Final_Judgment

[354] Final Judgment 451
reported back in 1975 that Angleton had lost his job in December 1974
because of policy disputes over Israel and not because of allegations of CIA
domestic spying, as originally reported . . . [and that] Angleton was said to
have argued with CIA director William Colby over Middle East policy
questions as well." 895 In fact, according to Blitzer, it was one week before
the New York Times first published a story by Seymour Hersh alleging that
the CIA was engaged in domestic spying that Colby had told Angleton that
he could no longer handle the Israeli desk at the CIA after which Angleton
resigned—effectively forced out by Colby. 896
A TWISTED MIND . . .
By as early as 1967 Angleton's behavior had become so bizarre that on
one of Angleton's trips to Israel, John Denley Walker, the CIA's station
chief in Israel, believed that Angleton was "on the edge of a nervous
breakdown." 897 However, upon his ouster from the CIA in December of
1974, Angleton, it appears, may have actually gone over the edge.
CBS News reporter Daniel Schorr has described meeting with Angleton
just shortly after he had been dismissed by Colby. According to Schorr,
Angleton "rambled on circuitously, the conversation disjoined. He had been
to Israel thirty times. He had never met Howard Hunt . . ." 898 (Again,
Angleton's denial of knowing Hunt, which we discussed in Chapter 16.)
Angleton added that: "For twenty-two years I handled the Israeli account.
Israel was the only sanity in the Middle East." 899 As Angleton's ravings
continued, Schorr decided that Angleton "was really crazy." 900 Schorr said
that Angleton "went on speaking almost as though I wasn't there. He was
talking as though he was looking into his own mind." 901
So it was that Israel's biggest partisan at the CIA had gone completely
out of his mind—and a new CIA director, William Colby, was perceived as
being hostile to Angleton's friends in Israel.
COLBY vs ISRAEL
Wolf Blitzer has written of how many high-ranking U.S. intelligence
officials didn't share Angleton's enthusiasm for Israel, citing Colby as a
specific example: "Many [such intelligence figures] have been much more
concerned with the U.S. standing in the Arab world. Their assessment of the
U.S. national interest has dovetailed more with the traditional Arabist view
at the State Department than with the Angleton . . . school of thought.
"In 1975, for example, there was an increasing concern among Israel's
intelligence officials over what appeared to be a growing pro-Arab tilt
among several senior analysts in the CIA. The November 1975 closed-door
testimony on the Middle East arms balance offered by outgoing CIA
Director William Colby was one of the first indications of this attitude.
"Colby, who had just been dismissed by President Ford but was asked
to remain in office until his designated successor, Ambassador George Bush,