THE SUBSTANCE AND THE RULES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00364R002204280041-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 31, 2008
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: June 1, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Angelo Codevilla is a professional staff
member with the Senate Intelligence
Committee. Previously. he was a foreign
service officer and a fellow at the Hoover
Institution. Stanford Univessuy. Dr.
Codevilia has written widely on Europea+t
politics and in the field of inuiligence and
military policy.
elo Codeviiia
By focusing so exclusively on
rules and standards of
operations, the intelligence
debate of the mid-1970s 4id not
answer the fundamental
question of What the United
States expects of its intelligence
services or what they are to
accomplish in order to meet thi
challenges of the 1980:.
S..
Th
E
I Su
JWL
11
n
Since the early 1970s, this country's intel-
ligence agencies have been asking, "What
does the country expect of us?" That ques-
tion bad not arisen in the postwar period be-
cause the American political system had left
the agencies to the total discretion of those
appointed to lead them. In the early 1970s.
factional conflict among those leaders spilled
over into- a national debate about what
America's practitioners of intelligence ought
to have foremost in mind. That debate con-
tinues.
Recently, Admiral Stansfield Turner,
President Carter's Director of Central Intelli-
gence, and his former special assistant,
George Thibault, published an attempt both
to answer that question and to indict the Rea-
gan administration's handling of intelli-
gence. The author's answer seems to be that
the American people expect their intelligcnm
agencies to be as innocuous as possible..
They charge that the Reagan administration
is undermining the agencies by loosening too
Many restrictions. The authors thus contend
that for our civil liberties' sake, and for tlu
sake of the agencies' own standing in the
country, the agencies ought to cvnccntratc on
formulating for themselves the right kinds of
rules and restrictions. However, bne would
not suspect from Turner and 'T'hjbault's arti- -
ele,that the rules by which intelligence offi-
eers live ought to flow from the- intelligence
profession's substantive equirements-
Nevertheless, in intelligence as in other
areas of government, the American people
rightly want their employees to accomplish
the functions for which they are paid- This
author will argue that Stansfield Turner is
V0AI I.'1'.CNU
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wrong to assume that the key factor affecting
the quality of intelligence is the quantity of
intrusion into the lives of innocent people,
that better intelligence-means, less civil lib-
erty, and vice versa. This article will then
address the real tasks which American intel-
ligence must accomplish in peace and war,
and the difficulties it now faces in doing so.
A revolution took place in American in-
telligence during the mid-1970s. That mvo-
lution was thorough: by the end of the Carter
administration, only a minuscule percentage
of the CIA's supergrade officials had held
such rank in 1975. Those who became
prominent in American intelligence during
that period were generally not known either
for achievement or technical insight in the
special fields they took over. Some, e.g., the
man who took over the counterintelligence
staff at CIA, were known as non-believers in
the very activity for which they became re-
sponsible. These men, however, were well
attuned to the priorities of the administration
they would serve, and to those of the factions
which had recently won out in the intelli-
gence community's long, ' intramural strug-
gles: to lower America's profile abroad; to
reduce the importance of clandestine ac-
tivities at home and abroad; to assert the
CIA's claim to primacy among providers of
sed the bounds of propriety and legality_
These accusations against the CIA's di-
rectorate of operations in general and par-
ticularly against counterintelligence special-
ists in the CIA and the FBI had come from
other intelligence officers-
There had always been controversies
among intelligence officers about what.
American intelligence should and should not
be. The best outline of the views held by the
CIA officials who had long fought to reduce
the role of the clandestine services and of
counterintelligence is an article, "Ethics and.
Intelligence" by E. Drexel Godfrey, in the
January 1978 Foreign Affairs. William
Colby's memoirs, as well as the published
writings of lesser officials, e.g ? Herbert
Scoville, plus the reporting of books like
Edward Epstein's Legend and Henry Hurt's
Shadrin, flesh out that outline with examples
of *how profoundly this intramural attack af-
fected the daily workings of the intelligence
system.
In sum, clandestine and counterintelli-
gence activities were charged with being
immoral and developing ihcir practitioners
devious thoughts and ways which. would
Prove dangerous to American civil liberties.
The allegations claimed that these: activities
present the rest of the world with an a nfavor-
able picture of the..Unit-d States. and that they
analytical products. They were also intent on,_
makiag suer that the- ru=nt revoTutiba ii-the
field -of intelligence would not be reversed.
As a result of all this, the leading men of
President Carter's intelligence community,
led by Admirals Stansfield Turner and
Bobby Ray Inman, argued with great per-
sonal vigor for the enactment of legislative
charters for the intelligence community.
These charters would have codified and ap-
proved in law the changes in orientation
which had occurred in the mid-1970s. Of
course the proposed charters' chief feature
was an absorbing concentration on rules and
restrictions. It is essential to understand
whence came this concentration on rules.
The debate of the mid-1970s had concen-
trated so exclusively on rules and restrictions
because it had begun with public accusations
that some intelligence officers had transgres-
tunr.the-intel lgeacc cominnunity':s tbouLbts -`
and energies toward combat with the Soviets
rather than toward accirrate assessments of
reality. Beginning in 1974. some intelligence
officers who. had been making such. charges.
gave to their allies in CoY~gress and tbe~ press
items of information embarrassing to some .
of the leading men in the directorate of oper-
ations and in the counterintelligence ser-
vices.
In 1975-1976 the select conunitte es on
intelligence led by Senator Church and Rep-
resentative Pike laid out these embarrassing
items, along with a coherent critique of
American intelligence- Understandably, the
intelligence officers whose critiques of their
bureaucratic adversaries were now being es-
poused by congressional committees were
hardly reluctant witnesses. Director Colby,
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for example, did not have to wave the far--
ous poison dart gun in the air before the
cameras. When he did, the stock of some at
the CIA fell, and the stock of others rose. As
late as 1978, a senior CIA official, John
Hart, spoke on the CIA's behalf to the House
Select Committee regarding the investigation
of President Kennedy's assassination and,
despite the committee's efforts to stop him,
delivered a passionate indictment of a former
colleague, once head of the Soviet division
of the directorate of operations, for allegedly
violating the rights of a Soviet defector
whose bona fides was in doubt. In sum, a
long-festering intramural battle was decided .
when one side went outside the walls and
linked up with superior political forces
which, for their own reasons, were willing to .
help.
The Church and Pike Committees had
been organized as a result of years ofeffort
by the American Civil Liberties Union and
Ilkeminded groups, e.g., the Institute for
Policy Studies. These organizations sup-
ported able individuals like William Miller
and Morton Halperin. These efforts were
based on the contention that intelligence in,
vestigations are inherently dangerous to civil
liberties. Thus, these efforts were aimed at
restricting the scope of such investigations.
The proximate goal was to force the agencies
henceforth to apply the standards of criminal
law to intelligence investigations-: .
livid rals' v+ork`cir intellig-itcc =vas=-girt-'of-
their broader campaigns for a re-direction of
U.S. foreign policy toward reduced Ameri-
can self-assertions, greater friendliness with
revolutionary fors in the Third World, and
reduced hostility vii-a-vii the Soviet Union.
The reaction of many intelligence officers,
active and retired, against the Church and
Pike Committees was to uphold the intelli-
gence profession's good name against what
they perceived as the far leh's almost unpat-
riotic attacks. They proceeded by arguing
that American society must be willing to bear
the burden of the agencies' intrusive exis-
tence if it is to live in a dangerous world.
They therefore continued to work in public
and in private against every restrictive rule
that was proposed. In their single=minded
effort to stand up for the notion that the in-
telligence agencies' role ought not to be re-
duced, they put themselves in the unenviable
position of seeming to argue for the. right of
U.S. intelligence agencies to invade the pri-
vacy of innocent Americans The Asuezican
Civil Liberties Union, Morton H;alperin's
Center for National Security Studies, and the
Institute for Policy Studies understandably
did not protest having the intelligence o?&
eers' view of the world identified with
breaches of Americans' civil liberties, Igor
did they protest having their own pref==aces
for American foreign policy identified with
the protection of individuals' rights by impli..
cation. -
The debate of the mid-19705 did not totxb
on the quality of American intelligence, on
what ought to be accomplished in each ofthe
intelligence community's functional areas,
and on precisely how well each of e=se
areas was functioning. The anti-inleiulg =
lobby's fundamental message was that ibe
United States was suffering from an -ext s
of intelligence capability, that we had room
intelligence than we n'x d._T.he agencies'
defenders did not challcn -the impzess on
that though the American intelligence la+o..,
fession might have i ansgresscd here and
there, at least it had been doing its ;job.. So,
each for. their own reasons,all sides of the
cl6 ate ag~naL an she most important-
sion3 by` d`largc the quality of intelliaenc
bad been either acceptable or more than ac-
ceptable; that the quality of intelligence, de.
pends on the degree of intrusion into inmo
cent lives; that the only questions about in-
telligence worth discussing concern what
rules and restrictions shall be imposed on the
agencies; and that the essential 1s what hal-
ante should be struck between good imelli-
gence and civil liberties.,
Hence, the debate which first a=m_
panied the Church Committee's propose
charters fpr intelligence was over rrninutiae.
The public position of the Association of
Former Intelligence Officers (AfLo) was
that there should be no charters and that the
intelligence agencies should be allowed to do
Acwzranw_
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what they thought is necessary to accomplish
their job. But the written critique of the
charters which AFIO submitted to the Senate
consisted exclusively of minute changes in
the details of the proposed rules. By not ex-
pounding a full-fledged, intellectually ap-
pealing contrast to the set of arguments
which underlay the charters, and by disput-
ing the details of individual restrictions,
AFIO and its supporters confirmed those ar-
guments' legitimacy, and accepted the bulk
of those restrictions. Moreover, by basing
their arguments on the politically unappeal-
ing notions that good intelligence means in-
trusion into the lives of innocent people, and
that the extent of that intrusion into civil lib-
erties is strictly the concern of the intelli-
gence agencies, they virtually guaranteed
their opponents' popularity.
fact, it had undertaken. In short, the es-
timators had missed a huge, ominous devel-
opment unfolding before their very eyes.
In the fall of 1978 the country learned that,
even as the shah of Iran was being toppled
from his throne by a movement openly or-
ganized in Paris, Washington, Beirut, Teh-
ran, as well as in Baku, U.S.S.R,., the CIA
was estimating that Iran was not in a revolu-
tionary or even in a prerevolutionary situa-
tion and that the shah would be an important
part of Iranian politics into the foreseeable
future. - -
That year, the public also learned about a
nasty quarrel within the CIA over the
trustworthiness of a Soviet defector, Yuri
Nosenko, who had come to the United States
to assure the CIA that the Soviet Union had
bad no involvement with President Ken-
"The prevalent attitude in American.
counterintelligence today seems to be to sit
and wait for indications.and then check them
out."
By .1978, however, events.,ba&::.led a un v's:.assassin?_.According. to.: pub3;c ac-
who}!y'different set of people i s"tii~9? tfic counts;, even -though everyone- agnxd there.
d o
d
grnun
f the
ebate and to point out that, in was undeniable proof that key elements. of -
intelligence as in anything else, the priority Nosenko's story were lies, he had been offi-
of rules over substance makes no sense. Here cially believed for administrative reasons.
is a sample of those events. Moreover, those intelligence office who
In 1977 the country first learned that the
Soviet Union's buildup of strategic weapons
was rapidly achieving its objective: to pro-
vide the Soviet Union with the equipment to
survive, fight, and win a nuclear war. It also
learned that this equipment would be largely
in place by about 1980, that the Soviets had
been pursuing this capability since at least
the mid-1960s, and that the United States'
intelligence agencies had had enough data to
sound the warning. Instead, however, the
National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) had
been telling policymakers that the Soviet
Union would not undertake efforts that, in
had. resisted believing him had been; de-
moted. Then the public learned from
Reader's Digest that the FBI and the CIA had
had a curious reversal on another key agent,
code named Fedora, who had corroborated
Nosenko's lies. First the CIA had officially
deemed Fedora bad and the FBI deemed him
good. Then, after a changing of the guard at
the CIA, Fedora was deemed good, while at
the FBI he had become bad. This hardly had
the hallmark of competence. The public also
learned that the CIA had asked an American
citizen, Nicholas Shadrin, to play a danger-
ous double agent's game with the Soviet
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KGB, and that Shadrin had vanished without
a trace while meeting the Soviets under sup.
posedly competent CIA control.
Finally, as struggles for power in Africa,
Asia, and even in nearby Nicaragua resulted
in victory after victory for the Soviet Union,
Americans began to ask, "Where is the
CIA?" They learned that the CIA had never
even suggested plans for thwarting these So-
viet drives.
Thus from 1977 to 1980, as Senators con-
sidered passing the proposed restrictive
charters, the arguments of both proponents
and opponents began to sound hollow.
Clearly, none of the shortcomings of Ameri-
can intelligence of which the nation was
painfully learning was rooted either in too
much or too little intrusion. Hence, though
the debate about proper safeguards against
intrusion remains interesting, since the late
1970s. there has been no excuse for confus-
ing that debate with discussions of what the
country needs by way of intelligence. .
But what are those needs? What is the job
to be done in the 1980s and in what areas
should the professionals' habits be changed
in order to ensure that the job is done? In
what ways would the charters' proposed
rules, or any other possible set of rules, affect
the ability and motivation of intelligence
operatives to do their jobs? What happens
when .one tries to remove chance f risk:;.. .
U inbemntly:iisky profess `
?--To one familiar with U.S. intelligence
suggests that the United States receives any-
thing like the kind of intelligence it needs.
The public record of the few human sources
the United States has enjoyed in the com?
munist world strongly suggests that we do
not recruit agents, so much as accept and use
those who approach us. This should hardly
be surprising given that the United States
does. not have a really clandestine service.
All but a handful of our clandestine officers
are under rather thin official cover, that is,
they are known to be employees of the U.S.
government. A high percentage do riot speak
the language of the country they work in.
They can hardly approach someone who is
required to report his contacts with Ameri-
cans and unobtrusively suborn treason or
conduct false flag recruitment. Since our
agents live as official representatives of the
United States, it is not surprising that most of-
their reports read like diplomatic dispatcbes.
Of course, nothing prevents the United
States from acquiring the service of people
who can credibly pass themselves off as
something other than Americans. But many -
professionals oppose this, claiming that such
people would be unwieldy for the present ?
personnel and promotion system to, bandk
Thus the professionals at the CIA resisted
William... Casey's. early efforts to change the
character of the clandestine service_The.op.
position to the nomination of Max Hugel to
the post of director of operations was due to -
this. Nevertheless, Casey's early efforts were
on the right track. .
No one familiar with the subject doubts
the sophistication of our means of technical
collection. Yet no one would contend that
these means were concei,?d as an intezro.
laced system to collect a set of data. Each of
the present systems-is a technical extrapola-
tion of previous systems, and exists in ntmn-
bers dictated more by the budget than by any
nat%un.saf operational.n{ed, . ltc: prcmzcss- by-_...
whirlrthese?systenis_have been acquired hays
been irrational. We have not decided what
information is required and then allocated re-
sources among technologies, but the oppo.
site-with one significant exception, arms
control. For fifteen years, much of the im-
petus for buying technical intelligence de-
vices has come from those who wished to
monitor certain kinds of arms-control t eaties
with the Soviet Union. As a result, our-cumnt
technical architecture is fit only for operation
in peacetime and is focused to a large extent
on the rather narrow parameters of past
arms-control agreements. Of course, this
could be changed. But that would require ho-.-
posing upon the several agencies some sort of
strategic vision and a consequent coherent set
of requirements.
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Collection without good operational secu-
rity can be worse tha,tt useless because it can
provide channels for disinformation by hos-
tile intelligence services. Today there is no
reason to be complacent about the opera.
tional security of American intelligence.
Although nowadays the bulk of collection is
through , technical means, technical opera.
tional security is barely in the conceptual
stage. Indeed. some professionals are unwil.
ling to conceive that technical means
routinely might be subjected to the same
kinds of checks for reliability that human
agents must undergo before the information
they generate is accepted.
This is not to suggest that the operational
security of our human collection system is
sound. Traditionally, challenging and testing
the credibility of human sources has been the
least popular and least career-enhancing job
in the clandestine service, because whoever
does it must question the good judgment of
higher-ranking people. In the late 1950s and
early. 1970s internal criticism of the CIA's
counterintelligence staff mounted, because
that staff had questioned the bona fides of too
many agents, and had become
bureaucrat- ically too powerful to suit the strong.geog_
raphic divisions of the direetorsirc"of opera..
boas:. Bcginning, in' 1975.. the: staff f was- eiis-
mantled and replaced with non-specialists
from the geographic divisions who are tem-
porarily assigned to counterintelligence.
Thus, those responsible for catching the col-
lectors' embarrassing mistakes are them.
selves responsible to those very collectors for
their careers. Clearly, operational security is
a thankless job which, if it is to be done well,
must be done by people who are not totally
dependent on those whose work they check.
The division of responsibility in counter.
intelligence between the FBI and the CIA is
understood perhaps least of all by the two
agencies themselves. Of course. each knows
perfectly what it thinks it should do, and
even better what the other ought not to at-
tempt in its field! Both cooperate more or
less satisfactorily in pursuit of known cases.
But neither has the responszsibility, the data,
or the inclination to conceive of the overall
problem of counterintelli gence. Conse-
quently. not knowing the whole, their con.
ception of their own parts is necessarily a
hit-or-miss proposition. This is true for indi-
vidual cases, but is quite undeniable as re-
gards the comprehensive counterintelligence
picture. Anyone who knows counterintelli_
Bence realizes that gaining aw eness that a
case might exist is the hardest part of any
case. The prevalent attitude in Aurae i
counterintelligence today seems to be to sit
and wait for indications and than check them
out. Awareness of possible rases sometimes
comes through allegations or because the in-
dividual sees before him the disastrous ef-
fects of'enemy intelligence.. At present, that
is how most of ourcases be r_ But there is a
preferable way, counterintelligence: analysis-
Yet, counterintelligence analysis of serious
sophisticated or known intel ii=cr threw is
not possible on the basis ofdara as limited as
the CIA and FBI separately possess. Surely
we can expect a scrious.,tnovc by a hostile
intelligence service to. ej:compass, elements
both foreign and American? both human and
'technical. Yet the -FBI does not routinely
examine the take from the CIA and the N-a-
- tionaf Security Agency for its counter nielli
Bence implications, and vitae versa. Witiuout
analysis of all irrtriligencc" data from a coon- j
terintelligence perspective, no agency can
hope to do anything but stumble-onto cases.
The overall picture built up by this sort of
fragmented, reactive counicrintelligence is
also quite unsatisfactory. One is limited to
listing cases. But one cannot begin to esti- `
mate the scope of a problem-.say the trans-
fer of technology or the potential for agent-
of-influence operations in Sector X -until one takes the problem itself as a point of dc-
parture, and brings to bear upon it all the
available data. In the case of technology
transfer; we are just beginning to learn how t
dearly the United States has had to pay for a
counterintelligence system whose structure
precluded asking substantive questions and
kept data in tight bureaucratic compartments-
If the press is to be believed. President
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Reagan and his National Security Council
have noticed these shortcomings in the an-
alysis of counterintelligence. It remains to be
seen whether they will have the moral and
intellectual wherewithal to translate their in-
tuition and their legal authority into changed
behavior on the part of a recalcitrant bureau.
cracy.
There is no denying the low quality of all
too many NIEs, nor the serious effects which
some of these have bad upon the nation's se-
euriry. The mere fact that, in the late 1970s,
the public and the president, who bad been
reassured for fifteen years that the Soviets
were not even trying to gain strategic
superiority, woke up to find that the Soviets
had in fact achieved it is a sufficient indict.
ment of the NiEs. The American people pay
billions for an intelligence community to
avoid precisely this kind of surprise. More
galling is the knowledge that the data for a
correct assessment was not lacking and that
in fact quite a few analysts in the Pentagon
bad pretty well figured out the nature and
size of the forces the Soviets were building.
But the process by which the NIEs are writ-
ten smothered the correct analyses with the
incorrect ones. The president and other re-
sponsible officials did not have the chance to
cxercise,their responsible iu the.
evid They had no idea thafa nrewotficr
than the official one existed, much less a
chance to decide which was correct.
How does one go about improving an-
alysis? Better analysts would do a better
job. That is not just a truism. All too often
analysts in our intelligence agencies are
promoted not for being good interpreters of
the real world but rather for being good sol-
diers in the intelligence community's in-
tramural battles. If they stoutly uphold the
office view, they are often preferred to those
who prefer reality. It is often better to be
wrong for bureaucratically acceptable rea-
sons than to be right about the facts and gal-
ling to one's superiors. Suict accountability
and quality control would help. But who is to
control the controllers? After all, the office
view of things comes from precisely those
longtime officials responsible for quality
control. The insertion at high levels of
numerous outsiders who are not congenial to,
the senior analysts would really help. But
unless these outsiders were exceptionally
honest, new office views would staort forming
around them.
There is another way of keeping analysts
honest, and of ensuring that those respoj_-
ble people who read intelligence estimates
get to exercise their responsibility: allow
both the CIA and the DIA to produces esti-
mates an important subjects, each Using all
sources but neither coordinating with one
another. The products would contain less of
the bureaucratic prose which long coor-
dinating sessions substitute for data. They
would also-1e. more closely arguedd, tlzaa is
now the case; they would have to be, be cause
they would be written with the suue: knowl-
edge, that they would have to confront caoun-
teraargurnents. Unfortunately, that is rx* now
the case. Finally, they would be compelled
not to try to fill with the putty of judo ts.
the gaping holes we have in ourknow edge.
The words cornpetitivc ilysis have been
widely accepted. But, in the view of proses
sionals at the CIA competitive analysis
neatly describes the system by which NMs
have been produced for the past quart= cca_
tury ; A=ir--rt.-remains ter-bc-
seca?_s~rbciher
the Magar-ad rni'nistration,baving publicly
accepted the concept will prove to have
enough understanding of it and eommuo enj
CDVMUAC 0M
The Church Committee, echoing many,
professionals, characterized covert seder.._
that is, secret activities to influence the out-
come of foreign situations.--as. exceptional
means to be undertaken when all orbs had
failed or no others could be emp)o.)Yd_ The
Church -Committee maintained that the
United States had resorted to covcatiC action
too often. The debate within thegove:Tnment
has been.between those who warn more
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sand and done, ally X should be in office and ? any tool of foreign polity unless the ends of
movement Y should no Longer be in a posi- policy are spelled out specifically and a seri-
tion to do harm. These objectives could be ous commitment is made-to achieving them.
achieved by various combinations of means, Clearly, the question of what the United
overt and covert. The particular combination States erects of its intelligence services has
matters much less than the result. not been answered with intellectual authority
Today all too many people tend to ask by those who have had the political authority
about any given situation, "Is there anything to do so. We have mad-- the case here that itt
that the CIA could do here?" In many cases, order for the United States to meet the chal-
there-is or could be. Nonetheless, that is the. lenges of the 1980s, American intelligence is
wrong question. Covert actions decided upon going to.have to perform quite differently
in answer to that question may be well-in- from the way it has been: performing.
tensioned. but they will not be part of a co-,' Bureaucracies being what they are, change is
herent, success-oriented plan. Rather, one unlikely to take place without some powerful
should ask, "What combination of actions external stimulus-such as an act of Con,
by various agencies can actually bring about * gross. -
covert actions and those who want fewer. I gime. That official's understanding of pol-
believe that history shows both sides have icy, if the Times reported it correctly, is pu-
missed the point. erile. To conduct military or paramilitary op- -
The point is to achieve the ends of foreign orations against a regime by any means.
policy. Is ally X in trouble in Country A, and overt or covert, without a plan for toppling it
has the president decided that the aim of is against one of the most elementary norms
U.S. policy is to save his office? Is move- of politics: never do your enemy a small
meat Y in Country Z so menacing that the hurt.
president has made it U.S. policy to reduce The problem of covert action is funda-
its influence? Affirmative answers to such mentally that of the conception and execu-
questions imply nothing about the means to lion of foreign policy. It is impossible either
be employed except one thing. when all is to rationally discuss or to successfully use
the desired objective?" if -that- overallglaa - The intelligcnce agencies urgently- ncod
them, if not, there is not. Today, covert ac- complish. The - executive orders and Presi-
calls for secret acts, there there is a: ce fdr: clear statements- of- wbatr; they are to ac== F
Lion is touted as one more thing going for us,
or something else to push the situation in the
tight direction. Such categorizations are not
helpful. In the international area, there are no
rewards for good intentions or for pushing in
the right direction or for sending signals.
Policy fails if it does no; succeed. The press
has recently carried allegations that the
United States has a covert action going
against Nicaragua. The New York Times
quoted a U.S. official as admitting it but jus-
tifying it on the ground that it was not suffi-
ciently large to topple the Nicaraguan re-
dent Carter's proposed charters consisted of
authorizations for investigations under
highly specific circumstances. They did not
begin to tell the agencies what kind of infor-
mation they were to collect, what kinds of
analysis they were to provide. what sort of =
security against hostile intelligence services
and terrorists they were to ensure, and what ': -
sort of influence they should be prepared to
exercise abroad. Perhaps a legislative state-
ment of these missions could begin to answer
.
the question, "What does the U.S. expect of
=
its intelligence services?" wa t
Approved For Release 2008/01/31 : CIA-RDP85M00364R002204280041-2