There were, however, some instances in which American journalists had considerable value as intelligence operatives, especially in Europe. “He could talk with people that the station and the Embassy couldn't,” one C.I.A. man said. “He could identify and talk with Soviets, could travel places we couldn't.” An example of this cited by the C.I.A. man was the Soviet Union. “It was considered much too risky to have deep‐cover men there,” he said. “The only person we had there for years was an economist.”

In rarer instances—there were at least two several years apart in Hong Kong and Beirut—the C.I.A. attempted, successfully in one case, to use American reporters for the tricky assignment of acting as an intermediary with a member of a foreign intelligence service who wanted to defect to the United States, a . delicate task usually reserved for skilled professionals.

At least once, the agency even used an American reporter in an unsuccessful effort to induce another reporter to “defect.” During the armistice talks in Korea, sources said, the C.I.A. persuaded Edward Hymoff, then a correspondent for the International News Service, to offer $100,000 to Wilfred Burchett, the Australian journalist who had formed a close relationship with the North Korean Communists.

Mr. Hymoff said he argued with C.I.A. officials that Mr. Burchett could not be won over, and that proved to be the case.

Other American reporters also recalled having done tasks for the C.I.A. that, they said, seemed somewhat silly to them at the time.

Flattery by the C.I.A.

Noel Busch, a reporter for Time magazine in the Far East, said he had been asked in the mid‐1950's by the agency to interview an Asian political figure for an in‐depth profile.

Mr. Busch said he told the agency that the man was not of sufficient importance that Time or any other magazine could possibly be interested in such a story, but he said the C.I.A. agreed to pay him $2,000 for the article if no one else wanted it.