Booknotes

Professor TED GUP (Author, "The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA"): "The Book of Honor" is about the men and women who died in service to the CIA who were covert operatives overseas. And in a--most of the cases, their identities were concealed, were veiled in secrecy, in some instances, for 10, 20, 30, even 50 years. So the book basically reveals the identities of covert operatives killed in service to country and also, the aftermath of those deaths, the burdens borne by the families and the secrecy they were forced to carry.

Prof. GUP: About--during the Gulf War, about 10 years ago, I was at the agency doing a history of US-Iraq relations for Time magazine and I passed before what is called the Wall of Honor, a marble wall with black lithichrome stars engraved, each one representing a fallen covert operative. And in a bulletproof glass case is what is called the Book of Honor at the agency listing the years each officer fell; and in more than half the cases, just anonymous stars to conceal their identity. I saw that memorial service and--that--that memorial and it basically--it touched me very deeply and I decided then and there that I wanted to know the identities of those individuals.

Prof. GUP: That is the Book of Honor in the glass case. It's--it's a locked case with very thick bulletproof glass and stainless steel.

Prof. GUP: Today, including those that have been added since my book was finished, 77. There's 77 fallen covert operatives. But of those actually named, it's about half.

Prof. GUP: I think part of that reflects the history of the agency in which there were not so many women on the front lines. I think it's just a--but--but in--in--in more recent times, there are a great number of women out there at risk.

Prof. GUP: MacKiernan, exactly right.

Prof. GUP: Douglas MacKiernan was a much decorated World War II veteran who, early on--at the very founding of the agency in '47, and about that--that same period volunteered for one of the most remote assignments in the world in Urumqi in Xinjiang, China, far west China. And his--his mission was in large measure to monitor the--the Communists as they surged to power and to do what he could to prevent them or at least harass them. And the reason he's in the book--aside from the fact that he died in service--is that he underwent a 1,200-mile trek across desert and mountains, the Himalayas, trying to flee the Communists. He got within about 50 yards of safety, the Tibetan border, but a message from the US government to the Dalai Lama granting MacKiernan safe passage was not delivered in time and he was shot to death and beheaded within a few steps of safety.

Prof. GUP: That is h--a picture of MacKiernan's widow, Pegge, and Mary and Mike, the two one-year-old twins he left behind at his death. The Chinese Communists accused him of being a spy, and indeed, the Chinese knew he was a spy. The only people who did not know he was a spy were the Americans. And it played into the demonization of the Chinese and the Chinese government at the time.

Prof. GUP: With publication of this book. But there's been nothing before--a piece I wrote in The Washington Post Sunday Magazine in '97 was the first confirmation that he was a spy.

Prof. GUP: Excellent question. Why am I interested in doing this? I'm--I'm interested because I'm s--I'm haunted by the idea that we don't believe in the past, that it's not real for us, that it seems to be fiction. And I'm haunted by the oblivion to which people who gave their lives for country are--are subjected or lost and by the fate of the families, the--the surviving family members who have been forced by the full weight of the US government not to speak of their loved ones for many decades, and indeed, required to tell lies all those decades, to stick to the cover story at the time of--of their loved one's death. I found that haunting. And part of the reason I wrote this, in so small measure, was to try to lift some of that burden. It--it--it bothered me, and the more time I spent with the family members the more it bothered me.

Prof. GUP: Well, I interviewed more than 400 covert operatives, past and present, as well as several hundred family members and I--you know, I would say it's 800, 900 people all together over the course of four years.

Prof. GUP: Well, I think there are two, but one that comes to mind is perhaps the least glamorous of the people in the book, a Barbara Robbins, who was a 21-year-old secretary in Saigon in 1965. She worked for the CIA. She was under State Department cover. And one day she heard some noise in the street. She went to the window at the US Embassy in Saigon to see what was happening. And at that very moment, a car bomb by a terrorist detonated and the grating around the window impaled her. She was killed instantly. I cite her because she came from a very patriotic family. Her father was a butcher outside of--of Denver, Colorado, and when I spoke to him, first in 1996 and '97 and again in '98, he told me that--that one of his final wishes in his life was to see his daughter's name inscribed in the Book of Honor, not just an anonymous star. He wanted her recognized. He died last year with that wish unfulfilled. His--his widow is still alive and--and shares that wish. I--I cite her because it's an egregious example of the CIA's obsession with secrecy. Why a 21-year-old secretary who was killed 35 years ago cannot be identified after all this time is beyond my grasp.

Prof. GUP: That's Barbara Robbins when she was a young girl. And the picture above is--is also a picture of--of Barbara Robbins as--about the time that--that she went over to Saigon.

Prof. GUP: Anyone is welcome to ask, but they neither confirm nor deny that Barbara Robbins was a part of the agency. It's the standard line that they've been issuing to these families decade after decade. And they--they told me no more than they told anyone else in the public.

Prof. GUP: No. Well, I mean, th--th--there's a generic argument. A generic argument is that they need to protect sources and methods. Sources primarily means the individuals who've supplied them information. Methods are the ways in which they get that information, that intelligence. They're afraid, they say, that identifying these individuals will put foreign nationals and our own people at risk or will compromise the way that we gather intelligence.

Prof. GUP: Right.

Prof. GUP: The--the--the truth of the matter is--and I--I--I'm not--I--I'm not someone that's made a living demonizing the agency, but the truth of the matter is that this is not an issue of national security. It's an issue of bureaucracy. There is simply no constituency pushing for the change, the lifting for the veil of secrecy. A butcher outside of Denver does not have enough power to lift the veil of secrecy, even on his own daughter's name. And that's why it's remained this way year after year after year. It is the inertia of the bureaucracy. And unless and until someone plants a significant political powder keg under them, they're not going to change. This--this is the way it is. It's always easier to ignore than to change.

Prof. GUP: We moved a year ago to Cleveland, Ohio. For 21 years, I lived in Washington.

Prof. GUP: I took a position--I have an endowed chair in journalism at Case Western Reserve University.

Prof. GUP: I worked as an investigative reporter with The Washington Post under Bob Woodward for, I guess, about eight years. And then I worked at Time magazine covering Congress as an investigative reporter. Then I freelanced from here for a wide range of magazines. For 18 years, I also taught as an adjunct at Georgetown University.

Prof. GUP: Canton, Ohio, so it's a sort of going home.

Prof. GUP: Well, I c--I can't help but--but reflect on Douglas MacKiernan. When I called his widow, Pegge, I was the first one to put together the fact that her husband, her late husband was CIA in 47 years. And you can imagine the shock. When he died, he left behind twins who were one year old. And--and to get a call out of the blue saying, `I'm putting together the--the--the pieces of a puzzle 47 years old,' she was thunderstruck. Because for 47 years, the agency had told her, `You are not to talk about your late husband and if you do, you must say that he was an employee of the State Department, a vice counsel in the State Department.' So she was--she was just shocked when I called her and I think it's an example--again, the Chinese Communists knew he was a spy and as evidence of that they executed everyone that he had contact with within a year of MacKiernan's flight. It was no secret to the Chinese Communists. It was a secret to the US.

And what happens is the US paints itself in a corner. They say he was not a spy. And then they lose credibility when they admit that--that he was. It also plays into the--the propaganda of the Cold War, that an innocent man was, you know, on the run and slain.

Prof. GUP: Well, I--I focus on about 20. But I name about--I think about 35 who are nameless.

Prof. GUP: I would say at least 75 percent, 80 percent of it. I mean, this d--was not gathered under the Freedom of Information Act. That was of no help. This was all kind of the old roll-up-your-sleeve, hard-core sleuthing. It was the only way to get it.

Prof. GUP: No. It's a--it's--it's a curious thing, but there's nothing off the record in this book. As sensitive and classified as it is, all but two families cooperated fully in--in writing this book. Some 400 covert operatives, past and present, helped me with this book. When someone is quoted by name there, and it says such-and-such said it, it's because they said it to me. I mean, there's--there's no--there's no footnotes, but it--the sources are obvious in this book. It's--it's--it is exactly what it appears to be. And--and I think that the reason that I got so much cooperation is that even those who have dedicated their lives to national security recognize that--that a lot of this is preposterous, that it still be veiled in secrecy.

Prof. GUP: 1947.

Prof. GUP: It was a sort of re-collection of the elements of the old Office of Strategic Services, the World War II entity. Following World War II, it was quickly disbanded and the elements went to various places, the State Department, the Defense Department and there was quickly, with the rise of the Cold War, perceived to be a need for some centralized intelligence gatherer, hence the CIA. And that was put together in 1947, largely bringing back together the--the disbanded elements of the OSS and modeled in no small part on that structure.

Prof. GUP: That's a reference to--the--the chapter is about Larry Freedman. Larry Freedman was Jewish and very proud of the tradition, the biblical tradition of Jewish warriors going back to the Maccabees. He was a Green Beret in Vietnam, he was in the elite Delta Force, counterterrorist unit that--that made the aborted effort to rescue the hostages in Tehran. And--and he was killed in Somalia. He was the first casualty in Somalia and I--I c--I chose the--the title The Last Maccabee because I guess that's--I think what--what Larry Freedman would have wanted that chapter to be.

Prof. GUP: That picture was taken during an--an interview that I conducted of--of the--the four friends. Paul Weinberg on the--the--the l--your viewers' left, I believe, with the white beard has since passed away and indeed, the book was slipped under his hand as he was in a coma as...

Prof. GUP: I'm--sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. The one on the right.

Prof. GUP: He has since passed away. We got a copy to him a few days before publication because he had wanted that. But the picture was taken by Larry Freedman's sister, Sylvia Donor, and these four friends were incredibly loyal to Larry Freedman and--and they gathered basically to share stories about him with me.

Prof. GUP: Well, he was a hellion. I mean, he was--he was a kid who before he reached 13 held up a gas station with a bow and arrow, I mean a real hunter's bow and arrow. He sawed off the top of a car to make it a convertible. He drove Harleys at high speeds. He got in more than a little trouble. And were it not for his finding the Green Berets and the military, I'm not sure exactly what would have become of him. But it was a perfect match and it harnessed all of his excessive energy and his incredible courage and his patriotism and it was a perfect match. And--and he became one of those who trained Delta Force at Ft. Bragg, and was brought into the CIA upon retirement from Delta Force. And he became one of their--he w--he was renowned as a sniper. He could--he could run five, six, seven miles with a full pack, set up his rifle and--and wait for two or three days for 10 seconds of a window, when someone passed by to--to--to do what he did as a sniper. I mean, he was a--he was deadly accurate, deadly patient and a perfect physical specimen and very patriotic.

Prof. GUP: All of those resources and skills that he had were of no avail. The v--the vehicle he was in hit a landmine, a Russian landmine and he was immediately killed. He--he was near Badera and he was there to ensure that airports were open so that food and relief supplies could reach the--the starving people of the country. He was not there in a capacity as a sniper. He was there as a kind of intelligence officer and liaison between the incoming US military and the embassy and--and other elements of our US government.

Prof. GUP: '92, December '92.

Prof. GUP: No, he's an anonymous star.

Prof. GUP: This is a rough guess, about half of the 77 are named, may--maybe as many as 40. The rest are nameless.

Prof. GUP: You as a journalist can, but the ordinary citizen cannot. You need a reason, an invitation to--to get into the--the--the headquarters at Langley.

Prof. GUP: The first person that I interviewed was the chief of public affairs at the CIA. This was not done in any kind of sub-rosa fashion because I knew I'd be setting off trip wires and alarms left and right--I mean, I knew I was going to have to interview hundreds of covert officers and that probably the first time I made a call it would get back to CIA headquarters. So I called their--their public affairs staff and said, `This is what I'm doing. I'm doing a project to try to unmask the identities of your fallen covert operatives. Can I get any help?' I--I don't want to sound as naive as I may sound in that. It was really a way of setting down a bookmark and saying, `This is what I'm doing. I'm not trying to end run you. I want you to know this is, you know, what I'm up to.' And they--they had me over. We talked. They tried to dissuade me from doing it. And in the course of the total four years, they provided many courteous return phone calls and zero cooperation.

Prof. GUP: Well, they just invoked the sources and methods argument that I mentioned before. That was it.

Prof. GUP: Right.

Prof. GUP: I was not.

Prof. GUP: I--I was not allowed to be there. No one from the press has ever witnessed this ceremony. It's an annual ceremony in which family members of the deceased are brought in from all over the United States. They don't know each other.

Prof. GUP: No, they're--some of them go back repeatedly. Usually this ceremony has a focal point. It may be losses in Laos or it might be the--the Mideast. The one that you're referring to, which was the most recent one that I could get into the book, was--was a standard memorial service held before the memorial wall and the Book of Honor at the agency headquarters. And I had--th--the agency forewarns the families that they are not to discuss what happens there with anyone. But they don't even trust the families. They will not say the names of the deceased except for the named stars, even at the ceremony. So you have family members sitting there knowing, obviously, that they lost a son or a husband, but even in that context the director of Central Intelligence will not utter the person's name. And in the particular chapter, the epilogue that you mentioned, I had prearranged with many of the families to meet with them moments after the ceremony so that I could debrief them and superimpose each account on the other, weeding out what was repetitious so that I could reconstruct in great detail what transpired at the ceremony. That's how that was constructed.

Prof. GUP: Yes. That was John Merriman. John Merriman's story is--is particularly sad. He--he was killed in the Congo in 1964. His widow, Val, and--and son, Jon are people that I've gotten to know quite well in the course of my reporting. And they were at the--at the director of Central Intelligence's office to receive a medal and immediately--not long after they arrived, a w--a call was placed from the White House inviting them to--to come over and meet the president and--and Lady Bird and--so they did go over there and, you know, there's no mention of it in the logs at the White House. I--I went through the--the Johnson Library. There's no reference. As you know, it was all hush-hush.

Prof. GUP: That's probably the--the Intelligence Star. She--she provided the photo to me.

Prof. GUP: Yes, but with the understanding that--that it would be in-house, that it would not go out. And in her case, it's--it's very strange because John Merriman is a named star, not a nameless star. But what's--what's most peculiar about this memorial is that even the named stars are completely unknown to the people who work at the CIA because everything is compartmented. The only thing you know is what you have a need to know. So that, in a sense, it's not that different being named or unnamed. It's un--it's different for the family because being unnamed means you can't talk about your loved one.

Prof. GUP: I believe that's taken in Alaska and that--one--that's John and his wife, Val. He was a very courageous flyer and--and as a sad irony to his story...

Prof. GUP: Oh, let me see. I think '52.

Prof. GUP: Yes. Well, I--h--his widow is the--is the--the woman there, his wife, Val, and...

Prof. GUP: Yes. And--right. And the young boy he's holding up, that's--that's Jon Merriman Jr.--actually not a junior, because there's no H in his--in his name. There was in the father's, but not the son's. I've spent many, many hours with them. They're absolutely delightful people.

Prof. GUP: I--Jon lives right outside of Washington, and Val lives in Arizona.

Prof. GUP: No, that's with her son, Jon.

Prof. GUP: Yeah, that's her son, Jon.

Prof. GUP: Well, I think I probably interviewed each of them--I'm not sure--maybe a--15 times. I mean, it's hard to say. I mean, probably four or five really formal interviews, but many, many, many subsequent follow-up phone interviews.

Prof. GUP: '64.

Prof. GUP: He was flying a plane in the Congo, helping to suppress a Communist insurgency there and he took ground fire and crashed. And he was presumed dead and the rest of the--the squadron returned to a remote base there and the next day, some indigenous people there drove up with a truck and a crumpled-up body in the back and it was the body of John Merriman, who was very much alive, although in agony. And he was taken to the base hospital, which didn't even have aspirin much less doctors or nurses. He ha--he had nothing to treat his pain. He had numerous broken bones, lacerations, internal bleeding. The straps from his seat belt had slashed into his skin. And he was allowed to stay there without medical attention for well over--I think it was over a week. He was in agony, passed in and out of consciousness. And--and when he was conscious, all he said was, `Take me home. Take me home.' And then he was allowed, essentially, to--to--to waste away in a--in a--a Congolese hospital for another couple of weeks before he was--any attempt was made to bring him home and he died en route over the--the ocean.

And the saddest part is that his widow was told that he died in a hospital in Puerto Rico, that he had asked for ice cream. They had brought him ice cream and he died quietly in his sleep without pain. He was never in Puerto Rico. He never asked for ice cream. He died on a transport plane after great agony.

Prof. GUP: That part of the c--I think he was--I'm not sure what part of the cover story--how far--sophisticated they got, but the local newspaper in Tennessee, where his home was, reported as his death certificate did that he was killed in a car crash in Puerto Rico, hitting an abutment.

Prof. GUP: I...

Prof. GUP: I interviewed the Cuban pilots that flew with him, that he trained and that flew with him. I interviewed the chief of station at the time and--and the agency. I interviewed probably 40 or 50 people that--that were familiar with what he was doing in the Congo at the time.

Prof. GUP: His name--he is named, but I asked probably 50 or 60 current covert operatives if they knew who John Merriman was and none of them knew who he was. None of them knew anything about him. They never heard of him.

Prof. GUP: The Cubans, after the--the Bay of Pigs, remained a resource for the CIA to conduct counterinsurgency activities. They hated Castro. There was nothing more they could do to dislodge Castro after the fiasco of Bay of Pigs. They had enough distance from the US government being Cuban that they gave the US government some deniability. Many of them were trained pilots from the Bay of Pigs, so they simply became a kind of surrogate air force for the CIA.

Prof. GUP: He was there to supervise the Cuban pilots. He was actually, technically, not supposed to fly, but he couldn't resist it. He--he--he was truly a flyboy. He loved to be in--in aircraft.

Prof. GUP: It is a bear. That was in Alaska. He shot the bear and it--it bothered him so because it was such a majestic creature that he swore off hunting ever after.

Prof. GUP: Yes. Un--unfortunately, in three different chapters because it reflects the--the sad attenuation of his life. He was in--he was supposed to be a businessman in Shanghai prior to the--the Communists taking control of the government there. In fact, he was a NOC--an NOC, a--a non unc--under non-official cover. He was a CIA person. Actually, he went over even before there was a CIA and then be--became a part of the CIA when it--when it came into being in '47. He was arrested trying to come home. He was--he was helping nationalists within China conduct sabotage, supplying them with information and probably weapons as well. He was arrested, incarcerated for 19 years, much of it held incommunicado. He was beaten. At points, he was starved. He suffered from malnutrition. His--he lost his teeth prematurely. Just terrible record of agony. And he never admitted he was a spy. The US government never admitted he was a spy; and if they had, he probably would have been released at that moment.

Prof. GUP: It is. Yes.

Prof. GUP: Those are the mothers of Downey and Fecteau and the brother of one of them. They--they were on their way to China. The Chinese government granted permission for the mothers of Downey, Fecteau and Redmond, all three CIA spies held in Chinese prisons, to visit their sons who had been imprisoned for many years. And--and all the while, the US government denied that they were CIA spies.

Prof. GUP: No, it's nameless. And--and it dates back to 1970, when it was said that he slashed his wrists with an American razor in the Chinese prison. We have no idea how he really died because the Chinese waited three months and then handed us an urn of ashes.

Prof. GUP: He was imprisoned in '51, and he died in '70.

Prof. GUP: They cremated it and turned the ashes over to the Red Cross, who carried it over the bridge, the Lo Woo Bridge, into Hong Kong and presented it to American Embassy officials there.

Prof. GUP: His mother pleaded with the government to do everything they could to get him out. I think it was four times she visited her son. It was a horrible kind of stroboscopic experience watching your son age prematurely. He developed all kinds of tics and ailments. He was never treated properly. And--and he became--he--he was very tough, but he was not immune to the kind of despair that one would encounter seeing your whole youth pass before your eyes. And his mother, it just--it just disabled her with--with pain and regret to--to see this happen to her son.

Prof. GUP: She was from Yonkers, that's right.

Prof. GUP: Oh, it wa--it was very sad. The Yonkers community was completely behind Hugh Redmond's mother and every effort to free him. They had fund-raisers, they had all kinds of appeals to government. It was an incredibly celebrated case, not only in Yonkers, but in the Northeast an--and to some degree, around the country at the time. And--and the sad thing was that it was allowed to feed into the anti-Communist, anti-Chinese propaganda because the way the US government allowed it to--to be played is that here was an innocent US businessman held for 19 years, when, in fact, he was a--a trained CIA operative probably engaged in direct sabotage or certainly assisting sabotage. I'm not sure what government wouldn't hold a saboteur in prison, but that conflicted with the Cold War objective, so they did not acknowledge that he was a spy.

Prof. GUP: I would guess--certainly, they--they died prematurely. I--there were a few that--that might have reached a mature age, but I'd say the average age is probably early 30s.

Prof. GUP: Well, the press was always fed a lie. The press was always told that these were State Department employees or workers for AID, the Agency for International Development, or civilian employees of the Defense Department or employees of foreign corporations. So that the--the press was never told who they really were, what they were really doing. The widows or widowers were informed of the loss. There was a ritual in which the director of Central Intelligence would pen a letter to the--to the--the widow or widower expressing his deep regret and sorrow and that would be presented to the widow or widower along with a medal. And then both the medal and the letter would be promptly withdrawn within a matter of an hour or two. Usually immediately after the funeral, the agency would recollect them and put them in a--in a locked vault, so there was no evidence that they indeed worked for the agency.

Prof. GUP: They would get the same kind of compensation that any other government employee would--would get. That is, it's not--they--they--there's certainly no windfall involved in losing your life for the agency. It's a--it's a kind of employee compensation and that's it. It's--it's--it's, you know, federal laws that govern the Department of Labor and all the other agencies and departments. It's not a--a special provision for--for agency people.

Prof. GUP: That was John Merriman's widow Val because it was--it was a double indemnity policy that they had taken out years earlier as newlyweds. And she was given the double indemnity. I--I forget how much it was. I think it was an extra $5,000. And she believed that because he was in--essentially in combat, that it was not warranted, that it was fraud, and that her husband would not want her to accept the money. And so she returned it. And the agency actually met with the president of the insurance company to explain the situation and still, Val Merriman did not want the money. She--she thought it was tainted.

Prof. GUP: I did. I had something to do with it. The Greenbrier, which is a four-star resort in West Virginia under which a top-secret government relocation center had been operating since about 1959 or 1960, until I exposed it in 1992 in The Washington Post. That was--What is that?--40--almost 30, 32, 33 years. That was one of the most sensitive secrets in the US government. It was the place to which Congress was to go in the event of nuclear war. And from there, they were to govern as a government in exile.

Prof. GUP: I broke the story for a number of reasons. And--and mind you, there are a lot of secrets I know that I've not written and--and won't write. Just to mention one, there's the identity of someone who's not named in the book that I know and I refer to because it could compromise national security. So I don't write everything I know. But the Greenbrier story I wrote because it was an anachronism. It would not have worked. And the only reason it survived all those decades is because of secrecy. What happened was the people who ran it got a kind of literal bunker mentality, where the enemy was not foreign powers but the American people; that is, disclosure is what they feared most. And so administration after administration, speaker of the House after speaker of the House, you know, was basically--they--they knew about it, but they had no opportunity to reassess it.

The reason I broke it? A couple of things. One, a recent speaker of the House at the time, Tip O'Neill, told me that he never would have gone and nor would his colleagues because there was no provision for their loved ones, their family. They would have been left to be incinerated at ground zero. So that was one reason I wrote it was because it was impractical. Another is because the nature of nuclear warfare changed so dramatically in the intervening years that the whole idea of it was preposterous. That--the--the amount of time you had for warning had been reduced to minutes, not hours.

Prof. GUP: Well, it's a good question. The preliminary, the first-level decision, was my decision. That is, the decision to pursue the story. But the decision to publish it in The Washington Post was not my decision. I had input, I was consulted. But ultimately, that was the decision of the publisher and the editors of the paper because it was of a magnitude that warranted that level of decisionmaking. You know, they asked me what do I think and--and what do we lose, what we do we risk here? But ultimately, the decision was theirs and rightfully so. And if they had told me, `This is not appropriate to break because we'll harm national security,' I would have honored that. I would not have taken it elsewhere.

Prof. GUP: To reveal the identity of this individual could put some other individuals at risk and could compromise ongoing operations, I guess is the generic way to describe it.

Prof. GUP: I don't know it. I take it as something of a matter of faith, but good faith, in that the agency at the highest level made the argument to that effect with some--some degree of specifics. Yet...

Prof. GUP: Did not talk to me, but talked to the editor of The Washington Post at a time when I was contemplating revealing her identity in the Post. It was a woman. And--and it was decided that this would not be appropriate. And I might point out that it is the only name--at the time, I was disclosing the identities of seven nameless stars in 1997 in The Washington Post Sunday magazine and I gave those names to the CIA just prior to publication. They came back and they pleaded with me to delete the one name. They made no argument on behalf of the other six, all of whom were nameless stars. And to me--I cannot help but wonder if something is national security, how do you slice and dice and say, `Well, this is more sensitive than this'? I showed that I was approachable and--and by deleting that name. And yet, they made no such argument for--on behalf of the other six. And in doing the book, they had gained enough respect for my reporting skills to know that I'd penetrated the system, and they never came to me asking for other names to be deleted.

Prof. GUP: I--I would not do that. What I did do is I gave them a copy of the book five days or six days before publication. That's all. But I would never submit a manuscript to the CIA.

Prof. GUP: They--they complained about the project at the beginning, and then they resigned themselves to the fact it was going to be done. I think in the end, they had two emotions. One, they were aghast at the degree to which their own people had cooperated with me. And two, they were much relieved that I had treated these lives with the dignity and respect to which they were deserving.

Prof. GUP: Arthur Maloney was a veteran of--of Normandy, a West Point grad and a true combat officer. And he was wounded shortly after Normandy, and because of his wounds, he could not pursue his military career and by default, he entered the CIA. And he is in the book, both of his own right and also because his son became a CIA officer. And his son was on a helicopter that in 1965 crashed in Laos. And on that aircraft--his son's name was Mike Maloney--and on that aircraft was another Mike named Mike Dewel.

Prof. GUP: That is his widow, Adrienne. On the aircraft were two CIA case officers, Mike Maloney and Mike Dewel. And they had something in common. They were both--that's Wally Dewel, Mike's father--Mike Dewel's father.

Prof. GUP: Pointing in the river is Mike Dewel, his son. And what--what the two Mikes on the helicopter had in common was that they were both the sons of senior CIA people. They'd both had very young brides. They were newly married. And--let me get this straight--yes, and both of their wives were pregnant at the time that they were killed. They were killed in '65, and their identities hushed up.

Prof. GUP: I believe that that is Mike--that's Michael Maloney, his son. And the other son is in utero, Craig. An--and so that's--that's his own son.

Prof. GUP: The two Mikes were in Laos, part of what was then called the Secret War, which was increasingly becoming less than a secret. And they were flying a helicopter and they crashed near Pakse into a very dense jungle and were killed instantly. And the US press reported the death of two AID officers, the Agency for International Development. And for 35 years, that stood. No one linked them to the CIA. In 1997 in a Post article, I disclosed that--that Mike Maloney was CIA, not AID. And what is sad about that story is that his widow, Adrienne, for years had asked the CIA to recognize her late husband by name, to put his name in the Book of Honor at agency headquarters for the benefit of her sons, her two sons.

Prof. GUP: Oh, many times. A wonderful lady.

Prof. GUP: She lives in Wiscon--in--in Connecticut. And she was told by then-DCI, the director of Central Intelligence, John Deutch, `Write me a note. You know, don't--it doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just write me a note. We'll see what we can do about getting his name recognized in the Book of Honor.' She wrote him a note, didn't hear anything. Sent a letter registered mail, didn't hear anything. Called, was told her letters were lost. And they basically ignored her and wanted her to go away. The day that my article came out, they called her and said they changed their mind and they put his name in the Book of Honor.

Prof. GUP: How many names...

Prof. GUP: Right. Right.

Prof. GUP: Oh, that are not--you mean...

Prof. GUP: Oh, I--well, the stars are on the wall, but their names are not in the Book of Honor of the agency, of course.

Prof. GUP: I would say that there are about--about 35 new names in this book.

Prof. GUP: They are re-examining it. I would like to be optimistic and say yes. But they have this incredible talent for taking fiction over fact. They--they seem to believe that if they ignore it, it will go away. I mean, just--just as an example, they won't allow this book to be sold in the CIA bookstore. It's--it's--it's selling out fast in McLean at bookstores, private bookstores as CIA personnel buy it, but somehow, by not allowing it to be sold at CIA headquarters, it's as if the book doesn't exist. It's--it's--it's the idea of fiction over fact.

Prof. GUP: Well, I wouldn't lump them all together under the use of the ….rule. I would get Deutch out of there because the other three were essentially traitors to the United States. I mention them because I think they're reflective of a very deep problem at the CIA, which is the obsession with secrecy. It's my belief that the obsession with secrecy is more of a threat to national security than lax secrecy, that because everything has been classified secret and top secret, people within the agency no longer take it seriously. Its credibility is eroded. And what happens is that individual case officers make their own decisions. They say, `Well, it's classified, but it shouldn't be classified at this level.' Or, `It's classified, but it won't hurt if I share this with someone.' So what happens is someone like me comes along and I'm the beneficiary of that obsession with secrecy because al--many of those people who helped me should not have helped me under the rules of the CIA. But they took it upon themselves to make the judgment about what should and should not be classified. This is a direct result of the obsession with secrecy.

John Deutch took enormously sensitive materials and put him on--put them on an unsecured home computer. And that is reflective of a lack of respect for the security system. Some of the spies that you mentioned, you know, they--part of their defense at times was, `Yes, I gave the enemy classified materials, but--it was classified, but shouldn't have been classified. It did no serious harm.' Well, that opens the door to this kind of individual decisionmaking, which is truly a threat to national security.

Prof. GUP: Oh, Matt Gannon was a CIA case officer who was one of the agency's finest Arabists. He was a wonderfully likable Southern California boy who--who was--was from a very large Catholic family and had the ability to pass in the Arab world because of his language skills, his knowledge of the culture. He was very brave, and in December of '88, he was in Beirut.

Prof. GUP: He...

Prof. GUP: Yes, he's in the bottom right. And he is in the--in the other picture as well. I'm trying to pick him out. I think he's in the front. I think he's the lad in the front with arms crossed and the tie.

Prof. GUP: That's the family. It's a very large family. And--and...

Prof. GUP: And he--he was in Beirut, gathering intelligence on hostage situations--there--Americans were being held. This was in '88--and--and on some of the fundamentalist terrorist groups in the region. And he did such a fine job that he got permission to come back a day early to be with his wife and two daughters. This was a couple days before Christmas in 1988. He had the misfortune of boarding a flight called Pan Am 103, which was blown up by terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland. His brother, Dick Gannon, is a security officer with the State Department who had survived the blast in '83 in Beirut when that embassy was blown up. So the family has been touched by its share of terrorists.

Prof. GUP: James Spessard, known to his friends as--as Jimmy, was one of six CIA employees or contract people killed in '89 in a resupply effort in Africa. They were bringing materiels and weapons, explosives, to Jonas Savimby in Angola. And the plane that Spessard was on hit a treetop. It was a night landing. They fly by night there to avoid detection. It cartwheeled into the ground, exploded and six CIA employees and staffers were killed. And in at least two of the instances, maybe three, there was nothing to bury. There were empty coffins.

Prof. GUP: That's right.

Prof. GUP: Let me see. That's with his father and I believe that that was at--yeah, that was his wedding in '81.

Prof. GUP: From his widow, from his father, from co-workers, from people that served with him in Angola and--and in the United States.

Prof. GUP: She's in Maryland.

Prof. GUP: It is. It is.

Prof. GUP: Yes and no. Yes, I had trouble finding information on some of these people, and, no, I did not give up.

Prof. GUP: I'm sure that there are. I would be incredibly presumptuous and egotistical to--to suggest otherwise. But I didn't give up on anything. Everything that I was in pursuit of, I did ultimately manage to get, but not very efficiently or effectively. For example, I tracked one false lead three and a half months. I was told there was a plane crash in El Salvador that took the lives of six people. I spent three and a half months and interviewed probably 200 people in pursuit of that. And it turns out that was the Angola crash; it was not in El Salvador. So that sort of thing happened in the course of reporting this book.

Prof. GUP: Yeah, I don't know. You know, there's--it's--it's never been made public. We know that in terms of intelligence, from a figure released--I believe it was last year, there's more than $25 billion, in terms of intelligence gathering all around. But the NSA gets a large portion of that, the National Security Agency, which--which does intercepts--communications intercepts and such. The CIA--you know, their budget--this is just a guess--but, you know, under $10 billion.

Prof. GUP: I can take a stab at it. Somewhere between 12,000 and 14,000.

Prof. GUP: Well, it's--it's fluctuated. Under Reagan, I think, it did quite well. Under Bush, it did quite well. Actually, I think it's relatively stable now. They're rebuilding. They lost an enormous number of people in recent years. With the demise of the Cold War, the end of the Cold War, it might have been a victory, but it almost undid the agency because their reason for being was removed in the eyes of many. And so a lot of the most experienced people left. They said, `The job is done,' and they walked away or they took retirement. It was a generational cycle.

Prof. GUP: I went to Brandeis in Waltham, Massachusetts, and Trinity in Dublin, Ireland.

Prof. GUP: I studied classics, I studied Latin and Irish poetry.

Prof. GUP: I am.

Prof. GUP: Eighteen years.

Prof. GUP: Two, David and Matthew, nine and 10.

Prof. GUP: Six years.

Prof. GUP: Eight years.

Prof. GUP: I worked for The Akron Beacon Journal for a year. I worked for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk and I worked for the York County Coast Star in Kennebunk, Maine, as a part-time sports writer at the very beginning.

Prof. GUP: It is.

Prof. GUP: Well, it's funny. I--I have a great reverence for books, probably too much so. And I knew that my life was not going to be complete unless I did a book. And I was really 44 or 45 before I--I started this. And about that time, I was trying to resign myself to the fact that this was one thing I wouldn't accomplish in life. And--and so this book was--was a true gift in many, many ways. Because I--I didn't want to do a book that I--I--I didn't care about absolutely. I didn't want to just do a book to get it on the shelf. I wanted it to be something that mattered to me and mattered to others. And when this presented itself, I knew. It just felt like that wall reached out to me. I know that sounds kind of overly romantic, but that's how it felt.

Prof. GUP: Oh, many, many, many times, yes.

Prof. GUP: Throughout his life. He died 26 years ago at my age. He--he was 50, and I'm 49. But he told me throughout his life that there's nothing you can take with you and the only thing you can leave behind is your good name. And there was a--a kind of play on words there because of these nameless stars. And I--I had a feeling that this was something that my father would have approved of and taken pride in. So that's why I dedicated it to him.

Prof. GUP: The--the research for this--I had no one who would support me or help me with this initially. I borrowed against my life insurance policy for several months to keep going, and got in something of a financial hole. And then I--I sold a part of the story to The Washington Post Sunday magazine. They were very generous in supporting a part of the research that preceded the publication. But I went through those funds as I continued researching. Went to the MacArthur Foundation, and they alone, among all the foundations in the country, would have anything to do with me because it was a kind of scary project. It involved the CIA. It was unclear how much progress I would make or what would come of it. And to their credit, they crawled out on a limb with me and--and supported me.

Prof. GUP: Initially, it was to be $50,000, and I turned back $15,000 because I later on got a--a very large advance from Doubleday and I did not want to take what I didn't need.

Prof. GUP: Richard Bissell.

Prof. GUP: Let's see. He's the gentleman to Kennedy's right.

Prof. GUP: Yes.

Prof. GUP: Yes, yes.

Prof. GUP: Right.

Prof. GUP: That's in retirement, I think.

Prof. GUP: No. He passed away. And...

Prof. GUP: A couple of years ago.

Prof. GUP: No, I--I spoke with his widow. I spoke with several of his children, neighbors, friends, people that worked with him, his personal assistant. Lots of people. And I read his--his--his book and--and many of his writings.

Prof. GUP: Well, Richard Bissell was a--was p--was--I--I hate to use this word because it's so overused, but I think he was genuinely a genius. He was the father of the U-2 spy plane. And he was really responsible, in no small measure, for the SR-71 Blackbird surveillance plane. And he was instrumental in the first satellite imagery. So--so he was someone that materially advanced our ability to keep an eye on--on--on those we wished to keep an eye on. He was also and probably even prouder of his role in sponsoring covert activities overseas. He was a part of that era in the--in the late '50s when the agency had a kind of carte blanche and were active all around the world. So he was one of the architects of the disastrous Bay of Pigs, which is why he's in the book. Because despite all his triumphs, he'll forever be linked to and remembered, at least in part, for his role in that debacle.

Prof. GUP: Oh, is this the one about "How could I have been so dumb?" The--the Kennedy quote.

Prof. GUP: Oh, yes.

Prof. GUP: Oh, yes. Yeah. Re--right. Right. There--there's another quote in there about Kennedy saying, `How could I have been so stupid?' But, yeah, it really was an unmitigated disaster and it was foreseen as such by many, and that was the saddest part, is that--what happened was that they had a--a--a s--a plan which may or may not have been workable, but at least it had the indicia of--of possible success. But it was continually cut back and curtailed to preserve presidential deniability and prevent the US from being linked to it, which was absurd. Even as the operation was ongoing, the US hand was all over it. So what we had done, the US that is, is basically we had condemned ourselves to failure and--and--and four American pilots died in the Bay of Pigs. Their identities were known within weeks or months and their identities appeared--circulated in newspapers and books around the country for the ensuing three decades. But the agency refused to recognize their names and they were nameless stars in The Book of Honor.

Prof. GUP: The Book of Honor is the volume at CIA headquarters in a bulletproof glass case in which the names of those killed for the CI--in CIA are remembered and nameless stars are--are etched in the book's pages.

Prof. GUP: Seventy-seven.

Prof. GUP: It spans the entire history of the CIA from 1947, basically, to the present.

Prof. GUP: What would I change? Oh, I would just work more efficiently. I think that's all.

Prof. GUP: That's right.

Prof. GUP: Journalism and non-fiction writing.

Prof. GUP: Thank you.