Spycraft - Melton [307]
Memorandum for the Record, MKULTRA, Subproject 34, Central Intelligence Agency, MKULTRA document 34-29, June 20, 1956.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge with deepest appreciation the overwhelming and gratifying support we received from more than a hundred active and retired CIA officers in preparing this history. We conducted dozens of interviews and received correspondence from many others who devoted their careers to the Office of Technical Service or related engineering and development offices. Other case officers and operations managers who used the equipment, disguises, and alias documents OTS produced offered significant insights into processes that tightly wove operations and technology together. Virtually every request for assistance, whether for an interview, illustrative stories, verification of information, or photographs received the traditional OTS response: “So what can I do to help?”
The leadership of the Technical Service Retirees Association facilitated our contact with its members. Bruce Bixby, Dave Gokey, Tom Herring, Jim Joyce, Jerry Lee, Karl Muenzenmayer, Ray Parrack, and John Tredwell have devoted significant personal time to preserving OTS history and traditions through the TSRA and were especially helpful in identifying techs and case officers for us to contact.
Significant contributors to chapters on OTS’s “early years” include John Aalto, Andy Anderson, Tom Beale, Howard Gamertsfelder, Cleo Gephart, Lyle Greeno, Norm Jackson, Irv Kemp, Dick Krueger, Hugh Montgomery, Al Schumann, Pauline Sypolt, Elsie Szuminski, Wally Szuminski, and Glenn Whidden.
Episodes and adventures from the middle decades of OTS history were recounted by Lynn Ashe, Bob Barron, Rosemary Capuzzi, David Coffey, Dick Corbin, Sam David, Phil Dean, Walt DeGroot, Jack Finarelli, Stuart H., Chris Hsu, Charles Janak, Dick Kessler, Andre Kesteloot, Ed Levitt, Ron Looney, the late Bob Ruhle, Sue Ruhle, Marti Shogi, Scotty Skotzko, Bob Stevens, Bob Swadell, Tom Twetten, Pat Wartell, Charlie Schuilla, Bob Swadell, Elisabeth Wilton, Judy Wonus, and Jon.
For information on more recent decades, Don Bailey, Dave Banks, Harlene Barton, Dan Bradley, Jack C., Roy Combs, Jim Cotsana, Ivan Danzig, Janet Donahue, Forrest Fleming, Bill Geary, Connie Geary, Thomas E. Gebbie, Bob Hart, Diane James, Leo Labaj, Lois Lees, Ellen Martin, Randy Mays, and Iris Stansfield all offered fresh insights and personal experiences.
Many others deserve mention but cannot be named due to current duties, cover, or other considerations. They know of their contribution and with justifiable pride can say to their families, “You know, I had a hand in this as well.”
We owe special recognition to three career OTS officers whose deaths preceded Spycraft’s publication. Each of these officers, in spite of serious health conditions and pain, made themselves available for extended interviews, relating with honesty and pride their years of service to America through the CIA.
Arthur “Mick” Donahue supported CIA’s covert action programs for forty years, from the Vietnam War to the war against terrorism. Although Mick had been retired for several years when 9/11 occurred, OTS management recognized immediately that his skills and experience were again required. So did Mick. Before night fell on September 11, 2001, Mick had contacted OTS offering to help rebuild our covert action capabilities, as he had done in the 1960s and the 1980s. “When a war is over, we always shut down covert action,” Mick correctly observed, “and a few years later it’s needed again. Good thing there are still a few of us around who know how to do it.” Mick was engaged the next day and continued until his health prevented him from working.
Paul Howe, one of fifty CIA officers recognized in 1997 as Agency Trailblazers, thrived on working “under the radar.” Paul’s modesty was exceeded only by the remarkable engineering achievements for which he is rightly credited.