Kit Bennett

I was always treated with respect and I really liked all the people, pretty much all the people I dealt with, I really liked.

And so I'd drive down onto the George Washington Parkway and head out to the agency.

There's a big sign on the thing saying CIA this way, you know.

So I'd head there and, of course, like all big factories and everything in the United States, there's a building and then there's about, you know...

five hectares of car parks, you know, and all the cars, and they have a little van that went around picking people up in the morning to take them in, especially in the winter.

But there was a car park right in front of the headquarters that had, you know, where the director and the DDO and all the senior people parked, and that's where I parked.

Because the guard on there that everybody called the Sarge had been a Marine, and he was a retired guy, and he looked after the car park.

And guess where he'd been in World War II?

And so he had the soft spot for New Zealand, and I was the Kiwi.

Hey, Kiwi!

park where you like.

So I used to park where I like.

And he was a lovely guy.

And he talked to me about being here in the war and things like that.

And I remember some of the guys would say, how come you get to park there?

Well, you know, I was told and had no reason not to believe it.

They said, you know, by the time I was there, there was no one left in the agency who'd been at Bay of Pigs.

No one left.

it had been tipped upside down and turned around.

And John Kennedy said something, and I can't remember the exact quote, but it was, you know, your failures will be heralded, your triumphs will be completely ignored or not known about.