THE CIA: PUTTING THE WISDOM BACK INTO INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-04722A000300020001-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 27, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 1, 1973
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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by James gallows
In recent years the "police brutal-
ity" style of thin king has become an
increasingly prominent feature of
liberal opinion in America. Several
years back, when Urban crime became
big news, liberal politicians and intel-
lectuals often found that their only
palatable response was to point out
that the police were doing wrong, and
denounce them for it. IIence, police
brutality. This was the right instinct,
but it offered little solace to those
who were genuinely panicked about
being robbed or Murdered. It also
failed to ask the harder questions at
the root of the problem-such as,
what should the police he doing to
case people's fears, without trampling
on others' rights? \Vhile the liberals
were intellectually safe with their
police brutality position, they left the
political field open to those who
offered quick answers to the popular
outcry, answers like preventive deten-
tion and life. sentences for drug deal-
crs.
Much the same philosophy is evi-
dent in public reaction to the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). Over the
past dozen years, the CIA has pro-
vided superabundant evidence for a
police hlatality approach to its prob-
lenls. Operations like the Bay of Pig s
invasion, the secret subsidies to uni-
versities and student groups, and the
James Fellows is an editor of The Washing
ton :Monthly.
CIA-financed wars in Laos and the
Congo understandably attracted pub-
lic attention to what the agency
should not be doing. These covert
projects, usually referred to as "dirty
tricks," are only a small part of the,
agency's official functions, but they
have done more to shape America's
image for the rest of the world than
the State Department, Pepsi-Cola,
Food for Peace, and Henry Kissinger
combined.
Even so,. a sense of sportsmanship
makes it hard for its to passionately
denounce these secret activities, since
the case against them is so obvious.
Perhaps the most persuasive argument
against the "clandestine" projects is
that they can be discussed in a
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low-security COrain such as this maga-
zinc. One can hardly imagine James
Bond or the men' from KGB watching
their exploits exposed in the press. It
would be. foolish to claim that every
rock sheltering a secret operator has
been turned over and every plan re-
vealed, but the CIA's recent security
record is not such as to do credit to
allegedly undercover agents.
Since 1964, when David Wise and
Thomas Ross published The lm,isible
Government, the trade in CIA exposes
has been brisk. In 1966 The New
York Times ran a five-part series
which, among other offerings, ex-
plained how the CIA had poisoned
14,000 sacks of Cuban sugar that were
in temporary storage in Puerto Rico.
Ramparts told in 1967 about secret
subsidies to the National Student
Association. And more recent illustra-
tions from Chile, Laos, Cambodia, and
Washington, D. C. easily come to
mind.
The bungled exploits have had
their effect on our relations with both
friend and foe. In the, early sixties, a
CIA agent recruiting local operators in
Singapore attracted attention when he
plugged in his lie detector and blew
out all the lights at his hotel. lie was
arrested, and the British were in
furi
ated to discover that we didn't trust
their spies to provide Lis with all the
news from the area. Then Washington
offered Singapore's Prime Minister
Lee Kwan Yew S3.3 million to keep
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quiet about the whole affair. Lee hold
out for 10 times as much, and
eventually spilled the whole story to
the press.
Even today, while the rest of us
The Jii#elli,cnrcc 0) min" IWY
The CIA may be the most
famous of the U. S. spy agencies,
but it is hardly the largest or even
the most influential. With its
15,000 employees and reported
5750-million budget, the CIA is one
of the smaller members of what is
usually referred to as the ''intelli-
gencc community." The largest
representation is, not surprisingly,
from the Pentagon. In 1961, Rob-
ert McNamara created the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a step
toward centralizing the intelligence
networks of each of the armed
forces. Today, the DIA is thriving,
with a SI00-million budget and
5,000 employees, but it has made
no visible dent in the organizations
it was designed to replace. Accord-
ing to figures compiled by Senator
William Proxmire, Air Force intelli-
gence employs 60,000 people and
spends 02.8 billion; the Army has
38,500 intelligence employees and
spends S775 million; and the Navy
has 10,000 employees again at a
cost of S775 million. The State
Department has an Intelligence and
Research branch (INR) which is
relatively small (335 employees,
55-million budget) and concen-
trates on background research for
State's policies. The National Secu-
rity Agency, which describes its
function as "code-breaking" but is
the most secretive of all the organi-
zations, employs 20,000 people and`
spends 51 billion. The ''intelligence
conlnlunity" is rounded out by
small representations from the
Atomic l.nemy Commission, the
1,131, and the Treasury Department.
Altogether, the national intelligence.
systems employ 150.000 people
and cost SW billion annually.
live and work as if we had a pretty
good idea of what was happening in
the world, lights are burning late in
the CIA's Langley, Virginia headquar-
ters, and agents are polishing up plans
for the next big operation, the perfect
one, the one that will avoid the
mistakes made in Singapore and Cuba.
Why do they persist? The answer
reveals that the CIA is not as different
from the Nebraska Department of
Highways as both of them would like
to think, since each is driven by
institutional momentum to continue
doing the same things it has always
done in the past. In the CIA's case,
the momentum comes from masses of
old-time agents. These men were re-
cruited in the clays of Stalin, Truman,
and Acheson; they were sot on their
chargers, equipped with lances,
pointed in the enemy's direction, and
given a shove. Most of them are still
fightinst; in fact so many are still with
the agency that the then-director,
James Schlesinger, had to sheepishly
explain to Congress last month that
the CIA has one of the government's
worst aging problems.
One can sympathize with these
older men, wllo, like railroad firemen
and others whom time has passed by,
are not sure what to make of the
world they now face. They learned
Swahili and Thai in the early days;
they attended classes on how to crack
a safe or bug an office; they devoted
themselves to the struggle to grind out
a few extra yards against the other
team anywhere in the world. Now
they are just trying to keep on doing
the only things they know. In many
ways, Howard Hunt, one of the
convicted Watergate burglars, is the
tragic archetype of their class. The
tactics, he used against the Democrats
and Daniel Ellsberg might have come
straight from an instruction Ill;llnual
on "slow to Rig the Elections in
Chad"; his demeanor since conviction
suggests that he would behave the
same way if he were captured by the
Communist Chinese during a covert
mission.
Sympathy for the agents' problems
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doesn't obscure the harmful by-prod- different from the old in the same
ucts of their dirty tricks. The draw- way that Schlesinger was different
backs of secret operations are nunler- from Helms-less razzle-dazzle, secre-
Otis: they frequently don', work; they Cy, and drama; more pipe-snloking
give the President "flexibility" In and analysis. in his three months at
foreign policy when "restraint" is the agency, Schlesinger encouraged
what we need; they reduce the State more than 1,000 agents, mainly from
Department's 1epresent tives overseas the "operations" branches, to retire.
to an undignified status, since the peo- Of course, reports of scaled-down
plc of Lagos or Lima know what to "operations" cannot be taken at face
conclude when. the CIA station chief value, not least because Schlesinger's
lives in a bigger house and has more successor as Director, William Colby,
agent, working for him than the was promoted from the operations
ambassador does; they make Ameri- division, where he headed such proj-
can diplomats fearful that the CIA ects as the "Phoenix" campaign of
will stage a coup as they are excilang political terror in Vietnam. But times
ing pleasantries with the soon-to-be- clearly are changing.
ousted government; they even confuse Still, neither criticizing the clandes-
the CIA's own ai)alyst,, who are never tine activities nor retiring the secret
sure whether the political develop- operators takes us far toward figuring
meats they are charting are caused by out what really should be done with
genuine guerrillas or the CIA. the CIA. If keeping it from doing
Even the agency's official spokes- dirty tricks were the only issue, the
men seem to be facing these sad facts. simplest solution would be to close
James Schlesinger had none of the down the whole agency. There is
super-spy aura of many previous CIA something besides secret missions at
directors. Richard Helms, who headed stake, and though it may seem oU-
the agency from 1966 until he was vious, the. real issue is the importance
pensioned off as ambassador to Iran of the "intelligence" function.
this sprisng, was an intelligence "pro- Intelligence is usually defined as
fessional"; he was a career spy, and as "evaluated infonnation," and is sub-
the CIA's Deputy Director of Plans, classified by the pros into categories
was in charge of covert activities, ranging from "current intelligence"
During the fifties, Director Allen (up-to-the-minute bulletins) to "na
Dulles had also stressed the agency's tional intelligence estimates" (weighty
secret functions, and at times ap- analyses of long-term trends). The
peared to be running a clandestine, justification for having an intelligence
aril of his brother's State Depart- system at all is that the government
meat. needs reliable information on which
What of Schlesinger? He is another to base decisions. The CIA's specific
of the "management amen" Much in intelligence role is to tell the truth
evidence in government these days. about what is happening overseas.
Before coming to the CIA, Schlesinger Just how much truth we need to
served briefly as head of the Atonic know, and about what, are the qucs-
Energy Conlnmission, and before that tions we must answer in setting
had spent a short terns in the Office of priorities for the intelligence agencies.
Management and Budget (whhere he Before attempting that, it is worth
conducted a Study Of the nation's noting that the CIA is unique in its
intelligence system). Before conning truth-telling role. What sets it apart
into government, he had been an from other government organizations
analyst at the RAND corporation. In that solid dispatches from abroad (see
leaks to the press between his box) is its agents' detachment from
appointment ally. his transfer to the policy-making. A Foreign Service
Pentagon in early May. Schlesinger Officer may be reluctant to point out
suggested that the new CIA would be that his embassy's policies are failing;
The %Vi%hingon Monthly,/June 1973 9
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all Air Force reconnaissance officer
may doctor his evidence to fit his
general's plans; but CIA agents are
relatively free of these personal and
institutional pressures. "Basically, you
need Someone who doeSil't give a
damn whether a pro-rain succeeds or
fails," says Chester Cooper, a former
CIA agent and author of The Lost
Crusade. "Iie's the only one who will
tell you where things are going
wrong."
The contrast between the CIA and
the Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA) illustrates the virtues of detach-
ment-known in the trade as "having
no ax to grind." The hest of the
recent books on intelligence problems,
Patrick .MeGarvey's Ci.i, The Myth
and the Madness, explains why the
DIA is congenit? i.ly incapable of tell-
ing the truth. Until very recently, few
of its officers were intelligence special-
ists; most were career soldiers serving
a brief stretch between assignments in
Vietnam and Europe. Many were
more interested in coming out of their
DIA assignment with a good personnel
rating than in challenging what looked
like dubious intelligence estimates.
This quite predictably reduced not
only their skill as analysts, but also
their objectivity.
The resulting bias was displayed to
the public in 1909, during the ABM
debate in Congress. Armed with DIA
Answers to /.Luy Political Puzzle:
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estimates of Russian intentions, De-
fense Secretary :Melvin Laird told his
audience some spine-chilling talcs. The
Russians were planning to build 500
big SS-9 missiles, he said; and "new
evidence" indicated that they were
also on their way to creating a
"first-strike capability" designed to
annihilate the U. S. in a nuclear war.
The most charitable explanation for
these figures is that they came from
the DIA's "worst-case" method of
estimation. This line of reasoning,
similar to the "what-if-I-die-tomor-
row" thoughts that race through the
brain at bedtime, starts with basic
technical data on Russian capabilities.
Then the DIA analysts compute what
the enemy could do if lie poured all
his effort into building missiles-the
worst case. This pessimistic approach
is healthy for generals contemplating
battle or investors entering the stock
market, but in predicting Russian
missile strength, it leads to dramatic
exaggerations. The "errors" are pre-
sumably tolerable to the Pentagon,
since they support its argument for
more missiles to counter the threat.
In the case of the ABM, Laird
might well have stampeded the Senate
into approving the project were it not
for CIA reports. Richard Helms re-
vealed that his agency's analyses show-
ed that the Russians would end up
with 300-odd missiles rather than the
500 DIA predicted (they eventually
built 318); that work on ABM sites
near Moscow had virtually ceased; and
that the "new evidence" of a first-
strike capability was at best tenuous.
In fairness, it is worth mentioning
that the CIA has not wholly digested
the lessons of the ABM debate. The
interconnection between its intelli-
gence gathering and its clandestine
operations is a classic illustration of
tendencies it criticizes in the DIA and
other agencies. In planning escapades
like the Bay of Pigs, the CIA violates
its own fundamental rule about de-
tached analysis, because the agents do
have a stake in the information they
analyze. Undercover operators are
put in the position of generating data
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to justify the projects they want to
carry out. They report that "Yes, the
Cubans will rise to join us," or "No,
we won't get caught if we stage a
coup." Allen Dulles wrote, "Policy-
makers tend to become wedded to the
policy for which they are responsible.
State and Defense employees are no
exception to this very human ten-
dency." Neither are CIA agents.
When they play their proper, dc-
taclled role, CIA analysts are one step
nearer objectivity than Foreign Ser-
vice Officers and military men. And
they have other advantages as
well. Many of them are semi-aca-
demics (one third have Ph.D.s), whose
professional advancement depends
more on their expertise in the affairs
of, say, Ecuador, than on their skill in
massaging the eg,o of the ambassador
or general above them. Compared to
men in the other agencies, the CIA
men have time to reflect on their
judgments, to read books, to base
their reaction on something other
than the latest dispatch from the field.
To gauge the importance of the
trutll-telling function, one need orlly
imagine what the governillellt's do-
mestic programs nilg,ht be like if there
were an internal CIA looking them
over. The purpose of many programs
becomes subverted somewhere in the
pipeline between the Washington head-
quarters and the local office that
actually constructs the public housing
or operates the Head Start program.
But because reports on the problems
of these pro-rains have to ascend the
very chitin of Command that caused
the problems in the first place, those
at the top are generally sheltered from
the worst news from the field.
LI3J on Cows and Intelligence
Because of its detachment, the CIA
is one of the few nroups that can look
hack on the Vietnam war as a rela-
tively bright spot in its history. Ches-
ter Cooper has noted the contrasts
between CIA reports on the war and
the rosier views coming in from the
State Department and the military. As
early as 1964, the CIA was question-
ing the domino theory, saying that
"with the possible exception of Cam-
bodia, it is likely that no nation in the
area would quickly succumb to Conn-
munism as a result of the fall of Laos
and Vietnam." Later the agency
doubted that raining bombs onto
North Vietnam would reduce either
the material or the psychological
support for the war, and throughout
the sixties the CIA reports on the
popularity of South Vietnam's as-
sorted leaders were more accurate
than those of the Pentagon. As further
proof that outsiders can get a clearer
view of a problem than those causing
it, the CIA's reports on the village-
pacification program became sharply
more critical in 1965. This, it turns
out, was when the Army finally
wrested control of the program from
CIA operatives.
The role of detached critic does, of
course, come at a price, the same price
that journalists pay for their privilege
of criticizing and complaining. Be-
Watergate burglar James McCord
recently alleged that the White
House wanted the whole bugging
operation blamed on the CIA. He
also expressed his more general con-
cern about the way President Nixon
was treating the agency:
It appeared to nme that the White
House had for some time been trying to
get political control over the CIA assess-
ments and estimates in order to make
them conform to "White House policy."
This could mean that CIA estimates could
then be forced to accord with DOD esti-
mates of future U. S. weapons and hard-
ware needs.... This smacked of the
situation which Hitler's intelligence chiefs
found themselves in, when they were put
in the position of having to tell him what
they thought he wanted to hear... in-
stead of what they really believed....
When linked with what I saw Iiappening
to the FBI under Pat Gray... it appeared
that the two government agencies which
should be able to prepare their reports
... with complete integrity and honesty
... were no longer going to be able to do
so.
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cause bad news is rarely popular with
kings, presidents, or administrators,
the bearer of i bad Of-o-n loses
his influence to those with more
reassuring reports. Lyndon Jolinson-
who, In The Kant ,'y'c Point, does not
mention a single. CIA estimate in
describing his Vietnam decisions-
expressed his appreciation for the
agency's pessimistic reports this way:
in the past. In many cases the old
things are the wrong things to ask
now, and new intelligence needs have
arisen. In order to set a realistic
intelligence policy, there are three.
questions to be answered. First, what
do we need to know? Second, who
should provide the information?
Third, how should they get it?
li,:e Ilia ? g a rat cow. Embarrassing Moments for the CIA
You see the milk comin- out, you press
more, and the milk b: bbles and flows. And
just as the bucket is fur, the cow whips its
tail around the bucket and everything is
spilled. That's what the CIA does to policy-
makina.
In the early days of the Nixon
Administration, the tiltil-tellers in the
CIA had reason to fear that they
would get an even less-sympathetic
hearing than before (see box, pa-el I ).
Henry Kissing r was hardly over-
w:helmed by the CIA's insight. After
reading a Ie,w reports on Vietnam and
returning one CIA report whit "piece
of crap" scrawled across the cover,
Kissinger d,d not take another CIA
estimate seriously in setting his Viet-
iltiill policy. But instead of consultillj
inner oracles or getting reassurance
from the generals, as Bundy and
Rostov and Rusk had done, Kissinger
created his ow-11 intelligence agency
within the National Security Council
staff. His resear hers produced more
than a hundred "National Security
Study Memoranda" during Nixon's
first term, papers which laid out all
the options and arguments in the style,
Nixon liked. From most accounts,
these reports have done the job that
CIA estimates once did.
Even more iniportant than the
location of the intelligence system is
its focus. I Iow much do we need to
know, and about what? Unless we,
make the priorities clear, we cannot
expect the CIA to automatically di-
vine what kind of information will be
most important in the conlin- years.
Given the normal laws of bureaucratic
behavior, the agency will report in the
future the same things it has reported
One approach to the first question
is to consider sonic of the widely
recognized "intelligence failures" of
recent years. A decade ago, the most
prominent items on this list might
have been the surprise construction of
the Berlin Wall, or the delay in
detecting the Soviet missiles in Cuba.
During the Nixon Administration,
there, have been seven major occasions
on which the intelligence establish-
ment has felt embarrassed by its
perforillanec.
u 'rho overthrow of 'Prince Siha-
nouk in Cambodia-although Siha-
nouk blames this on the CIA (his
recent book is called rlly War With the
CIA), the coup startled the Adminis-
tration because, at the Senate's insis-
tence, American agents had been
pulled out of the country.
The Son Tay prison raid-the
rescuers found that the American
POWs they came to save had been
moved elsewhere.
0South Vietnam's invasion of
Laos-intelligence reports predicted a
large Communist force in the vicinity,
but the military never got the mes-
sage.
ciTlle invasion of Cambodia in
1970-in one of the CIA's worst
performances, its agents miscalculated
the strategic importance of the port of
Sill anou WHO.
The Allende election in Chile,
which analysts had not expected.
cThe 1969 coup in Libya, another
surprise.
Aerial reconnaissance before the
Egyptian-Israeli cease-fire, which mis-
judged the extent of Soviet rocketry.
The most interesting aspect of this
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list is what it says about the CIA's
view of crisis-oriented thinking and
foreign policy. What caused these
"failures"? Either defeclivc military
planning (the need for which could be
reduced by avoiding similar wars), or
an inability to predict the headlines
three weeks in advance. There are.
good reasons for thinking that we
shouldn't try so hard to keep ahead of
the breaking news. For one thing,
there are limits to how good this kited
of intelligence can be; the four illus-
trations from the Vietnam war suggest
the enormous difficulty of installing
spies among a people totally different
from us in race and culture and
overwhelmingly hostile. We are, likely
to crack the KGB before we get a
good agent in Hanoi. Also, current
intelligence comes at a sharply rising
ralarginal cost. BY reading the news-
papers and monitoring the diplomatic
reports, we may. be 90 percent sure of
when a certaingovernment is about to
be overthrown. The extra effort re-
quired for 95-percent certainty-
which usually means spying, bribery,
double agents, and informers-is so
costly and provocative that it rarely
scenes worthwhile. But this is just
what the CIA feels it has been trained
to do. It is also simpler to slip more
spies into an area than to think
seriously about long-range develop-
ments. So the agency often embarks
on a mad pursuit of current news
bulletins.
If we step away from this fascina-
tion with current intelligence for a
moment. the incidents of "intelligence
failure" seem limited and trivial, conl-
pared with some of our failures to
perceive More gradual developments.
Another list of failures might be
headed by our delay in recognizing
that the Sino-Soviet split was opening
the door to China, or our slow
perception of the dollar's plight over-
seas, or the apparently unforeseen
diplomatic. damage done in Europe
and Japan by the Nixon-Connally
economic manifestos of 1971. In the
coming years, developments like these
will affect our national interest far
more directly than distant coups or
Latin American elections. The CIA
can still keep track of the coups, but
it should also start directing its atten-
tion elsewhere.
What follows is a list of the
subjects about which we'll need, reli-
able intelligence in the next few years.
In each situation the questions to
answer are what do we need to know,
1020 should provide the information,
and how should they get it?
Strategic Intelligence
from Russia and China
Until disarmament is achieved, we
will need to know about the missiles,
nuclear bombs, and submarines of the
Russians and Chinese. We may con-
ceivably ignore other world events,
but this is one development undCIli-
ably related to our national security.
Good strategic intelligence should not
be important only to the Strangeloves
I- accurate estimates Of the other side's
weaponry is one of the prerequisites
to continued peace and stability. Both
sides need 'to know that the other's
deterrent force Ys large and function-
ing. If we care about disarmament, we
also need accurate intelligence. Nego-
tiators at the Strategic Arms Limita-
tion Talks found that each side's
satellite intelligence systems-which
guaranteed that neither we nor the
Russians could cheat on an agreement
-were one of the strongest incentives
toward serious bargaining. Finally,
accurate intelligence reports can help
us control the defense budget, as the
AGM showdown illustrated.
How do we get this information?
At one time we had to rely on secret
agents who tried to sneak into Soviet
defense installations. With the U-2
incident in 1960, the, public was first
informed of the shift from spies to
aerial reconnaissance. Since then, in a
rare example of technology's being
the friend of man, advances in recon-
naissance techniques have not only
made the reports far more accurate,
but also made our-means of obtaining
them far less obtrusive. The electronic
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and photographic satellites that survey
Russia and China can photograph
objects 18 inches long" and detect the
changing of tubes at a Russian radar
station. The satellite techniques are
expensive-they account for the lutge
Air Force intelligence budget-but
they are certainly the least provoc-
ative and probably the most effective
way* of finding; out what we need to
know.
Once we have the satellites, do we
need anything else? A former CIA
agent who helped prepare estimates of
Russia's strategic strength in the six-
ties and who worked on Helms' ABM
report says that he and his colleagues
relied on two main sources: technical
evidence, collected by the satellites
and deductive evidence, such as esti-
mates from American rocket experts
of how lone it would take the
Russians to build systems similar to
ours. The agent said, "You start with
the press reports and the information
from normal-diplomatic channels; that
makes up about 50 per cent of the
information you use. Another 45 per
cent is from the technical reports and
the experts you consult here. About'
two or three per cent is your own
analysis. The rest the spies and the
secret hocus-pocus is usually worth-
less."
Managing the technical intelligence
gives the CIA, the DIA, and the Air
Force something to do; the Air Force
and the DIA maintain the satellites
and reconnaissance planes and the
CIA analyzes the information. That
leaves us with the Army and Navy
intelligence systems and very little to
assign them to. These intelligence
systems have one justifiable function,
which is to prepare "order of battle"
reports on enemy troops. These are
rather straightforward accounts of
how many nten and tanks are, lined up
where. The Army and Navy are not
always content with this Prosaic task
and often try to expand their intelli-
Vence role. The capture of the Pueblo
off the coast of North Korea was one
of the consequences of this restless-
ness. The Pueblo's mission was to
locate North Korean radar stations-
something the satellites could have
done with no risk of provocation. As a
general rule, when it's possible to find
out by satellite, the military should
stay away. One means of enforcing,
this policy would be to disband the
Army, Navy, and Air Fore intelli-
gence systems and concentrate their
few essential functions in a smaller
DIA.
Political Intelligence
from Russia and China
The Pentagon's performance in the
ABM debate is an example of what
technical intelligence can do when it is
divorced from political common
sense. To realistically interpret photo-
graphs of missile sites, we need to
know whether the Kremlin is going to
stress weapons or refrigerators in next
year's budget. ' A shortage of good
political intelligence was also largely
responsible for the general fear of
China which prevailed here until so
recently. After the Korean War, in
which the Chinese made what we
considered an irrational attack, our
government could not shake the con-
viction that Mao's disciplined hordes
would lake other unprcdii't;ible steps.
Who could tell whether the Cultural
Revolution would leaCI to an invasion
of Russia or an attack on Taiwan or
Japan? The current, almost cloying,
wave of Sinophilia illustrates the relief
many of us feel in substituting panda
bears for armed Red Guards as a
symbol of China.
The Chinese example also tells a
lot about how we should collect
political information. China was diplo-
matically and culturally closed to us
during the fifties and sixties, but the
CIA was theoretically free to slip in as
many spies as it could. Not many got
through, and the lesson may be that
diplomatic contact is more important
than it often appears to be. In an age
of hot lines and world-wide TV, it is
easy, and fairly accurate, to conclude
that the Foreign Service is a decora-
tive appendage; but one of the main
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reasons for the diplomats' decline is
that their main function-taking the
political pulse of a country -has been
usurped by the CIA. There is scant
evidence that the CIA's political re-
porting is always superior to that of
the Foreign Service-the memoirs of
ambassadors such as George Kennan
and Charles Bohlen show that they
were among the most sensitive to
shifts within the Kremlin. When the
CIA tries to horn in, it not only
creates Unnecessary suspicion, but also
further undermines an already de-
moralized Foreign Service.
Our concern for the Foreign Ser-
vice shouldn't be pushed too far. As
the Vietnam war record indicates,
there is value, in having competing
information sources reporting from
the field. Checking the quality of
FSO's reports would be an ideal
assignment for the CIA. But in most
cases, the agency could do the job
with annual visits to the diplomatic
outposts, rather than setting up over-
sized CIA stations all over the globe.
Political lutellige rice
from 1/le Rest of the World
When the focus moves away from
Russia and China, the question of
what we need to know becomes more
and more tangled with the question of
what our world role should be. One
way to separate the issues may be to
examine each area of the globe and
ask what kinds of developments are
clearly of concern to us.
We start with Western Europe and
Japan. Here the political intelligence
from diplomatic, academic, and jour-
nalistic sources is overwhelming. As
for military intelligence, if we cannot
trust these countries to tell Lis what
they are planning, it hardly makes
Sense to share Our nuclear secrets with
them or Join them in NATO or other
defense pacts.
That leaves Africa, Asia, Latin
America, and the other disparate
regions usually classified as the Third
World. These continents, and espe-
cially South America, have tradition-
ally suffered the most from close CIA
scrutiny. The harvest from these activ-
ities is not only the agency's affili-
ation with many repressive regimes,
but also the astounding, paranoia
about the CIA which prevails abroad.
Within the last 18 months, headlines
have appeared in Iraq, Lgypt, India,
and four Latin American countries
attributing domestic unrest to the
CIA.
The two standard justifications for
Third-World intelligence are, first, the
threat of communist subversion,
either military or political; and sec-
ond, the danger of wars, coups, and
other violent outbursts. Detecting the
first threat, if it exists, does not
require large contingents of secret
agents. It is hard to believe that no
one among our diplomats, satellites,
and even tourists would notice the
arrival of foreign troops in a small
country. If the "subversion" is polit-
ical, then it is probably wise to know
no more about it than the diplomats
can observe; if we know when thr
coup is going to happen, we may L,
tempted to prevent it.
The CIA's efforts have backfired in
another way. During the 1960s, some
perceptive Southerners complained
that the only thing keeping the Ku
Klux Klan alive was the FBI in-
formers. Similarly, by trying to infil-
trate every left-wing movement in
Latin America, the CIA has inad-
vertently nurtured threats that other-
wise would have withered on their
own.
The second justification-the dan-
ger of war-should be taken more
seriously. Even if we do not plan to
rush into regional wars with quite the
alacrity we have displayed in the past,
disturbances of the peace anywhere in
the world concern us. There is always
the danger that a battle in the Middle
East, or between India and Pakistan,
will somehow draw other powers into
the fray. More basically, if we want to
encourage a more peaceful world, we
should understand why people fight.
A lack of this cultural understanding
is the weakness of much of our
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' hied World reporting. So much stress
is placed on palace gossip that
the larger picture is often obscured.
During the 1971 India-Pakistan
war, the CIA made a splash in the
National Security Council with a
dispatch showing that India planned
to take over the whole of Pakistan.
'lhe information (which later proved
distorted) came from an informer in
the Indian cabinet. It was a triumph
of the old-style espionage, but wrong.
What the CIA should have been
looking for were the long range causes
of the fighting. What had set the
Hindus and Moslems at each others'
throat;? Were they likely to fight
again? Most of the recent warfare in
the Third World has risen not from
narrowly political or idcologieal
causes, but from religious, cultural,
and tribal tensions: consider Biafra,
Uganda, Pakistan, the Middle East,
and the "demographic war" between
Honduras and El Salvador. So trying
to understand the. violence by sifting
through embassy rumors is doomed
from the start. Looking for the roots
of violence would not require the
contingent of spies and saboteurs we
now deploy in the Third World;
instead, the raw material for such
reflection would be academic and
diplomatic observation, and the con-
clusions would come from thoughtful
analysis rather than spying.
In discussing this point, Adam
Yarnholinsky, one of Robert McNa-
mara's advisers at the Pentaton, said
to me, "My ;gut feeling is that il' I have
a chance to know, I want to know. If
knowing involves risks, I'll face them
later. That is preferable to the risk of
not knowing." Perhaps, but why not
minimize the risk by concentrating on
the issues that matter and cutting
back the purely political espionage?
"You need to know what they're
doing to each other under the table,"
Samuel Adam,, an outspoken CIA
agent said, in justifying the need for
clandestine operations. "In a country
like Uganda, if you just read the
papers you won't have a clue as to
what is going on." If Amin and
Uganda were a perfect analogue to
Hitler and Germany, the point would
be valid. But we' must ask two
questions about cases like Arvin's.
First, is what's going on under the
table of concern to us? In Uganda, the
immediate answer is no. In Israel, or
Egypt, or South Africa, or Pakistan,
the answer may be yes; these are
countries with the potential to involve
many other countries in their fighting.
This list will expand if nuclear weap-
ons are more widely distributed.
Second, are spies the only way to find
Out about the Sub rosa activities? Our
diplomats in Uganda won't just be
reading the papers, and their idea of
what's really going on should be
accurate enough to meet our needs.
Counter-Espionage
Counter-espiona ;e means protecting
your country's secrets from the other
Country's spies. It usually involves
such ploys as infiltrating the opposi-
tion's intelligence system. From all
reports, the CIA has not clone well in
penetrating the ICGB. But as long as
there is any data we should withhold
from the Russians, the effort is worth-
while. There is at ]east one piece of
information that fits this category:
the technical details and deployment
plans for our Polaris submarine fleet.
The Polaris is the heart of our
deterrent system, a nd it is too easy to
imagine that in some Pentagon office
there is a board showing where the
subs are at any given moment. Pru-
dence suggests that we should at least
keep that room off-limits for KGB
agents and have a way of knowing
when they have seen the plans.
Another kind of counter-espionage
is less necessary. CIA agents are
constantly guarding against commu-
nist subversion at such vital links in
our military defenses as the Agnew
military base in Ethiopia. It is alto-
gether too easy to imagine that some-
where there is an American military
base of no strategic importance,
whose only function is to employ CIA
agents to prevent it from being spied
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on. A simpler solution night be to
take the base away.
Terrorism
if there is one effort in which the,
world's intelligence systems can co-
operate rather than compete, it is in
preventin- terrorism. I :vcn those who
sympathize whip many of the griev-
ances of the Irish Republican Army or
the Black September group find it
hard to stomach their violent excesses.
In combat:Iing, terrorists, tile CIA has a
rare chance to put its secret tactics
and dirty tricks to good use. Already
the agency has begun work in this
area. After the Black September kill-
ings at the %Iunich Olympic Games, a
"Cabinet Committee to Combat Ter-
rorism" was created in the State
Department. The CIA feeds reports to
the COIl1I11ittee, which in turn dis-
patches warnings to U. S. diplomats
abroad.
may claim all the fish 500 miles out to
sea as theirs; or the African countries
may aff?Jliate more tightly With the
Common Market; these and a hundred
similar developments will affect us in
an immediate, material fashion.
Just because economic Challges are
not secret, there is a tendency not to
take them as seriously as missiles or
subversive movements. But they are
the most difficult challenge the CIA's
analysts will face in the coming years.
In the last two decades the agency has
had to shift focus. For example, when
conlillUnist activity died down in
Africa, agents put their techniques to
use in Southeast Asia. In general, it
has been a question since 1947 of
applying similar tactics to different
parts of the globe. Now it is a
question of applying entirely new
theories and ideas. The information
itself is easy to come by; it is available
in economic reports and academic
studies. Changing the outlook is
harder, but it is what the CIA should
be doing.
Economic I/ilelli-once
If we look for the international
forces that are actually going to affect
the way we live in the next decade
and forget for the moment about an
abstract threat from Uganda, we must
confront the dramatic changes in the
world economy which have become
increasingly apparent in the last few
years. This does not mean expanding
the data on Russian beet and steel
production that the CIA has been
collecting for years. Instead, it means
realizing that we-like the British since
World War II-will soon be in the
position of living fat or lean as
international economic laws dictate.
Changes now occurring in Japan and
Western Europe may affect our Lin-
employment level more than anything
done by the Council of Economic
Advisers. Resource and environmental
questions are involved as well. How
will competing for the same flow of
Arabian oil affect our already tepid
relations with Japan? What will we do
if the Arabs decide they don't need to
sell us any more oil? The Chileans
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