CIA PROPER TOOL FOR FOREIGN POLICY?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201140063-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2010
• Sequence Number: 63
• Publication Date: April 1, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/30: CIA-RDP96-00806R000201140063-4
SPOKANE SPOKESMAN (WA)
1 April 1984
CIEt proper tool fc
foreign policy?
By SHERRY DEVLIN
Stnf'correspondent
MOSCOW, Idaho - Does the
United States have any business
sticking its nose - that is, its Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency - into
other people's politics?
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
said yes. He told CIA operatives to
engineer the ouster of Guatemalan
President Jacobo' Arbenz-_in ..1954.
They succeeded.
President John F. Kennedy said
yes. He authorized the Bay of Pigs
assault on Fidel Castro's Cuban dic-
tatorship in 1961. It failed.
President Lyndon B. Johnson
said yes. He OK'd repeated CIA
plots to kill Castro. All failed, de-
spite the use of Mafia hitmen and
Cuban nationals.
President Richard M. Nixon said
yes. He gave the _CIA $10 million to
bribe Chilean congressmen not to
ratify the election of President Sal-
vador Allende- in September.. 1970.
The vote was ratified.
"We have witnessed government
after government being over-
thrown in Latin America, all guided
by the invisible hand of. the United
States," says Larry Birns, a foreign
policy analyst.
"Not one of these so-called secret
wars has ever been debated in a
public forum or approved by vote.
of Congress," Birns said. "Not one."
Instead, U.S. presidents from
Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan
have used the CIA as their strong
arm abroad, said Birns, moderator
of last week's Borah Symposium at
the University of Idaho.
Truman used the intelligence
agency to save. Western Europe
from the Communist threat of the
late 1940s, subsidizing leaders, po-
litical parties and unions in Germa-
ny, France and Italy.
From there, the CIA took its in-
fluence peddling across the globe:
the Philippines, Vietnam, Iran,
Guatemala, Chile, Cuba, Angola,
Laos and most recently Nicaragua.
"The record of CIA intervention
is dismal, with no clear successes
and many disastrous failures," said.;
Amos Yoder, UI political science!
professor and an organizer of the"
Borah conference.
This year's symposium zeroed in
on CIA intervention in Latin Ameri-
ca, with emphasis on Chile and Ni-
The seven panelists, including
former CIA operatives, Latin
Americans and political analysts,
raised a long list of questions. Few.
were answered.
Does U.S. support for the 10,000
troops fighting Nicaragua's leftist
Sandinista government constitute
international terrorism?
Did the CIA engineer the over-
throw and death of Chile's Allende
in September 1973? What did the
United States stand to gain by de-
posing Allende and installing Gen.
Augusto Pinochet?
Does continued use of the CIA for
intervention weaken this country's .
moral and political position abroad,
and stimulate retaliation?
Should there not be more explicit
legislation to control the CIA - to,
as one participant said, "put a leash -".
on the dirty tricks?"
William Colby, director of the
CIA from 1973 to 1976, provided'
the defense of covert operations
abroad.
"The CIA," Colby said, "enables
our leaders to make foreign policy
and defense decisions on the basis,
of knowledge rather than in the
haze of ignorance and suspicion."
Jaime Barrios, a Chilean exile
now living in New York City, pro-
vided the indictment.
The CIA-backed government in
his native country has created "an
economic wasteland ruled by coer-
cion, intimidation and terror," Bar-
rios said.
"The_ United States has robbed a
whole generation of Chileans of the
opportunity to determine their own
destiny," he said. "La CIA has few
friends in Chile."
The trouble started, Barrios said,
when Allende won Chile's 1970
presidential election with 36 per-
cent of the vote.
Nixon was incensed. Allende,
said Nixon, was another Castro.
"During the two months follow-
ing Allende's election, the CIA
planted 1,000 articles in the Chilean
press describing the horrors of so-
cialist rule," Barrios said.
"Nixon funneled $10 million into
the operation, telling the CIA to as-
sassinate Allende if all else failed,"
he said. "But on Nov. 4, 1970, Al-
lende was installed by the Chilean -
congress."
The CIA, however, did not give'
up its campaign to destabilize
Chile's left-wing government. Over
the next three years, $8 million in
American money went into CIA op-
erations in Chile.
Colby said the money went to the
country's moderate political par-
ties - those that supported trade
unions and a free press.
"We were looking toward the
elections of 1976," he said. "We
rather hoped the centrist forces
could recover their power. That ef-
fort, however, was pre-empted by
the military coup of September
1973."
Barrios described a more nefari-
ous involvement. .
"I don't believe a word Mr. Colby
has said," he told one Borah ses-
sion. "The lies, misinformation and
sabotage engineered by your CIA
undermined Latin America's oldest
democracy."
The September coup left as many
as 20,000 Chileans dead and many
thousands more in exile. Allende
was killed at the presidential pal-
ace. Pinochet was installed as dic-
tator.
"Chile under the junta has suf-
fered a long tableau of human
rights violations and total social
control," Barrios said. "Pinochet
says destiny gave him his job. I say
the CIA gave him his job." -
And the CIA will continue doling
out control of Latin American
countries as long as it is the covert
arm of the president's foreign poli-
cy advisers, said Ralph McGehee, a
retired CIA operative and critic of
agency policies.
"The agency's task is to develop
an international anti-communist id-
eology, ' McGehee said. "The CIA
then links every egalitarian politi-
cal movement to the scourge of in-
ternational communism.
"As with Guatemala in 1954, the
CIA starts covert actions .by drag-
ging a red herring across the trail.
The Soviets are coming, the Soviets
are coming.
"A Soviet threat somehow justi-
fies all that follows."
"All that follows" includes assas-
sination of foreign chiefs of state,
the murder of thousands of suspect-
ed Viet Cong in South Vietnam and
the current offensive in Nicaragua.
"What you're forgetting, though,"
Colby told McGehee, "is that this
isn't a black-hat-white-hat situa-
tion."
"Let's look at the real facts,"
Colby said. "Mr.. Allende was de-
posed because he tried to impose
socialism on a well-established Chi-
lean middle class.
"The military overthrew Al-
lende, not the CIA. -
"There also was a very close re-
lationship between Mr. Allende and
Mr. Castro. Castro planned to set
Continued
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. 02
up a training base for the expansion
of his revolution in Chile."
Barrios fired back: "For the
United States to spend even $1 in-
truding into Chilean affairs is
inexcusable."
Now there is the revolt in leftist
Nicaragua - denounced as a CIA
plot' by Manuel Cordero, Nicara-
gua's deputy ambassador to the
United States.
Operating out of neighboring
Honduras and financed by the CIA,
anti-Sandinista rebels have de-
stroyed Nicaragua's only oil refin-
ery, killed 1,500 people and left
$150 million in property damage,
according to Cordero.
"The CIA's stated objectives are
to attack Cuban facilities in Nicar-
agua," Cordero said. "The problem
is, there are no Cuban facilities."
Asked Birns, "Isn't it true,
though, that there are Cuban mili-
tary advisers in Nicaragua?"
"Yes," said Cordero.
"How many?" Birns asked.
"It is against our policy to re-
lease any numbers," Cordero said.
"Cuba reports sending 200 advisers
to Nicaragua."
"Well, that's a lie for sure," Birns
said.
"All we want," Cordero said, "is
to be left alone - to work on re-
building our economy and building
a new political structure."
The U.S. government obviously
sees the situation differently, said
Colby.
But he no longer works for the
CIA and has no information on cur-
rent operations. And the agency
refused to send a representative to
the symposium.
Still, none of the panelists
blamed the agency itself for the
muddled history of covert interven-
tion abroad.
"No one blames the technicians,"
said Birns. "But we do blame the
residents and cabinet secretaries.
blame them, but I'm not sure
we can stop them."
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