MISC RE TRANSCRIPT OF FRANK LINDSAY INTERVIEWED BY (DELETED) ON CIA'S ORAL HIST

Created: 7/26/2000

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AITFOVEDRELEASE DATE: 4

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The attached transcriptroduct of lhe CIA's Oral History rVogranl conducted underuspices of the CIA History Staff The statements,nd opinions, which compo^ the text of the transcript, arc those of the intemeyparticipants alone. They do not neccssarrly reflect official positions or views of the-Central Intelligence Agency or

any other US Government entity, past or present, hiothing in the transcript should be construed as necessarily'avertingor implyingGovernment endorsement or acknowledgement of thehc statements, assertions, or opinions expressed by the participants in the th|.erview.

now you've talked, well, this momin^about tilingsanted to talk about, but. I'masn't here, put [hope you don't mind going over..

FL;it.

some of iVind chronologically is the best bet If we could just Begin with how you got/nto OSS in Cairo, and what happened afterhighlights, muybt some lessens learned, or not learned...

CI BY CL REASON. DECI. ON DRV FROM

JH: Well, now, according Io the little bioave, you actuallyairly strong piece, warning that the planollback "of Communists in Eastern Europe wasn't going to work too well."

FL:on't know what ever happened to it, but the1 wroteuess it must have been five or tenmore. Essentially saying at this time, and these conditions in Russia, and our limited capabilities, and the fact it isartimeon't think this is on. Allen Dulles had just arrived from New York and became Deputy Director forhink. I've forgotten.

JH: Yeah.

FL: Well, Allen had been an old friendong time.ad been in another part of some of his operations,idn't know it at the time,as in Croatia, and in Belgrade.it was at the time that the Eisenhower Administration was coming in. Itime when Foster Dulles, his brother, had been making speeches about rolling back the Iron Curtain. Andhoughtemorandum ought to go to the NSC with sort of, "This is our experience. What we've learned up toan't remember, it was so long ago,howas, or not diplomatic. But,as trying to convey, "Think this over before you push it tooemember going and

aturday morning with Allen, And he went over it, line-by-line. And every oncehile, he'd explode with. "Frank, you can't say that" And then we'd tight over, the wording of that.robably compromised morehoulduess.

we finally finished the memorandum, and it was up to him as to what he was going to do with theon't know whether he ever sent it to the White House. The only thing that's been found ui the Eisenhower papersemorandumrote to Gordon Gray, inutaragraph which, very briefly, summarized what was in this long memorandum lo Allen.

sfJr

JH: Gordon Gray was the NSC back then, wasn't he?

FL: Yes.

JH: Yeah.

FL: Which confirmed, at least to my own satisfaction, lhat I, in fact, had writtenemorandum. Evenouldn't find the damned thing. Butay, it mayit may have been lhat Allen just said. "To hell withnd threw it into the

waste basket^ Or it may have gone to C. D. Jackson.hink C. D. who was

whoery aggressive, gung-ho person, probably would have rejected it.

too.

JH: Yeah.

JH: Well, then you left1 gather?

FL: Yes.

JH: Was it tor any particular reason?

uess this is part of theon't think it's the onlyhinkart of it wasad been involved in foreign affairs during the wartime, the Marshall Plan, theonsidered going into the Foreign Service, and decided not to. Then,

FSRfcT

et the European countries to work with each other in supporting their own recovery. TheyVl thinkthe view of the Marshall Plan, mostlv/ft was American dollarsnd thVunknown part of the Marshall Plan, th/unrecognized. is that wc got them to setystem which wc essentially engineered and sold to them, which would mean that France would provrtle the food. Germany would provide the equipment. They were

pool their resources. And busay to pool their resources without putting in Marshall Plan money to bootstrap Jfceir ownoint. But, something I'm sulwrying toVork on.

your

JH: Good. Letouple of things. Were you still here when the East German riots took place in 'S3?

Yes. I

was.

JH: Em you, was there any back and forth on what should be done? Any support that should be given?

FL: I'm awfully vague on that I'm not sure

JH: That's okay. Now, well, of course, you were gone when the Hungarian

FL: Yes.

JH: But, do you have any thoughts about that? What weuess, was proper. We didn't try to intervene there. Yet. it was hard on some people

FL: It was very hard on Frank Wisner.

JH: Exactly. Yeah.

FL:rote an article for the Sew Leader which was later reprinted in Life magazine, in whichn sortaydream, was saying, "Suppose, instead of doing nothing, the UN had told the Russians. 'Wc areN Mission, and, with an international military component,udapest, to supervise what's going on under the nameof thean't remember muchittle more detail than that. And put the Russians in the position of having toN flag,'N economy. Well, was. you know, one of those hopeless sorts of things that one thinks about.hought itery sad time for Frank.

JH: Yeah.uess, never really completely got overidn'i know him beforehand. So.new him. you know, he'd been through it. But he was still a

must say, as farould tell. One thing about him was.

very effective

there was no one that ever came through town thai amounted to anything, that didn't cither stav with them, or have dinner with them.

FL: Oh, yes.

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