COVERT DOESN'T PAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 4, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST"T
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved
ON PAGE
for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400001-5
IN THE NATION
JnTom Wie -
Covert.
Doesn't
Pay
Ever since World War 11, Presi-
dents have been using "covert
operations" to pursue political
aims that they did not want to admit
- often with consequences damaging
to the United States as well as to the
target nation.
Now Congress is considering a bill
- which is classically too little and
too late - to require Presidents to re-
port to Congressional intelligence
committees within 48 hours of autber-
izing one of these cloak-and-dagger
schemes. Robert Michel, the House
Republican leader, says that would
"put a straitjacket on a future Prasi-
dent."
Baloney. The bill would only re-
quire a President to let Congress
know what he's doing, and object if it
wishes. Even a President totally de-
prived of covert operations would re-
tain a vast array of military' aind
other powers to carry out his policies
effectively. He might even be better
off to be so restricted, considering (he
historical record: ,
President Eisenhower ordered the
C.I.A. to overthrow the MossadeO
Government of Iran in 1953. TT%b fa-
mous victory cleared the way lot the
Shah's quarter-century of increasing
tyranny, and led to the Ayatollah Kho-
meini's disastrous revolution in 1979.
Eisenhower also authorized the
C.I.A. in 1954 to overthrow a Guate-
malan Government that his Adniinis-
tration, with laughable and partly
rigged evidence, labeled "Comttru-
nlst." The resulting triumph of
"democracy" brought Guatemala 30
years of military rule, repression and
bloodshed, ended only recently by an
elected Government; and it brought
the U.S. no credit in Central America.
President Kennedy had his Bay of
Pigs, LB.J. his secret war in? Laos,
Richard Nixon the destabilizati4 of
Chile. Jimmy Carter is not known to
have undertaken such grandiose se-
cret political operations, but did suf-
fer the failed mission to rescueAmer-
ican hostages from Teheran. -
April 1987
Either in the short term or the long,
all time operations backfired on
their perpetrator or his successors.
Nor can a good case be made that
covert operations for political- pur-
poses that Presidents do not want to
acknowledge have ever advanced
U.S. interests in any signlficant way_.
Ignoring all warning precedents,
however, Ronald Reagan - urged on
by his guru in conspiracy, William
Casey - succumbed to the charms of
operating in secret. He organized and
financed, one way or another, the con-
tras in Nicaragua; he covertly sup-
plied Iran with arms while urging the
rest of the world not to do so - and in
the latter case failed for 10 months to
meet the legal requirement of "time-
ly" notification to Congress.
Mr. Reagan, brought by exposure
of his Iranian operation to the lowest
point of his Presidency, has shown
again that covert operations under-
taken on White House authority alone
risk more than they can deliver.
There are numerous reasons: -
They presuppose a small, secret ac-
tion group around the President,
which may not receive or fully con-
sider dissenting views and skeptical
analysis, and some of whose mem-
bers may have a career or ideolbglcal
stake in a proposed operation.
Even mere notification of Congres-
sional committees - all the current
bill would require - would increase
the opportunity for such dissent' and
analysis, by critics with no persohal
commitment to the operation. ?Mern-
bers of Congress, moreover, will have
a better sense of the public accept-
ability - if any - of an operation,
should it become public, than the bu-
reaucrats, spooks and Presideptial
aides who conceived it.
If notification of Congress results in
a leak to the public, the leaker most
likely considers an operation - such
as arms to Iran - unwarranted or
unworkable or both, and he may well
be right. President Kennedy came to
wish that press leaks had saved him
from the Bay of Pigs debacle.
When a covert operation is: ex-
posed, as is all too likely in this age of
information and communication; it
can damage the public's confidence
in a President's judgment. And since
a covert operation will almost always
force a President to lie - to the
American public as well as the world
- its exposure also erodes the pub-
lic's trust in his integrity.
Public trust in a President's good
judgment and integrity, however, is
the essential ingredient in his ability
to lead. But that's precisely what,
above all, he puts at risk when he
turns to secrecy and covert opera-
tions to achieve aims he cannot share
with the ndlior. C
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400001-5