reason to think that Shackley and Agee were in cahoots. This purge touched many important posts,
which could then be filled by Shackley loyalists. A description of the process is offered by retiredCIA agent Joseph Burkholder Smith, who served in the Western Hemisphere division:
A defensive operation was started immediately and every activity, agent, and officer was
scrutinized to determine if Agee had already blown them or if he would write about them in his
book. A Shackley henchman was installed as chief of operations [was this William Nelson?] and a
cryptonym, the Agency's badge of security significance, was assigned to the task of getting rid ofthe division's operations and much of its office staff-- the pre-Shackley staff, some were quick to
point out. They doubted whether so much destruction was necessary, especially since Shackley had
a reputation for ruthlessness and for filling key jobs with his favorites.
Whether or not such a vast amount of housknew was that it was dismal work. [...] e cleaning was really necessary, I could not decide. All I
Nevertheless, I was disturbed to have to dismiss so many loyal men and upset to have the defenses I
kept putting up to try to salvage something of their old lives summarily dismissed by the Star
Chamber conducting the purge in Washington. When Agee's book fipeople I was ordered to fire was mentioned. [fn 60] nally appeared, not one of the
All of the CIA's divisions were purged, with justifications offered that ranged from the threat of
denunciation by Agee to budget constraints to poor performance to the need to make room for new
blood. Schlesinger, who fired 630 offibodyguards during this period for fear that some disgruntled covert warrior might exact a horriblecers in five months, was said to be accompanied by (^)
revenge.
During Bush's tenure, the same William Nelson apparently mentioned by Smith seems to have
suggested that the administrative purge had not gone far enough. In twas about to be replaced by William Wells, Nelson again raised the issue of operations directoratehe spring of 1976, when he (^)
personnel. "There were a lot of people in the DO [Directorate of Operations] who were marginal
performers," said Nelson in a 1988 interview. "The low middle. We needed quality, not quantity. I
told [Bush] that the lower 25 per cent should be identified and should be encouraged to seek other
employment....I said we owed these people a lot but not a lifetime job. He [Bush] put it in hispocket and said he would think about it." [fn 61]
This new round of firings was relegated to Turner, who reportedly was told by Knoche on arriving
at the CIA that the agency was "top-heavy." There was the case of Cord Meyer, Knoche said, who
had too much rank for the work he was doing. As Turner later recalled, "It was at this point that Ilearned about a study the espionage [operations] branch itself had done on its personnel situation in (^)
mid 1976, while George Bush was DCI. It called for a reduction in the size of the branch by 1350
positions over a five-year period. No action had been taken. Bush had not rejected it, but neither had
he faced up to it." [fn 62] Turner then proceeded to abolish 820 jobs, which he claims was
accomplished through attrition. Other estimates of the Turner firings range between 820 and 2,800.
The plan Turner implemented was thus according to some the Nelson-Shackley-Bush plan. Certain
activities of the intelligence community were being privatized and farmed out to such organisms as
the National Endowment for Democracy and other such quasi-autonomous non-governmental
organizations of Project Democracy. Under Reagan, this privatization of intelligence operations andtheir increasing assignment to non-governmental organizations was made offocial through
Executive Order 12333.
Otherwise, George Bush used his last days at the CIA for his lifelong passtime, servicing his
network. On December 16, he appeared at an awards ceremony in the Bubble at Langley to present