His role was to provide the three commanders-in-chief the political guidance they needed, advice on propaganda, subversive warfare, finance and economic warfare.

The Americans started by reading Colonel Trinquier's book on "subversive warfare" - Aussaresses had worked under Trinquier's orders.

De Marenches added, according to his published memoirs, that a few trusted people could do all this, at a cost of approximately one million dollars, truly a bargain in subversive warfare.

Ike believed in the efficacy of subversive warfare, and by the end of his first term he had turned the C.I.A. into a secret army of the executive branch and increased its budget to $800 million.

This subversive warfare with all its deception and dirty tricks has been going on underground for years, but it wasn't until Casey came to bat and the mighty Casey struck out that the country as a whole had any inkling of what was happening.

For he talked expansively about the late William Casey's involvement in the Iran-contra scandals and indicated that Mr. Casey was planning a sort of super-secret network that would carry out subversive warfare in other parts of the world, without the authority of anybody.