THE CIA'S MISALLIANCE WITH COVER WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100040013-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: November 6, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

1I III III 1 1, s 1 1111L11LIi L1111._I 1. -
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP90-01
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE M0NITd
6 November 1984
Cm's rnis ce nth o. -
By Wlliain V. Kennedy
NYONE who thought that the "reforms" intro-
duced after the mid-1970s congressional investi-
gations of the Central Intelligence Agency had
solved the agencys problems should by now be thor-
oughly disillusioned.
To the mining of Nicaraguan harbors now has been
added the primer on political assassination and Machi-
avellian manipulation, and even: murder, of one's own
associates.
The problem is not that the primer violates 'a succes-
sion of presidential directives against political assassina-
tion. Nor does it lie in inadequate supervision or inad-
equacies of this or that director.'
There was a flaw built into the CIA at its foundation.
Until that flaw is corrected we are going to be subjected
to a chain of worsening embarrassments and crises that
could corrupt - some would say already have corrupted
- our foreign policy and our domestic politics. -
The idea for creation of a centralized intelligence
agency was born of the Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor disas-
ten Successive investigations had demonstrated th
t
a
there was sufficient evidence on hand to have enabled the I
United States military to avoid at least tactical surprise,
but service compartmentation and inadequate processing
.procedures precluded its timely use.
Thus, the Central Intelligence Agency was created in
.1947 to serve this purely "intelligence" function.
Not the least of the reasons for the intelligence failures
leading up to Pearl Harbor, however was an American
propensity for action rather than for the often dull and
monotonous gathering and sifting of
seemingly routine
facts that is the heart and soul of the intelligence process.
Thus there had emerged during World War II an orga-
nization supposedly intended to produce strategic intelli
gence but : which, in practice, was eminently activist in
nature, reflecting the nomme. de guerre - of its. founde
William J. (Wild Bill) Donovan. This was the "Office of
Strategic Services.,,
The OSS was on the point of going out of business
.when the Central Intelligence Agency was created. By an
act of legal and political legerdemain the, remnants of the
OSS were "folded into" the new agency
The commando type activities that were the hallmark
of the OSS had nothing to do with the production of intel-
ligence. Yet-in the years since, it was the OSS "camel"
that took over the. CIA "tent. As pointed out by, the
Senate investigators of the CIA in 1976, all the directors
who have emerged from the agency itself have come from
the OSS side of the agency - which now has become the
"covert action" staff. The present CIA director, William
J. Casey, is archetypical in that his only previous "intel-
ligence" connection was with the World War II OSS.
The identification of "intelligence, as a separate and
distinct activity is a product,
!of the military staff system i `
that emerged over the past 200 years. A clear distinction
was established between intelligence on the one hand and
military operations on the 11 other because experience!
taught that it is all too tempting for operations staff offi-
cers to pick and choose the information likely to support
a predetermined course of action. That is why in the;: American military staff system the operations and intel-
ligence staff agencies are separate and at least nominally.
co-equal..:
Permitting the OSS crowd to penetrate and take o
ver
the Central Intelligep,6 envy was a disaster For it was
these people who sold a succession of American presi'
dents, Democratic and Republican, on the notion' that.,* "covert action," "supposedly concealed under the intelli
gence umbrella, provided an easy way out of the difficul
ties of the cold war. The national' humiliations that have 1
flowed from this in the Bays of Pigs fiasco of 1961, sub- I .
version of governments in Iran . and Guatemala that I
promised a. transition to more democratic' institutions
and the bloody "Phoenix" program of Vietnam ill-fame
down to the present imbroglios over CIA activities in
Central America should have convinced us long ago that
a drastic overhaul is needed. : .. .
Further, the involvement of former CIA "covert ? ac-
tion" operatives in the Watergate crisis was a clear warn-
ing that sooner or later our own "house" is going to catch
fire from the flames we are setting for others.
The most pressing need, therefore, is to remove the co--
vert operations staff from the national intelligence estab-
lishment. Whether it should be ' retained as a recon-
stituted OSS or,placed under control of the Department
of Defense is a separate issue -. to be determined by
h
h
w
et
er the national conscience can continue to live with
this sort of activity without a formal declaration of war.
That would leave a separate' truly ' "intelli
en ?
g
agency which would be known ash something other than
its present-title, for that has become a national liability.
We have created a monster. We owe it to ourselves and to the people who look to us for leadership - in particular
moral leadership - to do something about it.-
William V. Kennedy is principal author of "The
Intelligence War" and he' has served -as an Intelli-
gence officer in the Strategic.Alr Command and for
14 years on the faculty of the US
Army War College:
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100040013-5