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INSIDE THE COMPANY: CIA DIARY |
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Part Five Mexico City January 1970 I begin again after a year of great disappointment and sense of failure. My hopes for a new start and a future in Mexico were clouded with the failure of my marriage plans, and I am unsure of my direction. The reasons are a complex series of mistakes, perhaps even unrealistic hopes from the beginning, but with results too damaging to overcome. For now I continue to pick up the pieces and try to arrange them in a stable pattern. I am also unsure of the work I chose although I had the good fortune of joining with a new company started by friends whom I met in the Olympics. From the point of view of finances I've had to retrench considerably, a distasteful process but one with definite blessings. The prospects in this new company, which processes and markets an entirely new product, are very encouraging and I've been given the opportunity to buy shares. My relationships with the owners and the general manager, who is my good friend, are excellent. Working in commerce, however, is still as lacking in satisfaction as it was years ago, and I have decided to enter the National University of Mexico for an advanced degree. Perhaps I will return to the U.S. to seek a teaching career. Over the Christmas and New Year's break I also began working on an outline for a book on the CIA. This would have been impossible if my plans had succeeded, but the way is now clear and may well lead to my being forced to leave Mexico. A book describing CIA operations might help to illustrate the principles of foreign policy that got us into Vietnam and may well get us into similar situations. Secret CIA operations constitute the usually unseen efforts to shore up unjust, unpopular, minority governments, always with the hope that overt military intervention (as in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic) will not be necessary. The more successful CIA operations are, the more remote overt intervention becomes -- and the more remote become reforms. Latin America in the 1960s is all the proof one needs. A book on the CIA could also illustrate how the interests of the privileged minorities in poor countries lead back to, and are identified with, the interests of the rich and powerful who control the U.S. Counter-insurgency doctrine tries to blur these international class lines by appeals to nationalism and patriotism and by falsely relating movements against the capitalist minorities to Soviet expansionism. But what counter-insurgency really comes down to is the protection of the capitalists back in America, their property and their privileges. U.S. national security, as preached by U.S. leaders, is the security of the capitalist class in the U.S., not the security of the rest of the people -- certainly not the security of the poor except by way of reinforcing poverty. It is from the class interests in the U.S. that our counter-insurgency programmes flow, together with that most fundamental of American foreign policy principles; that any government, no matter how bad, is better than a communist one -- than a government of workers, peasants and ordinary people. Our government's support for corruption and injustice in Latin America flows directly from the determination of the rich and powerful in the U.S., the capitalists, to retain and expand these riches and power. I must be careful to speak little of my ideas for the book. Jim Noland replaced Win Scott as Chief of Station here when Scott retired last September. Scott opened an office -- in his old profession as an actuary. I imagine that he continues to work for the Agency though now on contract, because his knowledge and experience in Mexico, and his vast range of friends, are too valuable to lose. This is not the time for the Agency to learn of my intentions. Mexico City June 1970 Another failure which is difficult to understand. Last week I spoke to four editors in New York in the hope of getting a publishing contract and an advance to finish the book on the CIA. Unfortunately those editors mostly wanted a sensationalist expose approach -- divorced from the more difficult political and economic realities that give the operations meaning. I'm not sure what to do now except begin again, reorganizing the material and-trying to write more clearly. Perhaps I should try more modestly with a magazine or newspaper article on our operations to keep Allende out of the Chilean Presidency in 1964 -- he's running again right now and maybe exposure of the 1964 operations could help him. The trouble is that people may not believe me -- in New York I felt the editors weren't really certain that I'm who I say I am. The bad part of the New York trip is that I left copies of my material there, and despite assurances by the editors I'm afraid the Agency may learn of my plans for a book. One word by the station to the Mexican service and I get the one-way ride to Toluca -- except it's a lonely way to go, disappearing down one of those canyons. In a few weeks the classes at the National University begin and I'll just have to hope no one finds out about me -- neither the Agency nor the UNAM people. It's discouraging to be isolated like this but the renewed bombing in North Vietnam and the inability of the Nixon administration to admit defeat, coupled with the Cambodian invasion, have strengthened my determination to start again. The killings at Kent State and Jackson State show clearly enough that sooner or later our counter-insurgency methods would be applied at home. Mexico City January 1971 Recent months have brought important decisions and perhaps at last I am finding the proper course. Behind these decisions have been the continuation of the Vietnam war and the Vietnamization programme. Now more than ever exposure of CIA methods could help American people understand how we got into Vietnam and how our other Vietnams are germinating wherever the CIA is at work. I have resigned from my friends' company, and my sons are back in Washington -- although I continue at the University. I sent the children for Christmas only but feared Janet would go back on her agreement that they return. When she did just that I relented without much choice -- in any case they will have a better school and will learn English for a change. I, too, may leave Mexico if I can get financial support because my new plan for the book requires research materials unobtainable here. I have decided now to name all the names and organizations connected with CIA operations and to reconstruct as accurately as possible the events in which I participated. No more hiding behind theory and hypothetical cases to protect the tools of CIA adventures. The problem now will be documentation. I have also decided to seek ways of getting useful information on the CIA to revolutionary organizations that could use it to defend themselves better. The key to adopting increasingly radical views has been my fuller comprehension of the class divisions of capitalist society based on property or the lack of it. The divisions were always there, of course, for me to see, but until recently I simply failed to grasp their meaning and consequences: adversary relationships, exploitation, labour as a market-place commodity, etc. But by getting behind the liberal concept of society, that concept that attempts to paint out the irreconcilable class conflicts, I think I have grasped an understanding of why liberal reform programmes in Latin America have failed. At the same time I have seen more clearly the identity of interests of the classes in Latin America (and other underdeveloped areas) with the corresponding classes in the U.S. (and other developed areas). The result of this class conception, of seeing that class identity comes before nationality, leads to rejection of liberal reform as the continuous renovating process leading step by step to the better society. Reform may indeed represent improvement, but it is fundamentally a manoeuvre by the ruling class in capitalist society, the capitalists, to allow exploitation to continue, to give a little in order to avoid losing everything. The Alliance for Progress was just this kind of fraud -- although it was heralded as a Marshall Plan for Latin America that would permit, indeed encourage, a Latin American New Deal to sweep through the region behind the leadership of liberals like Betancourt, Haya de la Torre, Kubichek and Munoz Marin. But the Alliance for Progress failed as a social reform programme, and it failed also to stimulate sufficient per capita economic growth, partly because of high population growth and partly because of slow growth in the value of the region's exports. These two factors, combined with rising consumption by upper and middle classes, provided less for the investments on which growth must be founded. Result? The division in Latin American society widened between the modern core, dependent largely on the external sector, and the marginalized majority. By 1969 over half the people in the labour market were unemployed or underemployed. Where progress occurred in education, health care and housing it accrued mostly to the core societies in cities. Flight to cities by rural unemployed continued with the cities unable to absorb them productively. The vicious circle of small internal markets and lack of internal growth momentum also continued. Particularly in countries like Brazil, where economies have grown rapidly, wealth and income have tended to even greater concentration. Latest figures of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) show that the poorest 20 per cent of the Latin American population now receive only 3.1 per cent of total income and that the entire lower 50 per cent receives only 13.4 per cent of total income. The upper 5 per cent income bracket, on the other hand, receives 33.4 per cent of total income. The contrast between the high 5 per cent and the lower 50 per cent of the population according to ECLA rests on the dominance of the entrepreneurial class -- the capitalists -- in the upper 5 per cent whose extraordinary income results largely from distribution of profits which could be reinvested instead of being consumed. In Mexico, for example, 60 per cent of the income of the top 5 per cent is dividends, in El Salvador 80 per cent, in Argentina 85 per cent. Most important, income of the high 5 per cent is growing more rapidly than the middle- and lower-income levels -- thus aggravating income imbalance still more. The assumption, therefore, that economic growth under the Alliance for Progress would result in higher standards of living for the poorer half of the population is now demonstrated to have been false. Land-reform programmes have also failed. During the 1960s virtually every country in Latin America began some programme to reform restrictive, precarious and uneconomical tenure systems -- long accepted as the most serious structural cause of imbalance in wealth and income. But with the exceptions of Cuba, Peru and Chile the impulse has been lost and little progress made where the bulk of the potential income-producing resources lies. Concentration continues: the upper 1.8 per cent of the rural income scale holds more than 50 per cent of the farmland while the small landholders who number 25 per cent of the farm population hold only 2.4 per cent of farmland. During these past ten years, while Latin American countries failed to establish more equitable distribution of land, wealth and income, considerable success could be claimed in counterinsurgency -- including propaganda to attract people away from the Cuban solution as well as repression. As part of the counterinsurgency campaign, the Alliance for Progress in the short run did indeed raise many hopes and capture many imaginations in favour of the peaceful reform solutions that would not fundamentally jeopardize the dominance of the ruling capitalist minorities and their system. Since the 1960s however, as the psychological appeal of peaceful reform diminished in the face of failure, compensatory measures have been increasingly needed: repression and special programmes, as in the field of organized labour, to divide the victims and neutralize their leaders. These measures constitute the four most important counter-insurgency programmes through which the U.S. government strengthens the ruling minorities in Latin America: CIA operations, military assistance and training missions, AID Public Safety programmes to help police, and trade-union operations through ORIT, ‡ the International Trade Secretariats ‡ and the AIFLD ‡ -- all largely controlled by the CIA. Taken together these are the crutches given by the capitalist rulers of the U.S. to their counterparts in Latin America in order to obtain reciprocal support against threats to American capitalism. Never mind all those marginals -- what's good for capitalists in Latin America is good for capitalists in the USA. A liberal reform programme like the Alliance for Progress is a safety-valve for capitalist injustice and exploitation -- as the frontier served for release and escape from oppression in American cities during the last century. Such a programme is only what the ruling-class will allow by way of redistribution during a time of danger to the system as a whole -- something that runs against the current and the inherent drive to concentrate wealth and political power in ever fewer hands. Once the sense of urgency and danger fades, so also the pressure on the safety-valve declines and the natural forces for accumulation recuperate, soon wiping out the relative gains that the exploited obtained through reform. Reforms are temporary palliatives that can never eliminate the exploitative relationship on which capitalism is based. Increasingly, as the oppressed in capitalist society comprehend the myth of liberal reform, their ruling minorities have no choice but to increase repression in Order to avert socialist revolution. Eliminate CIA stations, U.S. military missions, AID Public Safety missions and the 'free' trade-union programmes and those minorities would disappear, faster perhaps, than they themselves would imagine. My security situation is the same, although I am puzzled that the CIA does not seem to have discovered that I am writing, or if they know, why they haven't visited me. John Horton is now Chief of Station here, and others with whom I served at other stations have been assigned here although they have shown no interest in me. Through friends I have sent copies of my new outline to a publisher in Paris -- perhaps at last I will get some encouragement. Mexico City March 1971 A quick trip to Montreal for conversations with a publisher's representative has given me new hope for both financial and research support. Although my outline and written material are acceptable, the problem remains where to find the information needed to reconstruct the events in which I participated in order to show precisely how the Agency operates. We discussed Paris or Brussels after agreeing that for security reasons anywhere in the U.S. would be unwise. We also discussed Cuba, where possibly the research materials could be found and even research assistance arranged. I said I would be fearful of going to Cuba for several reasons: my past work against Cuba and communism, possible Soviet pressures, my reluctance to engage in sessions for counter-intelligence ploys, problems with the CIA afterwards. Mostly, I suppose, I am fearful that if the CIA learned that I had gone to Cuba they would begin a campaign to denigrate me as a traitor. As my hope is to return as quickly as possible to the U.S. after finishing, I would be increasing the odds for prosecution for publishing secrets if I had gone to Cuba. There are some advantages, however, in going there. First, the security situation vis a vis CIA would be better and if the research materials are available I could work more calmly and faster. Moreover, in Havana I could arrange to get information on the CIA to interested Latin American revolutionary organizations through their representatives -- efficiently and securely. Then, too, I would have the chance to see first hand what the Cuban Revolution has meant to the people and what their problems are. Such a trip is something I thought would be possible only after I finished. After sleeping on the idea I agreed that I would go to Cuba if the trip can be arranged. Presumably the book will have to be politically acceptable to the Cubans and the research materials available. If I do not go to Cuba I will go to Paris to finish so my security situation will be improved in any case. At present I will say nothing, and hope that the CIA doesn't get wind of these plans. Paris August 1971 Great leaps of progress but so much work remains. In May I went to Havana to discuss the research materials needed, and they agreed to assist with what they have available -- which appears to be a good deal. They also invited me to stay there to finish as much as possible, which I accepted. However, as I was committed to visit my sons in Washington, I returned to Paris for conversations with the publisher and then went to the U.S. for two weeks with the boys. I have returned to check availability of research materials here and will proceed shortly to Havana. While in Cuba I travelled for several weeks around the island visiting a variety of development projects in agriculture, livestock, housing, health and education. The sense of pride and purpose evident in the Cubans is impressive. My worries about going to Cuba were unfounded and were more than replaced by fears of returning to the U.S. to see my sons. I shouldn't have returned, because I had gone to Cuba openly, but strangely I must have eluded the travel control -- or the system failed to identify me in time. I wonder if my luck will make the Cubans suspicious. Havana October 1971 I begin to wonder whether writing this book was such a good idea. I have found considerable material to refresh my memory and to reconstruct events, and I have written a respectable number of pages. Trouble is that I'm running far afield into matters that are peripheral to my CIA work. At the same time the material here is more limited than I had thought, and I may have to risk returning to Mexico and South America to continue the research. In any case I will return next month to Paris to continue there. My mood is gloomy as I feel disorganized and still quite far from having a presentable book. The events I want to describe get further into history each day -- and each day the sense of urgency to finish quickly gets stronger. Aside from specific information for reconstructing events, I have found here a number of excellent economic reports and essays on Latin American problems and their roots in U.S. exploitation of the region. One report by the Organization of American States describes clearly how the real beneficiary of the Alliance for Progress was the U.S. economy rather than the Latin American economies. This report [1] recognizes the failure to make substantial beginnings in land reform and income redistribution -- similarly the failure of foreign aid and private investment to stimulate accelerated economic growth which the report projects as the key to integration of the masses. The functioning of the external sectors of Latin American economies (excepting Venezuela as a special case) during these ten years demonstrates how these economies have supported the U.S. standard of living to the detriment of the Latin American people: Americans, in other words, can thank Latin American workers for having contributed to our ease and comfort. It is the external sector that counts because exports and foreign aid determine how much machinery and technology can be imported for economic growth, and during the past ten years the external sectors of Latin American economies failed to generate adequate growth. From 1961 to 1970 Latin America paid out to other regions, mostly to the U.S., a little over 20 billion dollars, practically all in financial services (royalties, interest and repatriated profits to foreign capital). About 30 per cent of this potential deficit was offset by export surpluses, while the remaining 70 per cent was paid through new indebtedness, new private foreign investment and other capital movements. The new indebtedness, representing as it does new costs for financial services, raised still higher the proportion of export earnings required for repatriation of royalties, interest and profits to foreigners, mostly U.S., thus decreasing amounts available for investment. During these ten years private foreign capital provided new investment of only 5.5 billion dollars while taking out 20 billion dollars. The lion's share went to U.S. investors whose investment, which averaged about 12 billion dollars in value, returned about 13 billion dollars to the U.S. Without the loans and grants from the U.S. under the Alliance for Progress, Latin America would have had to devote about 10 per cent more of its export earnings to the services account so that 'fair return' on investment could be satisfied. Otherwise a moratorium or some other extreme measure would have been necessary -- hardly conducive to new credit and investment. The Alliance for Progress has been, in effect, a subsidy programme for U.S. exporters and private investors -- in many cases the same firms. For Latin America this has meant a deficit in the external sector of about 6 billion dollars that limited the importation of equipment and technology needed for faster economic growth -- the deficit compensated by new indebtedness. For the United States this has meant a return to private investors of about five dollars for every dollar sent from the U.S. to Latin America during the period, plus a favourable trade balance, plus billions of dollars in loans that are earning interest and will some day be repaid. In other words Latin America through the Alliance for Progress has contributed to the economic development of the United States and has gone into debt to do it. No wonder we prop up these governments and put down the revolutionaries. In contrast to the myth of the Alliance for Progress, which ensures that the gap between the U.S. and Latin American economies will grow, the interesting alternative does not assume that economic growth is the determinant for integration of the marginalized majority. Based on a distinction between economic growth and social development, the revolutionary solution begins with integration. The Cuban position paper for this year's sessions of ECLA, entitled Latin America and the Second United Nations Decade for Development, views social integration through structural changes in institutions -- revolutionary change rather than reform -- as the condition for development. Economic growth alone, with benefits concentrated in the modern core minority, cannot be considered as national development because the whole society doesn't participate. Institutional change, social integration and economic growth is the revolutionary order of priorities rather than economic growth, reform and eventual extension of benefits to the marginals -- little by little so as not to affect the wealthy. The institutional changes: first, the land tenure system must be altered to break the injustices and low productivity resulting from the latifundia-minifundia problem. Second, the foreign economic enterprises must be nationalized so that the product of labour is used for national development instead of being channelled to shareholders in a highly-developed, capital-exporting country. Third, the most important national economic activities must come under state control and be subjected to overall development planning with new criteria for marketing, expansion and general operations. Fourth, personal income must be redistributed in order to give purchasing power to the previously marginalized. Fifth, a real working union between government and people must be nurtured so that the sacrifices ahead can be endured and national unity strengthened. During this early period of institutional change, attained with few exceptions, in the Cuban view, through armed struggle, the basic problems of priorities emerge: immediate development of social overhead projects in health and education v. expansion of consumption of the formerly marginalized v. investment in infrastructure. The redistribution of income, new costs of social projects, and increased internal consumption leave even less productive capacity for re-investment than before. High demand causes inflationary pressures and black markets, while rationing is necessary to assure equity in distribution. The only source of relief to offset the investment deficit, according to the Cubans, is foreign aid. Aggravating the development problem is the exodus of managers and professionals who join the overthrown landed gentry and upper middle classes in seeking to avoid participation in national development by fleeing to 'free' countries. Another drain on investment is the obvious need to maintain oversized military forces to defeat domestic and foreign counter-revolutionary forces. The romantic stage of the revolution ends, then, as the realities of the long struggle for national development take root. Internally the revolution calls for ever-greater productivity, particularly in exports, so that dependence on external financing can be kept as low as possible. Nevertheless, years will pass before economic growth will reach the point of decreasing reliance on foreign aid. Sacrifice and greater effort are the order of the day, and neither can possibly result if the producers -- the workers, peasants and others -- fail to identify in the closest union with the revolutionary government. Mistakes will be made, as every Cuban is quick to admit, but there can be no doubt that national development here is well underway and accelerating. In Cuba the people have education, health care and adequate diet, while long strides are being made in housing. When one considers that over half the population of Latin America, over 150 million people, are still deprived of participation in these minimal benefits of modern culture and technology, it becomes clear that the only country that has really attained the social goals of the Alliance for Progress is Cuba. I still have no indication that the CIA knows I am writing this book or that I have come to Cuba. During recent months I have tried to follow the growth of the Frente Amplio in Uruguay in preparation for the national elections next month. The situation is so ready for election operations by the Montevideo station that I have yielded to the compulsion to denounce this possibility. I wrote a letter to Marcha in Montevideo describing some of the standard covert-action operations and suggesting that the Agency may well be involved right now in operations against the Frente and in support of candidates of the traditional parties. If Marcha publishes even part of it, any doubts about my intentions on the part of the CIA must disappear. Paris January 1972 The letter to Marcha was a mistake. A couple of days after Christmas, while resting before dinner with my sons -- they came for the vacation period -- we had a knock at the door and who should appear but Keith Gardiner, ‡ an old JOT and OCS colleague who spent some years in Brazil during the 1960s. I was unprepared for a visit from the CIA and I agreed, because my children live near him and play with his children, to accompany him to dinner. On leaving our hotel he disappeared for a few moments in order, he said, to release a colleague who was standing by in case I had received him in an unfriendly manner. After dinner I agreed to speak privately to him. He surprised me with a machine copy of what Marcha had published of my letter, adding that Mr. Helms ‡ wants to know just what I think I am doing. Not yet knowing that my letter to Marcha has been published, I decided to develop a bluff that might convince the Agency that there is nothing they can do to stop publication of the book. I told Keith that I have completed an over-sized draft that I am now editing down to appropriate size -- the truth being that I have completed less than one-third of my research. Gardiner admitted that the Paris station (Dave Murphy, former Chief of the Soviet Bloc Division, is Chief of Station here now) located me through the French liaison service. Pointedly suggesting that I am being manipulated by the Soviets through my publisher, he said the Agency's chief concern is exactly what I have revealed in material already submitted or discussed - which I refused to talk about. I assured Keith, however, that I will be making no damaging revelations and will submit the final draft for approval before publication. On the Marcha letter he denied that the Montevideo station had engaged in any election operation, but he said the Bordaberry campaign (Bordaberry, a former Ruralista leader, won, running as a Colorado) received large infusions of Brazilian money -- the role of the Brazilian military dictatorship as surrogate for U.S. imperialism in South America was also evident in the Bolivian rightist military coup a few months ago. Gardiner told me that in September of this year he will enter the University of Wisconsin for a Master's Degree in Latin American studies -- the first time a DDP operations officer has been sent for higher university study that either of us can remember. Then, again pointedly, he asked if I might reveal his name so as to expose him at the university. I assured him I wouldn't and suggested that while studying he keep in mind the possibility of joining the fight against the CIA and American imperialism. After all, why be a secret policeman for U.S. capitalists when the system itself is disappearing? Not knowing to what ends the French service will go to please the Agency, I feared after meeting Keith that I might be deported under some pretext on a flight having New York as its first stop. So the next day I took the boys to Spain for the final week before their return to school. Now I continue here, and I must be careful to avoid provocation while finishing as fast as I can. I don't know if my bluff will work or whether the French service or the Agency will take action against me. I shouldn't have written the letter to Marcha. Paris August 1972 Events in the past three months have taken unfavourable turns, and I am fearful that the CIA is now closing in. My money has run out and I am living on small donations from friends, street surveillance has forced me to live in hiding, research still pending in Cuba was cancelled, I still cannot find the information I need, and people \Who have befriended me and on whom I am depending show frequent signs of being infiltrators. In May I went to Havana again for discussions on research left from last year, and on additional needs that have arisen since. For reasons I fail to understand there is a lack of confidence in my intentions about the book's political content. As a result, research I left pending with them last year has not been done -- the same as cancellation if I have to do it myself. Very disappointing although understandable -- the Cubans wouldn't want to be embarrassed by a politically unacceptable book, and political content is something that must come at the end, after the research is finished. In June my publisher's advance ran out, and in order to get another advance I would have had to amend the contract to allow for publication first in France. It may be chauvinism, but as I am seriously criticizing American institutions, I'm determined to make every effort for publication there first, or at least simultaneously with publication elsewhere. I couldn't accept the amendment and I am depending on a few friends for sustenance. A few days after returning from Cuba I suddenly began to recognize street surveillances in Paris, which I suspect may be the French service -- possibly at CIA request. But being unsure of the sponsorship and purpose of the surveillance, I went to live secretly at the studio of a friend, Catherine, who agreed that I could stay there until the problem is resolved. About the same time as the surveillance began I was befriended by several Americans, two of whom display excessive curiosity and other indications that suggest they may be CIA agents trying to get close to me for different purposes. One of these, a supposed freelance journalist named Sal Ferrera, ‡ claims to write for College Press Service, Alternative Features Service and other 'underground' organizations in the U.S. As a means to get some financial relief I agreed to an 'interview' with Salon my work in the CIA which he will try to sell. Meanwhile he gives me small loans and tries to find out where I am living. With Sal I met Leslie Donegan ‡ who claims to be a Venezuelan heiress, graduate of Boston University and currently studying at the University of Geneva. At Sal's suggestion I discussed the book and my financial situation with Leslie and allowed her to keep copies of the manuscript to read over a week-end. She agreed to finance me until I finish -- right now I am rushing to prepare what I have written so far, for presentation to an American publisher who will be here in early October. Sal is also helping -- he obtained a typewriter for me when I had to turn in my hired one for the deposit. Strangely, he refused to tell me where he got it -- only that it's borrowed and that I may have to give it back quickly when the owner returns from London. I shouldn't have allowed Leslie to read the manuscript, nor should I continue associating with either her or Sal. However, I need the' loans' they are giving me in order to survive until getting the contract with the American publisher in October. If indeed they are working for the CIA, relatively little harm is done because the cryptonyms and pseudonyms I have used will confuse, and I have assured them both that I do not intend to reveal true names -- just as I did with Gardiner. I have also hidden away copies and preserved my notes so that the unfinished portions could be finished by someone else. Leslie tried to persuade me to accompany her to Spain, but I begged off in order to work with Therese -- another friend who is typing the manuscript for presentation to the American publisher, and who is being paid by Leslie. I certainly wouldn't go to Spain at Leslie's invitation. If she is working for the CIA they may have planned a dope plant with the cooperation of the Spanish service to get me put on ice for a few years. Under Spanish-style justice prisoners can probably be kept from writing books. If my suspicions about these two are ever confirmed, it will be ironic that the CIA, while trying to follow my writing and set a trap, actually financed me through the most difficult period. Of all these recent problems the worst is that I haven't had the money for the boys to come for the summer. By Christmas, when they have their next vacation, a year will have passed without seeing them. Nevertheless, I'm sure that in October I'll get new financial support so that they can come in December. On no account can I return to the U.S. until I finish. After meeting with the publisher in October I'll go to London for final research at the British Museum newspaper library -- they have all the newspapers from Quito, Montevideo and Mexico City for the periods when I was at those stations, and I will be able to reconstruct the most important operational episodes accurately. These weeks are black. I am very unsure of what may happen. Paris 6 October 1972 How is it possible? I cannot believe that somewhere in the five or six hundred pages I've written, this editor couldn't see a book. Or if he could, perhaps he thinks I'm a bad risk. What he wants is drama, romance and glorification of what I did. When he left two days ago for Orly he barely showed any interest. One can force a positive attitude at times, but to hit a new low after three years has its effects. Nevertheless I continue. Yesterday I began to record on tape the essential information that I can remember on what remains of the book in this version. These are descriptions of operations that I knew of or participated in and that will serve as illustrations. This is easily the most important part and will include eighty to ninety episodes that I will reconstruct from press reports in London, adding our role. By the end of next week the tapes will be finished, and I'll store copies in a safe place. The following week I'll go to Brussels for a short visit with my father who will be running through, and from there to London. The CIA has been active in recent months trying to bring pressure. In September the General Counsel visited my father in Florida, and also Janet, to express Helms's concern over the book and my trips to Cuba. He also left copies of the recent court decision holding former CIA employees to the secrecy agreement and requiring submission of manuscripts for approval prior to publication. Sorry, but the national security for me lies in socialism, not in protection of CIA operations and agents. Just after the General Counsel's visit to Janet I received a letter from my oldest son -- almost eleven now -- telling me of the visit:
I went to a telephone at the University of Paris where everyone calls overseas without paying -- my son told me he had overheard the conversation while hiding after having been told to go away. The address doesn't matter because it's Sal's -- he's been getting my mail since May so that I can keep Catherine's studio secret. In order to keep money coming from Leslie and Sal during these final weeks I have kept up the fiction of following through with a team effort in London. They have both agreed to accompany me there -- Sal will transcribe the tapes and Leslie will help with newspaper research at the British Museum. If I can get support in London I'll break with them completely but meanwhile I need their help. Today at a previously arranged meeting Leslie brought me a used typewriter that she bought only minutes before to replace the one Salient me last July. Apparently the owner of the borrowed typewriter called at Sal's and angrily demanded the immediate return of his machine. So I had to rush back to Catherine's studio for the borrowed typewriter which I returned right away to Sal. I don't need the one Leslie bought because I'm making the recordings, so I left it at Therese's apartment there in the Latin Quarter where Leslie gave it to me. Little things about Sal and Leslie keep me suspicious. Often after pre-planned meetings with them I pick up surveillance and they continue to press me about where I'm living. I must hurry to finish the tapes -- anyone would be able to use them to finish the research and the book. Things can only get better from now on. Paris 14 October 1972 Today my doubts about Sal and Leslie were resolved in the case of Leslie, completely, and in the case of Sal, almost. It began two days ago over pizza when Leslie gave me money for the trip to Brussels and London. When she asked how I like the typewriter she bought me, I told her I haven't used it because of the recordings -- adding that I left it at Therese's apartment. She seemed hurt that I had left it there, particularly as Therese never locks her apartment. Afterwards when Sal and I were alone, he said Leslie was very angry that I had left the typewriter with Therese, and, that if it disappears (Therese has already had several intrusions), Leslie will stop financing me. Without reflecting properly I took the typewriter from Therese's apartment to Catherine's studio, although as usual I went through my counter-surveillance routine. I placed it under the table where I work and this afternoon after finishing the last tape I went out to buy a bottle of beer. When I returned I noticed a man and woman standing in front of Catherine's door, looking as if they had just knocked. As I approached the door, however, they backed away and began to embrace. I knocked and Catherine opened, laughing as she noticed the embrace in the dark hallway. On glancing back at the couple with their full coats and large travel bags, I suddenly realized what was happening. After closing the door I took Catherine aside and whispered that the man and woman were probably monitors of a bugging operation to discover where I am living. She said she saw a hearing-aid in the ear of the man, which suggested that the irritating beeps causing interference on my radio over the past two days were the signal being monitored. Catherine followed the couple down the steps to see where they went, and in their confusion they went all the way to the ground floor where the doorway is always locked with a key. This building, only a block from the Seine, has its regular entrance on the side away from the river and up the slope -- corresponding to the third or fourth floor up from the ground floor where the monitors went. As they had no key they stood around for a moment, embraced again as Catherine passed, said nothing, and began to walk back up the stairs. Catherine, who had been watching them from the garbage-room, came back to the studio and told me that they seemed to have portable radios or cases beneath their coats. Now it was clear. Since bringing the typewriter that Leslie bought for me to Catherine's studio, I have been hearing a beeping sound on my own portable FM radio. I paid little attention, however, because of the nearness to ORTF and the frequent other interference I get. I reached under the table, raised the typewriter case with the machine inside, and began to turn it. As I turned it the beeping sound on my radio got louder and softer in direct relation to the turning. Catherine carried it out of the building and the beeping completely disappeared. When she returned it began again. Later I tore open the lining of the inside roof of the case and found an elaborate installation of transistors, batteries, circuits, wiring and antennas -- also a tiny microphone for picking up voices. The objects were all very small, mounted in spaces cut out of a piece of 1/4-inch plywood cut exactly the size of the case and glued against the roof. Not only was the object designed to discover where I live through direction-finding, it appears also made for transmitting conversations. I shall leave for Brussels in three days and Catherine will go to the country for a few days -- there is certainly nothing they can do to her. Before leaving I shall stay in cheap hotels in Montmartre, changing each morning so that the police cannot find me through their registry slips. From London I will write to Sal and Leslie telling them that I prefer to work alone from now on -- I can find some source of support for the two or three months until I finish, Leslie is a spy, and I will know for certain about Sal when I ask him where he got the first typewriter he lent me. Obviously that first machine was lent as a stand-in until the bugged typewriter was ready and they could effect a sudden switch. Leslie's feigned resentment when I left the typewriter at Therese's apartment was the ploy to get me to take the typewriter to where I live. The damage may have been slight, but I've been foolish. From now on I take no chances. London 24 October 1972 Today, Tuesday, I arrived in London on the train from Paris. In order to avoid carrying the manuscript and other materials to Brussels -- where the CIA might have tried to talk to me in my father's presence -- I went back to Paris to get them a d to proceed here. At the Gare du Nord this morning a friend was waiting to tell me that on Friday Therese was arrested and taken to an interrogation centre at the Ministry of the Interior. For several hours she was questioned about me and the book -- they know of my CIA background and said the U.S. government considers me an enemy of the state. They were most interested in discovering where I lived in Paris, but as Therese didn't know she couldn't tell them. Apparently she played dumb and was finally released. Tomorrow I will call to reassure her and to see if there are more details. What is interesting about the arrest is that the French have continued to help the CIA- the surveillance and the crude opening of my correspondence sent c/o Sal were probably done by the French. However, by Friday -- the day Therese was arrested -- the CIA had known for a week where I was living. If the French service didn't know, it was only because the station hadn't told them -- probably in order to avoid admitting that I caught the monitors and discovered the installation in the typewriter case. After having helped the Paris station, the French service might not like being kept on chasing around for my hideaway for days after it was known to the CIA. Tonight by telephone Sal also told me of Therese's arrest, adding that Leslie 'panicked' and went to Spain on Saturday. I feigned concern that she hadn't come here as planned, but Sal said he too was going to Spain -- tomorrow if he can -- in order to let things 'cool off'. I don't want them to know for sure that I am breaking with them, not yet anyway, so I protested to Sal that he must come here to help as planned. He insisted try at he go to Spain in order to convince Leslie to come to London, and he will call by telephone later this week after seeing her. The British service was well prepared for my arrival. My name was on the immigration check-list on the ship crossing the Channel, which caused me a long interview and then a longer wait. I can take no chances on jeopardizing my status here. Tomorrow I must begin looking for support, as I have money for only a few days. London 7 December 1972 Relief at last. After calling at the International Commission for Peace and Disarmament, a group that channels protest against U.S. crimes in Vietnam, I was sent to several other possible sources of support, finally to the editor who will help me finish. I now have a contract to publish here, with an advance sufficient to carry me through to the end as well as transcription service and other important support. At the British Museum, moreover, I began reading the newspapers and discovered that here is the pot of gold I've been chasing for the past three years. In less than one week I discovered so many events in which we participated that I have decided to read all the newspapers, day by day, from the time I went to Ecuador until I returned to Washington from Uruguay. The Mexico City papers will also be valuable for selected events there. The editor accepts the added delay -- this places completion from a few months to a year or more away -- but it will be worth the effort. Sometimes I feel that I am reading the CIA files themselves, so much of what the Agency does is reflected in actual events. I may, in fact, be able to piece together a diary presentation to make the operations more readable. I tried at first to live under an assumed name, more or less secretly as I had done in Paris. But each night as I left the Museum I was trailed by surveillance teams, and fatigue led me to give up the effort to conceal where I was living. My mail is again being opened, quite obviously, and meetings arranged by telephone have generated immediate surveillance once more. At times I wonder if the surveillance is mainly for harassment, as it is so clumsy and indiscreet, but if the British service does nothing more serious, I shall be able to finish in calm. In telephone conversations with Sal and Leslie in Spain, she again tried to convince me to go there but she also refused to send me money. Sal eventually came to London to continue helping me -- not knowing, perhaps, that I've solved the problem of support -- but at our first meeting I refused his help unless he gave me certain information. Making it clear I thought Leslie was a spy, but without revealing how I found out, I asked Sal a series of questions on his university background and his connections with the underground press in the U.S. Eventually we came around to the first typewriter he lent me, and when he continued refusing to reveal who gave it to him (just as he had refused earlier in July) I told him we could go no further. I can only conclude that the CIA failed to establish a proper cover story for the first typewriter, since Sal could neither explain where it came from nor why he refused to explain. There is a remote possibility that Sal is the victim of an amazing chain of coincidences, but I can have nothing more to do with him. In spite of the recent good news there is also a gloomy side. As soon as I had oral agreement on the new contract I telephoned the boys to tell them I have the money for them to come at Christmas. To my dismay Janet said she would not let them come, insisting that I go there to see them. She knows perfectly well that I cannot risk a trip to the U.S. until I have finished the book, so she must be cooperating with the CIA to ensure that in my desperation to see my sons I will risk a trip back now. It won't work. London October 1973 I hurry to finish, now more confident than ever that I really will see this project to the end. The coup in Chile, terrible as it is, has been like a spur for even faster work. Signs of preparations for the coup were clear all along. While economic assistance to Chile plummeted after Allende's election, military aid continued: in 1972 military aid to the Chilean generals and admirals was the highest to any country in Latin America; the growth of the CIA station since 1970 under the Chief of Station, Ray Warren; ‡ the murder of General Schneider; the militancy of well-heeled 'patriotic' organizations such as Patria y Libertad; the economic sabotage; the truckers' strike of 1972 with the famous 'dollar-per- day' to keep the strikers from working; and the truckers' strike of this past June -- both strikes probably were financed by the CIA, perhaps through the International Transport Workers' Federation ‡ (ITF), perhaps through the AIFLD which had already trained some 9000 Chilean workers. Perhaps through Brazil. So many possible ways. Finally the Plan Z: so like our Flores document in Quito, our evidence against the Soviets in Montevideo, so typical of CIA black documents. Was it placed in the Minister's office by an agent in the Ministry? More likely the Chilean generals simply asked the station to write Plan Z, just as our Uruguayan liaison collaborators asked us to write the scenario for proof of Soviet intervention with trade unions in 1965 and 1966. Brazilian participation in preparations for the coup and follow-up repression clearly demonstrates Brazil's subordinate but key role in the U.S. government's determination to retain capitalist hegemony in Latin America. Brazilian exiles arrested in Chile are recognizing their former torturers from Brazilian jails, as now they are again forced to submit to such horror. What we see in Chile today is still another flowering of Brazilian fascism. Only a few more months and ten years will have passed since that 31 March when the cables arrived in the Montevideo station reporting Goulart's overthrow. Such joy and relief! Such a regime we created. Not just through the CIA organization and training of the military regime's intelligence services; not just through the military assistance programmes -- good for 165 million dollars in grants, credit sales and surplus equipment since 1964 plus special training in the U.S. for thousands; not just through the AID police-assistance programme worth over 8 million dollars and training for more than 100,000 Brazilian policemen; not just the rest of the U.S. economic assistance programme -- worth over 300 million dollars in 1972 alone and over 4 billion dollars in the last twenty-five years. Not just the multi-lateral economic assistance programmes where U.S. influence is strong -- worth over 2.5 billion dollars since 1946 and over 700 million dollars in 1972. Most important, every one of the hundreds of millions of private U.S. dollars invested in Brazil is a dollar in support of fascism. All this to support a regime in which the destitute, marginalized half of the population -- some fifty million people -- are getting still poorer while the small ruling elite and their military puppets get an ever larger share. All this to support a regime under which the income of the high 5 per cent of the income scale now gets almost 40 per cent of total income, while half the population has to struggle for survival on 15 per cent of total income. All this to create a facade of 'economic miracle' where per capita income is still only about 450 dollars per year -- still behind Nicaragua, Peru and nine other Latin American countries -- and where even the UN Economic Commission for Latin America reports that the 'economic miracle' has been of no benefit to the vast majority of the population. All this for a regime that has to clamour for export markets because creation of an internal market would imply reforms such as redistribution of income and a slackening of repression -- possibly even a weakening of the dictatorship. All this to support a regime denounced the world over for the barbaric torture and inhuman treatment inflicted as a matter of routine on its thousands of political prisoners -- including priests, nuns and many non-Marxists -- many of whom fail to survive the brutality or are murdered outright. Repression in Brazil even includes cases of the torture of children, before their parents' eyes, in order to force the parents to give information. This is what the CIA, police assistance, military training and economic aid programmes have brought to the Brazilian people. And the Brazilian regime is spreading it around: Bolivia in 1971, Uruguay in February of this year and now Chile. Ecuador, too, has seen some remarkable events since I left. The reform programme begun by the military junta in 1963 eventually led to the junta's own overthrow in 1966 the early relief of the ruling class because of the junta's repression of the left gave way to alarm over economic reforms and finally a combined opposition from left and right, similar to the forces that led to Velasco's overthrow in 1961. After a few months' provisional government, a Constituent Assembly convened to form a government and to write a new Constitution -- Ecuador's seventeenth -- which was promulgated in 1967. The 1968 election provided in the new Constitution developed into a new struggle between Camilo Ponce, on the right, and yes, Velasco, on the ... well, wherever he happened to be. Velasco was elected President for the fifth time, but largely because he was supported by Carlos Julio Arosemena who had managed to recoup a considerable political following after his overthrow. Velasco's fifth presidency began with the familiar spate of firings of government employees to make way for his own supporters, followed in 1970 by his closure of the Congress and assumption of dictatorial powers. Ecuador's seventeenth Constitution had a short life, although Velasco promised that elections would occur on schedule in 1972. Trouble was that Asaad Bucaram, the presidential candidate everyone knew would win, is too honest and too well known to favour the common people. (Carlos Arizaga Vega ‡ [i] was the leading Conservative Party candidate.) After Velasco failed to force Bucaram to stay in exile, or to prove through an elaborate campaign that Bucaram was not really born in Ecuador (both campaigns only strengthened Bucaram) all the traditional parties and economic elites -- and eighty-year-old Velasco himself -- combined to promote chaos and military intervention once again. In February 1972, a few months before the elections, the Ecuadorean military leaders took over and Velasco was overthrown for the fourth time in his five presidencies. During the years since I left there have been no meaningful reforms to ease the extreme injustices that prevailed when I first arrived in 1960. Ecuador, however, after all these generations of political tragicomedy and popular suffering has suddenly become the centre of very great international attention. Petroleum! Ecuador this year became a major oil exporter, thanks to discoveries in the Amazonian jungles east of the Andes. Not that these discoveries were really so recent. It is now known that the oil was discovered by the cartel in explorations beginning in 1920, but was kept secret to avoid oversupply on the world market. By 1949 the petroleum companies had been so successful in keeping the fabulous reserves secret that Gala Plaza, then Ecuadorean President, diverted national attention from the eastern region by describing traditional hopes for oil or other resources in the oriente as one great myth. At the same time, under Plaza's leadership, Ecuador became the banana republic that it is -- not surprising since Plaza had worked for United Fruit which, with Standard Fruit, became the dominant power for production and marketing of Ecuadorean bananas. Meanwhile the oil companies made millions by importing petroleum. In March 1964, just after I left Ecuador, the military junta contracted for new exploration with the Texaco-Gulf consortium and subsequent contracts under other governments followed. But discoveries in the late 1960s could not be kept secret as in the past, and soon Ecuadorean reserves were being described as equal to or greater than those of Venezuela. By 1971 all the oriente region and all the coastal and offshore areas had been contracted for exploration and exploitation -- in almost all cases with terms exceedingly prejudicial to Ecuador but with undoubted benefits to the government officials involved. All seven of the big companies got contracts, as did a number of smaller companies, and even Japanese concerns. By mid-1972 the pipeline from the oriente basin over the Andes and down to the Pacific port of Esmeraldas was completed, and oil started to flow -- just a few months after the latest military takeover from Velasco. This year Ecuadorean income from oil exports is approaching the value of all the country's exports in 1972 when. they were still dominated by bananas, coffee and cacao. Prospects for increased production and income (800,000 to 1,000,000 barrels daily) are almost beyond imagination. First indications from the new military government created hope that a leftist nationalism of the Peruvian brand might channel benefits from petroleum exports to the masses of poor most in need of help. There was even talk of land reform and social justice and equal opportunity -- familiar themes. Soon, however, a Brazilian-lining faction within the military leadership began to grow and struggles continue between these reactionary forces and the progressives who favour the Peruvian model. Nevertheless quite significant steps were taken to recover control of the petroleum industry and to reverse the shameful sell-outs made by the military junta in 1964 and by succeeding governments. Several former government officials were even tried for their participation in the vast corruption connected with petroleum contracts between 1964 and 1972. But so far the reactionary forces in the Ecuadorean government have been able to avoid agrarian reform, while military institutions take half of all the petroleum income -- the other half being invested in electrification. Benefits from petroleum so far are best described by AID: 'Initially, the beneficial effects of oil are being felt mainly in the more prosperous sectors of Ecuadorean society, while the poor half of the population remains virtually isolated from the economic mainstream. The rural and urban poor, with an average annual per capita income of less than eighty dollars, provide an inadequate market to stimulate the growth of the modern sector.' From a distance one can only imagine the struggle now under way between left and right within the context of Ecuadorean nationalism. Some of the forces involved, however, are evident. Brazilian support to reactionaries is part of larger efforts to get into active exploitation of Ecuador's petroleum -- not surprising as Brazil must import 80 per cent of its oil. On the U.S. side, while military aid was suspended because of the tuna war, the Public Safety programme goes on -- worth about four million dollars in organization, training and equipment. The 1972 Public Safety project for Ecuador describes the programme's purpose: 'To assist the Government of Ecuador to develop and maintain an atmosphere conducive to increasing domestic and foreign investment, and the law and order necessary for a stable democratic society, by working through the National Police.' The logic seems odd: the military government has declared its intention to remain in power indefinitely. The National Police enforces military rule. Therefore, strengthening the National Police will lead to a 'stable, democratic society'. The CIA station also continues -- now larger than ever with at least seven operations officers under Embassy cover in Quito (Paul Harwood; is now Chief of Station) and four operations officers in the Guayaquil Consulate (Keith Schofield ‡ is Chief of Base). By this year the AIFLD has trained almost 20,000 Ecuadorean workers while CEOSL; continues to make inroads against CTE dominance in the trade-union movement. In 1971 CEOSL and the International Federation of Petroleum and Chemical Workers; established the National Federation of Petroleum and Chemical Workers ‡ with none other than Matias Ulloa Coppiano [ii] as one of the main organizers. No question about the importance of Ecuador's petroleum workers now. Perhaps in months to come the military government using petroleum income, will commit itself to fairer distribution of income, and to programmes that will benefit the mass of the population. The reforms -- agrarian, economic and administrative -- remain to be realized. Without doubt the chance that progressive forces will prevail underlies the policy of the Communist Party of Ecuador to support the current military government. Perhaps the government will fall under complete domination of its Brazilian-line faction. Perhaps it will continue without clear definition beyond continued favouring of the already wealthy class -- allowing the petroleum bonanza to trigger extreme inflation and distorted economic development, as in Venezuela. But if it is to take a progressive path it will have to overcome not only the pro-Brazilians within its ranks, but also the U.S. government programmes, not the least of which are put out by the CIA, including AIFLD, CEOSL and other reactionary organizations. In any case, events since I left demonstrate increasingly the triumph of those revolutionary ideas we fought so hard to destroy. Today Ecuador is immensely closer to the inevitable revolutionary structural changes than when I arrived. Events in Uruguay since 1966 have been no less interesting than in Ecuador and considerably more revealing of the Brazilian military regime's readiness to fulfil the role of sub-imperialist power in South America -- remaining within and supporting continued U.S. hegemony. In March 1967, Uruguay returned to the one-man executive as approved in the November 1966 elections. Nine months later, however, the moderate Colorado President died and was replaced by the rightist Vice-President, Jorge Pacheco Areco. Pacheco's four years in office were marked by continuing inflation, continuing financial and governmental corruption, no reforms, and failure to repress the Tupamaro movement in spite of widening use of torture, right-wing civilian terror organizations (of the type financed by the Montevideo station in the early 1960s), and police death-squads on the well known Brazilian model. The full flowering of the Tupamaro movement during the Pacheco presidency brought long periods of state of siege and suppression of constitutional liberties but with little success. Brazilian official policy of strengthening conservative influence in Uruguay -- begun in 1964 by Manuel Pio Correa -- resulted in the formation during the Pacheco presidency of Brazilian-line factions, both in military institutions and in the traditional political parties. In the November 1971 elections Pacheco was defeated in his attempt at re-election through constitutional amendment, but the winner was Juan Mana Bordaberry, Pacheco's next choice after himself. There was wide belief that the chief Blanco contender had actually won the close election, but through fraud the presidency was given to Bordaberry -- an admitted advocate of 'Brazilian-style solutions' and a prominent landowner. (In the early 1960s Bordaberry had been a leader of the Federal League for Ruralist Action dominated by Benito Nardone. He resigned his Senate seat in 1965 and in 1971 was running as a Colorado.) Results of the 1971 elections indicate the remarkable growth of leftist sentiment in recent years. In 1958 the electoral front of the Communist Party of Uruguay received 2.6 per cent (27,000) of the total vote, in 1962 3.5 per cent (41,000), in 1966 5.7 per cent (70,000), and in 1971 -- strengthened with other groups in the Frente Amplio -- 18.4 per cent (304,000). CIA estimates of PC U membership (published by the Department of State in World Strength of Communist Organizations) also grew correspondingly from 3000 in 1962 to 6000 in 1964 to 20,000 in 1969. With all this and the Tupamaros, too, something had to be done. On taking office in March 1972 Bordaberry reportedly intensified the use of torture on Tupamaro prisoners which, in combination with errors by the Tupamaros themselves, led to severe setbacks for the movement. By September 1972 the Tupamaros were forced into a period of reorganization. Successes against the Tupamaros, however, created greater consciousness within the Uruguayan military of the injustices and corruption against which the Tupamaros had been fighting. Interrogations of Tupamaros led the military to uncover more stunning corruption than ever, and the trail began to lead back through the Pacheco regime to Pacheco himself and to Bordaberry who had been one of Pacheco's ministers. Investigations led to the arrest of some eighty business leaders in late 1972, and to an increasing tendency for military intervention in the civilian government. In February 1973 the military finally took over but kept Bordaberry in office as chief executive, establishing a National Security Council as the mechanism for controlling the government. The Uruguayan military justified their intervention as necessary for rooting out corruption and effecting agrarian, tax and credit reforms. Combating Marxism-Leninism was another justification offered by the military -- which was itself divided among those under Brazilian influence, those favouring a leftist nationalism of the Peruvian variety, and those favouring closer relations with Argentina to preserve independence from Brazil. In June the Congress was closed and Brazilian-line military leaders were clearly in control. With the ascendancy of Brazilian influence in Uruguay during the Pacheco and Bordaberry military governments, repression of the entire left has reached previously unimaginable proportions. Leftist parties have been proscribed, the National Workers' Convention outlawed, prisons overflow with political prisoners, freedom of the press has been eliminated, and left-wingers have been rooted out of the entire educational system. For having covered the Chilean coup three newspapers and one radio station were closed. The University of the Republic has been closed and the Rector and deans of all the faculties are facing military courts. Torture of political prisoners, already widespread under Pacheco, now seems to be equaling Brazilian proportions. Meanwhile, since I left Uruguay in 1966, the economic crisis has deepened even more. Per capita economic growth during 1960- 71 was zero. Inflation, according to the government's own figures, was 47 per cent in 1971, 96 per cent in 1972, and will reach 100 per cent this year -- for 1962-72 inflation was near 6500 per cent. The peso, in the 70s when I left, is now down to 750 officially, and to over 900 on the black market. Purchasing power of the ordinary Uruguayan has declined 60-80 per cent in the past six years. Little wonder that latest polls indicate that 40 per cent of the population would emigrate if they could. In March this year it was revealed that Bordaberry had secretly sold 20 per cent of the country's gold reserves in order to pay foreign creditors, and he continues to pursue his admitted economic goal of integration with the Brazilian economy. Assistance by the U.S. government to the Pacheco and the Bordaberry/military regime has of course not been lacking. Military aid to Uruguay during 1967-71 (grants, surplus equipment and credit sales) totalled 10.3 million dollars and for the financial year 1972 was just over 4 million dollars -- equivalent to almost one and a half dollars for each Uruguayan. Training of the Uruguayan military also continues with a total of over 2000 trained since 1950. Economic assistance to Uruguay through AID and other official U.S. agencies rose from 6.5 million in 1971 to 10 million dollars last year. The Public Safety programme also continues -- worth 225,000 dollars last year with a cumulative total, since it was started by Ned Holman; in 1964, of 2.5 million dollars. About 120 Uruguayan policemen have been trained in the U.S., and over 700 in Uruguay, in riot control, communications and 'investigative procedures'. CIA support? Montevideo station officers under Embassy cover grew from six to eight between 1966 and 1973, not to mention increases under non-official cover or within the A I D Public Safety mission. Significantly, the Chief of Station since early this year, Gardner Hathaway, served in the Rio de Janeiro station during 1962-5 when the Goulart government was brought down and the military regime was cemented in power. Similarly, the Deputy Chief of Station, Fisher Ames, ‡ served in the Dominican Republic during the repression following U.S. military invasion. Prominent among leaders of the Bordaberry /military government is Juan Jose Gari, ‡ [iii] the old Ruralista political-action agent who is one of Bordaberry's chief advisors and, with Bordaberry, one of the leading opponents of the reforms mentioned but not yet started by military leaders. Important too is Mario Aguerrondo, ‡ [iv] close liaison collaborator of the station when he was Montevideo Chief of Police in 1958-62. He's now a retired Army general and was a leader of the military coup in February. Progress can also be noted in station labour operations. Since starting the AIFLD operation in Uruguay in 1963, over 7500 workers have been trained. This programme enabled the station to form a new national trade-union confederation, finally replacing the old Uruguayan Labor Confederation (CSU) that was scrapped in 1967. The new organization, called the Uruguayan Confederation of Workers ‡ (CUT), was formed in 1970and is safely inside the fold of ORIT, ICFTU and the ITS. The pattern for formation of the CUT is almost a carbon copy of the formation of the CEOSL in Ecuador. For the time being power lies with the Brazilian-line reactionary elements in the Uruguayan military. As in Ecuador the chance exists that those military officers who prefer a nationalist and progressive solution will eventually triumph, so that some of the reforms so drastically needed can be imposed. But as in Chile and in Brazil itself, this terrible repression only raises the people's consciousness of the injustices and can only speed the day for revolutionary structural transformation. Events in Mexico have been less spectacular than in Ecuador and Uruguay -- the one-party dictatorship of necessity lacks the violent lurches of political free-for-all and military coup -- but no less indicative of rising revolutionary consciousness. While the country's remarkable per capita income growth (an average 3.2 per cent increase annually during 1960-71) reached just under 800 dollars last year, the benefits continue to be enjoyed by very few. The poorer half of the population gets only about 15 per cent of the total income and according to the Bank, of Mexico half of the economically active population lack job security and earn under 80 dollars per month. A study by the National University revealed that of Mexico's twenty-four million people of working age, 9.6 million (40 per cent) are unemployed. As in the case of Brazil, Mexico's lack of an internal market because of income concentration in the privileged minority has forced the country to scramble for export markets in order to continue its economic growth and to meet payments on its enormous foreign debt contracted for development projects. Surprise and alarm spread through Mexico's wealthy elite when Luis Echeverria [v] campaigned for the presidency in 1970 on a programme for redistribution of income, so that workers and peasants would receive a fairer share. His intensive campaign throughout the country seemed designed for a candidate fighting an uphill battle against an overwhelming opposition -- not altogether misleading since the opposition was the people's apathy rather than another candidate. His reformist policies were strongly opposed by Mexican business and industrial interests, and his new attempt to introduce democratic procedures within the P R I intensified divisions within the party. Although new statutes providing for greater internal democracy were adopted at the PRI convention in 1972, Echeverria has had scant success in trying to get a redistribution of income. Fears within the privileged minority that reforms might dangerously weaken the whole PRI power structure, together with resistance to the economic effect of redistribution, have effectively prevented significant reforms from starting. Faced with the prospect of continuing injustice and failure of reform, Mexicans are increasingly turning to revolutionary action -- and as revolutionary consciousness and action has grown, so too has the level of repression. The guerrilla movement in the Guerrero mountains continues to operate successfully against the discredited Mexican Army, in spite of the death of its principal leader, Genaro Rojas. Bank expropriations, executions, kidnappings and other direct action grow in intensity as urban guerrilla movements appear in the main Mexican cities. The student movement, too, gains new strength in spite of regular right-wing violence. Just two months after I left Mexico another Tlatelolco-style massacre occurred when a peaceful student march of 8000 was attacked by some 500 plain-clothes para-police armed with machine-guns, pistols, chains, clubs and other weapons. The number killed was kept secret. Regular police forces were prevented from intervening even afterwards when the thugs invaded hospitals to prevent treatment to the injured students -- roughing up doctors and breaking into operating rooms. Reaction to this carefully planned and officially sponsored attack caused the resignations of the Mexico City police chief and mayor, but Echeverria's promised investigation was predictably unsuccessful in finding those responsible. One year later, in June 1972, dozens of students were injured when police attacked a demonstration commemorating companions killed at the Corpus Christi massacre. Since then repression of the student movement has been attempted alternately by the regular police forces and by the government-sponsored rightwing terror squads, with killings of students in August 1972 and February, May and August of this year. Two months ago the new right-wing rector of the National University in Mexico City called in the police to take over the campus, in order to enforce his programme to 'de-politicize' the University. Continuing student demands for justice have brought clashes in other university cities. Meanwhile U.S. official support to the Mexican government and military continues. The C IA station in Mexico City remains the largest in Latin America. Strange that Jim Noland lasted only one year as Chief of Station and that John Horton lasted only two -- replaced by Richard Sampson ‡ (who in 1968 replaced Horton in Montevideo and who was transferred back to Washington not long after the Mitrione execution). Perhaps Echeverria has refused to have any contact with the station. ORIT ‡ continues with its headquarters in Mexico City and with the Inter-American Labor College in Cuernavaca. Programmes in Mexico of the AIFLD also continue, and one can assume the station's support to Mexican security services is as strong as ever. The gap between rich and poor grows in developed countries as well as in poor countries and between the developed and underdeveloped countries. A considerable proportion of the developed world's prosperity rests on paying the lowest possible prices for the poor countries' primary products and on exporting high-cost capital and finished goods to those countries. Continuation of this kind of prosperity requires continuation of the relative gap between developed and underdeveloped countries -- it means keeping poor people poor. Within the underdeveloped countries the distorted, irrational growth dependent on the demands and vagaries of foreign markets precludes national integration, with increasing marginalization of the masses. Even the increasing nationalism of countries like Peru, Venezuela and Mexico only yield ambiguous programmes for liberating dependent economies while allowing privileged minorities to persist. Increasingly, the impoverished masses are understanding that the prosperity of the developed countries and of the privileged minorities in their own countries is founded on their poverty. This understanding is bringing even greater determination to take revolutionary, action and to renew the revolutionary movements where, as in Chile, reverses have occurred. Increasingly, the underprivileged and oppressed minorities in developed countries, particularly the U.S., perceive the identity of their own struggle with that of the marginalized masses in poor countries. The U.S. government's defeat in Vietnam and in Cuba inspires exploited peoples everywhere to take action for their liberation. Not the CIA, police training, military assistance, 'democratic' trade unions, not even outright military intervention can forever postpone the revolutionary structural changes that mean the end of capitalist imperialism and the building of socialist society. Perhaps this is the reason why policymakers in the U.S. and their puppets in Latin America are unable to launch reform programmes. They realize that reform might lead even faster to revolutionary awareness and action and their only alternative is escalating repression and increasing injustice. Their time, however. is running out. London January 1974 Six months to finish the research and six months to write this diary. If it is successful I shall be able to support other current and former CIA employees who want to describe their experiences and to open more windows on this activity. There must be many other CIA diaries to be written, and I pledge my support and experience to make them possible. Had I found the advice and support I needed at the beginning, I might have finished in two years rather than four, and many problems might have been avoided. The CIA is still hoping to make me go back to the U.S. before publishing the diary, and I now find that my desperation to see the children was indeed what they thought might lure me back. Janet now admits that the Agency has been asking her for a long time not to send the children so that I would have to go there to see them. Although she refused to cooperate and sent them here last summer, she again refused to send them for the Christmas vacation while suggesting that I go there. Perhaps only when the children are no longer children will my seeing them become unravelled from the CIA. For those who were unaware of the U.S. government's secret tools of foreign policy, perhaps this diary will help answer some of the questions on American domestic political motivations and practices that have arisen since the first Watergate arrests. In the CIA we justified our penetration, disruption and sabotage of the left in Latin America -- around the world for that matter - because we felt morality changed on crossing national frontiers. Little would we have considered applying these methods inside our own country. Now, however, we see that the FBI was employing these methods against the left in the U.S. in a planned, coordinated programme to disrupt, sabotage and repress the political organizations to the left of Democratic and Republican liberals. The murders at Kent and Jackson State, domestic activities of U.S. military intelligence, and now the President's own intelligence plan and 'plumbers' unit -- ample demonstration that CIA methods were really brought home. Prior restraints on using these methods against the 'respectable' opposition were bound to crumble. In the early 1960s when the CIA moved to its new headquarters in Virginia, Watergate methods obtained final institutional status. How fitting that over the rubble of the CIA's old temporary buildings back in Washington, the new building that rose was called 'Watergate'. When the Watergate trials end and the whole episode begins to fade, there will be a movement for national renewal, for reform of electoral practices, and perhaps even for reform of the FBI and the CIA. But the return to our cozy self-righteous traditions should lure no one into believing that the problem has been removed. Reforms attack symptoms rather than the disease, and 110 other proof is needed than the Vietnam War and Watergate to demonstrate that the disease is our economic system and its motivational patterns. Reforms of the FBI and the CIA, even removal of the President from office, cannot remove the problem. American capitalism, based as it is on exploitation of the poor, with its fundamental motivation in personal greed, simply cannot survive without force -- without a secret police force. The argument is with capitalism and it is capitalism that must be opposed, with its CIA, FBI and other security agencies understood as logical, necessary manifestations of a ruling class's determination to retain power and privilege. Now, more than ever, indifference to injustice at home and abroad is impossible. Now, more clearly than ever, the extremes of poverty and wealth demonstrate the irreconcilable class conflicts that only socialist revolution can resolve. Now, more than ever, each of us is forced to make a conscious choice whether to support the system of minority comfort and privilege with all its security apparatus and repression, or whether to struggle for real equality of opportunity and fair distribution of benefits for all of society, in the domestic as well as the international order. It's harder now not to realize that there are two sides, harder not to understand each, and harder not to recognize that like it or not we contribute day in and day out either to the one side or to the other. London May 1975 After a year of increasing doubt whether this diary would ever be published in the U.S. the way now looks clear. Had not Rep. Michael Harrington and Seymour Hersh and others made startling revelations in the year past, the political climate might not have permitted publication in the U.S. even now. Not that the CIA hasn't tried to delay and suppress this work: spurious leaks to discredit me, threats to enjoin publication, hints of expensive litigations. Yet in the end it is the CIA that gives way as its very institutional survival is brought into question. We already know enough of what the CIA does to resolve to oppose it. The CIA is one of the great forces promoting political repression in countries with minority regimes that serve a privileged and powerful elite. One way to neutralize the CIA's support to repression is to expose its officers so that their presence in foreign countries becomes untenable. Already significant revelations have begun and I will continue to assist those who are interested in identifying and exposing the CIA people in their countries. Probably at no time since World War II have the American people had such an opportunity as now to examine how and why succeeding U.S. administrations have chosen, as in Vietnam, to back minority, oppressive and doomed regimes. The Congressional investigating committees can, if they want, illuminate a whole dark world of foreign Watergates covering the past thirty years, and these can be related to the dynamics within our society from which they emerged. The key question is to pass beyond the facts of CIA's operations to the reasons they were established -- which inexorably will lead to economic questions: preservation of property relations and other institutions on which rest the interests of our own wealthy and privileged minority. This, not the CIA, is the critical issue. _______________ Notes: 1. Analysis of the Economic and Social Evolution of Latin America Since the Beginnings of the Alliance for Progress, Washington, 3 August, 1971. i. The author has no knowledge that this person is in any way connected with the Agency at present. ii. The author has no knowledge that this person is in any way connected with the Agency at present. iv. The author has no knowledge that this person is in any way connected with the Agency at present. v. The author has no knowledge that this person is in any way connected with the Agency at present. |