![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/021712.jpg\" "\\"021712\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was getting to that point in the evening that I wanted to think about navigating back to Big Pink from Willow. Mac was nursing his second beer, happy to be out and about and encircled by admirers. Liz-with-an-S kept filling up my glass.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is in charge of ONI now?\u201d asked the Admiral. \u201cI want to know who to call to see if we can get my 28 hours of oral history reviewed and declassified.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s on first,\u201d growled Jim from his customary place at the apex of the Amen Corner.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The intelligence professionals conferred around him, as he scowled and finished another Bud. We thought we identified a person we might call in the morning to put some pressure on, and then the nice blond lady from ONI suggested that Mac might like to see the Pentagon again now that it has been reconstructed, blown up, and reconstructed again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can even show you the D.O.C. Cook remote delivery facility.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHeck, I knew Doc when he was a man and not a loading dock. Hell of a guy. He was the Mayor of the Pentagon, and got a chance to comment on virtually every directive or instruction that affected his building. He got a chop on the DNI establishment, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember when they stripped me of my Pentagon access badge,\u201d I said. \u201cIt was a long walk down to the Third Corridor exit with an \u201cescort required\u2019 badge that I had to give to the guard. That is a cold feeling after having worked there for eight years of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cEasy come, easy go,\u201d said Jim.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll get you in,\u201d said the girls from ONI in unison.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI can push the wheelchair,\u201d I said to Mac, and he smiled broadly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may not need to,\u201d he said. \u201cI have been feeling so good that I went back to work at Arlington Hospital last weekend. First time in a year. \u201c<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWay cool, Sir. You are radiating vitality these days. It is great to see. What do you do at the hospital?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, a little of this and that. We write summaries of upcoming activities and public affairs stuff. I had a three hour interview with the Public Affairs Officer at Joint Base Henderson Hall-Myer about our Alzheimer\u2019s Support Group. She was going to put an article in the Penta-Gram.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, the free rag?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gets around.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sure helped me get through some strange times with Dad. It was very strange, but your perspective made me know we were not alone in this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are definitely not. But as we were saying, Rufus Taylor established the Naval Intelligence Dining In when he was director, and the tradition continued every year after that until 2008. The one you went to the other night might be the re-emergence of a gradn tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cMike Rindskopf relived Rufus as the DNI, and he continued the tradition, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSure did. Rufus got a third star and then went up to CIA to be the Deputy Director.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So, Rufus was DNI, and then he was sent up relieve that blabby Vernon Walters.\u201d Mac sat up straight. \u201cWalters. That reminds me of another interesting guy. Walter Lionel Pforzheimer.\u201d He stopped to spell out the last name for me, something he does to ensure that I don\u2019t stray too far afield. I finished one napkin of notes and started another.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWho was he?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Chief of the library at CIA. He was a legend. He loved his country, he loved his books, he loved his Yale; he loved his Agency; and he loved his extended intellectual and blood family. He had a place at the Watergate- one of the two-story units. It was completely filled with books about the intelligence community worldwide. Top to bottom. It was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cRunning a classified library in the days before the internet is a glimpse into a world that doesn\u2019t exist anymore,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, his passion for books was remarkable. Walter\u2019s generation of Yale men were different than the ones you know now, the ones who head for Wall Street as fast as they can get there. Walter\u2019s generation knew about service. He liked to quote Wendell Willkie\u2019s phrase that \u201cAmerica is the Land of the Free because it is also the Home of the Brave.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I have never heard of him,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYou probably wouldn\u2019t have. No reason. But Walter was there at the very beginning. Hew had been Air Corps during the war, and afterwards was recruited for the Central Intelligence Group, the CIG, successor to the OSS and precursor to the CIA.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In fact, he helped craft the CIA charter. But what he loved was books. I was at his place one time and he showed me something I still will never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that?\u201d I asked, sipping from the glass that Liz-S would not quite let me get to the bottom of, something very much like these chats.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a document from the first President, actually signed by George Washington when he was commanding the Continental Army in the field in 1777. It was handwritten, and I held it in my own hands.\u201d The Admiral looked, up, quoting from memory: \u201cThe necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged.\u201d That was the first thing he collected.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is amazing,\u201d I said. Mac nodded.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom there, Walter\u2019s library just grew and grew. He was lucky to combine his passion with his profession. In 1956, Allen Dulles created the CIA\u2019s Historical Intelligence Collection, with Walter as its first curator. He stayed there for eighteen years, and was still there when I retired from the Navy and went to work up there. The library had grown to more than 20,000 books.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThen he retired?\u201d Mac nodded. \u201cBut he is still a force in the intelligence community, since he basically established the terms of reference for how we study the business. Every course taught in the CIA training syllabus owes something to Walter.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds like the most famous guy I have never heard of,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d said Mac. \u201cYou have now,\u201d and he finished his second beer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsococotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was getting to that point in the evening that I wanted to think about navigating back to Big Pink from Willow. Mac was nursing his second beer, happy to be out and about and encircled by admirers. Liz-with-an-S kept filling up my glass. \u201cWho is in charge of ONI now?\u201d asked the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2543,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions\/2543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}