INSIDE THE '40 COMMITTEE'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020065-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 65
• Publication Date: September 20, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09T00207RO01000020065-2
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20 SEP 1974
Carl T. Rowan:
Inside the '40'Committee,
When the White House press corps
challenged President Ford on U.S.
intervention in Chile, they squeezed him
into a tight little crevice between the
morality and practicality of foreign
policy.
That press conference produced.the
rare spectacle of the President of the
United States admitting that we use our
wealth and our might to try to control
the destinies of other nations, partly be-
cause we assume our ideological foes
are doing the same.
As the only newsman around who has
been a member of the Forty Committee,
that small offshoot of the National Se-
curity Council which approves and
oversees U.S. clandestine activities
,abroad, it may help if L give you a re-
port on just what goes on - and how the
issues of morality sometimes conflict.
THIS IS A RUTHLESS, dirty world
where, despite talk of detente, the ideo-
logical struggle never ends. So the
powerful meddle constantly in the af-
fairs of the weak - meaning, in truth,
that there is no such thing as a truly
independent small, weak or poor nation.
For example:
The Forty Committee is told by the
Director of the CIA that Russia, through
Cuba, has put a thousand well-trained
agents into Venezuela to try to stir up a
guerrilla uprising. The Forty Commit-
tee decided to provide helicopters, com-
munications equipment, weapons and
millions of dollars - plus some "coun-
terinsurgency" training - for Venezue-
la's military and police forces.
This action will be viewed by most of
my readers as a legitimate intervention,
for it can be construed as assistance
given at the request of the legitimate
Venezuelan government, which is
threatened by a foreign power.
From that example of a neighbor
being harassed and threatened, we
move to Chile, where the mass of people
are shifting leftward politically - most-
ly because of the greed of the local oli-
garchy, exploitation of resources by
North Americans and the general low
level of life of the masses. "'
It is 1964. The United States realizes
that the Chilean conservatives who
have helped outsiders in their plunder
l
of the counts y can no longer win. The
only way to block the accession to
power of avowed Marxist Salvador Al-
lende is to give all-out support to Eduar-
do Frei, a Christian Democrat who in
earlier times would have been unac-
ceptable to Washington as "too leftist."
But what right does the United States
have to say who gets elected in Chile?
The CIA reports - accurately, most
. likely that the Soviet Union is fmanc
ing three Chilean newspapers which
back Allende and has funneled several
million dollars into the coffers of parties
supporting him.
This report is justification enough for
the Forty Committee to recommend that;
millions in U.S. funds be given to politi-
cal parties, people and newspapers sup-
porting Frei.
So Frei is elected. But in six years in
office he cannot reform his friends in
the oligarchy or reduce the greed of
businessmen from abroad. With passion
and no small measure of demagoguery,
Marxist Allende has won more and
more of the people.
So in the next election Allende wins
the presidency.
FEARS ABOUND IN the CIA, the De-
fense Department, the State Depart-
ment and the White House that Chile is
about to become "another Cuba."
So, as President Ford has told us with
no signs of guilt or regret, we pump mil-
lions in to finance, keep strong, the op-
position news media and political
parties.
Once Allende is under fire from the
CIA-subsidized press and the politicians
whom the United States is bribing, the
next step comes easy. The United States
moves to shut off Chile's credit at the
World Bank, the Inter-American Devel-
opment Bank, the Export-Import Bank.
Pretty soon Chile's economy is in a
mess and the natives are so restless
that we might not have to bribe any
generals to get a coup going. And we
can say that we had nothing to do with
any coup.
It is a dirty, immoral business. But
we'll probably go on doing it because we ;
think the Russians and Chinese and
British and French will go on doing it.
00733
Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020065-2