THINKING THINGS OVER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100040011-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: November 28, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP90-01208
WALL STREET JOURNAL
ARTICLE APPEARED 28 November 1984
Thinking
Things
Over
By Vermont Royster
The Role of the CIA
One among the many tragic things
about that "day of infamy," which marks
another anniversary next week, is that all
the information that would have prevented
the surprise at Pearl Harbor was avail-
able-somewhere. It was just scattered ev-
erywhere-a bit here and a bit there, none
of it pulled together in any form useful to
those responsible for the nation's de-
fense.
Out of that bitter experience and other
early lessons learned in World War II
came our effort to gather and organize in a
systematic way information about the ca-
pabilities and intentions of nations with
which we were at war. That was the eu-
phemistically named Office of Strategic
Services. It was so successful that after
the war the need was recognized for a
more permanent organization. The result
was the Central Intelligence Agency.
One consequence of its history was that
the CIA developed a split personality. Be-
cause the OSS was not only a spying
agency but also perforce got involved in
trying to disrupt the Axis war effort, both
of which jobs it did well, the CIA grew up
as a two-headed animal, one head for the
gathering of information, the other for car-
rying out what are now called "covert op-
erations."
It's that dual function .that has kept the.
CIA in hot water from the early days until'
the latest controversy over that guerrilla-
warfare manual that can be read as con-
doning political assassinations.
That controversy may pass, but the
dual function of the CIA makes others al-
most inevitable.
* * *
For one reason, "covert" operations are
difficult to keep hidden, despite the name;
the more successful they are, the greater
the difficulty. By their very nature, involv-
ing intervention in the affairs of nations
with which we are not at war, they are
bound to raise issues of ethics and propri-
ety.
But no one ought to question the duty of
those responsible for our defense to know
the intent and capabilities of any who may
wish us ill. The CIA's information-gather-
ing function has ancient roots.
In the Old Testament it's written how
the Lord advised Moses to send agents "to
spy out" the land of Canaan, which was
just as well, since they found its cities to
be well walled and the people strong. By
400 B.C., halfway around the world in
China, Sun Tzu had compiled the first
"how to" book of intelligence gathering.
From then on through World War II
wise statesmen understood the importance
of intelligence. Bismarck conceived the
idea of a single intelligence agency as Ger-
many's eyes to the outside world. He un-
derstood this meant more than spies in
high places; it meant understanding the
mood in other countries of ordinary people
such as farmers or storekeepers, for their
mood, too, measures a nation's strength.
Unfortunately not all statesmen are
wise. In 1914 it was an unnecessary miscal-
culation of German military strength by
the French and, ironically, a distrust by
the Germans of the information available
to those heirs of Bismarck that let Europe
stumble into World War I.
Even more unfortunately, our own
country learned nothing from that experi-
ence. Our intelligence services were split
among the Army, Navy and the State De-
partment. They received little money or
attention. Our attitude toward code-break-
ing was for long summed up by Secretary
of State Stimson's reported remark that
"gentlemen don't read each other's
mail."
In that attitude lay the seeds of Pearl
Harbor. Even after the formation of the
OSS the.leadership, military and political,
didn't always profit from the available in-
telligence. After World War II it was a
long time before we recognized that our
one-time ally, the Soviet Union, was one of
those that wished us ill.
I've no idea how efficient the present
CIA's . information-gathering operation is,
nor am I likely to learn until someday
there is a spectacular success or failure.
But I can't help being made uneasy by its
divided function. For that means that both
the money spent on that elaborate agency
in Virginia and its attention to its two func-
tions are divided. Not only the agency's
chief but its many. "station agents" in far-
off places have their minds split between
the two. That does not strike me as the I
most effective way to perform either.
What, troubles me is not the dedication
of those within the agency. It's the distrac-
tion of their efforts due to the two jobs we
have given it to do, jobs which are not
always compatible one with the other.
As a matter of fact, when the CIA was
formed in 1947 its intelligence duties (in-
cluding counterintelligence) were clearly
spelled out. Its role in covert operations in
other countries is an accretion laid upon it
by successive administrations concerned
with trouble spots from Laos and the
Congo to Vietnam and Nicaragua.
There are then, it seems to me, two
questions about the CIA. One is whether
our best interests are served by any covert
efforts to disrupt the affairs of unfriendly
nations with which we are not at war. My
own feeling, for whatever it's worth, is that
as long as the world has such a wild and
frightful hue, we can hardly avoid it.
But of the need for good intelligence
about the world around us, hostile or other-
wise, I've no doubt at all. And we should
take care lest in mixing-the two functions
in one agency, with all the attendant con-
troversy, the public someday cries
"enough" and throws out the baby with the
dirty bath water.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100040011-7