocked nation heard about
29:19hundreds of covert operations, including
29:21one program Richard Helms helped
29:23institute back in the 1950s, secret drug
29:26experiments.
29:27Do you know Reaper? Reaper. Reaper.
29:29>> Do you know what day it is today, Cap?
29:31>> Yeah.
29:32>> What?
29:34Tell me.
29:35>> What day of the week?
29:36>> Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's all
29:37about me.
29:39>> The CIA and the Pentagon had feared that
29:41the Soviets were conducting mind control
29:43experiments with a new substance called
29:45LSD. The US military began its own
29:48experiments with the drug, using
29:50American soldiers as subjects.
29:52>> I can't remember.
29:53>> Come on, man. I don't want this. The CIA
29:55tested unwitting Americans in an
29:57operation called MK Ultra. It hired a
30:00federal narcotics agent, George Hunter
30:01White, to run it. White then brought a
30:04bureau colleague, Ike Feldman, into the
30:05operation.
30:06>> He says, "We have some mindbending
30:08drugs." And he says, "I'd like you to
30:11see what they're all about and let me
30:13know so I can tell the people in
30:15Washington."
30:17>> The CIA gave Whit and Feldman immunity
30:19to set up brothel to conduct sex and
30:21drug experiments. Long before Timothy
30:23Liry in the psychedelic 60s, the CIA was
30:26running its own acid tests.
30:29>> I would go to various bars, massage
30:32parlors. I said, "Honey, I want you to
30:33do a favor for me." Yeah. I said, "I
30:35want you to pick up Joe Blow,
30:38take him to the apartment, give him a
30:39blowjob." And while he's there, I want
30:42you to ask him, "Hey, you know that
30:43airplane? How high did it fly?"
30:46>> Hundreds of the AY's most tightly held
30:48secrets were revealed in a series of
30:50congressional probes. The so-called
30:52family jewels were described in detail
30:54by its new director, William Colby.
30:57>> Have you brought with you some of those
30:59devices which would have enabled the CIA
31:02to use this poison for killing people?
31:06We have indeed.
31:07>> Colby stunned the country with the most
31:10controversial secret of all, the CIA's
31:12numerous attempts to assassinate foreign
31:14leaders. Don't
31:16>> Don't point it at me.
31:21One of the main targets of the AY's
31:23exotic arsenal was Fidel Castro.
31:26>> What they wanted me to do was see if I
31:30could recruit somebody to get into Cuba
31:35to either kill Castro or dope his drinks
31:40or do something to make him look like a
31:42damn fool. have any reason to think that
31:44it might say how, if at all, this
31:46material was used in an aggressive way
31:49against someone to kill someone.
31:50>> Well, there may well be some of that.
31:52>> The hearings showed that under the
31:53Kennedy administration, the CIA had
31:55hatched two dozen schemes to kill
31:57Castro, including one to infect him with
31:59bachulism.
32:01Another plot involved hiring mafia
32:02hitmen to murder the Cuban president.
32:07when it was Kennedy, not Castro, who was
32:09killed. Some in the agency worried that
32:11their Cuban operation may have
32:13tragically backfired.
32:17CIA officer Sam Halpern, who had worked
32:19on the Castro problem, was at lunch with
32:21his boss when they got the fateful news
32:23from Dallas.
32:25>> All we had from the head waiter was the
32:26president had been shot. At that point,
32:28we didn't even know he had been killed.
32:30And I called for the staff car to come
32:31get us to bring us back to the agency.
32:34And while we were waiting for the staff
32:35car, the only thing that I said to Dez
32:39was, "I hope it's got nothing to do with
32:42Cuba."
32:43>> In 1978, Richard Helms was grilled about
32:46covering up the Castro plots.
32:48>> Or why didn't you tell the Warren
32:50Commission about the efforts to get rid
32:52of Fidel Castro or to overthrow the
32:55Cuban government?
32:57>> But Mr. Dodd, you're singling me out as
32:59to why I didn't march up until the
33:01Warren Commission when these operations
33:03against uh Cuba were known to the
33:06attorney general of the United States,
33:08the secretary of defense, the secretary
33:10of state, the assistant to the president
33:12for national security affairs, the
33:14president of the United States himself,
33:15although he at that point was dead. I
33:18mean, all kinds of people knew about
33:20these operations high up in the
33:21government. Now why am I
33:23>> Helms was not about to let the CIA take
33:25the fall
33:26>> identified a
33:27>> originally there was a concept abroad
33:30that these covert action matters would
33:33be handled in a nonattributable way in
33:36other words if they blew up they
33:38wouldn't blow back on the president or
33:41the white house but all through this
33:44period of time the president of the
33:46United States has been aware of and has
33:48been approving all of these covert
33:50actions
33:52After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President
33:54Kennedy had authorized a new CIA effort
33:56to destroy Castro and his economy.
33:59Operation Mongoose.
34:00>> John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert
34:03Kennedy, who was the attorney general,
34:05were very insistent on having action
34:08right away. They wanted what they called
34:10boom and bang.
34:11>> There isn't any doubt as to who was
34:12running that effort. It was Bobby
34:14Kennedy
34:17on behalf of his brother. It wasn't
34:20anybody else.
34:23>> You've heard of the doctrine of
34:25plausible deniability.
34:26>> Yes. And I've rejected it. Uh now,
34:29Senator, I say that uh we cannot depend
34:31upon that anymore.
34:33>> The question I was going to put to you
34:34is
34:35>> the investigations were taking a
34:36terrible toll on the agency. Americans
34:39were outraged by what they were hearing
34:41and two of the Brotherhood's leaders
34:42were set against each other. It was
34:44brother against brother. Helms remained
34:47defiant while Colby cooperated.
34:49>> They were out of the old tradition, we
34:51don't talk at all, just silent,
34:54stonewall. And it was my feeling that
34:57that wouldn't work. That Congress had
35:00the constitutional authority. And it was
35:03a matter of trying to convince them that
35:05this was a very valuable agency. Colby
35:09was also pressured to reveal that his
35:10former colleague Richard Helms had lied
35:12to Congress about the CIA's involvement
35:14in Chile.
35:16>> Helms was fined and given a suspended
35:18sentence for lying to Congress.
35:20>> Told me to do as long as the matter is
35:22in the court. I'm saying nothing.
35:28>> To the end, Helms held to the
35:30Brotherhood's code of silence.
35:33He became known as the man who kept the
35:36secrets.
35:37Certainly I was secure. I didn't talk
35:41about operations. I didn't talk about
35:43agents. I didn't talk about things which
35:45were legitimate secrets of an
35:48intelligence organization. And I kept
35:51the faith in these matters. There was no
35:52doubt about it. And if that's what they
35:55meant by secrets, I did keep the
35:56secrets.
36:00>> Helms and Colby rarely spoke again. And
36:02the brotherhood split ranks behind them.
36:05The church hearings were a watershed.
36:08Permanent congressional committees were
36:09set up to oversee the agency. The
36:12president's secret warriors were no
36:14longer above the law or beyond the reach
36:16of public scrutiny. The glory days were
36:19over.
36:31It took Ronald Reagan's election to
36:33resurrect the CIA.
36:36When Reagan named his campaign manager,
36:38William Casey, to lead the agency, it
36:40ushered in a new era of CIA activism.
36:43Like many of the old boys, Casey came
36:45out of Wall Street and had been an
36:46officer in the OSS.
36:49Like his boss, he was an avid cold
36:51warrior, a welcome lifesaver to a
36:54drowning brotherhood.
36:55>> Casey liked operations officers.
36:58He assumed they were actionoriented.
37:02>> He loved this
37:04maybe
37:06not wisely, but certainly more um than
37:11his most of his outside predecessors and
37:14successors did.
37:20Together, Reagan and Casey revived
37:22America's war against communism. They
37:24launched their first attack in Central
37:26America.
37:29>> If we do nothing, if we continue to
37:32provide too little help, our choice will
37:34be a communist Central America with
37:37additional communist military bases on
37:39the mainland of this hemisphere and
37:41communist subversion spreading southward
37:43and northward.
37:44>> The president backed his words with
37:45money and manpower. Hundreds of CIA
37:48officers were hired. The company was
37:50back in business. went up and saw Casey
37:52and Casey, you know, said hello and and
37:55we talked and he said and we talked
37:57about the Central American thing was it
37:59was the issue of the day and he said
38:02look he said take uh as he of he did he
38:04said you know take off a couple of
38:06months or take a couple of months and
38:08study this problem and then come back to
38:10me uh with a recommendation on on what
38:14we ought to do in Central America.
38:18The number one target was Nicaragua. In
38:211979, the Sandinista Revolution, backed
38:24by Castro and the Soviets, had toppled
38:26dictator Anastasio Samoza and brought a
38:29socialist government to Central America.
38:32Reagan convinced Congress to fund a very
38:34limited CIA operation to prevent the
38:36Sandinista Revolution from spreading.
38:39Then he turned to his secret warriors.
38:43Believe me, it didn't take rocket
38:45science and it didn't take two months
38:48to figure out what ought to be done down
38:50there. Okay? We should take the war to
38:53Nicaragua and we should start killing
38:56Cubans
38:58because if you start making life
38:59difficult for the Cubans in Nicaragua,
39:01maybe they'll go home.
39:03Well, of course, this was exactly what
39:05Casey wanted to hear.
39:09In 1981, only a small band of
39:11anti-sendinista gerillas existed. Then
39:14Dewey Clarage came in with weapons and
39:16money to create the force known as the
39:18Contras.
39:20>> You got to understand for Reagan, the
39:23Contras were his boys. I mean, his boys.
39:27There's no way he was ever going to let
39:30them down. As long as there is breath in
39:32this body, I will speak and work, strive
39:35and struggle for the cause of the
39:37Nicaraguan freedom fighters. People got
39:40to understand this. People say, you
39:42know, that Reagan was asleep at
39:43meetings, so on and so forth. Ice was in
39:45a lot of NSPG meetings, okay? And I
39:49never saw that man asleep. Now, maybe he
39:52was interested in the subject.
39:57remember one time after an NSPG meeting
40:00he said, "You think you can get your
40:02vandals to attack that airport down
40:06there when they bring the MiGs in?" And
40:07I said, "Mr. President, I don't think my
40:10vandals who are your vandals have quite
40:13got the wherewithal to get down into the
40:16planes and attack that airport."
40:19With Reagan's unwavering support, the
40:22CIA operation grew beyond the mission
40:24Congress had originally approved.
40:28The Contras came out of the mountains to
40:30attack small towns and ports.
40:33I'd gone in and shot up the Port of
40:34Corinto to take out the crane, lit the
40:37whole town on fire by hitting all the
40:39oil tanks, but nothing was really
40:41happening in in a real sense.
40:44>> Casey wanted Clarage to pull off
40:45something big to destabilize the
40:47Sandinistas. So I was sitting there and
40:49I was drinking some martinis. It was
40:51late in night.
40:53I was I know I was drinking mart gin on
40:55the rocks and smoking a cigar of course.
41:00And you know it suddenly came to me that
41:02mines was the way to go.
41:06Mining Nicaragua's harbors may have
41:08seemed like a good idea to Clarage and
41:10Casey, but when news reports uncovered
41:12the CIA's role, Americans began to
41:14question funding a war against
41:16civilians. To the public, Reagan's
41:18freedom fighters were looking more like
41:20terrorists. In 1984, Congress outlawed
41:23all aid to the Contras, and Dewey
41:26Clarage was reassigned.
41:28But Casey had other ideas.
41:32The director was
41:34interested in the ability to go to an
41:38existing, as he put it, offtheshelf,
41:41self- sustaining, standalone
41:43entity that could perform certain
41:46activities on behalf of the United
41:48States.
41:50Casey recruited White House aid Oliver
41:52North to head up a secret enterprise
41:54outside the agency to sell arms to Iran
41:57and send the cash to the Contras. Both
41:59were illegal.
42:01Casey had put the CIA in the middle of
42:03another major scandal.
42:06Dwey Clarage was one of several CIA
42:09officers subsequently indicted for lying
42:11to Congress to protect Reagan and Casey.
42:14>> We were all pawns, many of us, in this
42:17fight between the executive and the
42:19Congress in the course of all of this.
42:23The president of the United States and
42:24many others knew exactly what was going
42:27on.
42:30In his 5 years on the job, Casey had
42:32revived the agency, but his Latin
42:35American operations left his reputation
42:37as tarnished as when he started.
42:40In many respects, he was the best
42:43director that we had during my 30 years
42:46with CIA
42:48and sadly will be
42:52in some ways the worst. He was
42:56probably the the leader of the agency
42:59that most loved it or most loved my side
43:01of it. Um, but all that said, I'd have
43:05to say he was a net loss.
43:10A brain tumor killed William Casey
43:12before he was called to account for the
43:13worst CIA crisis in a decade and before
43:16he could stake his claim to what may
43:17have been the CIA's greatest victory,
43:20the defeat of the Soviet army in
43:22Afghanistan.
43:32When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in
43:351979, the Cold War heated up. William
43:39Casey assigned two veteran CIA officers,
43:42Milt Bearden and Frank Anderson, to
43:44supply and train the outmatched Afghan
43:46guerillas known as the Mujahedin.
43:50I like everybody else believed that rag
43:53tag bunches of third world uh insurgents
43:57don't defeat the Red Army.
43:59>> The initial idea was only to bleed the
44:01bear to make the Soviet war in
44:03Afghanistan as costly as possible.
44:06But William Casey wanted more.
44:09I was in Pakistan. I saw Casey one time
44:14and Casey said, "Why don't you go win it
44:17as opposed to let's let's go and fight
44:22to the last Afghan or let's let let's
44:25just bleed the Soviets." No, he said go
44:27win it.
44:31Beardarden and Anderson put together an
44:32exotic coalition of Polish, Egyptian,
44:34and Chinese arms dealers to equip the
44:37fiercely independent Afghan guerillas.
44:41I told them, "Look guys, don't do car
44:44bombs. Don't do truck bombs. There's no
44:47percentages in it. Let's don't do that."
44:50So, they would load a camel up with uh
44:53150 lbs of simax,
44:56uh, plastic explosives, and tie it up
44:58against, uh, a building in in this town
45:01in eastern Afghanistan, which is kind of
45:03like the USO and, uh, can officers
45:06canteen of the Soviet army. And uh when
45:10they're all in there sitting around
45:12drinking their vodkas and watching
45:13whatever they're watching, rip that baby
45:15off and blow up 150 lbs of Simex and a
45:18camel and the Soviet officers club. And
45:21they were very proud to get back to me
45:23and said, "See, Mr. Milt, we did a camel
45:26bomb. We didn't do a truck bomb."
45:29What eventually brought down the Soviets
45:31was the US-made Stinger missile.
45:35Inside the agency, they debated the
45:37future dangers of giving Islamic
45:39fundamentalists such a lethal weapon.
45:41But Casey's priority was beating the
45:43communists, and he prevailed.
45:46>> A flight of Soviet attack helicopters
45:48was moving from Kabell down to this
45:51airfield. They stood up, ripped off the
45:54first stinger of the Great Afghan War,
45:56and it just flew like a great white dart
45:59across this blue sky and popped that
46:03first helicopter. Second gunner loaded
46:05up and they stood there kind of like a a
46:08buffalo stand for about another full
46:11minute and knocked out uh three of these
46:13guys. Pow pow pow.
46:18The helicopter killing stinger turned
46:20the tide in the CIA's last battle of the
46:22Cold War.
46:31After suffering more than 13,000 combat
46:33deaths and a decade of severe economic
46:36strain, the Soviets abandoned the war
46:38against the Mujahadin.
46:41Bearden remembers the day when the last
46:42Soviet troops crossed the bridge to
46:44leave Afghanistan.
46:47That night I went home to Pakistan. You
46:50could see my office from the office of
46:53the KGB resident in Pakistan and he had
46:56asked me on the circuit a number of
46:58times. He said, "Mr. burden. You must be
47:00working very hard all the time because
47:02I'm always seeing the light on in your
47:03office.
47:05And so I kept it on for 3 years just to
47:08kind of jerk this big potato headed KGB
47:11general around and then on the night of
47:1415th February 1989 turn the light off.
47:19The CIA's secret warriors had long
47:22dreamt of helping to defeat the Red
47:24Army.
47:26When Milt Bearden sent the news back to
47:28Langley, they broke out the champagne.
47:34>> We're poor little lambs who have lost
47:38our way.
47:44>> When the cold war suddenly ended, the
47:46CIA lost its enemy in the great game.
47:50After we settled into the Cold War, then
47:53it did become one big contest between
47:57the shirts and the skins. And we were
47:59the shirts and they were the skins. And
48:01your job was to to show up for every
48:04match wherever it was. That's the goal.
48:06eternity.
48:09God have mercy on such as we.
48:15>> And then what happened really was that
48:18one day they didn't show up anymore.
48:26>> The fall of the Iron Curtain had taken
48:28everyone by surprise, even the CIA.
48:31After 40 years on the front lines of the
48:33Cold War, America's secret warriors
48:36found out like everybody else from
48:38television.
48:40>> I'm sitting in my nice corner office in
48:43command of the Soviet East European
48:45Division and clicked on remote control
48:50and there it was. That piece of the wall
48:53had been knocked over and people were
48:56coming through.
48:58For me, it was uh
49:02a moment to rejoice beyond, oh, you
49:04know, and I thought, can you believe
49:06that that's done?
49:10For over four decades, the secret
49:12warriors did the dirty work for an
49:14American foreign policy based on the
49:16belief that the Soviets would never
49:17reform or change.
49:19At their moment of triumph, the CIA
49:22faced a cascade of criticism. They had
49:24failed to foresee the enemy's historic
49:26fall.
49:33The appraisal of the relative strength
49:36or weakness of the Soviet Union has
49:38always been a political appraisal. It
49:40has never been an intelligence
49:42assessment ever, ever, ever. It's only
49:44political.
49:46The Cold War was a political struggle
49:48between two nuclear superpowers.
49:51The president made the key decisions and
49:53his secret warriors decided how to carry
49:55out the orders.
49:58They saw their greatest challenge as
50:00subverting and containing communism
50:02without letting the Cold War escalate
50:04into a hot war.
50:07We did get through this terrible period
50:10in which we threatened each other with
50:1225,000 nuclear warheads on each side and
50:16we didn't destroy the world. That's the
50:19greatest success and intelligence played
50:21a major role in that. Along the way, the
50:24CIA's secret warriors left their
50:26footprints on virtually every continent.
50:28They conducted major operations in at
50:30least 20 countries, as well as hundreds
50:32of smaller covert actions.
50:35Nations were devastated and hundreds of
50:37thousands of people were tortured or
50:39killed in the proxy battles of the Cold
50:41War.
50:43At 50, the Brotherhood's days as a small
50:46elite band of crusaders against
50:48communism are over. Weary from scandal
50:51and the contempt of the public, the
50:53agency has settled into a vast
50:54bureaucracy. Its mission unclear and its
50:57future uncertain.
51:15Yeah.
51:21Heat.
51:37Heat.
52:02Heat.

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