CIA ON CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100020053-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 6, 2000
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: May 1, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

FOIAb3b
Approved For Release 21t' i &a r'L : CIA RDP75-00
Q~~~ CPYRGHT
CP
CXI. IL [.,i 1 tir. 1 .G
YRGHTarn the head of the silent service and canno,'
advertise my wares." - Allen Dulles, 957.
ractices. Such small ad hoc bodies cannot possibly
ope with the multi-agencies, their billions of dollars,
and their hundreds of thousands of people; in sum,
the "Intelligence community." The core question, as
with the FBI, is an old one: who guards the guardians?
FOIAb3b
The American Society of Newspaper Editors was'
flattered that theirs was the forum chosen by Mr.
Richard Helms, director .of Cenral Intelligence and
concurrently director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, for his first public speech in io years. "The
quality of foreign intelligence available to the United
,States, in .117.1," he told the editors in a self-serving
assessment, "is better than it has ever been before."
It would have been interesting had Mr. Helms at-
tempted a correlation between value and volume.
Benjamin Welles in The New York Times Sunday
Magazine (April.13, 1971) breaks down the daily
mountain of intelligence information as "50 percent
from overt sources such as periodicals, 35 percent from
electronics (satellites and radio], and the remaining 15
percent from agents. How important is the 15 percent?
!vrr. Helms noted the "growing criticism" of CIA,
but he avoided any discussion of its cause. The "intel-
ligence" function of the agency is not what has pro-
voked all the controversy. Criticism has centered not
on "spying," but on' CIA's political action abroad-
the.suborniitg of political leaders, labor union officials,
journals is and anyone else who.
students
scholars
,
,
can be bought. CIA has been criticized for straying
from information gathering onto the path of manipula-
tion of foundations and such organizations as the
National Student Association or Radio Free Europe,
or the AFL-CIO. Through liaison with foreign police
and security services, the CIA tries to keep track of
foreign "subversives," frequently defined as those who
want to depose the government in power. Each report
it manages to secure from its clandestine sources has
a price in terms of closer alliance with one reactionary
regime after another-as in Greece and numerous
countries in Asia and Latin America. The complicity
is no secret to the host government, or to the Com-
munists, only.to the American taxpayer.
Mr. Helms' point that "CIA is not and cannot be
its own master" is the most difficult to accept, even
from the honorable man that Mr. Helms unquestion-,
ably.is. To be sure, there is a review system, but it is
more shadotiv than substance. The President's foreign
intelligence- advisory board, which is supposed to
analyze a $4 billion Intelligence program, is char-
acterized by inattention, fatigue and a charming lack
of expertise. There is only the most cursory inspection
and oversight of CIA by "elements of the Appropria-
tions and Armed Services Committees," which from
timeto` time raise their hands in benediction over, any
Intelligence presentation. The average congressional
"watchdog" is Iona, in the tooth, and prefers not to
rece1Apjan2*e l F,iewifteleas ~tiMonm6m fid3f -RDP75-00001 R0001 00020053-7
fessing in advance lack of training in sound security