HONORABLE MEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91B00134R000400130014-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 4, 2009
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: September 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2009/02/04 :CIA-RDP91 B00134R000400130014-1
Ser~t:e..~ber 15^0
~:~'~?~f,~~ ~~ f
happened to be watching the Re-
publican National Convention in
Detroit with a small group of
Latin American exiles. When George
Bush appeared on the podium with
Ronald Reagan, one woman blurted
out, "This is just Iike Brazill The head
of the secret police is going to end up-
runnin~ the country."
Former .CIA Director George
Bush's position on the ticket may, in-
deed, foreshadow a quicker reach for
the, icepick of "destabilization" as a
Republican foreign policy tool, but the
difterence fr om the Carter Administra-
tionwill be only incremental.
First of all, in Jurte, long before
George Bush joined the ticket, advis?.
ers to Reagan began fanning .out
Je~~'rey Stein is The Progressive's.GOn-
lributirgeditor in Washington.
. 1
have credibility, and when the early ~
crude whiplashinos issued from the
State Department in a torrent of press'
releases, the geaerals howled. Today,':
the human rights policy is dead. The ~
generals are purring. ~ .
A paradox in American politics pro-
duced Richard Nixon's opening to
Peking. Only the red-baiting member
of Congress from California could have
got away with that, the legend goes.
But the mirror reflection of the para-
dox is equally clear: The Democrats
can tighten the screws of the national
security state more easily than the Re-
publicanscan. While 3immy Carter can
kiss the generals, Ronald Reagan can-
not. The New York Times would howl.
here are some, at least, who are
challenging the edifice of the
national security state. Among
those who are doing it at the greatest
risk are the people who run CovertAc-
tion Information Bulletin. They have
an office in the National P: ess Building
in Washington, four blocks from the
tiVhite House, and what they ? do is
"name .names." Right there under
Jimmy Carter's nose, they put out lists
of CIA agents. This has upset those
who believe such disclosures endanger
the patriotic, hard-working, dedicated
Americans who are doing a tough but
necessary .job in the world's back al-
leys. As former CIA Director William
E. Colby is fond of saying,"We are
honorable men, too."
.You may have met a CIA, agent
yourself. ~Ie or she probably had a nice
- wife or. husband and a brilliant aca-
- demic career, kept the Lawn trim, and
- cooked ~ terrific barbecue in the back
yard. He probably Iooked like George
Bush. Striped tie. Blue blazer.
But one should not be fooled by
such trappings. Dbn'tforget the CIA's
~ob~isao murderpeople. "~i%hat the hell
do you think eve are? Boy Scouts?"
--~ --...
.CIA agents, once asked a visitor.
Louis Wolf is a nice fellow, too: He ,
a Bulletin. A slender, rather shy kind of '
persotr
~'Volf worked for International
,
Voluntary Services, a church.group in
- Q,....L~,...,.? A.-'- ---T-"----`-- .nip
Approved For Release 2009/02/04 :CIA-RDP91 B00134R000400130014-1
across Latin America with reassuring
messages for nervous generals in
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Guate-
mala. In Argentina, former Defense
Intelligence Agency chief and Reagan
adviser Daniel O. Graham talked with
business, political, and military leaders
and assured them a Reagan Adminis-
trationwould abandon Jimmy Carter's
policy of "throwing old friends to the
wolves."
Secondly, over the past year the
vaunted Carter human rights policy has
exploded like a rotten corpse. From
the beginning, the. policy was merely a
rynical maneuver. by 7bigniew Brze-
zinski "to take the high road against
the Soviets" after the debacle in Viet-
nam, to recapture the appearance of
moral purpose in our conduct?of for-
eign policy. Like any effective policy, it
had to be applied-from time to time to
 Approved For Release 2009/02/04 :CIA-RDP91 B00134R000400130014-1
-~
??ent out into the Laotian farmland and
rice paddies to help people grow food
better, or to teach them how to read.
The CIA was busy organizing the same
people into a "Secret Army." But the
Laotians, like the Bali islanders, are
among the most peaceful people in the
~~?orld. Most of the Meo tribespeopie
organized by the CIA are dead no~v.
Louis Wolf became understandably
angry. -
Last month, The New York Times
accused- Louis Wolf and his colleague
in their endeavor, farmer CIA agent
Phillip Agee, of murder. CovertAction
Information Bulletin had published the
names of CIA agents in Jamaica, and a
bomb had been. thrown at one of their
houses. "Let us look at laws that might
. get at them," The Times editorialized.
The Times hastened to add that Wolf
and Agee should be distinguished from
real journalists who might also publish
CIA names.
Meanwhile, it should be noted, and
not parenthetically, that the socialist
government of Michael Manley in Ja-
maica israpidly going down the tubes.
A'ianley, like his predecessor in Chile,
Salvador Allende; was put into power
by a free and open election. He is com-
mitted to democracy. But anti-
democratic forces in the'United States
and the world banking community
have cut off Manley's credit and, as in
Chile in 1973, are creating a situation
of severe shortages and strikes that
may bring him down. The Prime Minis-
terhas called for elections in October,
- but if he wins he still may be doomed.
The United States rill send in iheHon-
orableMen Brigade.-
Two weeks after -the Times edito-
rial,the House Intelligence Committee
reported out a.bill which, if passe~j, is
likely to result in the jaling of Louis
Wolf and his colleagues for "a period
of not more than ten years." The bill is
careful to make only oblique refer-
ences to penalties for the press, and
those subsections will provably not sur-
vive the legislative process. But the
purpose, clearly, is to make things
safer for our own official "honorable
men" and their business of murder.
A couple of Committee members
joked at the hearings on the bill, "We
all know who we're talking about... .
We're not going after journalists."
George Bush would understand. 16~
Approved For Release 2009/02/04 :CIA-RDP91 B00134R000400130014-1
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