Ralph Walter McGehee Jr (April 9, 1928 – May 2, 2020) was an American
case officer
In intelligence organizations, agent handling is the management of so-called agents (called secret agents or spies in common parlance), principal agents, and agent networks (called "assets") by intelligence officers typically known as case o ...
for the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) for 25 years and an author. From 1953 to 1972, his assignments were in
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...
and
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, where he held administrative posts. After leaving intelligence work in 1977, he publicly expressed views highly critical of the CIA.
Early life
McGehee was born in 1928 at
Moline, Illinois
Moline ( ) is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in 2020, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline, Illinois, East M ...
.
[McGehee, Ralph W(alter) (1928–) in '' Contemporary Authors'' published by ]Gale Cengage
Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007.
The company, formerly known as Gale Research and the Gale G ...
, Thomson Gale
Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007.
The company, formerly known as Gale Research and the Gale Gro ...
(April 26, 2006). His father, originally from
Kentwood, Louisiana
Kentwood is a rural town in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, United States, near the Mississippi state line. The population was 2,198 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Hammond Micropolitan Statistical Area. Kentwood is best known as the home ...
, where his family had lived for three generations, was of Scotch-Irish descent, and had moved to Illinois when a teenager. His mother was from neighboring
Osyka, Mississippi
Osyka is a town in Pike County, Mississippi, United States. It is located on the Mississippi–Louisiana state line. The population was 440 at the 2010 census. It is part of the McComb, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area. The peak of its ...
. Along with his older sister, they then had moved from Moline to Chicago about 1930. While a student at Tilden Tech, a "working class" high school in south Chicago now known as
Tilden High School, he was All State in football, and class president. Although a Baptist, he attended the
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...
where he was a starting tackle on the football team. For the four seasons 1946 to 1949, they never lost a game, and won three national championships. McGehee obtained a B.S. in Business Administration, ''
cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
''.
He married Norma Galbreath in 1948. He had met her at a Presbyterian Church in south
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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while home on vacation from Notre Dame. They had four children, two girls followed by two boys. Often but not always, his wife and children would move their family home to accompany him, while on foreign assignments with the CIA. After graduation from Notre Dame, he tried professional football with the
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...
. Then he coached the offensive line in the football program at the
University of Dayton
The University of Dayton (UD) is a private, Catholic research university in Dayton, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, it is one of three Marianist universities in the nation and the second-largest private university in Ohio. The univ ...
for a year. Returning to Chicago, circa 1951, he took a job as a management trainee at
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...
.
Recruitment by the CIA
In January 1952, McGehee was recruited by the CIA. Decades later, he would describe himself, and his political outlook then, as "gung ho" America, a young
cold warrior
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of Geopolitics, geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term ''Cold war (term), co ...
, ready to go.
Understanding it was an important government job with foreign travel, McGehee first was interviewed at the courthouse. The recruiters declined to name the federal agency that might be his new employer. He traveled from Chicago to Washington, D.C., where he joined a pool of over a 100 candidates, men and women. Several weeks of extensive testing and lectures followed. Having survived this shake out, he began a month-long orientation, which featured cold war rhetoric and films. With 50 men he entered a "basic operations" course on espionage, to fit them for the CIA's
Directorate for Plans. Then with 30 others he attended a six-week paramilitary course at the CIA's Camp Peary (known as the "farm") near
Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it had a population of 15,425. Located on the Virginia Peninsula ...
. Many there were former college football players. The curriculum included parachute jumping, demolition, weapons, and a "hellish obstacle course".
Thereafter he was posted to his initial CIA post.
CIA assignments
Japan and the Philippines, 1953–1956
McGehee was sent to Japan, where he went to work for the China operations group. The group's task was, in conjunction with allied governments, to gather intelligence on the
PRC
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. The group in the Tokyo area supervised and supported four other offices or bases in East Asia (Seoul, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Okinawa). His job "unfortunately" was as a file checker. Yet he appreciated being involved in "the immense and noble effort to save the world from the International Communist Conspiracy".
He lived with his wife and daughters in a beautiful home in
Hayama
260px, Morito Beach
is a town located in Kanagawa Prefecture, on central Honshū, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 32,961 and a population density of 1900 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Since 1894, the Japan ...
. They had a maid and a gardener, and a view of
Mount Fuji
, or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...
. Husband and wife "became intoxicated with the romance of being overseas." There was "a close knit community of Agency families". A son was born to them. Yet his wife would repeat her complaints about CIA rules which prohibited any talk of company business, even within families; she insisted that the "marital bonds and trust" should be the stronger.
After two and a half years, the China operations group moved to
Subic Bay
Subic Bay is a bay on the west coast of the island of Luzon in the Philippines, about northwest of Manila Bay. An extension of the South China Sea, its shores were formerly the site of a major United States Navy facility, U.S. Naval Base Subi ...
in the Philippines.
Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA's
Chief of Station (COS) there, would become one of the Agency's top leaders. He was a long-time friend of
William Colby
William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – May 6, 1996) was an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976.
During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strateg ...
(the CIA
Director
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''D ...
in the 1970s). Yet because of CIA secrecy, and its "need to know" policy, McGehee knew comparatively little about its operations worldwide. The CIA's China operations at Subic Bay were then terminated, and the McGehees returned home.
CIA HQ, Washington, 1956–1959
At CIA headquarters near the Washington Monument, McGehee became chief of records for counterintelligence at China activities, basically supervising the work he had been doing in Japan. His office had a staff of 15 women; he admitted that some "could do a better job" than him. Two requests routinely came in: for a "file trace" (a search for records about a person, e.g., a candidate for doing business with the Agency); and a "clearance" (a more thorough check, often for potential CIA employees). Yet in general CIA records were in a deplorable condition. Huge piles of backorders were common. An expert proposed working criteria for selecting files to destroy, e.g., duplicates, nonsense, useless. Other problems were addressed, such as carding information. In McGehee's unit, the
Chinese character
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the Written Chinese, writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are k ...
s (often ambiguous to non-Chinese) could be variously transliterated into different
roman letters
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greece, Greek city of Cumae, in southe ...
, making for file repetition and much confusion. Instead, each character was reduced to a 4-digit number.
From Saigon a former Chinese politician claimed that his contacts back in China had excellent intelligence, which they sent him by short-wave radio. The politician sought "financial support" in return for current political information. His reports appeared to be very valuable. But an allied intelligence agency told CIA that a "newspaper clipping service" in Saigon was the probable source. When CIA tried to listen in to transmissions, there was silence. Instead, his "intelligence" was being
fabricated from bits and pieces of local Chinese press coverage, rewritten to make the incidents more significant to CIA. Yet the "germ of truth" in each gave it verisimilitude. Later, CIA discovered that the operation was run by a Taiwan intelligence agency. The rewrites told a story about mainland China that Taiwan wanted to spread.
After many applications for a change in status, McGehee was promoted. Following a 3-months training course, he'd be a CIA ''case officer''.
Taiwan, 1959–1961
![Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-Kuo in 1948](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Chiang_Kai-shek_and_Chiang_Ching-Kuo_in_1948.jpg)
As a
case officer
In intelligence organizations, agent handling is the management of so-called agents (called secret agents or spies in common parlance), principal agents, and agent networks (called "assets") by intelligence officers typically known as case o ...
his work involved liaison with his Chinese counterparts in various Nationalist intelligence services. Their common purpose was collecting information on the
PRC
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. The CIA worked with Taiwan "to train and drop teams of Chinese on the mainland to develop resistance movements and gather intelligence." When mainland fishermen were detained on
Chinmen Island
ka Quemoy McGehee would go out for the debriefing. The PRC shelled the island on certain hours every other day, hitting only barren spots according to a "gentleman's agreement". The
1958 Quemoy-Matsu Crisis was still fresh.
The CIA had great difficulty recruiting agents for espionage activity on the mainland. Hence its intelligence on what it then called 'Red China' was very patchy. Apparently the CIA missed the great extent of the famine in China caused by the
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...
.
Taiwan offered to share one of its best agents. American officers taught him the CIA system on many espionage subjects, marveling that he was "the best agent they had ever trained." He was to stay in radio contact daily while on the mainland. After four months away, he returned. Yet when away he seldom made radio contact. His excuses for this didn't add up. McGehee could not be sure if he was a duplicitous Nationalist, "playing games with us", or was working for the Communists.
Ray Cline
Ray Steiner Cline (June 4, 1918 – March 16, 1996) was an official at the United States Central Intelligence Agency and is best known for being the chief CIA analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Early life and family
Ray S. Cline was born ...
, soon to become a major figure in American intelligence, was the COS in Taiwan. As a friend of the COS,
Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo (27 April 1910 – 13 January 1988) was a politician of the Republic of China after its retreat to Taiwan. The eldest and only biological son of former president Chiang Kai-shek, he held numerous posts in the government ...
, son of the
Generalisimo
''Generalissimo'' ( ) is a military rank of the highest degree, superior to field marshal and other five-star ranks in the states where they are used.
Usage
The word (), an Italian term, is the absolute superlative of ('general') thus mea ...
, would visit the CIA club. For an upcoming CIA "hail and farewell" gathering, a particularly lavish costume party was planned, with an Indian tribe theme. The COS and McGehee's "clique" of eight couples attended. During his late night drive home, McGehee saw "hovels of Taiwanese people" who were dressed in rags, in "a struggle to stay alive".
CIA HQ, Langley, 1961–1962
Largely because of its
Bay of Pigs disaster, CIA headquarters was "rife with despair and upheaval". Based on news reports, McGehee thought "the Agency had relied too much on an anticipated uprising by the Cuban people." The CIA's move into its new 7-story headquarters building in
Langley, Virginia
Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Langley is often used as a metonym for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as it is home to its headquarters, the Geo ...
, began in late 1961. It was located 9 miles from Washington on 219 acres and "resembled a college campus". But excitement was curtailed by a cut in personnel, one in five to be fired. The survivors celebrated. The new offices for China activities were on the third floor. After 9 months, he was offered an overseas position in Thailand.
Thailand (1), 1962–1964
By its Northeast border Thailand is hill country. McGehee had set up a home/office there. He worked on his
Thai
Thai or THAI may refer to:
* Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia
** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand
** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand
*** Thai script
*** Thai (Unicode block ...
. On the wall he placed a poster featuring an evil-looking Mao and
Ho Chi Minh
(: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Prime ...
. Contributing to cold war tension was fear of a bloodbath in event of a takeover. CIA liaison work dealt with the local Thai
Border Patrol Police
The Border Patrol Police ( th, ตำรวจตระเวนชายแดน); (BPP) is a Thai paramilitary police under the jurisdiction of the Royal Thai Police, responsible for border security and counterinsurgency.
History
The Thai Bo ...
(BPP).
His interpreter, Captain Song (as McGehee calls him), also headed the Thai
counterinsurgency
Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionari ...
operations. Song had good rapport with the locals and hill tribes, but "took an immediate dislike to anyone with direct authority over him." There were many minority ethnic groups in the rugged terrain, with several plotting for political independence from neighboring Burma. The remote hill tribes practiced a
slash-and-burn agriculture
Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed veget ...
, necessitating frequent relocations; their "major cash crop was
opium
Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...
from the poppy." At the moment the border was quiescent. China apparently failed to notice when the CIA's airplane accidentally crossed the border.
Perhaps unintentionally, political infighting developed among some Americans. Yet the COS was naturally gregarious, avoiding conflict. He'd nurtured a close relationship with Prime Minister
Sarit Thanarat
Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (also spelt ''Dhanarajata''; th, สฤษดิ์ ธนะรัชต์, ; 16 June 1908 – 8 December 1963) was a Thai general who staged a coup in 1957, replacing Plaek Phibunsongkhram as Thailand's prime m ...
. The American ambassador, however, did not get along well with Sarit. At a well-attended state ceremony, Sarit avoided the ambassador in favor of the COS. This exacerbated ill-feelings at the top. McGehee called the COS "Rod Johnson".
Meanwhile, the deputy COS of CIA in Bangkok had called on McGehee (now back in the north) to report to the station. Also given a fictitious name, the deputy had acquired a bad reputation (bullying, manipulation, grudge holding). The COS and his deputy made a
good cop, bad cop pair. As McGehee listened in the deputy's office, he eventually came to the point where, McGehee writes, he "was tearing down my superiors in my presence and asking me to spy on them for him!" Consequently, McGehee's ethics disappointed the ambitious deputy. McGehee figured he became the latest addition to the deputy's enemy list; he then thought that people like this deputy COS, who put his career above the mission, were "aberrations" among otherwise dedicated CIA agents. Rather McGehee continued to idealize CIA activities as "somewhere between the Peace Corps and missionary work".
On a 3-week hike to visit remote villages in the Northeast highlands, McGehee lost 20 pounds. Delivery of medical goods and agricultural implements to the tribes furthered the civil development side of counterinsurgency work. To further both objectives, "small mountain airstrips" would facilitate transport to the more isolated areas. The first
Yao village had about "two dozen bamboo houses with roofs of thatch" spread out on the hillside. The "gentle, intelligent" village headman agreed, at an evening meal, to build the airstrips. That morning a CIA plane had dropped supplies by parachute, scattering them over the mountain forest. A location for the airstrip was found, and young men selected to be trained. Other airstrips were arranged at other villages. Yet a few years later, because of "communist influence on the Lao border" the villages were "bombed and
napalm
Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated alu ...
ed" by Thai warplanes. It was a bitter end for the hill tribes.
CIA HQ, Langley, 1964–1965
At the Thai desk in Langley, McGehee's job was to keep track of the continuations of the work he'd done in Thailand. He called it paper pushing. The general advise was not to be harsh, which seemed to encourage platitudes. Many of the reports from Bangkok station concerned the
Communist Party of Thailand
The Communist Party of Thailand ( Abrv: CPT; th, พรรคคอมมิวนิสต์แห่งประเทศไทย, ) was a communist party in Thailand active from 1942 until the 1990s.
Initially known as the Communist Party ...
. Once a week Colby, the Far East division chief (and later DCI), would review the reports (with Langley comments) and pass on "rating sheets" that'd been written up. These would be sent back to the reporting stations around the world, where they'd be read with ''gravitas'' as the view from headquarters.
![Sub-Committee on Energy and Commerce 012402](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Sub-Committee_on_Energy_and_Commerce_012402.jpg)
It was announced that Colby would brief a
Congressional committee
A congressional committee is a legislative sub-organization in the United States Congress that handles a specific duty (rather than the general duties of Congress). Committee membership enables members to develop specialized knowledge of the ...
about the 'secret war' in Laos. He wanted approval for new plans of CIA. At first McGehee was pleased to be part of the team doing the preparation work. Colby stressed the importance of using the right word. In finding the best name for
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related to ...
tribal groups that fought against communists guerillas, the middle path between "Hunter-Killer Teams" and "Home Defense Units" was agreed to be "Mobile Strike Forces". Facts seemed open to be tweaked into what might make a better argument. An 'ineffective' present situation could become 'what it might be'. McGehee considered it "duping Congress". Colby obtained approval.
President Johnson began to escalate the war in Vietnam. In Thailand a China-based group announced the start of the revolution. McGehee asked his desk chief to help him arrange a return to Thailand.
Thailand (2), 1965–1967
Back in Thailand McGehee's first assignment was assisting in liaison work with "a small Thai counterinsurgency force" that the CIA itself had created. These Thai agents gathered information on communist activities; they also acted as a secret police. McGehee doubted the quality of information gathered by "untrained
interrogators" from poorly vetted sources, yet at first he wrote it up for CIA reports. Then he co-wrote a review of this large accumulation of counterinsurgency data. He concluded that without detailed processing, e.g., carding the information into "geographic and subject files", the "inchoate mess remained just that". Thus, here in Thailand or back at CIA HQ in Washington, an analyst collating it "could make of it just about anything he wanted to".
McGehee came across an ambitious CIA case officer who guarded his field data in a locked file room. He claimed to be running, as a paid CIA spy, the important leader of a Communist splinter group. After this case officer left Thailand, it was discovered that his paid spy was a phony, a
"fabricator" of useless, so-called intelligence. So unmasked, the 'spy' then wrote a book attacking the CIA.
''Survey''
Following the departure of the disagreeable deputy COS, the CIA station offered McGehee the job of "establishing an intelligence-collection program" for "the 50,000-man
national police National Police may refer to the national police forces of several countries:
*Afghanistan: Afghan National Police
*Haiti: Haitian National Police
*Colombia: National Police of Colombia
*Cuba: Cuban National Police
*East Timor: National Police of ...
". After questioning the criteria and support available (especially his status per the American
Agency for International Development
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 ...
(AID) program), McGehee welcomed this "difficult and challenging" task. He characterized it as "my ''
Mission Impossible
''Mission: Impossible'' is a multimedia franchise based on a fictional secret espionage agency known as the Impossible Missions Force (IMF). The 1966 TV series ran for seven seasons and was revived in 1988 for two seasons. It inspired a serie ...
'': convert a bunch of unschooled patrolmen into sophisticated intelligence gatherers and do it without money and the authority that comes with it." His subsequent work here to develop the intelligence ''Survey'' program would define his second tour in Thailand.
McGehee met with Colonel Chat Chai, head of police intelligence. Its personnel knew little about Communist organization and had no intelligence training. Overcoming the Colonel's initial suspicion, they toured police HQ in Bangkok and later the provinces. Since 1963 a budding insurgency in Thailand had received some local support and had mounted some assassinations and ambushes. Although little was clearly understood, the CIA thought several thousand Communists in guerrilla bands hid out in the highlands, chiefly in the Thai northeast, and raided lowland villages for "rice, money and recruits".
From the literature on intelligence gathering in counterinsurgency situations, McGehee initially adopted a 'mail box' technique. It functioned like the 'suggestion box' in civilian life. The literate villager could provide information anonymously, about local insurgent activities, and about the identities and whereabouts of communist 'jungle soldiers' and supporters ... yet remain safe from reprisals. Government agents, however, could not confirm the data so sourced, nor ask follow-up questions. This "germ of an idea I was later to develop into a full-scale, effective intelligence-counterinsurgency operation," wrote McGehee. Eventually, in-person interviews of the local villager and farmer (called taking a "census") was appraised to provide better information and results. Joining the team was Lieutenant Somboon, a
university graduate with "a remarkably intuitive feel for the esoteric art of intelligence gathering." He was serving then as a local deputy ''nai amphur'' (
sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
).
McGehee proposed to develop a "pilot project" and to first concentrate on one district. A thorough ''Survey'' of the views of the rural villagers and farmers would be made. The province governor helped recruit a select group of twenty-five agents with which to start. Beside police, it included military officers, several administrators, and a high-ranking educator. Also part of the team were four translators and a PAT armed force for protection against communist guerrillas. Questionnaires were developed and the ''Survey's'' interrogators trained in their use "out of hearing range of other
. Also started were village networks for community support and for ongoing intelligence sources. As a corresponding result, some villagers confessed to being "duped" by the Communists, named other members, then quit the 'movement' and joined the government side.
Lt. Somboon gave a motivating speech at a meeting of villagers called by their headman, which successfully countered Communist propaganda. He and others, however, also used aggressive techniques involving simulated threats of death and other cruel ruses to obtain information from suspected guerrillas, or "to sow dissension" in enemy ranks. Such methods raised
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
issues for McGehee. Counterinsurgency, if not careful, could descend into a barbarous business. Yet he was then persuaded that an efficient intelligence process, even if somewhat flawed, which also threw light on murky shadows where the guerrillas hid, would save lives in the long run of a counterinsurgency war. In fact, the ''Survey'' and police presence itself resulted in many villagers abandoning the armed communist insurgency.
''Survey'' information, so collected then translated, was carded into categories, and collated, and digested, then written up. From the bits and pieces of "vague, partial, shifting, incomplete, fragmentary intelligence", it provided a hitherto "unknown total picture." It revealed, among other things, that the communist insurgency in northeast Thailand was considerably stronger than originally supposed. It also struck a blow. The ''Survey'' was distributed nationwide to government and police officials, who praised the CIA case officer responsible. The COS 'Rod Johnson' called him to CIA in Bangkok where his work was celebrated; he was promoted to a 2-year command in Thailand. Ralph McGehee felt he had hit his stride, and was reaching new levels of professional skill and acumen.
William Colby's visit and ends of ''Survey''
William Colby, then chief of the CIA's Far East division, came to the province in 1967. McGehee proudly told him of his teams' work on the district ''Survey'' and its findings, showing him the file cabinets with the carded and collated intelligence information. The Communists in Thailand, he explained, were far more numerous than assumed. They also enjoyed substantial support among rural people. Communist agents concentrated on "winning the cooperation of the peasants," citing the example of a specific village. Yet the ''Survey'' had, by throwing light on the insurgent violence, caused villagers to re-think the issues and many to desert the Communist cause. McGehee naturally expected some appreciation from Colby and interest in furthering the ''Survey'' work. But Colby kept his silence.
McGehee described the enemy's Farmers' Liberation Association (FLA). It recruited rural villagers, who were then secretly indoctrinated about Communist plans for widespread armed struggle in Thailand. Local guerrilla cadres were already launching minor terrorist assaults. In retaliation the Thai government ordered unfocused, brutal attacks that often fell on innocent farmers, creating an "atmosphere of hate" that the Communists were eager to exploit politically. To the contrary, McGehee's ''Survey'' teams had "used our intelligence to penetrate the Communists' crucial shield of secrecy" and accordingly had broken their grip on the villagers. Farmers had confessed, given information, and quit the FLA. Here, McGehee felt he was presenting to Colby a counterinsurgency program that worked. Otherwise, Communists insurgents would multiply in Thailand, as had happened in
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
.
In response, Colby appeared puzzled. He was non-committal, evasive, eventually saying only, "We always seem to be losing." Later McGehee realized that Colby was "probably weighing the broader ramifications." Colby and his entourage then quickly left for the airport in jeeps and land rovers. Two months later the COS offered McGehee a plum CIA job in Taiwan on a career channel ensuring rapid promotions. But McGehee wanted to continue his work in Thailand. ''Au contraire'' the COS told him. He had to leave Thailand in three weeks, and the ''Survey'' project would be terminated. Despite local protests by involved Thai officials and by the American consul, it happened that way.
CIA HQ, Langley, 1967–1968
McGehee arrived at headquarters still mystified by the surprising and unexplained decision, which must have been made by Colby, to terminate the ''Survey'' program. The plum job in Taiwan, that had been dangled before him, proved to be a ruse to get him out of the way; upon his arrival at the Langley, it was already cancelled. McGehee writes that he was "having a difficult time justifying my previously idealistic view of the Agency."
The head of China activities offered him a desk job. Judging by past results, repetitive failure seemed to be the story about the job's major task: "recruiting a Chinese official to be our spy." The track record showed a repeating cycle of fruitless attempts: new idea, enthusiasm, field action, failure; new idea, enthusiasm... . E.g., after the war it became known that CIA estimates of the Chinese military in Vietnam were egregiously low.
Despite the
Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the China, People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by Doctrine, doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications ...
, McGehee thought, some in the China desk seemed to have a "vested interest" in keeping China as a major enemy. The CIA had obtained a recent, 40-page China document that detailed the PRC's long-range foreign policy and short-range moves. Nonetheless, China desk decided not to circulate it, McGehee reasoned, because the PRC's plans were reasonable, not belligerent.
He wrote a memorandum to put the Thailand ''Survey'' program back in play. First he sent it to Colby's new replacement at the Far East division (without success), then to a suggestion committee. The China desk leader then told him that he'd ruffled the new Far East division chief, whose anger was jeopardizing his career. McGehee wrote later about his "awakening" to see the CIA in a new, cynical way. Vietnam was in a situation somewhat similar to Thailand. He volunteered to serve CIA in Vietnam, something nobody with an eye on their career was doing in 1968. Then, out of the blue, the CIA's office of training told him how good the Thailand ''Survey'' program looked. They were already teaching this "McGehee method" as a major part of counterinsurgency training at the CIA "farm" in Virginia. Yet the Far East division remained uninterested.
Vietnam, 1968–1970
![Kapok tree Honolulu](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Kapok_tree_Honolulu.jpg)
McGehee arrived at
Tan Son Nhut
Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport ( vi, Sân bay quốc tế Tân Sơn Nhất or Cảng hàng không quốc tế Tân Sơn Nhất) is the busiest airport in Vietnam with 32.5 million passengers in 2016 and 38.5 million passengers in 2018 ...
airport outside of Saigon in October 1968. The Viet Cong's
Tet offensive
The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces o ...
had struck at cities the previous January. He'd last visited
Saigon
, population_density_km2 = 4,292
, population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2
, population_demonym = Saigonese
, blank_name = GRP (Nominal)
, blank_info = 2019
, blank1_name = – Total
, blank1_ ...
in 1960, which then seemed "a peaceful city with tree-lined boulevards," with herbal aromas and flower markets, and "Vietnamese women wearing the flowing ''
ao-dai''". Now in the downtown he was unpleasantly surprised by Tu Do Street, where "an atmosphere of hate permeated the air" like "the clouds of
ehicleexhaust". Bars, massage parlors, and rock music catered to American G.I.s. In a very much larger, congested Saigon, the Vietnamese shared their streets also with Chinese merchants and Indian Sikhs.
Disenchantment with the CIA
In his 1983 book, McGehee at this point describes the institutional history of the CIA and counterinsurgency in Vietnam, in caustic terms informed by his later turn to the left. Yet in 1968 he remained "still fiercely anti-communist". From his own experience in Thailand, however, McGehee was already convinced that "intelligence reports ... had nothing to do with reality". Immediately he wrote a memorandum to the Saigon COS suggesting incorporation of the learning from his Thailand intelligence ''Survey''.
McGehee's first assignment was as "regional officer in charge" (ROIC) in
Gia Định province
''Gia'' is a 1998 American biographical drama television film about the life and times of one of the first supermodels, Gia Carangi. The film stars Angelina Jolie as Gia and Faye Dunaway as Wilhelmina Cooper, with Mercedes Ruehl and Elizabeth M ...
near Saigon. As expected, he found its intelligence and field operations seriously flawed. After a useless meeting headed by Colby the newly appointed head of
Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS), he spoke with Colby. McGehee hid his harsh criticism and contempt, figuring that a cocktail party was the wrong forum, and that surely Colby already knew what McGehee wanted to say.
After six weeks McGehee started work in charge of liaison with the chief of South Vietnam's Special Police. His CIA boss, who was new to Asia, listened to McGehee after getting his memorandum. "Ralph, the rest of the world sees things differently," he said, "How can you be right?" Slowly, McGehee had come to conclude that "the vast majority of the Vietnamese people were fighting against the U.S. troops and for the
NLF." He became isolated and tense.
After qualifying for home leave after six months, his wife listened only so long to his repetitive monologue. Ironically, DCI
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...
now gave him an award for his ''Survey'' work, presented by his nemesis the Far East Division chief. McGehee began to identify with
anti-war protestors. Seeking release, he considered changing jobs, but realized his career experience was a CIA secret. With four children in school and a mortgage, he returned to South Vietnam.
Investigating a spy ring
Back in Saigon, he followed Special Police reports apparently about "a North Vietnamese spy net that had penetrated the highest levels of the
Thieu
{{Infobox settlement
, name = Thieu
, native_name={{native_name, wa, Tî
, official_name =
, settlement_type = district
, image_skyline =
, imagesize =
, image_alt =
, image_caption =
, image_map =
, mapsize =
, map_alt =
, ma ...
government of South Vietnam." Called Operation Projectile, its dubious sources and flimsy information caused widespread doubt. Yet further investigation seemed to verify its explosive charges.
CIA headquarters
The George Bush Center for Intelligence is the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, located in the unincorporated community of Langley, Virginia, Langley in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States; near Washington, D.C.
The headqua ...
delayed authorization for making arrests, as many suspects were high South Vietnamese government officials. McGehee then reorganized and 'carded' the office files on the putative spy net. He was a past master at interpreting information from field reports. He exhumed and deciphered a cock-eyed old document. It turned out to record a similar spy ring from the
Diem era, with many matches to current espionage activity and agents. It proved convincing.
Although apprehensive, CIA HQ gave the ok for a mass arrest of suspects. When President Thieu was solicited, he became "extremely upset" and suggested delay until he could dismiss the spies from his government. Finally, he agreed. Great caution was exercised to prevent leaks. "At midnight the police fanned out through Saigon" in three-man arrest teams. 50 were arrested, 41 were later tried and convicted. Huynh Van Trong held the highest government office, but his communist superior
Vu Ngoc Nha was a close friend of Thieu. Trong had recently made a high-level trip to Washington. McGehee comments that while we were not able to recruit a single "clear-cut, high-ranking Viet Cong agent", the communists made "thousands of penetrations".
By fortunate coincidence the arrests also brought in Van Khien, an officer at North Vietnam military intelligence. He was leading a penetration "into command elements of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN)." Further investigations turned up ten more spies, and its unraveling resulted in further arrests. McGehee's liaison office had become a high-performance operation, with quality intelligence work and a steady stream of reports. Yet McGehee was not promoted, despite his pro-active insistence. Another CIA agent, however, who McGehee thought an "incompetent flake" later gained advancement because of his loyalty to the station chief. When his tour ended, the Special Police gave McGehee a medal.
On the flight home, McGehee reflected on his last few years in Vietnam. "The reality that I had seen and reported and urged my superiors to recognize had been totally rejected." It had cost him his ideals. "Full of anger, hatred, and fear, I bitterly contemplated a dismal future." He recalled that when at Gia Dinh province early in his tour, he had considered suicide, in despair at the horrible events of the war: the deaths, the
napalm
Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated alu ...
, the children and the old people in refugee camps. Instead he'd vowed to "expose the Agency's role in Vietnam" due to its fantasies and illusions. When McGehee was in despair at Gia Dinh, "the seed of
isbook was first planted."
CIA HQ, Langley, 1970
McGehee was set to return for another tour of duty in Thailand. At headquarters he attended several briefings, yet he was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the CIA as an institution. While back in Washington, he looked for another job; yet his lack of any work history (due to his inability to list his CIA employment) sank his efforts. In addition, his transforming state of mind made it difficult for him to effectively communicate, with anyone. He could not talk to his children about his changing attitudes toward the CIA and the cold war. On campus at
Georgetown he noticed young dissenters. He wanted
the war to stop, too, but felt paralyzed by internal conflicts.
Thailand (3), 1970–1972
The Thailand station was a large installation. McGehee performed as "deputy chief of the anti-Communist Party operations branch". He supervised many case officers working in liaison. Yet he realized that with the CIA nothing had changed—except his own views. U.S. policy goals determined what intelligence was collected. In support of a military dictatorship the CIA "never reported derogatory information". American intelligence often came from Thai leaders or liaison counterparts. Agency case officers were forbidden to "maintain direct contact with the general population". 80% of Thais were farmers, but their issues were seldom addressed. For a case officer to get information from the working classes, he risked getting the label "gone native" followed by a ticket home. McGehee mentions the secret war in Laos, but he did not directly participate. Although remaining committed "to stop the spread of the Communist Party of Thailand" he opposed what he considered the CIA's false testimony and counterproductive operations.
In
Udorn, north Thailand, McGehee met with the police colonel, Chat Chai, he'd worked with on the ''Survey'' program. McGehee noticed he'd changed, from a hard working, no non-sense leader, to a more relaxed cynic. They spoke together for hours at a hotel's roof-top restaurant. McGehee found the ''Survey'' deputy ''nai amphur'', Lieutenant Somboon, in
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...
. Stationed in south Thailand, he now faced an insurgency, and spoke up about how good the ''Survey'' project went. Confused about why it'd been dropped, McGehee replied that it'd been overruled by higher-ups. Latter in a coffee shop McGehee spotted a classmate, Jimmy Moe, from the CIA paramilitary course at its farm in Virginia almost 20 years ago. He'd fought in the secret war in
Laos
Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
, where the CIA had led the Hmong tribe to defeat. "We contemplated each other, and a thousand thoughts passed unspoken between us.".
Failing to get a promised promotion McGehee wrote "a long, bitter memorandum" that he routed to the COS. McGehee claimed that the current, unnamed COS "let his secretary run the station". The touring CIA Inspector General had then put McGehee on "special probation". Yet very soon McGehee required back surgery. He was flown to
Georgetown Hospital
The Georgetown Hospital is a community hospital located in the Georgetown area of Halton Hills, Ontario. It is part of the Halton Healthcare Services group of hospitals.
Built on of land, it opened in 1961 to serve the Halton Region, but tod ...
in Washington.
CIA HQ, Langley, 1972–1977
McGehee arrived at the East Asia Division, where the personnel manager told him he'd been recommended for counseling. After McGehee mentioned his last memo to
Shackley, he got the label of a "malcontent". Shackley became the head of East Asia Division. McGehee was then turned down by all East Asia branch offices. His request to transfer from CIA Operations to its Intelligence Directorate as an
analyst, had been declined. While on temporary assignment at an obscure records office, he wrote a memorandum to Colby detailing the CIA's intelligence flaws in Vietnam. Unexpectedly, he was then sent back to Thailand for a few months. In the meantime, the new DCI
James Schlesinger
James Rodney Schlesinger (February 15, 1929 – March 27, 2014) was an American economist and public servant who was best known for serving as Secretary of Defense from 1973 to 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Prior to ...
(Feb. 2 to July 2, 1973) had been blindsided by
Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
revelations. The CIA got bad press. Schlesinger then sought information about any other illegal or unsavory activity committed by the Agency. The result was a list known to CIA as the ''Skeletons'', but to outsiders as the
Family Jewels. McGehee in Thailand didn't get news of it until the deadline had passed.
Eventually McGehee was placed as the Far East Division's "referent" (representative) to the 'international communism branch' (ICB) of the Directorate's notorious '
counterintelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
staff'. He became isolated, which lasted for his remaining four years. "Everything now angered me. I openly laughed at the serious pronouncements made by Agency leaders, pointing out the fallacies behind the rhetoric." He endured the "silent treatment" from the Directorate's leadership. "Former friends avoided me and I them," McGehee writes. His assigned duties, however, took only "about one hour a day." It required him to review incoming paper:
cables from the CIA,
State
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
, and
Defense
Defense or defence may refer to:
Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups
* Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare
* Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks
* Defense industr ...
; communist publications and transcripts of communist radio broadcasts; a few newspapers. Each day selections were mounted on a "clipboard". Apart from this, he charted his own course. Eventually he obtained approval for his chosen research.
Propaganda: planted news
It was then CIA's practice to anonymously place stories in news publications, stories written to spread ideas favorable to CIA goals. Accordingly, stories were edited which created a likelihood of misdirecting some readers. Stories that CIA planted might be further spread by third parties, in a slightly altered form, or even picked up as news and then rewritten by a journalist. McGehee himself, in doing his assigned duties, followed news stories in the international press,
communist affairs in particular. He also monitored incoming intelligence reports for such topics.
![George Orwell press photo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/George_Orwell_press_photo.jpg)
Eventually McGehee began to notice a subtle congruence in content between the planted stories and the incoming intelligence. Propaganda the CIA generated to shape world opinion, he conjectured or realized, could circle back and contaminate the CIA's own information files. McGehee gives an example. CIA in 1965 fabricated a story about weapon shipments sent by sea to the Viet Cong (to show foreign support). CIA even staged its discovery for the press. The story had legs. The
Marines
Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...
later began to patrol the coast to intercept the reported contraband.
To stress his experience of CIA's disregard for the truth of an event, McGehee refers to
Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitari ...
's duplicitous 'Ministry of Truth' from the novel
''1984''. Ironically, it was ''Communist duplicity'' during the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
which inspired Orwell. The
Soviets
Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union.
Nationality policy in ...
were early masters at
disinformation
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.
The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...
. Such deceptions have also been used by renegade agents to turn a profit. The intelligence trade has developed terms for a wider category of fact manipulation, which range from
black propaganda
Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propagan ...
, to
grey
Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...
, to
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
.
Facts: Thailand and Vietnam
A tipping point was reached for McGehee when in 1975 he learned about the prior work of CIA analyst
Sam Adams
Samuel Adams ( – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and ...
. In 1966–1967 Adams had, without success, challenged the then prevailing intelligence reports regarding the
count of communist combatants in South Vietnam, asserting that it was too low. Although Adams had supporters within the CIA, the Army's
MACV
U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was a joint-service command of the United States Department of Defense.
MACV was created on 8 February 1962, in response to the increase in United States military assistance to South Vietnam. MACV ...
insisted on its lower numbers. The dispute became somewhat notorious. MACV then directed American combat forces fighting in Vietnam, and considered the issue its turf. Ultimately, per the 1967
SNIE, the CIA politically acquiesced. To Adams, the CIA here betrayed its mission by agreeing to doctored intelligence. McGehee saw parallels between Adams' situation and his own mid-1960s Thailand ''Survey''.
McGehee also considered his critical views confirmed in the 1975–1976 Congressional investigations of the CIA, by
Pike
Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to:
Fish
* Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus''
* Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes
* ''Esox'', genus of ...
's House committee, and by
Church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
's
Senate committee
This is a complete list of U.S. congressional committees ( standing committees and select or special committees) that are operating in the United States Senate. Senators can be a member of more than one committee.
Standing committees
, there a ...
. Both committees had faulted the CIA for its handling of specific covert operations, and for several intelligence failures.
Reading Asian communists
About CIA's information on certain of its political strategic enemies, McGehee wrote: "Totally ignored by the Agency were four
ourcesabout Asian communism: French writings ... ; State Department 'China hands' ... ; American scholars and newsmen ... ;
ndwritings on revolution" authored by Asian communists.
Career Intelligence Medal
In early 1977, McGehee, by a recent change in CIA policy, became eligible for early retirement. He took it.
McGehee was then awarded the CIA's
Career Intelligence Medal
The Career Intelligence Medal is awarded by the Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal ...
. "My wife, my four children, one son-in-law, and a grandson all gathered for the awards ceremony." William W. Wells presented the medal to him. McGehee's views on the Agency began with an idealist's appreciation of its principles, when cold war tensions were high. During the second half of his 25 years of service, however, his view of the CIA had markedly declined, until reaching a bitterness. He gave his reasons why he accepted the medal.
I agreed to accept it for three reasons: to give my children an occasion to be proud of their father, not to embarrass Jake is supervisor at CIA who recommended McGehee for the Medal and to lend credibility to any criticisms of the Agency I might make in the future. Otherwise, I very much wanted to say, 'Take your medal and shove it.'
The Career Intelligence Medal is awarded by the Central Intelligence Agency for a cumulative record of service which reflects exceptional achievements that substantially contributed to the mission of the Agency.
Activities after CIA service
''Deadly Deceits''
In his 1983 book, ''Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA'', McGehee recounts his duties as an intelligence agent. For several decades he was assigned to East Asia, performing in the field and at CIA stations in Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Details of the practices and techniques of a CIA case officer are given. He shows how he gradually changed his opinion of the Agency. He arrived at the view that CIA operations in many cases damage the people affected, and overall results are often negative for America, its allies, or the world. CIA intelligence can be altered or pitched so that political purposes frequently trump the accurate transmission of information.
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Claud Cockburn ( ; 6 June 1941 – 21 July 2012) was a Scottish-born Irish-American political journalist and writer. Cockburn was brought up by British parents in Ireland, but lived and worked in the United States from 1972. Together ...
and
Jeffrey St. Clair
Jeffrey St. Clair (born 1959) is an investigative journalist, writer, and editor.
Biography
St Clair was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and attended American University in Washington, D.C., majoring in English and history. He has worked as an ...
praised it as "one of the outstanding books written by former CIA agents". The book was reissued in 1999 with updates, and reprinted in 2015 with a foreword by
David MacMichael
David Charles MacMichael (June 6, 1926 – May 16, 2022) was a contract employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who served two years as an analyst. A ten-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, he was a counter-insurgency expert in Sout ...
, a former CIA analyst.
The 1983 book proceeds in a chronological fashion. It describes his first-hand experiences and his contemporaneous reflections. Yet there are several exceptions, lengthy digressions inserted into the narrative. These provide the reader with information from McGehee's subsequent research, research done often many years after. The inserts are not easy to distinguish from the narrative text by just flipping through the book. Among them are: CIA activities in the 1950s, pp. 22–31; CIA activities in the 1960s, pp. 56–63; America in the Vietnam conflict (from the French to 1968), pp. 128–141. Three other long inserts are of a somewhat different nature: American counterinsurgency activities in Thailand, pp. 165–172; planting news, politicized intelligence, Asian communism, and Congress investigating the CIA, pp. 185–190; and his critical summary regarding the CIA, pp. 192–195.
His last chapter "Conclusion" is a critical summary of his views on the CIA. It begins with a sharp attack on the Agency he came to know by his 25 years on the job, and by his later research. The CIA's chief purpose "is not now nor has it ever been" to gather intelligence, McGehee argues, but to engineer results by clandestine means. "It is the
covert action arm of the President's foreign policy advisers." In this context, whatever information it advances is calculated to support its political objectives. A
cold war
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, anti-communist agenda, in short, has repurposed its intelligence function. If its content was not thus nefariously politicized, the CIA would view differently the
third world
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
, where angry peoples are not lackeys of communist
subversion
Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...
, but peoples whose egalitarian defiance motivates their own struggles. Instead of such clarity, the CIA's intelligence product misinforms. Accordingly, the CIA backs a United States which often supports a privileged local strata whose rule works to abuse and impoverish the majority of its subject people. He describes the CIA's operational malfeasance in Vietnam, El Salvador, Iran, Nicaragua, Laos, Indonesia, Libya. McGehee recommends that the CIA be abolished, and a new intelligence agency created, free of links to covert operations. A separate Agency that acts clandestinely may be necessary, but not favored. For reason stated in his book, McGehee has reversed many of his original 'gung ho' views.
''Deadly Deceits'' has some peculiarities. CIA policy required its personnel to sign a contract stipulating CIA pre-publication approval for writings about their Agency experience. McGehee makes the case that CIA's review was meant to harass, and to delay or stonewall publication, not protect secrets. By persistence he eventually got around CIA objections, yet: deleted passages are marked, occurring throughout the book as published; aliases are used for most people (listed in the index with quotation marks); and McGehee, because he himself could not mention certain facts based on his own experience due to CIA claims that such were still classified, quotes from published books to convey the same or similar material. The CIA's tactics did delay publication. Among books written by former CIA, it was "the last of the major exposés of the era."
Articles and speeches
After leaving the CIA, McGehee brought to the public his highly critical views, based on his experience. He discussed and illustrated how the CIA's covert actions and interventionist policies can produce unfavorable outcomes.
[McGehee, Ralph (9 December 1996)]
CIA and the New World Order.
CIABASE His articles on CIA activities have appeared in ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', ''
The Progressive
''The Progressive'' is a left-leaning American magazine and website covering politics and culture. Founded in 1909 by U.S. senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. and co-edited with his wife Belle Case La Follette, it was originally called ''La Follett ...
'', ''
Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
'' and
Gannet
Gannets are seabirds comprising the genus ''Morus'' in the family Sulidae, closely related to boobies.
Gannets are large white birds with yellowish heads; black-tipped wings; and long bills. Northern gannets are the largest seabirds in the ...
News Service, among others. He also developed ''CIABASE'', a website containing information on events, people, and programs concerning the CIA or American intelligence, including links to other texts available to the public.
McGehee, as an advocate of reform, was invited to speak at political events, rallies, and at colleges and universities. He gave interviews to the press, television, and other media.
Controversies
He discussed his time spent in South Vietnam
[Taubman, Philip (February 22, 1983). Ex-Official's Obsession with Vietnam War. '']New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' and claimed that the CIA supported anti-Communist counterinsurgency in the Philippines.
[Reuters (May 26, 1987)]
C.I.A. Accused of Manila Role.
/ref>
A downside of his book, ''Deadly Deceits'', was McGehee's personal knowledge of the extent to which the famed physician, Thomas Anthony Dooley III
Thomas Anthony Dooley III (January 17, 1927 – January 18, 1961) was an American physician who worked in Southeast Asia at the outset of American involvement in the Vietnam War. While serving as a physician in the United States Navy and aft ...
, was involved in CIA warfare across Indochina
Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
. This included awareness that the atrocities alleged in the 1956 best seller, ''Deliver Us From Evil'', were fabricated for the beginning of a psywar campaign (later revealed by the Church Committee
The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence ...
in 1975).
A 1981 allegation by McGehee about CIA involvement in the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966
Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to:
* Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia
** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago
** Indonesian ...
was censored by the CIA, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
to sue on his behalf.[Staff report (March 29, 1981)]
Censorship by the C.I.A. Challenged in Court Suit.
''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' The CIA prevailed.[Taylor, Stuart, Jr. (October 5, 1983). C.I.A.'s Censorship Backed on Appeal. '']New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' McGehee described the terror of Suharto's takeover in 1965–66 as "the model operation" for the US-backed coup that got rid of Salvador Allende
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...
in Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
seven years later: "The CIA forged a document purporting to reveal a leftist plot to murder Chilean military leaders, just like what happened in Indonesia in 1965."[John Pilger]
Our model dictator
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 28 January 2008
In 1999, he also filed a Freedom of Information
Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, indigeno ...
request, claiming that he had been harassed since 1993, suspected to be because of his criticisms. Asking for a halt of the actions, he sent a letter to the president of the United States, the director of the CIA, and his town council, documenting many of the incidents. He asserted his intention to pursue the issue through the FOIA process because of receiving no response to earlier letters.
Death
McGehee died from COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
in Falmouth, Maine
Falmouth is a New England town, town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 12,444 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is part of the Portland, Maine, Portland–South Portland, Maine, South Portland&ndas ...
, on May 2, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Maine. He was 92.
Quote
Selected publications
Books
* ''Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA'' (1983). New York: Sheridan Square Publications. .
Articles
* "Foreign Policy by Forgery: The CIA and the White Paper on El Salvador" (April 11, 1981). ''The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', pp. 423–425.
"Should the U.S. Fight Secret Wars?"
(September 1984). ''Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
''.
::A forum featuring William Colby
William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – May 6, 1996) was an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976.
During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strateg ...
, John Stockwell, Angelo Codevilla
Angelo Maria Codevilla (May 25, 1943 – September 20, 2021) was an Italian-American professor of international relations at what is now the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He served as a U.S. Navy officer, a foreign servi ...
, George W. Ball
George Wildman Ball (December 21, 1909 – May 26, 1994) was an American diplomat and banker. He served in the management of the US State Department from 1961 to 1966 and is remembered most as the only major dissenter against the escalation of ...
, Morton Halperin
Morton H. Halperin (born June 13, 1938) is a longtime expert on U.S. foreign policy, arms control, civil liberties, and the workings of bureaucracies.
He was a senior advisor to the Open Society Foundations, which was founded by George Soros. ...
, Leslie Gelb
Leslie Howard "Les" Gelb (March 4, 1937 – August 31, 2019) was an American academic, correspondent and columnist for ''The New York Times'' who served as a senior Defense and State Department official and later the President Emeritus of the Cou ...
and Ray S. Cline
Ray Steiner Cline (June 4, 1918 – March 16, 1996) was an official at the United States Central Intelligence Agency and is best known for being the chief CIA analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Early life and family
Ray S. Cline was born i ...
. Moderated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
* "Letters" (December 1984). ''Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
'', vol. 269, pp. 4–5, 73-76.
See also
*Church Committee
The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence ...
, 1975 U. S. Senate investigations of intelligence activities
* CIA activities in Vietnam, 1945–1972
*Directorate of Operations (CIA)
The Directorate of Operations (DO), less formally called the Clandestine Service,Central Intelligence AgencyCareers & Internships Retrieved: July 9, 2015. is a component of the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was known as the ''Directorate o ...
, the Clandestine Service
*United States and state terrorism
Several scholars have accused the United States of involvement in state terrorism. They have written about the US and other liberal democracies' use of state terrorism, particularly in relation to the Cold War. According to them, state terrori ...
, allegations and critiques
*Philip Agee
Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (; January 19, 1935 – January 7, 2008)Will Weissert"Ex-CIA Agent Philip Agee Dead in Cuba" Associated Press (sfgate.com), January 9, 2008. was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and writer of t ...
, author, former CIA case officer in Mexico and Ecuador
*Robert Baer
Robert Booker Baer (born July 11, 1952) is an American author and a former CIA case officer who was primarily assigned to the Middle East.Robert Bae"Don't Assume Ahmadinejad Really Lost" ''Time'' website, June 16, 2009 He is ''Times intellig ...
, author, former CIA case officer in Middle East
* Peer de Silva, author, former CIA Chief of Station in East Asia
*Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...
, author, former Director of CIA
*Victor Marchetti
Victor Leo Marchetti Jr. (December 23, 1929 – October 19, 2018) was a special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who later became a prominent critic of the United States Intelligence Community and the Israel l ...
, author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
, special assistant to Helms
*Ray McGovern
Raymond McGovern (born August 25, 1939) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer turned political Activism, activist. McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared ...
, former CIA senior analyst and national security adviser
* John R. Stockwell, author and former CIA case officer in Vietnam and Africa
* Peter Wright, author, principal scientific officer for MI5
References
Bibliography
Thomas L. Ahern, Jr.
(2010), ''Vietnam Declassified. The CIA and counterinsurgency'', University of Kentucky.
* Ray Cline
Ray Steiner Cline (June 4, 1918 – March 16, 1996) was an official at the United States Central Intelligence Agency and is best known for being the chief CIA analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Early life and family
Ray S. Cline was born ...
(1976), ''Secrets Spies and Scholars'', Acropolis, Washington, D.C.
* William Colby
William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – May 6, 1996) was an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976.
During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strateg ...
(1978), ''Honorable Men. My life in the CIA'', Simon and Schuster, New York.
* William Colby (1989), ''Lost Victory'', Contemporary Books, Chicago.
* Peer de Silva (1978), ''Sub Rosa. The CIA and the uses of intelligence'', Times Books, New York.
* Allen Dulles
Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ov ...
(1963), ''The Craft of Intelligence'', Harper and Row, New York.
* Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American political activist, and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the ''Pent ...
(2002, 2003), ''Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers'', Viking Penguin, New York.
* Harold P. Ford (1998). CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three episodes 1962–1968. '' Center for the Study of Intelligence''.
* David Harris (1996), ''Our War: What it Did to Vietnam, and What it Did to Us'', Times Books, New York.
* Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...
(2003), ''With a Look Over my Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency'', Random House, New York.
* Stuart A. Herrington (1982), ''Silence was a Weapon. The Vietnam war in the villages'', Presidio Press, Novato.
* Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones (born 28 July 1942) is professor of American history emeritus and an honorary fellow in History at the University of Edinburgh ( School of History, Classics and Archaeology), Scotland. He is an authority on American intell ...
(1989), ''The CIA and American Democracy'', Yale University, New Haven.
* Victor Marchetti
Victor Leo Marchetti Jr. (December 23, 1929 – October 19, 2018) was a special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who later became a prominent critic of the United States Intelligence Community and the Israel l ...
and John D. Marks (1974, 1980), ''The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence'', Knopf, reprint Laurel, New York.
* John T. McAlister, Jr., and Paul Mus
Paul Mus (1902–1969) was a French writer and scholar. His studies focused on Viet Nam and other South-East Asian cultures.
He was born in Bourges to an academic family, and grew up in northern Viet Nam (Tonkin). In 1907 his father opened the Col ...
, (1970), ''The Vietnamese and their Revolution'', Harper Torchbook, New York.
* Ralph W. McGehee (1983, 1999). ''Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA'', Sheridan Square; Ocean Press .
* Mark Moyar
Mark A. Moyar (born May 12, 1971) is the former Director of the Office for Civilian-Military Cooperation at the US Agency for International Development. He currently serves as the William P. Harris Chair of Military History at Hillsdale College. ...
(1997), ''Phoenix and the Birds of Prey. The CIA's secret campaign to destroy the Viet Cong'', Naval Institute.
* ''Thich'' Nhat Hanh (1967), ''Vietnam. Lotus in a sea of fire'', Hill and Wang, New York.
* Thomas Powers
Thomas Powers (born December 12, 1940 in New York City) is an American author and intelligence expert.
He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1971 together with Lucinda Franks for his articles on Weatherman member Diana Ou ...
(1979), ''The Man who kept the Secrets. Richard Helms and the CIA'', Knopf, New York.
John Prados
(2003, 2009), ''William Colby and the CIA. The secret wars of a controversial spymaster'', University of Kansas.
* Tran Ngoc Chau (2012), ''Vietnam Labyrinth. Allies, enemies, and why the U.S. lost the war'', Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
Douglas Valentine
(1990), ''The Phoenix Program'', Avon Books, New York.
** Howard Frazier, editor (1978), ''Uncloaking the CIA'', Free Press, New York.
** Athan Theoharis, editor (2006), ''The Central Intelligence Agency: Security under Scrutiny'', Greenwood Press, Westport.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:McGehee, Ralph
1928 births
2020 deaths
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Historians of the Central Intelligence Agency
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