[NATIONAL TOWN MEETING]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300730012-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 25
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 30, 2004
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: November 24, 1974
• Content Type: TRANS

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PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
National Town Meeting
DATE November 24, 1974 4:30 PH
FULL TEXT
WASHINGTON. D. C. 20616, 244-3540
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Washington, D.C.
HARRISON SALISBURY: The National Town Meeting
is now in session. We're meeting today at the Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C., and we have a very important question
on our agenda. It's the question of the CIA and Congress.
And to discuss that with our Town Meeting we have a panel which
includes Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota; Tom Braden,
syndicated news columnist; and we have Dr. Harold Ford, who
is a former official of the CIA itself.
Gentlemen, I'd like to pose the first question
to you, if I may. The CIA has had a great deal of publicity
in recent times. Most of it, I'm afraid, has been rather negative,
and a great deal of it has been generated by its activities
in Chile, where it was operating a program of some size --
the exact nature we don't know all the details of -- against
the Allende Government, which has since been replaced by a
military dictatorship.
I'm wondering this: Whether the CIA's judgment
must have been that the Allende Government was more negative
to American interests than a military dictatorship, and if
so, do we have any notion of what basis it may have had for
forming this conclusion?
Senator, would you care to respond to that first?
SENATOR JAMES ABOUREZK: Well, Secretary Kissinger
once said in- jest that Chile under Allende was a dagger pointing
straight at the heart of Antarctica, and he was probably more
right than he actually thought he was when he was making that
joke, 'cause I don't know of any threat that a small country
with hardly any military power would have to the United States
of America, to the security of this country.
I asked Dr. Kissinger, during a talk he gave at
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the Democratic Caucus in the Senate one day, what interest
we v, ere trying to protect by overthrowing the Allende regime,
which was a popularly elected regime, and replacing it with
a right-wing regime which has murdered imany people, quite a
number of people, has imprisoned and tortured many thousands
gore. And the response I got was a very brief one. Dr. Kissinger
said that he did not want -- or, the United States did not
want, which meant he did not, want -- another country in Latin
America like Cuba that exported revolution, which to me was
an z.mazing statement from a man such as the Secretary who is
making every effort that he can now to renew relations with
Cuba, to the extent that -- well, to me, it's another inconsistency,
another way to explain a very bad situation.
SALISBURY: I don't think that that casts too
much light on this decision, if there was such a decision.
Hr. Braden, at one time you had some connection
with intelligence affairs. I don't know whether it was with
the CIA or its predecessor, the OSS. Do you know very much
about this rationale, or could you give us -- cast some light
on it for us?
]-OM BRADEN: No, I'm sorry. I can't. I don't
know, why they decided to go into Chile and to try to destabilize
i t. I' d l i ke to make one comment on i t, i f I may.
It seems to me that when you undertake a covert
operation, whether it's going to be the Congress or the Secretary
of State or the CIA, you ought to ask yourself four questions.
the question is: How important to the United
States is the covert operation under consideration?
of EXposUre?
require?
And the second question is: What is the risk
And the third is: What is the impact of exposure?
And the fourth is: How much effort does the operation
is would think ghat: if' anybody had asked themselves
thos r_? very serious questions , we would not have tried to destabilize
iJ1cnde.
SALISBURY: 11r. Ford, you have been in the CIA,
though, I believe, not in the covert operations department.
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-3-
Is there any light you can cast for us on this subject?
DR. HAROLD FORD: If I remember your question
correctly, it was: What judgments must the CIA have made?
It seems to me that the judgments were not made
by objective analysts within'the CIA, but the judgments were
apparently made by the U.S. Government at the presidential
or at the Kissinger level, because the CIA operations were
only part of a total orchestrated effort, many overt actions
being taken by the U.S. Government, to try to destabilize the
Allende regime.
As to why and what lay back of that, my guess
is
several.
One, that this was in the area of the Monroe Doctrine,
and
this is our backyard, just as Czechoslovakia and so on
is
the USSR's.
Secondly, I think U.S. Governments, Democratic
and
Republican, have had a great fear of anything that sounds
or
looks like, quote, leftist, and certainly Allende was that,
and
therefore he had to go.
I'm distrubed by this kind of thinking, and to
me it adds up to a kind of paternalistic imperial-type thinking
on the part of U.S. governments that we know what's best for
the other people of the world. And that's why, in my personal
opinion, I think we need more effective oversight of some kind
of the CIA, both for intelligence purposes, but in my judgment,
much more importantly because we need additional constitutional
checks on the U.S. Executive.
SALISBURY:: I noticed that in some of the discussion
of the intervention in Chile that remarks were made about trying
to help out various democratic institutions -- the freedom
of the press and things of that kind. And I wondered if you
gentlemen were aware of any efforts that are now being made
to assist democratic institutions in Chile, where they seem
to have been quite widely suppressed by the current government.
Senator, have you heard of anything being done
by the CIA to try and help out the democratic elements down
there?
SENATOR ABOUREZK: No, I hadn't heard, and as
a matter of fact, because I hadn't heard, I wrote a letter
to President Ford after his press conference in which he
justified our intervention in Chile by the CIA to, in his words,
protect opposition political parties and opposition press.
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I asked a number of questions -- which parties were trying
to be supressed by Allende? Which newspapers were trying to
be suppressed by Allende? And which newspapers and political
parties were we trying to get back in business that had bean
suppressed by Allende? And I'm sorry to report I got no answer
frcm President Ford. I got: a letter saying that he had received
my letter, and that was the extent of it.
SALISBURY: Well, that's good.
I think we'll go to the floor. This young man
here has a question.
HAN: fly name is Stewart Motshine from the State
University of New York Washington Semester Program, and I'd
like to direct this question specifically to the Senator.
It seems to be the general consensus that a stronger
congressional oversight committee of the CIA is needed. Now,
how would you specifically propose to set up one that would
reconcile both input from and accountability to the American
people and would also take into account national security interests?
And I'd like you to sort of take it from the procedural questions
involved.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, I'm unable to do that:
because I'm opposed to an oversight committee on the dirty
tricks branch of CIA. The reason I'm opposed to an oversight
comni ttee is that I am for the total abolition of the dirty
tricks portion of CIA. And the reason that I'm opposed to
it is that it's the direct antithesis of a democratic system.
There's no way you can have an undercover covert
operations and have the U.S. Constitution operating the way
it ought to be operating and the way it was intended to operate.
The reason is because the Constitution presumes, or presupposes,
that the decisions on foreign policy, as well as domestic policy,
will be made in open debate in public, with the participation
of all those people who want to participate. I don't know
of any way that you could have a covert operations, whether
it's with the entire Congress overseeing it, that you take
par:. and that the country could take part: in a debate on what
the CIA is going to do in some foreign country or what they
night have been doing or will do in this country, for that
;ratter. We just don't know.
So, I'm against an oversight: committee. I think
that they would be sworn to secrecy and they'd be swallowed
up, just like the existing oversight committees have been swallowed
u p
SALISBURY: I wonder, fir. Braden, if you would
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agree with the Senator that we should have no covert operations
at all. As I recall the early days of the CIA, set up at the
height of the Cold War, at a time when we were desperately
afraid of Communist subversion of democracies, it was felt
that we had to have some arm or some tool or some weapon which
was the equivalent of the international operations on the Communist
side. Do you think that rationale really holds...
BRADEN: I think it holds up. I think it held
up in history. And I disagree with the Senator because I think
you can imagine some examples of how it might hold up now.
Let me, if I may, just give a couple of suppositions.
Let us suppose that we get very sure information that the PLO
is today planning an operation within the United States. Say
they want to blow up a school with some nice kids in it or
they want to kidnap the President, or some other euphemism
for a negotiation which the PLO might devise. And let us suppose
that we have a covert arm in that country. What should we
do? Should we wait until the attempt is made here and then
try to arrest the culprits? Would it not be a good idea to
at least consider the use of a covert arm to stamp the thing
out where it began?
Let me give you perhaps another illustration.
Suppose that the situation gets very bad in a democratic country;
let's suppose, just for example, Italy. We have a party that's
about to take power which -- the aim of which is to cut off
relations with the United States, incarcerate the citizens,
expropriate the property, deny the ports to U.S. ships. Would
it not be a good thing.to have -- if we had a covert arm in
that country, and I suppose we do, to give a little aid to
the opposition?
I think that it's probably impossible in today's
world for a major power to run foreign policy without having
the possibility, the capacity, the means to use covert action,
and so I disagree with Senator Abourezk, and I see that most
of the Senate did too.
SALISBURY: Mr. Ford, I think you had a word you
!Applause!
DR. FORD: If I may in a gentlemanly manner differ
with both of my colleagues. In the Senate, if I read the debates
.here correctly, there were a number of people who differed
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witf you, and those did not include just what you might say
were the feudal barons, but some who, if the resolution had
been worded differently, might have come along. For example,
do we cut off everything, boom, right now? Do we vote something,
boom, right now? Or do we vote something after some careful
stucy is made? And by careful study I do not mean pigeon--holing,
but I mean something...
SENATOR ABOUREZ (: That's usually what's meant
in the Senate.
DR. FORD: I know that's what has been the case,
but does not necessarily have to continue to be the case.
On the cutting off the covert arm, perhaps my
position is somehwere in between. I line up with those members
of the Congress who feel that yes, covert operations should
be cut back practically to zill [sic:], keeping perhaps only
contingent capability for a time of war or the coming of war.
And as for the theoretical ones that Mr. Braden
names, there are covert arms abroad now in the form of intelligence-
gathering. And if they're doing their job and if the U.S..
press and other U.S. representatives abroad are doing their
job, they'll learn about things that are going to happen in
this country, word can be flashed here, and then our own law
enforcement agencies can take care of t.hea.
SALISBURY: There's a question down here.
MAN: I'm John Marks from the Center for National
':security Studies in Washington. I'd like to address the question
to Senator Abourezk.
Senator, do you think that it's possible for us
as a country to continue to train thousands of people in skills
like bribery, subversion, other criminal skills like this,
and send them overseas as representatives of the U.S. Government,
and then be surprised when they come home again in incidents
like the Watergate, when you find people who were trained in
these skills by the U.S.. Government? Is it possible to avoid
a domestic spillover when you do these things overseas?
SLNATOR ABOUREZK: I don't know of any way to
avoid a domestic spillover from the kind of training that our
CIA agents, our dirty tricks operators get to use on government
s overseas. We saw during the Watergate disclosures here that
the people who did all of the dirty work in the Watergate were
former CIA agents, some of them who thought they were defending
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the country by virtue of the way they tried to do in the opposition
political party.
And I wonder if I might, Mr. Moderator, respond
to M1r. Ford and Mr. Braden with regard to their hypotheticals.
I suppose that in order to tickle or stimulate everybody's
political bone, we could use as a hypothetical that the Jewish
Defense League might be ready to blow up something in this
country and that we might then want to send the CIA dirty tricks
operation over to Israel to prevent somebody in the Israeli
Government, or whoever directs the Jewish Defense League, to
prevent them from -- as a matter of fact, we could just as
easily have taken over the Israeli Government in this kind
of a hypothetical. But I think we have to get down to actual
specific cases, because I don't know -- I can't conceive of
a hypothetical where it justifies the United States, a land
of democracy, a coun -- the land of the free, from sending
people to take over another government, to do in an opposition
political party.
If we are so ashamed of defending the United States
so that we have -- that the result is that we send people over
covertly, rather than overtly, then I don't know if the United
States would be worth defending. I'm not ashamed of defending
this country and I'm not ashamed of defending myself. If there
is such a circumstance that arises, then I think we ought to
use the military forces and we ought to declare war, as the
Constitution requires, 'cause that's simply all we're doing,
is running an undeclared war by sending secret operatives to
do the kind of things that the military ought to be doing.
SALISBURY: Isn't one good way of evaluating the
covert program of the CIA and its consequences the actual record
of the operations that have been -- have surfaced in the past and
what has been achieved by them? And it seems to me that we
see that where they have indeed eliminated so-called threats
from the left, or possible threats from the left, almost invariably
it has swung over hard to the very opposite extreme of the
right. And it is to me, at any rate -- maybe you gentlemen
can enlighten me -- difficult to understand, for example, why
it was such a great coup to overthrow flossadegh, for example,
in Iran in 1954 and then in the end we wind up with a very
authoritarian regime which in its policies seem to me to be
far more hostile to American interests, at least so far as
oil is concerned, than Mossadegh ever could have dreamed of
being back in 1954.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, I think every time we
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win one of those, we lose, so far as our democracy is concerned.
SALISBURY: What do you think about that, Mr.
DR. FORD: Yeah. I think this gets to our government's
republican and democratic definition o4 what is democracy,
and in various decades it always seems to come out the same:
Democracy abroad is that regime or those parties who stand
for, quote, stability, meaning that U.S.. military rights will
continue; U.S. intelligence rights will continue; nothing will
happen to upset the stage, and thereforire we back them.
I agree that - - I think i n many cases that this
kind of approach to the world has prevented peaceful change,
and when there is not peaceful change, you get very authoritarian
regimes, and ultimately a very radical change.
SALISBURY: It causes more violence in the shifts
back and forth, doesn't it?
DR. FORD: Also I would add that I think there
are times that not only covertly, but c vertly as well, I think
our country has been guilty of overestimating what it is we
think. we can accomplish abroad and not realizing that in most
insi:ances the fate of this or that society or situation is
c?oi nq to be answered by those people in that society and not
by ;chat we do or what the Russians do.
SALISBURY: Let's go to the floor for a question
x.1'1: I'm Bill Jac::kson. I'm interested in accountability.
The question I have for the panel is this: Is there a secret
charter for the Central Intelligence Agency established by
'lati onai Security Council directives that permits activities
not contemplated by Congress when they wrote the laws establishing
the CIA?
SALISBURY: Any of you gentlemen answer to that?
ID PA DE I1: :Tell my answer is yes, there is a charter,
CIA. It's National Security Council Directive 10/2, if I recall
the exact terriinology. And I think that although scholars
may dispute my assertion, I think that the record of setting
uip the agency in 1947 makes it pretty clear that the Congress
[,net,, what it was doing and that: the Congress intended that
from time to time the CIA might engage in a covert operation.
i)k. FORD: There have been some add-ons since
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that time, but they have all come from and within the Executive
Branch. And on accountability, it's not only the CIA but the
Executive Branch and the Office of the President that is not,
at least in my opinion, as accountable, and certainly to the
Congress, as it should be.
SALISBURY: What about the so-called 40 Committee,
which is supposed to approve all covert operations? How does
that work?
DR. FORD: I'd say it works often by enthusiasm.
You get in a crisis and then someone has a great idea, either
from within the CIA that bubbles up and they go sell it, or
some great idea, and especially in recent years, from the top
down, from the President or from his Prime Minister.
[Laughter]
DR. FORD: And we go off on a fine little adventure
SALISBURY: Guess who the Prime Minister is.
Have you any comment on the operation of the 40
Committee, Senator?
BRADEN: I beg your pardon?
SALISBURY: I was asking the Senator whether he
had any comment on the operation of the 40 Committee.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, it's merely an arm of
the President and the Secretary of State, as I understand it.
It's run by the Secretary of State.
And in answer to Mr. Jackson's question on accountability,
there is no accountability. I think that's pretty obvious.
If the congressional oversight committees that some people
have proposed, and those that are in existence, were to oversee
the operations of the 40 Committee or the CIA, there still
is no accountability, because those people are directed interna-
lly, in a great many cases. As a politician, I happen to know
that unless a constituency that is able to throw you out of
office directs you to do something one way or the other, you'll
do about what you want to do. And if you don't have to account
to the public for the operations of the CIA as a congressional
oversight committee member, there is no way that that can be
called accountability. There just -- there is no way.
BRADEN: Can I just make a...
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."ALISBURY: Yes.
BRADEN It seems to men, Senator, that you're
setting up .,a puppet. If the Congress accepted responsibility
for the operations of the CIA -- and I agree that it hasn't
yet, but suppose it did -- you'd have to do something that
concressmen don't like to do -- congressmen and senators ---
you'd have to do two things.
First of all, you'd have to keep a secret, and...
[Laughter]
BRADEN: I don't know why a congressman can't
keep a secret, but the fact is none of them ever have.
And secondly, they'd have to go home and accept
responsibility for failures, because when operations fail,
as operations often will, then somebody has to go back to his
constituents and say, "All right. It's my fault. I thought
it: was a good idea, I voted for it, I approved it, I have to
take the rap." And that's very difficult for congressmen and
senators to do, too.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I just want to respond. He's
right. It is difficult for a Congressman, just like a columnist,
admit responsibility for mistakes.
[Laughter and app'll auseJ
SENATOR ABOUREZK: However., I have never been
told any secrets since I've been in th+:, congress for four years.
So I can't test that theory out.. I ha%ee no way to do that.
Sa"ALISBURY: Well , you're getting more seniority
and it'll begin soon.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I hope so.
SALISBURY: What about the Joint Atomic Energy
Co nii ttee? Haven't they kept secrets pretty well since they've
bees established? And doesn't that provide somewhat of a model
for a Joint Intelligence Committee?
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well,I don't if I -- I
don't think we're talking about: the abli l i ty to keep secrets .
I trunk, in all seriousness, some congressmen can and some
can't, just like everyone else.. But I don't think that ought
to )e the question, of whether we can keep the secret. I -think
the question is accountability and can you be accountable to
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your constituency, which is the way this place is supposed
to run, up on the Hill.
SALISBURY: I've noticed that some senators and
some -- and perhaps they're representatives -- on the present
CIA oversight committee have made a point of saying that there
are many things they don't want to know about, and they particularly
told the CIA "Don't tell me anything about that. I don't want
to."
Now, isn't this actually a denial. Thcj -don't
want to be in the position of accountability.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: That's right.
BRADEN: It's a very important point, and it's
exactly what's wrong with Senator Weicker's and Senator Baker's
bill to make Congress responsible. Those two gentlemen introduced
a bill -- Senator, I disagreed with your bill. I disagreed
with this one even more strongly because they're unable to
say whether or not they want to see the operation in advance.
They're going to sort of oversee the budget. Well, that isn't
going to get us anywhere.
So, I think that your point, Mr. Moderator, is
very well taken.
SALISBURY: Let's go to the floor.
WOMAN: My question has to do with immigration,
and I am very curious about whether the CIA has made any inquiries
into the deviations from.the intent of our immigration laws.
I wrote my question to Senator Abourezk. Are you interested
in what some consider to be serious deviations from the intent
of our immigration laws which were alleged to provide new seed
for the population? I refer to such tricks as allowing parolees,
I believe they're called, so called, to exit from one country
on the pretext of going to another specified country when in
fact they come here and become sort of, I don't know what you
call them, and sit.
Also, I'm concerned about the lobby efforts being
made to negate work requirements. I cite as a specific on
that efforts currently being made to allow non-immigrants to
make application for our Civil Service system.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I don't know about those specific
issues that you've brought up and I don't know if they deal
with the CIA at all. I'm unable to answer that.
SALISBURY: I happen to know about it, and perhaps
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if the moderator can respond to your question -- maybe other
members of the panel do, too. But I believe that it has been
a practice in the past, when the CIA was dealing with certain
agerts or defectors, they had certain privileges of bringing
then into the country sort of outside a quota and taking care
of them and settling them in this country in one way or another.
Isn't that right, Mr. Braden?
BRADEN: Yes, that's right. And I didn't quite
hear all the question, but it seems to me that that's a very
natural and inevitable result of running intelligence operations.
If you have a defector, you really have to take care of him,
and I'm glad we do.
FORD (?): But how widespread it is, I don't think...
SALISBURY: I don't think there's any indication
that it's very...
BRADEN: It's not going to thwart the immigration
SALISBURY: Let's go to the floor over here.
WOMAN: I'd like to ask the Senator and Hr. Braden
how they would propose to conduct our affairs overseas and
control various other countries' covert military or paramilitary
operations if we had absolutely no covert arms, which are basically
now intelligence-gathering systems, how we would manage to
function while every other country in the world has got covert
operations here.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Wel l , you're asking how we
wou~ d control other countries without a covert operations branch?
SENATOR ABOUREZK: What was your question, then?
WOMAN: Not how we'd control the countries. Now
we would know what was going on.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, :I:'m not talking about
intelligence-gathering. I think that's a very legitimate thing
to do. And, of course, when I offered the amendment to abolish
dirty tricks, I specifically said that intelligence-gathering
was to be excepted from that.
SALISBURY: Perhaps, Senator, you might define
the difference between covert operations, as they're being
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discussed here, and intelligence operations. I don't think
everyone is clear about that.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, my understanding of intelligence-
gathering is the collection of information about the activities
of foreign governments with respect to the United States, and
that's done by either persons -- most of it, I understand,
is done in the Library of Congress, 95% of that kind of intelligence-
gathering, I'm told, and I don't know; I'm subject to correction
on that. Some of it is done by satellite, of taking photographs
of other countries to find out what is happening with regard
to missile construction and so on. And that's different from
dirty tricks, which is the operation of American agents in
other countries to change the outcome of some political function
in that other country.
Let's take Chile for an example. We poured money
into the truck drivers union over there to encourage a strike.
We put money into various opposition groups to Allende in an
effort -- and we don't know exactly everything that went on
over there, but this much came out in the public. We did every
thing we could to assist in the overthrow of Allende, which
eventually came about. That's what I call dirty tricks.
BRADEN: May I just amend the Senator's definition.
You used the phrase dirty tricks, Senator, and sometimes they
are. But I think you would agree that all covert operations
are not dirty tricks. I think if you'd consult the history
right after World War II, where we had a Europe that was simply
prostrate, and the CIA gave some money to European labor unions
to get them started. I wouldn't really call that a dirty trick,
although it was a covert operation.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Most of them are dirty tricks.
DR. FORD: Let me add this: It's very important
to differentiate between intelligence--gathering and covert
operations. And as the Senator says, much of it is overt --
that is, materials that are available to everyone. It isn't
necessarily all done in the Library of Congress. That big
gray building in Langley, Virginia, a lot of overt materials
there. But it also includes traditional espionage and also
the newer methods that you mentioned, of satellite band other
electronic things. And they do indeed do much to help protect
the country. They also make possible the SALT accords, and
there are lots of holes in those and they're not as good as
they might be, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
And both the Soviet Government and the American Government
are taking a chance that they know enough about the other society
that they're willing to have a go.
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Covert operations are an entirely different thing,
where you're trying to influence the politics of another society,
and they can range all the way from things that are, you know,
fairly benign, as Mr. Braden mentions, to landing on the beach
of Cuba. 'And it's that latter kind of thing -- or, more recently,
intervening in the politics of Chile -- that has caused the
present concern. In fact, it's probably caused this meeting
here today.
SALISBURY: It seems to me that I remember when
Hr. Khrushchev came over here, in his famous visit in '60,
and had a conversation with the late President Eisenhower.
In one of those conversations he suggested to Eisenhower that
they get together on their intelligence operations. He said,
"After all, we're each paying out enormous sums and we're probably
buying the information from the same agents. Why don't we
just pool this information and save each other trouble and
rionq ?"
Was there any sense in that idea?
OR. FORD: Oh, some. There are some great intelligence
fabricators around the world, and if you want intelligence,
they'll produce it. And I'm sure there are occasions where
both sides are paying.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: From a congressional point
of view, that's a violation of the antitrust laws,
[-.Laughter]
SALISBURY: Let's go to the floor.
f1AN : fly name is Fred Branfson and I work with
the Indochina Research Center, I lived out in Indochina for
"our years and had a chance to see the CIA really on a daily
basis very close-up, and I was quite appalled to discover that,
for example, in South Vietnam they had instituted a deliberate
assassination program called Phoenix, which by Mr. Colby's
own definition has assassinated 20,000 Vietnamese civilians
on grounds of being Communi t; that they'd instituted national
I:.J, card programs forcing every Vietnamese to carry -- over
15 to carry an I.D. card linked to a centralized computer by
a dossier; that they have been funding South Vietnamese police,
which regularly carry out torture; and that they've funded
a judicial system which sens people to jail for years without
any kind of trial.
And my question is this -- first to Mr. Braden
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and then to Senator Abourezk. Mr. Braden, if the people running
the CIA have no moral scruples about doing this kind of thing
to Asians, what is there to lead us to believe that they would
have any kind of moral scruples against doing this thing, these
kinds of things, to Americans? And I particularly think when
fir. Braden was in the international affairs section of the
CIA funding the NSA in this country, what -- when he raised
his four questions before, he didn't ask any moral questions
and he kind of -- should this operation -- is this operation
in accord with our Constitution, in accord with common morality?
And I'm wondering is this kind of indicative of the kind of
mentality we're facing from the CIA.
To Senator Abourezk: Does the U.S. Congress right
now have any way of knowing what the CIA is doing, for example
in Cambodia or South Vietnam, other than what CIA officials
tell? And why isn't the Congress more upset at this what I
consider very imminent threat of the CIA in this country doing
things that would abhor every American to Americans, let alone
abroad? And why aren't they doing more? And what can we do
about it?
BRADEN: If I understand the question, I care,
I suppose you do too, a great deal about the survival and the
security and the independence and the well-being of the United
States of America, and I hope that's moral.
I would think that your statements about Bill
Colby operating a murder program in Vietnam is -- and then
adding that he himself has announced this -- I think extremely
questionable. I'm not.going to get into the long discussion
of the Phoenix program but under no circumstances can it be
said that Bill Colby has said that it was an assassination
program.
SALISBURY: Senator Abourezk.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I -- in answer to the question,
first of all, I don't know why the Congress isn't doing more
about it. I would like to know that myself.
And I'd like to, if I could, respond to a couple
of things Tom Braden has said. He keeps coming back to this
idea that the survival of the United States of America is nioral,
and he's right in that. But he's not right with respect to
the way that the CIA operates and calls it moral and even calls
it survival, because I don't believe that you would necessarily
call an operation of assassination or of any other form of
sabotage in a foreign country necessary to the survival of
this country. I think that's a figment of the imagination
of those people who have the power in the State Department,
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in the Administration and in the CIA. And I think they dream
these up like -- at times like children with small toys. They
dream up an operation that enhances their political power within
their own circles, such as operating in Chile, operating in
Laos and Vietnam.
Nobody yet, to my knowledge, has given a good
reason why we should become involved in Indochina in any way,
whether overtly or covertly, and this country, the people of
this country, totally rejected that concept over a period of
a great many years. Once the Vietnam War, once the Indochina
War became a matter of public debate, it was rejected by the
people.
Now, that's one thing that I would like to emphasize
very strongly. It -- the covert operation in Indochina or
in Chile or in anywhere else that we"re operating covertly
I firmly believe would be rejected outright by the people of
this country if they knew about it, but there's no chance under
this present system that they're ever going to know about it.
DR. FORD: Yes. A personal note. My own credentials
in the national estimates business a decade ago -- and some
of you may have read the Pentagon Papers to the effect that
the CIA estimators at the time were saying that those who wished
to to big in Indochina were doing a foolish thing, and I very
strongly agreed with and wrote many of those estimates myself.
As far as the whole U.S. covert operations in
Indochina go, this is not and has not been just a CIA decision,
but it was a U.S. governmental decision to try and fight a
certain kind of war in Laos, an un-war, a limited war, an unusual
kind of war in which the executive agent was the CIA and, in
turn, certain minority tribesmen who fought very awl l .
The same thing with the Phoenix program. There,
this is a U.S. governmental decision. It also reflects the
fact that when you get into a dirty hot war, it is a hot war,
and that particular war, very difficult: to tell who was a soldier
and who wasn't.
All kinds of Americans were doing very questionable
things and very immoral things, including many in uniform,
and we have just read of the Peers Report here recently finally
being surfaced about the Nylai massacre. And I think these
things should be kept in mind, not to whitewash the CIA, but
simply to put it in the larger context.
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And I would add that, having said that, there does seem to
have been a trait on the part of our society to look at Asians
and to feel that they do not bleed and they do not have mothers
and they are different from us, and that is a racist attitude,
but it is not just the CIA. It has been the whole society.
SALISBURY: Could I ask a question allied to what
you gentlemen were just discussing, and this is the question
of existence of an arm of the CIA which is capable of carrying
out these covert operations. I wonder if the very existence
of this mechanism doesn't sometimes cause the Executive Branch
of the government -- the President, let's say -- to opt for
a program carried out covertly which he knows, if he went public
with, he could not possibly get through, either for political
reasons in this country or because it would cause such consternation
on the international scene?
BRADEN: Yes, of course that's true. And it's
also true that fools and romantics and adventurers can make
up ideas, and sometimes foolish people approve them, which
is why I think it's important to talk about the Congress and
the Congress's responsibility for United States programs, and
I'd like to see a congressional responsibility for CIA.
SALISBURY: Let's go to the floor.
h1AN: I'm A. John Alexander. I'm currently a
private citizen, but I did work for the Defense Intelligence
Agency at one time. I think that it is really a disgrace and
an outrage that three extraordinarily well-informed individuals
such as the three people we have on this platform, are unable
in this democratic country to tell us why we went into Chile.
And I'm sure that the moderator himself has doubts.
We do not have an open foreign policy. We do
not have an open government. And I think it's all right to
be amused that these people, including a senator, cannot get
an answer as to why we did something, but I really think that
we ought to be considerably outraged.
I am a Wilsonian idealist in some respects in
that I do believe in an open foreign policy. And I would like
to see us go back to the days when when we didn't like Peron,
the State Department issued a blue book that said Peron is
no good for Argentina. This backfired.
SALISBURY: Do you have a question?
[IAN: We didn't like the Communists running for
office in Italy and almost getting elected, and what happened?
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a Communist regime, and thousands, hundreds of thousands of
Americans wrote letters and intervened in Italy.
SALISBURY: It. seems to ride you're making a speech
and not asking a question. Do you have a question?
SALISBURY: Could you put. it?
MAN: The question is: How can we -- how can
Congress (let back to the open development and the open proclamation
of a foreign policy?
SENATOR ABOUREZK: There's nothing wonderful or
sacred about a Wilsonian policy. Certainly, President Wilson
himself and the U.S. Government made a lot of mistakes there,
and you cannot conduct diplomacy as openly as he would have
wished. It is ideal. But I think in reaction against it over
the years, to the other end of the spectrum, say to, quote,
realism, this country has gone much too fair.
And to answer your first question: Why did we
M
go into Chile? y guess as a citizen i s that the decision--
rnaking powers within our country have contracted to such a
minuscule number of people at the very top, probably as much
or more than any other society in the whole world, including
the Politburo in Russia, and I think this ?- I agree with you;
this is unhealthy. And I think the pressure of Congress is
already having some effect. I hope that the new Congress will
Put on more pressure and there will be more effect, because
there should be a broader consensus when we undertake some
of these things.
SALISBURY: This young man here.
iAN: Ply name is Scott Copeland. I'in a student
on the Washington Semester Program. I go to Beloit College
in Jisconsin, and I'rn personally doing a research paper on
ti7e CIA, on oversight. And my question is directed at Senator
Aboarezk.
1 he bill that you proposed did not pass, and we
have three panelists here who have three differing opinions
on how to deal with covert operations, and that was rather
evident in how the Senate wanted to deal with covert operations
whe i the bill came up to be voted on.
i,ow, we have thesiee di fferi:-eent views. How can we
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make these views unified and how can we end covert operations?
SALISBURY: Senator?
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, you can -- I don't know
how you can make the views unified. I've no way of knowing
how to do that. I do know how to end covert operations, and
that is for enough people in the United States to tell their
congressmen and their senators and the President that they
want it ended. And when that happens, that's when it will
be ended, very seriously.
It sounds like a very simple solution. It's a
complicated way to getting there, but that's actually what
has to be done. And it's got to be a political movement on
the part of the people of this country who disagree with a
covert or dirty tricks operation, and they have to make their
voices heard.
SALISBURY: How about a question here?
MAN: Yes. I'm Stephen Taylor of Montgomery Blair
High School, and I would like to know if - direct this question
to Dr. Ford. Could you tell us if the CIA is making any attempt
to restoring good diplomatic relations with Cuba?
DR. FORD: Is the United States making any attempt
to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba?
DR. FORD: It's my understanding yes, that feelers
are being made, but not by the CIA, but by the U.S. Government.
There've been a congressional team visiting there lately.
My personal guess is that it's only a matter of time and we
will restore regular relations with Cuba. Also, my guess as
a citizen is that this has nothing directly to do with the
CIA.
SALISBURY: I wonder if I could ask you a question,-
Mr. Ford, and maybe it's appropriate. When we have a CIA which
is roughly divided into two departments -- one is intelligence
and the other is covert operations -- and I suppose there is
some kind of a division there and that the intelligence doesn't
know about all the covert operations, how does the intelligence
division protect itself in making its analysis, let's say,
of the political situation in Cuba or in Chile? There may
be a big movement seeming to be going on in Chile, but it may
be funded by the CIA itself. How can you keep from grinding
that into your intelligence estimates?
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OR. FORD: That's a very 1eclitimate question.
There have been occasions where something was stirring in another
couitry. If the analyst is any good, ~Ihhie has a dirty mind,
and that is, before he sends something up the line to higher
aut:iiority, he checks with his pals down the hall. And, you
know, sometimes he'll find out and sometimes he...
[Confusion of voiccesi
DR. FORD: On occasion, it has caused a little
difficulty. In most occasions, there is enough knowledge and
sophistication to carry the day, but there have been some occasions,
yes.
SALISBURY: Thank you. Li: is go to the floor.
WOMAN: H
I name is Ann Cuirtin and I'm from the
State University of New York. And I was wondering whether
the panelists could comment on the continuation of U.S. funds,
including military aid, to the military Junta in Chile now.
It appears that without U.S. aid the ji.ainta could not exist.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: It appears that the U.S. aid
is what? I didn't hear the last part.
WOMAN: ...U.S. aid, the rriilitary dictatorship
cou d not exist in Chile at the present,. time.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I would assume that's right,
that the Chilean junta could not exist without the U.S. aid.
And by way of further comment on the anount of aid we're giving
to -:he government of Chile, that's the kind of decision-making
on the part of our officials that tor. Ford was talking about
that; it's withdrawn. The number of people making foreign policy
decisions is so small now that you then become -- the result
of that kind of decision-making is what we saw in Chile, that
we helped to overthrow an elected regirie and put in a ri ght-
winq, virtually one-man government, or a junta, in Chile that
is carrying on the most repressive kind of measures. And that
once again, that decision-making then persuades us to provide
all kind of aid to that government -- not all that they want,
perhaps, but a great deal of aid and a great deal more aid
than we ever gave to a democratically elected government in
Chile.
But that's the kind of thinking that we have
in cur top levels of government right now, and I believe that's
the result of their isolation from open debate and the way
a fcreign policy ought to be conducted. And that -- the incident
in Chile we know about because of a series of events where
the action:, there were disclosed. But what is happening in
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the other dictatorships that we support that we don't know
about? What's going on in those? That's something we really
ought to find out about.
We spend several
billions
of
dollars
in
foreign
aid on one--man dictatorships
the world, rather.
all over
the
country
--
all over
DR. FORD: I think that demonstrates, too, that
the U.S. actions against Chile were government-wide on the
U.S. side -- that is, overt and covert at all levels. And
now -- I agree with the Senator -- to a lot of apparently highly
placed official American thought we have a, quote, stable regime
in Chile, and it has been bought at a considerable price.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: A considerable price of human
DR. FORD: That's exactly what I mean.
SALISBURY: This gentleman here.
[IAN: Fly name is Michael Turner from the State
University of New York Washington Semester Program. My concern
is with the almost exclusive focus here on covert operations.
It seems to me that we're neglecting to consider how effective
the intelligence-gathering activities of the CIA actually are.
'low, Victor Marchetti has suggested in his book
that the impulse for CIA covert operations came in fact from
CIA failures in the intelligence-gathering area. For example,
he points out the CIA-failed to recruit high-level operators
in Moscow. The success -- Colonel Penkovsky was recruited
by the British.
Similarly in the Indochina War, we failed to recruit
in Hanoi and in Peking.
Would the panel care to assess how effective,
or, to put it another way, how ineffective has the CIA been
in its area of intelligence-gathering?
DR. FORD: I'll take a crack at that, if I may.
Vic Marchetti was a colleague of mine and an able analyst.
I don't agree with him on that particular point. Some of the
things in his book I do agree..
I'd list it this way: I think we should be reminded
that total U.S. foreign intelligence is a very wide, vast and
complex and very expensive thing, of which the CIA is only
part. And in terms of money and in terms of people, it's a,
modest part.
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Now, it gets all the news because -- of covert
operations and the fact that they blow and embarrass and se
on., and that's all right, I think, as ;c democratic society.
I'm just sorry personally that there h=asn't been more such
discussion.-
Yes, there are very difficult targets to recruit
top level Soviet and Chinese and anyone else. That's a fact
of life. I don't think it follows that various covert operations
have necessarily been followed because those things were difficult.
On intelligence-gathering, some things we know
quite well from overt materials, from trade statistics, from
various kinds of photographs and electronic things. When you
get into political motivation, that's where it's very difficult
to judge. You know, what is Mao going to do tomorrow? And
perhaps you know tonight, but he changes his mind during the
night.
But I don't think it does a whole lot of good
to berate CIA failures in that scheme.
SALISBURY: I wonder, gentlemen -- we haven't
touched on another controversial aspect of CIA, except briefly,
and that is, the CIA, as I understand it, is forbidden to engage
in operations in the continental United States, or in the United
Sta-,es itself, except perhaps ? -- and I "m not sure about even
this -- perhaps in i ntel l i gence-gatheri rig . And yet we've had
repeated reports in recent years that there have been various
kinds of CIA operations functioning in the United States.
There was a great scandal about the National Students Union
and the funding of various publications and things of that
kind.
Do you have any views on whether the CIA should
or should not operate in the United States?
BRADEN: I'll take that one. It shouldn't operate
in the United States. The law which set it up said it must
not operate in the United States, with one exception, and I
think perhaps, ilr. Salisbury, you mentioned the exception.
You have to start an operation somewhere, if we're
going to say that we'll have operations, contrary to Senator
Abourezk's desire, but if you're going to have them, you have
to start somewhere, so you have to have a base. You have to
have an organization or an office or something to start the
operation. Therefore, it has been regarded as within the agency's
charter, which forbids domestic operations, to have a floor
here in order to conduct operations abroad. And I think that's
the way the National Student Association was regarded. Here
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was an organization which was doing work abroad, but in order
to get it do do work abroad, you had to go see them here in
this country.
.. Now, I think it's possible that that exception
has been stretched pretty far, but that's what it is.
SALISBURY: What about the so-called proprietary
organizations, the actual businesses run by the CIA, a number
of which are obviously located in the United States?
BRADEN: Correct. The same idea as -- the same
justification is made, that you have to have a floor here.
They're not supposed to conduct operations here.
DR. FORD: If you're engaged in various kinds
of large and complex operations abroad, it takes all kinds
of mechanisms to make those work, and the proprietaries are
one kind of thing.
There is a slopping over of what is domestic and
what is foreign, and I agree that it has gone too far and should
be policed much more carefully than it has been.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, the attempted justification
for a floor for CIA covert operations in this country, specifically,
funding a students organization, is perhaps the best argument
for abolishing, again, the coverts branch.
What we have done with this floor is to train
young people in this country, or anybody who joins the CIA,
trains them how to cheat, how to corrupt, how to bribe, how
to murder, how to assassinate. That's all of the things that
the covert...
BRADEN: Come on.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Well, really.
BRADEN: Now come on, Senator.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: That's what the covert operations
branch teaches people in this country.
[Applause]
BRADEN: Senator, I happen to know something about
that particular operation. I happen to know a lot about it.
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In fact, I ran it. So let me tell you -- let me tell you
that there wasn't anybody -- there wasn't anybody cheating
and there wasn't anybody assassinating and we didn't take nice
young American boys and teach them dirty tricks.
1! h a t we did was this.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: Who teaches them, then?
BRADEN: Let me tell you what happened. Let me
tell you what happened. We had an organization abroad, based
in East Germany and in the Soviet Union, which was a youth
league, a students league put up by the Soviet Union, and it
was conducting propaganda in all Western European countries
and they were holding large meetings where people would stand
up and denounce the imperialist, no good United States.
All right. Now what happened was that some students
in this country were encouraged) to go abroad and stand up and
speak at the meetings. Most of them didn't know they were
in the employ of the CIA. Maybe only one or two did.
So, I don't -- I think you're exaggerating when
you're talking about assassinating and dirty tricks. This
was a fellow going over to Paris and making a speech in favor
of the Marshall Plan, say. Are you against that?
SENATOR ABOUREZK: The Marshall Plan? No, I'm
(.Laughter]
SENATOR ABOUREZK: And I wonder, do we need --
do we need the CIA to fund somebody to go overseas and speak
for the United States.
BRADEN: Well, how are they going to get there?
SENATOR ABOUREZK: I suppose the government could
do ;t openly; the State Department could do it openly. What
I question is why does it have to be in secret? What else
is going on that this whole operation has to be secret?
3RADEN : It would have to be. If it had been
openly funded by the United States Government, that student
would never have been admitted into the conference. This was
a private organization, and those Russians, of course, were
not funded by their government. They came as freely traveling
students, as all Russian students always do.
SENATOR ABOUREZK: A lot of this is a generation
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ago. The world has changed and we should change, too.
BRADEN: I agree, but I just wanted to get the
assassination point across.
SALISBURY: Could you make it brief?
MAN: It was reported that an American Army Special
Forces soldier was killed leading a military detachment of
the Chilean Government just recently. What authority gives
the CIA the right to use American soldiers in foreign lands
like that?
SALISBURY: Any answer?
DR. FORD: I don't know anything about that particular
report. I'll assume it's authentic. But if it is, it's highly
unusual, and if it is, it's totally illegal.
SALISBURY: I'm afraid we have to bring the discussion
to an end here. I'm terribly sorry, but we've run out of time
and we'll have to conclude this National Town Meeting.
I want to thank the audience here at the Kennedy
Center in Washington and those who have been listening on television
and radio. And we invite you all to be with us the next time
when the National Town Meeting will come live to you from Atlanta,
Georgia, where our topic will be "Is the South Really Changing?"
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