CIA'S CRITICAL TIME

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP66B00403R000500090008-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2006
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: January 18, 1964
• Content Type: NSPR

TSI3 CQNOMrsTApproved For Releas 4NOt/C!'8t964CIA-R DP66B00403R000500090008-8.
?MA's Critical Time
1?ROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
ti F oR the Central Intelligence Agency to make public, as it has
recently, its estimates and views on the Soviet economy (which
are discussed on pages 188 and 189) is something new on the part of
this much-criticised but traditionally silent service. In Washington t- -.__-
ing that the uniformed services, and hence American prestige,
there is much speculation about this departure, which has would become involved as soon as any paramilitary undertaking;.;
been received with a minimum of enthusiasm at the State Depart- became a matter of public knowledge. In the event, routine opera
rnent. One of the motives of Mr McCune, the head of CIA, is lions were left in the CIA's hands, with control to be transferred ;
has to have been a desire to improve the agency's " image " which to the Defence Department only if a particular venture grew big
has been frayed as a result of its operations in Cuba and Vietnam..
enough to warrant open military parttcipat.on.
This battering may also aCCOUtIt in part for the intensity of Its America's difficulties in Vietnam point to another endemic
current recruiting drive. In the September number of Scientific problem of intelligence: evaluation. It is one thing to collect
Arnerirarr then appeared a modest advertisement headed, surpris- problem
data; another to make sense of it, yet another to make pre-
ingly, " The Central Intelligence Agency. It offered careers to dictions based on it. Sometimes assumptions about policy intrude
scientists in Washington and elsewhere, and added " The work IS on the assessment of data ; occasionally an agency develops a strong
classified." More recently Mr Max Wiecks, the CIA's recruiting institutional commitment to a given position on policy. These
Sfticcr in New York, held a luncheon meeting for university officials dangers are magnified the more intelligence becomes centralised.
iii charge of appointmtnts for graduates. The agency, he said, In this field, although under Mr Kennedy it had a powerful rival
siought to recruit students of;economics, politics, history, geography, in the State Department's intelligence office, CIA remains para-
languages, science, and mathematics, and would compete with mount ;its head is not merely " Director of CIA " but "Director
private business and the universities to get them. "Don't treat, of Central Intelligence." In', the stormy aftermath of the Bay of
this as a joke," Mr Wiecks warned his audience. " Remember, the t Pigs, top Administration advisers suggested that the functions of
enemy could profit by that',' t! fact-collection and evaluation be separated and that an independent
The habit of regarding the CIA as a joke has tended to spread Co-ordinator of Intelligence " be appointed. Eventually Mr John
i in W'ashington' during the past few years-the wags have dubbed McCune was named Director without any major reforms being
it " McConey Island." But, as the Hoover Commission admitted instituted but, in January, 1962,, President Kennedy (lid write to'
1955, attracting bright young graduates into intelligence can Mr McCune advising him to delegate routine operational work and
never be easy.. Few trained scholars relish the prospect of working ~t to concentrate on his primary task of co-ordination and evaluation.
under conditions of maximum security. Recent congressional dis-; Most of the CIA's problems are insoluble : they would arise in I
cussion of a" CIA Retirement Act of 1963 for Certain Employeessome form no matter what the institutional structure. for thus
underlines the danger of redundancy. And CIA's largely-deserved reason, both Congress and the Executive have looked to the creation
reputation as -a .." hard-line" agency undoubtedly repels at least a of some permanent mechanism of surveillance. As early as iq;; l
proportion of those who might otherwise. be willing to work for it: I a Bill for the setting up of a joint Committee on foreign Intelligence
the eagle on the CIA's insignia stares fixedly to the right. was introduced in the House of Representatives and in 19s6 the
Nor have the agency's relations with the State Department shown Senate devoted two days to debating a Bill. The proposal has
much sign of improvement. Following the Bay of Pigs episode in 1' been revived in recent months, but it is still stoutly opposed by
Cuba, President Kennedy reminded each American ambassador;' the Administration: quite apart from breaches of security which
abroad of his personal responsibility for overseeing the activities of ! might occur, no President wishes to see his lines of authority over
all American officials resident in his jurisdiction. But this did not ! the CIA fouled'by zealous legislators. To forest-ill this possibility
prevent Mr John Richardson, the CIA chief in Saigon, from con- ill 1956 President Eisenhower appointed an independent, lay con-
sultative committee. This was reactivated in 1961 and renamed the
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tinning to buttress the Lodge was attempting to modify or even to undermine it. The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. I low often it
only way Mr Lodge could assert his authority was by having his meets, or whether it accomplishes anything. no one is quite sure.
rival recalled to Washington. The problem is that local CIA officials Its present chairman, Mr Clark Clifford, an old friend of President
owe allegiance to neither the ambassador nor the State Department, Johnson, is reputed to know little of intelligence matters but has
but to a powerful agency in Washington which, as events in Vietnam considerable skill as a bureaucratic politician and this rather than
demonstrated, is itself capable of influencing policy. expertise may be what the job requires. Just before his death. how-
Events in Vietnam also demonstrated the disadvantages of ever, President Kennedy called for a new study of all intelligence
e their cu-ordination
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housing fact-gathering and "special operations" under the same `activities to improve the
roof. As one expert commentator has put it, agents trying both Xlr Johnson has appointed to conduct it, under the supervision (if
Alr McCune, representatives of the State Department, the services
to collect information and to bolster up or overthrow a foreign and the CIA itself. Whatever its conclusions. of the intelligence
government "may develop a less than objective sense for distinguish-
ing between fact and aspiration." In Saigon the CIA found itself community in general it must in fairness be said: its successes often
its failures are trumps led to all the world,
o uurccurded
,
both assessor and assessed. But to separate the two functions would g
not be easy: operatives well placed for collecting clandestine in-
formation are often also well placed for conducting covert opera-
tions. Moreover, the creation of a separate special-operations agency
would almost certainly lead to duplication and conflict. During
1961 a committee under General Taylor toyed with the idea of:
transferring the bulk of the CIA's covert operations to the Defence
Department. But this solution had the obvious drawback of ensur-
Approved For Release 2006/08/21: CIA-RDP66B00403 -