Book Club Time

A little exert from one of my most favorite books, The Secret Team by Fletcher Prouty.  Even though Oliver Stone did a good job of tainting the book, if even a fourth of the stories inside are accurate, well...that's the CIA for ya.  I highly recommending reading the book.  It's even available free online (Touch Me).  Enjoy the horror.


Some of these actions worked in strange ways. And some of these

actions were subject to the same irregularities that plagued the rest of the operations that were kept from the eyes of the public and from the controls normal to an open government. The irresponsible step in from time to time and get away with things that would be discovered in normal activities. 

At one overseas base heavily involved in air activities in support of the Agency and of the foreign nationals the Agency was assisting, there were a number of aircraft of doubtful ownership commingled with other aircraft that were on "loan" from the Air Force. These aircraft were flown and maintained for the most part by a civilian facility that had the appearance of being a civilian contract carrier; but there were also a number of Air Force and Navy personnel with the unit in various capacities. The primary base unit was under Navy cover and had been for years, as a result of an earlier mission. With such a mix of personnel and

equipment it was all but impossible, and certainly impractical, to attempt rigid controls in the manner customary on a real military base. 

One of the planes assigned to this unit was a small transport aircraft common to all three services and built by the Beech Aircraft Corporation.  This plane was flown by the officers of the staff and was used for shorter administrative flights. One of the pilots who flew it regularly came in to land in a bad crosswind one day and momentarily lost control of the plane

after it had touched the ground during landing, in what is called a "ground loop". He recovered in time to keep from doing very much damage and no one was hurt. The plane needed minor repairs to be as good as new.  However, this pilot, who also had maintenance authority at this conglomerate base, ordered that the plane be hauled out behind the main hangar and covered with a large protective tarpaulin. It was left there for months, and unknown to others on  the base, a report was filed to Washington that it would cost more to fix the plane than it was worth; so

the plane was scheduled for what the military calls "salvage". This means it is put up for sale to the highest bidder for scrap, or whatever. 

No one on this base, which was  primarily managed by the CIA, gave this a thought, and after a while the plane was not even missed.  During this time the pilot, a major who was actually a career CIA employee serving in his Air Force reserve grade, was transferred back to an assignment in Washington at CIA headquarters. He had not been there long when he located the paperwork on that plane and made a bid in his own name and that of a friend to purchase the plane for scrap prices. Since

no one else even knew where the plane was (and even if they had they would not have wanted to go to that remote place to get it) and of course, since any other bidder would have believed that the plane was a total loss, there were no other bidders. The major bought the plane in a perfectly legal maneuver. 

He then applied for a brief vacation. Dashing back to the overseas station, where he was well known, he arranged with the local maintenance crews to have the plane fixed at very little expense to himself, and in no time he and his friend shipped it back to the United States. Their profit on the deal was many times more than the actual money they had invested, and no one ever knew about it because all of the records had been kept in

highly classified channels. Secrecy can be used for many purposes, and this was just one of the uses to which it can be put by those of the team who know how to get away with it.