Ray Cline

Dr. Ray S. Cline, "the key CIA analyst on Korea from 1949 to 1952, passed away on 15 March, 1996 in Arlington, Virginia. He was responsible for clanking out monthly 'Estimate of the World Situation' on sensitive areas. Korea was covered now and then. Referring to his failure to spot Kim Ilsung's invasion of S Korea, Cline admitted that 'Mostly I simply wrote down analytical comments based on my reading of newspapers and periodical literature, adding items from the research analysts wherever possible.' Dr. Ray Cline is assumed to be the author of the infamous CIA report on Korea, issued only a few days prior to the invasion." --- Cline, according to the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University, "served as Deputy Director for Intelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1962-1966 and played a major role in the Cuba missile crisis of 1962.

"From 1969 until his retirement in 1973, he was Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) at the Department of State. He was awarded CIA's Distinguished Intelligence Medal and the Career Intelligence Medal. Cline's tenure at INR coincided with the "War of Attrition" that Egypt had declared on Israel. As part of this war, the Soviets supplied Egypt with their latest SAMs (the SAM-3), their latest MIG fighters (the MIG-21), and Russian Missile crews, and pilots and ground crews for the aircraft. After their initial hesitance, the Israelis started to knock the Russians out of the sky just as they had the Egyptians and Syrians before them. This worried President Nixon that a strategic confrontation might develop. He therefore engineered an agreement to freeze Israeli and Egyptian deployments in place as of August 7, 1970. The Egyptians broke this agreement the very day after it was signed and these violations continued into the summer. When the Israelis finally complained to the U.S. about these violations, it was good old Ray Cline, at INR, who told the President that the Israeli claims of Egyptian violations were "baseless." When this got back to the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Yitzhak Rabin, the future Prime Minister called Tel Aviv and asked the government to send immediately to him the overhead imagery that proved the violations (including the movement of the Soviet SAMs right up to the Suez Canal; a movement that would, three years later, help Anwar Sadat decide to attack Israel in what would come to be called, in America, the Yom Kippur War and, in Israel, the War of Atonement; a war that would cost Israel more heavily in lives, widows and orphans than any preceeding Arab-Israeli war had done), and an imagery analyst to explain the photos. Once they arrived, Ambassador Rabin paid a call on President Nixon. Once Ambassador Rabin had shown President Nixon the evidence that proved conclusively that Dr. Cline was either a liar or an ignoramus, it is reported that President Nixon became "angry" with Cline and "ordered the Pentagon to remove its veto on several categories of weapons the Israelis had asked for during the preceeding months." (see Doron Geller, "Israeli Intelligence and the Yom Kippur War of 1973." Jewish Virtual Library, www.us-israel.org)

"Dr. Cline now serves as senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University, as well as professor of international relations. He teaches, directs research and writes on strategic intelligence, geopolitics, strategy and foreign affairs.

"He was a Henry Prize Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford University, and a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, where he earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph. D. degrees.

"Dr. Cline is the author of numerous books, including Washington Command Post, (Department of Army, 1951) a reference work on military planning in World War II, and Secrets, Spies and Scholars: The CIA from Roosevelt to Reagan (1986), which describes the American intelligence system from World War II through 1976. In addition, Dr. Cline has written a series of studies on geopolitics and the relative strength of nations.

"A number of his many published works have dealt with the timely topic of terrorism, including Terrorism: Seedbed for Soviet Influence and two books that he co-authored, Terrorism as State-Sponsored Covert Welfare and Terrorism: The Soviet Connection.

"He [was] Vice President of the Veterans of the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II precursor of the CIA, and is founder and president of the National Intelligence Study Center, created to improve understanding of the role of intelligence in the American political process. He [was] a member of the board of visitors of the United States Defense Intelligence College and president of the Committee for a Free China." -- "In a lengthy and distinguished career in U.S intelligence, Cline served, among other assignments, as CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) and head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)." --- U.S. Global Strategy Council is a Washington-based organization, which [was] under the chairmanship of founder Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA, who maintain[ed] very close ties with the U.S. Intelligence community. "Taiwan became a laboratory for total and unconventional warfare." It established a Political Warfare Cadres Academy--D'Aubuisson is a graduate--with the assistance of WACL associate Ray Cline, who was CIA station chief in Taiwan form 1958-1962, then CIA deputy director for intelligence, State Department director of intelligence and founder of the U.S. Global Strategy Council. U.S. military personnel taught at the Academy....Moonie connections with the U.S. right...are extensive...[late] Major General Daniel Graham [CNP], a member of CAUSA USA's advisory board, heads the Star Wars lobby group, High Frontier. F. Lynn Bouchey [CNP], president of the Council for Inter-American Security and member of the Committee of Santa Fe, helped organize two CAUSA conferences. Washington Times editor Arnaud de Borchgrave [CNP] serves on Ray Cline's U.S. Global Strategy Council, a Ronald Reagan advisory group. The Strategy Council's executive director is retired General E. David Woellner, president of CAUSA World Services. Washington Times columnists include Ray Cline's son-in-law Roger Fontaine, a Committee of Santa Fe member and former Reagan Latin America adviser, and Jeremiah O'Leary, formerly special assistant to National Security Adviser William Clark. [Sklar, p. 78, 80] -

Related SourceWatch resources

 * Committee on the Present Danger