A CONVERSATION WITH...

	June 21 , 2000
	Another of our conversations about new books, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: The book is "The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA" by Ted Gup. He's a former investigative reported at the "Washington Post" and "Time" Magazine. He now teaches journalism at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Let's start with "The Book of Honor" itself. Where is it, and what's in it? TED GUP, Author, "The Book of Honor:" "The Book of Honor" is at the headquarters of CIA In a bulletproof glass case, beneath what is called "The Wall of Honor." And it contains the names of all those covert officers killed in the line of service. Actually, it contains half the names. The other half are anonymous. In the name of national security, their identities have been concealed. RAY SUAREZ: So like the stars above them chiseled into the wall, it's the star only and no name? TED GUP: There's no name, no indication of who they were, what they were doing, where they died, or what it was they died for. RAY SUAREZ: Now, secrecy becomes a habit at these kinds of institutions. Is it an easy or seamless process for them to let go and say who these people were, and why they were where they were? TED GUP: No. I think they may be... these nameless stars may be the best evidence yet of the obsessive nature of secrecy within the intelligence community. There's no justification or plausible justification for the vast majority of these stars to remain anonymous, and it's created really an inhumane burden on the families of their loved ones who have been silenced, in some instances, for years, even decades. RAY SUAREZ: You mean, unable to talk about who their brother, father, son, really were? TED GUP: Totally unable to speak about who they really were or what they were really doing, and not only subject to silence, but forced to tell lies to neighbors, friends, and relatives, to adhere to cover stories which are decades old. I mean, it's hard enough to get over the grief of losing a loved one, but then not to be able to speak the truth and be forced to tell a lie compounds the grief. RAY SUAREZ: Well, you can understand why people who have died in overseas operations close to today, why their might be a CIA Interest in shielding their identities today, don't you? TED GUP: There is an individual whose name does not appear in the book at the specific request of the CIA. My rule in writing the book was when in doubt, leave it out. The last thing I wanted to do was to add another name or another star to the wall. So I agree that in the abstract an argument can be made, but it only counts in specific cases. And in specific cases, the argument is very weak. RAY SUAREZ: Well, we're talking about some people who've been dead 30, 40 years. The causes that they were assisting don't even really exist anymore as causes in this post world war world. TED GUP: That's right. RAY SUAREZ: Tell us about some of the representative officers who you think show what you're trying to illustrate. TED GUP: Well, the first star represents-- and it's a nameless star-- represents Douglas McKiernan, who was killed in 1950, half a century ago. His identity is still classified, top secret. He was in China when the Chinese Communists came to power. He fled over 1,200 miles of desert and the Himalayas. He walked. He was within 50 yards of safety coming to the border with Tibet. The U.S. Government had asked the Dalai Lama to grant a safe passage over the border. The message did not arrive in time. 50 yards from safety, he was shot to death and later beheaded. That's one instant. 50 years -- he left behind a young widow and twins, one year old. And those twins, today 50, were forbidden from speaking of who their father really was for their entire lives. RAY SUAREZ: When you approached the agency and asked about a case like that, a man who was killed by someone armed in defense of a country that isn't even a country officially anymore, what did they say to you? TED GUP: Well, they would say nothing, and neither confirm nor deny -- complete stonewall. They were very courteous in dealing with me, but equally uncooperative. They would say nothing. And what's ironic here is that the Chinese knew he was a spy, and within a year had executed a couple of dozen people associated with him in China in retribution for their cooperation. The only people who don't know he's a spy are the Americans. RAY SUAREZ: Some of the people that you write about were directly involved in operations that, at the time, were kept secret from the American people. Certainly in diplomatic terms, they were kept secret. But then there's a case of an embassy secretary, someone whose death did not carry with it the burden of shielding contacts in foreign countries. What kind of explanation to you get there? TED GUP: You're referring to the case of Barbara Robbins. Barbara Robbins is a nameless star. She was 21 years old, a secretary for the CIA She volunteered for the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. One day she heard a ruckus outside her window, went to the window, a car bomb exploded, and she was impaled and killed instantly. Now, 35 years later, her name is still a secret. Her father told me last year, one of his wishes is to see her name inscribed in "The Book of Honor," to have her recognized. He died without that wish being fulfilled. His widow today still hopes that that honor will be bestowed upon her daughter, but the agency continues to refuse to acknowledge that Barbara Robbins was one of its employees. RAY SUAREZ: A lot of these people have been honored in other places, often by State Department cover, so you can find their names engraved in the walls of the state department. But by naming them in public, in a book, by talking to family members publicly about them, don't you undermine the continued existence of a nameless star? TED GUP: Well, what I do, I think, is put pressure on the agency to lift the veil of secrecy in these instances, and more importantly, to lift the burden of secrecy from these families. The families have told me that the publication of the book has given them a kind of peace and closure that was denied to them for many, many, many years. You know, it's so hard to lose a loved one -- and then to be forbidden from speaking about who that loved one really was, and then to tell the lie. And over the years, the wound does not heal. And so I think that most of these names are not inscribed in the Book of Honor is not national security, it's bureaucracy. These widows and their children, they didn't have a political constituency to pressure the agency to put their names into the book, to recognize them. It was the sheer momentum, the inertia of the bureaucracy that allowed this to continue. RAY SUAREZ: But a lot of the people that we're talking about, from my reading on the book, are not people who are bitter about the sacrifice of their lost loved one, or have any animas toward the agency. They're patriotic. They've done what the agency has asked them to do for many years, but they still carry this burden. TED GUP: Right. These are very patriotic Americans. They don't harbor any ill will... well, I shouldn't say that. Some of them do harbor ill will towards the agency. Those that were lied toe deliberately do feel as though their government betrayed them. But there are others that... you know, none of want to do anything to besmirch the good name of their loved ones, and none of them are anything but patriotic. But common sense dictates to nearly all of them that it is time to lift the shroud of secrecy. The Cold War is over. Some of these individuals have been dead for decades. The foreign countries knew they were spies. The American people did not. Our diplomatic histories, our military histories are incomplete without this information. You know, why aren't the American people entitled to the information? RAY SUAREZ: Well, you've named them and told their stories. Do you expect this to be part of the final push toward getting them named? TED GUP: I know that as we speak the agency is re-examining the question. Whether it will ultimately change its position on this, I don't know. In the past they've often preferred fiction to fact. That is, if they ignore the book, if ignore the naming of names, if they hold fast to the idea that they are still anonymous, perhaps they will be anonymous. And that kind of power of fiction is something that has ruled them frequently in the past. RAY SUAREZ: "The Book of Honor." Ted Gup, thanks a lot. TED GUP: My pleasure.

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