A Spy's Journey

A CIA Memoir

Floyd Paseman

• Publisher: Zenith Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780760337356
• eBook ISBN: 9781616732738
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

In 1967 Floyd Paseman joined the Central Intelligence Agency following successful service as an army officer in Germany. He was first stationed in the Far East, where he became fluent in Chinese language and culture, and then in Germany, at what was largely considered the agency's toughest Cold War field posting. Over the years he rose from field spy to division chief and ultimately the top ranks in the Operations Directorate of the CIA.

Paseman details the behind-the-scenes intelligence gathering during the major events of eight presidential administrations from Lyndon B. Johnson through George W. Bush.

ONE

IN THE BEGINNING

1963–1967

It was a sorority woman who first drew my attention to the CIA. Early in the spring of 1963, a high-achieving fellow student at the University of Oregon and member of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority approached me and told me that she had applied for, and been accepted by, the Central Intelligence Agency. She suggested that I should apply, considering I had garnered academic honors. She provided me with the sterile address the CIA used for applicants, and, curious more than anything else, I sent a short note off asking about the possibilities of employment. Several weeks later, I received an envelope addressed to me with no return address. The letter inside was folded so the CIA emblem was not visible until the letter was unfolded. “We are pleased to hear of your interest in the CIA. Someone will be contacting you.” So much for that, I thought.

I had missed the normal summer ROTC camp to work on a National Science Foundation grant I had earned, and thus had to wait until December 1963 to graduate and be commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Then, one day at my apartment I received a telephone call from a man who identified himself only as a CIA recruiter. He told me he would be in town one week hence and set up an appointment for me to come to his motel room for an interview and formal application. He gave me the number of the room where I was to meet him and admonished me not to tell anyone I was applying to the Agency. He did not give me his name.

That was secret enough to ensure I showed up at the prescribed time and place. At the appointed hour, I timidly knocked on the door of the designated room. A tall, balding middle-aged man opened the door, confirmed I was who I said I was, and said to me, “Can you wait just a minute—I am on the phone to Washington.” I certainly was not going to interrupt his call, so I waited nervously outside for about five minutes before he again opened the door, invited me in, and introduced himself. I had just been lured into the shadowy world of espionage by one of the great CIA recruiters, Tom Culhane.

Tom Culhane, as I would learn, was legendary as a recruiter for the CIA in the Pacific Northwest. He was a handsome man, urbane, eloquent, and friendly, with an easy manner to him. He also, I was to learn, had a flair for theatrics; he drew all those he interviewed into wanting to join the ranks of the clandestine service even though we had scant idea of what that really meant.

Culhane had done his homework on both my academic and work past. He knew I had come from a working-class family with little income. He knew what honors I had collected in high school and college, and had a familiarity with the fact I had worked my entire time in college just to get though financially. He administered a standard Agency aptitude test, which took several hours. In the end, he told me I was attractive as an applicant, but that the Agency would want me to go ahead and spend my time first in the military and then confirm my continuing interest. He asked me a host of questions (“What would your reaction to danger be?” “Would gunfire scare you?” “Can you keep a secret?” “Can you live and work without recognition?”). In the end, I assured him none of the above would be a problem, and he told me, “Someone will contact you in two years as you end your military service.” He also told me to keep our meeting secret, noting that the CIA did not want its applicants to reveal their employment in case they went into the clandestine arm of the Agency. I assured him I would keep his confidence and departed. I was later to learn that Culhane was considered among the best, if not the best, recruiter for the CIA. He had been a case officer himself, and had served in the troublesome Mideast where he distinguished himself. I was also to learn that he had recruited probably one-third of my classmates when I entered the CIA. Over the years, he became so good and well known as a recruiter that the Washington Post ran an article about him.

I thought little or nothing about this for the next two-plus years. I enjoyed the Army immensely and extended my time. I got a good amount of intelligence-related work in the Army. I went first to Armored Basic Training at Fort Knox, Kentucky; then I was selected for Communications School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where I spent a good deal of time working with cryptographic and classified coding systems. I finally wound up in Bad Hertzfeld, Germany, where I was immediately assigned as squadron (battalion) communications officer. I was responsible for the secure communications systems and equipment for the Fourteenth Armored Cavalry Squadron. It was terrific experience that was to be useful in my later CIA career.

As part of my duties, I was also assigned to be in charge of our Radar Platoon, which did the outpost work on the East German border and was very much a reconnaissance operation. During this time, I learned why we were there. The East Germans, under the direction of the Soviet Union, had a nasty habit of coming across the border and actually kidnapping West German citizens. They would use them for propaganda purposes and later release them. Our mission was to prevent this. We would ride the border area in a jeep, with a West German military officer and usually with a trained German shepherd dog. It was great, rewarding duty, and it was fascinating to watch the dogs work. I learned the value of these fine animals, trained to go through gunfire, fire, and to climb obstacles 10 feet high to get to their prey. And, I also learned how much the Germans really like and admire Americans. When we would go into a local gasthaus (tavern) to warm up, it would be impossible for us to pay for our meals. They wanted us on the border so badly they simply would not accept our payment, no matter how hard we would try. In the evenings, if we were staying overnight, we would enjoy the Germans’ company over a brew or two as well.

Later, I was sent to a school for reconnaissance platoon leaders, and learned more yet about intelligence, particularly about debriefing the sources that came across the border. I worked with the local military intelligence personnel, most of whom were undercover, and learned a good deal from them as well. This school also continued to feed my interest in intelligence in general. I acquired a number of skills there, such as escape and evasion, demolitions, advanced map work, and foreign-made arms and weapons that proved useful in the future.

It is easy to understand why the CIA wanted us to have military experience before hiring us. First, it gave us good working experience, responsibility, and a chance to mature a little before taking on the awesome responsibilities given to officers at a relatively young age in the CIA. And some decided not to enter the Agency after military service. The Agency, likewise, got a chance to decide if they were interested in the individual before making a commitment of substantial time and money. Military service worked to everyone’s benefit.

Finally, however, I decided to leave the military in the fall of 1966, though I had considered a military career. Things had gone very well for me, and in early 1966 I was rewarded with the command of a tank company, even though I was only a first lieutenant at the time and there were other officers in Europe senior to me waiting for just such an opportunity. I ended my service there by being awarded the Army Commendation Medal for my work. It was indeed hard to leave, but I had decided I simply could not make a career of the Army, as much as I liked it. I simply have always had trouble taking orders without knowing why. I knew that sooner or later that would be a stumbling block to further advancement in the Army. But I made great friends there. I decided to continue my time in the U.S. Army Reserve, which would prove valuable in my CIA career by keeping me in touch with the U.S. Military and up to date on their needs, and gave me the credentials to deal with the military in a closer relationship than I would otherwise have had.

I returned to Oregon and began the process of seeking employment. I didn’t try to contact the CIA and just assumed that, since they had not contacted me in the Army, they had no further interest in recruiting me. It turns out that nothing could have been further from the truth.

I finally landed a terrific and well-paying job with a marketing research company in the Midwest. I went through their training school and graduated at the top of the class of new marketing-research employees. The company rewarded me by sending me to work in the San Fernando Valley—one of its largest markets—with my headquarters in Los Angeles. My job was to travel the length of the valley and stop in at food stores and pharmacies and do audits on merchandise sales. It was traditional marketing research. I worked hard there and got to be very close friends with one of the top officers, who took me under his wing. Ultimately, however, this fine officer lost out in gaining a top position in the region to one of the company founder’s nephews. This was my first lesson in the politics of private industry. Shortly afterward, the father of one of my college roommates who lived in Los Angeles—a very well known and respected hydraulic engineer for a major aircraft manufacturer—was summarily fired from his job due to the fact that his salary had gotten too large.

Having witnessed private industry firsthand, I received a phone call from Washington, D.C., asking me if I could fly there for three days of further interviews with the CIA, and I was inclined to do so. I did tell the person on the other end of the telephone that I would have to let someone in my company know what I was doing since I would miss several days of work. They agreed to tell my colleague what was going on and to ask him to keep it to himself.

I was very pleasantly surprised that my friend was enthusiastic and agreed to take my route over himself for three days so I could fly back for the interviews. He told me that, if he were younger and had the same opportunity, he would take the offer and give up his current career. Armed with this, I flew back to Washington.

The interviews went very well, with the exception of a long and grueling time on the polygraph. The operator was thrilled to discover that I was a twin. “I’ve never done a twin before,” he exclaimed gleefully. Everything was going OK on that damned instrument until the operator asked me if my twin brother and I had ever engaged in any homosexual activity. I told him no, and the instrument, according to him, confirmed this. He, however, postulated that the machine doesn’t catch everything and went through the lame drill of leaving the room and returning to ask me if I had reconsidered my answer to that question. I told him the only thing I was reconsidering was why the hell I was putting up with this nonsense. After a few more attempts, he lamely told me that everything looked OK but that we might have to revisit the issue. I left and flew back to Los Angeles later that week. Shortly thereafter, I received another telephone call telling me I would be hired if I agreed to accept the salary of a GS-07 ($7,000 in those days). I accepted. This was a major mistake. I could have asked for—and received—a lot more.

TWO

TRAINING TO BE A SPY

1967–1969

In March 1967, I entered the Central Intelligence Agency with a large group of classmates—over 100 new career trainees (CTs) as we were called. The CIA was in its biggest buildup since the Korean War. The class was one of three that were being assembled that year. The increase in number and size of classes had to do with the expansion of the Agency as well as the other U.S. Government agencies that needed to deal with the Vietnam War. It did make for a most interesting class. I was one of the few who did not have an advanced degree (thus, the Agency’s belief that they could hire me cheaper, although I had military experience many of my classmates were missing). We had a former marine embassy guard, a former city policeman, and lawyers by the dozen, including practicing lawyers from around the country, and a woman who had been a judge. Also in my class were an executive from a major automobile manufacturer, a golf pro, five former Special Forces non-commissioned officers, and three women who had just graduated and were starting their first job. One of the other more interesting classmates had been channeled into the career program after nearly four years working in the “secret war” in Laos. He had been a “kicker”—one of the incredibly brave individuals who dropped supplies out of the back of the Agency C-47s to the Laotian Montagnards who were our surrogates in the war.

I worked in a transit job for three months until the training started in earnest. I was sent to work in the Central Cover Staff (CCS), which turned out to have been a most interesting and useful pre-training assignment. I was allowed to actually take over several accounts and learned a great deal about the basics of setting up “cover,” the identity and occupation used by an agent or case officer to conceal his espionage or clandestine operational activities.¹ I also acquired a lasting knowledge of the importance of individual cover in protecting both our officers and our operations. It was knowledge that was to serve me well throughout my career. It was also the assignment that brought me into direct contact with a man whom I and hundreds of other Agency employees regard as one of the true heroes of our generation, Richard L. Holm. He met disaster when he was involved in attempts to rescue hostages in the Congo.² I was later given the task of helping set up the cover for one of his overseas assignments. Through this experience, I also discovered the lengths to which the Agency would go to assist its people and its families—one of the Agency’s great qualities. I then knew that should any of us have to risk our lives, the Agency and my colleagues would move heaven and earth to take care of our families and us.

But, one of the more interesting CIA flaps occurred immediately upon my entry to the Agency. I had been through all of the processing when the Ramparts magazine flap occurred. This episode involved the disclosure on February 14, 1967 of the secret link between the CIA and the National Student Association (NSA). NSA was a democratic counterpart to the many Soviet-inspired student groups operating worldwide at that time. The CIA had funneled a subsidy of at least $3 million dollars to the NSA since 1952. By this time, NSA had chapters at over 300 U.S. universities. There was a huge uproar, and I got caught in the middle. There were two reasons for this: one, I had known the fellow who blew the news of the operation, because he was at the University of Oregon when I was there. Within days of my coming on board, I was called in repeatedly to tell what I knew about the person, whether I had any influence over him (no), and so on. But there was another reason. As the story unfolded, a young reporter at the Eugene Register-Guard broke a number of new revelations. His name was Lloyd Paseman—my twin brother! And, our office of security wanted to know if I knew what my brother knew. Of course I was not going to admit that I knew anything, and they finally gave up. But it was an eventful beginning.

I also discovered early that working for the CIA has many strange aspects, many of which I’ll mention later in the book. Two of the early ones, however, involve contradictions between the CIA’s penchant for secrecy and some of the things they do. For example, the CIA runs a regular bus on many routes around Washington to get people where they need to go without the hassle of parking. However, they used Blue Bird buses—actually painted bright blue—to do this. Obviously, these buses stood out as CIA buses, and everyone around town knew what the buses were. However, when you got on the bus, you had to show a badge before the operator would tell you which bus covered which route. I never understood why they didn’t use a military-colored bus—and there were many around Washington—instead of the Blue Birds. They might as well have put a sign on them.

The second thing I learned is that Agency folks stick together. There was a famous bar in downtown McLean called O’Toole’s that was the watering hole for the well initiated. If you went to O’Toole’s, you were immediately identified as being CIA. Half of the members who went there simply took their Agency badges and stuck them in their pockets. So you could tell all the CIA people by the chains around their necks leading to their shirt pockets.

I then was given an operational assignment before beginning formal training. I consider myself fortunate to have been assigned to work in the Directorate of Operations, East Asia Division, where I became intimately familiar with the business of intelligence reporting. I worked for one of the sternest taskmasters in the business, but I acquired a knowledge of how requirements are generated, how to determine the value of intelligence, and how it gets to the consumer. For an entry-level officer, this was basic hard work without the thrills of the operational side. However, it left me with a lasting skill and appreciation for this side of the business. It also served me exceptionally well; from my first assignment on, I took exceptional pride in writing and composing all of my own intelligence reports into as close to a final product as possible. Consequently, I found that more of my intelligence was disseminated than that of my colleagues.

Finally, my 100-plus classmates and I were drawn together and began our introductory training. It was a fun, fruitful time, and friends I made then are still colleagues and friends 30 years later. During these years, it was also Agency policy that incoming officers from the four Agency Directorates—Operations (the DO); Intelligence/Analysis (the DI); Administration (the DA); and Science and Technology (the DS&T)—enter into introductory training together. In that way, all would learn at least the basics of all four Directorates. It was excellent training, and included everything from basic intelligence writing and how aerial photography is done, to clandestine tradecraft (techniques of spying), logistics, and communications. Many of the officers who went into the non-operational directorates have remained my friends through the years and have provided me with great advice in their fields throughout my career.

We also had outstanding instruction about our primary enemy—communism. We were instructed in communist theory—both Soviet and the Maoist. And we spent a lot of productive time studying and understanding covert action, which has been defined as “a clandestine operation designed to influence foreign governments, events, organizations, or persons in support of United States foreign policy; it may include political, economic, propaganda, or paramilitary activities.”³ We studied the history of the Agency, including lessons learned from both its successes and its failures.

I finished in the top of my class in the operations portion of introductory training, confirming what I believed from the beginning, that I was best suited for clandestine activities and the Directorate of Operations—the DO or clandestine service, as it is also known. Before individual directorate training began, we were asked to state our preferences, which would then be used to find the perfect match with an advisor.

A few words about my advisor are in order. He came from the administrative end of the house and appeared disinterested and lazy. Throughout the entire introductory training period, which lasted nearly three months, he talked to me personally only once, on the first day advisors were assigned. I put in to beco...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Rudyard Kipling
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Prologue
• 1: In the Beginning 1963–1967
• 2: Training to be a Spy 1967–1969
• 3: Junggwo Hwa—Learning Chinese 1969–1971
• 4: An Apprentice Spy 1971–1974
• 5: Still Learning the Craft 1974–1977
• 6: Journeyman Spy 1977–1979
• 7: Back Home in East Asia 1979–1980
• 8: A Change of Venue 1980–1983
• 9: Into Management 1983–1985
• 10: Home Again—East Asia 1985–1988
• 11: Overseas Chief
• 12: Home Again—Into the Senior Ranks 1990–1992
• 13: Chief, East Asia—one of the “Barons” 1992–1994
• 14: Germany—Back into the Fray 1994–1998
• 15: Officer in Residence—a Scholar 1998–2001
• 16: Retirement, or Life After Death 2001–
• 17: Managing the Ambassador and the Intelligence Community
• 18: The Directors of Central Intelligence 1967–2004
• 19: Presidents and Intelligence
• 20: The Band: An Operational Tool
• 21: What’S Wrong And What’s Right with the Cia
• 22: Paseman’S Ten Axioms of Spying
• 23: 9/11
• Epilogue
• Glossary
• Recommended Reading
• Copyright Page