COVERT ACTIONS: DEBATING WISDOM AND MORALITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640054-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 54
• Publication Date: April 8, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
61 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640054-1
NEW YORK TIMES
8 April 1983
IrrriCLE APPEA1ED
'N PAGE 4'/J'
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STAT
Covert Actions: Debating Wisdom
By BERNARD GWERTZMAN
Special to me New York nom ? -
WASHINGTON, April 7? The lat-
est disclosures about the Reagan Ad-
ministration's covert prograai in Cen-
tral America have raised -old ques-
tions about the wisdom and morality
of secret American involvement in the
internal affairs of other countries.
It is a debate that has been waged -
off and on for years here, where se-
crecy and intrigue are a part of life.
Should the United States secretly fi-
nance paramilitary activities against
another government? .
Specifically, should -the. United
States finance covert military actions
against thtiNicaraguan Government,
as it is doing now, or should it restrict
itself to the above-board effort io bol-
ster the military, economic and politi-
cal structure of El Salvador, which is
threatened by insurgents who the Ad-
ministration contends are directed
and supported from Nicaragua?
The dispute recalls debates after
disclosures of American involvement
in such places as Cuba, Laos, Angola,
the Congo and Guatemala. It has only
just begun to be heard on Capitol Rill.
But it is causing concern for many Ad-
ministration officials trying to galva-
nize public opposition to those seeking
to overthrow the American-backed
Government in El Salvador.
`The Moral Imprimatur'
"U.S. actions against Nicaragua un-
dercut the moral imprimatur upon
which U.S. policy in El Salvador is
based," Representative Jim Leach;
Republican of Iowa, asserted on the
House floor Tuesday. "In El Salvador,
we stand foursquarely against those
who are armed and financed from
abroad and who would shoot their way
into power. In Nicaragua, we stand
foursquarely with such forces, and are
in fact the financiers of anarchy."
The Reagan Administration, at
least until the most recent unraveling
of its covert support for anti-San ?
forces in Nicaragua, has not seen a0-
thing inconsistent with opposing in-
surgents in El Salvador and backing
insurrection in Nicaragua. Both
courses are consistent with the Na-
tional Security Council's two-year
projection on Central American policy
through 1984, which was written last
year and made available Wednesday.
It said, "In the short run, we must
work to eliminate Cuban-Soviet influ-
ence in the region."
The projection also expressed satis-
faction
ists "are under increased pressure as ianri Mnralifv,
that in Nicaragua the Sandin -
a result of our covert efforts and be-
cause of the poor state of the econ-
omy." It said at another point that in
this period there should be "signifi-
cant covertoactivity."
But the document also pointed up
continued "serious difficulties with
U.S. public and Congressional opinion
which jeopardizes our ability to stay
the course." It said there should be "a
concerted public information effort"
to meet this problem.
The document did not seem to
_recognize the quandary that in the
past befell administrations involved .
in covert backing for paramilitary
Foreign Relations Conamittee, tried to
talk President 'Kennedy out of going
ahead with the covert American-spon-
sored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. In
a memorandum to Mr. Kennedy that
listed many arguments against the
operation, Senator Fulbright said that
"to give this activity even covert sup-
-port is of a piece with the hypocrisy
and cynicism for which the United
forces: that once a large-scale covert
operation has become known, the
American public has tended to ques-
tion the American intervention in an-
other country's affairs rather than to
criticize the activities by Communists
or others that provoked the United
States actions in the first place.
Debate on Covert Activity
For years, the value and morality of
American covert support for armed
intervention in another country has
provoked bitter debates in Washing.:
ton.Dir. Leach, making the case for
those 'who oppose such action, said
that by doing what it condemns the
Communists for doing, the United
States was lowering itself "into the
gutter with the violence-prone revolu-
tionaries we so loudly condemn."
Twenty-two years ago, Senator
J. W. Fulbright, then chairman of the
Torn limos
States is constantly denouncing the
Soviet Union in the United Nations
and elsewhere."
Yet Dean Rusk, Secretary of State,
argued publicly and privately that
however distasteful clandestine mili-
tary operations were to a democracy,
the United States could not afford to
give the Communists a monopoly in
the "back alleys of the world."
Daniel Arnold, a retired Central In-
telligence Agency senior official in
Asia, speaking at a symposium on
covert action in December 1980, justi-
fied paramilitary covert action by
asking: "Is it more moral for the
United States to stand aside while
Soviet-backed forces subvert a society
than to covertly intervene to support
the far more benign forces with which
-we share a common interest?"
The special Senate committee that
investigated the American intelli-
CONT,INUF-D
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640054-1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640054-1
.2 .
gence community 1111976 looked into
coven paramilitary action and con-
cluded that "the evidence points to-
ward the failure of paramilitary ac-
tivity as a technique of covert action."
'Great Potential for Escalating'
"They are difficult, if not impossi-
ble, to conceal," it said, warning that
such operations "have great potential
for escalating into major military
commitments." It said that of the five
paramilitary activities studied by the
committee, only one appeared to have
achieved its objectives. That could
have been the use of Cuban exiles in
the 1960's to maintain the Congo ?
now Zaire ? government in power.
One Administration official, who
said his viewa did not represent those
of the policy makers, said today that
there was a legitimate question as to
whether the Administration should
allow itself to be supporting covert
military operations.
He said that the fact that the covert
operation had been "more or less ex-
posed" had allowed the Communists
to divert public attention away from
the insurgency in El Salvador. "I
think it was a mistake by Haig to give
up the high moral ground," he said,
referring to former Secretary of State
Alexander M. Haig Jr., who was the
primary official involved in launching
the clandestine operation.
This official said that even in Guate-
mala where the C.I.A., in 1954. helped
the right-wing army officers over-
throw a civilian government, the "vic-
tory- in the long run was costly to the
United States because it provided con-
tinual grist for those accusing the
United States of "imperialism" in
Latin America.
Another official said that his con-
cern was regardless of whether re-
ports of covert operations in Nicara-
gua were correct, they "titillated" the
press and made it difficult for the Ad-
ministration to publicize the reforms
of the Salvadoran Government and to
focus on the activities of the Nicara-
guan-backed insurgents in El Salva-
dor.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640054-1