THE WAR OVER SECRET WARFARE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020020-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: September 30, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09T00207RO01000020020-1
NEWSW 1C
InQEP1974
The War Over Secret Warfare
I t was one thing for Dwight Eisenhower
to try to save a summit by taking
responsibility for the 1960 U-2 spy-plane
incident, and there wasn't any way John
Kennedy could have denied America's
involvement in the 1981 Bay of Pigs
fiasco. But it was an altogether different
matter when Gerald Ford admitted at
his press conference last week-
in a way no President ever. had
before-that the CIA had been
deeply involved over a period
of years in a clandestine effort
to oppose a foreign govern-
ment. Ford then went on to en-
dorse the CIA operation against
Marxist President Salvador Al-
lende as "in the best interest of
the people of Chile" and dis-
missed questions about the mo-
rality of such activities with the
explanation that "Communist na-
tions spend, vastly more money
than we do for the same kind
of purposes."
"It is the first time in my
memory," said Prof. Richard N.
Gardner, one of America's top
experts on international law,
"that a President has come out
flatly and said: `The other side
does it, and we do it.' " But
Ford's effort to appear candid
before the American people did
nothing to stem the growing con-
troversy in Washington over the
CIA. And new revelations later
in the week of the scope of CIA
covert operations in Chile fueled
the mounting debate.
Monster: While much of the
surface anger was directed
against the spy agency-with
lawmakers like Sen. Frank
Church talking of the need to
"control the monster"-there was
little in the latest disclosures
that truly surprised many con-
gressmen. And it was clear that
the CIA was in fact only a
pawn in a much larger domestic
political game. For Congress
was clearly hoping to use this
suggesting that the CIA had merely been
providing financial aid to Chile's op-
position newspapers and political par-
ties. For according to intelligence
sources, the majority of the $8 million
allocated for CIA covert operations in
Chile from 1970 to 1973 was actually
used to subsidize strikes by truckers,
lated, the CIA decided to "destabilize"
the government of President Jose Velas-
co Ibarra when he refused to break dip-
lomatic relations with Cuba. A coup
eventually followed, but to the CIA's
distress, Velasco's successor, Carlos Julio
Arosemena, proved equally obstinate on
the Cuba question. "We again applied
destabilizing tactics," Agee said.
"Arosemena finally backed down
and cut relations with Cuba. But
it was too late, and he was over-
thrown in 1963."
Despite an assertion by CIA
director William E. Colby that
the CIA's covert operations have
declined tremendously since the
cold war days, there is still an
impressive number of U.S. spies
out in the cold. More than a
third of the CIA's 16,500
full-time employees work for
the clandestine branch-current-
ly called the "Directorate of Op-
ations"-and an estimated 1,800
of these are directly involved
in so-called "dirty tricks." Re-
ports on the agency's covert op-
erations around the world all
find their way to the "head
shed"-the seventh-floor office at
the CIA's Langley, Va., head-
quarters of director Colby.
Target: Like most of his pre-
decessors, Colby came up
through the clandestine side of
the CIA and close associates de-
scribe him as fundamentally an
"
"
operations-oriented
director.
Most of the covert political op-
erations he directs today are in
the Middle East and Latin
America. For with detente, the
CIA sharply cut back the num-
ber of covert operations targeted
against East Europe and the So-
viet Union. And the technologi-
cal explosion in intelligence gath-
ering of the 1960s reduced the
need to use agents to collect in-
formation on these countries.
The CIA has also made a ma-
jor effort in recent years to im-
Anti-Allende rally-: What did the CIA's money buy?
latest controversy to further reduce the
power of the White House. As the battle
unfolded, concern was expressed in sev-
eral foreign capitals about the potential
impact on Secretary of State Henry Kis-
singer, who as head of the secret ~40
Committee authorized the CIA's Chile
activities (NEWSWEEK, Sept. 23). Kissin-
ger, already under fire for his handling
of the Cyprus crisis, was accused of de-
ceiving a Senate subcommittee panel on
"the extent and object of the CIA's ac-
tivities in Chile."
Certainly, it appeared that neither
Ford nor Kissinger was truly candid in
shopkeepers and taxi drivers that crip-
pled the Allende government and
plunged Chile deeper into chaos. And
many analysts believe those strikes made
the coup that toppled Allende inevitable.
Along with the new details about Chile,
other reports began to appear last week
of CIA involvement in unseating the gov-
ernments of other countries. Former
CIA agent Philip Agee, 39, now living
in England,. told NEWSWEEK'S John
Barnes of his involvement in bringing
clown two successive governments of Ec-
uador when the regimes refused to toe
the.U.S. policy line. In 1961, Agee re-
prove the covers used by agents abroad.
Under an agreement worked out in the
early 1950s, most CIA operatives posed
for almost two decades as State Depart-
ment officers, AID officials or employees
of the U.S. Information Agency. Many
still use this kind of cover, but the Soviets
have long since become adept at scan-
ning American Embassy staff lists and
picking out the spies. So in 1968, a
special CIA unit was set up to put deep-
cover "assets" in place. Some agents now
even pose as missionaries.
As the Chilean disclosures illustrate,
one of the clandestine tasks of CIA
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agents is distributing large amounts of
under-the-table money. Millions of dol-
lars are secretly channeled each year to
a broad spectrum of influential foreigners
ranging from politicians to priests. Over
the years the CIA has become increas-
ingly expert at getting the maximum
bang for its buck. Knowledgeable observ-
ers say the CIA was probably able to
turn the $8 million allocated for use
against Allende into $40 million worth of
escudos through black-market dealings.
For all the furor over the CIA's activi-
ties, Ford was on solid ground in stating
that the U.S. is hardly alone in the spy
game. The Chilean operation pales be-
side the attempt by the Soviet Commit-
tee for State Security (KGB) to foment
a revolt in-Mexico in the late 1960s.
And the Russian spy agency is Yeliably
credited with playing a major role in the
coup that ousted Afghanistan's King Mo-
hammed Zahir Shah in July 1973, and
replaced him with Sardar Mohammed
Daud, a long-time friend of Moscow. Of-
ficers of the KGB and its military counter-
part, the Chief Intelligence Administra-
tion (GRU), fill as many as 80 per cent
of the diplomatic posts in Soviet embas-
sies in many African and Latin American
nations. And the KGB also utilizes the
intelligence services of Poland, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Cuba.
Thugs: While Communist-bloc intelli-
gence activities steadily expand, the
roles of Britain's M.I.6 and France's Ser-
vice de Documentation Exterieure et de
Contre-Espionnage (SDECE) have been
contracting. Britain's M.I.6 today concen-
trates on Ireland and Ulster. And the
French agency-always scorned in the
elitist intelligence community as a gang
of thugs-hasn't had a triumph since
it engineered the expulsion of the en-
tire U.S. Embassy from Malagasy three
years ago. But some new intelligence
services have begun to play an increas-
ingly important role. Since 1972, Israel's
Mossad is credited by European police
with assassinating more than thirteen
Arab terrorists, including several top
members of Black September, and is re-
ported to be aiding the Kurdish rebellion
in Iraq. And the Brazilians have devel-
oped an active intelligence agency which
is now nervously regarded in Latin
America as a potential "coup maker."
Despite the competition, Congress is
of a mind to impose some new checks on
the CIA. Eleven senators introduced a
bill last week to create a joint Committee
on Intelligence Oversight, which would
take over responsibility from the handful
of Congressional elders now charged
with the task. There is nothing novel
about the elfort to establish genuine
Congressional control over the CIA.
liut the bills have always been defeated
when CIA supporters argued that over-
seers would be the source of leaks that
would imperil national security.
Certainly, in view of the almost daily
leaks of new details of the CIA's role in
Chile, that would seem a valid concern.
And CIA director Colby, while on record
as willing to report to such a joint com-
mittee, is known to be worried that the
intelligence agency's effectiveness is be-
ing seriously undercut by disclosure of
its secret operations. Several agents out
in the field, NEwswEEx's Bruce van
Voorst learned last week, have already
resigned, and one foreign intelligence
agency has reduced its cooperation with
the CIA for fear of what will appear in
U.S. newspapers. And a former top CIA
agent insisted that Congressional super-
vision of CIA covert activities is impos-
sible: "You have to trust a small group
of dedicated men," he argued, "and let
them operate as they see fit."
But in the post-Watergate atmosphere
of Washington, trust is a commodity in
short supply. Arguing that it is necessary
to plan operations in secrecy hardly
seemed a course likely to win much sym-
pathy for the CIA. For while most law-
makers are willing to concede the need
to gather intelligence aboutother nations'
intentions, many dearly feel the White
House shouldn't be secretly trying to
topple foreign governments. Sen. James
Abourezk announced plans to introduce
an amendment to the foreign-aid bill this
week outlawing the "dirty-tricks branch"
of the CIA.
While the prospects of Congress as-
serting increased control over the CIA
appeared the strongest in years, some
veteran lawmakers feel the current furor
will fizzle as others have in the past.
"The evidence all points to the need for
a watchdog committee," Sen. Mike
Mansfield declared, "but I doubt there's
much chance of it." But chairman
Thomas Morgan of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee vowed: "This is our
one chance to get oversight of the IT,
and we're going to get it." And he ap-
peared to have a lot of backing in the
view that the time is now. "We've
spent two years cleaning up our own
house," said Sen. Walter Mondale. "It's
time we start applying this same yard-
stick to our activities abroad."
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