Central Intelligence Agency record from May twenty-fourth, nineteen-fifty-four

Declassified. This is a declassified Central Intelligence Agency record from May twenty-fourth, nineteen-fifty-four, notable for its stark allegations of incompetence and potential subversion within the agency. This document is available at documents2.theblackvault.com. This document was released under the Freedom of Information Act. Its declassification authority is cited as M H C, Q Y, T F Y, dated September twenty-second, two-thousand-fourteen. It is part of a larger collection of United States Intelligence on China, specifically a reform proposal including "Suggestions for Psychological Warfare Program in the Soviet Union, Satellites, and China." The document, a letter from Colonel James G. L. Kellis, U-S-A-F, to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, dated May twenty-fourth, nineteen-fifty-four, reads: "Dear Mr. President: From the reports of a recent Presidential Press Conference I gathered that your doors are always open to any complaints or factual information regarding incompetence, subversion, and corruption within the government. On the basis of this information, I decided to take this step of addressing to your attention certain matters which, in my estimation, are important and which may affect the reputation of your administration and our country as a whole. These matters do not concern the military services, hence I see no reason to submit them to any Inspector Generals. On the other hand, they are of confidential nature and possibly uncomplimentary to certain key officials in the government so in transmitting this letter through regular channels it has only one to a hundred chance of reaching you. Hence, I beg your indulgence for this irregular procedure. The matters I am to present concern the Central Intelligence Agency. As an ex-soldier, I presume you would prefer my language direct and to the point. If you wish to evaluate me and my statements, I suggest you call in and talk to Brigadier General John N. Robinson, U-S-A-Ret., a classmate of yours who is presently a consultant to C-I-A. General Robinson knows a good deal about C-I-A and also knows me. If I am not mistaken, General Robinson is a resident of Washington, D. C. Since nineteen-forty-three I have been for the major part associated with the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Agency. In the Spring of nineteen-fifty-three I asked to be released from the Agency for I arrived at the conclusion that the Central Intelligence Agency is in a rotten state and I wished to get out of the Agency and raise this to the attention of high officials in the Government and particularly your office. [four lines redacted under exemption B1] After my release from C-I-A, I talked to a few of your friends who promised to bring these matters to your attention. Although they were and still are willing, the opportunity did not arise for them to speak to you in private. During the past eleven years I held key positions in both the O-S-S and later the Central Intelligence Agency. My last assignments in the Central Intelligence Agency were Chief of the Operations Division, of the Office of Policy Coordination and Chief of the Resistance Division. From time to time I have been assigned by the Directors of the Agency to investigate overseas failures of C-I-A. So, if I may be immodest in saying so, I have a near complete idea of C-I-A's covert operations, its personnel, its failures and its probable future course. The attached document which I prepared for a high government official states in a broad sense some of the problems and failures of C-I-A. In this letter I wish to be more pointed and forewarn you that sooner or later this mess in C-I-A will leak out to the public and may affect the reputation of your administration and the security of our country. Although I am disappointed at C-I-A, I am a strong believer of the Central Intelligence Agency concept. I am now unhappy that the Agency has fallen to such a low level, particularly at a time when our country is in an urgent need of good intelligence, espionage, counter-espionage, and psychological warfare service. So, in mailing this letter I pray to God that you take the drastic action required to clean up this Agency. Since nineteen-fifty C-I-A has been directed by General W. B. Smith, Mr. William Jackson, and Mr. Allen Dulles. All three have been associated with your administration in some capacity, or the other. Consequently, it would be difficult to place all the failures of the agency to previous administrations. In short critics may well say, with some basis of fact, that C-I-A has been administered by men of Republican political leanings and hence its failures are a responsibility of the Republican party. Needless to say, some of these problems have developed in nineteen-fifty-three to nineteen-fifty-four. Since I mentioned political matters, it is fair to state where I stand. In nineteen-forty-four I was in favor of President Roosevelt, in nineteen-forty-eight in favor of Governor Dewey, and in nineteen-fifty-two I favored you. Since my departure from C-I-A and my concern with this Agency, certain friends made tentative offers of the Democratic nomination of a certain congressional district, if I choose to resign or retire upon the completion of my present overseas tour of duty. This I am seriously considering at the moment. My sole reason in considering this course is in creating enough interest for a strong and efficient Central Intelligence Agency and, if possible bring about a clean up. Returning back to the main subject, there are instances of corruption, extreme incompetence, and possible subversion in C-I-A, which if known to the public I am certain would create a major scandal. In one instance C-I-A wittingly or unwittingly delivered one million dollars to a Communist security service; in another instance C-I-A's operatives delivered the U.S. Central European retardation plan to the same service; in another instance C-I-A unwittingly organized an intelligence network for the Communists; in another instance C-I-A undermined the position of President Rhee of Korea; in another instance C-I-A undermined the position of President Chiang Kai-Chek. There are hundreds of similar incidents which caused many of us to leave the Agency in disgust. Many of these people who left, I think are men of high caliber and will be willing to report the facts to you. You may ask what happens to the personnel who perpetuate those failures or apparent subversions. Well, it is hard to explain. Every time I submitted a report as a result of my investigations, the perpetuators of those failures were kicked up or promoted and still hold high positions in the Agency. The many who tried to correct deficiencies and reported them found themselves pushed back, isolated, disregarded and finally most of them resigned. It is hard to understand this attitude. In my eighteen years of military service, I never saw anything like this. Today, C-I-A has hardly any worthwhile operations behind the Iron Curtain. In their briefings they present a rosy picture to outsiders but the awful truth remains under the Top Secret label of the Agency. In nineteen-fifty-two certain high C-I-A officials were briefing a congressional committee of C-I-A's accomplishments in Korea. They told the congressmen that C-I-A was controlling considerable resistance elements in North Korea. The congressmen were duly impressed and proceeded to appropriate whatever C-I-A was asking. Actually the same officials who were briefing the congressional committee were fully aware that C-I-A had no such assets in North Korea, in fact a radiogram from their field office the same date told them plainly 'C-I-A's guerrillas' in North Korea were under the control of the enemy for some months and that C-I-A was being duped. I have been expressing doubts in our Washington office regarding this C-I-A operation and I was finally dispatched to Korea to investigate this whole affair. My subsequent investigation disclosed that C-I-A's contribution in Korea and for that matter in China was near nil. Many of my friends and I tried to analyze this situation to figure out what is the cause of the general paralysis within C-I-A. Our conclusions are that certain high ranking and powerful people, i.e. W. B. Smith, William Jackson, and Allen Dulles (we must consider General Cabell in the same light) are sensitive to any criticism of C-I-A fearing any after effects on their reputation. Consequently, they have gone out of their way to suppress criticism." This is what the public record looks like at its most ordinary. storyflo.com. The full document is available at archive.org/download/us-china-intel-CI01083/CI01083_djvu.txt.