IS COVERT ACTION NECESSARY?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830015-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 18, 2006
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: November 1, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN

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News Bulletin
Item from NEWSWEEK, page 53.
1 November 1982
Item #q
Is Covert Action Necessary?
W by not destabilize Nicaragua? The Marxist who eventually was deposed and
Sandinistas are no friends of ours. assassinated. But no covert action is a com-
They have cozied up to Castro and Brezh- plete success unless it remains a secret, and
nev. They have funneled arms to the leftist secrets are hard to keep in an open society.
rebels in El Salvador. They are building an In the case of Chile, the CIA tried to cover
army larger than they need for their own up by lying to Congress, and eventually a
defense. By example, if nothing else, they loyal American, former CIA Director
pose a threat to right-wing rulers in places Richard Helms, had to plead no contest to a
like Honduras and Guatemala-bad guys, false-testimony charge. Covert action can
to be sure, but ourbad guys, and arguably no turn out for the best, but the only truly
worse than the other kind. Which is the successful operations run by the CIA are the
lesser evil: to unleash a little thuggery on the ones we still don't know about.
Sandinistas, who play by those rules, or to Before World War II, intelligence work
wash our hands of dirty tricks, for fear of consisted mostly of gathering information
getting into deeper trouble? and thwarting enemy spies. The wartime
Why not arm the rebels in Afghanistan? Office of Strategic Services, the CIA's pred-
As a matter of fact, we're doing that. Why ecessor, broadened the franchise to include
not make trouble for Muammar Kaddafi? propaganda, political action and dirty tricks
We're doing that, too. Why not send secret of almost every description. After the war,
financial aid to Solidarity? If we're doing the CIA helped the democracies of Western
that, most Americans would approve-and Europe to stave off communist subversion
would rather not know. There are worse by subsidizing socialists, Christian Demo-
things than covert action. But if a democrat- crats and labor unions. In its heyday, which
is nation is to meddle in the affairs of an- lasted until the mid-1970s, the CIA
other country, it must abide by certain launched literally thousands of secret pro-
rules: don't violate your own principles. grams, most of them low-budget political
Don't make things worse. Don't get caught. and propaganda operations. But it didn't
Subversion: The Central Intelligence hesitate to stage coups and raise private
Agency defines covert action as "any clan- armies, especially in the Third World. There
destine operation or activity designed to were fiascoes, notably at the Bay of Pigs. Yet
influence foreign governments, organiza- the CIA also managed to overthrow leftist
tions, persons or events in support of United regimes in countries like Guatemala and
States foreign policy." That covers every- Iran and to wage a long "secret war" in Laos
thing from planting a pro-American edito- by transforming primitive tribesmen into a
rial in a foreign newspaper to staging coups surprisingly effective army.
or raising secret armies. Democratic ideals Rebirth: In the wake of Vietnam and
often do not square with covert action. Watergate, there was a virtual moratorium
Some conspiracies launched in defense of on the messier kinds of covert action. CIA
American democracy end up subverting de- operatives were discharged by the hun-
mocracy elsewhere. In Chile, for example, dreds. Congress required that it be informed
the CIA destabilized the government of an of every covert action. It was Jimmy Carter,
elected president, Salvador Allende, a the champion of human rights and open
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INTERNATIONAL
government, who presided over the rebirth
of covert action. With Soviet troops occupy-
ing Afghanistan and American diplomats
held hostage in Iran, the CIA began to
rebuild its secret sources of power and per-
suasion. In Ronald Reagan's first year, the
intelligence budget was increased by 20 per-
cent, but according to one knowledgeable
source, the number of clandestine oper-
ations has not increased dramatically since
Carter left office.
In addition to the Nicaraguan adventure,
NEWSWEEK has learned, the CIA is cur-
rently running paramilitary operations in
about 10 countries, including Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan mission involves only a
handful of CIA agents, but it has spent
hundreds of millions of dollars on weapons
shipped to the rebels through third parties,
such as Egypt. Two separate covert actions
have been aimed at Libyan leader Kaddafi.
One was designed to stir up trouble for him
in Chad (Libya has since withdrawn its
occupation forces from that country). The
other authorized contacts with Libyan dis-
sidents in exile, in hopes of putting together
a legitimate opposition. Briefing one con-
gressional committee, CIA Director Wil-
liam Casey said such activities might lead to
the "ultimate" removal of Kaddafi.
As a last resort, the destabilization or
overthrow of a foreign government may be
necessary, whether it involves subtle subver-
sion or something nastier. Perhaps the same
result could be achieved in broad daylight by
military action or overt diplomacy. But if
the public doesn't want to go to war, and if
diplomacy offers insufficient leverage, cov-
ert action is the only alternative to backing
down. Such plots may offend a democracy's
sense of decency-and seem expedient all
the same. If the aim of a covert action is in
line with what Americans generally consid-
er necessary, prudent and moral, most of
them will tolerate the means.
Plot: Even so, a free society should not
sacrifice its principles lightly. Plots against
foreigners may not be as necessary as some
practitioners of the covert arts would have
us believe. In 1960 the CIA decided to kill
Patrice Lumumba, the former prime minis-
ter of the Congo, who appeared to be on the
verge of regaining power and handing his
country over to the Soviet Union. The U.S.
plan to poison Lumumba was never carried
out-in part, perhaps, because key CIA
operatives thought murder was going too
far. "I didn't regard Lumumba as the kind
of person who was going to bring on World
War III," CIA station chief Lawrence Dev-
lin told a congressional committee years
later. "I saw him as a danger to the political
position of the United States in Africa, but
nothing more than that." Eventually, Lu-
AP
punishment." The Congo, now known as
Zaire, remains a loyal, if politically shaky,
friend of the United States.
Another drawback to covert action is that
it often makes things worse-or at least no
better. The killing of South Vietnamese
President Ngo Dinh Diem, after a U.S.-
sponsored coup, did not leave us with
more effective allies in Saigon. Flirting with
supporters of the hated Somoza clan will
probably weaken the U.S. position in Nica-
ragua, not strengthen it. Furthermore, in a
democracy, it is almost impossible to guar-
antee that a covert action will remain covert.
Keeping secrets requires the acquies-
cence, if not the connivance, of the press. In
1953 a New York Times reporter named
Kennett Love decided not to write about the
CIA's role in deposing leftist Iranian Prime
Minister Mohammed Mossadegh-out of
"misguided patriotism," Love said later.
The story came out anyway. In 1961 John F.
Kennedy persuaded the Times that a lot of
what it knew about the impending Bay of
Pigs operation shouldn't be printed. The
Times withheld a big part of the story, the
invasion was a disaster, and Kennedy con-
cluded that the newspaper would have done
him a favor if it had blown the whistle.
nents, who announced in due course that he Whistles are blowing more frequently
had been killed after escaping from jail. these days. Covert actions almost always
f di
"Murder corrupts," said another reluctant come to light--in news reports from distant
Guatemalan rebels with leftist effigy, Af-
ghan insurgents, Lumumba: Can subver-
sion be a proper tool of foreign policy?
or in leaks from critics in Congress, the
administration or the intelligence agencies
themselves. Reporters know that the story
will come out, and that if they don't print it,
a competitor will. Even today, the news
media will generally suppress a story if pub-
lication would put lives at risk or expose a
secret that is indisputably vital to the na-
tional interest. Beyond that, sopie reporters
and editors say that they will withhold a
story if the covert action in question strikes
them as necessary, prudent and moral. The
press has no business making such value
judgments. Its role in an open society is to
print the news, fully and fairly, not to calcu-
late the incalculable consequences and
shave the truth a bit here and there.
Policy: A nation with global responsibil-
ities still needs covert action as a third tool
of foreign policy-one more forceful than
diplomacy and less hideous than war. It is
possible to conduct secret operations in a
society like ours, but only with great diffi-
culty. That is the way it should be for mis-
sions that so commonly violate basic demo-
cratic principles. The CIA may be at a
disadvantage in competing with the machi-
nations of closed societies, but no instru-
ment of democratic government can be al-
lowed to operate totally at odds with the
ideals it is supposed to espouse and protect.
RUSSELL WATSON with DAVID C. MARTIN in Washington
CIA officer, but "I'm nigt 49"WWe I 98M 4B0~~49R001202830015-5