George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

An important internal CIA issue that arose during Turner's time in Langley was the
question of personnel cuts, especially in the operations directorate. To understand Bush's
infl;uence on this topic, we must go back to the Watergate era.
During the Schlesinger-Colby period, about 2,000 CIA personnel, representing about
15% of the CIA manpower complement, were dismissed. The method of these firings
appears to have been heavily influenced by Shackley and his faction, who argued that
CIA personnel who were in danger of being exposed by Philip Agee should be preemptively
terminated. There is therefore much reason to think that Shackley and Agee
were in cahoots. This purge touched many important posts, which could then be filled by
Shackley loyalists. A description of the process is offered by retired CIA agent Joseph
Burkholder Smith, who served in the Western Hemisphere division:
A defensive operation was started immediately and every activity, agent, and officer was
scrutinized to determine if Agee had already blown them or if he would write about them in his
book. A Shackley henchman was installed as chief of operations [was this William Nelson?] and a
cryptonym, the Agency's badge of security significance, was assigned to the task of getting rid of
the division's operations and much of its office staff-- the pre-Shackley staff, some were quick to
point out. They doubted whether so much destruction was necessary, especially since Shackley
had a reputation for ruthlessness and for filling key jobs with his favorites.
Whether or not such a vast amount of house cleaning was really necessary, I could not decide. All
I knew was that it was dismal work. [...]
Nevertheless, I was disturbed to have to dismiss so many loyal men and upset to have the defenses
I kept putting up to try to salvage something of their old lives summarily dismissed by the Star
Chamber conducting the purge in Washington. When Agee's book finally appeared, not one of the
people I was ordered to fire was mentioned. [fn 60]
All of the CIA's divisions were purged, with justifications offered that ranged from the
threat of denunciation by Agee to budget constraints to poor performance to the need to
make room for new blood. Schlesinger, who fired 630 officers in five months, was said to
be accompanied by bodyguards during this period for fear that some disgruntled covert
warrior might exact a horrible revenge.
During Bush's tenure, the same William Nelson apparently mentioned by Smith seems to
have suggested that the administrative purge had not gone far enough. In the spring of
1976, when he was about to be replaced by William Wells, Nelson again raised the issue
of operations directorate personnel. "There were a lot of people in the DO [Directorate of
Operations] who were marginal performers," said Nelson in a 1988 interview. "The low
middle. We needed quality, not quantity. I told [Bush] that the lower 25 per cent should
be identified and should be encouraged to seek other employment....I said we owed these
people a lot but not a lifetime job. He [Bush] put it in his pocket and said he would think
about it." [fn 61]
This new round of firings was relegated to Turner, who reportedly was told by Knoche on
arriving at the CIA that the agency was "top-heavy." There was the case of Cord Meyer,
Knoche said, who had too much rank for the work he was doing. As Turner later recalled,
"It was at this point that I learned about a study the espionage [operations] branch itself