CIA FOOTNOTES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R001200600001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 2, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 16, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

STATINTL
Approved For Rele ?,A-RDP80
CIA footnotes
In his first public address since he became
director of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) five years ago, Richard Helms de ended
his organization 'ce=ore a luncheon meeting of
dford"
newspap r editors ~,cui ~.y, and said that
the CIA is necessary for the survival of a
democratic society. He asked the country "to
take it on faith that we, too, are honorable men
devoted to her see vice.,,
Helms did not attempt to clarify any foun-
dation for that faith, although he did note that
CIA intelligence played an important part in
determining the American success in the 1952
Cuban missile crisis (thanks to "a number of
well-placed and courageous Russians who
helped us").
Elsewhere in Washington on the same day,
Sen. George McGovern as'.; ed Helms to co:a-
ment on published reports that South Viet-
namese Vice-President Nguyen Cao Ky may be
involved in the opium trade in Southeast Asia.
He cited a recent article in Ramparts magazine
implicating the CIA in an international opium
business. The Ramparts article contended that
opium production and distribution in the Fertile
Triangle region' of Burma, Northern Thailand,
and Laos is conducted with the knowledge of the
CIA, and that CIA operations there actually
serve to protect opium supplies and facilitate
their movement.
Helms did not comment on the allegations;
apparently an admonition from the director
every five years that Americans must accept
the CIA "on faith" should be suffi :lent.
There might be more to it: that Helms should
offer a footnote to American diplomatic history
al*ntst ' n yt'ac.- after 1 . Ldent happened
suggests a p.o, sible recelent. Perhaps, in
another five years or so, tke CIA director will
emerge from his office e' ce more, a ,-d renew
his request for an extension of public faith in his
agency. And then he might add another footnote
about how the CIA almost won that Vietnam
War all by itself.
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601 R001200600001-5