QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS BY CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020114-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 40
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 114
• Publication Date: September 13, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REF RTS, INC.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
STAT
d Director William Colby
STAT
Special Report: Center for National Security
Studies Seminar on U.S. Intelligence Agencies
WETA FM Radio, NPR Network
September 13, 1974
00803
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SENATOR JAMES ABOUREZK: Thank you, Mr. Colby.
Before I call on Mr. Borosage, I have a question I would
like to ask you. Your statement is that covert action reflects
national policy. Now since all covert action is done in
secret, and when it is revealed it is denied by the CIA,
and since it's neither disclosed nor acknowledged to the
public, how can it reflect national policy?
R
DIRECTOR WILLIAM COLBY: Because, Mr. Chairman,
it is given to us by the established elected authorities
of the United States Government -- the President and the
National Security Council -- and is reported to the Congress.
It is...
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I might say it's not reported
DIRECTOR COLBY: That may be true, Mr. Chairman,
and as I have indicated, I believe that these matters should
be reported to the Congress in the manner that the Congress
establishes, and that is up to the Congress to determine
how it shall be done.
You are correct that these covert actions, by definition,
are secret, but they are not denied. Some years ago there
was a phrase called "plausible denial" used. I have prescribed
that phrase because I do not believe that we can tell the
American people an untruth. I think that we can tell the
American people a true statement and keep other matters which
have to be secret secret, but I do not believe we can tell
them an untruth.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I'd like to call on Mr. Bob
Borosage.
BOB BOROSAGE: I don't have much to say. In your
speech you say that it's a strange anomaly that the United
.States has so much information that it makes public, whereas
our potential adversaries do not. It seems to me that the
title of that strange anomaly, or the reason for it, is called
democracy. The strange anomaly is that this is supposed
to be a society in which the legislature and the people decide
what are the policies that we undertake. And I think that
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that example of what is national policy exemplifies my point.
National policy on matters of warmaking or acts
of war, by the Constitution, is supposed to be done at least
in conjunction with the legislature. It's not defined simply
by the executive. And the easy assumption that national
policy is an executive matter is exactly what has taken us
into all of the wars we've fought and all of the agony we've
had over the last decade.
And I guess if I can add a personal note, which
may be somewhat out of order, it's very difficult for me
to be here, partly because -- I'm very pleased that you have
agreed to come. I think it's a wonderful thing that you
have decided to face your critics. On the other hand, I
grew up in your world, a world of CIA interventions and of
America trying to maintain a world order, and I was of the
generation that was directed to fight in the war in Indochina.
I 'had friends who fought there. I had friends who resisted.
I had friends who were drafted. And all of my friends and
myself went through that agony.
For many of us, a lot of these questions got out
of the realm of being policy or something that you'd argue
about, and were seen as criminal activities. For many of
us, it wasn't any longer a-question of what the United States
was doing, but it was a question of crimes that were being
committed in our name that we had no way of controlling,
no way of staying.
Now there were five years of struggle in this country
because of that, of demonstrations, of agony. And one of
the great problems for people of my generation is that there
were very good people who ran those policies. Robert McNamara
was a member of the ACLU. And many of us saw ourselves --
saw ourselves in their positions and wanted to be in their
positions, and were agonized at the notion that good people
could be doing these things in our name.
And I guess the question that I would like to ask
you is to get some notion of the fears you have, or the fears
that you did have in your youth, because for me and for at
least many of my friends, we have a totally different world
view, we have a totally different set of fears and of aspirations,
which at least include some minimal principles of behavior
that we would like our country to follow abroad.
DIRECTOR COLBY: I think, Mr. Borosage, the answer
to that is that, like every other government employee, I
took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the
United States. My concept of the Constitution of the United
States is one expressed through the duly established legislative,
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judicial and executive bodies represented by it. The various
policies of the United States -- national policy is not an
executive matter. It is one which depends upon an annual
appropriation; it depends upon the judicial review of the
constitutionality of both the legislation and of the executive
actions.
At one occasion you point out the anomaly. I had
the occasion to follow the suggestion of one of the individuals
who spoke at this panel, of attempting to negotiate an end
to that anomaly. I had the occasion last summer of being
in the reception line when Mr Brezhnev was over here. And
President Nixon presented me to Mr. Brezhnev as the new head
of the CIA. Mr. Brezhnev recoiled in some mock horror and
asked if I wasa dangerous man. And the President reassured
him that I agreed with the treaty on the limitation of nuclear
war that had just been signed, and I commented to Mr. Breazhnev,
in my first effort toward summit diplomacy, that the more
we know of each other, the safer we both will be.
I believe that. That's why I believe in working
in the intelligence profession, to hopefully increase the
knowledge of our leadership about the problems in the world.
I t is clear that, thanks to some of the intelligence work
of the past 10 or 15 years, we now have a SALT agreement
which depends upon the fact that we can monitor whether the
Soviets are complying with it or not, a situation we were
unable to do when our intelligence was so weak that we had
to ask for on-the-ground inspections.
I think that the fears I had in my youth are very
similar to the ones you had, Mr. Borosage. We probably faced
the problem of a national threat and war at about the same
age, and I faced it again in the Vietnam situation, and I
spent three and a half years there working on that problem
in the best way that I could for my country.
[Unintelligible shout from audience]
DIRECTOR COLBY: I'd like to take -- I'd like to
answer that question. I didn't kill any.
[Laughter and shouts]
DIRECTOR COLBY: I'll tell you the answer to that
question. The Phoenix Program was one part of the total
pacification program of the government of Vietnam. There
were several other parts -- the development of local security
forces in the neighborhood to protect the villages, the distribution
of a half a million'weapons to the people of South Vietnam
to use in unpaid self-defense groups, a venture that I doubt
that many other governments would try or would meet with
the success that the Vietnamese did. It also included a
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program of developing local village and provincial elections
and giving authority to the elected officials thereof. It
gave decisions about economic development programs in the
localities to the local officials.
There were a variety of programs of this nature,
including the inducement, reception, and resettlement of
over 200,000 Vietnamese who had served with the Viet Cong
and decided to come over to the government side, and were
received and not punished for whatever they had done. It
involved the reception and resettlement and eventual return
to village, as security improved, of hundreds of thousands
of refugees. And it included the Phoenix Program, which
was designed to identify the leaders of the Communist apparatus
that was bringing terror and invasion to the population of
South Vietnam.
The Phoenix Program was designed and started in
about 1968 in order to bring some degree of order and regularity
to a very unpleasant, nasty war that had preceded it. It
did a variety of things to improve the procedures by which
that was run. It provided procedures by which the identification
of the leaders, rather than the followers, became the objective
of the operation, by which the objective was to capture,
rather than to kill, the members of the apparatus, by which
there were limits placed on the length of time of detentions
and the procedures for interrogation.
MAN IN AUDIENCE: How many were killed while you
were [unintelligible]?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I have testified on that, and
I said that over two and a half years of the Phoenix Program,
there were -- there were 28 -- 29,000 captured. There were
17,000 defected, and there were 20,500 killed, of which 87%
of those killed were killed by regular and paramilitary forces
and 12% by police and similar elements. The vast majority
of those killed were killed in military combat -- fire fights
or ambushes -- and most of the remainder were killed in police
actions attempting to capbure them.
The major stress of the Phoenix Program was to
encourage the capture, for very sensible, easy reasons.
First, our respect, not the Communist's, our respect
for human life, where it can be gained. And secondly, because
a live captive has information, and a dead body has none.
[Inaudible remarks from audience]
RADIO ANNOUNCER: This is a gentleman in the audience
who has identified himself as a former colleague of William
Colby and wanted to ask some question.
0080?
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SENATOR ABOUREZK: ...it makes it tougher to shut
you off, then, if you say that. I wonder -- what I would
like to do is allow the panelists their chance to question,
and following that...
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Senator Abourezk is trying to
keep the questioning to the panel itself.
MAN: Senator, I've worked in clandestine services.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I know that. If you'd permit
me to do that, I'd be very grateful.
Yes, sir.
HARRY RANSON: ... I' d like to ask Mr. Colby to
comment further on this question of the statutory authority
of the Central Intelligence Agency...
RADIO ANNOUNCER: This is Harry Ranson, a professor
from Vanderbilt University, an expert on the CIA.
RANSON: I've read that statute over and over and
over, and it does say what you said it says with regard to
other duties and functions related to intelligence affecting
the national security. But it seems to me you find a lot
more flexibility in that, and particularly the word intelligence
than I as a user of the English language would find in it.
Would you comment further on whether you think
that is really an ideal statement of statutory authority
that does not leave any ambiguity?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I think that the history over
the years has given that deliberately general phrase a great
deal of content, a great deal of content that has been ratified
by the Congress and ratified by the Executive, and has come
to, shall we say, not a little public attention, and without
any change being made in it.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Congressman Harrington first.
The woman here, the second from the end -- I don't know your
name -- and then Mort Halperin and then Mark Raskin, Dan
Ellsberg.
REP. MICHAEL HARRINGTON: Mr. Colby, if I could,
let's turn to...
RADIO ANNOUNCER: This is Representative Michael
Harrington of Massachusetts.
REP. HARRINGTON: My problem, basically, is in
a couple of broad areas. And let me say at the outset that
I'll.stand by the memory that I have of two readings of your
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testimony, and obviously not finding it as accessible as
you do day-to-day, it's very hard to have more than a memory,
but the term "political destabilization" was indeed used
in what I think, to go to the credit given you, was a very
candid discourse as far as the CIA operation in Chile.
Let me also say, and I say this only because I
don't want to be deterred from what I think the central concern
that I've had with this all along is, that your historic
intelligence gathering and evaluation role is one that I
not only endorse, but, in a sense, accept as a legitimate
facet of Agency operations, and one I might, from, I suppose,
a perspective of watching this unravel, suggest that maybe
is the only place you people should be going, unless you
want to witness the continued disintegration of your credibility
overall because of what's gone on.
But since you've already indicated in your addendum
to your prepared remarks your intention not to address specifics
raised in your testimony to Lucien Nedzi on April the 22nd,
let me at least get into the question of what I think is
the fiction of congressional oversight.
Was Lucien Nedzi or were the informal members of
the Armed Services Committee structure that oversaw, at least
theoretically, the CIA role, with specific reference to Chile,
informed with that degree of specificity before April the
22nd of this year?
DIRECTOR tom: I believe Mr. Nedzi is a rather
recent appointee to that chairmanship, but over the years
since 1964, a variety of congressional committees and individual
congressmen and senators have been -- were made aware at
appropriate times in the period of our covert action activities.
This was done according to the procedures set up at that
period, at each period, and, as you know, we have a round-
up recap every now and again, and the April 22nd one was
one for the House Committee. There had been previous total
round-up recaps for other committees of the Congress well
prior to that time and, in fact, right after the coup in
September 1973.
REP. HARRINGTON: Well, if it was as substantive
as my effort to obtain information from you on the Inter-
American Affairs Subcommittee, before which you testified,
I still question whether or not there was the kind of language
you've chosen to use indicating frank and substantive information
being given to the committee.
But let me make the point that Lucien Nedzi, I
believe in late 1972, was first given the designation as
chairman of an apparently prior loosely structured apparatus
at the Armed Services Committee on the House side, and it
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was apparent to me in the 48 pages of your testimony that
the information being given him that day was unquestionably
being given to him for the first time, by the very nature
of the responses and by the very absence of anything really
short of what I would paraphrase as being a Colby monologue
to a certainly interested and, to a degree and on occasion,
incredulous and rather small audience. In fact the audience,
as far as that particular testimony, consisted, frankly,
of Mr. Nedzi, as a member of the Congress, yourself, Mr.
Phillips and Mr. Slattinger (2), and I would say that that
really even falls rather short of what would pass for the
dimension of Armed Services Subcommittee oversight.
You've indicated in general, too, that your efforts,
at least as they were reflected in Chile and, I can infer
from that, generally were to keep the State Department informed
at all times of activites that were conducted in the carrying
out of what you characterized again today as a directive
given you by the Executive Branch in the course of their
constitutional mandate.
Was this particular situation that you have described
in detail, either going back to the 1960s or with more relevance
to the 1970 Allende period through the latter part of last
summer, followed as a matter of practice in keeping informed
various embassy department personnel in Chile during that
period of time? I make specific reference to former Ambassador
Davis, to former assistant or deputy Ambassador Schlotterman
(?), and to a variety of other people who might be loosely
in the category of those who would be, as a part of their
State Department discipline, responsible for Latin American
affairs in general -- Jack Kubich (?), Ambassador-designate
to Greece; Charles Meyer, who I think was his predecessor
in that role; and Mr. Corey, who was a former Ambassador
to that country. Did they fit within the purview of what
you've indicated was an effort to keep State Department personnel
informed of these operations that you were mandated to carry
out by the National Security Council?
DIRECTOR COLBY: If I may answer these several
questions, Mr. Harrington.
REP. HARRINGTON: [Inaudible]
DIRECTOR COLBY: Oh, I'd be glad to. But on the
question of reporting to the committees and particularly
your reference to my reporting to the Latin American Subcommittee
of the Foreign Affairs Committee, as I outlined in some detail
at that time where we discussed it at some length, our reports
to Congress run on three levels. The one is an open session,
of which this one is a comparable example, where we can,
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without divulging our operational methods and secrets.
We also report broadly in executive session on
the substance of what is going on in the world, and that
particular hearing that day was arranged for that purpose,
to try to report generally on what was happening. And as
I said at that time, I was not prepared to discuss our operational
activities in Chile at that particular hearing. I was prepared,
and so indicated in our conversation, that I was prepared
to discuss any operational detail with the constituted subcommittees
of the Armed Services Committee or the Appropriation Committee,
and I did so.
I think that -- as I recall it, Mr. Harrington,
I think there were a couple of other members present on the
April 22nd event. I've forgotten precisely who they were
and how long they spent there.
But with respect to the question about clearance
with State, the Department of State, through the Deputy Secretary
of State, is a member of the 40 Committee who considers and
approves the various covert action directions that we get
or approvals that we get. The State Department, as do the
rest of us, handle this on a very strictly compartmented
basis, offering the need-to-know principle as the reason
for limiting very sharply who should and who should not know.
Obviously, each department determines that for itself. There
are occasions in which these matters are held extremely tightly
and made available only perhaps to the principal concerned.
There are other occasions in which a broader group of people,
including the ambassador, including others in the State Department,
are made available.
I really am not prepared to say -- I just can't
say right now which item was made available to which State
Department officer at this particular point.
REP. HARRINGTON: Let me, if I can, just try to
get a little bit further into that question. Perhaps the
more interesting part of your discussion with Mr. Nedzi and
those other members whose names you don't remember this afternoon
who made up the Subcommittee on Intelligence Oversight...
DIRECTOR COLBY: I remember the names, but I'm
not sure they were there.
REP. HARRINGTON: ...ran to the method that you
used to operate in the furtherance of this kind of an activity,
where I believe, if~I could roughly paraphrase without being
held to exactness in'language, you indicated that it was
usually or customarily the case to inform and to include
State Department personnel -- and I assume from that, at
the reasonably ranking level -- in the country in which the
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operation was to be carried out, first because it made relationships
easier, second, to a degree it avoided problems of attempting
to, of necessity, go around them, and third because I can
infer that the method of operation, as far as getting approvals,
usually ran, apparently, some sort of joint chain of command,
though I would suspect that the CIA could take, at least
as you described it, a great deal by way of credit in the
initiation area, rather than necessarily just being at the
execution or the furtherance level.
I say that because rI want to read, just for the
sake of -- not expecting that I'm going to get any more directness
than I've had -- statements made on three occasions by three
separate individuals, all of whom were directly concerned
with Chilean policy on the part of this country's government
before congressional committees over the course of the last
year.
The first was before our subcommittee, the Inter-
American Affairs Subcomittee, on June 12th of this year by
Deputy Ambassador, or Deputy Chief of Mission Schlotterman:
Despite pressures to the contrary -- and I'm quoting
now -- the United States Government adhered to a policy of
non-intervention in Chile's internal affairs during the Allende
period. That policy remains in force today.
Let me read, secondly, from testimony given to
the Church Subcommittee last spring, again given by former
Ambassador Corey. Quoting:
I said it was obvious from the historical record
that we did not act in any manner that reflected a hard line --
this is with reference to Chile -- that the United States
gave no support to any electoral candidate, that the United
States had maintained the most total hands-off-the-military
policy from 1969 to 1971 conceivable -- and so on.
And let me read one more significant paragraph,
in view of your testimony:
The United States did not seek to pressure, subvert,
influence a single member of the Chilean Congress at any
time in the entire four years of my stay. All of my instructions
came from State. No hard line toward Chile was carried out
at any time.
I could read the last of Ambassador -- former Inter-
American Ambassador Meyers, but it runs along the same lines:
The policy of the government, Mr. Chairman, was
that there would be no intervention in the political affairs
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of Chile. We were consistent in that. We financed no candidates,
no political parties, before or after September the 8th --
or September the 4th, rather.
I think it's obvious that there's some apparent
discrepancy between what they are stating as officials of
the United States Government and what you've testified to
in the session before the, as you call it, relevant House
subcomittee. And I would also, as a backdrop to this, quote,
if needed, the comments from-Senator Symington, that were
attributed to him in this morning's Washington Post, indicating
that as a member of the Senate structure for oversight, statements
made by yourself came as a surprise to him as to the degree
of involvement in this country. I say it because I think
it does tend to make the point, both of the fiction of oversight
and of the at least casual use of the truth on the part of
a variety of State Department officials that have appeared
before Congressional committees over the course of the last
year.
DIRECTOR COLBY: Mr. Harrington, I'm prepared to
go into the CIA operations there in detail, before the proper
committees. I am prepared to go into the CIA operations
in detail before any other members who are brought into the
matter by the proper committee. I am prepared to change
our procedure if the Congress decides to set up the structure
in another way.
Until one of those happens, I respectfully must
not get into a further discussion of the details of our activities
there.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I wonder if I might raise a
point before we go on to a...
Dakota.
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Senator James Abourezk of South
SENATOR ABOUREZK: It seems that CIA covert activities
are never discussed in advance to anyone that I know of.
Now if it's discussed with Lucien Nedzi or Stuart Symington,
I'm not aware of it. I think this most recent Chilean thing
indicates that is the case.
If you say, Mr. Colby, that you're prepared to
discuss the Chilean operation before any appropriate committee,
that's over with. We're always talking about what the CIA
has done two or three or four or five years in the past.
Do you think it might not be a good idea to discuss it, what
you're doing now at this time before the -- even before the
appropriate committees? And I personally would like to see
you go further than that.
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If you are prepared to call what you do in covert
activities national policy, then shouldn't the nation be
brought in, if not on speciic matters, at least on the general
principle of whether the nation approves of assassination,
of...
[Applause]
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Does the nation approve of CIA-
sponsored government coups, of many things of which I personally...
[Applause]
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Please, hold it -- of many things
that I and, I know, a lot of Americans personally disapprove
of? If you don't want to talk about the specific activity --
the CIA will not even talk about the general principle of
these things. I mean wouldn't that be an appropriate matter
for public debate, to establish whether or not, then, a specific
Chilean operatior or a Cuban operation might be, then, national
policy?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I beg your pardon, Mr. Chairman,
I think that my presence here demonstrates that I'm prepared
to talk about covert actions, and I have talked about a bunch
of them.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, if I can impose on the
time of the panel and follow this up...
DIRECTOR COLBY: Well, as for discussing future
events, many of them cannot be predicted in the future, but
a number of our covert activities have gone on over a number
of years, and during that number of years there have been
periodic appropriations, some of which is used for some of
these operations. And when they get significant enough,
they must be covered in the appropriations process.
I did state to Mr. Nedzi in an open hearing a few
weeks ago that there are no secrets from that particular
subcommittee or the corresponding subcommittee of the Appropriations
Committee -- none. And that beyond a responsibility to respond
to his questions, I have a positive responsibility to bring
to his attention things that he might be interested in.
And I have undertaken to bring to the various committees
our current activities so that they will be informed of what
we are doing.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Did the Chairman -- let me ask
you this: Did the Chairman of the Oversight Committee know
in advance of your Chilean operation?
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DIRECTOR COLBY: Various of our individual actions
in Chile over the years were reported, at that time and,
in some cases, before the funds were expended, to the appropriate
chairmen of the committees involved.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Now are you responding specifically
to the recent disclosure over the weekend?
DIRECTOR COLBY: No, I'm not responding specifically
because I don't want to talk about the individual operations,
but I am giving you a general principle. I cannot say that
every dollar that CIA spent in Chile was individually approved
by a chairman, but I can say that the major ones, the major
efforts were known to the senior officials of the Congress,
as established.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I would like to refer to the
weekend disclosures of the Chilean action, the Chilean operation
by the CIA. Was that specific action -- was the knowledge
of that action provided in advance to the supervising committees
of the Congress?
DIRECTOR COLBY: The action disclosed by Mr. Harrington's
letter over the weekend covered the period from 1964 to 1973.
I believe that I have answered that.question in my earlier
answer.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I wonder if you'd repeat it
and encapsulize it so that...
DIRECTOR COLBY: That at various times during that
period, the major steps were brought to the attention of
the chairmen or appropriate members of various of these committees.
Now I cannot say that every individual instance was brought
to them, but there were a series of discussions between CIA
and senior members of Congress which brought them up to date
with the fact that this occurred and was occurring.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I just -- I want to have one
more specific question. In the newspaper story by Laurence
Stern in the Washington Post, it states that 500 -- $350,000
was authorized to bribe the Chilean Congress, which at that
time was faced with deciding a runoff election between Allende
and the opposition candidate.
Just for example, did the committees - were they
aware of that?
DIRECTOR COLBY: Mr. Chairman, with great respect,
that falls within the categories of the details that I'm
not going to talk about.
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[Laughter]
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Is there anything in this story
that you'd be able to either admit or deny?
DIRECTOR COLBY: Well, I can't remember every detail
of the story right at the moment, but I think I've made my
position clear, that I do not want to talk about the details
of our operations in Chile outside of the duly constituted
committees of the Congress.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Mr. Fred Branfman.
FRED BRANFMAN: Mr. Colby, putting aside various
arguments over what actually happened in Operation Phoenix,
and given your understanding of what did happen under it,
if you were ordered by the President of the United States
and the National Security Counsel to engage in such actions
against either Americans or other people in other Third World
countries, I'd like to know if you would have any moral objections
to it. I understand you might have some legal or you don't
think it's within your charter, but from a moral point of
view, what -- would you have any moral objections to it?
I'm particularly intrigued by a statement you made
when you testified before Congress in '71 about the entree
(?) sentencing procedure, whereby Vietnamese are sentenced
for two years without a lawyer, and you said you wouldn't
want to see these legal standards applied to Americans, although
they were being applied to Vietnamese.
What moral distinctions -- from a moral point of
view, now. I can understand that could mean different things but are there any moral implications to that? From a moral
point of view, do you see -- what are the distinctions between
what we do with Americans and Vietnamese and other countries?
Secondly, I'd like to know whether, since Senator
Symington told you at your confirmation hearing that, quote,
"We are getting pretty sick -- we are getting pretty sick
of being lied to." -- He's on the Oversight Committee --
do you...
[Off-mike comments]
BRANFM AN: If we don't want to take your word that
there are -- for example, the CIA is not now involved in
paramilitary activities in Cambodia, if we don't want to
rely simply on your,testimony -- nothing personal here, but
there is a lot of feeling that over 20 years CIA Directors
have lied to Congress, even by people like Symington -- do
we have any means to discover this? Do we have any way of
finding out what you people are up to, other than having
to take your word for it?
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And thirdly, I just want to know if you -- what
your understanding is of the fact that so many Americans
are sick and tired of what they understand the Vietnamese --
the CIA is up to? Whether ittis your understanding, as mine,
that millions of Americans are opposed to our -- any kind
of assassination programs, any kind of police programs, any
kind of attempts to overthrow foreign countries or influence
the political processes in foreign countries? And that if
and when the CIA does this, is it your understanding, as
it is mine, that this is repugnant to most Americans and,
in fact, is being carried out against the will of most Americans?
DIRECTOR COLBY: Mr. Branfman, I have a considerable
degree of modesty as to whether anyone has a morality --
has a monopoly of morality.
[Unintelligible comments from audience]
+ DIRECTOR COLBY: With respect to the...
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Just a minute. I want to --
I'd like to ask the audience -- please, it does slow down
the proceedings here with -- it's all right to be happy and
everything, but please don't interrupt the questioning and
the answer. We'd be very grateful. It would help a great
deal.
Please proceed.
DIRECTOR COLBY: With respect to the question about
the due process under Vietnamese law and the advice of counsel.
I do stand by the fact that I would hope that Americans will
have the benefit of due process, including the advice of
counsel. As a former member of the bar myself, maybe that's
a professional promotional device, but I think it's a very
useful one.
However, in Vietnam there were only 200 lawyers,
and it was a little hard to get advice of counsel for every
person arrested in Vietnam, under those circumstances. And
therefore, a variety of other activities were conducted to
try to improve the legal and procedural aspects of the Phoenix
Program.
As for the question of how to check on CIA, I think
the front benches here of the press do a superlative job
of showing us and' catching us whenever they can. I think
that the various members of Congress and the various staff
members, as they travel around, they have a chance to ask
our people what's going on. They get a feel of these people.
They -- there are a lot of other people who are quite willing
to bring to the attention of the public or to the appropriate
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authorities any wrongdoing by the Agency or any contradiction
between what we are duly authorized to do under our constitution
and what we are not duly authorized to do.
And therefore, I think that any exceptional effort
to use CIA in an improper way will come out, and I have talked
to our own employees and I have told them that it is my conviction
that if anybody tried to misuse CIA against the American
people, that CIA would explode from within and that I would
think it a good thing. Ir
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Nancy Stein.
NANCY STEIN: [Inaudible]
RADIO ANNOUNCER: We're not picking up the question
of Nancy Stein. Apparently there's an audio failure there.
STEIN: ...consequences of U.S. foreign policy
in covert operations. CIA activities have led to the overthrow
of governments in Guatemala, Brazil, Bolivia, and now Chile,
the details of which you know better than any of us, Mr.
Colby. To achieve its goal, the CIA has infiltrated, distorted,
and attempted to destroy the political, social and economic
lives of the people of the Third World. They've resorted
to terror and genocide.
We know that the CIA conducted the training of
foreign police in Texas under the auspices of the Office
of Public Safety, where they learned to make bombs and conduct
terrorist actions against their own people. We know that
your Operation Phoenix in Vietnam resulted in, as you said
yourself, 20,500 people murdered, and similar programs elsewhere.
But all of these programs won't work, because we're
talking here about the struggle of the people for their own
independence and self-determination. In Vietnam the people
are continuing to defeat the United States military and CIA
apparatus. And despite setbacks, the people in Latin America
are gaining strength every day. The United States, in fact,
has had to resort to the imposition of fascist governments
around the world because of the strength of the peoples movement.
I want to read a brief portion of the document
written by some organizations in Latin America that I think
represent the interests of the majority of the people there,
and they're leading a struggle against you and the CIA apparatus
that you represent.
"The peoples of the world live under the permanent
threat of the most aggressive imperialism that has ever existed.
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They have not been indifferent to the organized genocide
directed by Yankee imperialism against the heroic people
of Vietnam. [Unintelligible] war whose flames are still
not extinguished, the belligerent and treacherous character
of U.S. imperialism has been fully exposed. But in this
war, it has once again been shown that in spite of all their
military power, their system is weak when confronted by a
people prepared to fight and be free at whatever the price.
"The Latin American people, from the last century
until today, have suffered a -string of military interventions
and unjust wars executed and fomented either by the American
[unintelligible] or the multinational monopolies. There
was the plunder of Mexico, the occupation of Puerto Rico,
the intervention in the Dominican Republic, the Bay of Pigs,
and many other acts that our America does not forget and
will never forgive.
"There are Shell, Esso, and Standard Oil, United
Fruit and ITT, the money of Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Ford,
and there is the CIA with [unintelligible], Mittrione, Syracuse
(?), and now you, Mr. Colby, have left indelible evidence
of the oppressive and overpowering policies of the United
States against the popular movement in Latin America.
"There is now the conclusive awakening of our people
that is setting into motion millions and millions of people
and that is moving toward our true independence, toward the
definitive elimination of the unjust capital system and the
establishment of our own true revolutionary socialism."
And I just want to say to you, Mr. Colby, that
the best answer to all of your policies, the policies of
the CIA is going to be the will of the people who are going
to win, and that we know that you will suffer eventual defeat.
[Applause]
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Nancy Stein is a member of the
North American Congress on Latin America. She's read a brief
statement that -- most of which we picked up. She's now
drawing some applause. It was not couched in terms of a
question.
DIRECTOR COLBY: May I have a point of personal
privilege, Mr. Chairman. Miss Stein, you said that I said
that 20,000 people were murdered. I did not. You justified,
apparently, the murder of Mr. Mittrione. I don't see how
you can. You said that the CIA conducts genocide. It does
not. You said that,you hoped that the people would win.
I agree with you, because I think the foundation of our country
is in its people, and I think the people of this United States
deserve to have their freedom protected.
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Thank you.
MAN IN AUDIENCE: What about the people of Chile?
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Before going to Mort Halperin,
who's next, I want to follow up...
RADIO ANNOUNCER: This is again Senator Abourezk.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: ...with one question.
Is there anything that the CIA has done overseas
that you would not do in the United States?
DIRECTOR COLBY: Mr. Chairman, of course. We are
engaged every day overseas in trying to learn, through secret,
clandestine operations, matters which are kept secret and
are illegal in the closed societies and countries that we
work in and in some of the other countries that we share
tI1is world with. There are a lot of illegal things, according
to our standards, done overseas, and I think this is a natural
aspect of the fact that we live in a world of sovereign nations,
each one of which must protect its own security.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I wonder if you'd answer the
question. What things would you do overseas -- what things
would you do here that you,would do overseas, and vice versa?
What...
DIRECTOR COLBY: Well, over -- in the United States
we do a lot of things which are perfectly proper and legal.
We have a large number of employees out at Langley who do
research, who study, who learn what's going on in the world
and try to make the best assessment they can out of it.
We have engineers...
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Excuse me. In the context of
what we're talking about -- illegal activities -- what activies
in the covert operation do you engage in overseas that you
would approve of in this United States? That's a better
way to phrase the question.
DIRECTOR COLBY: I believe I've said that -- in
my prepared statement -- that the Uni -- that CIA must do
those things that are lawful in the United States. I did
not say that we had any authority to commit crimes in the
United States, and I deny that we do have any such authority,
and we have given,-very strict directions to our people that
they will not.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: But you do undertake activities
overseas that would be crimes in this country.
DIRECTOR COLBY: Of course. Espionage is a crime
in this country.
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SENATOR ABOUREZK: Other than espionage.
DIRECTOR COLBY: Of course.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Mort Halperin.
MORTON HALPERIN: Mr. Colby, I was encouraged by
your statement that you now think that it's a legitimate
question whether we should, given our current perception
of our interests, engage in any covert operations, and then
your additional statement that you did not think that abolishing
such operations, if I understood you correctly, would have
a major impact either on current activities or on the current
security of the United States. And.I wonder whether we can
assume that that statement was made with, among other things,
the current situation in Greece in mind. Specifically, if,
as appears to be the case, Greece may well be getting a government
which decides to withdraw from NATO and eliminate American
bases, would your statement still hold, that an elimination
of covert actions would not affect the current security of
the United States? Do you believe that American security
interests require or justify American covert intervention
to prevent a Greek withdrawal from NATO? And has the CIA
proposed to the 40 Committee, or do you expect that it would
propose to the 40 Committee, operations designed to prevent
a Greek government from coming to power which would seek
to withdraw from NATO and close American bases?
DIRECTOR COLBY: As I said in my statement, I do
not think that the -- that covert action -- the elimination
of covert action would have a major effect on our current
activities, because it's such a small portion of our total
activities.
Secondly, I did not think it would have an immediate
adverse impact on the security of the United States. That
is a different question than whether any particular situation
might be in the net interest of the United States. On that,
I really do not think it very useful for me to discuss in
this forum whether any particular proposal should be made
or should not be made about an individual covert action.
I think that exactly falls within the category of those things
that I believe, if we are to conduct covert action, should
be conducted within those very restricted circles in the
Executive and reported to those very restricted circles in
the Legislature, which can enable them to be done and still
be kept secret.
HALPERIN: Could I just follow that up with one
point?
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Did I understand you correctly to say that while
there might be a net advantage for an intervention in Greece,
which you were not prepared to discuss, but nevertheless
the statement that there would not be any major impact on
American security if we did not conduct covert operations
would apply to all of the world, including Greece?
DIRECTOR COLBY: Well, I'm thinking, Mr. Halperin,
of the fact that the current status of the world is such
that it does not look that we are on the brink of any seriou
damage to our country at the moment. The Capitol I think
will still stand whether any particular covert action takes
place or not at this time.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Mark Raskin.
MARK RASKIN: ..[inaudbile]...several questions,
Mr. Colby. I was puzzled by some conceptual questions.
One was what you thought a threat was. Whose interests were
really being served, in you view, and how you defined them.
And along those lines, in the last generation, as you know,
the Rockefeller family -- Nelson Rockefeller -- has been
very much involved in different forms of intelligence activities
in the United States. Is it going to be the case that the
Central Intelligence Agency, under your direction, will continue
to be involved or use various of the Rockefeller-owned corporations
abroad either as covers or-be involved with them in any sort
of way? And, indeed, how do you intend -- how does the Agency
intend to deal with the question of conflict of interest,
and will that be made public to Congress and the American
people?
DIRECTOR COLBY: Well, if Mr. Rockefeller is confirmed
as the Vice President of the United States, CIA will respond
to him as the Vice President of the United States. Whatever
the authority that suggests something to us, we are restricted
by our legal authorities in what we can do, and we are not
given any privilege to engage in conflict of interest with
anybody. And I did indicate in my confirmation hearings,
and I believe I'm still bound by it, that if anybody asks
me to do something which is improper and outside the proper
lines of authority of my responsibilities, I'm quite prepared
to resign and leave it.
RASKIN: Does that mean, then, that the Central
Intelligence Agency will not use various of the corporations,
of the Rockefeller corporations as covers around the world?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I don't believe that's a useful
subject to discuss, Mr. Raskin...
[Laughter and shouts from audience]
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Now, I'd like to ask you, in the light of those
statements, if you can conceive of or know of any situation
in which torture is justified, also, if you were aware that
torture was being practiced in the Phoenix Program....
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Due to prior programming commitments,
we're going to have to leave this examination by the Center
for National Security Studies....
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DIRECTOR COLBY: There are some, yes. I would
not like to go further into detail about it, but there are
some, yes.
BARNET: Could I follow up on that...
DIRECTOR COLBY: And I -- by "security of the United
States" I do not mean that the Capitol will fall tomorrow
as a result. I mean the position of the United States in
the world today and in the world ahead.
BARNET: Well, coul-d I ask you to be a little bit
more specific about that? What...
DIRECTOR COLBY: I'm really not trying to play
games with you. What I'm trying to say here is that there
are certain things which today are not an immediate danger
to the United States, but if allowed to grow can become a
serious problem and a, consequently, a problem to the security
of the United States.
BARNET: And you can't -- you cannot give a general
example of those threats?
DIRECTOR COLBY: Well, in line with my disinclination,
to put it mildly, to talk about our operations, I would rather
not to that at this -- in this forum. I do this regularly
in the proper forum that I'want to -- that I'm authorized
to.
BARNET: That you want to. Thank you.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Mr. Fedderman.
STANLEY FEDDERP4AN: I have a question which does
not [unintelligible] detail, but does concern a matter of
general policy.
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Stanley Fedderman, a professor
of law at New York University.
FEDDERMAN: I recall a statement, a phrase, really,
by Dean Rusk some years back in which he referred to -- I
think it was the nasty struggle of the back alleys of the
world. And there was a more explicit statement in the New
York Times some years ago when it quoted what was referred
to as one of the best-informed men on the subject in Washington --
I don't know who it was -- as stating that when we catch
one of them, meaning a Soviet or other foreign agent, it
becomes necessary to get everything out of him, and we do
it with no holds barred.
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ELLSBERG: "...copies of his findings and to make
records." An interesting footnote to your assertion of all
the documents that CIA turned over. "He did his own typing...
DIRECTOR COLBY: I did not give that instruction.
ELLSBERG: Pardon me?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I did not give that instruction.
ELLSBERG: "He did his own typing and utilized
no secretaries." This is the executive session testimony
of the Executive Officer to the Director of Security.
Did such a person work in your office for this
purpose, sir?
DIRECTOR COLBY: There was a security officer assigned
to help me to gather together the information about this
incident, and he's the gentleman you're referring...
ELLSBERG: And were his findings turned over to
Senator Baker or the committee?
DIRECTOR COLBY: The findings and -- the question
became -- the question between Senator Baker and myself with
respect to additional papers refers to certain papers which
we did not make available to Senator Baker but we did make
available to our oversight committees, and in line...
ELLSBERG: Not to the Watergate Committee.
DIRECTOR COLBY: ...the line that I have talked
to you about earlier today, the difference between matters
which get into the details of our legitimate operational
activities, and I mean legitimate ones, were not turned over
outside our proper oversight committees.
ELLSBERG: A final point relates directly to that.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Excuse me. I rally have to
move on. Dick Barnet is next.
RICHARD BARNET: Mr. Colby, I'd like to ask you
a general-principle question. In general, do you see any
national security threat that would justify any covert operations
at this time in any Third World countries, which I would
define roughly as countries -- poor countries in Asia, Africa
and Latin America with no conceivable capacity to endager
the security of the American people here in the United States?
Are there any legitimate covert operations in those areas
that you see at this time?
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information to the appropriate authorities prior to that
time.
With respect to the question you raised about the
law I recommended, I would like to point out that that law
would not apply to you, Dr. Ellsberg, because that law says
that it applies only to information relating to intelligence
sources and methods. It does not apply broadly to classified
material, which is what you were accused of leaking.
ELLSBERG: Are you aware that officials of the
U.S. Government used the word "intelligence," intelligence
sources and materials" repeatedly during my trial?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I am aware of that, and I say
that this law is carefully designed so that it will not apply
to a third party, but only to those of us who take the obligation
to retain a secret of some importance to our country; and
secondly, that it is -- before any prosecution or injunction
can be obtained, that we -- the government must go before
a judge and justify that that classification is reasonable.
Now, I contest that any judge would issue such
an authorization -- an injunction or go on with a prosecution
if the matter leaked were the fact of a crime, the fact of
some illegality. And it is precisely for that reason that
that particular provision is written into the law, because
I agree with you that there are a lot of things that really
I would not send people to jail for just because they have
a stamp on them. But I do think that there are some secrets,
some good secrets, as I said in my statement, that deserve
protection in the interests of our country.
ELLSBERG: Sir, the purpose of that -- I think
there has to be, as I say, one more sentence quoted from
this' report with your name in it to test the honesty with
which you are reporting at this date in our history the involvement
of your agency in this affair.
Senator Baker says: "Our investigation in this
area also produced the fact that, contrary to previous CIA
assertions, the CIA conducted a vigorous in-house investigation
of the Watergate matter, starting almost immediately after
the break-in (Executive session testimony of personnel security
officer number one).
"As one member of the security research staff stated,
they were in a state of panic. In November and December
of 1972 the Executive Officer to the Director of Security
was...."
[Interruption]
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They were used as...
ELLSBERG: The falsity of that statement, sir,
is revealed in this statement, but I wish to point out one
more sentence including your name in Mr. Baker's -- Senator
Baker's report.
DIRECTOR COLBY: May I answer the other questions
you raised, Mr. Ellsberg?
ELLSBERG: I'm sorry. Yes.
DIRECTOR COLBY: You referred to the presence of
ex-CIA contract employees and so forth in the various kinds
of incidents that have come up over the Watergate.
Martinez.
I
ELLSBERG: Pardon me. A current one, sir. Mr.
DIRECTOR COLBY: Let me finish my phrase, if I
may, Mr. Ellsberg.
And the presence of one individual, Mr. Martinez,
who had worked for us on a fulltime basis for a long time
during the '60s, and in 1967 we terminated that relationship
and established a retainer relationship of $100 a month with
Mr. Martinez so that he could continue to report on certain
things in the Miami area among the Cuban exiles there. Mr.
Martinez obviously did not live on $100 a month, nor did
we expect him to. We expected him to do other things, and
he apparently did so, and some of them were bad.
[Laughter]
DIRECTOR COLBY: And apparently some of them were
bad.
[Shouts from the audience]
DIRECTOR COLBY: With respect to the CIA's knowledge
of the events surrounding the break-in to Dr. Fielding's
office, it is true that some of our equipment was used in
that regard, and it is true that we had some photographs
of that office. But because of the way it was handled and one can criticize this now. It's easy in hindsight the fact is that the various individual pieces of information
were put in different compartments in the Agency, and they
were not put together until, I believe it was sometime in
January or so, January or February, when Dr. Fielding's name
came out as your psychiatrist and the break-in and all the
rest of it, and then the whole thing was put together at
that stage. And when it was put together, we reported it,
what we had -- we had already offered to provide all that 00827
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Thank you.
DIRECTOR COLBY: Mr. Ellsberg, I pointed that anomaly
out as a fact. I also stated that...
ELLSBERG: You described it as an anomaly. That
was what I was drawing attention to.
DIRECTOR COLBY: As a fact of life. It is an anomaly
that the world can have secrets of those who can destroy
us, and that it is necessary for us to penetrate those secrets
to protect ourselves.
I do think that the existence of this anomaly does
not -- in no way will I permit it to be used as an accusation
that I do not support this Constitution, nor that I do not
understand it. I think I understand it and I think I understand
my loyalty to it as well as you.
ELLSBERG: We disagree, sir. We have a different
understanding of it. That is very clear.
DIRECTOR COLBY: Fine. I am prepared...
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Mr. -- do you want to respond
further?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I have some more.
With respect to Senator Baker's investigation,
as the letter I wrote to him, which was distributed later,
indicated, the Agency did its best to cooperate with that
investigation. We had 24 of our Agency witnesses testified
on a voluntary basis and answered questions under oath.
We provided 700 CIA documents and 2000 pages of testimony.
I am prepared, at any time, to go further with
that investigation if the Senate decides that it wishes to
do so.
RASKIN: Why did you destroy the tapes?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I did not destroy any tapes.
RASKIN: Who did?
DIRECTOR COLBY: The tapes were destroyed as a
part of a periodic process going back to 1970, and they were
finally destroyed in 1972. When Mr. Helms...
RADIO ANNOUNCER: The question was asked by Mr.
Raskin.
DIRECTOR COLBY: ...he destroyed the rest of them.
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under indictment, thus violating both your statute and the
laws of the United States otherwise, had been subject at
least to a casing operation using your equipment, which you
did not take back, and was probably about to be broken into
for reasons which your agency knew very well, because it
was to provide data for a defaming effort in which your agency
was providing the full effort. Mr. Hunt was merely a liaison
from the White House.
Your statement in this paper summarizing those
events with the statement, the fact that a retired CIA employee
becomes involved in some illegal activity in the United States
should no more eliminate a function, etcetera, is a deliberately
deceptive statement for which your presence here today, I
suppose, is -- in part, that is the purpose of it, to continue
that cover story. At least, that is the effect of your statement.
The clear implication, legislative, that follows
from that is that the Watergate investigation is not over,
despite efforts by the current President to continue it.
The proposals in this document for the continuation of investigation
of CIA involvement by Watergate Committee and other committees,
which are very precise, is -- should follow immediately.
Obviously that is not because of the damage done to one citizen,
and I was not indeed damage. The attempts to make me a broken
man, as you can see, like the Bay of Pigs and like the attempt
on the steps of the Capitol.
However, and indeed, it would be obscene to regard
as criminal only a break-in to an American citizen's office
and take no criminal action against the break-in by bombardment
of an enemy country -- of a neutral country (Cambodia) with
100,000 tons of bombs. But for a very practical step, we
can start with your cooperation in this matter, since as
I see here on Page 751, The CIA psychiatrist so reported
this to his CIA superiors, both in memoranda and a meeting
on August 20th, 1971. Access to the memoranda of both the
psychiatrist and his superiors has been refused to this committee,"
the Watergate Committee.
Footnote 31: "See also Colby letter refusing access."
I believe, sir, that you have a lot to answer for,
not very much to me, very little. But if what the Central
Intelligence Agency officially was involved in, knowlingly
after a certain point, can result in investigations and prosecutions
which will enlighten the American public and reduce the difference
between this society -- or, preserve the difference that
you find so anomalous between this society and the ones you
operate against abroad, I'll be very happy to be party to
that.
GCS 9
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27
"Another CIA official" -- the head of Technical
Services -- "testified he speculated they were casing photographs.
This was on August 27th.
"Recent testimony has shown the CIA official who
reviewed these photographs immediately their content to Cushman
and his assistant in the Office of the Deputy Director of
CIA."
Again, as I said -- I have one more quote here.
Again, as I said, I would have still said that CIA did not
know who the Fielding was in that photograph that they were
providing for Hunt, until I read this paragraph on Sunday.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Dan, excuse me.
ELLSBERG: I'm sorry. I have one more paragraph,
Senator, if I can.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: All right. But I wonder if
you could make your point, because we want to get to the
audience yet and allow them -- we have several more panelists
who want to ask questions, and the audience has indicated
a desire to do so.
ELLSBERG: I shall, sir. The point is here.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Thank you.
ELLSBERG: "There was a meeting on August 12th"
--
this is one paragraph -- "1971" -- it is Page 751 of this
book -- "in which both Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy participated.
They told the CIA psychiatrist that Ellsberg had been undergoing
psychiatric analysis. Hunt and Liddy discussed their desire
to, quote, try Ellsberg in public, end quote, render him,
quote, the object of pity as a broken man, end quote, and
be able to refer to Ellsberg's, quote, Oedipal complex.
The CIA psychiatrist was given the name of Dr. Fielding as
Ellsberg's psychiatrist." That's jumping ahead.
"At the close of the meeting" -- let's see -- "The
psychiatrist has testified that he was extremely concerned
about Hunt's presence and remarks. He so reported this to
his CIA superiors, both in memoranda and in a meeting on
August 20th, 1971, prior to the casing operation. He got
the world back from Helms and Cushman that they had learned
of his concern and were aware."
I think it can only be inferred from this, Mr.
Colby, that whether or not Mr. Helms and Mr. Cushman knew
of the uses of those materials from the moment they handed
it over, from the moment of the casing operation, and before -~
it, they knew that, in the words of Howard Osborne of ~'~'
your
agency, a man.who was a U.S. citizen and who was currently
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and with contempt proceedings, if without your cooperation.
"Mr. Helms then, not a retired employee, agreed
to this, but said that it was extremely important that CIA
involvement not be told. A profile was provided."
I'm going to make this factual thing brief. I'm
going to ask for about three or four minutes here.
"The profile was provided and did not do the job.
It was regarded by Mr. Young-as unsatisfactory. It had the
words, 'Mr. Ellsberg operated out of patriotic motives,'
and it did not serve the purposes, and another meeting was
sent back to CIA [sic].
"As many people know, later, the retired employee,
Mr. Hunt, went into Dr. Fielding's office" -- my former psychiatrist --
"with the help of a great deal of CIA material provided him
and with several operatives, one of whom was on the current
payroll of CIA, Mr. Martinez, currently reporting to his
case officer. We are told by CIA officials that he did not
tell his case officer what he was doing, but the actual transcripts
of those conversations have been refused by CIA to Senator
Baker."
Frankly, I had accepted the statements by Mr. Helms
and Cushman that they did not know what the retired employee
was doing with that equipment. Senator Baker's report shows
a very strong conflict between their testimony and the documents
an sworn testimony of other CIA officials. Someone has committed
perjury. It is not clear why no perjury indictment has come
out or why none is -- no CIA person is currently in the current
cover-up trial under process. But the paragraph I wish to
quote is this. Until I read this paragraph on Sunday, I
answered people who asked me, "Did Helms, Cushman and CIA
know what Hunt was doing with their cooperation?" I said,
"No, there is no indication that they knew who Dr. Fielding
was, although they had photographs with Fielding's name on
them, but they didn't make that connection," as far as I
knew, and I'd read that testimony. Then I read this:
"The testimony -- the film was developed for Hunt
in CIA. It was of Fielding's office. It was reviewed not
only" -- this is new to me -- "Not only was the film developed,
but it was reviewed by CIA supervisory officials before it
was returned to Hunt. One CIA official" -- it seems to be
head of -- Deputy. Chief of the Technical Services Division --
"who reviewed the film admitted that he found the photographs
intriguing and recognized them to be of Southern California."
Palm trees in them. "He then ordered one of the
Photographs to be blown up. The blow-up revealed Dr. Fielding's
name in the parking lot next to his office.
F. 00831
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Certainly, officials do not understand that now,
which is why, to my knowledge, no member of your agency under
your control provided information to any law authority of
the illegal activity in which your agency and its officials
was going along with. And I'm sure that in doing that they
felt that they had no right to do so, as contracts, that
they must keep secret these illegalities and crimes.
Any future agreement on secrecy of any sort, even
contractual, providing for firing if you break it -- and
I certainly could have been fired. There was no question
of that -- should make it clear in the future that it does
not protect illegality. You may find it possible to reflect
that in your drafting.
But a final point, a long one, I'm afraid. Since
your law -- your law -- [unintelligible] put it positively --
your law would make illegal what I did. Your law would make
it` illegal what Mr. Marchetti did and what a number of other
people here have done. The question is do we want that or
not? What would the effects be?
It would make us.more like countries like Russia.
There are also other countries in the world, even like England,
that have such requirements, the country for which we fought
a revolution to get away from that sort of law. We have
a First Amendment; England does not, and certainly Russia
does not.
The effect of your -- since we don't have such
a law, there was in fact no way to get a conviction of me
in a court of law, as government lawyers understood. Therefore,
they set out, in their words, to destroy me in public and
to try me in public.
Now those words were said not by -- not to retired
employees of CIA. They were said to the then active officials
of CIA. As part of the effort to get me, before Mr. Hunt
was hired by the Plumbers, a request was made by Mr. Young,
citing the authority of Ehrlichman and Kissinger, to do a
psychological profile by CIA. The request was made to Mr.
Helms, then head of CIA, while you, I think, were head of
operations, if I'm correct -- made directly to Helms. Helms
agreed to do this. And I'm quoting now from a document which
I read just for the first time three days ago, which I find
extremely enlightening -- Senator Baker's Minority Report
to the Watergate Committee. This is the Bantam edition of
the Watergate Report with the addendum of Mr. Baker's report,
and I want to quote a couple of paragraphs from that.
Cos 3-2'-
He has a list of further investigations in this,
and I wish to propose precisely that those investigations
be carried on, with your cooperation, Mr. Colby, under subpoena
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Mr. Colby has told us -- you have told us, sir --
that you to this day find it a strange anomaly that we need
a Central Intelligence Agency, and its intelligence side,
primarily, to get things like the Stalin speech -- the Khrushchev
speech in Russia, whereas most presidential speeches in this
country are free, and indeed, where the Pentagon Papers could
be acquired for 10 cents a day.
I think that is extremely ominous that you find
that a strange anomaly. You':ve told us you understand your
oath to uphold the Constitution. You have also told us,
by that statement, you have no conception of the Constitution
which you've sworn to uphold. The fact is that the governmental
secrecy which threatens the continuation of American democratic
institutions, this survival of this country, is not Russia
and not Chile. It is the secrecy of the United States Government,
of which you are a part.
[Applause]
ELLSBERG: The law -- I'm going to comment on a
very specific proposal that you are currently making -- the
law to which you allude, which you have currently drafted
and proposing, very reasonably, it would appear, is designed
to reduce that anomalous difference between our society and
the government of the Soviet Union, which I deplore and will
resist.
You mentioned, is it not reasonable that officials
who have signed an oath of secrecy, as you have, as I did,
as others here have, should be punished when they violate
that oath? I look back on those papers that I and you have
signed, and recall -- and I did this a while ago -- I recall
that there was nothing in them that said explicitly, "You
will keep secret any information you receive, no matter what
evidence it provides of illegality, criminality, aggressive
war, violation of the Constitution. Under no circumstances
will you reveal it, even to courts or even to Congress, under
penalty of firing."
If that was implicit -- and I think your law would
make that legal. Your law would establish...
DIRECTOR COLBY: No, it would not.
ELLSBERG: Well, it would establish a statute for
classification under circumstances -- or, let me put it to
you. May I suggest drafting for your law? That any such
agreement, even referring to contractual things such as Mr.
Marchetti entered into, should alert every citizen of this
country that he is in no way being called on to conceal illegality
or criminal activity.
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side. You paper tries to direct attention, very understandably,
to the intelligence side of CIA, but if you'd followed the
accounts here you would not have heard a critical conference
in this conference on the intelligence side, although, obviously,
critical comments could be made.
There are many secret, closed societies in the
world, and I don't think that secret -- I can't think of
a case where the secrecy, in most people's opinion, serves
the interests of the people o_f those countries or ours.
This conference has not yet produced criticism of attempts
to penetrate the secrecy of those countries.
One was very spectacular, the Khrushchev secret
speech in 1956 which, since it was to the credit of CIA,
they did herald and let it be known that the CIA had played
a role in the acquisition and publishing of that speech --
I think very beneficial in its effects.
There came a time in my life when my wife asked
me what I hoped to achieve by leaking, by revealing information
to the citizens of this country. She happened to believe
throughout that I was exposing myself to possible attempts
to kill me by members of the government, or attempts to beat
me up, which she didn't want to see.
I thought those were not dangers. From my experience
in the government with gentlemen like yourself, I did not
in fact believe that was the way we operated. Parenthetically,
she was correct. The nine or so people who came to beat
me up on the steps of the Capitol in this city on May 3rd --
April 3rd, 1972, who failed, because they were the same people
who had been sent to the Bay of Pigs. They didn't beat me
up. But the ones who were sent to beat me up were in every
case former, experienced contract employees of the Central
Intelligence Agency, paid for by campaign funds. One of
them, Mr. Martinez, as you know, sir, was on [at] that time
a $100-a-month retainer from the CIA, which he remained on
until he was later caught in the Watergate a month later,
being paid from the same funds.
So, she wasn't wrong. A judgment of competence
is another thing, but intent, she was correct.
However, my answer to her as to why it -- she said,
"What is the most you hope to achieve by doing this in the
face of these risks?" 00834
And I said, "Well, in my own mind I hope, over
a long period of time, that this might have a variety of
effects in our society, comparable to the release of the
Khrushchev secret speech about Stalin's crimes had on various
Communist Parties around the world after 1956."
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ELLSBERG: But your agency has not given you an
estimate, an official estimate...
DIRECTOR COLBY: There may well be one. I just
can't recall it right here at this moment.
ELLSBERG: Finally, on this train, have you asked
for such an estimate?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I did. I asked for estimates
about the other two matters. -I have not asked for that particularly.
I don't ask for a lot of questions that come up in our intelligence
business. We have a rather large and efficient group of
analysts who serve up the answers to the obvious questions
around the world. They may well have made an estimate that
I'm not familiar with right here as I sit.
ELLSBERG: I'm sorry, sir, that this was not regarded
as an obvious question in the government.
F
If I can make my comment. First, referring directly
to your remarks, in the light of this last information, we
now know at least some of the people around the world who
put faith in the secrecy of our government and whose survival
politically in their own countries depends on it. They are
the present leaders of Chile, and they are not alone. That
follows immediately from both of your answers.
I do not take satisfaction in that particular result
of our secrecy.
If we went around the world to find the other leaders,
mainly of closed societies, who rely on that kind of.secrecy,
I don't think there would be much satisfaction anywhere,
but perhaps that does relate again to your remark that you
regard the leak of that information to the American people,
the revelation of Representative Harrington's extremely responsible
letter, which was initially confidential, you regard that
as unfortunate. I hope you are the only person in the room
who sincerely believes that. Certainly, I regard it not
only as a fortunate and essential piece of information; I
personally have never seen a report and none was ever presented
in my trial, interestingly, or any of the other trials of
a single leak in the past 20 years that did in fact injure
the interests of the people of the United States. I know
of none that - a violation of this secrecy -- that's come
to the American people that was not either neutral or beneficial
to the constitutional government in this country. And attempts
to describe leaks, such as perhaps leaked by Henry Kissinger
on SALT or whatever,,as terribly serious are simple cover
stories. But that's a matter of opinion. You may know counter-
examples.
I happen to have been very influenced in my life 00835
by an intelligence success of CIA, for which I'm happy to
give you credit. That's not hard to do on the intelligence
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21
efforts, but we did have information about them.
ELLSBERG: And did you pass that information, sir,
to the elected government of Chile, that constitutional government
might be about to be destroyed by the methods that you had
information on?
DIRECTOR COLBY: It's my responsibility to report
such information to the authorities of my country.
ELLSBERG: Was it passed on, to your knowledge?
DIRECTOR COLBY: It is a political action whether
to pass that on to another country or not. That is a policy
decision for the policy leaders of our country.
ELLSBERG: To your knowledge, was that policy decision
made? Was it passed on?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I do not think so, but I cannot
say for sure.
ELLSBERG: My other question, sir, is -- this should
rely on open information in your capacity as Director of
Intelligence, I'm sure: What is your best estimate of the
number of people who have been killed by the present regime,
which replaced constitutional government, over the last year,
your estimate of the number that have been imprisoned, and
of the number that have been tortured in that period?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I would rather not use exact numbers
because I'm not that sure of it. But our estimate at the
time was that in the fighting that took place at the time
of the coup, there was somewhere between three and five thousand
people killed. It is also our impression that there were
very few what you might call executions, very few. There
were some. I admit that. It is not my responsibility, but
that's a fact that happened. It's the military government
that brought it about. How many, I cannot tell you for sure.
As for the number tortured, I have no idea.
ELLSBERG: No idea.
DIRECTOR COLBY: I do not have an idea of a number
that were tortured.
ELLSBERG: Have you read estimates? For example,
by Amnesty International?
DIRECTOR COLBY: I have read various papers on 00836
this subject.
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DIRECTOR COLBY: ...because I get back to my responsibility
not to talk about the operational details of my agency.
RASKIN: Let me just add one more question to that,
then. Did the Central Intelligence Agency use ITT as a cover
in Chile?
DIRECTOR COLBY: Again I would say I do not propose
to discuss the details of our operations. I do not want
to get in a situation where ?I say no, no, no to a series
of questions and then have to say no comment, because the
answerts pretty obvious at that point. And I think it much
more useful if I just say no to the whole run of such questions.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Daniel Ellsberg.
[Applause]
DANIEL ELLSBERG: I have two brief questions that
do not relate to your operations, Mr. Colby, and then, if
I may, a comment.
The first question: Am I correct that you have.
testified publicly that Central Intelligence Agency did have
information about the imminent overthrow of constitutional
government in Chile which the U.S. Government failed to pass
on to the constituted government of Chile?
publicly.
DIRECTOR COLBY: I doubt that I testified to that
ELLSBERG: Would that be correct?
DIRECTOR COLBY: What leaked, I'm not quite sure
right now. It's hard to keep up with them.
ELLSBERG: Would you tell us that now, if that's
the case, sir?
DIRECTOR COLBY: What I will tell you is that --
since so much has leaked, I don't have much problem saying
it -- we had a general appreciation of a deterioration of
the economy and political situation in Chile, running throughout
1973. The situation was getting worse and worse in a variety
of ways -- politically, economically, socially, and all the
rest -- and that at varying times during that year, we had
information which indicated that a coup might take place.
One did take place, as you remember, in about the
end of June, I think it was, which was an abortive effort
and which was put down right away. We had a series of other
reports indicating various steps toward such a coup. We
were not involved with the people who were leading of those 00837
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RADIO-TV MONITORING SERVICE, INC.
3408 WISCONSIN AVENUE. N. W. WASHINGTON. D. C. 20016 244-8682
PROGRAM:
DATE:
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
WED., SEPTEMBER 11, 1974
STATION OR NETWORK:
TIME:
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
5:00 PM, EDT
TWO VIEWS OF CIA ACTIVITY IN AFFAIRS OF CHILE
REP. MICHAEL HARRINGTON: Knowing about the CIA
method of operation, and knowing the State Department involve-
ment in at least the furtherance of the plan as it is approved
in the Chilean experience specifically, I can't find myself at
all moved to say that the State Department has not deliberately
participated in an effort to mislead both the Congress and the
American public.
SUSAN STAMFORD: Michael Harrington, Democratic
Congressman from Massachusetts, made news over the weekend
when reports appeared about a letter he'd written quoting
secret testimony on CIA involvement in Chile.
Good evening. I'm Susan Stamberg. Tonight Congress-
man Harrington talks about CIA anti-Allende activity.
BOB EDWARDS: Tomorrow two Senators will sponsor a
Capitol Hill conference on the CIA. Almost certain to be a
major topic is the CIA's role in the overthrow of the Allende
government in Chile. Last Sunday two major newspapers carried
excerpts of a confidential letter written by Massachusetts
Democrat Michael Harrington. The letter states that CIA Director
William Colby acknowledged in secret testimony before a House
sub-committee that the CIA targeted eleven million dollars in
covert action funds against the Allende government.
Judy Miller spoke with Congressman Harrington today
and asked him what kinds of activities the CIA funded in Chile.
HARRINGTON: The activities would probably be, in the
immortal words of-their user, Bill Colby, general efforts that
would lead toward politically disstabilizing the Allende regime
ability to maintain itself in power. It could be broken into
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two or three broad categories, efforts at encouraging media
which would have been opposed to the Allende government in its
philosophy, to both nurture it and encourage its continued
ability to survive and to disseminate a different point of view,
and the support of individuals in political parties who would
have been broadly in opposition to the coalition of interests
that Allende reflected in coming to power.
It also ran, in at least one specific instance, to
plan, approve and then discount it--but I stress approve, be-
cause it was to bribe the Chilean Congress in terms of the run-
off that the constitution of Chile provided as a means of
resolving a close presidential election in 1970.
It would appear, in looking as an overview, that the
eleven years that Colby addressed himself to fell into the
first categories, first, to keep him from power as a candidate,
and secondly, when it was apparent that he was going to be
successful, to engage in activities which would have encouraged
political opposition to the point where he would have diminished
his ability to lead the country, as a result of the strengthening
of the political parties opposed to him, or individuals, or parts
of the public opinion sector that could have been useful in fur-
therance of these objectives.
JUDY MILLER: What really concerns you the most about
what you've learned about CIA activities in Chile?
HARRINGTON: At the broadest level, that a country
that was undertaking a major change of its foreign policy
initiative, and one that I approved--acceptance of pluralism--
efforts to a degree of reconciliation with the obviously diver-
gent interest that the Chinese, the Russians and this country
had in their view of the world, would undertake at the same
time to engage in activities as described by Colby which were
designed to fragment or to weaken a system of government which,
called Marxist or socialist or whatever, came to power in a way
that we endorse as a method of having the orderly transition of
authority occur in the global sense. It's that kind of dupli-
city and that kind of dichotomy or schizophrenia in our thinking
that I think is the most serious, and for that reason deserves
to be known.
Second, affection of Congressional oversight. The
whole question of what we know--and there are some who know,
perhaps, and who choose not to act, either because they feel
it inappropriate, or the response would be ineffectual or philo-
sophically agree with what's done. But as a practical matter,
00839
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if we know, we usually know after the fact, and only a handful
of people know, and the mischievious nature of many of these
activities, the problems they cause, all convince me that
Congressional involvement earlier, and not retroactively, is
important, and frankly, that the kind of activity we have here
ought not even be something that the CIA is momentarily tolerated
as far as engaging in it in the future.
The third concern is that the CIA get itself out of
the covert, clandestine foreign operations sector of its busi-
ness and confine itself to intelligence gathering activity.
EDWARDS: Massachusetts Congressman Michael Harrington,
speaking with Judy Miller. To learn more about CIA activities,
we spoke with Steven Rosenfeldt (?), an editorial writer and
foreign affairs specialist with the Washington Post. First I
asked Rosenfeldt if Congressman Harrington would be successful
in convincing his colleagues to investigate CIA interference
with other nations' elections.
STEVEN ROSENFELDT: On the basis of all of its past
record, you have to say no. There's always been in Congress the
greatest reluctance to pick up the rocks and to see what bugs
might be crawling underneath them. The idea is that the policy
of the United States government is run by the State Department?
that's the public part, the respectable part, the part we're
willing to account for in the world--and the acts of the CIA
have always been treated by Congress as something which perhaps
they were willing to look at in private, but almost never in
public.
EDWARDS: What's the CIA doing down there, anyway?
What purpose does it serve?
ROSENFELDT: From what we know, what the CIA is doing
down there, and was doing specifically in Chile, was implementing
the policy of the United States government. It was not running
its own operation. Meetings were held, deliberations were taken.
It was decided in 1970 that the continuance in office of the
Allende government was inimicable (sic) to the interests of the
United States. We couldn't pursue this publicly. That would be
too overt, too embarrassing, too scandalous, and it's precisely
for such tasks that we have a CIA in the first place, and so
this particular dirty job was handed to the CIA.
EDWARDS-: The role of the CIA is intelligence gather-
ing, and presumably that only.
ROSENFELDT: Since its establishment a generation ago,
the CIA has had two roles: intelligence gathering and conducting
00810
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such other operations as the National Security Council shall
direct. This operation in Chile falls into the latter category.
There's no question but that it's legal under our law. Our law
permits our government to conduct illegalities in other countries.
EDWARDS: The announcement, or the revelation, that the
CIA was actively involved in Chile reportedly came as no surprise
to the people in Chile. They figured that's the way it was all
along, and it appears they may have been correct. What is this?
Is it still the old Monroe Doctrine where we feel that's our
backyard--Latin America--and that.we have a right down there?
ROSENFELDT: The CIA doesn't operate only in Latin
America, of course, but I think there is a kind of modified
Monroe Doctrine still in operation in the American view of Latin
America. We do feel that we have special rights there, to make
sure that the governments are friendly to us, or not hostile to
us,. In addition, I think Kissinger and Nixon--there's no claim
that this was strictly Kissinger--they believed, I think, that
they did not want to become responsible for a second Cuba, a
second Marxist state in the western hemisphere.
I think they also were alarmed about the way they
thought the Allende government might treat American corporations
in Chile, and they wanted to set a certain example of that sort,
to warn off governments that might treat American corporations
hostilely.
EDWARDS: What was the big deal about bringing down
Allende? He was a Marxist. Was he simply philosophically
opposed to American ideals, or was there something more to it
than that?
ROSENFELDT: What was going on in Nixon's and Kissin-
ger's minds we can't be sure. I think they feared that Allende
was a danger because he represented the possibility of Marxists
coming to power by the electoral route. This was, in a sense,
even more dangerous than Marxists coming to power by coup, per-
haps, because in western Europe there are strong communist
parties, in France and Italy, for instance, and the success of
a Marxist coming to power by polls in Chile might have been
duplicated in other countries in western Europe, for instance.
EDWARDS: Well, that's even more shocking. We're
afraid of the electoral process? That's supposed to be one of
the most fundamental things about America.
ROSENFELDT: You put your finger on a contradiction,
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perhaps, in some American thinking. We profess to appreciate
and to love the electoral process. We want its results to be
governments friendly to ours.
EDWARDS: Why the contradiction between opposing
Marxism in Latin America and dealing with it economically and
politically in Asia and Europe?
ROSENFELDT: There are two Kissingers. One is scared
and one takes risks for detente. Perhaps in all of us there is
that same split.
EDWARDS: Thank you, Steven Rosenfeldt, editorial
writer for the Washington Post and a specialist in foreign
affairs.
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