III: THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY, THE DARK COUNCILS OF POWER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100060005-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 12, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

I lF.1I - J I
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100060005-2
k'Ii:STO"'.-SAL d JOU?VAL (NC )
12 DECDSER 1982
The feats of the
STAT
The dark Councils. o~
By Roy Thompson
Staff Report.r
O n Dec. 7, 1941, the United States was
the only major power on earth that
had no national intelligence service, and
there are those who believe that the lack
of. one trade the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor possib)e.
We created the Office of Strategic Ser-
vices as a wartime emergency and dis-
banded it as soon as the war was over.
Then ... realizing that we were the
leaders of the Western world ... we es-
tablished the Cea: :-Iati:ll~enr'it gen-
c~Lso meet the threat of international
communism...........-
Fighting fire with fire, it was called.
-'Living--inthe real world; it was called.
In the first -administrat n of Dwight
D. Eisenhower tb re Ras created-a com-
mittee of firefighters that has had many
names but is most commonly known as
'The Forty Group."
Five... sometimes six men named
by the president from- the higher eche-
lons of his State Department and mili-
tary advisers met in deepest secrecy to
fight a secret war in ways that the pre-
war nation would have found unaccept-
able. . -
`In the early days of the nation we had
sent the U.S. Cavalry. Later we had sent
the Marines.,
Early in the Eisenhower years we
were sending the CIA:
People in the intelligence. community
refer to the most secret of Its covert
missions as "black," and the blackest of
them all were those designed to over-
throw governments or assassinate the
heads of .foreign states.
All. such operations of deep blackness
had to be approved by the Forty Group,
and for years the late Gordon Gray
served on it as President Eisenhower's
representative.
This is how he came to be there ...
Gray is believed to have been intro-
duced to President Harry Truman by
Frank Wisner. a wealthy, bright and
charming Mississippian who had been in
the OSS in World War H.
ti'isaer bad a great interest in and
knowledge of international affairs.
He Rao well-known and liked in Win-
In a short time Gray had become see- from Presidents Truman and Eisenhow.
retary of the Army, had probably refused er to serve them in matters usually relat.
appointment as director of the CIA and
had left Washington for the presidency of
his alma mater in Chapel Hill.
The CIA of the Truman administration
was quite different from the one we
know today.
Truman had wanted a central agency
for collecting and using foreign intelli-
gence to sound an alarm before another
Pearl Harbor.
. There were men who wanted a bigger,
stronger and more powerful CIA with the
authority to "fight fire with fire, and one
ed to national security.
In one of those ... the chairmanship of
a committee named to inquire into the
loyalty of J. Robert. Oppenheimer, the
physicist who was sometimes described
as the father of the atomic bomb ... Gray
did his job as be saw- it and led the
committee to a finding that was was
probably justified by the evidence:
Oppenheimer's loyalty to his country
was not questioned, but he was denied
further access to the nation's atomic se-
crets..
of these was Allen Dulles, who was 'the Oppenheimer had a broad base of sup-
nation's most experienced and skillful port. The Gray committee was widely
py_._.,.. criticized, and. as a friend of. Gray said
Dulles was convinced ... as most of the 'later:
nztioii-vras' ..that HarryTruman would - "That--really scalded him. He talked .
be beaten by. Tom Dewey in 1948. Dulles' about it years later. He stayed out of
brother.'* John Foster, would be named
secretary of state. Allen Dulles would
become director of the CIA.
- Dulles had a hand in shaping some of
the early CIA legislation to make it the
instrument he expected to have at .his
disposal by early 1949.
.'The act that created it specified cer-
tain areas of responsibility and then add- '
ed a Dulles line which said the agency
was also empowered to "perform such
other functions and duties relating to
intelligence as the National Security
Council may from time to time direct."
"Truman surprised . almost everyone
but himself by beating Dewey in '48, but
Allen Dulles, a patient man; continued to
shape the agency to his own liking.
-;In 1949, be managed to have included
in new legislation a line that said "the
sums made available to the Agency may
be expended without regard to the provi-
sions of law and regulations relating to.
the expenditure of Government funds.'!-
. `By the time Dwight Eisenhower be-,
carne president and named the Dulleses
to their expected posts, the president of
the United States had an agency tailored
to his needs. If a thing could be described
as being a threat to our national security,
he could direct the CIA to do whatever
seemed necessary to remove the threat.
And he had a blank check with which
to pay the bills.
Gray. in the meantime, was president
of the 11nivercity n! Nnrth Carolina but
_ston.c, Sanitized Copy Approved for Release
2011/02/22: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100060005-2
controversy after that.-He- was never-an
activist. After the Oppenheimer thing he
was always a compromiser."
(Shortly after Gray left _GhapeLHill.
Oppenheimer was invited to speak there,
and the audience gave him a 10-minute
standing ovation when he was intro-
duced). .
In Washington ...
An army backed by the CIA invaded
Guatemala, overthrew the president and
installed one who was more to Eisenhow-
er's liking.
The CIA got rid of Iran's premier,
Mohammed Mossadegh, and replaced
him with the CIA's man, Gen. Fazollab
Zahedi.
Col. Edward G. Lansdale of the CIA
was sent to Saigon to organize a paraindl-
itary force to fight North Vietnam.
The operations in Guatemala and Iran
were considered successful, but the CIA
was being talked.about around the world,
and some people at'bome were beginning
to ask embarrassing questions.
Gen. Mark Clark.headed a task force
that looked into the nation's intelligence
operations. It eventually recommended
that a congressional "watchdog" com-
mittee be named to keep an eye onl the
intelligence community.:. and especial-
ly the CIA.
Congress had been persuaded in the
past that the CIA must be let alone for
the good of the nation. Now someone was
rnaldnr waves. and the boat was being