SIX LAWMAKERS GO TO CENTRAL AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600430052-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 15, 2005
• Sequence Number: 52
• Publication Date: April 25, 1983
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2005/12/14: CIA-RDP91-00901 R0006
PICHM CND TIMES DISPATCH
25 APRIL 1983
Six lawrnakers
merica
Pro m' wkre' .dispatches
'ouse members Sew to Central
America yesterday as the adminis.
tration .tried .-to head off more con-
gressional':opposition to Its anti-
Marxist campaign -in the region.
U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpat-
rick expressed confidence that Con-
gress would not rel3Uff President
Reagan's request for,an ;added $60
million in military.-aid. for. El Salva-
dor or curtail reported CIA activities
against the government of Nicara-
gua.
"What we hope is' that Congress
will share the responsibility_forfind-
ing a constructive solution," Mrs.
Kirkpatrick saidon-ABC News"This
Week With David Brinkley,",. adding,
"I think Congress will, frankly."
In a separate interview on the pro-
gram, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-
Conn., presented an opposed view of
the 'wisdom of efforts' to back the
Salvadoran government. He said the
administration's ,-actions in Central
America are seeking a military solu-
'tion of social problems.
. While agreeing that Communist in-
fluence is a hostile one in the region,
he said the Salvadorans' main prob-
lems are economic:
He and Rep. Wyche Fowler Jr., D-
Ga., who appeared with him, said the
administration is violating a law that
forbids spending to try to overthrow
-the.government in Nicaragua.
Reagan is to address Congress on
Wednesday night to repeat his warn-.'
ing that. Nicaragua and Cuba, along
with the leftists they support in El
Salvador, threaten the stability of the
region.
The House appropriations subcom-
mittee on foreign affairs is scheduled
-to,vote.,t omorrow -onthe -request for
?: additional.military.aid for. alva
don. The chairman; Rep. Clarence
Long,'D-Md., flew there for a two-day
visit before:the vote. The Fore..i- Af-
fairs Committee voted '19.6 las.'week
Also ..yesterday, five members of
the House intelligence committee left
- for ?a CIA-guided tour of El Salvador
and 'Honduras, -where the agef ey is
reported to be supplying and training
guerrillas :opposed to Nicaragua's .
government.
Making 'that trip are Reps;"G:4Wil-
liam. Whitehurst,.R-Va.; Norman V.
Mineta,'D-Calif? C.W. - "Bill" Young,
R-Fin.; Bob Stump, H-Ariz.; and Dave
McCurdy,.D-Okla.,
Mineta said:the'tour was arranged
by CIA Director William Casey. in an
effort to'"sh61 the,committee that the
agency -is -not violating the 'law in
Nicaragua.
Stansfield .Turner, who was :direc.
tor during the Carter-administration,
said in an article be wrote for the
Washington:, Post that.the.,.,'gency '
made a major mistake if it is as deep-
ly involved in providing aid to" guer-
rillas in Nicaragua as some allege.
"Just the cost of our appearing to
destabilize a government of -Nicara-
gua is high because we are widely
seen as sponsoring the return to Nice.'
ragua of-the suporters of the,dictator
Anastasio Somoza," Turner said in
the article published. yesterday-;; .
Sen, Ernest F. Hollings, `D-S.C.,
called theaid tothe Nicaraguan guer-
rillas a step of last resort and said El
Salvador should be denied addedmili-
tary _aid unless it moved toward nego-
tiations wn.h the rebels.
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QN PAGE .. WASHINGTON POST
24 APPTL 1983
Fromn an. Ex-CIA
Stop the `Covert'
aeration rn Nicaragua
By Stansfield Turner
J F THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
Agency is as deeply involved in providing
"covert" aid to guerrilla bands in Nicaragua
as reports suggest, it has made a bad mistake.
It would be wise to extricate itself from the
operation before it gets into a head-on con-
flict with Congress.
This would, of course, be painful for the
CIA to do. It would have to walk away from
people to whom it has made commitments,
and it would endanger its reputation for reli-
ability. In the long run, however, it would be
in the best interests of the agency and of the
nation.
As a formerCIA director, I do not say this' I
because of the common contention that it is
.not our province to decide what is best for
other nations. That is as superficial an argu-
ment as the one that we have the' right to do
whatever is seen as advancing our national in
terest. What is re-
quired is a careful
judgment, in each
case, of potential
benefits and costs.
There are circum-
stances, I think, in
which covert opera-
tions are justified
and in which - if
they became public
knowledge - they
would cause little, if
any, controversy.
The Nicaragua
operation, however,
is not one of them. It
risks substantial
damage both to our
national interests and to the CIA, especially,
in light of the growing dispute over whether
the agency has vi.blated the law, passed last
December, forbiading it to supply military
training, advice or support "for the purpose"
of overthrowing the Nicaraguan government.
President Reagan, who has acknowledged
U.S. support (but not specifically CIA aid) for
the guerrillas moving into Nicaragua from
Honduras, has said that our "purpose" is
otherwise - to impede the flow of arms from
Nicaragua to El Salvador - and that the law,
therefore, is not being broken. But one of the
risks of any covert action is that it may get
ment probably a year
to a year and a half
before it adopted the
restrictive amend-
ment, sponsored by
Rep. Edward Boland
(D-Mass.), last
December.
out of control. _ One way or an-
One reason is that the people the CIA en- other, that amendment placed the CIA in the
lists to do the covert work will not always difficult position of having to renege on com-
have the same purpose as the United States. mitments already made, or of trying to
Generally, their aim is to obtain political change the direction, of covert action. Reneg-
ing is difficult because the people we have en-
power for themselves as soon as possible. As listed are already deeply committed. Chang-
the price for getting the support that we offer ing direction is difficult because the people
them, they may well accept the somewhat with whom we are working may not be will-
different purposes and timetables that we es- ing.
tablish. But as a covert action progresses, A third reason covert actions get out of
they may well start working for their own ob- control is that the CIA people operating them
jective, not ours. can get carried away with their dedication to
The issue, then, is whether the CIA can getting the job done. It was only iii 1974 that
control their activities by withholding arms, Congress passed the Hughes-Ryan amend-
money or whatever. Such controls will work ment requiring that Congress be notified of
primarily in situations where large amounts ongoing actions. And, it was only in 1976 that
of money or military supplies are essential to President Ford issued the first executive
success. But in most cases, the people work- order controlling intelligence, including cov-
ing for us gain sufficient momentum of their ert actions. Before these controls, the CIA op-
own at some point to go on without us if nec- erated covertly with much greater freedom.
essary. is no question that, as in the case of
Another reason covert actions can get out Nicaragua, the existence of these controls
makes the task of covert action more difficult,
of control is that our own purposes change _ -. -- - '
from those originally set. That could well be, It was my observation, as head of the CIA
what has happened in this instance. that quite a few of the "old hands" in the
The CIA may have started out deliberately : agency found it very difficult to accept the
to undermine the impediments that such ? controls imposed. I ~{{
government of Nica- forced several dozens of them into retirement
ragua, only to have (because the controls were the law of the land,
the Congress pro- or the orders of the president, and I needed to
hibit that purpose. ' feel comfortable that-the people doing covert
We should not forget' action would obey them.
that the Congress is A large number of CIA retirees have appar-
notified of all covert ~ently been called back into service to direct
actions and, hence, the Nicaraguan action. This raises the risk
knew of this commit-' 'that the CIA's tradition of dedication to get-
"ting the job done may override strict compli-
ance with the Boland amendment. Only the
I C?NJf
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 -congressional committeAs epgyffJeti r- lea% 99 / /p14p'RgqaFIR?t%I Pgp&IR000600430052-1
`
be able to judge that when they hear in secret casts, which essentially tell the facts to coun-
session the CIA's explanation of how it is con-' tries that do not have anything like a free
trolling the Nicaraguan. operation so as not to press. Such broadcasts can be much more ef-
violate the Boland amendment.
I was frankly disappointed to observe how
quickly the CIA professionals acceded to the
desire of the new administration. They knew
better than to undertake this covert action. 11
They should have appreciated that it has vir-
tually been ruled out by the new era of over-
sight and controls introduced into American
intelligence since 1974. Whether these new
controls are a good thing or not can be debat-
ed, but it is not difficult to understand why
they limit the type of covert actions our coun-
try can undertake.
Essentially, we pay a price for notifying the,
'Congress about covert actions under the
Hughes-Ryan amendment. That price is the
high probability that if the action is highly
controversial it will leak and it will no longer
'be possible to undertake it covertly. Witness
the fact that the public has long been aware
that the CIA is involved in Nicaragua.
fective if the hand of the United States be-
hind them is concealed.
Another form of covert action that the ma-
jority would find acceptable is paramilitary
support to groups struggling to avoid extinc-
tion at the hands of invading Russian or
Cuban troops. Finally, there would be, I sus-
pect, a consensus on attempting to unseat
Khomeini or Qaddafi by covert means were
that feasible.
This, the political action side of covert ac-
tion, will always be the most controversial.
What is required here is a careful judgment
as to when our national interests are so likely
to be damaged that we should consider de-
stabilizing a foreign government.
In making such a judgment we should take
into account whether a successor government
would likely be better from our point of view.
We also need to take into account that de-
stabilizing governments is far more difficult
today than in 1953, when we did that in Iran,
This is not to impugn the integrity of Can- Vl 111 "`1 W llull wu UlU 14 111 'TUA4u111AULi. 1 LIu
revolution in communication since then has
gress. It is an inevitable result of our demo- made it much more difficult to pull the wool
cratic process. The fact that the Congress had. over a populace's eyes, as we did in those,
b th
t
th
l
t t
B
d
d
e
`
o pass
men
o cur
e
o
an
amen
cases.
.CIA's role in Nicaragua is indicative of the ;
problem. That amendment is an open docu
ment vet it gives away the fact that the CIA
that arose
following the various investigations
of 197546. It is, then, damaging to have the
public hear members of Congress suggest that
the CIA may again not be complying with the
law.
The agency's future is totally dependent on
being able to recruit and retain a few of the
very brightest of our young people. It cannot
do that if it is periodically buffeted by public
doubt as to the legality and validity of its ac-
tivities.
If this administration truly believes that it
needs the authority to conduct the type of ac-
tivity underway in Nicaragua, even if most of
the Congress and the public would be op-
posed to it if they knew, it must reopen the
whole question of oversight and controls over
the U.S. intelligence community.
There is a perfectly legitimate argument
that the controls have gone too far. There are
many of us who are staunch supporters of the
CIA, though, who will argue that there are far
greater risks to the future of that vital organi-
zation from any substantial relaxation of con-
trol than from continuation of the ones that
we have.
Stansfield Turner was director ,of.
the Central' Intelligence Agency from
.1977 to 1981. This article was reviewed
by the CIA.
is doing something covert down in Nicaragua. That is why the congressional and public
When the dust settles on this particular in- instinct on Nicaragua is correct today. We are
cident, we should decide ourselves whether . not likely to get away with toppling the Nica-
the price of limiting covert action to noncon- raguan government by covert means. Even if
troversial objectives is worth it. I believe that we do, though, it will likely by a pyrrhic victo-
it is. ry. The other costs to us will be high.
Our country is still suffering from the devi- Just the cost of our appearing to attempt to
siveness that developed over Vietnam, when destabilize a government. of Nicaragua are
national consensus crdmbled. Covert action; high because we are widely seen as sponsoring
by its very nature, can be very controversial. the return to Nicaragua of the supporters of
We would do well to proceed only where the dictator Anastasio Somoza. This can only
there is a good chance that there would be a reduce our standing in the countries in this
national consensus behind that covert action
if it became known to the public. After all,
the innate wisdom of the American public's
outlook is one of the cornerstones of our
democratic system.
region where we have truly important inter-
ests: Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and Brazil.
If we are worried about a domino effect en-
gulfing these nations, we should be doing all
we can to bolster the internal strengths of f
At the same time we need to avoid letting , those countries. Being seen as supporting
vocal minorities prevent our undertaking cov-' Somocistas, whether true or not, is a sure way }
ert actions that, the majority would approve. to undermine our ability to play a supporting j
That could happen, I am afraid, if the noti- role.
fication to the Congress were too widespread. Another cost that. is very apparent in this
An amendment in 1980 to the Hughes-Ryan' case is that, when the operations verge on vio-
amendment narrowed the number of com- lating the law, the CIA is publicly accused of
mittees that are to be informed about the improper performance, Just the fact that
covert action from eight to the two intelli- several members of Congress have strongly,
gence committees. The record of those two suggested that the CIA is not complying with
committees, so far, is that noncontroversial the law is very injurious to that agency.
covert actions are generally not leaked. Whether the charges are proven right or
What kinds of covert actions might pass wrong is not the issue. The CIA has only re-
the test of national consensus? cently recovered most of its deserved prestige .
and standing after the public disillusionment
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