Ignorance gives C.I.A. news value’

Press, 24 May 1977, Page 6

Ignorance gives C.I.A. news value’

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CEDRIC MENTIPLAY

Claims still being made of various people being operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency owe much of their news value to the fact that most people do not know what the C.LA. actually does, according to a diplomat in New Zealand.

This being so, it was assumed that anyone named as a C.LA. officer was also part of a sort of super spy-ring, the diplomat said yesterday. The diplomat declined to be named “in case some irresponsible connects me with the C.I.A. organisation.” A former C.I.A. agent, Mr Phillip Agee, who is in Britain with former journalist. Mr Steve Weissman, has named several persons whom, he alleges, had connections with the C.LA. in New Zealand. They include a woman worker in the United States Embassy, an attache. Mr D. F. Cameron, and even the head of the United States Information Service in Wellington (Mr K. Dean Koch). The “Sunday News” said at the week-end that Mr! Koch had been named to its representative. When he heard this story, Mr Koch immediately rang London, where he got in touch with Mr Weissman. According to Mr Koch, “Mr Weissman apologised to me. He said: ‘That is not

what we told the Sunday | paper.’ ” The "Sunday! News” said that Mr Koch' was once a news chief forj Radio Free Europe, which] Messrs Agee and Weissman ■ claimed to have been wholly i owned by C.LA. Mr Koch j was said to have been in Ber-' lin during the Cold War. and in Saigon during the Vietnam war. He was also an intelligence f co-ordinator in Vienna. "The C.LA. has had a hand in many activities in] peace and war.” the diplo-i mat commented last night.: "Perhaps it had a hand in! Radio Free Europe — after! all, it is an American Gov-' ernment instrumentality. But! this would not mean that] everyone employed in that project was a C.LA. man. It) was even operating an airline in Vietnam. But would that mean that all that airline’s] pilots were also spies?” | The diplomatic attache, Mr Daniel Cameron, claimed by! Mr Agee to be the head of ; the C.LA. in New Zealand,' has declined to comment!

simply because his diplomatic status meant that any reply should come from the' Embassy. Mr Cameron, who lives in the suburb of Karori with his wife and family, said: “As information head, Mr Koch can comment about his own case. I cannot. The reply, if any, will come through the State Department.” Mr Cameron worked in the language-training unit of the State Department. He was posted to Rangoon as commercial counsellor late in 1972, and has since been posted to New Zealand. Other sources suggest that any C.LA. involvement in New Zealand would consist merely in the compilation of information “such as you might read in the papers or hear on radio.” Asked about the function of the United States Information Service, the sources said: “This is going the other way. It provides news about the United States to New Zealanders and anyone else who wants to know.”