AFTER DIEM AND THE BAY OF PIGS, AFTER MOSSADEGH AND ARBENZ, WE MUST RECOGNIZE THE CIA FOR WHAT IT IS-AND CONTROL IT, SAYS THIS OUTSPOKEN CONGRESSMAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050062-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 29, 2013
• Sequence Number: 62
• Publication Date: March 1, 1964
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

elf
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March, 1964
price 60?
1111104111TOZIO
Good Indians we got (page 58). Bad Indians you can have (page 76).
THE MAGAZINE FOR MEN
Chief Johnny Big Tree,
today...
and as he looked when
he posed for
the Indian-head nickel
fifty-one years ago:
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This town is so colorful little girls get
red dirty instead of black dirty.
We're going to lead you to one of the most satis-
fying spots on earth.
Drive 35 miles east of Avignon to Roussillon, a
village etched, hawklike, into a hilltop. So small. So
pure of tourists. Yet so incredible artists travel dis-
tances to see it. For Roussillon is all red. The houses,
the rooftops, the streets are red. So is the dust. And
so are the children. Everything's red under a Medi-
terranean Blue sky.
Roussillon is a wonder. Just like all the other vil-
lages of Provence. Some are Picasso Blue. Some are
Matisse Ochre. And Van Gogh Gold appears every
few miles. Maybe that's why so many of France's
great Impressionist painters decided to settle down
in Provence. It's like a big beautiful
painting to live in.
If you're impressionable, maybe you
ought to go there.
Your travel agent can help with your plans. Or just write: Dept. LG-2, Box 221, N.Y. 10, N.Y. French Government Tourist Office: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Montreal.
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After Diem and the Bay of Pigs,
after Mossadegh and Arbenz.
we must recognize the CIA
for what it is?and control it, says
this outspoken Congressman
AN
INQUIRY
INTO
by Rep. John V. Lindsay
Two major reversals in our foreign policy within the last three
years have shaken the poise of the Intelligence branch of the United
States government to its underpinnings: the abortive adventure
at the Bay of Pigs, and the blinding miasma of United States
policy that arose in South Vietnam during the Diem era.
The immediate dangers past, commentators have sought to un-
ravel the confusing web of influences in both situations. The full
truth is not yet known, and may never be. Nonetheless, it seems
indisputable that in both cases the three principal instruments of
U.S. foreign policy?the State Department, the military, and the
Central Intelligence Agency?were at crucial times pulling in sep-
arate directions.
The criticism most frequently heard is that the C.I.A. was med-
dling in policy, undertaking functions that were not its proper
responsibility. The charge has been made that the C.I.A. was com-
bining Intelligence gathering with active "operations," a course
which carries the risk that Intelligence may be used to support
prior operational decisions. It has been alleged over and over that
in Vietnam, as in the Bay of Pigs, the C.I.A., with or without direc-
tion from higher authority, became enmeshed in its own intrigues.
In the Bay of Pigs, the C.I.A. was found supporting a collection of
Batista refugees, apparently without clear direction from the State
Department. In Vietnam, it became clear that the C.I.A. was closely
aligned with and subsidizing the Special Forces run by the late
Ngo Dinh Nhu, an elite military force that raided the Buddhist
pagodas. Responsible representatives of the press have reported
strong disagreements between the State Department and the C.I.A.
with regard to policy in Vietnam, and these reports must stand
even beside the exaggerations of less-responsible press accounts.
The evidence was overwhelming that U.S. policy was confused and
that the divisions within agencies were being hung on the public
wash line. When later our government's support swung to the insur-
gents who ousted Diem, this very possibly meant an about-face on
the part of the C.I.A. The extent of our involvement even then is
unknown, but that we were involved must seem quite possible.
Almost every qualified outsider who has examined the history of
the Bay of Pigs blunder has concluded that it was founded on a hap-
hazard jumble of foreign policy, Intelligence gathering, and mili-
tary operations. The C.I.A. appears to have organized and con-
ducted the attempt and also to have gathered the Intelligence data
on which the prospects for the attempt were judged. Not only was
C.I.A. shaping policy?perhaps understandable because of the ab-
sence of direction from policy-making organs of the government?
but that policy was patently at odds with State Department think-
ing. Without fully rehearsing the baleful events that preceded the
Bay of Pigs, it is perfectly clear, to understate the matter, that the
President was badly served by the agencies involved.
These premises, like all of my remarks in this article, arise only
from material and information available to the public. In respect to
such material and information I am in the same position as other
representatives of the people in Congress, with very few excep-
tions. All the more reason for such a representative to speak out.
To state the danger posed by the intermingling of Intelligence
gathering and operations is not to say it is unrecognized by respon-
sible officials. Able men throughout the Intelligence community are
well aware of and deeply concerned by dangers arising from the
absence of clear distinction between Intelligence gathering and
operations. The trouble may often start, as Allen Dulles, the dis-
106 ESQUIRE: MARCH
THE DARKNESS OF
tinguished former head of the C.I.A. recently said, from lack of
clear-cut operational policy in Washington. When a policy vacuum
occurs, men in the field are almost involuntarily propelled into
operational activities which are not their proper responsibility.
Sherman Kent, the head of the Board of National Estimates?one
of the most influential elements of the Intelligence community?
makes the point this way:
"Almost any man or group of men confronted with the duty of
getting something planned or getting something done will sooner
or later hit upon what they consider a single most desirable course
of action. Usually it is sooner; sometimes, under duress, it is a snap
judgment off the top of the head. I cannot escape the belief that
under the circumstances outlined, Intelligence will find itself right
in the middle of policy, and that upon occasions it will be the
unabashed apologist for a given policy rather than its impartial
and objective analyst."
The failures of C.I.A. covert operations- are well-known. Less
well-known, and of equally sobering magnitude, are the successes.
The C.I.A., for example, played a key part in the ousting of the
Mossadegh regime in Iran in 1953, paving the way for eventual
reform of the pro-Western government of the Shah. Both British
and American vital interests had been threatened by the capricious
Mossadegh policies, the major threat being to Britain's necessary
supply of oil. The successful coup which unseated Mossadegh was
of great benefit to the United States and the West.
The following year the virulently anti-American Arbenz regime
in Guatemala was overthrown. The C.I.A. was widely believed to
have engineered the coup. But for the success of that coup, Soviet-
directed communism in Latin America would presumably be far
more deeply entrenched than it is today.
Each of these episodes demonstrates, for good or ill, the explosive
nature of the C.I.A.'s operational involvement in international poli-
tics. It is not at all improbable that it will be similarly involved in
the future. The cold war will be with us for a very long time; so
will the C.I.A. Accordingly, our democratic government, unused to
secrecy, has within it an immensely powerful and extremely expen-
sive secret organization, for the past few years housed in a very
large permanent building on the banks of the Potomac. That build-
ing represents the institutionalization of the C.I.A. in the govern-
ment establishment. More exactly, it marks its positive elevation in
status, always important in government. And yet there is no effec-
tive check on its activities now. And there was none in 1961.
Few can deny the actual and potential power of the C.I.A., how-
ever carefully it may be held in check by the skillful men who run
it. Ours is supposed to be a government of laws, not of men. At
stake are questions of war and peace, as the two Cuban crises so
clearly demonstrated. All of us at that time took a look into the
atomic pit. Decisions can be made at such times and actions taken
about which the public is totally in the dark. So be it. As much as
we may abhor government by secrecy, as much as it threatens
fundamental liberties, we must understand its limited and necessary
application in particular circumstances of hot or cold war. Never-
theless, crucial decisions are made for us and in our name of which
we know nothing. And all too often secrecy which is necessary
breeds secrecy which is unnecessary, at which point the danger
becomes nothing less than a threat to demoCratic institutions, a
marginal one at the outset, but potentially a most serious one.
The Bay of Pigs fiasco occurred despite efforts by Secretary of
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THE CLOAK, ,Yie ,5,41/0,,,bed4 9,ae
State Christian Herter and C.I.A. Director Allen Dulles to sort out
the relations between their two agencies so that the making of
foreign policy would be removed from the C.I.A., and the command
of policy kept firmly in the hands of ambassadors in the field at all
times. The Herter-Dulles agreement was reaffirmed by Secretary
Rusk. More recently, following events in Vietnam during the Diem
regime, the President found it necessary to reassert publicly his
authority and that of the Secretary of State and the National Secur-
ity Council over the Intelligence community. Collaterally the Secre-
tary of State sought to assure the primacy of ambassadors in the
policy area overseas.
Particular persons and particular situations may seem to define
problems of this sort. But it is also the case that, as long as both
the State Department and the C.I.A. are responsible for the collec-
tion of information, and?perhaps most important?as long as
C.I.A. continues to be responsible for "special operations"?the
support of anti-Communist elements and the fomenting of opposi-
tion to hostile governments?the problem of integrating the Central
Intelligence Agency into our general foreign-policy apparatus will
continue to grow in scope and potential danger.
For a time the Maxwell Taylor committee, appointed by the Presi-
dent to inquire particularly into the Cuban question, appears to have
considered the possibility of transferring the bulk of C.I.A.'s Special
Operations to the Defense Department. But this solution would
have had the obvious disadvantage of ensuring that the uniformed
military?and hence the authority and prestige of the U.S. govern-
ment?would be identified with any paramilitary operation as soon
as it became a matter of public knowledge.
In any event, it seems that the Taylor Committee has left routine
covert operations in the hands of the C.I.A., with control to be
transferred to the Pentagon only if a particular project becomes
so big as to warrant open military participation. Mr. Hanson Bald-
win in The New York Times summed up the matter thus:
"The general rule of thumb for the future is that the C.I.A. will
not handle any primarily military operations, or ones of such size
that they cannot be kept secret. However, each case will apparently
be judged on its merits; there is no hard-and-fast formula that will
put one operation under the C.I.A. and another under the Pentagon."
Now surely this is an area in which neither hard-and-fast for-
mulas nor organizational gimmicks can solve the major difficulties.
Much depends on the particular situations. The people who are in
the most favorable position to gather information are sometimes the
\best equipped to engage in clandestine political activities. But
largely because the problem eludes organizational formulas, because
it is a problem to which there is no simple solution, it must be
recognized as such and held in check as much as possible. Problems
unwatched and unattended tend to multiply.
C.I.A. is served by only one politically responsible officer: the
Director himself. All others are career officials. In comparison, the
President keeps ultimate control in the Pentagon by his political
power to appoint all the top civilian officers there. These officials
are entrusted with clear political responsibility, for which there is
no parallel in the C.I.A.
There are in fact questions repeatedly raised about the C.I.A. Is
it wise, for example, to rely to the extent the C.I.A. seems to on
the services of retired military officers? One would suppose that
retired service officers, though almost always men of great ability,
would have an instinctive tendency to take a rather narrow, strictly
"operational" and "efficient" view of the problems confronting them.
I hope I will not be misunderstood. C.I.A. officials are among the
most distinguished in the entire federal establishment. The leader-
ship of the agency comprises men of great gifts and dedication?
and I include the former military men in the agency. But recruit-
ment of high-caliber men in large numbers is a problem in the fed-
eral government, especially in agencies whose work is international.
It is also fair to ask whether the C.I.A. should rely heavily on
the services of political refugees. It seems reasonable to suppose,
for example, that an exile from his homeland, especially one who has
passionate convictions about the course of events there, may not be
the best person to assess these events. Again, I hope that I will not
be misunderstood. I do not mean to impugn in the slightest the
enormous amount of valuable work done by exiles and refugees in
the C.I.A. Without their help, as in the case of the ex-military
men, the organization simply could not function as it should. Neither
do I mean'to suggest that C.I.A. should be staffed with "soft-liners"
or people who have had no personal experience with the countries
in question. That would be absurd. But I do think that by every
recommendation of common sense we must be certain of the objec-
tivity and breadth of our Intelligence.
This raises the question of the structure of the Intelligence
community and of Intelligence evaluation?the question of how best
to organize the interpreting of the enormous amount of material
collected daily by all agencies of the Intelligence community.
The phrase "Intelligence community" embraces the numerous
agencies within the executive branch which are concerned with
Intelligence collection and evaluation: the C.I.A., the Defense Intel-
ligence Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and
Research, the Intelligence branches of the Armed Services, the
National Security Agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, and
others. The daily chore of coordinating and cross-checking daily
Intelligence data is largely in the hands of the Defense Intelligence
Agency. The long-range estimates are prepared under the direction
of the Board of National Estimates, which presides as a kind of
general planning staff for the Intelligence community. Estimates
prepared by this group are submitted to a committee known as the
U.S. Intelligence Board. If the Board of Estimates is the plan-
ning board for the community, the Intelligence Board is its board
of directors. It is the final forum for the professional Intelligence
community; its judgments go to the National Security Council.
Two aspects of this system in particular are worth noting: The
first is the preeminence of the Central Intelligence Agency. A high
proportion of the Intelligence community's fact gathering is done
by C.I.A. The Board of National Estimates functions as a part of
C.I.A. The chairman of the U.S. Intelligence Board is the Director
of the C.I.A. And the Intelligence community's spokesman on the
National Security Council itself is that same C.I.A. Director.
The second aspect worth noting is the duality of C.I.A.'s role.
Under the National Security Act this agency is not only one par-
ticipant in the Intelligence community; it is also the chief agency
responsible for coordinating it. In other words, at many points in
the process of evaluation, C.I.A. is both player and umpire, both
witness and judge. This ambiguity is implicit in the title of the
Director, who is formally not the "Director of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency," but simply "Director of Central Intelligence."
The problem this raises is clear. It is that the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, being not merely central but dominant in the Intelli-
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gence community, is in an extraordinary position, so long as it is
left unchecked to carry its special institutional tendencies into the
shaping of American foreign policy.
I believe that these difficulties of unchecked power in the Intelli-
gence community can be alleviated only by the Congress, which has
the Constitutional responsibility to oversee the functions of the
executive branch on behalf of the American people. Therefore, I
propose the establishment in the Congress of a Joint Committee on
Foreign Information and Intelligence. I propose that such a com-
mittee be constituted along the lines of the Joint Committee on
Atomic Energy and that it have its own funds and staff. It should
continuously inquire into our foreign information and Intelligence
programs, including: (1) the relations between the Central Intelli-
gence Agency and the State Department, especially overseas; (2)
the relations between Intelligence gathering on the one hand and
so-called Special Operations on the other; (3) the selection and
training of Intelligence personnel; and (4) the whole question of
Intelligence evaluation.
The proposal of a Joint Committee on Foreign Intelligence is not
new. In one form or another it has been introduced into the House
in each of the last ten sessions, though it has not been debated on
the Floor. In the Senate, a bill to establish a Joint Committee, spon-
sored by Senator Mansfield in 1956, was debated for two days on the
Floor of the Senate and defeated.
Nor is the proposal partisan. At time of writing, there are four-
teen Democratic and five Republican sponsors in the House. In
1959 resolutions were sponsored in the House by twelve Democrats
and five Republicans. In the Senate in 1956, members on both sides of
the aisle voted for Senator Mansfield's resolution?including the then
junior Senator from Massachusetts, the late President Kennedy.
It is most often argued against the establishment of a "watchdog"
committee that the secrecy of our Intelligence system would be
endangered. The argument does not stand up. No one denies that
the C.I.A. and the other Intelligence agencies must conduct a very
high proportion of their work in secret; secrecy is of the essence
in their work. But what is true of the Intelligence community is
also true in many other areas of government?in the fields of atomic
energy, weapons development, and, in some respects, foreign policy.
But does this mean that Congress is to have no effective authority
in those areas? Of course it does not, for Congress has such author-
ity. It has always asserted its right, indeed its Constitutional duty,
to oversee even the most sensitive areas of Government. And where
matters of the highest secrecy have been involved, Members of
both Houses have shown themselves capable of exercising the utmost
restraint. This was never more clearly demonstrated than during
the Manhattan Project in World War II, when members of the two
appropriations committees were kept apprised of work on the atom-
ic bomb without breaking security. The record of the Joint Com-
mittee on Atomic Energy in this connection has been impeccable.
Moreover, the C.I.A. is even now monitored, in theory, by four
small subcommittees of the committees on Armed Services and
Appropriations of the Senate and House. Not even the most experi-
enced and security-conscious officials in the Intelligence community
would deny these subcommittees?had they time to apply for it?
access to the pertinent information that might enable them con-
scientiously to provide the vast sums of money that are requested
year after year. But apparently the notion exists that if the whole
matter is kept on the lowest possible level of Congressional concern,
secrecy will receive a higher degree of respect. There is no logic
in the notion. I should think just the opposite would be true.
I find myself in even less sympathy with another argument
advanced frequently in discussions of this question?namely, that
the Intelligence community exists solely to serve the President and
the National Security Council, and that therefore we in the Congress
have no right to exercise jurisdiction in the matter. But clearly the
executive and legislative branches of our government are not water-
tight compartments separated by steel bulkheads; the material
between them is flexible and porous. There are any number of
Congressional Committees which keep a watch over the executive
agencies. And, as I have already said, it is not only their right to
do so; it is their duty under the Constitution.
These arguments concerning secrecy and the exclusively executive
nature of the Intelligence function are, though unpersuasive, at
least consistent. But strangely enough, those who oppose the idea
of a Joint Committee insist as well that Congressional surveillance
is already more than adequate. This contention was made by Allen
Dulles in his recent book and by President Kennedy in answer to a
question at his October 9 press conference.
What, in fact, is the present extent of Congressional surveillance
over Intelligence activities? As mentioned, in both the House and
Senate the bodies responsible for overseeing the Intelligence com-
munity are subcommittees of the Appropriations and Armed Ser-
vices committees. Neither the House Foreign-Affairs Committee nor
the Senate Foreign-Relations Committee has jurisdiction in this
area despite their obvious interest in Intelligence matters. This
might not matter were it not that the surveillance exercised by the
four existing subcommittees is both cursory and sporadic.
At the time I introduced the Resolution proposing the Joint Com-
mittee and spoke on the Floor of the House in favor of it, Congress-
man Walter Norblad of Oregon, the second-ranking Minority mem-
ber of the House Committee on Armed Services, had this to say:
"Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with the gentleman's
remarks. I think we should have had a joint committee to monitor
the C.I.A. when it was first established. I have had a little experi-
ence in the matter as a Member of the Committee on Armed Ser-
vices. As you may know, we have a subcommittee on the C.I.A. I
was a member of that committee for four years. We met annually?
one time a year, for a period of two hours in which we accomplished
virtually nothing. I think a proposal such as [Mr. Lindsay has]
made is the answer to it because a part-time subcommittee of the
Armed Services Committee, as I say, which meets for just two
hours, one day a year, accomplishes nothing whatsoever. I want to
compliment the gentleman on his proposal."
The reasons for the lack of adequate check and examination are
almost self-evident: the members of the four subcommittees them-
selves, by definition, have relatively low status. But even had those
subcommittees both status and time, the difficulties involved in
dividing jurisdiction among the four would, I think, be insuperable.
It should be clear from what I have said that the bipartisan pro-
ponents of a Joint Committee on Foreign Information and Intelli-
gence are fully aware that a high degree of secrecy is essential to
the workings of the Intelligence community. Neither I nor any
legislator wishes to see the legitimate secrets of the Intelligence
community reported in the press and on the air. Indeed, this seems
far more likely to occur under present conditions because the press,
sometimes called "the fourth branch of the government," may turn
out to be the only effective check on Intelligence activities?and that
check could be dangerous as well as disruptive. But danger and
disruption are certain if public confidence in the Intelligence estab-
lishment erodes. It is less likely if a body of the people's represen-
tatives, properly constituted and carefully chosen by the leadership
of the two Houses of Congress, remains continuously aware of the
activities of the Intelligence community. The performance of this
function is nothing less than their duty to the American people,
whose lives and liberties are profoundly involved in the Intelligence
activities of our government.
Finally. I would observe that such a joint Congressional Commit-
tee would perform a useful, perhaps an indispensable, service for
the Intelligence community itself. There has been a tendency to
assign the burden of blame to the C.I.A. when some foreign under-
takings have gone bad or failed altogether. Whether the blame has
been justified?as in some cases it may have been?or whether
unjustified, the liability to blame is apparent, and the C.I.A., unlike
other less inhibited agencies, can do little to defend itself. A joint
committee could do much to maintain the record fairly.
As the central government grows in size and power, and as the
Congress, like parliaments everywhere, tends to diminish in impor-
tance, the need for countervailing checks and balances becomes all
the more important. The shaping and implementation by secret
processes of some part of foreign policy is an extremely serious
matter in a free society. It cannot be shrugged off or stamped as
an inescapable necessity because of the dangers of the time and
the threat from present enemies of democracy. To do so is to deny
our history and to gamble dangerously with our future. There are
internal as well as external dangers. Free political systems and
individual liberties can be swiftly undermined. Confidence in the
systems and liberties themselves can be lost even more swiftly. And
when that happens to a free society, no foreign policy, however well
conceived, will protect its highest interest, the continuation of
the free system of government and the society on which it rests.
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