In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

Kinshasa
consular officers; others will be businessmen, professors, students, or
tourists. But they will still be conspicuously "CIA" to all who work
with or near them, in the embassies, in Washington, or in the local
communities overseas.
Few experienced CIA case officers will ever be enthusiastic about
acting as an "agent" in a dangerous situation. They know too well
how agents are sometimes abused. by the CIA. For example, one
extremely valuable Vietnamese agent had for years reported accurately
on the communist high command. He became so famous
inside the agency that he was discussed openly at headquarters and
in Saigon, even at social functions in front of nonagency Americans
and foreigners. At headquarters he was commonly cited by lecturers
in the Vietnam orientation seminar, attended by a wide variety of
people outside the DDO. This insecure, unprofessional conduct was
a clear threat to the agent's life as well as to his viability as a
reporting asset. The case officer tried to deal with it through the chief
of station, but the COS refused to take any action, claiming that an
effort to quiet the gossip would only provoke more.
At the same time in the COS's office, there was another top-secret
operation which was handled much differently-a friend warned me
to quit asking about it lest I be ordered out of the country by the COS.
Eventually, I learned about it from an officer who worked with me up
country. On a previous tour my friend had helped install "bugs" in the
South Vietnamese presidential palace.* The CIA was eavesdropping
on President Thieu's private conversations. Security of the two operations
differed as night from day, precisely because exposure of the
audio operation against Thieu would be sensational news, embarrassing
to the United States president, and possibly fatal to the COS's
career; the agent, on the other hand, though he was providing incomparable
intelligence, was not a political entity. His exposure would be
an inconvenience, but not a catastrophe, except to himself.
The Kinshasa station offices on the second floor of the embassy
had changed little since my last visit six years before. I found the
deputy COS working at his desk, waiting for me. He offered to lock
up any notes I had, but declined to stop somewhere for a drink and
a chat about Kinshasa.
He would instead drive me to St. Martin's villa. On the way to the
*The CIA had given Thieu presents of TV sets and furniture which were bugged.