CIA: THE PRESIDENT'S LOYAL TOOL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74B00415R000300020009-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 2, 2001
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: April 3, 1972
• Content Type: OPEN

25X1A
pprove or Release : &1W`--b~74B00415R000300020009-4
This is another area in which the new measure falls flat. A strong bipartisan Federal Elections Commission should
Employees of Congressmen and Senators will be responsi- be appointed to handle receipt and publication of repo is
ble for making sure that their bosses file their reports on and be given injunctive powers so that it could file suits
time, disclose all that the law requires, and, if there are against 'violators. Penalties should include loss of office
violations, investigate them and recommend prosecution if a winner is implicated.
to the Attorney General.
The new measure does nothing to restrict the unlimited
free mailing privileges of elected federal officials, to curb
effectively the use of large staffs for campaign purposes or
to restrict use of the sophisticated, government-operated
radio and television facilities.
A genuine reform would permit two or more free mail-
ings for challengers, access to Capitol Hill TV and radio
facilities and effective curbs on the use of paid Congres-
sional staffs for campaign purposes.
LIMITS ON WHAT CANDIDATES CAN SPEND
FOR THEIR OWN CAMPAIGNS.
Ceilings are imposed, depending on the federal office
sought.
A solid reform would make it impossible for a clever
politician to have relatives or friends funnel their own
money into the campaign.
PROLIFERATION OF COMMITTEES ,
Does nothing to limit the multiplicity of campaign com-
Mr. Marchetti was on the director's stag of the CIA when
lie resigned from the agency two years ago. Since then, his
novel The Rope-Dancer has been published by Grosset cfc
Dcnnlap; he is now working on a book-length, critical analysis
of the CIA.
The Central Intelligence Agency's role in U.S. foreign af-
fairs is, like the organization itself, clouded by secrecy
and confused by misconceptions, many of them deliberately
promoted by the CIA with the cooperation of the news
media. Thus to understand the covert mission of this
agency and to estimate its value to the political leadership,
one must brush myths aside and penetrate to the sources'
and circumstances from which the agency draws its au-'
thority and support. The CIA is no accidental, romantic
aberration; it is exactly what those who govern the country
intend it to be-the clandestine mechanism whereby the
executive branch influences the internal affairs of other
nations.
In conducting such operations, particularly those that
are inherently risky, the CIA acts at the direction and with
the approval of the President or his Special Assistant for
National Security Affairs. Before initiating action in the
field, the agency, almost invariably establishes that its oper-
ational plans accord with the aims of the administration
Approved For Release 2001/11/01
Only one campaign committee should be allowed and the
doctrine of "agency"-widely used in other nations-
should be adopted. This concept makes, one treasurer
legally responsible for receiving all gifts and disbursing
all funds. He, as well as the candidate, can be held ac-
countable for violations.
and, when possible, the sympathies of Congressional lead-
ers. (Sometimes the endorsement or assistance of irfluen-
tial individuals and institutions outside government is also'
sought.) CIA directors have been remarkably well aware
of the dangers they court, both personally and for the
agency, by not gaining specific official sanction for their
covert operations. They are, accordingly, often more care-
ful than are administrators in other areas of the bureau-
cracy to inform the White House of their activities and to
seek Presidential blessing. To take the blame publicly
for an occasional operational blunder is a small price to
pay in return for the protection of the Chief Executive and
the men who control the Congress.
The U-2 incident of 1960 was viewed by many as an
outrageous
outrageous blunder by the CIA, wrecking the Eisenhower-
summit conference in Paris and setting U.S.-
Soviet relations back several years. Within the inner circles
of the administration, however, the shoot-down was
shrugged off as just one of those things that happen in the
chancy business of intelligence. After attempts to deny
responsibility for the action had failed, the President openly
defended and even praised the work of the CIA, although
for obvious political reasons he avoided noting that he had
authorized the disastrous flight. The U-2 program against
the USSR was canceled, but work on its follow-on system,
the A-1I (now the SR-71,) was speeded tip. Only the
IA-RDP74B00415R000300020009-4
M'-1 10 N1 3 A
 i s ~i~.uh st APprjW*LdkFAniR*asai20D1J4l4/Q1?: CIA~RDP746004t5R,000300020009=4,,-,,,;,,,,
ite A-I I development program was completed, neverthe- last Illonth, William Colby, former CIA station chief in
t
ICSS, on the premise that It, as well as Vie J-2, might be Vietnaril, later designer of the agency's Laotian war, and
useful elsewhere. afterwards Ambassador to Vietnam in charge of pacilica-
After the Bay of Pigs debacle a year later, the CIA did tion, was advanced to the agency's, number three post of
feel the sting of Presidential disfavor for the first time, but executive director. None of these adjustments suggests that
the agency had its wrist slapped by President Kennedy the CIA plans to reduce its covert action program.
because it failed in Cuba, not because it was scheming to The notion that the CIA is primarily an espionage or-
overthrow Castro. Other than a few personnel changes at ganization, preoccupied largely with technical and analyti-
tihe top of the agency, and the creation of a special secret cal matters, is a delusion fostered by the agency's leadership
comiilittce, which tied the CIA still closer to the adminis- to deflect attention from the more questionable clandestine
tration, the agency made no changes .in policies or prac-activities. CIA Director Richard Helms, in his only public
tices, Throughout the Kennedy years, the CIA ran clandes- speech a year ago before the American Society of News-
tine operations against Cuba with Presidential approval. At paper Editors, emphasized that the production and dis-
the same time, and at the request of the White House, the seinination of intelligence were the basic roles of the
agency deeply involved itself in attempts to prop up totter- agency, and asked his audience "to take it on faith that
ing regimes in Laos and South Vietnam. we, too, are honorable men." He said that intelligence col-
When the National Student Association scandal rocked lection was in 1971 "the best ever," but could not elab-
tlle CIA in 1967, setting of a series of disclosures that orate because "the enemy" alight as a result identify our
exposed the agency's hold on a large number of youth, agents. He did, however, feel that he could mention the
labor and cultural organizations, as well as many of its Penk6vsky case, recalling how the Soviet colonel and other
funding conduits, neither the executive nor the Congress ."well placed and courageous Russians" aided the CIA in
tried to restrict the agency's activities. (A year earlier, unmasking Khrushchev's gamble to install strategic missiles
Senator Fulbright's attempt to increase Congressional con- in Cuba in 1962. Helms also noted that the National Secu-
trol over the CIA had been soundly defeated.) The CIA rity Act of 1947 was clear and precise regarding the CIA's
was simply told by President Johnson to clean up the mess legal functions, particularly in the matter of domestic se
acid get on with its business. The ad hoc committee lie had curity, and that four committees of Congress kept tabs on
for Imd to look into the scandal consisted of the Under his agency. The director did not, of course, refer to the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of HEW, and the director agency's paramilitary or other covert action programs.
of the CIA. Some covert projects were canceled, either
because they had been exposed or because they were no The picture he gave newspaper editors was in l1-
cep-,longer thought worth the risk of exposure, but most were . ing with the image of the CIA that Helms has assid-
continued under improved cover, A few of the ,larger uously cultivated ever since he. was promoted from head of
operations went on under almost open CIA sponsorship, the agency's clandestine services to the directorship. He has
Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Air America being said much the same thing in his many confidential sessions
examples. And all the while, the CIA was conducting a with the press at lunches in the private dining room of the
$500 million-a-year private war in Laos and pacification/ old Occidental Restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue, and at
assassination programs in Vietnam. working breakfasts and dinners in the executive dining
room of CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., where the
The reorganization of the U.S. intelligence conimu- agency's intelligence analysts-the academic and emotional
hhity late last year in no way altered the CIA's mission as 'opposites of the clandestine operatives-are always pre-
the clandestine action arm of American foreign policy. sented front and center, putting the agency's best and
Most of the few changes are intended to improve the finan- . cleanest foot forward. The campaign to tame the press has
cial management of the community, especially in the mill- ' . been successful, if one may judge from the gentle and
tart' intelligence services where growth and the technical . respectful way in which the CIA is treated by the media,
costs of collecting information are almost out of control. especially by Time New York Times and Newsweek, both
Other alterations are designed to improve the meshing of of which last year printed extensive and not very penetrat-
the community's product with national security planning ing articles on the CIA. Unfortunately, the image does not
and to provide the White House with greater control fit the facts. Director Helms is not presiding over the trans-
over operations policy. However, none of that implies a formation of the CIA from a clandestine operational agency
reduction of the CIA's role in covert foreign policy action. into merely another federal bureaucracy.
In fact, the extensive review conducted by the White House The collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. inteili-
staff in preparation for the reorganization drew heavily on gence community is at its peak today, but CIA agents
advice, provided by the CIA and that given by former have little to do with it. Almost all of the good information
agency officials through such go-betweens as the influential picked up about Russia and China comes from technical
Council on Foreign Relations. Earlier in the Nixon Admin- operations, most of which are controlled by the `Pentagon.
istration, the Council had responded to a similar request The CIA's espionage program against China has been a
by recommending that in the future the CIA should con- complete failure. Against the Soviet Union, the agency has
centrate its covert 'pressure tactics on Latin American, . fared slightly better, but only slightly, because of occa-
African and Asian targets, using more foreign nationals as sional defectors, almost all of whom have been useful to
agents and relying more on private U.S. corporations and counterespionage, but not to espionage itself.
other insti.utio ns ef~I GQt b to ~~ (Q9d l JiOdcT CIA-RDB7f~BN0e 1BROt~O'510002O~b9 1et contributions dur-
 L
in- the Cuban missile crisis, this is pure hokum. Penkovsky
was not a CIA agent; he spied for the British. When in the
late 1950s the Soviet colonel offered his services to the
United States in Ankara, the CIA turned him away, fear-
ing that he was a provocateur for the KGB. British
intelli-
gence, however, made a note of the overture and recruited
Penkovsky in Moscow a couple of years later. The CIA
had to buy its share of Penkovsky with prints from the
then new photographic satellites. The Soviet military build-
up in Cuba was discovered by the CIA's own analysts, with
no help'from Penkovsky or any other Soviet agent; and the
Final unmasking of the scheme was also accomplished with-
out "well placed and courageous Russians." There were
none to help. .
According to the National Security Act of 1947,
the primary mission of the CIA is to coordinate and dis-
seminate intelligence for the benefit of the whole govern-
ment. That was what Harry Truman believed, but it never
came to pass. To begin with, the temptation (and the
wherewithal) to ;Weddle in'affairs of other nations was too
strong to resist in the cold-war years. The CIA, controlled
by such operationally oriented types as Allen Dulles, im-
mediately involved itself in the impossible dream of an
American imperium, and neither the. agency nor the gov-
ernment has ever recovered from this obsession. The record
(Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam) is proof of that
statement, but so more specifically is the CIA's secret
charter, that body of highly classified Presidential direc-
tives which has assigned the agency to tasks of covert polit-
ical action the world over.
spends little time wrestling with the intricacies of intelli-
gence analysis. The weekly meetings of the U.S. Intelli-
gence Board, the top deliberative body of the intelli-
gence community for reviewing reports and forming na-
tional estimates, are frequently conducted by the roaster
spy in less than twenty minutes. The subtleties and pres-
sures of deciding the precise status of Soviet strategic strike
capabilities, or the possible level of Vietcong resistance to
a proposed L.J.S. action, are outside his concern. Helms and
the CIA earn their keep not by collecting and analyzing
secret information for the benefit of policy makers and
planners but rather by carrying out paramilitary, political,,
propagandistic and other ccvert operations to advance US.
foreign policy.
Congressional control of the activities of the CIA is
quickly described: there is none! The four relevant com-
inittees of Congress did not meet once last year to review
the agency's activities. Rump sessions of the House and-
Senate did glance last November at the CiA's budget re-
.quest, but when the question of oversight was raised by
Senators Symington and..;ulbright (both members of the
joint committee on the CIA) SenatorEllencier, who ap-
proved the budget, said that lie had "not inquired" about
the CIA's activities in Laos, and Senator Stennis, in support
of his colleague, advised that you have to "shut your eyes
some and take what is coming" when you have an intelli-
gence agency like the CIA. Thus spake the watchdogs.
A glance at the organization and budget of the CIA
readily discloses its primary mission. 01 its almost 18,000
career personnel (not including contract agents and em-
ployees of agency-owned companies), two-thirds are en
Well aware of the MIA ftbh 'gyp ' 'y noncsnio:a ;e)
tS i- CWliitet Y~ntttii:.'pl:'CCtOY ~ielrllS Ugerations. I c annua uGoet O ~1i i6 ~ a7ii',~ `i'::,?:i:,
 t pprwed 6obRe sffliA01/11/01 CIA-RDP74B4K15RO003..O00200O -4' : ',i;-:i--.
bons in Laos and Vietnam, or Certain technical Collection ries out this mission with the approval and at the request
jp ograms Which are paid for by the Pentagon), again about
cvo-thirds is devoted to clandestine activities, mostly
covert action operations. The production of intelligence,
the CIA's overt primary mission, absorbs about 10 per
cent of its funds and people. 'she remaining 25 per cent of
the money and personnel are absorbed by technical opera-
nio;:s, general support and overhead.
Only when one understands that, despite claims to the.
contrary, the, CIA is basically concerned with. Interfering change'their ways.
of the country's political leaders, can one begin to deal with
the issue. It is not a matter of reforming the CIA. The need
is to reform those who govern us, to convince them that
they must act more openly and honestly, both with the
people whoin they represent and with the other nations of
the world. As its name states, the CIA is only an agency;
but secrecy, like power, tends to corrupt, and it will not be.
easy to persuade those who rule in the United States to
hlr. Weiner is former editor ,of Northwest Passage in the
Pacific Northwest; he is now with the San Francisco Chroni-
Cie. _
San Francisco
The doctor straps the straitjacketed patient into a chair,
injects the drug Prolixin, and tightens the eyelid clamps
so that the patient cannot avoid watching the screen. The.
Sim begins. Each time an act of sex or violence is observed,
the patient becomes progressively more nauseated. After
enough of these treatments, he is "cured" of his aggressive
impulses.
Aversion therapy, such as that paraphrased above from
Stanley Kubrick's supposedly futurist film, A Clockwork
Orange, is employed frequently in prisons and hospitals
around the world. Armed with a battery of new behavioral
drugs and techniques, doctors can go even further in "ad-
justing" antisocial personalities to behavioral norms. The
new technology is upon us well in advance of 1984; the
ethical problems associated with it are only beginning to
demand attention.
A new prison facility in California provides a good ex-
anlple of the technological-moral conflict. It is called the
Medical-Psychiatric Diagnostic Unit (MPDU) and is part
of the Department of Correction's Medical Facility at Vaca-
ville, it has eighty-four beds, and is designed to handle
eventually all 600 to .700 inmates from the various prison
Adjustment Centers (maximum-security wings) around
the state. According to the Department of Corrections, the
new facility will be used to diagnose and treat inmates with
problems and.thcn, it is hoped, return them as better indi-
viduals to the prison mainline, perhaps ultimately to the
outside world. That sounds benevolent, but inmates and
tlie.i.r supporters view the MPDU as a laboratory of be-
havioral "torture," which in practice will be performed
primarily upon militant black and Chicano organizers in
the prison population.
A hrre is room for either interpretation, depending upon
prison situation is good. In addition, you may think it obvi-
ously humane to help violence-prone inmates adjust to a
system that may eventually parole them and accept. them
on the outside. However, many inmates believe that the
prison system-perhaps by design, certainly in practice-
denies them the essential prerogatives of consideration as
human beings, and they are accordingly alarmed by any
medical-psychiatric facility aimed at curing them of "prob-
lems" the prison doctors think they detect in failures to
adjust to a basically inhumane system.
Which interpretation is nearer the truth? What follows is
a history of the MMPDU controversy at Vacaville (Cow-
town). '
On November 19, 1971, the California Department.
of Corrections (DOC) invited a group of psychologists,
psychiatrists, researchers and prison officials to meet at
the University of California (Davis) to discuss prison vie-.
lence and a possible new psychiatric unit at Vacaville. At
the meeting, DOC officials were entirely vague as to what
kind of treatment they envisioned at the proposed new
facility. Pointed questions about electroshock therapy,
aversion techniques and the like were evaded; several DOC
officials even hastily disappeared when the questioning be-
came too direct. What the invited participants didn't know
was that, a week before standing host to the meeting at
Davis, the DOC had submitted a detailed proposal for the
Vacaville facility. "Looking back on it now," said one of
the participants, "it is clear that we professionals were
brought in to, as it were, 'legitimize' a decision that had
already been made."
One of those present was Dr. Edward Opton, senior re-
search psychologist at the Wright institute, Berkeley. He
pressed prison officials to deal with the ethical questions
associated with a new- psychiatric facility for prisoners--
issues such as the voluntary nature of treatment, the use of
aversion therapy drugs, electroshock, and so on-but was
told by the DOC's research director, Dr. Lawrence Den-
nett, that "those who wish to discuss so-called moral and
one's assumptions. If you believe that the primary function ethical questions should leave."
; f penal adr.:ii is r ition RP131Sov #,FtmraRete ', id 1/01 : C D X 0*Sh9 '9 2 '0W)& story that the
lated brain
to quiet 0".0 present hair-trigger DOC contemp surgery .or ce.tsi:.