*[ The World & the CIA ]* FD: Let's turn to world affairs for a moment. One of the events of recent years that has always puzzled me is United States support for the Vanaaka Party in what was once the New Hebrides Islands. In the late '70s, before the New Hebrides achieved independence, there were basically two factions fighting between themselves to see who would maintain control when the colonial powers left. The British and the French had governed the New Hebrides under a concept known as the condominium, and before independence, the British and the labor movement in Australia threw their support behind the ubiquitous socialist faction, in this case, the Vanaaka Party. The French offered some behind-the-scenes support to the second faction, which was basically pro-free market and pro-West. The U.S. under Jimmy Carter went along with the British. Do you have any idea why this might have been done? Marchetti: Offhand, I don't. The CIA has learned over the years that you sometimes cannot support the people you would prefer to support, because they just do not have the popular power to gain control or maintain control without a revolution and things of that sort. The classic example is West Berlin. Back in the '50s we were contesting with the Russians for influence in Berlin. This was at a time when the Russians and East Germans were putting tremendous pressure on to have West Berlin go almost voluntarily into the Soviet bloc. The United States was struggling mightily to keep West Berlin free. At that point in time the strong power in West Germany were the Christian Democrats under Konrad Adenauer, and these were the people that we were supporting. The Christian Democrats, however, just did not have the wherewithal to save West Berlin. The situation was such that the Social Democrats were the ones who could save West Berlin. Not getting into all of the whys and wherefores and policy positions, the Social Democrats also had a very charismatic person named Willy Brandt. So by backing Willy Brandt and the Social Democrats, instead of putting all of our eggs in the Christian Democratic Party basket, Brandt and the Social Democrats were able to maintain a free West Berlin and we were able to achieve our goal. There were some people in the CIA who thought this was terrible, we were not being ideologically pure, and one of them happens to be E. Howard Hunt, who actually considered Willy Brandt a KGB spy. So there are times when you have to, I guess you would call it, choose the lesser of two evils. It might have been a miscalculated gamble. I don't have all of the facts, but maybe the thinking was that if we left the pro-West faction in power we may end up with a goddamned civil war. FD: In retrospect, the Carter administration's decision seems even more tragic and mistaken. Since coming to power, the Vanaaka Party has consolidated power in the new country, now known as Vanuatu, and established diplomatic relations with governments like Cuba and Vietnam. Socialist Vanuatu has now come to serve as a beacon of sorts for other independence movements in that part of the world, such as the Kanaks in New Caledonia, who have subsequently adopted socialism as their ideology. When I asked Jimmy Carter about this during an interview recently he said he was sorry, but he did not remember the episode. Is it possible that this may have been an incompetent blunder on the part of the U.S. government? That somebody didn't do their homework, and as a result those responsible for the decision didn't have all of the facts? Marchetti: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Its not the kind of an issue that draws the most attention in Washington. As you just pointed out, Jimmy Carter doesn't even remember it. I'm sure that decision was made pretty far down the line. If Carter ever had to make a decision he probably doesn't even remember it because it was probably staffed down because it was considered so inconsequential at the time by Carter and everyone involved. They considered it so inconsequential that they don't even remember it. It's something they signed off on. My guess from what you have told me is that it was a mistake.