Ralph Walter McGehee Jr (April 9, 1928 – May 2, 2020)Obituary: Ralph Walter McGehee Jr. was an American case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for 25 years and an author.
From 1953 to 1972, his assignments were in East Asia and Southeast Asia, where he held administrative posts. After leaving intelligence work in 1977, he publicly expressed views highly critical of the CIA.See text below for sources.
Early life McGehee was born in 1928 at Moline, Illinois.McGehee, Ralph W(alter) (1928–) in Contemporary Authors published by Gale Cengage, Thomson Gale (April 26, 2006). His father, originally from Kentwood, Louisiana, where his family had lived for three generations, was of Scotch-Irish descent, and had moved to Illinois when a teenager. His mother was from neighboring Osyka, Mississippi. Along with his older sister, they then had moved from Moline to Chicago about 1930. While a student at Tilden Tech, a "working class" high school in south Chicago now known as Tilden High School, he was All State in football, and class president. Although a Baptist, he attended the University of Notre Dame where he was a starting tackle on the football team. For the four seasons 1946 to 1949, they never lost a game, and won three national championships.1949 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. Over 4 seasons: 36 wins, no losses, 2 ties. McGehee obtained a B.S. in Business Administration, cum laude.
He married Norma Galbreath in 1948. He had met her at a Presbyterian Church in south Chicago while home on vacation from Notre Dame. They had four children, two girls followed by two boys. Often but not always, his wife and children would move their family home to accompany him, while on foreign assignments with the CIA. After graduation from Notre Dame, he tried professional football with the Green Bay Packers. Then he coached the offensive line in the football program at the University of Dayton for a year. Returning to Chicago, circa 1951, he took a job as a management trainee at Montgomery Ward.McGehee (1983), pp. 1–2 (school, football, coaching), 17–19 (marriage, starts family).
Recruitment by the CIA In January 1952, McGehee was recruited by the CIA. Decades later, he would describe himself, and his political outlook then, as "gung ho" America, a young cold warrior, ready to go.Youtube.com: "The Secret Government, Bill Moyers (1987) - Ralph McGehee, and other former CIA officers/agents". McGehee on his "gung ho" outlook when young, 28:45-29:13.
Understanding it was an important government job with foreign travel, McGehee first was interviewed at the courthouse. The recruiters declined to name the federal agency that might be his new employer. He traveled from Chicago to Washington, D.C., where he joined a pool of over 100 candidates, men and women. Several weeks of extensive testing and lectures followed. Having survived this shake out, he began a month-long orientation, which featured cold war rhetoric and films. With 50 men he entered a "basic operations" course on espionage, to fit them for the CIA's Directorate for Plans. Then with 30 others he attended a six-week paramilitary course at the CIA's Camp Peary (known as the "farm") near Williamsburg, Virginia. Many there were former college football players. The curriculum included parachute jumping, demolition, weapons, and a "hellish obstacle course".McGehee (1983), pp. 2–16 (CIA: tests, orientation, training).
Thereafter he was posted to his initial CIA post.
CIA assignments
Japan and the Philippines, 1953–1956
McGehee was sent to Japan, where he went to work for the China operations group. The group's task was, in conjunction with allied governments, to gather intelligence on the PRC. The group in the Tokyo area supervised and supported four other offices or bases in East Asia (Seoul, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Okinawa). His job "unfortunately" was as a file checker. Yet he appreciated being involved in "the immense and noble effort to save the world from the International Communist Conspiracy".McGehee (1983), pp. 21–22 (China ops file checker), 22 ("noble" quote).
He lived with his wife and daughters in a beautiful home in Hayama. They had a maid and a gardener, and a view of Mount Fuji. Husband and wife "became intoxicated with the romance of being overseas." There was "a close knit community of Agency families". A son was born to them. Yet his wife would repeat her complaints about CIA rules which prohibited any talk of company business, even within families; she insisted that the "marital bonds and trust" should be the stronger.
After two and a half years, the China operations group moved to Subic Bay in the Philippines. Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA's Chief of Station (COS) there, would become one of the Agency's top leaders. He was a long-time friend of William Colby (the CIA Director in the 1970s).Prados (2003, 2009), pp. 89, 190–191 (FitzGerald, Colby). Yet because of CIA secrecy, and its "need to know" policy, McGehee knew comparatively little about its operations worldwide. The CIA's China operations at Subic Bay were then terminated, and the McGehees returned home.McGehee (1983), pp. 17–21, 31–32 (Japan, Hayama), 19–20, 32 (wife and secrecy, "trust" quote), 31 ("romance" and "close-knit" quotes), 31–32 (son born); 32–33 (Subic Bay). McGehee writes about world-wide CIA activities, pp. 22–31.
CIA HQ, Washington, 1956–1959
At CIA headquarters near the Washington Monument, McGehee became chief of records for counterintelligence at China activities, basically supervising the work he had been doing in Japan. His office had a staff of 15 women; he admitted that some "could do a better job" than him. Two requests routinely came in: for a "file trace" (a search for records about a person, e.g., a candidate for doing business with the Agency); and a "clearance" (a more thorough check, often for potential CIA employees).Philip Agee, Inside the Company (1975), pp. 56–58 (traces and clearances), re McGehee (1983) p. 35. Yet in general CIA records were in a deplorable condition. Huge piles of backorders were common. An expert proposed working criteria for selecting files to destroy, e.g., duplicates, nonsense, useless. Other problems were addressed, such as carding information. In McGehee's unit, the Chinese characters (often ambiguous to non-Chinese) could be variously transliterated into different roman letters, making for file repetition and much confusion. Instead, each character was reduced to a 4-digit number.McGehee (1983), pp. 34–38, 40–41 (chief of records, CIA files per China).Cf., Powers (1979), p. 47. In the early 1960s IBM computers eventually gave CIA "a sophisticated file-retrieval system called Walnut which could pop out the 1934 graduating class of a Sverdlovsk high school at a moment's notice."
From Saigon a former Chinese politician claimed that his contacts back in China had excellent intelligence, which they sent him by short-wave radio. The politician sought "financial support" in return for current political information. His reports appeared to be very valuable. But an allied intelligence agency told CIA that a "newspaper clipping service" in Saigon was the probable source. When CIA tried to listen in to transmissions, there was silence. Instead, his "intelligence" was being fabricated from bits and pieces of local Chinese press coverage, rewritten to make the incidents more significant to CIA. Yet the "germ of truth" in each gave it verisimilitude. Later, CIA discovered that the operation was run by a Taiwan intelligence agency. The rewrites told a story about mainland China that Taiwan wanted to spread.Cf. Helms (2003), pp.92–100, Chapter 9, "Fabrication Factories", re post-war Europe.Cf. Dulles (1963), pp. 214–217, re "intelligence fabricators".
After many applications for a change in status, McGehee was promoted. Following a 3-months training course, he'd be a CIA case officer.McGehee (1983), pp. 38–40, 50 (Taiwan fabricator in Saigon), 39 (quotes: "clipping", "germ"); 43 (McGehee made a case officer).
Taiwan, 1959–1961
As a case officer his work involved liaison with his Chinese counterparts in various Nationalist intelligence services. Their common purpose was collecting information on the PRC. The CIA worked with Taiwan "to train and drop teams of Chinese on the mainland to develop resistance movements and gather intelligence." When mainland fishermen were detained on Chinmen Island [aka Quemoy], McGehee would go out for the debriefing. The PRC shelled the island on certain hours every other day, hitting only barren spots according to a "gentleman's agreement". The 1958 Quemoy-Matsu Crisis was still fresh.McGehee (1983), pp. 46–47 (liaison work, quotes). Youngest son born (p.46).Cline (1976), pp. 176–181. Cline then was the Taipei COS. Here he discusses the CIA station in Taiwan during 1958–1962. Also pp. 172–173, 174. For the 1958 Quemoy Crisis: pp. 174–176.
The CIA had great difficulty recruiting agents for espionage activity on the mainland. Hence its intelligence on what it then called 'Red China' was very patchy. Apparently the CIA missed the great extent of the famine in China caused by the Great Leap Forward.Cf. Anne Applebaum, "When China starved", in The Washington Post, August 12, 2008. The major event in China during 1959–1961, due mostly to failures of government policy, was the great famine that claimed 36 million lives. Stories eventually circulating outside the PRC were confirmed decades later with Yang Jisheng's book Tombstone (Hong Kong 2008).Compare: Henry McAleavy, The Modern History of China (New York: Praeger 1967), the section 'Great Leap Forward', pp. 346–351, reported that the agricultural failures "though inflicting great hardships on the people, at least did not cause famine" (p. 351).Jonathan Spence, In Search of Modern China (New York: Norton 1990), later stated: "The result was famine on a gigantic scale, a famine that claimed 20 million lives or more between 1959 and 1962."Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine. The history of China's most devastating catastrophe (New York: Bloomsbury 2011).
Taiwan offered to share one of its best agents. American officers taught him the CIA system on many espionage subjects, marveling that he was "the best agent they had ever trained." He was to stay in radio contact daily while on the mainland. After four months away, he returned. Yet when away he seldom made radio contact. His excuses for this didn't add up. McGehee could not be sure if he was a duplicitous Nationalist, "playing games with us", or was working for the Communists.McGehee (1983), pp. 47–50 (intelligence agent shared by Taiwan), quotes at 48, 49.
Ray Cline, soon to become a major figure in American intelligence, was the COS in Taiwan.Cline (1976), pp. 193–195, 194: in March 1962 Cline was promoted from Taiwan COS to leadership of the Directorate of Intelligence, one of the top half-dozen positions at CIA.Prados (2003, 2009), pp. 127, 240 (Cline). As a friend of the COS, Chiang Ching-kuo, son of the Generalisimo, would visit the CIA club. For an upcoming CIA "hail and farewell" gathering, a particularly lavish costume party was planned, with an Indian tribe theme. The COS and McGehee's "clique" of eight couples attended. During his late night drive home, McGehee saw "hovels of Taiwanese people" who were dressed in rags, in "a struggle to stay alive".McGehee (1983), pp. 51–53 (COS Cline, Chiang, CIA party), at 52 (quotes).
CIA HQ, Langley, 1961–1962