“13-00000 SECRET INTERVIEWER: And make it more gradual. MR. HALPERN: Yeah, and make it more gradual and make it easier on people, and what have you. And, look, even Schlesinger had to go to Congress to get the number of retirees' positions opened under the CIA Retirement Ac”
“13-00000 SECRET in terms of trying to get the job done and stay within the bounds of the Agency. INTERVIEWER: And if somebody came up for retirement, and they might need some. MR. HALPERN: I think, we'd try to, well, in the early days when you didn't have the bulk of peo”
“that's what I was doing. And then when I retired, I retired as Deputy Chief of DCS. INTERVIEWER: Good, I didn't have that gap. As you look to the past, how was counterintelligence affected by the Hearings? MR. HALPERN: I think that were affected, I'm just guessing again, bec”
“them to do it but not all right for me to do it. INTERVIEWER: It fit in their pattern. MR. HALPERN: Yea, and so, you know, what do you do? INTERVIEWER: Were these recruits coming in in the early '70's and so on — MR. HALPERN: The early '70's.• INTERVIEWER: Are they more’ qu”
“13-00000 SECRET slots, they got their money. Just like CIA did, DIA did, every.. . NSA did, everybody. But now I guess with everybody tightening up the belt they will suffer too. And maybe it is about time. You can do just so much. It takes, for example, you talk about re”
“13-00000 SECRET compartmented. This is the way it should be. Yeah, so talking about Congressional Oversight, yes, if it's oversight. Not management. INTERVIEWER: Bob Woodward in his last book, Veil says the Church investigation plus the Carter Administration crushed the ”
“13-00000 SECRET their secrecy oaths in terms of testifying to Congress. Well, hell, first of all I think that was a silly thing to do because when you, even the oath itself that you sign, the secrecy oath, look at the one you signed. It doesn't say anyting about withholdin”
“13-00000 SECRET insisting that you get the information you need or you want, there's no point in me hanging around. I'm retired and I'm going out of your life." And I walked out. INTERVIEWER: My goodness. Was it Scotty Miler also, didn't he retire in December? MR. HALPER”
“13-00000 SECRET INTERVIEWER: Yes. MR. HALPERN: That stopped with Schlesinger and Colby. INTERVIEWER: Now that stopped throughout the Agency or .. MR. HALPERN: I don't know about the rest of the Agency. INTERVIEWER: But it stopped in the clandestine. MR. HALPERN: Let me t”
“13-00000 SECRET responses to the committees. Did you MR. HALPERN: I wasn't in there so I can't say. But I would say based upon what I know about the bureaucracy, it had to have a bad impact, a very adverse impact on: a. the morale of the people, b. the initiative of the pe”
“13-00000 SECRET when we got into discussions about operations or what have you, they seemed to be more concerned about when they were going to become a division chief, a station chief, and when they were going to become DDP and then eventually, "how do I get to be DCI?" An”
“then. This was '75 now. But the Agency made it very clear in their memoranda and the Notices, the Headquarters Notices they issue to all employees that you are on your own, you get your own lawyers, etc., etc. You got no help from the Agency. Which was not true in the old days”
“13-00000 SECRET super grade. I was a GS-17. They figured they would get another slot, and so they let me go. They made me a member of CIARDS. And as a result of being CIARDS, when I told the retirement people what would happen if I was CIARDS, then they gave me a new figur”
“13-00000 SECRET MR. HALPERN: Oh, it was nonexistent. Nonexistent, less than nonexistent. INTERVIEWER: Gee. MR. HALPERN: '73 was a bad year. A very bad year. INTERVIEWER: *74? MR. HALPERN: Well, I don't know. In '74 it probably got a little bit better. Things were settlin”
“an officer and experience of an officer and getting people back into the business and making your contacts and all that goes with it.’ Yeah, our generation was not bad. INTERVIEWER: It's truly a profession isn't it? MR. HALPERN: Yeah. That's what we have been trying to tell ”
“registry. Very few people were interested in going back into the history of what took place and certain activities. And you can't get it all out of a classroom. INTERVIEWER: Right. MR. HALPERN: And this was one of the things that bothered me while I was in that job for those”
“13-00000 SECRET INTERVIEWER: It didn't go down?' MR. HALPERN: No way. No way. You know it was frightening then and I guess it is even more frightening now. I don't know what the situation is now but its a bad show. I don't know. Maybe we were brought up in a totally diffe”
“13-00000 SECRET know, you are not allowed to defend yourself together. I don't know, I'm just guessing. INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about the Congressional investigations -- affect Agency morale a lot or ... MR. HALPERN: Well, I can only assume again from the outside that the”
“separated until. MR. HALPERN: Until it hit him. INTERVIEWER: Until it hit him. MR. HALPERN: Yeah. I remember Colby, for example, taking home with him. which he shouldn't have done but he did, stacks of personnel folders to, you know, be the great decider.- This guy goes, thi”
“13-00000 SECRET going on. They just weren't. Usually the staff directors of each of the small units were the only ones cleared for most of things and sat in on the meetings. INTERVIEWER: They were cleared by the Agency? MR. HALPERN: Oh sure. INTERVIEWER: They went throug”
“gave it to them. INTERVIEWER: Do you think this was also a reflection of the view that the Agency and the Congress both saw the Soviet threat as a real threat? MR. HALPERN: I am not sure that was part of it. It may have been. But that's a conjecture on my part. I think it was”
“13-00000 . SECRET INTERVIEWER: Same government. MR. HALPERN: Same government. Same people involved. Same appropriations and all that kind of stuff. I don't understand, honestly, as a citizen, what the hell the big difference is. So, but in terms of the future, there has g”
“13-00000 SECRET worldwide network of offices engaged largely in what — this again was a critic's view — largely excessive, self-defeating busy work. MR. HALPERN: Oh, that's nonsense. INTERVIEWER: Nonsense? MR. HALPERN: Utter nonsense. Most people didn't go near covert a”
“know, dead wrong on that. INTERVIEWER: And that was 200 plus that left at the end of December? MR. HALPERN: Yeah, regular retirement. I mean, the retirement 160 SECRET”
“13-00000 SECRET MR. HALPERN: Yeah, he did in '74. He was pardoned in, what, August of '74. But I think if the election had gone differently, and there had been some control under the Congress — more cohesion - the Church Committee and Pike Committee might have been prepare”
“alone. And we all went out at the same time. INTERVIEWER: You served Tom Karamessines until February of '73? MR. HALPERN: That's right. And then Bill Colby after that. INTERVIEWER: Then Colby after that? MR. HALPERN: Until about May of '73. INTERVIEWER: Until May of '73. An”
“13-00000 SECRET viewed as a serious issue in the Agency? By those ... MR. HALPERN: Who were then serving? From what I gather it was. And the Agency even under Turner objected to it. The Carter Administration even objected to it. And even going back into that period, Colby”
“13-00000 SECRET And that's quite clear. Read Harris Greene's book. Inference of Guilt. And if you read that you get a feeling for what some of the insiders felt about us former insiders. I think his last job was Deputy IG before he retired. He'd been around for a long tim”
“13-00000 SECRET MR. HALPERN: It would have been. No question. No question. Because if I remember it correctly, the P&P and L&M teams were concentrating on Southeast Asia and looking into what the US Government as a whole was doing, not just CIA, but they didn't like anythi”
“guys, I mean, verbally attacked, for some of the things, in terms of, you know, if you guys hadn't done all those nasty things, we wouldn't be under fire now. INTERVIEWER: And these were Agency officers? MR. HALPERN: Agency officers. Serving officers at the time. 149”
“13-00000 SECRET MR. HALPERN: Oh yeah, I left at the end of '61 -- well, not the end because I arrived back in Washington. Well, even after that. Bill Colby made me in effect the third man down in the station because he and his Deputy, Ed Barbier who is now dead, were just ”
“13-00000 . SECRET MR. HALPERN: No. It was up and down throughout. INTERVIEWER: Throughout? MR.HALPERN: Including some of the old hands who didn't like the system, didn't like the program. And even those who understood that this was basically geared abroad as a counterinte”
“13-00000 SECRET who wrote it. And to talk to them. If you have to stop let me know. INTERVIEWER: No, we are fine, keep going. MR HALPERN: Anyway, I used to talk to these fellows and women to see what made them tick and it was a very difficult job listening to them many tim”
“INTERVIEWER: Sure. MR. HALPERN: I mean, an academic. We're not forcing people to do these things. No point in forcing anybody. If you get an agent that you are forcing to do something, I'd question the 107 SECRET”
“13-00000 SECRET nobody knew the difference. INTERVIEWER: Good point. MR. HALPERN: So. You know. And the academics in this country have never caught on. Maybe they are catching on slowly now. INTERVIEWER: Slow. MR. HALPERN: Yeah, very slow. That there is an impact on this”
“13-00000 SECRET INTERVIEWER: Do you think, again from the outside, in the last 10-12 years, in other words, since the investigation, do you think the Agency has changed much, has learned much? MR. HALPERN: Well, if Casey is the example, no. I don't know what has happened ”
“13-00000 SECRET INTERVIEWER: Tenacious? ' MR. HALPERN: Oh, very, very. INTERVIEWER: Well did you have much contact with him after '56? MR. HALPERN: Oh, I didn't have too much contact with him in '56 until 1961 when I was shot down by Dick Bissell and Des Fitzgerald. Bisse”
“1'3-00000 SECRET INTERVIEWER: Big departure? MR. HALPERN: Vast change. I believe Bill in '73 was under Schlesinger, the first guy. I'm almost certain of that. INTERVIEWER: Do you happen to know who was Congressional liaison at that time? MR. HALPERN: It would have to be ”
“13-00000 SECRET through if they're going to be disapproved anyway? And yet keep them interested enough. And that's a tough job. INTERVIEWER: And were these recruits, say, '70's - were they much different from those that you would have had in the '60's? MR. HALPERN: Yes, t”
“They weren't cleared for a lot of stuff. So they were real problem children. And these two teams were theprecursors to what later became the Church and Pike Committees. INTERVIEWER: Well, were these teams attached to particular committees or subcommittees? MR. HALPERN: Yes, ”
“13-00000 SECRET they do everything everybody else does. They recruit people. They handle people, they manipulate people. What else did you expect them to do?" You know, the whole approach was, "Female case officers?" That really set me off and if I hadn't been constrained ”
“13-00000 SECRET who were on the four committees that were, or theoretically, doing oversight. And it wasn't there. No appreciation at all. And every time something came up, it was always "OH, REALLY!" You know, great astonishment when you were trying to tell them a fact. ”
“recently? MR. HALPERN: Yeah. And over the last ten years. It's quite clear. You just, you know, you do this with a sixth sense and a gut feeling. You can tell what's right and what's wrong and what's true and what's false. More or less. You can't be totally right but you get ”
“13-00000 SECRET MR. HALPERN: They were not. INTERVIEWER: OK. MR. HALPERN: And the oversight committees, maybe that was one of the problems, didn't do much oversight as you well know. And as a matter of fact I remember these reports from DCI's coming back saying, "I got no”
“13-00000 SECRET MR. HALPERN: Yes, Helms was the DCI then. Yes, '67. INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about, the question is raised sometimes: how are reforms and real or potential abuses processed within the Agency in the decades before 1975? MR. HALPERN: In practically every case ”
“officer said, "Congressional investigations in 1975 especially were like being pillaged by a foreign power only we had been occupied by the Congress with our files rifled, our officials humiliated, and our agents exposed."’ MR. HALPERN: Right on. Absolutely correct. INTERVI”
“13-00000 SECRET impregnating somebody — what do you do about that kind of thing. We'd try to look out after each other. That didn't mean we didn't have professional rivalry and all of that. There was a lot of that, believe me. Who got what job and who got what promotion. B”
“13-00000 SECRET to hide. And try to help them understand why some of these activities go on the way they do. INTERVIEWER: And the same thing with the universities and colleges? MR. HALPERN: You try. You try wherever you can. But that's a tough job. Particularly if you ge”
“13-00000 SECRET the Ops Center and he had one machine up in his Ops Center in the White House, and at first we were standing at the machines separately waiting for the piece of paper (nobody else was allowed to see the paper). So, you know, we worked together as a team. An”
“13-00000 SECRET do what they were doing at the time. What they did and why some of these things took place. Where that's not true of many of my colleagues and friends who even in a kidding way would say to me things like, "What the hell did you do that for, Sam?" And I po”