Free The Craft of Intelligence by Allen W. Dulles Page B

service may be. What must not be disclosed, and will not be disclosed here, is where and how and when the tradecraft has been or will be employed in particular operations unless this has already been disclosed elsewhere, as in the case of the U-2, for example.
    CIA is not an underground operation. All one needs to do is to read the law—the National Security Act of 1947—to get a general idea of what it is set up to do. It has, of course, a secret side, and the law permits the National Security Council, which in effect means the President, to assign to the CIA certain duties and functions in the intelligence field in addition to those specifically enumerated in the law. These functions are not disclosed. But CIA is not the only government agency where secrecy is important. The Departments of State and of Defense also guard with great care the security of much that they do.
    One of my own guiding principles in intelligence work when I was Director of Central Intelligence was to use every human means to preserve the secrecy and security of those activities, but only those where this was essential, and not to make a mystery of what is a matter of common knowledge or obvious to friend and foe alike.
    Shortly after I became Director, I had a good illustration of the futility of certain kinds of secrecy. Dr. Milton Eisenhower, brother of the President, had an appointment to see me. The President volunteered to drop him by at my office. They started out (I gather without forewarning to the Secret Service), but could not find the office until a telephone call was put through to me for precise directions. This led me to investigate why all this futile secrecy. At that time the CIA Headquarters bore at the gate the sign “Government Printing Office.” However, Washington sightseeing bus drivers made it a practice to stop outside our front gate. The guide would then harangue the occupants of the bus with information to the effect that behind the barbed wire they saw was the most secret, the most concealed place in Washington, the headquarters of the American spy organization, the Central Intelligence Agency. I also found out that practically every taxicab driver in Washington knew the location. As soon as I put up a proper sign at the door, the glamour and mystery disappeared. We were no longer either sinister or mysterious to visitors to the Capital; we became just another government office. Too much secrecy can be self-defeating just as too much talking can be dangerous.
    An instance where a certain amount of publicity was helpful in the collection of intelligence occurred during World War II when I was sent to Switzerland for General Donovan and the OSS in November of 1942. I had a position in the American Legation as an assistant to the Minister. One of the leading Swiss journals produced the story that I was coming there as a secret and special envoy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Offhand one might have thought that this unsought advertisement would have hampered my work. Quite the contrary was the case. Despite my modest but truthful denials of the story, it was generally believed. As a result, to my network flocked a host of informants, some cranks, it is true, but also some exceedingly valuable individuals. If I could not separate the wheat from the chaff with only a reasonable degree of error, then I was not qualified for my job, because the ability to judge people is one of the prime qualities of an intelligence officer.
    When we try to make a mystery out of everything relating to intelligence, we tend to dissipate our effort to maintain the security of operations where secrecy is essential to success. Each situation has to be considered according to the facts, keeping in mind the principle of withholding from a potential enemy all useful information about secret intelligence operations or personnel engaged in them. The injunction that George Washington wrote to Colonel Elias Dayton on July 26, 1777, is still