LA CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201140066-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2010
• Sequence Number: 66
• Publication Date: March 28, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/30: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201140066-1
MOSCOW IDAHONIAN (ID)
28 March 1984
Manuel Cordero
Lively exchange marks Borah panel discussion
By Wendy Taylor
The implications of past and
present CIA covert action in
Latin America, along with the
moral and ethical questions of
whether the U.S. should be in-
volved there at all, sparked one
of the liveliest panel dis-
cussion a Borah Symposium
audience has seen in years.
"This is getting good," said
one audience member as David
Phillips, the former CIA chief
of Latin America and Caribbe-
an operations and Ralph Mc-
Gehee, a former CIA agent, got
into an arguement on the level
of "I didn't say that," "Yes, you
did." Phillips was disputing
McGehee's interpretation of a
passage in his book.
About 600 people attended
the final session of this year's
symposium in the Universii
of Idaho Student Union
ues ay night. Most
stayed until it ended at 10. .
Moderator. Laurence Birns
opened the session by inviting
former CIA agents - includ-
ing the agency's former .direc-
tor, William Colby - to "spill
the beans."
"This could be the Moscow
moment," Birns joked. "David
Phillips could really become a
famous man today if he has the
guts not be cowed by Bill Colby
Cbn}~h~d
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oZ
and uses this opportunity to con-
fess."
Phillips shot back: "I'm David
Phillips, not Gordon Liddy."
No one else accepted Birns' in
vitation, although there were
plenty of recriminations for al-
leged past actions on the part of
the intelligence agency.
Whether the CIA actually
pulled the trigger in the 1973 mili-
tary coup that assassinated Chil-
ean President Salvador Allende is
beside the point, said the critics.,
of the CIA.
The agency, reportedly follow-
ing orders from then U.S. Presi7
dent Richard Nixon, put Chile in
such an untenable economic posi-
tion that a coup was inevitable,
speakers said. -
However, Colby exhorted the
panel and the audience not to look
at events in Chile and other
places as black and, white. It's al-
ways much more complicated
than that, he said.
Chilean exile Jaime Barrios
said one of the apparent contra-
dictions is that when the U.S.'
helped depose Allende's govern-
ment, it ended more than 50 years
of democracy in Chile, which he
said has been replaced by a totali-
tarian government.
If covert action is to be a part.,
of the administration's policy; it-
should be reduced to more man-
ageable proportions, Phillips said.
He retired-from the.CIA 1n`1975,
and in September of that year he
was questioned by former Idaho
Sen. Frank Church's committee to
investigate covert action.
"My recommendation to the as-
tonishment of my colleagues was
that covert action should be taken
away from the CIA," Phillips said.
"I proposed a small office report-
ing to the Congress and the exec-
utive should be established. The
number of employees should be
limited to 100 persons," including`
secretaries and janitors, he said.
In his book, "Deadly Deceits,"
McGehee describes the CIA as
"the covert action arm of the
President's foreign policy advis-
ers," which "as noted in the
Church Committee's final report,
the agency's task is to develop an
international anticommunist ide-
ology."
Manuel Cordero, Nicaragua's
deputy ambassador to the U.S.,
criticized the Reagan administra-
tion for establishing what he
called the CIA's "proxy" army in
neighboring Honduras, and the
strikes against schools and health
institutions.
Barrios asked
who
benefited
from the 1973
coup
in Chile.
"How were the
U.S.
interests
served? How is
the
image of
America enhanced?"
That question was echoed by
Michael Harrington, a former
congressman from Massachu-
setts. He asked what- kind of ex-
ample is America setting to its
young people and to the rest of
McGehee said the U.S. justifies
intervention by strewing a trail of
red herrings, manufacturing a So-
viet presence in areas that might
be strategically advantageous.
"Grenada was. about to take over
the U.S. with seven warehouses
full of weapons, according to
President Reagan. We got there
just in time."
While denying that he was try-
ing to defend all CIA actions, Col-
by said that, "behind the picture
one finds a very mixed picture."
He acknowledged that the CIA
did continue operations in Chile
after Allende came to -power in
1970, but the examples he gave in-
cluded things like helping supply
newsprint to a newspaper the
government was trying to stifle.
Barrios' responded., , that even
that "was an intolerable intrusion
in Chilean 'affairs. Even to have
spent Si to alter.the Chilean proc-
ess, was wrong; he said. e (~
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