WIXLIB

IRRAWADDY AMBUSHSTUART BROWN2010. Oil on canvas47½ 32Donated by Michael DeSombreDuring World War II, the Burma Road innortheast Burma was a lifeline for theNationalist Chinese fighting the Japanese.A primary reason for the Japanese invasionof Burma, which was a British colony at thetime, was to cut this supply link. The ImperialArmy accomplished this task by the summerof 1942. The Allies then began airlifting materiel from India to China over the Himalayas,nicknamed “the Hump” by American fliers,all the while trying to reopen the road.In April 1942, Coordinator of Informationand future Office of Strategic Services(OSS) Director William J. Donovan activatedDetachment 101 to create an indigenousguerrilla force charged with gatheringintelligence, harassing the Japanese occupiers, identifying bombing targets for theArmy Air Force, and rescuing downed Alliedairmen—all deep behind enemy lines inBurma. Detachment 101 pioneered the art ofunconventional warfare, foreshadowing themissions of today’s US Special OperationsForces.town of Myitkyina in July 1944. Such actionshelped the Allies re-capture the town and,ultimately, defeat Japanese forces in northernBurma.By the time of its deactivation in July 1945,OSS Detachment 101 had amassed animpressive list of accomplishments, performing against overwhelming enemy strengthand under the most difficult and hazardousconditions. The courage and fighting spirit ofthe Kachin guerrillas and their American advisors earned Detachment 101 a PresidentialUnit Citation and recognition as the “mosteffective tactical combat force” in the OSS.Irrawaddy Ambush contributes an impressiverepresentation of a critical aspect of OSShistory. At the painting’s unveiling in 2010,Museum Director Toni Hiley noted, “Thestory of OSS must be kept fresh and vibrant,not only for the sake of the patriots who livedit but for all who continue the vital missionsbegun decades ago by that remarkable organization of remarkable Americans.”Never more than a few hundred Americansstrong, Detachment 101 relied on supportfrom various Burmese tribal groups, mostnotably the staunchly anti-Japanese Kachins.Combined with the efforts of the BritishWingate’s Raiders, Merrill’s Marauders ofthe US Army, and Nationalist Chinese troops,Detachment 101 was so successful thatJapan had to divert significant numbers oftroops to Burma to protect the new railroadthat it had built to move supplies overlandafter US Navy submarines had blockedJapanese shipping routes.The painting depicts one of Detachment101’s many guerrilla operations staged todisrupt Japanese supply and reinforcementroutes in Burma. Staked out on one sideof the Irrawaddy River, OSS-trained Kachinrangers ambush Japanese rafts bringingtroops and supplies to the Japanese-held STUART BROWN14 Irrawaddy AmbushTHE ART OF INTELLIGENCE 15

AMBUSH IN MANCHURIADRU BLAIR2010. Mixed media on illustration board38 29Donated by Alan SeigristNovember 1950 marked the entry of Chinesecommunist military forces into the Koreanwar as the new communist government inChina was rapidly expanding its influenceelsewhere in Asia. To frustrate China’s expansionism, the Truman Administration turnedto the fledgling (three-year-old) CIA through acovert-action program on the Chinese mainland designed to foster internal democraticopposition to the communist regime anddivert some of its military resources fromcombat against US forces in Korea.One particularly sensitive program in theearly 1950s involved Civil Air Transport(CAT), a CIA proprietary airline that aided theAgency’s efforts to support anti-communistChinese guerrillas along the China-Koreaborder and inside mainland China. Whileleaflet, supply, and agent airdrops posed considerable dangers, the most perilous flightswere air exfiltrations in which low-altitude,slow-moving planes hoisted agents from theground—only the most trusted and experienced pilot volunteers flew these missions.Norman A. Schwartz and his friend andfellow pilot, Robert C. Snoddy, were amongthe elite group of CAT volunteers to flyagent exfiltration missions. They trained tofly a C-47 aircraft (the military version of acommercial DC-3) specially outfitted witha unique retrieval system of a pole, hook,cable, and winch designed to snatch a person from the ground and reel him into theplane on the fly.On 29 November 1952, Schwartz and Snoddypiloted the C-47 on an exfiltration mission inManchuria. Also aboard were two young CIAparamilitary officers—John T. Downey andRichard G. Fecteau. Leaving a Korean airfieldat 10 pm, the flight reached the pickup zonejust after midnight and headed for the pickuppoint, well marked with three bonfires flaringout of the darkness. The aircraft was about50 feet off the ground at a near-stalling 60knots on its final approach. With the plane’srear door removed, Fecteau and Downeyhad extended the pole with hook and cableattached, ready to catch the awaiting agent’sline and then to winch him in.The crew proceeded according to plan,unaware that Chinese communist units hadbeen tipped off about the flight and werewaiting in ambush. Suddenly, a murderousbarrage of gunfire erupted from groundtroops hiding in the darkness. The pilots wereable to prevent an immediate crash; however,when the engines cut out, the aircraft glidedto a controlled crash. Schwartz and Snoddywere killed. Other than suffering bruises andbeing shaken up, Downey and Fecteau werenot seriously hurt.Downey and Fecteau were captured, convicted of espionage, and imprisoned. Overthe years, numerous US efforts to obtaintheir release failed. Fecteau was eventuallyreleased in December 1971, nearly a yearshy of his 20-year sentence. Downey wasreleased 15 months later, serving just over 20years of his life sentence.Schwartz and Snoddy posthumously receivedthe CIA Distinguished Intelligence Cross inrecognition of their exceptional valor and sacrifice. Downey and Fecteau received the CIADistinguished Intelligence Medal for “courageous performance” in enduring “sufferingsand deprivations with fortitude [and an]unshakable will to survive and with a preserving faith in [their] country.” They returned tothe Agency in 1998 to receive the Director’sMedal and in 2014 received the DistinguishedIntelligence Cross, the Agency’s highesthonor for valor.CIA Director Leon Panetta welcomed JohnDowney and Richard Fecteau back to CIAin 2010 for the unveiling of the paintingand the premiere of Extraordinary Fidelity,a documentary film about their 20-yearimprisonment in China. “Jack and Dick, youare true American heroes and the prideof our Agency. Thank you for being greatexamples for all of us,” said Director Panettaduring the standing-room-only event in theHeadquarters auditorium. DRU BLAIR16 Ambush in ManchuriaTHE ART OF INTELLIGENCE 17

EARTHQUAKE’S FINAL FLIGHTJEFFREY W. BASS2004. Oil on canvas43 30½Donated by the Fairchild CorporationThis painting commemorates air operations of Civil Air Transport (CAT,an Agency proprietary) and its CIA contract pilots in support of Frenchforces at Dien Bien Phu during the final days of the conflict betweenthe French and Viet Minh in 1954. In Fairchild C-119s with US Air Forcemarkings hurriedly painted over with French Air Force roundels, 37 CATpilots volunteered to fly supplies from the French airbase at Haiphongto the battlefield near Vietnam’s border with Laos.In a concentrated operation to resupply the beleaguered French forces,the pilots and crews made 682 airdrops between 13 March and 6 May1954, flying through murderous antiaircraft fire that ringed the valleyat Dien Bien Phu. On 6 May, the day before the Viet Minh overran theFrench fortifications, antiaircraft flak hit an engine and control surfacesof the C-119 flown by legendary CAT pilot James McGovern (nicknamed“Earthquake McGoon”) and copilot Wallace Buford, who struggledgallantly to stay airborne. The plane limped over the border into Laosand crashed, killing McGovern and Buford—among the first Americansto die in the early days of a conflict later to be known as the Vietnamwar—and two French paratroopers.The painting depicts McGovern’s C-119 shortly after a flak burst has disabled its port engine over the drop zone at “Isabelle,” an outpost of theFrench garrison at Dien Bien Phu. After the shell impact, oil streams outof the engine nacelle, causing the engine to seize and its propeller tobecome frozen at operational pitch in a cross position. Having ejectedthe plane’s cargo over Isabelle, the cargo kickers sit in the rear openingof the fuselage, resigned to their fate.The crash site was located in 2002, and DNA tests in 2006 confirmedthe recovered remains were McGovern’s. He was buried with honorsat Arlington National Cemetery on 24 May 2007. Pieces of his valiantC-119 are now in the CIA Museum collection.When the painting was unveiled at his residence in 2005, FrenchAmbassador Jean-David Levite presented the French Republic’s highestaward (the Légion d’Honneur) to five of the six surviving CAT pilotspresent, in recognition of their heroic performance in the epic battlethat marked the end of French colonial rule in Indochina. JEFFREY W. BASS18 Earthquake’s Final FlightTHE ART OF INTELLIGENCE 19

the ceiling of any existing Soviet fighterplane. Innocuously designated “U-2,” shortfor Utility 2, the plane went from blueprint toflying prototype in just eight months and fulloperational status in just 18. CIA recruitedand trained US Air Force pilots who were“sheep dipped” as CIA contractors, all thewhile maintaining their military career status.operation was consolidated with the existingUS Air Force U-2 operation. The U-2 Programcontinues to provide valuable intelligence onhot spots around the world—many decadesafter the first U-2 flight.U-2 operations deployed to West Germany inthe late spring of 1956. After an initial flightover Communist Poland and East Germanybrought back usable imagery, PresidentEisenhower authorized Soviet overflights. Thehonor of flying the first mission over Sovietterritory went to Hervey S. Stockman, a34-year-old WWII veteran and P-51 Mustangfighter pilot. On 4 July 1956, Stockmanflew U-2 Article 347 on Mission 2013 fromWiesbaden, West Germany, over Poznan,Poland, across Belorussia to Leningrad, andover the Baltic states back to home base. Thepainting depicts the view from Stockman’scockpit on this historic flight over Leningrad.(Stockman later flew F-4C Phantoms in theVietnam war; forced to eject over NorthVietnam in 1967, he spent six years thereas a POW. Article 347 is now on display atthe Smithsonian’s National Air and SpaceMuseum in Washington, DC.) DRU BLAIRPIERCING THE CURTAINDRU BLAIR2016. Mixed media on illustration board36 18Commissioned by the CIA Museum20 Piercing the CurtainIn the early 1950s, with the Korean warwinding down and the Cold War revving up,the US recognized that its knowledge ofSoviet strategic capabilities—bomber forces,ballistic missiles, submarine forces, nuclearweapons—was dangerously weak. CapturedGerman overhead photographs and documents on Soviet capabilities from World WarII were outdated. Interrogations of repatriated POWs and German scientists leavingthe Soviet Union were of minimal value. USattempts to photograph the Communist Bloccountries through covert peripheral overflights and unmanned balloons yielded littleinformation. Stringent security behind theIron Curtain had effectively blocked access toall Soviet planning, production, and deployment activities, blunting traditional intelligence collection methods.Soviet unveiling of the Mya-4 (“Bison”) longrange strategic bomber in 1954 triggereda debate in the US over the size of USSR’sbomber fleet and the threat that it posed.Faced with a potentially dangerous strategicdisadvantage (the so-called “bomber gap”),President Dwight D. Eisenhower was determined to assess the true scope and nature ofthe Soviet threat. His approval of a high-altitude photoreconnaissance airplane designedto evade Soviet air defenses—with CIA incharge of its development and operation—signaled the Intelligence Community’s entryinto overhead reconnaissance. CIA codenamed the project AQUATONE and madeRichard Bissell its manager.Bissell liked Lockheed’s CL-282, a newreconnaissance aircraft proposed by thelegendary Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, andconvinced DCI Allen Dulles to fund the project. The unusually light aircraft resembled ajet-powered glider with a single engine, solopilot, and 70-foot wingspan optimized for3,000-mile-long flights at 70,000 feet—twiceSoviet radar tracked Stockman’s U-2 as itsstate-of-the-art A-2 cameras photographednaval shipyards and Bison bomber bases,but MiG fighters were unable to fly highenough to intercept it. Despite Soviet protests, President Eisenhower continued topersonally authorize each of 23 subsequentmissions over the USSR until a Soviet SA-2surface-to-air missile downed the U-2 pilotedby Francis Gary Powers on 1 May 1960 nearSverdlovsk. Eisenhower abruptly ordered anend to further Soviet Union overflights.CIA photointerpreters studying the imageryfrom Stockman’s flight and the next fourSoviet missions confirmed a Bison fleet oflimited size, thereby debunking the bombergap and saving the United States millions ofdollars of unnecessary spending to countera non-existent threat. Later U-2 missionsprovided imagery of equal value on a range ofstrategic intelligence issues.Originally expected to fly for two yearsbefore countered by Soviet air defenses, theU-2 served CIA until 1974 when its covert U-2THE ART OF INTELLIGENCE 21

KHAMPA AIRLIFT TO TIBETDRU BLAIR2013. Mixed media on illustration board40 29Donated by Gar Thorsrud and Douglas PriceIn the summer of 1950, communist Chinese troops invaded Tibetand seized Chamdo Province, easily subduing the Khampas, a hardycollection of Tibetan clans with a reputation for ferocity. Tibet becameenmeshed in the developing Asian Cold War as the Chinese occupationsteadily expanded. Conscious of this development when he took officein 1953, and in keeping with US anti-communist policies worldwide,President Eisenhower tasked CIA to provide covert assistance to theTibetan resistance movement.The Agency trained Tibetans in paramilitary techniques and sent themback to organize the guerrilla fighters in Tibet. Starting in 1957, pilots andcrews of Civil Air Transport, a CIA proprietary company, secretly airdropped trainees for the guerrillas and more than 250 tons of materiel—arms, ammunition, radios, medical supplies, and such—from low-flyingDC-6, B-17, and C-130 cargo planes under cover of darkness.Key to the airdrops was the recruitment of personnel with extensiveexperience in airdrop and parachute operations to help train the Tibetansfor their missions. The painting commemorates these airdrop operationsand serves as a tribute to the pilots, air crews, and many Agency support personnel who devoted themselves for so many years to the causeof Tibetan freedom.In the end, despite dedicated Agency efforts, the Tibetan resistance hadonly limited success. Chinese military forces were ruthless and overwhelming, and sufficient local guerrilla support never materialized. CIA’schief proponent of the Tibetans died unexpectedly in 1967, and realitysoon became abundantly clear—the Tibetan guerrillas stood no chanceagainst the Chinese. This reality coupled with President Nixon’s plans toestablish diplomatic relations with China meant that US support to Tibetwas no longer strategically or geopolitically feasible. The White Housedirected that this support be withdrawn, and the Tibetan resistancesubsequently folded in 1974.Many of the CIA officers who contributed to CIA support to the Tibetanguerrillas in the 1950s and 1960s attended the painting’s unveiling in2014. A former CIA officer known as CIA’s “Father of Aerial Delivery”described the airdrops as “professionally orchestrated” and “executedflawlessly.” A Special Activities Division officer elaborated, saying, “Thepainting captures the ingenuity, selflessness, bravery, and sacrifice ofthose whose actions wrote the chapters that serve as the foundationof our work today.” DRU BLAIR22 Khampa Airlift to TibetTHE ART OF INTELLIGENCE 23

THE SECRET PLA POUCH HEADS FOR K BUILDINGKEITH WOODCOCK2009. Oil on canvas56 34Donated by Bruce WalkerBeginning in the mid-1950s, CIA supportedlocal Tibetan resistance to the Chineseoccupation. The Agency secretly trainedTibetan tribesmen in paramilitary operationsat a site chosen for its resemblance to theHimalayan Plateau. (The Tibetans loved thetraining camp so much that they nicknamedit Dhumra, meaning “The Garden.”) Sometrainees parachuted back into Tibet, but mostjoined Tibetan resistance forces at a nearbyrebel base. From time to time, small partieswould deploy to observe Chinese militarymovements.On 25 October 1961, a party led by twoAgency-trained Tibetans ambushed a lonetruck of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army(PLA) heading east on the Xinjiang-Lhasahighway. All Chinese occupants of the truckwere killed, including a senior PLA officerwho was carrying a pouch of secret PLA documents. This potentially valuable intelligencetreasure then took a circuitous 8,000-milejourney to Washington, DC. In November, thepouch arrived intact—bloodstains and all—atBuilding K, one of the World War II temporarybuildings along the Mall’s reflecting pool andhome of the Agency’s clandestine operations.After the humiliating failure of the Bay of Pigsoperation just seven months earlier, Directorof Central Intelligence Allen Dulles was eagerto tout this major intelligence success. Withthe bloodstained pouch and captured documents in hand, Dulles presented to PresidentKennedy’s top national security advisors thisdramatic evidence of the intelligence payoffof the Tibetan operation.Despite this collection success, however, theTibetan resistance forces, lacking widespreadlocal support, were unable to do more thanharass the Chinese occupiers. The operation eventually wound down, and Beijingapplied pressure to close the rebel base. TheTibetans became, in the words of one oftheir former case officers, “hapless orphansof the Cold War.”At the painting’s 2009 unveiling, the NationalClandestine Service Chief of Staff stated,“The remembrance of the past is crucial inthe lives of individuals and institutions alike.”He concluded that the painting will helpcurrent and future CIA officers appreciate invisual form what was done in the past andhow it shapes who we are today.The pouch’s contents proved to be the firstand most definitive intelligence acquired bythe US on the existing geopolitical situation inChina—at a time when the Agency’s humanintelligence was lacking and technical intelligence was nil. When translated, the PLAdocuments yielded valuable information onthree critical subjects: The failure of Mao’s Great LeapForward Movement, which had disastrous consequences for the Chineseeconomy The severity of the break in SinoSoviet relations and its implications forinternational communism The weakness of the People’s Militia,belying its status as a significant component of the Chinese armed forces. KEITH WOODCOCK24 The Secret PLA Pouch Heads for K BuildingTHE ART OF INTE LLIGE NCE 25

SEVEN DAYS IN THE ARCTICKEITH WOODCOCK2007. Oil on canvas26 36Donated by Gar and Audrey ThorsrudDuring the Cold War, the US and SovietUnion

To support these efforts, CSI publishes books and monographs addressing historical, operational, doctrinal, and theoretical aspects of the intelligence profession, to include this publication. CSI also administers the CIA Museum. Comments and questions may be addressed to: Center for the Study of Intelligence