LET'S STOP BAITING THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050064-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 29, 2013
• Sequence Number: 64
• Publication Date: March 6, 1964
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050064-4
EDITORIALS
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Let's Stop
Baiting the CIA
Last October a Central Intelligence Agency man in
Saigon got his name in the papers, lost his cover and had to be
transferred. This incident, together with an uneasy feeling that
the CIA was working at cross-purposes with the State Depart-
ment, precipitated a wave of criticism both in the press and in
Congress. It was not the first such wave. The CIA has always
made many Americans uncomfortable because some of its
activities?such as covert operations?are by nature contrary to
the U.S. tradition of candor and nonintervention in interna-
tional affairs. And the CIA is peculiarly vulnerable to critics
because it cannot answer them without risking that very secrecy.
Anyway, who likes spooks?
Senator Eugene McCarthy (D., Minn.) and Congressman
John Lindsay (R., N.Y.) are among the CIA's new-wave critics,
accusing it of being inadequately controlled and making its own
foreign policy. "It has taken on the character of an invisible
government answering only to itself," says McCarthy. "This
must stop."
Is the CIA in fact out of control? Senator Thomas Dodd
(D., Conn.), one of its defenders, calls the charge "patently
ridiculous." By statute, the CIA is answerable to the National
Security Council and the President, hence it cannot "make its
- own foreign policy" but only execute the President's, if the
President is on the job. Similarly, abroad: the CIA's agents are
responsible to our ambassadors and, as George Kennan testi-
fied on his return from Belgrade, "The authority of an ambas-
sador over official American personnel within his territory is
iust about whatever he wants to make it . . . they have to re-
spect his authority if he insists."
Moreover, the CIA is controlled by Congress as well, through
three small but elite subcommittees?one in the Senate, two in
the House. Members testify that CIA Director McCone or his
deputies report regularly and frankly to them. But critics claim
this is inadequate and demand a new joint Senate-House watch-
dog committee, similar to the one that keeps tabs on the secret-
laden Atomic Energy Commission. This watchdog proposal was
thoroughly debated in 1956 and turned down by the Senate,
59-27. Although the then Senator John F. Kennedy voted with
the minority, as President he opposed any added scrutiny of
the CIA, as had Eisenhower. The arguments today are much
the same as in 1956, and in our opinion a vote would?and
should?turn out about the same. As Dodd says, the watchdog
committee idea is a mechanical question of "third-rate impor-
tance." Even with the watchdog committee, nonmember con-
gressmen would still be largely in the dark about some CIA ac-
tivities, and would therefore have just as much reason to beef
about its secrecy as they do now.
"Khrushchev knows more about the CIA than I do," com-
plained a California congressman. So what? He knows a lot
less than he would if Congress knew more.
The CIA has had its successes and its failures in support of
U.S. foreign policy, among the former being its role in the over-
throw of Mossadegh in Iran and of the Arbenz regime in Guate-
mala a decade ago. Its reputation still suffers from the Bay of
Pigs fiasco. Yet the plan the CIA authored?a beachhead for an
4
exile Cuban government that could be supported militarily?
looks pretty good in retrospect. The blame for its calamitous
execution must be shared by the CIA and the Pentagon, the
State Department and the White House. In any case we shall
need the capability for that kind of clandestine operation so long
as the Communists continue to set the pace for it.
Even more will we continue to need what constitutes most
of the CIA's job?the collection and evaluation of intelligence,
some secret and some not. That kind of evaluated knowledge,
though it cannot be measured or priced, is power. The CIA puts
this power at the disposal of the U.S. government. Although no
organ of government can or should be exempt from public scru-
tiny in a democracy, an agency like the CIA can at least ask
that such secrecy as is essential to its function be respected and
that its contributions to our security be weighed in the same
scale as its indispensable (if unpopular) immunities. By that
scale, in our judgment, the CIA to date deserves the confidence
of the nation.
The Good Case
for a New Canal
or at least 20 years, plans for a second Atlantic-Pacific
canal have been mooted on the assumption that the Panama Ca-
nal would eventually become obsolete. That time is approach-
ing: the canal won't take the biggest ships now afloat and will
soon be inadequate for the increasing volume of ordinary-sized
ones. Besides, the startling events of January have shown
that existing arrangements may be politically obsolete too. In
the past procrastination and indecision balked progress on a
second ditch. Now let's get serious.
Fortunately we may have a fantastic new shovel in the form
of nuclear energy. A scheme has been proposed by the Atomic
Energy Commission scientists for excavating a sea-level canal
capable of handling more ships faster, in addition to being sim-
pler to operate (no locks) and hence much less vulnerable to
wartime attack. It is described on page 55. Provided the tech-
nology can be refined?a big job, but possible with proper
priorities?nuclear explosives would make the canal relatively
cheap (upwards of $500 million) and easy to dig.
Political problems are inherent in this scheme; modification
of the Test Ban Treaty to permit the development and use of
atomic explosives is one of them. The U.S. must make it clear
that what we are ultimately after is nothing more sinister than
the assured use of a dependable interocean route. We do not
require the ownership of such a route.
Though much of the financial and technical backing for a
new canal will inevitably come from the U.S., we should not
object to practical suggestions for international financing and
ownership?preferably hemispheric?especially if this makes it
easier to secure right of way. We should figure to get no more
than our investment back on an amortized basis. We need the
new canal more than we need any putative profits and so do
the Western Hemisphere and the traders of the world.
With a firm go-ahead on the new project, we could plan a
phase-out in the Canal Zone and prepare to yield sovereignty
of existing facilities to the Panamanians outright as soon as
ships are moving through the sea-level route. It won't happen
tomorrow, but some realistic talk about our long-term plans
would inject a soothing common-sense note into the present
Panama-U.S. fracas over short-term prospects.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP80M01009A000100050064-4