DESTABILIZING THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020036-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: September 25, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020036-4
'TON STAR
2 5 SEP 1974
Smith Hempstone: 3% 10%r
The furor aroused by revela-
tion of the Central Intelligence
Agency's activities in Chile
raises a number of interesting
questions:
? Was the CIA responsible for
the overthrow and death of
Marxist President Salvador
Allende?
? Should the United States get
out of covert activities?
? How much candor can be
expected from officials testify-
ing before congressional com-
mittees?
AS TO THE first, any gov-.
ernment that can be'
"destabilized" for $11 million,
less than many American,
Icities spend for snow removal,
and about a quarter of what
the Soviet Union has pumped
into Portugal since April, can
hardly enjoy much popular
support, which Allende's did
not. He was elected with bare-
ly more than a third of the
popular vote. He was over-
thrown, as Charles W. Yost,
former U.S. ambassador to the
United Nations, has observed,
"because he and his more
radical adherents alienated,
frightened, and ultimately
radicalized in the opposite
sense the unconverted major-
ity, particularly its most
powerful element,-the mili-
tary."
Allende fell and died from
the weight of his own incompe-
tence and extremism. The
disagreeable nature of the re-
gime that succeeded him is it-
self indicative of Allende's
immoderation: The total-
itarianism of the left inevitably
breeds the authoritarianism of
-the right, and vice versa.
Indeed, the $11 million that
the CIA spread around to
bribe politicians and finance
the opposition press undoubt-
edly was far less damaging to
Allende than the perfectly
justifiable withholding from
him on American insistence of
loans from the World Bank,
Inter-American Development
Bank and the Export-Import
Bank. Unless one is prepared
to argue that, with Cuba's DGI
agents pumping money and
guns into Chile, the United
States had an obligation to
assist in the perpetuation of a
regime whose apparent ulti-
mate objective was the sub-
version of democratic institu-
tions.
As to the second question,
there are those who maintain
that a democratic nation can-
not indulge in international
dirty tricks and remain true to
itself. That notion is defensible
philosophically, but it has very
little to do with the real and
brutal world in which we live.
To leave the field of covert
operations to totalitarians of
the left and right would be to
deny ourselves one means of
defending our national securi-
AS CIA DIRECTOR William
Colby has put it, to completely
rule out covert activities
would "leave us with nothing
between a diplomatic protest
and sending in the Marines."
A stronger case can be made
for the proposition that covert
operations should be employed
only against Communist and
neo-fascist regimes that are
not duly elected, as. Allen 's
was. By such reasoning, the
United States would have had
to wait until Allende's thugs
had totally subverted the Chi-
lean constitution before mov-
ing against them.
As to the third question, the
conflict between an official's
duty not to reveal highly
classified information -
which almost certainly can be
expected to turn up in tomor-
row's newspaper - and his
clear obligation to tell the
truth when testifying under
oath is apparent. Given the
temper of the times, a refusal
to comment on grounds of na-
tional security risks a con-
tempt citation and is taken as
an admission of guilt. Never-
theless, that has to be
preferable to lying.
Probably the subcommittees
of the Senate and House
Armed Services committees
that oversee the CIA's secret
activities ought to tighten
their procedures and be a little
more skeptical of the agency's
activities of this nature, which
in any event are declining in
both number and scope (and
while they're at it, they ought
to see to it if there's anything
that can be done to keep at
least a few secrets from show-
ing up over the morning
orange juice).
WITH THE BENEFIT of
hindsight, it is probable that
the decision to spend $11 mil-
lion to "destabilize" Chile was
unwise. Given the nature of
the present regime in Santia-
go, it may even have been
immoral.
But that doesn't mean we
should give up all covert
operations.
The people of Czechoslova-
kia, Latvia, Lithuania and
Estonia - to name but a hand-
ful - would dearly love to see
their governments "destabi-
lized."
G
Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020036-4