In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

CIA People Policies (83]
but now he's changed his mind again and we're getting Foster!"
This was normal internal agency politics. Obviously Nelson had
reversed himself just to make it clear that he wrote the EA division
chiefs fitness report and not vice versa.
Carl regarded me for a moment. "Foster will be a co-chief with
you. We'll rotate you back and forth to the field. In fact, you know
Kinshasa so well, and he's married, maybe we'll just transfer you to
Kinshasa and he can run the task force back here. That might work
out pretty good. Excuse me ... " He took a call on his phone while
I tried to absorb all this.
It is common policy in the agency for senior officers to bring
people with them when they transfer from other divisions and to put
them in choice slots. Inevitably this means that the division's own
officers are shunted aside. I had seen it happen often, although this
was the first time it had struck me personally. I decided right away
that under no circumstances would I work for Foster; if they wanted
him to run the task force I would request another assignment. Given
my reservations about the Angola program, I rationalized it would
be a relief to be forced out of it. But two chiefs? That was inefficient,
impractical, and to my knowledge unprecedented. I watched Carl
talking into the phone, and waited to explain my views. But when
he hung up he hurried out of the office and down the hall, mumbling
that something had come up.
Sunday, I read cable traffic and files until 2:00 P.M., then went
jogging into Great Falls Park to an isolated rock formation which
projected over a ravine a few hundred yards from the Potomac River.
I wanted to think about the program, perhaps even decide to bow
out. The job was shaping up, but the reservations were still there. The
agency, it seemed to me, had embarked on a careless, no-win intervention
in another Third World morass. The Angola program
seemed doomed to fail and, moreover, was fraught with liabilities for
the United States, the CIA, and for John Stockwell, the task force
chief.
I remembered what had happened to a friend of mine on the
Cuban desk when a technical operation in Havana was wrapped up
by the Cuban police. He wound up with a letter in his file, compliments
of the Miami station chief, prohibiting any promotions for
several years. Since such a letter would haunt him the rest of his
career, he opted for early retirement and left the agency.