THE CHOICE IS INTELLIGENCE OR PROPAGANDA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303420010-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: October 27, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303420010-0
I.
ARTICLE APPE.ABED
ON PAGE ~,r& -
THE REVIEW OF TIE NEWS
27 OCTOBER 1982
T IQ-.M
I 0EHa"E CHOICE" I
li I ~- If T "a-, L L 1, G, E N, C
WPAG
by Julia Ferguson
0 INTEL:-1GENcE professionals were
shucked recently when the House In-
telligence Committee released a Left-
slanted attack on U.S. policy in Cen-
ral America. The Report. written by
members i'f the staff of Intelligence
Oversight and Evaluation. Subcommit-
tee Chairman Charles Rose (D.-North
Carolina), was immediately con-
demned by other members of the
Committee and the intelligence corn-
munity. At the same time. the Cuban
propaganda network began circulating
selected excerpts of the Report as a
part of its anti-U.S. campaign in Cen-
tral Americu.
The House Intelligence Committee,
chaired by Representative Edward
Boland (D.-Massachusetts), had de-
veloped a substantial reputation dur-
ing its five years of existence as a
balanced. moderate, bipartisan con-
gressional participant in intelligence
matters. The Report by the Rose Sub-
committee staff raised images of the
discredited Frank Church hysteria of
the Seventies. One signal of the seri-
ousness with which the release of the
Report is regarded in intelligence cir-
cles was the fact that Admiral Bobby
Ray Inman. former deputy director of
the C.I.A. and previously director of
the National Security Agency, re-
signed his position as an unpaid con-
sultant to the House intelligence Com-
mittee. Inman, who had been appointed
to the post with much fanfare by
Chairman Boland, left because of the
slanted nature of the Staff Report
and the partisan manner in which it
was released.
Leading the congressional protest is
Representative C.W. "Bill" Young (R.-
Florida). who called the Staff Report
"extremely biased, containing over-
statements, misstatements and sub-
jective generalities." Young pointed
that a Co ;;rnitiee staff Report is
n,'i suppn'.rd in be it priii c91 docu-
ment packed with assumptions, opin-
ions, and conclusions of a political
nature. Staffers are supposed to stick
to assembling facts.
The Staff Report finds fault pri-
marily with the "presentation" of
U.S. intelligence information, which
it contends is given to "suggestion of
greater certainty than is warranted by
the evidence." To justify this claim,
the Report attacks a C.I.A. secret
briefing on international Communist
support of the Salvadoran terrorists
given in March of this year. But Intel-
ligence Committee Chairman Boland
said after the briefing that the evi-
dence was "convincing" that the Sal-
vadoran terrorists "rely on the use of
sites in Nicaragua for command and
control and for logistical support."
The Chairman continued by stating
there was "further persuasive evi-
dence" that the Sandinistas were help-
ing to train the Salvadoran terrorists,
transferring arms and financial sup-
port to them, and were providing them
with bases of operation on Nicaraguan
territory. And. said the Chairman.
"Cuban involvement - especially in
providing arms - is also evident.."
The Rose Staff Report seeks to
discredit this briefing. and by im-
plication Chairman Boland's response.
by declaring that "only a very few"
ships had been traced from the Soviet
Union to Cuba and,\yicaraeua carrying
arms for the terrorists. Never mind
that arms for the Communist terrorist
movement are flowing from the Sovi-
et Union through other Communist
countries to Nicaragua where they are
given to the terrorists of the Farabun-
do Marti National Liberation Move-
ment (F.M.L.N.).
The Staff Report's second major
criticism is that our intelligence places
faulty "reliance on some unquestioned
and sometimes contradictory assump-
tions." But the only "contradictor
assumptions" cited are those on
whether increased American pressure
on the Communist Cuban regime would
motivate it to "reduce tensions" or
whether it would cause Fide] Castro
"to step up his troublemaking activ-
ities." The Staff Report ignored the
facts that the result depends on how
much pressure is applied and at what
point Castro decides the pleasure of
exporting terrorism and subversion in
this hemisphere is not worth the pain
of vastly tightened economic embar-
goes, internal unrest encouraged by the
proposed new U.S. Radio Marti broad-
carts, and so forth.
The third major unfair criticism of
U.S. intelligence was its alleged "ac-
ceptance of descriptions given by the
Salvadoran government when intelli-
gence anaiysts recognize grounds for
skepticism." This boils down to the
fact that the Rose Subcommittee
staffers do not believe that the Gov-
ernment of El Salvador is attempting
to maintain discipline over its troops.
and that the only evidence that mem-
bers of the Salvadoran armed forces
involved in abuses are being punished
comes from the Government of El
Salvador. Never mind that the Staff
Report itself cites a cable from the
l'.S. Embassy in San Salvador which
corroborates the statements of the
Salvadoran Government.
C ~'v111'17-M
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303420010-0