'INVISIBLE' AGENCY 24 YEARS OF AGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050026-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 5, 2013
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: September 7, 1967
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/07/05: CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050026-6
?t
I WEDNESDAY, SEP
1 ia"ajit ?
Al
istble' Age
ears of Age-
. y Marquis Childs
United Feature Syndicate
NO ROSES and no champagne at an
anniversary the other day that was
nevertheless a milestone. The enthu-
siasm on the 20th birthday of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency was supplied
by Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey
in his own effervescent style. In terms
of other intelligence agencies around
the world 20 years is hardly a shake-
down cruise. The British have been in
the intelligence business for centuries.
As for the Russians the system under
the czars has been vastly expanded by
the Communists both within and out-
side the borders of the Soviet Union.
Although resources of men and money
are far smaller, professionals award
first place to Israel for a network that
produces results second to none.
During the shakedown cruise and
particularly in the CIA's 20th year a
graph of public acceptance of the
Agency?or lack of acceptance?here
at home would look like the ups and
downs of a ski jump. A fascinating
study of the American character could
be done solely in terms of the reaction
to a secret intelligence agency. Is it a
necessary adjunct to America's big
power role in a world of tumultuous
struggle? Or is it an evil excrescence
alien to free society?
c+se
THE ANSWERS have been clouded
by doubts and ambiguities reflecting
uncertainty over the American role.
Whether it was illusion or reality 25
years ago the United States seemed to
many Americans to be happily isolated
from the wicked machinations of power
and place in Europe and Asia. The age
of innocence was summed up when
Henry L. Stimson, as Secretary of State,
dismantled the code-breaking organiza-
tion with the remark, "Gentlemen do not
read each other's mail."
Along with the soul-searching a vast
literature of fact and fiction?often
hard to tell one from the other?on the
intelligence game has come into being.
At the far-out extreme Agent 007 per-
formed miracles of prowess, demolishing
Communist spies and winning the favors
of fabulously beautiful women. Defec-
tors on both sides of the ideological
divide supplied a strange phosphores-
cent light to the combat in the dark
of intelligence forces.
1967 PAGR AtO
heTheci to obscure the pri-
mary function of the CIA as an informa-
tion-gathering aggncy. In today's world,
given carefully guarded secrecy of the
totalitarian states, this is a large order.
Take what is perhaps today's No. 1
assignment. Secretary of Defense Robert
S. McNamara has stated that the Soviets
are building two antiballistic missile
systems. One is being placed around
Moscow clearly intended to defend
against ICBMs coming from United
States. The other being widely deployed
across the Soviet Union is probably to
protect against enemy bombers.
That word "probably" is the catch.
The CIA, so far as can be learned, does
not know for sure and that is a serious
flaw in the intelligence picture. If the
answer could be found with certainty
and the widely dispersed system shown
to have no relationship to missiles, the
, United States could conceivably save
billions of dollars in nuclear planning.
The pieces of the picture are put
together like a mosaic from hundreds
of sources. In this way the CIA as-
sembled the mosaic that disclosed the
presence in Cuba in 1962 of missiles
capable of carrying nuclear warheads
to most American cities. The evidence
confirmed by the U-2 flights brought a
confrontation with the Soviets and
Nikita Khrushchev's eventual retreat.
C+3
CUBA IS, of course, a sore point. The
grave miscalculations of both intelli-
gence and military estimates led to the
fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion in
1961.
The CIA grew out of the Office of
Strategic Services, which in World War
II directed a free-wheeling, highly ad-
venturous operation with unlimited
money and men. The carry-over of that
adventurous spirit along with many of
the adventurers in peacetime led, in the
view of close observers, to misadven-
tures. The dirty tricks department, offi-
cially the clandestine services, seemed
to run the show as against the numeri-
cally far more important intelligence-
gathering operation. Some of the old
timers?the anniversary brought out the
fact that 803 employes have been with
the agency since the start?felt .it was
a mistake to build the massive head-
quarters in Virginia on the banks of
the Potomac. And how could you keep
anything that big a secret?
More than ever before, the CIA is
today a professional operation with a
professional, Richard Helms, as direc-
tor. The shakedown cruise is over and
one goal is to sustain a tight profes-
+ional organization with the excesses
trimmed away. Judging from gradual
acceptance in Congress, the CIA is here
to stay as an adjunct of American power.
npriacRified and Approved For Release 2013/07/05 : CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050026-6