COVERT OPERATIONS ABROAD: AN OVERVIEW BY DAVID WISE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 03268338
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 49
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: April 15, 2019
• Case Number: F-2016-01486
• Publication Date: September 12, 1974

Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338 ,
6/1//z/7/
/ Or _CY 2!"/ qfrh.
Covert Onerations Abroad: An Overview
By David Wise
CONTENTS Page
I. The Legal Basis 3
IL Mechanisms of Control 17
III. A History of Covert Operations 35
IV. Conclusions and Reccomendations 44
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
COVERT OPERATIONS ABROAD: AN OVERVIEW
By David Wise
Citizens who telephone the Central Intelligence Agency
at Langley, Virginia) asking for a description of the agency's
activities receive a handsome blue-covered booklet bearing the
CIA seal-- a baleful eagle atop a shield emblazoned with a
sixteen point star.
The booklet, however, is less than a sixteenth of an inch
thick and contains only eleven pages. The citizen reading it
is told that the CIA produces estimates and. "intelligence '
reports" to assure that the President receives information on
foreign policy and national defense that is "complete, accurate,
and timely." The booklet also gives the CIA's zip code, which
is Washington, D.C.20505. Nowhere in the booklet is it
mentioned that the CIA conducts secret political operations
around the globe, ranging from payments to foreign political
figures and attempts to influence elections abroad to
overthrowing governments-- in which the target national
leaders are sometimes killed-- and full-scale paramilitary
invasions. Nowhere does the booklet mention that the CIA
operates its own air force, andlat times, its own- army-and
navy.
It is these covert political operations that have got
the CIA in trouble, focused public attention upon its
activities, and led to demands for reform. It is these
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
2
activities, as well, that have raised fundamental questions
about the role of a secret intelligence agency in a democracy,
and, specifically, whether the requirements of American
national security justify clandestine intervention in the
internal affairs of other countries.
More recently, the Watergate scandal has dramatically
demonstrated the dangers posed by secret intelligence agencies
when their personnel, resources, and methods are employed in
the American political process.
For many years the Central Intelligence Agency has been
operating domestically, in ways never contemplated by the
Congress. That fact may not have been understood by the
public at large until it was revealed that the CIA had
provided E. Howard Hunt, Jr., its former clandestine operative,
with equipment used in the break-in of the office of Daniel
Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and that the CIA had prepared two
psychiatric profiles of Ellsberg. In addition, the burglars
who broke into Democratic National Headquarters at Watergate
had CIA backgrounds, and one, Eugenio Rolando Martinez was at
the time of the break-in still on the CIA payroll at a retainer
of $100 a month. Thus, Watergate, to an extent, represented the
application of covert intelligence techniques to American
politics: President Nixon created his own secret police force--
the Plumbers and their apprentices-- to conduct covert operations
against domestic "enemies," real and imagined. He resigned; the
problem remains.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
0,
This paper is in four parts. The first section deals
with the legal and historical basis of covert operations, the
second with mechanisms for control of such operations and the
third with the history of CIA covert operations; the fourth
contains conclusions and recommendations.
I. THE LEGAL BASIS
Some definitions are necessary before discussing the legal
basis of covert operations. Intelligence is information,
gathered either secretly or openly. Clearly, information
about military, strategic, political, and economic conditions
in other countries, and about the background and intentions of
the leaders of those countries, may be of great value to the
President and. other leaders in making decisions and formulating
policy. Intelligence is collected from electronic ears
stationed around the globe, from reconnaissance satellites
overhead, from newspapers, journals and other open sources,
and by traditional espionage. Some of the means of acquisition
of intelligence are highly sophisticated and themselves secret.
From CIA stations abroad, by cable and courier, tons of
information flows into CIA headquarters at Langley every day.
Once in house, it is sifted and analyzed, or it would be of
little use to policymakers. In addition to analyzing,
summarizing, and evaluating the information collected, the CIA
also has an estimating function. On the basis of what it
knows, the CIA attempts to predict to the President the likely
course of future events in other countries. The intelligence
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
L.
process then, consists essentially of collecting, evaluating,
and estimating. It is basically passive, in that it is a
process designed to reflect event S and conditions, and to draw
conclusions and logical deductions on the basis of the
information collected.
Covert political action, on the other hand, seeks to
manipulate events, to cause them to happen. The clandestine
operators of the CIA are engaged not merely in reporting
events, but in attempting to shape them
The organization of the Central Intelligence Agency
reflects this basic split. Beneath the Director of Central'
Intelligence (DCI) and the Deputy Director of Central
Intelligence are two principal divisions: the Directorate
of Intelligence, headed by a Deputy Director (DDI), and a
Directorate of Operations, headed by a Deputy Director (DUO).*
The Directorate of Intelligence engages in overt
collection, analysis, and estimating. The Directorate of
Operations, or Clandestine Services, engages in covert
collection and secret political operations. This is the
*The Directorate of Operations was formerly known as the
Directorate of Plans and its Chief as the DDP. The name was
changed in 1973. William E. Colby, the present DCI, was the
first official to hold the new title of DDO; he held that
post prior to his appointment by President Nixon as Director
of Central Intelligence on May 10, 1973.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
so-called "dirty tricks" branch of CIA.
The Central Intelligence Agency was in a very real sense
a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Until World
War II, the United States had no centralized intelligence
machinery. During the war, on June 13, 1942, President
Roosevelt established the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
under General William J. Donovan. The OSS gathered intelligence,
but it also engaged in political operations and paramilitary
operations, dropping agents by parachute behind enemy lines
in Europe and Asia. Thus, the pattern was established under
OSS of an intelligence agency that both collected information
and engaged in covert operations. Many well-known Americans
worked for OSS, including Julia Child, Allen W. Dulles,
Arthur Goldberg, and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. In the
autumn of 1944, at Roosevelt's request, Donovan submitted a
secret memo to the White House urging the creation of a
permanent U.S. intelligence agency.
The plan was put aside; and on September 20, 1945,
President Truman issued an order disbanding the OSS. But the
wartime experience had created momentum for a centralized
intelligence agency. In January, 1946, Truman established a
National Intelligence Authority under a Central Intelligence
Group, the forerunner of the CIA. Then Congress created the
CIA, in the National Security Act of 1947. Officially, the
agency came into being on September 18th of that year. The
same legislation established the National Security Council.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
6
The duties of the CIA are set forth in the Act in Section
102 (d) which states:
For the purpose of coordinating the
intelligence activities of the several Govern-
ment departments and agencies in the interest
of national security, it shall be the duty of
the Agency, under the direction of the National
Security Council--
(1) to advise the National Security. Council
in matters concerning such intelligence
activities of the Government departments and
agencies as relate to national security;
(2) to make recommendations to the National
Security Council for the coordination of such
intelligence activities of the departments
and agencies of the Government as relate to
the national security;
(3) to correlate and evaluate intelligence
relating to the national security, and pro-
vide for the appropriate dissemination of
such intelligence within the Government
using where appropriate existing agencies
and facilities: Provided, That the Agency
shall have no police, subpena, law-enforcement
powers, or internal-security functions:
Provided. further, That the departmemts and
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
other agencies of the Government shall
continue to collect, evaluate, correlate
and disseminate departmental intelligence:
And provided further, That the Director of
Central Intelligence shall be responsible
for protecting intelligence sources and
methods from unauthorized disclosure;
(4) to perform, for the benefit of the
existing intelligence ageneies, such
additional services of common concern as
the National. Security Council determines
can be more efficiently accomplished.
centrally;
(5) to perform such other functions and
duties related to intelligence affecting
the national security as the National-
SeCurity Council may from time to time
direct.
There is no specific mention in the law of overthrowing
governments or other cloak and dagger operations, but the CIA
has carried out these activities under- the "other functions"
clause contained in subparagraph five. Richard M. Helms,
while Director of Central Intelligence, confirmed this
interpretation in a speech on April 14, 1971. Referring to
the other functions" clause be said;
"This latter language was designed to enable us to
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
8
conduct such foreign activivies as the national: government may
find it convenient to assign to a 'secret service'. These
activities have always been secondary to the production of
intelligence, and under direct control by the Executive Branch.
Obviously, I cannot go into any detail with you on such
matters, and I do not intend to ,�*
William E. Colby, one of Mr. Helms' successors as Director
of CIA, also confirmcd that the 'other functions' clause is the
justification for covert political operations. Appearing before
the Senate Armed Services Committee at a hearing on his
nomination, Colby told Senator Stuart Symington:
"Mr. Chairman, the National Security Act of 1947 says that
the Agency will do various things, and then in the last
subparagraph it says that the Agency will conduct, perform such
other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the
national security as the National Security Council may from time
to time direct.
Now, that that particudar proviion of law is the authority under
which a lot of the Agency's activities are conducted."**
It is not apparent from the legislative history of the 1947
*Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 14,
1971; text, page 5.
**"Nomination of William E. Colby", Hea:oing before the Committee
on Armed Services, United States Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st
Session, July 2, i973 pp. 13-14.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
9
act establishing the CIA that Congress expected that the CIA
would engage in covert political operations. Congress did
express concern that the CIA not engage in domestic operations,
and subsequent experience has proved these fears justified.
James Forrestal, while Secretary of the Navy, testified in
April. of 1947 that the CIA would be "limited definitely to
purposes outside of this country."* Congressman Henderson
Lanham, a Georgia Democrat, asked Dr. Vannevar Bush, a witness
before a House Committee, whether there was not a danger of the
CIA "becoming a Gestapo or anything of that sort?"** The
report of the House Committee that handled the CIA legislation
states: "Provision prohibiting the agency from having the
power of subpena and from exercising internal police powers,
provisions not included in the original bill nor in 3.7580 were
added by your Committee".***This language, an unsuccessful
*Hearing, April 25, 1947, House Committee on Expenditures in
the Executive Departments, cited in David Wise- and. Thomas B.
Ross, The Esnion:40e Establishment (New York: Random House,
1967), pp. 162-671
**Hearing of the Hou;Te Committee on Expenditures in the
Executive Departments, June 24, 1947, in Wise and Ross,
2a, cit., p. 164.
***"National Security Act of 1947," Report of the Committee on
Expenditures in the Executive Departments to accompany
H.R. 4214, p. 4.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
10
attempt to keep the CIA out; of the domestic arena, was
apparently added at the behest of J. Edgar Hoover, Director
of the F.B.I., who did not want any competition with the
bureau in the domestic intelligence field..
But there is no indication that Congress expected the CIA
to engage in covert activities, intervene in the internal
affairs of other nations, overthrow governments, and launch
paramilitary operations. The House report on the legislation
simply states that the CIA was created in order that the NSC
"in its deliberations and advice to the President, may have
available adequate information." The CIA, the report added;
"will furnish such information."* Certainly, the Executive
Branch officials testifying about the proposed legislation
did not talk about overthrowing governments. For example,
Lt. Gene Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Director of Central Intelligence,**
stressed the collection and evaluation functions of CIA when he
testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee about the
proposed. legislation to establish CIA., "The oceans have shrunk..."
Vandenberg testified, "the interests, intentions, and capabilities
of the various nations...must be fully known to our national
policymakers. We must have this intelligence if we are to.be
forewarned against possible acts of aggression, and if we are
*Ibid., p. 3.
**Vandenberg held this title as head of the Central Intelligence
Group even though the CIA itself had not yet been created.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
11
to be armed against disaster in an era of atomic warfare."
Wartime intelligence sources are "drastically reduced as our
forces return home," Vandenberg added. "Such information,
which can be collected during actual combat, is largely denied
us' in peacetime. In times of peace we must rely on the
painstaking study of...vailable overt material.' The CIA,
Vandenberg said, would engage in "research and analysis" and
avoid. "wasteful duplication."*
One small hint of what was to come was contained in a memo
submitted to Congress by Dulles in 1947. He said the CIA should.
have "exclusive jurisdiction to carry out secret intelligence
operations** And, while some individual Members of Congress
may have realized that covert political operations would
continue in peacetime, certainly the majority of the members
of Congress reading the House report on the legislation, or the
the Senate hearings, wolad not have reached this Conclusion.
Almost from the start however, the CIA was in fact involved in
covert political operations, which the "black," or clandestine,
operators of the CIA prefer to call "special operations."
In 1948, the Truman administration was alarmed by the
Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia and nervous over the
*National Defense Establi,Thment, Hearings before the Committee
on Armed Services, United ,fltatc-:s Senate, 80th Congress, 1st
Session on 3.75 Part 3, pp. 491-500.
**Ibid,, pp, 525-28.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
12
possibility of a Communist victory in the Italian elections.
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal wished to move to counter
Communist strength in Italy. It was felt this would require a
massive infusion of money. But the wealthy industrialists around
Milan feared reprisals if the Communists won and were reluctant
to contribute funds. So members of the Eastern establishment
literally passed the hat at the Brook Club in New York.
There was no CIA mechanism to deal with the problem-- the
Plans Directorate was not created until January 4, 1951. As a
result, in the summer of 1948, the NSC issued a secret document,
NSC 10/2 (pronounced "ten slash two"), authorizing special
operations, providing they were secret and small enough to be
plausibly deniable by the government. The same document created
an operating agency under the euphemistic title of Office of
Policy Coordination. Former OSS agent Frank G. Wisner was
brought in to direct this office, which operated within the
CIA but under the joint authority as well of the Department of
State and the Department of Defense. In 1950 General Walter
Bedell Smith, then director of the CIA, managed to eliminate
control by these outside agencies and placed Wisner's group
entirely under CIA. Meanwhile, a separate Office of Special
Operations handled covert intelligence-gathering for CIA. OSO
and OPC were merged in January 1951 (while Smith was still
Director of CIA) into the new Directorate of Plans. The "other
functions" clause became the eye of the needle through which
the CIA has conducted special operations around the globe.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
13
In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act was passed
exempting CIA froM all statutes requiring the disclosure of
the "functions, names, official titles, salaries, or numbers
of personnel employed by the Agency." It gave the Director
of Central Intelligence unprecedented power to spend money
"without regard to the provisions of law and regulations
relating to the expenditure of government funds". The 1949
Act permitted "such expenditures to be accounted for solely
on the certificate of the director."
Once these provisions were law, the way was open for CIA
to engage in special operations on a large scale.. In a discussion
with graduate students at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced
International Studies, on February 24, 1966, Robert Amory,
former Deputy Director for Intelligence of the CIA, declared:
"We went in through the NSC-CIA act because that was the only
way we could get unvouchered. funds. OPC then went into Greece
in 1949-50."
A series of highly classified National Security Council
Intelligence Directives have been issued since 1948, permitting
the CIA to carry out special operations. The Directives are
known as NSCID s; within the intelligence community they are
called "Nonskids". In addition, the Director of Central
Intelligence issues DCIDs. Under the authority of the NSCIDs
these apparently can be issued by the Director of Central
Intelligence without further clearance by the NSC. These
directives and other Presidential and CIA documents together
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
14
form what is sometimes referred to as the "secret charter" of
the CIA.
Thus, a secret agency engages in secret operations that
carry the risk of war, under secret directives unavailable to
the press, the public, or most members of the Congress. Indeed,
until the Watergate revelations of 1973, Congress was not curious
about this "secret charter." In July of 1973, however, Senator
Stuart Symington did ask some questions at hearings of the
Senate Armed Services Committee on the nomination of William
Colby to be Director of CIA. Symington said: "We understand
some...directives to the intelligence community are included
in classified decuments called National Security Council
Intelligence Directives, NSCIDs. Would you describe in general
the subject matter of these Directives; and., if you believe they
should remain classified, would you tell the committee why you
think so?"
Colby replied: "These Directives are the application of
the ether function.s2 provision of the law that I cited, Mr.
Chairman...They include some general directives which describe
the functions of the different members of the intelligence
community and there is certain sensitive information in those.
Those are National Security Council documents, Mr. Chairman,
and I de not have the authority for the declassification since
they originate with the National Security Council."
Senator William Proxmire had slightly better luck with
Colby. In a series of written questions submitted to the CIA
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
15
director in 1973, Proxmire asked:
Question. "What reason does the patiorial Security Council
give for not making_public the secret ,Charter, of the CIA, the
NSCIDs?"
Answer. I respectfully suggest that this matter be raised
with the National Security Council,
Next, Proxmire wanted to know whether National Security
Action Memorandum #57 set out guidelines for restraining covert
operations to a small size "and only then with adequate
deniability." Colby would not discuss NSAM 57. What other NSC
documents describing CIA operations would be availablelProxmire
asked.
Colby replied: "Operations of the CIA and other intelligence
components are conducted under the authority of the NSCIDs and a
variety of other Executive Orders and directives. I have been
authorized to brief the Committee on the basic ones, the NSCIDs,
on a classified basis."
In 1963, former President Truman wrote:
any thought...
"I never had / when I set up the CIA that it would be
injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of
the complications and embarrassment that I think we have
experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet
intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its
intended roleAI would like to see the CIA be restored to its
original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President
and whatever else it can .properly perform in that special
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
16
field and that its operational duties be terminated or
properly used elsewhere.
"We have grown up as a nation respected for our free
institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open
society. There is something about the way the CIA has been
functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic
position, and. I feel that we need to correct it."*
Truman's quote is puzzling in the light of the NSCIDs
issued during his Presidency permitting covert operations. It
is possible, however, that Truman was appalled by the scope of
these operations. By 1963, when Truman wrote these words, the
CIA had received adverse publicity from the shooting down of
the U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union in 1960 and the ill-
fated invasion of Cuba at Bay of Pigs in 1961.
Symington questioned. Richard Helms about Truman's statement
during hearings on Helms' nomination to be ambassador to Iran in
1973.
This exchange occurred:
Mr. HELMS. And as far as President Truman's
comment is concerned I recall vividly when that
was made in 1963 and we were all stunned, because
the document signed off by the National Security
Council which put the Agency in some of the matters
*Article by Harry S. Truman, syndicated by North American
Newspaper Alliance in The Wuhington Post, December 22, 1963.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
17
was done during President Truman's
administration.
Senator SYMINGTON. It is incredible to
me has been for many years, that this
committee does not know of your activities
in foreign countries with which we are not
at war. It not only doesn't make any sense,
but, it has resulted in heavy loss of both '
money and respect.
II. MECHANISMS OF CONTROL
Before discussing the machinery for the control of covert
operations, the nature of those operations should be more
precisely defined. Perhaps the best definition was provided
by Richard M. Bissell, the CIA's Deputy Director for Plans
between 1958 and February, 1962 in which capacity he ran
covert operations for the agency. Bissell was one of the
fathers of the 13-2 reconnaissance aircraft and the principal
planner of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The minutes of a private
discussion on intelligence sponsored by the Council on Foreign
Relations in 1968 summarizes Bissell's view:
"Covert operations should, for some purposes, be divided
Into two classifications: (1) intelligence collection,
primarily espionage, or the obtaining of intelligence by covert
means; and. (2) covert action, attempting to influence the
internal affairs of other nations-- sometimes called
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
18
'intervention'-- by covert means."*
It is with Bissell's second category, covert action--
attempting to influence the internal affairs of other nations--
that this paper is primarily concerned.
In the Council on Foreign Relations meeting, Bissell went
on to list the dimensions of covert action. He said:
"The scope of covert action could include: (1) political
advice or counsel; (2) subsidies to an individual; (3) financial
support and !technical assistance' to political parties; (4)
support of private organizations, including labor unions,
business firms, cooperatives, etc.; (5) covert propaganda;
(6) 'private' training of individuals and exchange of persons;
(7) economic operations; and (8) paramilitary for political
-action operations designed to overthrow or to support a regime
(like the Bay of Pigs and the programs in Laos). These
operations can be classified in various ways: by the degree
and type of secrecy required by their legality, and, perhaps,
by their benign or hostile character."**
*From the third meeting of the Discussion Group on Intelligence
and Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, January 8,
1968, quoted in "The CIA's Global Strategy: Intelligence and
Foreign Policy" (Cambridge, Mass: The Africa Research Group,
1971), p. 8. The quotations are from the minutes of the
meeting, which paraphrased and summarized the remarks of the
participants.
**Ibid., p. 13.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
19
Bissell's categories pretty well cover the waterfront,
although of course under each headings one could list many
variations. To take one example, covert propaganda could
include clandestine radio stations, either in or outside the
target countries; disinformation, that is, deliberately false,
or at least partly false material circulated within a target
country but designed to appear authentic-- a forged official
document allegedly from the files of a foreign ministry but
actually prepared at CIA headquarters in Virginia, for example.
The distinction contained in Bissell's point eight is important.
Special operations may be designed either to place pressure
upon, or overthrow a government, or to maintain it in power.
In The Invisible Government, published in 1964, the author of
this paper and. Thomas B. Ross disclosed for the first time the
existence of the "Special Group" the inter-agency government
committee customarily cited by intelligence officials as the
principal mechanism for the control of covert operations.* It
is significant to note that for the first several years of the
CIA's existence there was no such formal body; not until late
in the first Eisenhower administration was the Special Group
established. Before that, covert operations were discussed at
the "OCB luncheon group." The participants were members of the
now defunct Operations Coordinating Board, who were drawn from
*David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government
(New York: Random House, 1964), pp. 5, 6, 260-62, 293, 351.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
20
various departments of the government dealing with foreign
affairs. During this period, apparently, intervention in the
internal affairs of other countries was a subject for casual
discussion by an informal group over lunch.
The Special Group was also known during the Eisenhower
years as the "54/12 Group" and has been periodically renamed;
during the Johnson years it was known as the 303 Committee--
after a room number in the Executive Office Building-- and
during the Nixon administration, it acquired the name "Forty
Committee". The Forty Committee is reportedly a designation
taken from the serial number of the NSC document defining its
membership and responsibilities. It was to this committee
(under its earlier name) to which Allen Dulles was referring
when he wrote in a now famous statement:
"The facts are that the CIA has never carried out any
action of a political nature, given any support of any nature
to any persons, potentates or movements, political or otherwise,
without appropriate approval at high political level in our
government Outside the CIA."*
In 1974 the members of the Forty Committee were the
President's assistant for national security, the Deputy Secretary
of Defense, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, the
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Chairman of
*Allen W. Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence (New York: Harper
& Row Publishers, Inc., 1963), p. 189.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
21
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Since we are told that we must rely on the wisdom and
judgment of these high officials, and that every covert
operation undertaken by CIA anywhere around the globe is
approved, at this high level, it is not entirely comforting
to note that during the period that John N. Mitchell served
as Attorney General he was added to the ranks of the Forty
Committee. As a member of the committee, Mitchell listened
to CIA plans for cloak and dagger operations designed to
influence the political affairs of other nations. Possibly
he became so accustomed to this atmosphere that he was
willing to listen to G. Gordon Liddy's plans for domestic
political espionage. For it was while Mitchell was Attorney
General and a member of the Forty Committee that he permitted
discussions in his office of bugging the opposition political
party, of financing floating bordellos to suborn Democratic
politicans, and. of a plan to kidnap domestic dissidents and
spirit them to Mexico in order to avoid any problems during
the Republican National Convention.
It is perhaps tiresome to point out that we are a government
of laws not men but in citing the Forty Committee as proof of
control over covert operations, we are really relying on a
group of men who operate entirely in secret and can, in the
final analysis, approve almost anything. Mitchell's presence
on the Forty Committee is hardly reassuring in this respect.
During a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Hubert Humphrey expressed some alarm about Mitchell's
membership on the Forty Committee and asked Richard Helms
about it. Helms confirmed that Mitchell had been a member
of the committee while Attorney General, "but I know that
after Mr. Mitchell left office, the succeeding Attorney
General never attended any meetings."
Celebrations over that fact would be premature, as the
dialogue that followed might suggest:
Senator HUMPHREY. Was Mr. Ehrlichman or Mr.
Haldeman a member of the Forty Committee or
did they sit with the committee?
Mr. HELMS. No, sir, they were not
members of the committee but that is not
to say that they never sat. I believe in
one crisis meeting, one of them came down
One day...but they were not regular members,
and I do not think that they were actually--
well, they certainly were not participants.*
*Now truly alarmed, Humphrey pressed: "How many times did
Mr. Erhlichman and Mr. Haldeman come, to the best of your
knowledge?"
Mr. HELMS. Now, I am rethinking this and
this may have been a Washington Special Action
Group Committee meeting, rather than a 40 Committee
meeting; I regret my misstatement, but it tended
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
23
-(fn continued)
to be the same membership for both Committees.
See "Nomination of Richard Helms to be Ambassador to Iran and
CIA International and Domestic Activities", Hearing. before the
Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 93rd
Congress, 1st Session, May 21, 1973, pp. 75-76.
No more mysterious group exists within the government than
the Forty Committee. Its operations are so secret that in an
appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, CIA
Director Colby was even reluctant to identify the chairman.
The following exchange took place during a hearing on Colby's
nomination:
Senator SYMINGTON. Very well. What is
the name of the latest committee of this
character?
Mr. COLBY. Forty Committee.
Senator SYMINGTON. Who is the chairman?
Mr. COLBY. Well again, I would prefer to
go into executive session on the description
of the Forty Committee, Mr. Chairman.
Senator SYMINGTON. Zfncreduloupi As to
who is the chairman, you would prefer an
executive session?
Mr. COLBY. The chairman, all right, Mr.
Chairman, Dr. Kissinger is the chairman as
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
214.
the Assistant to the President for national
security affairs.*
Because of the cocoon of secrecy enveloping the operations
of the Forty Committee, it is very difficult to assess the
extent to which the Committee exercises effective control over
special operations. For example, Executive Branch officials
consistently refused to explain the actions of the Forty
Committee to a Senate subcommittee investigating the role of
CIA and the International Telephone & Telegraph Company in
Chile during the period 1970-71. The Subcommittee on Multinational
Corporations, headed by Senator Frank Church, Democrat, of Idaho,
conducted the 1972 investigation of charges that ITT and. CIA
were involved in a plot to prevent the 1970 election of leftist
President Salvador Allende of Chile. The record of this
tangled story of CIA intervention in Chile is replete with
contradictions. In 1973, Mr. Helms was questioned about the
CIA role by Senator Symington. This exchange took place:
Senator SYMINGTON. Did you try in the
Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow the
Government of Chile?
Mr. HELMS. No, sir.
Senator SYMINGTON. Did you have any
*"Nomination of William E. Colby," Hearing before the Committee
on Armed. Services, United States. Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st
Session, July 2, 1973, p. 14.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
25
money passed to the opponents of Allende?
Mr. HELMS. No, sir.*
However, John A. McCone, former Director of the CIA and
a Director of ITT, testified to the Church subcommittee that
Helms had told him that, while the Forty Committee had decided
against any major action designed to prevent Allende's election,
some "minimal effort" would be mounted which "could be managed
within the flexibility of their own 471A7 budget," without
seeking additional appropriated funds.**
The ITT-CIA story is a complex one, but it is clear from
the record of the Senate subcommittee that the intelligence
agency's clandestine directorate was in constant touch with
ITT, which had substantial investments in Chile, about ways to
blookAllende from becoming President. McCone suggested to
Helms that CIA originate discussions with ITT, and Helms had
William V. Broe, Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of
the Clandestine Services, contact Harold S. Geneen, the
Chairman of ITT. Later, McCone testified, Geneen told McCone
"that he was prepared to put up as much as $1 million in
support of any plan" to oppose Allende. McCone testified that
*"Nomination of Richard Helms," o ci/c, p. 47.
an
**"The International Telephone /Telegraph Company in Chile,
1970-71," Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United
States Senate, by the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations,
June 21, 1973, p. 3.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
26
Helms had informed him that the Forty Committee had discussed
the situation in Chile in June of 1970
and decided that the CIA would do nothing of consequence to
intervene in the September 4 election. On that date, Allende
received the most votes, but no candidate had a majority; as
a result, the election was thrown into the Chilean congress,
which was to decide the outcome on October 24, 1970.
During this critical six-week period, Washington apparently
became much more receptive to plans to block Allende's election
in the congress. Charles Meyer, Assistant Secretary of State
for Inter-American Affairs, testified that soon after the
September 4th election, the Forty Committee met again to
discuss U.S. policy toward Chile. Meyer declined to tell the
Church subcommittee what took place at this meeting of the
Forty Committee or what instructions were given to the U.S.
ambassador to Chile. It is known, however, that on September
29, at the direction of Helms, Broe met Edward Gerrity, a top
ITT executive, in New York and proposed a plan to accelerate
economic chaos in Chile in order to weaken Allende's position.
As the Senate subcommittee report states: "Mr. Meyer was
unwilling to inform the subcommittee of the substance of the
Forty Committee meeting. The subcommittee is, accordingly,
unable to say whether Mr. Helms' instruction to Mr. Broe to
contact Mr. Gerrity and make proposals to Mr. Gerrity for
creating economic dislocation in Chile were a direct outcome
of the Forty Committee meeting which took place shortly after
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
27
Allende won a plurality in the September 4th election."
While the role of the Forty Committee in the Chilean
affair remains obscure, it is clear that the committee could
not possibly have exercised control over everything that
occurred. For example, the initial discussion between Broe
and Geneen was not the result of any instruction by the Forty
Committee but of the direct approach by McCone to Helms.
Patently, the "old-boy" network was involved here. A former
director of the CIA, the man who had appointed Helms as the
agency's top covert operator, simply telephoned his old
colleague. Since McCone was also Director of ITT, the
interests of CIA and the multinational corporation neatly
dovetailed.
If the Forty Committee did. approve intensified contact
between CIA and ITT just prior to the runoff election in the
Chilean congress, then the Forty Committee was merely seizing
upon a channel of communication that it never opened in the
first place. One may ask whether the Forty Committee, in
this instance, was in the position of the tail wagging the
dog. In any event, the administration was unwilling to describe
the role of the Forty Committee to a duly constituted
subcommittee of the Senate of the United States. Thus, we
are asked to take on faith the assurance that secret operations
conducted under secret directives are adequately controlled by
a secret committee that makes its decisions in secret. Moreover,
in the manner of the fox placed in charge of the chicken coop,
the Director of Central Intelligence is a member of the Forty
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
28
Committee. Although it is difficult to arrive at final
conclusions about a body that operates in complete secrecy,
it seems most unlikely that a committee of five men, one of
whom is the head of the CIA, and whose other members are
busy men with important responsibilities in other agencies
of the government, can exercise effective control over
special operations.
Covert operations are a tempting shortcut to the
achievement of policy goals. The covert operators can
naturally be expected to make the best possible case to
the Forty Committee. One official familiar with the operations
of the committee has been quoted as saying: "They were like a
bunch of schoolboys. They would listen and their eyes would
bug out. I always used to say that I could. get $5 million
out of the Forty Committee for a covert operation faster than
I could get money for a typewriter out of the ordinary
bureaucracy."*
Senator Proxmire, who has studied the intelligence
community, has stated: "In practice, it appears that the 40
Committee mainly approves activities coordinated at lower
levels. If a promising operation can be coordinated at a
working level where the concept originates, it often rises
through the intelligence community with little critical
*Marilyn Berger, "'Dirty Tricks' Have Had a Long History,"
The Washington Post, May 26, 1973/ PP. 1, 9.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
29
challenge until it arrives at the 40 Committee. There,
because it has been reviewed by the 'experts' it is frequently
approved."*
"As compared to alternatives, the necessary approval for
covert operations is easier to obtain," Morton H. Halperin
and Jeremy J. Stone have suggested. "The President himself
can often usually authorize them without having to go to
Congress for funds or to make a public justification. But
they also seem cheap and easy because they can usually be
disavowed, if necessary."**
Since the President is not a member of the Forty Committee,
its existence permits, the claim that covert operations are
controlled at a high level in government. On the other hand,
the existence of the committee permits the President to disclaim
personal knowledge of a covert operation if it should fail and
prove embarrassing.
Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk has been quoted As
saying: "Dirty tricks form about 5 per cent of the CIA's work--
and we have full control over dirty tricks."***
But the sheer
*The Congressional Record, Monday, June 4, 1973, p. S10220.
**Morton H. Halperin and ,Jeremy J. Stone oecrecy and Covert
Intelligence Collection and Operations," in None of Your
Business (New York: The Viking Press, 1974), p. 111.
***"Foreign Policy: Nixon Dissatisfied, with Size and Cost of
Intelligence Set Up," The New York Times, January 22, 1971.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
30
size of the bureaucracy casts doubt on the effectiveness of
As already noted,
the Forty Committee./ it is not plausible that a committee,
most of whose members spend the majority of their time on other
matters can control every covert operation being conducted by
the CIA around the globe. The size of the Directorate of
Operations within the CIA lends support to this view.
According to Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks in their book,
The CIA and. the Cult of Intelligence, the clandestine services
employ 6,000 people, making it the largest single element
within CIA with the largest budget ($440 million). Of this
total, Marchetti and. Marks estimate 1,800 persons are assigned
to covert action, with a budget of $260 million dollars.*
There is simply too much going on at any given time to be
controlled by a part-time committee. For example, in 1962,
the S.S. Streatham Hill, a British freighter leased by the
Soviet Union, limped into San Juan, Puerto Rico, for repairs
with 80,000 bags of Cuban sugar in her hold. She had struck
a propeller on a reef. Many of the sacks of sugar were put
into a warehouse during repairs. CIA agents managed to
contaminate the sugar that had been unloaded with what was
described "harmless but unpalatable substance." A White
House official happened to see a report about the sabotage
and informed President Kennedy. The President was not merely
*Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of
Intelligence (New York: Knopf, 1974), p. 61.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
31
annoyed; he was "furious," and ordered, that the contaminated
sugar not be permitted to leave Puerto Rico.* It did not
appear in other words, that the Forty Committee had approved
this particular covert operation. If it did approve,, t did
not inform the President.
Even when an operation is approved by the Forty Committee,
important details must obviously be left to lower level
bureaucrats and operators in the field. For example, during
the preparation for the Bay of Pigs invasion, CIA agents told
members of the Cuban brigade that President Kennedy would not
permit the invasion to fail, and that if it faltered., the
President would commit American military power to assure the
success of the operation. Did the Forty Committee authorize
that such assurances be given to members of the Cuban brigade?
It seems doubtful.
It also seems reasonable to speculate that certain covert
operations are considered so sensitive that the CIA will not
bring them to the attention of the Forty Committee. One former
high official of the CIA told this writer, "There are some
things that you don't tell Congress; some things you don't even
tell the President." He apparently meant that some activities
of the CIA are too sensitive to entrust to the President.
Once a covert operation is underway, it may move in
*"CIA Operation: A Plot Scuttled�Plan to Doctor Cuban Sugar
Depicts Control Problem," The New York Times, April 28, 1966.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
32
directions that cannot be controlled by a committee in
Washington, however distinguished its members. A case in
point might be the circumstances surrounding the assassination
of dictator Rafael L. Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. In
1959, Henry Dearborn, then a foreign service officer, arrived
in the Dominican Republic as charge d'affairs. When the United
States broke off diplomatic relations with Trujillo in August
of that year, Dearborn remained on as Counsel General and, the
senior U.S. official in the Dominican Republic. "For the last
year my job was to know what was going on," Dearborn
said in an interview. "I had very good
connections with the underground. I did know what was going
on."* The group was planning the assassination of Trujillo
during this period did so "knowing that the United States
wasn't going to be unhappy if he was 'bumped off,'" Dearborn
added, "I did. not know when it was going to happen, but I had
a feeling that it was going to happen, and so reported it" to
Washington.
Dearbern denied any direct knowledge of CIA encouragement
of the plotters. Asked whether he gave encouragement to the
anti-Trujillo group, he replied: "Our attitude-- they didn't
have to ask us about that, the mere fact that we were in
contact with them reflected that."
*Interview by the author with Henry Dearborn, September 25,
1972, Washington, D.C.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
33
But around the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion in
mid-April of 1961, Dearborn said, "Washington's attitude
abruptly reversed." Until'then,he said,he had
received "only an interested reception in Washington of
imminent plans to move against Trujillo. Up to that time
we did not object to their plot. After the Bay of Pigs, I
did tell them of the dismay in Washington, that the attitude
had. changed. But we didn't control them, so it didn't change
their plans." Dearborn said the State Department "did instruct
me to urge them ghe undergroung7 not to take action against
Trujillo. It was too late; Trujillo was assassinated in May
of 1961.
In addition to the Forty Committee there are two other
possible or potential mechanisms of control of covert
operations: the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board and the shadowy CIA oversight committees in the House
and Senate. But the available evidence does not indicate that
either the FIAB or the congressional committees control these
operations, The FIAB was originally established by Eisenhower
in 1956 as a result of a recommendation of the Hoover
Commission. It was permitted to lapse and then revived by
President Kennedy with its present name in 1961. Under
President Nixon the board was headed by retired Admiral George
W. Anderson, Jr. The eleven-member board consists of prominent
businessmen, scientists, and others outside the government.
While the board has from time to time investigated intelligence
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
34
failure and made recommendations for orglnizational changes
within the intelligence community,. it does not approve covert
operations in advance. The board is something of an anomaly
in that it consists of private citizens privileged to know
the innermost secrets of U.S. intelligence agencies that are
denied to the public at large.*
Four subcommittees of the House and Senate are supposed
to serve as watchdog committees over U.S. intelligence agencies.
They are the subcommittees of the Armed, Services and
Appropriations committees in the Senate and in the House.
These committees give the appearance of control over CIA
without the reality. For the most part, they consist of
senior members of Congress, many of whom are friendly to CIA.
The attitude of members of these committees toward covert
operations may best have been summed up in a comment of
former Senator Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts. To
Saltonstall, the problem was that we might obtain information
which I personally would rather not have..." CIA directors
have insisted that the informal subcommittees exercise control
over the agency; these claims may be tested against a remark
made by Senator John C. Stennis, chairman of the Senate Armed
Services subcommittee on CIA. In November, 1971, he assured
his colleagues "this agency is conducted in a splendid way.
*In July of 1974, one member of the board, former Governor John
Connally of Texas was indicted in a "milk money" bribery case.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
35
As has been said, spying is spying...You have to make up your
mind that you are going to have an intelligence agency and
protect it as such, and shut your eyes some, and take what
is coming." Symington, a member of the CIA subcommittee,
replied to Stennis: "I wish his interest in the subject had
developed to the point where he had held just one meeting of
the CIA subcommittee this year, just one meeting.".*
III. A HISTORY OF COVERT OPERATIONS
No complete history of CIA covert political operations
can be written, since the files relating to these operations
remain classified- Moreover, intelligence organizations are
traditionally compartmentalized, so that exposure of one
operation or agent will not necessarily compromise other
operations and personnel. Thus, even within the Directorate
of Plans, knowledge of specific covert operations is denied
to all but those persons with a need to know.
Nevertheless, over the years a substantial number of CIA.
covert operations have surfaced, in some cases because they
failed and were publicized. Still other covert operations have
come to light as a result of independent research by writers,
journalists, scholars and. others, published in book form, and
in newspaper and magazine accounts. In recent years, some former
CIA employees have also disclosed details of certain covert
*Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, op. cit., introduction
to the Vintage Edition (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. xi.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
36
operations.
The following brief compilation of covert operations
indicates that during the past 25 years there was no year in
which some major secret CIA operation was not taking place in
some country somewhere in the world. It is also safe to
assume that if this many covert operations have become public
knowledge, many others, both "successful" and unsuccessful,
have not. But even a partial list would include the
following:
BURMA (1949-61). The CIA supported some 12,000
Nationalist Chinese troops who had fled to Burma in 1949 as
the Communists gained control of mainland China. The Chinese
Nationalist troops became heavily involved in the opium trade.
The United States ambassador to Burma, unaware of the CIA role,
answered Burmese protests of the presence of the troops by
repeatedly denying U.S. involvement.*
CHINA (1951-54). During this period the CIA air-dropped
guerrilla teams into the People's Republic of China. In
November 1952 the Chinese captured two American CIA agents,
John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau. The U.S. claimed that
they were employees of the "Department of the Army". After 20
years of U.S. denials that the two men were CIA agents, Fecteau
*The covert operations described in this section are from
Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, ob, cit., unless
otherwise sourced.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
-37
was released in December, 1971, shortly before President
Nixon's trip to Peking. Downey was freed in March, 1973,
soon after Nixon, at a press conference, finally publicly
acknowledged him to be "a CIA agent."
� PHILIPPINES (early 1950,$). The CIA supported Ramon
Magsaysay's campaign against the Communist Huk guerrillas.
The key CIA figure in this operation was Edward Lansdale,
who later became an important CIA operator in Vietnam during
the mid-1950's.
IRAN (1953). The CIA organized and directed the coup
that overthrew the government of Premier Mohammed Mossadegh
and kept the Shah on his throne. The operation was run by
Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore
Roosevelt. Mossadegh had nationalized the Iranian oil
industry; one result of his overthrow by the CIA was that a
group of Western oil companies signed a 25-year agreement
with Iran for its oil. For the first time, American companies
were permitted into Iran, with a 40 per cent share of the deal.
GUATEMALA (1954). In one of its most ambitious
undertakings, the CIA overthrew the Communist-dominated
government of President Jacob� Arbenz Guzman with U.S. arms
and a CIA airforce of World War II P-47 Thunderbolts. Col.
Carlos Castillo-Armas crossed the border from Honduras with
150 men. The operation had the full approval of President
Eisenhower, who later confirmed the U.S. role in a 1963 speech
and in his memoirs.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
38
CUBA (1956). The CIA established and supported BRAC, an
anti-Communist police force under dictator Fulgencio Batista.
BRAC became well-known for brutal methods.*
INDONESIA (1958). With a secret airforce of B-26 bombers
based at the Philippines, the CIA supported rebel elements in
the Celebes who were fighting to overthrow President Sukarno.
One of the CIA pilots, Allen Lawrence Pope, was shot down on
a bombing run, parachuted and was captured. President
Eisenhower falsely claimed that the U.S. policy was one of
"careful neutrality" and suggested that Pope was one of the
"soldiers of fortune" who turned up in every war. Pope was
freed four years later through the intervention of Robert
Kennedy.
TIBET (1958-61). The CIA established a secret base at
Camp Hale, Colorado, nearly 10,000 feet high in the Rocky
Mountains, near Leadville. There the CIA trained Tibetan
guerrillas who were infiltrated back into Tibet to fight
against the Chinese Communists. The CIA's clandestine
operators later claimed that some of the guerrillas from
Camp Hale helped to guide the Dalai Lama over the mountains
to safety in India in 1959. The entire operation almost
surfaced in 1961 when a group of civilians were held at
gunpoint at an airfield at Colorado Springs while the CIA
*Andrew Hamilton, "The CIA's Dirty Tricks under Fire-- at Last"
The Proaussive, September 19, 1973, p. 18.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
39
loaded. ome of the Tibel;ans on a transport plane.*
SINGAPORE (1960). Two CIA agents were arrested in a
bungled operation that resulted from a decision by Allen
Dulles, then CIA director, to infiltrate Singapore with CIA
agents rather than rely on MI6, the British Secret Service,
which was already established in Singapore. The agents were
caught when they checked into a hotel room, plugged, in a lie
detector to test a spy recruit, and blew out all of the lights
in the hotel. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was forced to
apologize to Premier Lee Kuan Yew in 1961.** The State .
Department initially denied and then admitted the apology had
been made.
CUBA (1961). A brigade of Cuban exiles trained and
supported by the CIA on a remote coffee plantation in Guatemala
was decimated when it invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in an
ill-fated attempt to overthrow Premier Fidel Castro. Many of
the brigade members were captured. Four American pilots
flying for the CIA died in the invasion. U.N. ambassador
Adlai E. Stevenson recited the CIA's false cover story to the
United Nations when the invasion commenced. The training of
the Cuban exiles had begun under Eisenhower, but the invasion
*David Wise, The Politics of Lying: Government Deceptioal.
Secrecy, and Power (New York: Random House, 1973), pp. 163-178.
**The New York Times, April 26, 1966.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
was carried out by President Kennedy, for whom it proved a
major disaster.
BRAZIL (1962). The CIA spent a reported $20 million
dollars in the Brazilian election in support of hundreds of
candidates for gubernatorial, congressional, and state and
local offices. A major objective was to deny leftist
President Goulart control of the Brazilian Congress in 1962.*
VIETNAM (1963). The CIA worked closely and secretly
with the group of generals who carried out the coup against
President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam on November 10 1963.
Diem was killed in the coup. A week before, the generals
assured the top CIA agent Concerned that the plan of operation
marked "eyes only" for ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge would be
turned over to the CIA two days before the coup "for Lodge's
CIA
review.."** Other/activities in Vietnam are too numerous to
be summarized here; perhaps the best known grew into the
Phoenix Program,designed to "neutralize" the Vietcong. Over
a three-year period, at least 20,587 persons were killed under
the program, which was run by William Colby, the present head
of CIA.
CHILE (1964 and 1970). The CIA spent an estimated $20
million in 1964 in a successful effort to elect Eduardo Frei,
*Andrew Hamilton, op cit., p. 18, and Laurence Stern, The
Washington Post, July 11, 1974, p. A3.
**David Wise, The Politics of Lying, op. cit. p. 41.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
41
the Christian Democratic candidate, over Salvador Allende.*
Unsuccessful CIA efforts to block Allende's election six years
later have been discussed earlier in this paper.
CONGO (1964). Cuban exile pilots who had flown at the
Bay of Pigs again flew B-26 bombers for the CIA, under the
cover of a company called Caramar, to suppress a revolt
against the central Congolese government.** The CIA was
very active in the Congo in the early 1960's when that new
nation became a center of Cold War rivalry; the agency threw
its support to Joseph Mobutu, who became President.
GREECE (1967). The role of the CIA in the coup that placed
a military junta in power in Greece in 1967 remains murky
even today; but it has been publicly acknowledged that the
agency had worked closely with Colonel George Fapadopoulos,
the colonel who led the coup. At his Senate confirmation
hearing, Colby denied a London Observer report that the CIA
had. "engineered" the coup. Senator Symington asked whether
Papadopoulos had been an "agent for the CIA." Colby replied.,
"He has not been an agent. He has been an official of the
Greek government at various times, in those periods and from
time to time we worked with him in an official capacity."
*Laurence Stern, "U.S. Helped to Beat Allende in 1964" The
Washington Post, April 6, 1973, p. 1.
**David Wise and Thomas B. Ross,. The Espionage Establishment,
op. cit., p.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
42
When Symington asked whether Papadopoulos had been paid any
money by CIA, Colby replied, nI just do not know. I can say
we did nbt pay him personally." Later Colby submitted a
statement for the record saying, the CIA "never" paid
Papadopoulos any money, a denial that would not, however,
preclude payments through intermediaries.*
BOLIVIA (1967). A team of CIA covert operators were
dispatched to Bolivia to aid the government of that country
in tracking down Ernesto "Che" Guevara, a principal
lieutenant of Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution. Guevara
disappeared from Cuba in 1965, then reappeared as the head of
the guerrilla movement in Bolivia. Following Guevara's.
capture and death, Antonio Arguedas, the Bolivian Minister of
Ar uedas,
the Interior, announced that he, ad been an agent of the CIA.
for two years and had released Guevara's diary.**
LAOS (1962-63). CIA covert operations in Laos have
virtually become a tradition in that small Asian nation. In
1960 the State Department and the CIA each backed different
political leaders to be the head of the Laotian government.
It was not the first time CIA covert activities have clashed
with the overt policies of other branches of the U.S. government.
In August, 1971, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee published
*"Nomination of William E. Colby," op. cit., p. 3. See also:
The New York Times, August 2, 1974, p. 1.
**Marchetti and Marks, op. cit., pp. 125-132.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
43
a staff report disclosing that the CIA for years had maintained
a 30,000-man army in Laos, consisting principally of Meo
tribesmen operating under General Vans Pao. Air America, a
CIA airline, provided air support for the secret war in Laos.
The 1973 Laotian accord supposedly marked the end of this
covert operation.
ITALY (1958-67). After World War II the CIA began covert
financing of the Christian Democratic Party, with payments
averaging as high as $3 million a year through the late 1950's.
In 1970, Graham A. Martin, then ambassador to Italy,
unsuccessfully urged the CIA to resume its secret financing
of the Christian Democrats, but his proposal was turned down.*
As already noted, CIA concern over a possible Communist
victory in 1948 Italian elections marked the start of the
agency's global intervention through covert political action.
Thus, even this limited list of secret political operations
illustrates the wide range of CIA covert action; including
dropping of agents by parachute, support of anti-guerrilla
activity, overthrowing governments regarded as unfriendly to
Western political or economic interests, training of secret
police, training of foreign guerrillas in the continental
United States, full-scale paramilitary invasion, attempts to
*Seymour M. Hersh, "Ex-U.S. Envoy is Said to Have Urged
Financing of Italian Political Faction," The New York Times,
May 13, 1973.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
rig elections, training and financing of a secret army to
fight a secret war, and clandestine support of friendly
political parties. While the techniques have varied in
different countries and at different times, the basic
objectives have remained the same: to manipulate the
internal politics of other countries by secret action in
ways that can, and have, often been denied by a succession
of American Presidents.
IV. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Like the CIA itself, covert political operations are a
direct outf;rowth of the expanded American world role that
developed during and after World War II. Andlas in the case
of the security classification system that facilitates the
secrecy surrounding these operations, secret political action
grew in a vacuum with insufficient public debate or
questioning.
Covert operations may be viewed most clearly against the
background of the Cold War that provided their justification
in the eyes of the policymakers. For two decades, Americans
were warned of the perils of a monolithic international
Communism; to preserve the Free World it was deemed necessary,
in the words of Allen Dulles, to "fight fire with fire." The
external enemy was the rationale for the establishment of a
vast secret intelligence bureaucracy, its operations subject
to none of the usual checks and balances that the American
system imposes on more plebeian government agencies. Thus,
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
45
history could be manipulated in favor of the good guys-- us.
The United. States could wage secret war against what Dean
Rusk liked to call 'the other side;" Or, as Allen Dulles
contended in The Craft of Intelligence, the United States
could not wait to act until "we are invited in by a government"--
by then it might be too late.
What might have seemed logical and necessary in an era
of Cold War does not seem justified today. The world has
changed; the Communist "monolith" has become fragmented, the
superpowers seek detente, but covert political action goes on.
Yet it is difficult to, discover any moral or legal basis
for such operations,apd they are, at best, of doubtful
constitutionality. Morally, no one appointed the.United
States to intervene in the internal affairs of other nations.
Such operations violate the charter of the United Nations.
And one can imagine the- reaction in this country if a
foreign intelligence service launched an invasion of the
United States in Florida, poured millions of dollars into
the country to support a presidential candidate or congressional
candidates in order to influence the outcome of an American
election, or attempted a coup to overthrow the President. A
world groping for peace cannot afford secret wars.
Legally, the argument that the "other functions" clause
can justify large-scale covert operations is extremely tenuous.,
There is no indication that Congress intended the "other
functions" provision to justify such operations, and if Congress
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
did, the language of the statute would be overly broad.
Moreover, covert operations-- at least those
involving paramilitary action or the overthrow of governments--
would appear almost by definition to be unconstitutional. The
Constitution vests the war power in the Congress, and operations
on this scale are clearly the equivalent of undeclared war.
Yet they are undertaken by Executive action alone; Congress
and the public, which Congress represents, have no opportunity
to debate or approve such operations in advance.
The President, it is true, has a constitutional
responsibility to prOtect national security, but this does not
extend to waging undeclared wars. If there is no moral,, legal
or constitutional basis for covert political operations, it
may be argued that there remains a practical basis-- that
such operations are prarLmatically necessary to protect
American security. There is, however, -a fatal flaw in such
an argument.
A democracy rests on the consent of the governed, and
the governed are not permitted to give their consent to
covert political actions because of their very nature.
Moreover, when secret political operations are exposed, the
government lies to protect them, by denying responsibility.
The price has proved too high in terms of public confidence
in the system of government. It does not work.
The road to Watergate was paved with government lying,
often to protect covert political operations. The result was
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
the greatest crisis in the American political system since
the Civil War, the impeachment vote by the House Committee on
the Judiciary, and, for the first time in almost 200 years, the
resignation of a President while in office. The standard of
"plausible deniability" has no place in the American
constitutional system. For in plain language, it means that
the government can act as it pleases if it can get away with
lying about its actions to the electorate. Covert operations
have not proved workable in the American system; they are like
a transplant rejected by the democratic host.
damaging political
The/effect of covert operations on the American/system
is the crucial and overriding consideration. But even from
a practical standpoint, covert operations often have had the
opposite effect of that intended. The Bay of Pigs strengthened
Castrols position and weakened President Kennedyts. The
government of Iran and Guatemala were overthrown but the
reputation of the United States in Africa, South America and
Asia has been tainted precisely because of such covert
operations. As a result, the United States has sometimes been
blamed for activities for which the CIA has not been responsible.
Since covert operations are by definition secret, the
problem of control can never be solved in a democracy. If the
Forty Committee does exercise control, it cannot be
demonstrated, because its deliberations in turn are secret.
Again-, there is no way to graft secret political action onto
the body politic in a system that tests upon consent.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338
48
The inescapable conclusion is that the United. States
should cease covert political operations, for all the reasons
listed above. Congress, which has been struggling to regain
its war powers from the President, should assert its right
to end secret political intervention and secret wars as well.
Congressional debate and national debate, and legislation to
accomplish these ends are required. The "other functions"
clause should be rewritten specifically to exclude covert
political operations. Congress should improve its control
over the CIA and the intelligence community generally and
or more brofl,dly based committees in the House and Senate
establish a joint committee/for this purpose.
The Watergate crisis was a dramatic illustration Of
where the covert mentality can lead. us when applied to American
domestic politics.Watergate also proved something about the
resiliency of the American system, for the impeachment
proceeding and the resignation of Richard. Nixon in one sense
marked. the drawing of a line by the people. Thus far, but
no further-- America showed that it was not ready for
totalitarianism. The impeachment vote and Nixon's resignation
represented a cleansing of the American political process
domestically. The people and the Congress can and should
assert themselves just as powerfully in the field of foreign -
affairs. We need have no more Vietnams, no more secret wars
in Laos or Cambodia, no more Bays of Pigs. American foreign
policy can be carried out openly, without covert manipulation
in the affairs of other nations.
Approved for Release: 2019/04/09 C03268338