In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

[94] IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES
colonel for a different operation. All of it! Then he turned around,
came back to Saigon, got into the cash box, took the rest of our U.S.
dollars, every penny we had, and gave it to the Montagnards. My
branch was closed down for two weeks while the accountants came
in and did an audit.n
"So what happened?"
Bantam looked thoughtful. "He convinced us the Vietnamese
colonel's activity was justified and there wasn't time for approvals."
Bantam shrugged. His anger was passing. "St. Martin worked for
me for five tours. We made a good team. With me keeping his feet
on the ground, he ran some good operations. In some ways St.
Martin is the best operator in the business. A couple of times in Laos,
when we were overrun and everyone was ready to quit, he literally
led the way back in. He and I and Colby and Nelson ... we all sort
of grew up together in EA Division . . . "
Carl looked down at the cable again. "The terrifying thing is that
Colby and Nelson might approve this ... I'm going to draft a cable
myself telling St. Martin to back off .. . and I'm going to see that
they send it out.''
At ten minutes before two o'clock, Potts and Carl and I walked
down the hall and rode the elevators up to the seventh floor to brief
the DDO. On the way, Potts told us the 40 Committee had ordered
the formation of an interagency working group to monitor the Angolan
program. Senior representatives of the State Department, the
Pentagon, and the White House would meet as often as necessary to
supervise the CIA while it ran the program. Potts clearly resented
this.
"At least the CIA will chair it," he said. "We'll have all the
meetings here ... won't have to be running downtown. Maybe if I
make them dull enough, they won't come too often."
Carl was silent. I knew from his earlier comments that his frustration
over the agency's intervention in Angola was reaching a boiling
point.
In Nelson's office we sat on orange-padded, wooden-framed chairs
at one end of the large room. Nelson came around his desk and joined
us, to establish closer contact. He spoke quietly, but any stranger
watching the meeting would have sensed his relative_importance. He