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CIA Agent-Author: In From The Cold, To Tell The Truth

By John M. Poklar

On May 4, 1986, the Milwaukee VVAW chapter had a real treat—we had a guest speaker, Ralph McGehee, a 25-year career man with the CIA, and author of the book Deadly Deceits. Ralph told us how he evolved from a right wing anti-communist into a severe critic of the CIA during his tenure with the agency.

At first, Ralph believed the CIA existed to save democracy and provide accurate intelligence from which foreign policy would be formulated. He gradually came to the conclusion that the CIA was actually and "anti-intelligence" group, the enforcement arm of the President, whose function was to find or create "intelligence" to support predetermined policies. He shared graphic examples from his experiences in Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, and extrapolated from them to our present policies in the Middle East and Central America, where he has travelled extensively.

Ralph McGehee's enlightenment came to a head in Thailand in 1966-67, where he was assigned to head the intelligence and counterinsurgency operation against the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT). He achieved unparalleled success in identifying the real nature of the CPT movement. The official line was that the CPT consisted of a few thousand guerrillas who lived in the mountains, coming down to perform acts of terror, stealing supplies, and impressing young men into their ranks. The agency also contended that there was little popular support of the CPT. Through painstaking surveys in one district alone, Ralph was able to determine the popular support was widespread and based on "liberation group ideology." The communists recognized that the government really represented the tiny percentage of wealthy, powerful people at the expense and to the detriment of the masses, the poor rural farmer. The CPT built their base of support literally from the ground up, organizing farmers liberation, women's liberation, and youth liberation groups, promising to throw out the wealthy American lackeys and divide the land and wealth equitably among all the people. All the CPT offered was nationalism and social equality—pretty weak stuff!

Ralph reported his finding to the powers-that-be, expecting a change in policy and the eventual undermining of the CPT. Instead, his programs were terminated, he was sent home, and the official line was still "2000 guerrillas, no popular support." Thus began his disillusionment with the CIA. Then came Tet in Vietnam. Ralph became chief CIA advisor to the Vietnamese Special Police, where he found and reported that the South Vietnamese government was infested with communist spies and had no popular support. A review of intelligence reports showed no acknowledgement of liberation groups in Vietnam—that's why Tet was such a surprise to Americans: we had been lied to; genuine intelligence has been suppressed because it didn't support pre-determined policy. Of course, if the CIA had reported that the VC were supported by at least 6 million members of various liberation movements and that we were supporting a government that at best represented 10% of the population, we would have had no choice but to pull out of Vietnam immediately. Instead, we were lied to and it cost us $900 billion, 2 million Vietnamese dead, 58,000 Americans dead, and God knows how many more poisoned by Agent Orange and traumatized forever by their experiences. How many vets and their families and friends will never be the same again? How many lost all sense of integrity, honor, trust, and love because of the lies we were fed about Vietnam?

We all know about the lies we were told about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, but how many of us know of another fabricated incident in early 1965 that led to the introduction of the first U.S. ground combat forces the Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing of North Vietnam? To support the contention that the North Vietnamese were invading the South, the CIA loaded up a junk with captured weapons, shot the shit out of it, then showed it to reporters as "proof" that the North was invading the South. As a result of this contrived intelligence, LBJ ordered 2 Marine battalions to South Vietnam and began bombing the North.

Now the CIA is attempting to rewrite the history of Vietnam contending we could have won except for lack of support at home. Rambo and his like are merely the obvious attempts to change the public's memories and perceptions of the war so the public will support the next one, probably in Nicaragua.

Why, you ask, does the CIA, which is supposed to provide intelligence to help formulate policy, twist, fabricate, or ignore genuine intelligence? The only possible conclusion is that is not an intelligence agency, but the covert arm of pre-determined policy.

And who benefits from its lies and manipulations? Not the American people, surely not the poor schmuck who pounds the ground and ends up poisoned by his own government and abandoned. The only ones who benefit are the multi-national corporations and the dictators they support against the wishes of their own people. Dictators like the Shah of Iran, Marcos, Somoza and others get fat while their people starve. These "staunch allies" of the U.S. allow the multinationals to exploit the manpower and resource of their countries for their own personal gain, earning us the enmity of their people when they finally throw the bastards out.

Not only do the people of these countries lose, so do the American people; how many American jobs have been lost due to the factories moving to Taiwan, Korea and elsewhere where labor is cheap, where union organizers are labeled "communist" and taken care of by death squads. How many American farmers are going under, losing their farms due to slash-and-burn farming of rain forests, etc, fucking up the ecology of the entire world just to make a quick buck.

Now the lies continue in the Middle East and especially in Central America. It's time to wake up, America, and say "Never Again." No more Vietnams!

John M. Poklar
VVAW Milwaukee