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Secret War. The book reports that contrary to the general impression, the CIA devotes about two-thirds of its annual budget of some $750 million to covert operations and only 10% to intelligence gathering. The $750 million, moreover, is merely part of the money spent on the CIA. The Pentagon contributes hundreds of millions of dollars for technical projects that do not show up in the CIA budget. The Air Force, for example, funds the overhead-reconnaissance program —mostly spy satellites—for the entire U.S. intelligence community. Though the CIA conducted a secret war in Laos for more than a decade, the bulk of the $500 million spent each year was supplied by the Defense Department. Another hidden source of funds is the CIA'S proprietary airlines—Air America, Air Asia and others—which generate tens of millions of dollars every year by providing charter service for Government agencies.
For anyone not privy to the CIA'S files, it is difficult to judge just how accurate the book is. The original manuscript was censored under the guidance of four CIA deputy directors. The CIA refuses to attest to or deny any portion of the book, and the court record is mixed on the point.
During the long court battle, one of the deputy directors, William E. Nelson, deposed that he had not deleted any material on grounds of inaccuracy because "untrue [material] per se isn't classified."
Yet another deputy director argued the opposite, claiming that false material could be classified and that there were errors in some portions that he censored. Says a high-ranking agency official: "Some of the book is true, some of it is slightly wrong, and a lot of it is totally wrong. Marchetti has strung a few facts together and done a lot of hypothesizing."
The authors, to put it mildly, are not sympathetic to the CIA. Marchetti, who is responsible for most of the book, and Co-Author John Marks, 31, a former Foreign Service officer, believe that the agency should not intervene in other nations' affairs in any circumstances. Pointing out the inefficiency of many CIA missions, the authors would restrict the agency to intelligence gathering and strip it of all its covert operations. That argument is sure to be aired fully once the book is published; for now, the CIA is arguing that the book is dangerous on narrower if no less vital grounds. It fears that the book will expose secret operations and covers, jeopardize if not eliminate relations with foreign secret services, and encourage other disgruntled employees to spill what they know or claim to know about the agency. The conflict is yet another example of the public's "right to know" v. the national interest; there is no easy answer.
For most of his 14 years with the CIA, Marchetti was a bright young agent on the way up. After serving with U.S. Army intelligence in West Germany during the early '50s, he returned to Perm State to major in Soviet studies. Because of his background, he was recruited for the CIA. He spent a year in training in covert operations, then became an intelligence analyst, concentrating largely on Soviet military matters. In
1968, he was named executive assistant to the agency's deputy director, Admiral Rufus Taylor. If he seemed to be something of a Boy Scout to his colleagues, it was appropriate that Scouts first caused him to have misgivings about his employment.