The 231163 Diaries: Lawrence K. White.

Politics Lawrence K. White., the CIA's Deputy Director for Administration. 

 Here is his report from inside the CIA written on the 23rd November and published through the agencies "reading room" website. White's biography can be found here.  

It's interesting to note how even in the midst of a national crisis, office politics is still at the forefront, even in the CIA.

DIARY NOTES

November 23rd 1963

At about 11:30 p.m. on Friday, 22 November, I was notified that there would be a meeting of the Deputies with the Director in the East Building at 0830 hours on Saturday morning, 23 November.  The meeting was quite brief.

a.  There was a brief discussion of what changes should be made in our procedures to accommodate President Johnson.  The Director decided that we would make no changes unless told to do so, and he left 0900 hours to meet with President Johnson and to brief him personally.

b.  Shortly before the meeting ended, he said that he wanted to see General Carter alone for a minute. (General Carter had been away since Tuesday morning, 19 November.)  The Duties waited for General Carter, who immediately called a special Deputies meeting.  General Carter, who immediately called a special Deputies meeting.  General Carter, Mr. Kirkpatrick, and the four Deputies -- [omitted] Wheelon, and White -- were the only ones in attendance.  General Carter said that the Director had just "wire-brushed" him thoroughly, had expressed himself as being dissatisfied with the way the Agency was being managed, etc.  He went on to say that he, the Director, did not know that was going on, that people were not responsive to his requests, and that he was very dissatisfied with the whole situation.  He mentioned an NRO paper and the communication paper as examples of the kinds of things for which he had been waiting for some time without results.  General Carter admonished us to take and inventory of items which we owed the Director and to furnish him with a list of these items not later than Tuesday, 26 November.  He further put everyone on notice that he expected to be much more demanding in the future and that under no circumstances would he and Mr. Kirkpatrick be bypassed in keeping the Director advised.  As a result of this admonition, I advised General [omitted] and [omitted] that together we would produce the outstanding communications paper so that it could be delivered to the Director on Monday morning, 25 November. (This was done, and I handed the paper to Kirk at about 0900 hours on Monday.  He read it in my presence and in response to my specific question said that he found it entirely satisfactory and responsive and failed to see how the Director could react otherwise.)