CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ONE THING I LEARNED about the CIA during my involvement with spooks at the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis: the Agency was an important element in an increasingly complex panorama of “night fighters” operating largely unseen in an ongoing battle dedicated to victory without laying waste to the world in the process. DCI John McCone approached me several times about my switching over from the Navy to work for the CIA. I suspected my little mission to Amsterdam might actually have been a test and his doing.

By this time I had been in the Navy for thirteen years, not counting Annapolis, and was up for promotion to full commander, with a captaincy virtually assured. I had an ex-wife and three kids I rarely saw, and a new wife and stepdaughter who liked the fact that I was mostly tied to a desk near home. We had even bought a house in the suburbs and moved out of the apartment. Could a poodle on a leash and PTA membership be far off?

Mary was happy. I was miserable, dragging my briefcase to the office mornings during the eight o’clock rush like every other commuter. My SEALs were doing things; my ass was getting broad sitting at a desk.

A month after the Cuban Crisis ended, on November 30, 1962, I signed off active naval duty without consulting my wife, reverted to the Navy Reserve, and signed on with the Central Intelligence Agency. I should have predicted Mary’s reaction.

“You did what?”

CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, was located about eight miles from downtown Washington, D.C. Its 258 secluded acres surrounded by residential streets resembled more a university campus than the brain center for U.S. worldwide intelligence services. Savillian Chapman, number two in the Maritime Division of the Special Operations Division, picked me up at home in a plain, unmarked Chevy sedan. He pulled off the George Washington Parkway and along a two-lane road that led to Spook Campus.

Chapman was an ordinary-looking fella in his late forties, early fifties maybe, with a thatch of salt-and-pepper hair and a broad, open face that seemed inappropriate on a man in his line of business, snooping through other people’s secrets. He could have been a small businessman or owner/proprietor of a mom-and-pop grocery.

As we drove he related a bit of CIA lore from the beginning days. Seemed President Harry Truman had a sense of humor. He convened a small, secret ceremony at the White House in 1946 to swear in Admiral Sidney Souers as the first DCI, presenting Souers with a black cloak, black hat, a wooden dagger, and dubbing him “Commander, The Cloak and Dagger Group of Snoopers.”

The enormous main building of CIA headquarters rose almost unexpectedly out of the trees. Nearby in a separate building sat the Headquarters Auditorium, a free-standing, dome-shaped structure connected to the main building by an underground passage.

Any resemblance Langley CIA might have had with the University of Virginia or even the Naval Academy ended at the guard shack. There were no students on campus beyond the entrance. Only undistinguished-looking men hurrying from place to place like automatons in a self-imposed hush.

“It’s not as grim as it appears,” Chapman said with a smile, as though reading my mind. He stopped at the guard shack and rolled down his window to have our credentials checked. “You’ll get used to it, Bill.”

The plainclothes security man bent down and looked through Chapman’s window at me on the passenger’s seat.

“You’re new, sir?”

“That’s right.”

He studied my ID. “You never really get used to it, sir,” he said, having apparently overheard Chapman’s remark as we drove up.

We parked in front of the main building and entered. The atmosphere of this strange place seemed to settle around us like still air, beginning with our echoing footfalls across the open lobby. A huge CIA seal was inlaid in the floor and a Biblical verse etched into the wall: And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. John VIII–XXXII.

Chapman chuckled at the look on my face. “You already feel free, right? Come on. The director wants to see you.”

We took the elevator.

“The cold fact, Bill, is what the guard said. You never really get used to it. You learn never to fully trust anyone.”

I had met DCI John McCone on several occasions in consultation on the use of naval special forces. It was after one of these meetings at the Pentagon that he tempted me with a serious offer of a position in the Agency. We got together several other times after that to further explore the offer.

Most members of the CIA were either station-bound intelligence analysts or Foreign Intelligence (FI) officers who worked overseas, generally out of American embassies recruiting and handling local operatives. Spies. A smaller bunch with the CIA known as the Special Operations Division (SOD), the Agency’s least-known covert section, was responsible for taking care of most of the dirty work.

SOD was composed of three sections: Ground Branch; Air Branch; and Maritime Branch. Maritime consisted primarily of former SEALs and UDTs. Its primary emphasis centered on amphibious or waterborne ops along hostile shorelines. Various other divisions within the Agency could draw trained personnel from the SOD to form Special Operations Groups (SOGs) to carry out paramilitary operations such as sabotage, personnel or materiel recovery, prisoner snatches, raids, hostage rescues, and other low-profile activities. These men were commonly known as “knuckle draggers.” Tough, resilient men like Rip Robertson and Grayston Lynch.

Ed Foster, the number one at Maritime, was dying from liver cancer. I had met him before. He looked much older than his years—like a frail old man with thin hair and yellow shoes.

Chapman was Maritime’s number two below Foster. Number three was a man I had not yet met. The DCI offered me Maritime number three when Foster died and everyone moved up in the hierarchy.

The DCI rose and extended a handshake when his secretary showed Chap and me into his office. On a wall hung a portrait of President Harry Truman, the man who gave life to the CIA. On the other wall hung a picture of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. On his desk perched a family snapshot of the DCI and a pretty, slender woman surrounded by what I took to be adult children and preteen grandchildren.

McCone was a broad-shouldered, trim man with big hands and short, white hair. As always, he appeared businesslike in a dark suit and red power tie. I thought he bore a striking resemblance to former president Woodrow Wilson. Or, rather, to the professor Wilson had once been.

He got right to the point of outlining my duties: Responsible for concept and development of plans; selection and training of personnel; selection, procurement and readiness of equipment and staff; and direct supervision of worldwide field activities.

My ass was about to slim down.

“Welcome aboard, Commander,” Director McCone concluded. “Chap here will fill you in on the details of what we have going and get you ready to stand on line. Things are happening fast all over the world. The president expects us to be ready. You’ll be responsible for three major geographical areas—Cuba; the Belgian Congo; and Vietnam.”