Richard Helms Interviewed by R. Jack Smith, 21 April 1982

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National Security Council meeting or a cabinet meeting, or this meeting or that meeting, because there
were always added people that had to be around. Whereas if he invited a group to lunch he could have
there exactly the individuals he wanted, without any of the people he didn’t want. And the people he
had there were people he had confidence in. That he didn’t think would leak, that would keep his
confidence. He never said this to me, but I got the distinct impression that the reason that he valued my
presence there was that I kept the game honest when Rusk would go way out on some policy or
McNamara would advocate X or Earl Wheeler, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs would be too far up
field. Then I would come in and say, “This is the way we understand it, and the facts are as follows.”
And I did this constantly. So it was a useful role for him. There was tlo doubt about it. I was treated
very well. I went to Guam, I went to God-knows-whereon these various conferences on Vietnam and
when I’d get there, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of work to do, but he just liked having me around, sitting
there.
(U) JS: This is great stuff, Dick.
&)RH:As for policy making, I think it was the most satisfactory of all the years I spent. Most * .
intelligence contributions to policy making are hzzy, ill defined, difficult to figure out how much was
this, how much was that, but here once by an odd arrangement of circumstances you talked about
number of days the war was fought that was the way it came out so it was almost too good to be true.
And there was another aspect of the war, which I, for historical purposes, should not overlook. We had
had a visit fkom the Chief or Israeli Intelligence about three weeks before the war actually began, and we
were having a lot of conferences with them. It was Meir Amit. And he dropped a comment at one point
in one of these meetings, “if I am called back you can rely on the fact that the war is going to start.”
Well, he was indeed called back. And I said to [Counter-Intelligence Chief James Jesus] Angleton,
“You’d better give me a piece of paper here now about meetings with this guy and what we read out of
all this and so forth.” So Angleton did come up with a memorandum highly classified and so forth,
about what Amit had had to say: the possibility that the Israelis would start the war, or preempt what
they thought was going to be Nasser action and so on. And I just quietly wrapped that in an envelope
and sent it “Eyes Only” to President Johnson. Well, he read it and it warned him that in about a week or
10 days or two or two weeks, he’s going to have a war on his hands. So when the war did come, he was
not so surprised. And he made good on this because when he got to the Congressional leaders down to
brief them about the ongoing war, he said, “You know, I had a feeling that this was coming.” And I took
occasion to tell Senator [Richard] Russell the day the war started that we had warned the President that
this was going to happen. He said, “That’s good, that’s good! I’m glad you did.” So it was a fairly tidy
package.
(U/FNO) JS: Coincidentally,I’ve read that memo. It’s still in your files.
I ’
. .
(U) RH: Is it? Really?
(U/F UO) JS: Yes and your memos of conversation.
So many things get lost.
b\
(u)RH:
JS: Yes, I know, but it’s there and [also] your remarks about its being held very closely with it.
enever people ask me, what are some of the Agency’s successes? (You know, they all remember our
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