Philip W. Porter

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U.S. Grows Up on Spy Issue

Almost everyone was in such a lather recently about the Russian missile bases in Cuba that they forgot to get indignant about the U2.

You know, the photographic, highflying recon plane which discovered them.

PHILIP W. PORTER

Remember how upset some of our high-minded citizens got when it first was disclosed that we, the Americans, actually were flying a special plane over Russia and taking pictures of that country, yet?

Some of our more naive gentry even got sore at their own government for having the effrontery to be spying. And they were sore because President Eisenhower first fluffed it off, and later admitted it.

THEY DIDN'T LIKE THAT, but what they disliked even more was the fact that we were spying. Wasn't that something for those decadently realistic countries, Britain, France, and Russia? Everyone expected them to spy, but the United States spying! The country that sparked the United Nations (and is paying most of its bills) doing a thing like that, which was bound to hurt our international relations!

Horrors! You could almost hear the ladies' bridge clubs murmuring about it, in indignation.

Well, I hope the ladies' bridge clubs have matured enough by now to realize that if it hadn't been for organized, regular spying, through U2 planes, the United States would not have discovered the missile bases in Cuba in time to enable President Kennedy to react strongly, almost violently, and cause Khrushchev and his ambassador liars to back down.

Spying did it. Spying is continuing to keep track of the bases, the removal of

the missiles and just about everything else in the way of Cuba military installations. And it jolly well should.

ANYONE NOT BORN YESTERDAY knows that all countries spy, and expect all others to.

The British, because of their. farflung former dominions, have been experts in spying for decades. The French are not bad at it, either. The Russians are a little more inept at it, but they're getting there. They are extremely good at counter-spying by assessing and preying on the human weaknesses of diplomats in other countries.

Right now, the British are having a bad time of it, because one of their embassy staff in Moscow, a nice lad but a homosexual, was trapped by Russians and pi:otographed in embarrassing situations, so flagrant that to prevent exposure he turned traitor. It took quite a while for the British to track him down. But they finally did, and now the Macmillan cabinet is seriously embarrassed by it.

We've only been in the spy business seriously since World War II. The OSS (Office of Strategic Services) did a great job in its spy assignment then. Out of that grew the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), which has all sorts of secret agents, but is as much an office for gathering information as for keeping contact with cloak-and-dagger operatives.

Some naive folks over here still don't understand why there has to be a CIA. Simply stated, it's because other countries have spies, and we must protect ourselves. Has nothing to do with the purpose of U.N. (For that matter. all the U.N. staffs in New York are full of spies. They are always feeding each other information. Some of it is true.)