OLDER AGENCIES RESENT A SUCCESSOR AND TRY TO RESTRICT SCOPE OF ACTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP57-00384R000200070019-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 13, 2006
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: July 22, 1948
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Rele2006/11/13 : CIA-RDP57-00384R000200070019-5
NEW YORK TIMES
22 July 19 .8
4 In telligence-II
Older Agencies Resent a Successor
And Try to Restrict Scope of Action
By HANSON W. BALDWIN
Friction between Government tained in some of them was accu-
Intelligence agencies is in a major rate and of considerable impor-
'degree responsible for the current tance. The full scope of the up-
study, headed by Allen W. Dulles, rising, and particularly the exten-
of the Government's intelligence sive participation of the Bogota;,
organizations. police in it, were not anticipated,
Friction is not new to Washing- however. The incident clearl
ton, but the newly-established Cen- y re-
tral Intelligence Agency, succes- vealed some weaknesses in collec-
sor to the Central Intelligence tion of intelligence, greater weak-
Group and to the wartime Office
lof Strategic Services, has had
more than its share. A new agency
always has trouble in establishing
itself in politically-jealous and
power-conscious Washington, and
this has been especially true in the
case of CIA, which "inherited"
some of the Office of Strategic
Services' wartime feuds,. and which
found itself a "nouveau riche" In
the field' of intelligence amongst
old established agencies.:
Some gross mistakes of its own
and a much too rapid expansion by
CIA which led to "empire-build-
ing" and retention of some incom-
petent personnel fed the flames of
controversy, but major friction has
resulted because of the attempts of
the older agencies to retain all
their powers and prerogatives and
to restrict and confine and reduce
CIA's scope of action.
Catalogue of Friction
A brief catalogue of this friction
reveals its seriousness:
1. CMA and C-2 were locked in
a bitter feud until some months
ago; today relations are more cor-
rect but not cordial. The issue, in
part, was. whether or not CIA
should take over collection of se-
cret intelligence as well as its
evaluation. CIA won :but and the-
oretically, at least, controls all
espionage agents operating for
this country oVerseas, but there is
still reason to believe that G-2
continues to operate its own
agents, aflthough it denies this.
2. Prime antagonists today' are
the State Department and 'CIA, or
at least personalities in both agen-
cies. CIA representatives overseas
have been in virtually all cases at-
'tached to American Embassies
and have usually used State De-
partment communications facili-
ties. Differences of opinion as to
the exact power of the Ambassa-
dor over the CIA representative
and other Issues finally crystal-
lized into open "name-calling" aft-
er the unexpected rebellion flared
at the Bogota, conference in April.
The full intelligence story of the
Bogataconference never has been
told, and probably never can be.
Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillen-
koetter, director of the Central In-
elligence Agency, produced--at the
quickly dropped Congressional in-
vestigation-messages which were
hailed in some quarters as proof of
our foreknowledge of the revolt.
A careful reading of these mes-
sages, however, indicated that they
were virtually unevaluated and un-
digested intelligence; most of them
read like clippings. from The Daily
I Worker and were. so generalized
that they could scarcely be inter-
preted as accurate forecasts of the
revolt,
It was learned, however, that
the messages produced for Con-
gress and published were not,. by
any means, the only indications
gleaned of the Colombian situa-
tion. Other messages-at least
one of them forecasting the par-
ticipation of some of the Bogota
police and the Communist use. of
mobile sound trucks to incite re-
volt-were received, and the fac-
tual advance information con-
creaky nature of the mechanism.
for exchange and transmission of i
information between the State be-
partment and the CIA overseas
and in this country.
Improvements in the latter
weakness have been made, due in
large measure to the Dulles in-
quiry, but the State Department
is still hostile, not to the concept
of the CIA, but to the present or-
ganization - staffed as, it is, and
feels that many' pf its reports and
evaluations merely duplicate its
own.
3. Friction between the CIA and
the Federal' Bureau of Investiga-
tion really began fourteen months
ago when, under a Presidential di-
rective, the CIA, took over the in
telligence functions that the FBI
had expressed in Latin America
during the war. The turnover of
responsibility in various offices
that had been established in Latin
America followed no'common pat-
tern but generally was a good ex-
ample of lack of teamwork. '
In some Latin-American offices
FBI agents offered full ,coopera-
tion to their CIA successors and
delayed their departure to permit
a period of overlap and a gradual
and orderly turnover. But in a
number of instances the CIA
agents arrived in the morning to
find the FBI files burned and the
FBI agents booked for departure
that afternoon. The excuse given
was that some of the CIA agents
assigned to Latin America were
not sufficiently "security-consci-
ous."
Shift on Loyalty Checks
More recently, the ' FBI, which
conducts loyalty and security
checks for personnel of all' Gov-
ernment departments, stopped per-
forming that function, -in so far as
the CIA was concerned. The CIA
was forced, because of this FBI
action, to set up its own security
check department-now a part of
the office of inspection and secu
-rity-to check records of prospec-
tive employes. The FBI recently
rescinded its action and is again
undertaking CIA checks, but the
expense to the CIA and to the
Government in personnel and
money was large.
4. Considerable difficulties be-
tween the Atomic Energy Com-
mission and the CIA were evident
until recently. The CIA criti
iz
d
c
e
, by older intelligence agencies be-
cause of its alleged lack of secu-
rity, refused to divulge to the AEC
on the grounds of security the
sources of its atomic energy in-
formation. The AEC insisted that
it required these sources for prop-
er.evaluation of scientific informa-
tion. This difficulty seems to have
been at least temporarily straight-
ened out by the appointment of a
liaision officer within the CIA-a
Young scientist, whose word as to
the reliability of scientific reports
is satisfactory to the Atomic En
-
.
ergy Commission. Neither the lat-
ter commission,. nor for that mat-
ter the CIA itself, are satisfied,
however, with' our scientific intel-
ligence, and we know very little
about Russian atomic energy
nrno,'.
Approved For a ease 11/13: CIA-IDP57-00384RQ00200070019-5