THE CIA: REFORM IS NOT ENOUGH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100070070-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 70
• Publication Date: January 1, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100070070-9
MILLENIU;t JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Vol'. 6, No. 1 (1977)
The CIA: Reform is not Enough
Adam Roberts
The impact of intelligence organisations on the international politics of
the past 30 years has been the subject of very little s}stematic study.
Many textbooks and general works on international relations have
entirely ignored this interesting and important question, perhaps partly
because of a lack of adequate information. Now, however, such a plea
of ignorance cannot be made with anything like the same force. In the
past few years a vast amount has been published about the activities of
one country's intelligence organisations-those of the United States.
There has been a flood of books by individual writers, some of whom
have had direct experience of their subject.' There have 'been the leaks
of official documents, including the Pentagon Papers on Vietnam, first
published by the New York Times in 1971 and the ITT,papers on,
Chile, first revealed in the Washington Post in -I972. Most important of
all, however, have been the various reports of official bodies, such as
the Rockefeller Report on CIA activities inside the United States ?; the
numerous volumes of the U.S. Senate Select Committee to investigate
Intelligence Activities s; and the secretly-Ieaked report of the House
Select Committee on Intelligence, which reveals *a good deal not in the
Senate volumes.'
Never before have the intelligence and clandestine action agencies of
any government been subject to so searching a scrutiny. A sorry picture
has emerged of poor intelligence assessments, widespread interference
with the civil rights of citizens, petty inter-agency squabbles, political
manipulation, and endless covert operations abroad, many of them.
scatter-brained and criminal both in conception and execution. The'
weight of the evidence has pointed particularly to the Central
Intelligence Agency as the main instrument whereby this series of
errors and failures occurred.
Yet the impression persists that such reforms as have resulted from all
the governmental investigations have been inadequate. Capitol I-lilt has
laboured, and brought forth a mouse. The CIA is still very much in.
business, but the arrangements for congressional oversight of its activities
have been slightly altered. Instead of being answerable, more or less
equally to several different House and Senate committees, the CIA is
now principally subject to one-the Senate Intelligence Oversight Com-
mittee, established in 1976.
As an instrument for controlling the CIA there is a good deal to be
said for the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee. Its creation was
the result of a justifiable dissatisfaction with the White House's Execu-
Ituntint;~
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 CIA-RDP90-01208R000100070070-9