January 10, 2008 by admin.

Philip Agee passed away today in Cuba, January 7, 2008. For the CIA, this closes a very long and painful journey of one of the most damaging traitors in its history. How can I say that?

Two reasons, first the CIA in 1970’s assigned one of their best, Ted Shackley, to discredit, block the publication, or stop the publication of the book Agee was writing, called “Inside the Company: CIA Diary“. Ted could not figure out a way to stop the publication, so instead he had TSD create a bugged typewriter and got it to Agee to write his drafts on. A manual typewriter no less. Ted aka the Blond Ghost was legendary in the CIA, having been involved with a major covert operation in Miami (JM/WAVE) against Castro in Cuba (Operation Mongoose), was Chief of Station (COS) in Laos during the Vietnam war, and was Chief of Station (COS) in Saigon. He also the architect of the counter terror program “Phoenix” in Vietnam. Ted was my Fathers boss in both the JM/WAVE operation and Laos. They worked together and partied together. At our house, it was Ted this and Hazel that. My Father truly admired and respected Ted.

The second reason I know that Agee’s book truly damaged the CIA was when Agee’s book finally got published in England, my Dad got a paperback copy of it and read it from cover to cover. He called me a few days later and was in shock. Agee named names and specific secret operations, with no censoring by the CIA. My Dad used a yellow high lighter and bolded every agents name or operation that he recognized. When I went over to my Dad’s apartment later in the week, he showed me the book, and page after page had yellow highlighted on it. I knew right then how devastating Agee’s traitorous ways were and that they would affect the CIA for years to come. Lives were at risk and Agee did it knowingly and purposefully.

Posted in Texas | No Comments »

August 21, 2007 by admin.

The Gadget Spooks

In the James Bond movies there was a character at Headquarters called Q. Q did all the gadgets for 007 and had fun showing off his toys. In the CIA during the 60’s and 70’s, the group responsible for all the gadgets was called TSD, Technical Services Division. This was the department that my Dad worked for. TSD was a very small group of dedicated agents that had to support all the field agents and CIA stations around the world. Since TSD people did not grow on trees, they had to travel a lot to deliver devices, install them, and train others on how to use them. When my Dad joined the agency he had to undertake a several year intensive training program in all the tradecraft that the CIA uses. The Government spent $250,000 training him, which was big money in 1960.

Here is a partial list of the types of things TSD did:

Field Support of Agents

Wiretapping of Telephones
Audio Surveillance and Transmitters (Bugging)
Visual Surveillance (Tailing)
Setting up OP’s (Observation Posts)
Concealment of objects
Black Bag Jobs (breaking into consulates and embassies)
Disguises
Forged Documents
Forged Identity Papers
Mail Interception (Flaps and Seals)
Microdots
Propaganda (White, Grey, and Black)
Psych Ops (Psychological Operations)
Exotic Weapons
Questioned Documents Examinations
Counter Terror - Counter Sabotage
Photography (Surveillance, Copying Documents)
Comm Gear (Communication Equipment)
Safe houses

Posted in Background | No Comments »

December 22, 2006 by admin.

The night crawlers bite

Many interesting and exotic animals inhabit Southeast Asia (SEA). Geckos are one of these creatures. But saying that they are interesting is an understatement. Most Geckos in the rest of the World are afraid of human contact and are not know to attack.

Then there is the Tokay Gecko. Dark scales on the top side, beige belly, awesome suction cups on the feet, able to crawl on walls and ceilings, can grow to be 12″ to 18″ long, nocturnal hunter, a mouth full of sharp teeth that have tons of bacteria, a ratchet jaw like a Pit Bull dog, and the gumption to attack humans. During the mating season, the males would make a loud eerie call at night, sounding like “Ettt ohhhh”. They were probably named after the call, since it sounded a lot like Ge-Ko. Sometimes the males would wind up their voice like an opera singer, before making the actual call. It sounded like a car engine turning over and over and not starting. When they did the calls frequently at night, I would shake in my bed with fear, knowing they were out there, waiting for some unsuspecting prey.

My Dad learned first hand how vicious Tokay Geckos could be. One night at the second house in Laos, my Dad was walking around the house outside in the courtyard, and he just happen to be carrying the old trusty equalizer, a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. As he neared the side of the house, a large adult Gecko leaped off the roof and onto his shoulder, attempting to bite him. He violently knocked the Gecko to the ground and proceeded to pulverize it. When he was done, he told my brother and me about the attack, and led us outside with a flashlight. All we could see in the bushes was this tiny mound of red flesh that did not look like a Gecko; it looked more like something that went through a blender.

My Mom learned the hard way also. One day my brother and I came home from school (K6) and found a mid sized Gecko on the front door. My Mom came out the door with a broom, saw the Gecko, and freaked out. She hit the Gecko rapidly, which was most people’s reaction to Geckos. Their legend preceded them. Again the same result, which was a smashed Gecko.

Of course I had my lessons too. At the second house, a two-story water tower was next to the main house. A narrow walk way separated the water tower and the house. The water tower had been converted into small rooms, one on each floor. The room on the second floor had a cool view over the wall of the courtyard and into the neighbors, a Laotian General and his family. When the French inhabited SEA, they build many of the first Western traditional buildings that the Asians had ever seen. Since water pressure was a problem, the French built water towers next to the house and used gravity to feed the pipes. The windows to our water tower had big heavy wood shutters. I considered the water tower my “tree house”. I would climb the stairs and play in the second story room. The other window of that room looked down on the narrow walk way. It was an excellent lookout post for spying on my brother or the servants. One day I was peering out the window of the water tower on the house side, and suddenly I got his strange feeling like I was being watched. I leaned back and looked in-between the open shutter and the outside wall of the water tower. A large adult Gecko was staring me in the face, just inches away from my face. The next thing I remember was my foot hitting the bottom step of the stairs on the way down. I must have flown the rest of the way down. When my feet hit the ground, I was inside the house in a nanosecond. At least it seemed so. I then regaled my family of my brush with death. And I lost interest in the water tower after that incident. Imagine that.

The most traumatic Gecko contact that my family had was at the first house. The French colonial houses from the 1950’s had the kitchen, garage, and servant’s quarters separate from the main house. They were connected by a screened, covered, breezeway. The most direct route to the kitchen was through the breezeway and it had a lot of traffic. A very large adult Gecko decided to take up residence in our attic, near where the breezeway connected to the back of the house. At night he would make his calls and then crawl down a pane of glass, in that small gap between the house and the breezeway. He had a perfect hunting perch. He was directly overhead of anyone walking into the breezeway and going to the kitchen. But he had plans of eating one of us. His belly was so beige, pressed upon the glass, waiting for something to kill. Every night for about two weeks he was at his perch about our dinnertime. He had done his reconnaissance and knew when we traveled the most down the breezeway. Our family and the servants were freaking out. We were being systematically being hunted by this predator. And we were dinner. My Dad finally had enough of this running down the breezeway to avoid being attacked.  One night he came home from the office and announced to everyone that he had the ultimate solution for Mr. Gecko. That evening at dinnertime when the Gecko perched himself on the glass, my Dad retrieved an interesting weapon from his bag. It looked like at long sleek pellet gun, but it looked like no gun I had ever seen. He quietly snuck up on Mr. Gecko and fired one round into his head at point blank range, with the gun making very little sound. Mr. Gecko retreated and was never seen or heard from again. Years later when Senator Church was investigating the Agency for suspected abuses of their power, he discovered some interesting “toys” that the Agency had make. One of them was shown in the newspapers, with Mr. Church holding it up. When I saw the picture, I said bingo, that was the gun I saw my Father using on the Gecko. TSD used the dart gun to knock out guard dogs. But some people suspected that it was also used for shooting chemical pellets into someone. Some debate about this dual use continues to this day.

Posted in Laos | No Comments »

December 22, 2006 by admin.

Eagles Nest, Berchtesgaden

When we were living in Frankfurt Germany, we took this very cool vacation all over Europe. This included Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium. We visited the town of Berchtesgaden Germany, which is in the German Alps Mountain Range. The landscape is breathtaking, right out of a scene from “The Sound of Music” and the Von Trapp family adventures. One of the most interesting sites near Berchtesgaden is Adolph Hitler’s summer home and bunker called the Eagles Nest. Eagles Nest during the Nazi rule was home to several high German officials including Hitler, and a Headquarters for various Nazi groups. Eagles Nest was featured in the final episode of the HBO Mini-series “Band of Brothers”. This WWII show depicted the challenges facing a squad of American soldiers during the war in Europe. The Eagles Nest is a mountain top hideout where Hitler had this awesome underground bunker built. Above ground was a large set of stone buildings, which were the daily living quarters. But below ground was a single corkscrew staircase down into the hard rock. After descending down the staircase for a while, the bottom turns into a long zigzagging corridor. Our tour guide told us to look back over our shoulders when negotiating a zig and when I looked back I saw a machine gun port. Each zigzag in the corridor had a machine gun nest pointing into the backs of anyone walking. There were a series of these zigzags, each with a machine gun nest protecting it. With no cover and nowhere to hide, an enemy in that hallway would have been cut to pieces if the gunner decided to open up on them. Seeing those gun ports sent chills down my spine. I could just imagine the Nazi’s zeal to protect Hitler and how the machine gunners would have absolute power over life and death in the corridor. After the zigzags came a small cluster of small, very plain rooms, where Hitler and his staff could hide from air raids. The rooms were so small and ordinary that it was a bit of a let down after all the other security precautions taken to protect the underground bunker. Please don’t confuse this bunker with the one in Berlin where Hitler spent the final days of the war in, and then committed suicide in. The easiest way to get to the Eagles Nest Hotel was by cable car, and the ride was breathtaking. The hotel was very beautiful and the scenery was even more spectacular.

Mountain side gun ports were all along the winding road leading to the Eagles Nest. The gun ports were spaced about every 50 yards along many miles of this road. The ports were about ankle high and gave the gunner a great field of view to kill anything on the narrow road in front of him. Some of these bunkers were cut into solid rock and my Dad and I could not find a single entrance to these gun port bunkers.

My Dad and I decided to walk across the grassy fields near the Eagles Nest Hotel. Suddenly in the middle of one field we found a large irregular hole about 15 feet by 10 feet. We did not come prepared for exploring and had no flashlights. But when we bent down and looked in the hole, we saw a titled room. It appeared that it was an underground bunker complex that we discovered and the hole exposed a bathroom. I had vivid fantasies of find Nazi loot or memorabilia, but we could only look. To this day I wish I could get permission to go back and explore that bunker complex.

Posted in Germany | No Comments »

December 22, 2006 by admin.

The Media and the spy game

Several TV shows and movies were very interesting and funny during the 60’s and 70’s, because of the way they portrayed the espionage business. My parent’s two favorite TV shows were I Spy and Get Smart. I Spy starred Robert Culp and Bill Cosby as traveling tennis stars that were actually spies. Get Smart had a large cast of wonderful actors including Don Adams (voice of Inspector Gadget), Barbara Feldon, Edward Platt, and Bernie Kopell (Doc on the Love Boat TV show). Get Smart was created by Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Producers) and Buck Henry (Catch-22, Heaven Can Wait). One of the additional writers was Pat McCormick (writer for Johnny Carson). Both of these TV shows stretched how the spy game was played and it was great to watch the twists and turns. Of course back then I did not know what my parents actually did, but they sure enjoyed the irony.

One year for Christmas, I asked for only one big present. It was something from a James Bond movie. It was this elaborate briefcase that had a lot of goodies inside. I dreamt of it and finally Christmas morning came, and sure enough I got it. Wow, it was the coolest toy ever. I can remember it like it was yesterday. The edge of briefcase had a hidden throwing knife that could be withdrawn from the briefcase while still shut and thrown across the room into the chest of some hapless KGB agent. Alas my poor brother was always a cheap substitute, but since I had no KGB agent near by, he would have to do. Next there was a trigger button on the handle of the briefcase that when actuated would fire plastic bullets out the side of the case. The case itself was bobby trapped, in case some diabolical criminal a.k.a. little brother attempted to open the case without permission. The trap was set with a little snap cap like that from a cap gun. If I did not throw the secret switch first before opening, then the cap would fire, the smell of gunpowder would fill the air, and ahhhhhhh, you knew that all was right with the world. Once inside the case, your eyes would bounce with joy. The briefcase contained all the basic spy stuff; Gun, codebook, and code wheel. But this was no ordinary gun. It was a 9MM German Lugar, with silencer, extended rifle barrel, wire frame rifle stock extender, scope, and orange plastic bullets. The silencer was the coolest. It could be attached to the pistol or to the extended rifle barrel. The codebook was basically a notepad with a bobby trap. It had a secret switch too, just like the briefcase. It used the same caps too, to explode on the curious. The code wheel was the most interesting of all the items in the case. I had been experimenting with codes and ciphers on paper for a while, but this code wheel did all the work for me. I simply set the code wheel to a secret setting, and then each letter of my message that I wanted to encrypt was dialed into the code wheel. Then I would look into this little window on the code wheel, and there would appear my cipher text. The codebook was where I wrote my plain text and the resulting cipher text. This code wheel device fascinated me, as I saw it as a huge time saver over paper ciphers done manually. And that is why I love computers, the time that they can save, theoretically that is. My Dad must have gotten a real kick out of buying me that James Bond briefcase and watching me play with it so intently. Little did I know that at the office he played with the real thing, including concealing weapons inside ordinary objects, and hiding miniaturized crypto devices. Just like my play briefcase only a little better.

Posted in Virginia | No Comments »

December 21, 2006 by admin.

Ramblers R Us

At one point in my father’s car buying career, he purchased a wonderful little golden tank called the American Motors Rambler station wagon. The back part of the station wagon was my brother Mark and I, and when we traveled, the occasional 20 suitcases. I believe it was a 1966 gold-colored Rambler, with a luggage rack on top. When the family moved overseas or back to the States, the old Rambler was shipped to us by boat. That old car made it to three continents and ran like a top, wacky sometimes, but a great car. When we took our vacation to Barcelona Spain, we drove through southern France, with a roof full of luggage; two kids hanging out the back, and my poor father swearing his brains out at the lousy drivers. I am sure that James Bond never imagined cruising the French Riviera in a Rambler, with a wife and two kids. The food was either so expensive or so un-American that we ate French bread with peanut butter and jelly every day during that vacation. When we traveled in the mountains of Italy on another vacation, we had this huge steamer trunk strapped to the roof. We brought everything but the kitchen sink. So here we are flying down a highway in Italy, trying to keep up with the flow of traffic, and suddenly a terrifying sound hit our ears. The scrapping of metal on the roof was horrifying. I glanced out the back window of the station wagon just in time to see the steamer trunk hydroplaning down the highway. With an air cushion underneath it, the trunk bounced just off the surface of the road. It did not hit any other cars and finally it lost momentum and skidded off the road. We made a mad U turn and went back to check on the trunk, knowing that it was destroyed on impact. We had visions of our underwear scattered all over the Italian landscape. But miracles of miracles, the trunk was still in one piece, minus a few dents. That steamer trunk probably weighted at least 125 pounds, and was one lethal flying object that day. Thank goodness it did not hit anyone.

On another trip in the old Rambler in Italy, my brother and father were in a bad accident. A crazy Italian broadsided the Rambler because he did not feel like steering around the Rambler. My dad was taking a left when this Kamikaze came flying out of nowhere and crashed into the side of the station wagon. My brother got a lot of glass shards thrown into his back and it was very painful. When this Italian showed up in traffic court to explain the accident, his defense was that our Rambler was too long and he was not used to long cars like that so he miss timed his point of contact. The nerve of the idiot, I am surprised that my Dad did not take the guy for a long ride off a short pier.

Posted in Italy | No Comments »

December 21, 2006 by admin.

Mom, Dad, I hate shots

When the Agency prepared an agent and his family to move to a “hostile” land, one of the first things to happen is a series of inoculations a.k.a. shots. As I recall, these shots were so toxic that a person could not handle all of them at once. The shots actually infected us with a little bit of the disease that we were trying not to get. This way our bodies built up immunities in case we came in contact with a full fledged case of the running crud, or whatever the shots were for.

So a few months before our first trip overseas, we loaded up the Rambler station wagon and drove to Langley Virginia from Fairfax Virginia. We check in with the guards at the gate, and then parked. As a family we walk into this great big lobby, with white pillars and a marble looking floor with some very impressive symbols on it. The giant eagle in the middle of this seal just fascinates me, and I stopped my Dad, and said, “What is that on the floor?” He did not answer and hustles the family down a corridor, to the section where the nurses are giving shots. We get our shots and we exited the building with no explanation. My curiosity was killing me, but the answers never came. One day when I was home from college, my mother happen to mention that it was funny how I was giving Dad fits over the seal in the floor of the lobby of CIA headquarters. Well I almost dropped my teeth. After all those years, my mother accidentally solved a mystery that plagued me for years but then forgotten. Sometime after we visited the CIA headquarters a few times for shots, the Agency got wise and starting having dependants (spouses and children) go to the State Department buildings for shots. It seems like they were blowing their own cover with dependants that did not need to know, like me! My poor Dad always had to fend off my barrage of questions. I was a pest, because I knew something was up and could not figure it out.

In case you were wondering, when we went to Laos, we had the full compliment of shots. I believe every shot known to man. Here is the partial list as I remember it: Diphtheria, Typhoid, Typhus, Cholera, Plague I and II, and several others for good measure. I recall the worst one being the Gamma Globulin shot. The nurse would have me stand at the edge of the examination table and hold on. She would then ask me to lower my pants as to expose one hip. The shot was kept in a refrigerator until the last moment and then a horse size needle was attached and then jammed into the hip. The nurses were all military nurses, so their tender loving care was all gone by that time in their career. They were use to giving shots in a great big assembly line. Slam, bang, thank you Mama. For about a week or so after the shot, I would have this great big ugly knot and bruise on my hip. We had to have to two Gamma Globulins before going to Laos. I still have nightmares about that needle. We also took Malaria pills every week in Laos, or at least we were supposed to, but that is another story.

Posted in Virginia, Background | No Comments »

December 21, 2006 by admin.

The Human Lawnmower

At our second house in Laos, we had a tiny patch of real grass that needed to be trimmed from time to time. There were no lawnmowers in the country, since no one had a “real lawn”. The patch was about 12 foot by 12 foot and was situated in the middle of the front yard. As was customary in the Kingdom, we hired several servants to assist my mother in housework, kitchen work, laundry, shopping in the Morning Market, boiling water, and yard work. The gardener that we hired wore only white clothes and a little white hat. I did not see him much, because he slept all the day, after partying every night. Since opium was cheap and very available, he smoked it to excess. The side effect was that he had no inclination to do any yard work. At one point during the hot season, the tiny patch of grass started to really grow. So my mother asked the gardener to cut the grass. The next day at noontime I looked out the window and saw a white object on the grass. I looked closer and it was the gardener lying on the grass, holding a pair of hand clippers. About every 30 seconds he would squeeze the handle of the clippers and the distinct sound of the blades coming together could be heard. I stared at him in amazement. He was higher than a woodpecker’s hole, lying on the grass, casually hand clipping the grass. It was about 120 degrees in the sun, 100% humidity, and he must have been baking like a potato. But since he was already baked, in the mind that is, he really did not care in the least about the sun. At the rate he was clipping, it would take him about four or five solid days of “work” to cut that grass. Life in Laos moved at a different pace and the Laotians to a different drummer.

Posted in Laos | No Comments »

July 31, 2006 by admin.

My Mother and Father worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Our journey as a family into the world of espionage is an intense, dangerous, and demanding story. I will share my unique observations as seen through the eyes of a young man traveling the world, experiencing life with my family.

This book is a tribute to my Father and Mother’s dedication to preserving our way of life through their service in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As it turns out, my mother also worked for the CIA for a short time, as a secretary and cable writer (early type of email) in Vientiane Laos.

My father joined the Marines, graduated from law school, served with the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) United States Treasury Federal Agent chasing bootleggers and mobsters. Then he joined the CIA during a very turbulent time of our history when Soviet and Chinese threats were all about. Because of his previous training and interest in electronics, he was assigned to CIA/TSD, or Technical Services Division, which did most of the stuff like “Q” did in the James Bond movies. This included providing tradecraft equipment and services that were required from CIA Stations all over the world. We lived in Fairfax Virginia, Frankfurt Germany, Vientiane Laos, and Rome Italy during his CIA career. My father traveled to many continents and when he retired wrote a fictional book about two CIA agents.

Posted in Info, Background | No Comments »

July 31, 2006 by admin.

NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol was injured in a plane crash in Colorado along with two others. His son and the pilot passed away and my prayers are with all the families. Ebersol’s wife is actress Susan Saint James and she was not onboard the plane.

Even if the Ebersol and wife traveled separately by accident, they reminded me about my parents pledge.

We lived in Vientiane Laos from 1968 to 1969 during the Vietnam War. We flew on Air America (AA) all over Laos and Thailand. Several times my parents traveled together and left me and my brother at home with a babysitter. Since flying slow and low over enemy territory is very hazardous, they suddenly came to a decision. That my parents would never travel together in the war zones, so that if they were shot down and killed, at least my brother and I would have one parent.

A very sensible pledge in the mad world of Laos.

I had a school friend in Laos lose his Dad and I still remember the feeling that I had for my friend to this day. The “Secret War” in Laos was crazy enough without having to worry about one of my parents getting killed or captured by the Pathet Lao (PL). The PL were not very nice to Americans that they captured and had a tendency to cut off ears of their prisoners. Making a statement, don’t you see. Article

The PL were the Viet Cong of Laos, a puppet for the Communist governments of Russia and China. The CIA mission in Laos was to harass the PL, be forward observers (FO) for bombing missions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail (HCMT), and assist the war effort any way they could. That included feeding the local tribes, arming them, training them, providing medicine and doctors.

Speaking of doctors, a good friend of mine’s father from Laos was a famous doctor there. His name was Dr. Charles Weldon, and he did God’s work over in that nasty place. Here is a link to his autobiography.

The main hill tribe in Laos was the Hmong. A fierce and loyal group of tribes that lived in the mountains, using stone age technologies to survive. Many western people called them “Meo” but that turned out to be an ethnic slur that the lowlands Lao came up with to insult the mountain people. Despite the Hmong being “backwards” they bonded with the CIA CAS (Covert Action Staff) officers and mercenary trainers. The Hmong became more reliable than the conventional army that we trained in the lowlands. The Hmong were also awesome warriors and they seemed to have no fear in battle. They traditionally used cross bows and knives as weapons. We gave them light rifles like the M-1 carbine and they became even more deadly.

Up until 1975, the Hmong kept the PL at bay and won many of the engagements that they conducted. But the White House (WH) and CIA in 1975 betrayed that trust and left them for the wolves. We withdrew our troops, CIA agents, mercenaries, and equipment. The poor Hmong were then subjected to death, long prison terms, and “re-education camps”. More than half of their population was destroyed. Some made it to Thailand but then got stuck in interment camps. Those camps make it on TV once in a while and they are slums, to put it nicely.

Other Hmong tried to escape by sea and they were raped, robbed, and killed by sea pirates near the Gulf of Siam.

It is a disgrace that a great ally like the Hmong were basically given the death sentence. And many Vietnamese that were friendly to us suffered the same fate.

You can read a great book on the subject, “Decent Interval” by Frank Snepp.

Posted in Laos | No Comments »