DON'T LOOK NOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100010035-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: January 10, 1974
• Content Type: NSPR

NEiW XUttit :t,traua
10 JAN 1974
Approved For Release 2004/10/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314FF000100010035-6
0
Don't Look
Now....
By Anthony Lewis
There was'a small story in the paper
the other day about a Central Intelli-
gence Agency'operative out in Thailand
faking a letter from the local guerrillas
to the Thai Government. The agency
apologized to the Thais for the inci-
dent, described it as an aberration and
said- it would never happen again.
A reassuring story, that. It tells us
,that we can still count on the covert
operations people at the C.I.A.-the
men who planned the Bay of Pigs,
carried on a secret war in Laos,
subsidized cultural organizations and
foreign politicians, and provided tech-
nical aid for the White House burglary
squad.
What we %ant is to keep such
things secret. Right? National security.
demands that the American people
have no idea of the political tricks
and covert wars carried on in their
name, even years. ago. Right?
Those propositions may sound
absurd but they would be serious if
the C.I.A. and the Justice Department
prevail in a legal argument they are
making right now in the Federal Dis-
trict Court in Alexandria, Va. The case
is one that ought to concern anyone
who cares about freedom and public
`control of government in the United
States.
It all began when Victor Marchetti,
a respected official of the C.I.A. from
1955 to 1969,,decicled to write a book
about it. The agency went to court and
got an order barring him from publish-
ing anything, "factual, fictional or
otherwise," without its consent. The
basis for the injunction was that
Marchetti, in going to work for the
C.I.A., had agreed not to disclose
classified matters.
With the Help of a former Foreign
Service officer, John marks, Marchetti
went ahead and wrote his book. He
ABROAD AT HOME
sent it to the agency, where 50 people
spent 1,700 hours going over it. (Who
were they? The imagination reels.)
They ordered 339 passages cut-- fifth
of the book. .'
Marchetti pleaded that many of the
censored items had already appeared
in print. C.I.A. officials thought again
and agreed to reduce their deletions
to 225. We can sde the restored 114,
and they give an idea of the sort of
thing censors would cut if they had
their'way. For example:
m A paragraph about a program to
send balloons from Taiwan over main-
land China, carrying propaganda.
O References to Air America as a
"C.I.A.-owned airline" in Indochina=
very likely the worst-kept secret in
official history.
o Numerous mentions of the well-
known fact that the C.I.A., in the
1950's, supported efforts to overthrow
the Sukarno Government in Indonesia.
o An eight-word passage saying
that the British secret service helped
Greville Wynne, an Englishman jailed
by the Soviet Union as a spy, to write
a book.
o A statement that some supposed
journalists overseas actually 'work for
the C.I.A.--a fact leaked by the C.I.A.
itself recently.
? A descriptive. phrase saying that
a story by Seymour Hersh of The New
York Times about secret C.I.A. pay-
ments to one wing of the Italian
Christian Democratic party was "thor-
oughly verified."
British ghosting, newspaper adjec-
tives, intelligence fiascos of the past'
Those are the'molthills that fifty peo-
ple labored 1,700 hours to turn into na-
tional security mountains. it is easy
to laugh at such bumbledom, as Taylor
Branch called it in an acid analysis of
the case in last month's Harper's maga-
zine. Marchetti's publisher, Alfred A.
.1 Knopf, is thinking of publishing the
hook with blanks and sending the
missing words to buyers if and when
it wins the case.
STA
The United States needs more light on
its national security policies, not less.
Policy-making by experts without pub-
lic scrutiny is what got us into such
disasters as Vietnam.
ti Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. has or- V
.dered the C.I.A. to produce reasons
'for ,its 225 deletions in the Marchetti
manuscript, and to cleat, some experts
who can help Marchetti argue against
them. This has brought- protests from
the C.I.A. director, William E. Colby,
who wants a secret hearing to tell the
judge why he can't do that.
A certain skepticism about Mr.
Colby is in order. He helped to create
that sinister C.I.A. operation, the
Phoenix program, to arrest, torture
and assassinate suspected dissidents
in Vietnam; he may understandably
prefer darkness to light.
In fact, it would be awkward to
have to justify classifications to a
court. But the trouble lies in a system
that classifies everyt'ling important as
a secret. Marchetti and ,Marks are rea-
sonable men and might well have
agreed if they had been asked to drop
two or three references to serious
current intelligence matters. Instead,
the C.I.A. went to court with its dan-
gerous broadside argument.
Everyone who works on classified
material promises not to disclose it. If
that "contract" can bring an injunc-
tion years later, free speech will have
been drastically reduced. When some
official resigns from Government in
disagreement with, say, the invasion
of Cambodia, lie will not only have his
telephone tapped; Henry Kissinger will
try to enjoin him from expressing his
disagreement. It would be hard to
uwerrate the d+ng-c of thW Prospc:.i?.
STAT
Approved For Release 2004/10/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000100010035-6