TRUMAN AND THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050057-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 29, 2013
• Sequence Number: 57
• Publication Date: December 28, 1963
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050057-2
THE WASHINGTON POST, 28 December 1963
EDITORIAL
TRUMAN AND THE CIA
Former President Truman speaks with unique
authority about the CIA inasmuch as the agency was organized
in his Administration. When he writes, as he did in this
newspaper last Sunday, that there "is something about the way
the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over
our historic position" we can rightly sit up and take notice.
Mr. Truman is concerned that the agency's operational functions
have gotten out of hand. So are many Americans.
The President makes perfectly clear that a central
intelligence agency was an urgent requirement when the CIA
was formed. The Chief Executive is virtually blanketed by
intelligence documents from many existing agencies. He
needs a central organization charged with the duty of
assembling various estimates and presenting the facts without
the tincture of special pleading. The intelligence reports
of the various armed services obviously must reflect, con-
sciously or unconsciously, the institutional bias of services
with their own policies to defend.
The trouble is that over the years the CIA has
become increasingly entangled in its own operations. It
has seemed less an objective interpreter of events than a
rival policy arm with a very sharp axe to grind. As Mr.
Truman remarks:
"I never had any thought that when / set up the CIA that
it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations.
Some of the complications and embarrassments that I think
we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact
that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been
so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted
as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue -
and a subject for enemy cold war propaganda."
President Truman emphasizes his confidence in
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050057-2
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050057-2
The Washington Post Editorial
28 December 1963
the patriotism and ability of C/A officials. That is not
in dispute. What is at issue is the wisdom of combining
within the CIA functions that should be separate. Moreover,
there is real doubt whether m,y. arm of the United States
Government should be involved in subversion of another
government. Experience suggests that this is an area
in which Americans do not excel. Morality suggests that
it drains this country's professed principles of meaning
when a shadowy arm of the Government appears to practice
the same sUbversion that we condemn in others.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050057-2