Page 140 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 140 of 237

What happened next is best told in the words of Dr. H. Hatch Sterrett, a physician who lived on Saddle Lane near
the CIA: "The first I heard of it was when the GSA called my office and asked when they could have an
appointment to arrange to take over my property. They kept saying they didn't know who wanted it or why it was
wanted and that the only reason for taking it was that there was an established need for it. They said there was just
no recourse, that there wasn't anything I could do about it."

The distraught physician consulted with his attorney, Samuel E. Neel, who was advised that the entire subject had
been "classified." Neel persevered, and finally diagnosed it as a severe case of CIA.

The agency killed off the apartment-house project by buying up most of the land, but it finally permitted the
doctor to keep his home. Under the agreement, however, the CIA can screen and reject anyone to whom he wishes
to rent or sell. The reason? In the summer the CIA is invisible behind the trees. But in winter, when the leaves are
gone, the CIA can be glimpsed through the branches from the Sterrett home.

The headquarters building has been a subject of some difficulty for the CIA from the outset. When Bedell Smith
was head of the CIA, he requested $30,000,000 for a new building. To preserve security, the request was
concealed in the budget the agency sent to Capitol Hill. When economy- minded congressmen discovered
$30,000,000 with no apparent purpose, they cut it out of the budget.

Not until after Dulles had become the director did Congress, in July, 1955, finally vote the funds to begin
planning and construction. Although the CIA's main headquarters at that time was the E Street complex,
which had been used by the OSS in World War II, the agency was scattered about in thirty-four buildings
all over Washington. An elaborate system of couriers and safeguards was needed to shuffle papers back and
forth with security.

L. K. White, a CIA deputy director, told the House Appropriations Committee hearing in 1956 that by moving the
agency into one building, "we will save about 228 people who are guards, receptionists, couriers, bus drivers and
so forth." The CIA estimated it would save $600,000 a year by eliminating time lost shuttling between buildings.

Dulles had asked for a $50,800,000 building. The Budget Bureau slashed this to $50,000,000 and Congress finally
authorized $46,000,000.* Noting that construction costs had risen, Dulles testified that for $46,000,000 "we could
have a very austere building" which would house only "87 percent of the people for which we had originally
planned."

Dulles, of course, carefully omitted saying how many people that was. And he foiled anyone who might try to
compute precisely how many people worked at Langley. Someone could attempt to do so by dividing the standard
amount of office space needed by a Washington worker into the CIA building's net floor space of 1,228,100
square feet.

"Our plans," Dulles told the House Committee, "are based on an average net office space utilization per person
which is considerably below the government-wide average of net office space per employee in Metropolitan
Washington." *

In the fall of 1961, the CIA moved in.

A visitor to the new headquarters turns off at the "B.P.R." sign at Langley and comes shortly to a ten-foot-high
wire-mesh fence, which surrounds the entire CIA site. On the fence are various signs -- none saying CIA. One
reads: "U.S. Government Property for Official Business Only." Another says: "Cameras Prohibited." In case
anyone failed to get the message, a third sign says: "No Trespassing."