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"Deadly Deceits": My 25 Years With The CIA

By Pete Zastrow

Deadly Deceits, subtitled "My 25 Years in the CIA," by Ralph McGehee (published by Sheridan Square Publications, Box 677, New York, NY 10013) is a remarkable study of a CIA agent who still has no conception of what he wants. Perhaps there have been enough "inside the CIA" books written by now; perhaps the correct reaction is "Who cares?" But intentionally or not, McGehee makes it clear that what he saw in his 25 years of CIA activities is still alive and well in Central America today, as is the way in which CIA information (actually "disinformation") plays a major part in persuading the U.S. government and people to march off in the war to stop the spread of Communism. And all of this is--and was--done with basic lies!

Deadly Deceits is a summary of the CIA lies over the past 25 years, especially in Asia. The book also is the study of an individual who as a CIA operative learned ever so slowly that the CIA was not the hand of God on earth--in fact it was the hand of the U.S. presidency. Again and again the book details situations where policy was decided first, then "intelligence" produced to support that policy. As McGehee puts it, after helping concoct "facts" to prove the need for CIA--supported operations by Hmong tribesmen in Laos, "It was, of course, a perfect example of policy being decided from the top in advance and then intelligence being selected or created to support it afterwards--precisely the opposite of the way it should be done. Not only was it backwards, but it was a complete hoax contrived to deceive Congress, which naturally swallowed it hook, line and sinker."

Put that quote next to recent Congressional moves toward giving more bucks to the government of El Salvador--based on "intelligence," of course.

McGehee did everything right; a football player at Notre Dame, he learned patriotism in its rawest form, hating communism with an appropriate passion. When, after he failed his tryout with the Green Bay Packers, McGehee was approached by the CIA, he discovered home. The CIA according to McGehee's version of the CIA personality profile, wants "active, charming, obedient people... who see things in black and white and don't like to think too much." Despite his score (duly recorded in the book) of 143 on the IQ test, McGehee seems to have fit the mold, almost too perfectly.

The book becomes a remarkable history of McGehee's being screwed by the CIA and loving every moment of it. In what was only one of the more blatant examples, McGehee is called in by an upper-level supervisor and told to spy on his co-workers during a tour in Northern Thailand. When he refuses he's told that he'll never be promoted--all of which happens. But McGehee seems incapable of believing what is happening to him.

Or there's a program that McGehee developed, a kind of village by village survey which involved a couple of CIA people dealing with trusted villagers over a period of time and rooting out insurgency through getting to know and win the trust of the people. The result was the discovery that a high percentage of the people were connected with the guerillas, a fact which McGehee tried to publicize throughout the CIA. His discovery was true not only for Thailand (where he was working at the time) but also for Vietnam.

No one wanted to deal with the information. Even though, after a period of time, CIA training personnel awarded him a medal for the plans and tactics of his operation, no one cared for his results since they disagreed with the political points that's politicians wanted to make (essentially, too many enemy sympathizers would have made it clear that the U.S. didn't have a chance). So McGehee's information conveniently disappeared. McGehee, 140+ IQ or not still followed the company line believing what the Agency wanted him to believe and certainly not in any way distrusting the sanctity of CIA information.

Perhaps McGehee was just plain too good for the CIA.He believed the Agency was a good as it pretended to be; he couldn't believe it when he found it was a lie. There is such a thing as being too trusting--it's the old saying about fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. For McGehee, it wasn't twice but a succession of rotten CIA tricks' the important ones, of course, were on governments and people around the world, and the people here at home. The less important ones were the succession of dirty tricks played on McGehee and, presumably, other CIA employees who preferred the truth to the CIA "party line."

The book provides countless details of all these things. It's hard to remember always that the book is written with hindsight, that the things so obviously CIA manipulation might have looked real when they happened.To his credit, McGehee keeps pointing to the future; things that looked in '68 are now clearly false, so what about things that look real today? The answer for how the CIA is concocting information to support the U.S. position in Central America is clear and must be remembered.

McGehee wants to save the "intelligence" service. But he's convinced the CIA can't do it--though it is less clear why he thinks this sort of thing is so necessary.

When the CIA functioning as the convert arm of whatever Administration is in power, McGehee notes that Reagan & Co are now in the process of trying to cover up what the CIA is doing: "The President," he says, "wants the Agency free of the constraints of public exposure so that it can gather and fabricate its disinformation unharried by criticism and so that it can overthrow governments without the knowledge of the American people." The point of the CIA, as presently constituted, is "to benefit the rich."

With all the good information, with all the good points which underline the evils of the CIA and its role of lying to the American people, and with all this coming from the mouth of a CIA dupe, the book still doesn't ring quite true--a little nagging question remains. Perhaps its this:McGehee comes off as a little better than possible. Would the CIA be willing to put its deadly secrets in the hands of one as na?ve as McGehee?

The book is, in addition to a study of McGehee, a study in the changes anyone must go through to get a book though the CIA sensors--an interesting point in the land of "freedom of expression. "Time and time again, to avoid the CIA rubbing out whole segments of the book, McGehee had to rush to his source library in order to prove, to some CIA boss or other, that the material they wanted to chop had already been printed in some accessible source in the U.S. Elaborate rules and regulations go as far as possible to discourage publication of any information that the CIA might find offensive (which means give an insight into the plots and counterplots).

Under the most recent CIA rules they have the ability not only to refuse to allow publication of, but also to grab any proceeds from a publication not officially "approved" and, more to the point for someone like McGehee, to stop all retirement pay and benefits (a little hard on a 25 year employee). It's a rotten agency, the book makes clear, and is dedicated (along the way) to keeping its rottenness a secret.

Readers of Deadly Deceits will thank McGehee for making clear what the CIA is and has done. The CIA and its disinformation rule in Vietnam is clearly put and devastating. The application to El Salvador is unmistakable. McGehee has the CIA indicted, tied up and ready for trial. He gives the evidence, presents his conclusions. But finally he doesn't take the step they're guilty; after his 25 years in the CIA he's still an observer and won't become involved.

It's a fine book to see some of what the CIA has been up to and what some of our tax dollars have been buying. It's also a fine study of watching someone try, and finally fail, to come to grips with himself and what he's done with his life.

Pete Zastrow
VVAW National Office