In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

The Angola Program
"Well, disgrace is too mild a word," I said. "Here's an example.
In one military region the CIA chief panicked at reports that communist
forces were approaching the city, and evacuated his American
staff. The country had been breaking up for weeks but he had
made no preparations for evacuation. He left behind secret files
including the names of CIA agents, and he abandoned people, property,
and personal belongings. He hadn't ordered sufficient funds to
pay local employees the money which they were due and which they
could have used to buy boat tickets to Saigon. One helicopter was
brought in to evacuate the last six Americans. To ensure there was
no difficulty boarding the chopper, he told his local employees that
C-13os were arriving to pick them up on the near side of the runway.
Meanwhile he and the other Americans met the chopper on the other
side, firing weapons over the heads of Vietnamese case officers who
had followed them, to clear the chopper for take off. Three weeks
later the first communist troops entered the city! That's how good
our intelligence was. This regional chief was given a hero's welcome
in Saigon and one of the top three positions in the station, where he
stayed until the final evacuation."
Such talk was dangerous, I knew. Bantam might quote me to
senior East Asia Division officers. Certainly he was closer to them
than to me. Perhaps one of them would be sitting on a promotion
panel. I would be passed over. Some assignment I wanted would
mysteriously be cancelled. A friend passing through Texas had told
me that all of the senior officers from Vietnam had been given important
new assignments by the director. The Saigon chief of station,
Tom Polgar, was already chief of the huge Mexico City station.
Nothing could be done about the Saigon supergrades, at least not
from within the CIA.* Despite the existence of an inspector general
the CIA had no effective review or courts martial system. All disciplinary
problems were handled within the chain of a command structure
at whose top was a clique of men who had served together for
a quarter of a century, insulated from outside scrutiny by the shields
of clandestinity. Though the inspector general might take effective
action in a clear case of malfeasance, it was virtually unheard of for
an "in" supergrade to suffer anything resembling censure, no matter
•At this time, Frank Snepp was making no secret of the fact that he was writing
a book about the last month in Saigon. See Decent Interval (New York: Random
House, 1977).