◆ SpookStack

Helms : Yes. As a matter of fact, both Angleton and I were in the OSS. We also served in the SSU after the OSS was disbanded, and we worked together in the Clandestine Services of the CIA . . . well, I guess it must be for at least twenty years or more. Maybe it was twenty- five years. I don't know exactly but that's something one can figure out very easily from the calender. Angleton was taught by the British during World War I1 how to run double agents, how the British viewed counterintelligence work. He was an apt pupil, there was no doubt about it. He ran double agents in Italy for the OSS X-2. I believe he also continued to do so after the war. He worked in Rome for a time and established some extremely effective positive , 7 " t intelligence agents in Italy. When he came back to the United States, he continued his interest in other foreign intelligence organizations and particularly in counterintelligence. He developed some counterintel- ligence theories of his own which, I think, other services admired and believed that he was a first-class expert in this field, and he headed the Counterintelligence Staff for many years. To say that he was "beloved" by everybody in the Clandestine Service was not true, because he was severe, he had his own opinions, he held to them forthrightly. There were those who felt that he was wrong about some of these things. But then there's always controversy 5