University of Virginia Library

Beyond The CIA

Above the various agencies
is the newly-revived US.
Intelligence Board whose job it
will be to advise Helms. Sitting
on the Board with Helms as
chairman will be such notables
as the directors of the FBI,
DIA, Atomic Energy
Commission and others.

Above the Board is the
National Security Council
which is headed by Henry
Kissinger, Nixon's chief
advisor. "National security
affairs" are defined very
broadly and the Council acts as
a basic decision making body
under the president. There is a
NSC Intelligence Committee
on which sit Attorney General
John Mitchell, the CIA
director, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
Under Secretary of State, and
the Deputy Secretary of
Defense.

There isn't much more
generally known information
about the various intelligence
agencies. A slick news
magazine commented about
the CIA: "Its employees
compose what is very likely,
with the possible exception of
the Mafia, the most closed
corporation in American
society."

Publicly, the intelligence
network employs 200,000
people and has a budget of $6
billion a year, but ex CIA
official Marchetti estimates
that for example "85 per cent
of the CIA's money is hidden
in the Defense Department
budget."

CIA headquarters is situated
in the woods of Langley,
Virginia, marked only with a
modest sign announcing
"Fairbank Highway Research
Station"

"They work together, play
together and sometimes live
together," said one journalist
breezily. "They go to the same
doctors and if need be, to the
same psychiatrists; their talents
and triumphs are rarely sung
outside the agency's walls and
often not even within them;
even when they quit their
friends can never be sure that
they are not simply
establishing a deep cover. The
CIA is not a profession; it is a
way of life."