In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

IN SEARCH O F ENEMIE S
ence had been in the Middle East, Athens, where he had recently
been chief of station. As an honor student and football player at Yale,
graduating in 1943, Potts was a solid member of the eastern establishment
which dominated the CIA.
I had heard other officers complain that he was frustrating to work
with because he centralized too·much control at his desk. It was said
that his understanding of Africa was shallow, although he had
memorized an impressive volume of facts and names.
To keep up with the task force workload I would need a staff of
two dozen people, including four case officers who could answer
cables and write memos; other case officers to run agents and gather
intelligence about Angola; two paramilitary officers to plan the arms
shipments and supervise the war; covert action specialists who would
run the propaganda campaign; logistics and finance officers; reports
officers to disseminate the intelligence; and secretaries and assistants.
Word spread quickly through the building that the Angolan Task
Force was hiring. The day after I came back from Texas people
began to seek me out. Young officers were looking for adventure and
experience. Old officers hoped to work on one more operation, to
hang on a while longer before retirement. After the collapse in Southeast
Asia almost a thousand CIA employees had returned to headquarters.
Colby had decreed that no one would be fired, not even the
Vietnamese linguists who had been hired on thirty-day contracts
because their educational backgrounds fell short of CIA case officer
requirements. Hundreds of people were looking for jobs.
My Vietnam experience saved us from most of them. I knew too
well the sloppy, low-pressure environment in which they had learned
their intelligence skills. We needed speakers of Portuguese, not Vietnamese,
and people who knew Africa.
At the same time, there were only a dozen genuine Portuguese
linguists in the agency, and the good ones had secure jobs.
The DDO had given us a license to shanghai anyone we wanted
from any office-we could have the best people in the Operations
Directorate. However, having made that verbal gesture, Nelson was
unwilling to back us up. No chiefs wanted to lose their best help, and
we didn't have the clout to take them forcibly. Other chiefs had their
own private uses for the task force, to provide for their own proteges.
Rarely could I get the individual I wanted, and people were dumped
on me who weren't much help.