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, ¥or SECRtf things they were doing, because they were considered indispensable, which was probably correct. It was on that basis, I think, that when people like Dick Drain came back home from -- in Dick's case, I think he carne in from r II r:l-- where he had a pretty good record -- but he was not re- turning to Headquarters to go into an assignment, and Dick Bissell put him in tne operation with us. Gerry Droller had been around Headquarters for a long time, had been quite a bit of a replacement problem. He was very bright, he was a German specialist, had a pretty good political background; and Gerry and Howard Hunt, for whatever reason, were sort of selected, not by us, but they were told they were going to be the people who would handle the political aspects of the operation. 114/ Esterline also noted that the shortage of compe- tent personnel became particularly critical when the operational concepts began to change and to expand. He claimed that when serious problems came up none of the GS-18 case officers were available to make deci- sions. 115/ Bill Eisemann, Chief/Support/WH/4, was more specific in his criticism of the personnel management for Project JMATE. After emphasizing that Colonel L. K. White, the Deputy Di1'ector for Support (DDS), did insure that the support elements got the best people for Project JHATE, "he [White], directed all support office heads that if there was a need for any - 127 -