Adonis Diaries

As reported by David Talbot in The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, when the staunch Catholic Angleton was on his deathbed, he gave an interviews to visiting journalists, including Joseph Trento. 

He confessed:

He had not been serving God, after all, when he followed Allen Dulles.  He had been on a satanic quest….’

Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars,’ he told Trento in an emotionless voice. 

‘The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you would be promoted…. Outside this duplicity, the only thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. 

I did things that, looking back on my life, I regret.  But I was part of it and loved being in it.’ 

James invoked the names of the high eminences who had run the CIA in his day – Dulles, Helms, Wisner. 

These men were ‘the grand masters,’ he said.  ‘If you were in a room with them, you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell.’ 

Angleton took another slow sip from his steaming cup.  ‘I guess I will see them there soon.’