POOR OLD CIA, EVERYBODY'S MILLSTONE, NOBODY'S PATSY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020070-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 70
• Publication Date: September 19, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020070-6
19 SEP 1974
'nor Old CIA, Everybody's Millstone,
By Tom Dowling
Star-News Staff friar
in brief is the-meat of the CIA Chile
ario: $11 million was shelled out to cor-
,,t the free Chilean electoral process in
der to guarantee the election of an incor-
ruptible, democratic government. Accord-
'ing to Gerry Ford, part of the money was
spent to insure the survival of a free press
and flourishing opposition parties so that
Allende could be overthrown and murdered
in order to install a regime that would shut
down the press and jail the dissenting oppo-
sition.
Well, that's inflation for you. Why, in the
old days we used to be able to destroy a
Vietnamese village in order to save it for
the PX price of a Zippo,. a box of flints and
a can' of lighter fluid__No,_the_dollar just
.doesn't stretch that far any more, especial-
ly in Chile where a wheelbarrow of pesos
doesn't buy a good steak dinner, much less
a tidy, old-fashioned Yankee-sponsored l
coup.
THE CHILEAN ESCAPADE has stirred
up a considerable uproar; leaving some
commentators to suggest that the CIA be
abolished, a Gordian knot proposal with'
which I hasten to associate myself. All the
same, it is bootless to waste any breath
chastising the CIA as the culprit of this
shameful affair. There is a maxim in the.
philosophy of logic known as Occam's razor'
whole with more, entities when fewer will
promise that truthful
testimony in executive
session, however grisly'
its moral content may be,
will not be taken amiss by
a few loud-mouthed con-
gressional hot-heads. To
give Colby his due, he has
a. neat and unarguable
point-as far as it goes.
The rub is that, on the
one hand, there are per-
jury laws covering con-
gressional testimony;
and, on the other, there
are increasingly fewer
congressmen whose de-
sire to hear the truth is
strong enough to merit
risking their political sur-
vival by an advance
pledge of blanket support
for the truth, however
repellent it may be.
AS A RESULT, you
have a CIA nominally
controlled by a president
and overseen by a con-
gress, all of whose self-in-
terest requires that they
remain as profoundly
ignorant of agency activi-
ty as possible. It's the
Watergate principle of
deniability all over again.
do just as well. It is therefore not the va- Of course, Chuck Col-
garies of the CIA's operations which are at son doesn't want Howard
issue, but those who are ultimately respon- Hunt to tell him what hap-
sible for supporting and activating the CIA. pened inside the DNC
After all,'the CIA is merely a bureaucratic headquarters. Such infor-
Nobody's Patsy.
AND SO THE CIA goes ous to anyone, is that
its way, in an instrument . Kissinger's successful
presidents and con- foreign policy machina-
gresses are pleased to tions-to take merely the
have at their disposal, as best example-are based
long as the honor pre- on his immense gift as a
cludes any responsibility liar. The enormous appro-
for controlling it. Instead, bation he enjoys among
the Congress instituted a presidents and con-
gentlemen's agreement to gresses alike resides in
this effect: OK, fellows, the facility, the sober
we'll ask you what you're integrity, the self-effacing
up to, then you fuzz it up wit with which he envel-
and lie a little bit and the- ops one whopper after
re'll be no hard feelings.
What the hell, what we
don't know can't hurt us.
By and large, it was a
serviceable and safe com-
pact. But, in these par-
lous Watergate times, the
good bureaucrat is well
advised to cover his
tracks with maximum
'prudence. So when they
hauled old Colby up to the
House for closed CIA
hearings, he told the
truth, which is said to set
men free-from perjury
raps among other things.
And in telling the truth
the whole elaborate gen-
tlemen's agreement came
apart at the seams. Be-
cause, of course, Colby's
predecessors and associ-
ates had all been expect-
ed to lie. Some of them
did it with suppleness,
others with baldness, but
all of them with slavish
elan. Their president and
their congress thought
highly of them for it.
instrument wielded by the President and mation only makes Colson
his mystical 40 Committee, and overseen by! more liable to a perjury
Congressional committees. ? count when he goes be-
The CIA Chilean conspiracy is scarcely a fore the grand jury. Of
flabbergasting departure from what passes course, no president
for normality in American post-war nation- wants to know exactly
al security doctrine: right wing coups inwhat CIA projects his
Guatemala, Iran, Greece; U-2 flights; Bay predecessor allegedly set
of Pigs invasions; secret wars in Laos;' in motion. If the scheme
Watergate complicity: the manipulation of goes well, he can't take
the National Student Association. These { any public credit for it
schemes, whether they backfire or not, are anyway; if, as seems
. .. _ _._ ~
_ of more likely, it backfires,
fundamentally inimical to the idea ._
human freedom, which makes the CIA an the blame can always be
subtly shifted to a prior
institution repugnant to the democratic administration . as with
spirit that presidents and congressmen administration
must necessarily support at least to get the Bay of Of course, Congress
reelected.
NOT SURPRISINGLY then, the only hoii- doesn't want to hear how
est statement to emerge from this whole the CIA actually plans to
Chilean fiasco was made by director Wil- spend its appropriations.
liam Colby, who questioned the wisdpm-of' After all, no one wants to
Lure "delicate" activities since candor in,
the Chilean matter had revealed policies so
outrageous that Congress had no choice but
to expose them. In effect, Colby is saying
that to efficiently subvert other democra-
cies the president's 40 Committee members
must either lie to the Congress, or.exact a
see Allende's corpse in
the newspaper and have
to say to himself: Oh.
yeah. I remember now.
That's what they wanted
that S11 million bucks for.
SO NOW THE suave
Richard Helms faces the
clink for lying so loyally.
Kissinger is once again
accused of deception. As-
sorted other State Depart-
ment and CIA minions
can look forward to the
ruination of their careers,
if not convictions for per-
jury. With a unanimous
tut-tut of horrified aston-
ishment the Senate For-
eign Relations- Committee
will conduct hearings on
the Chilean prevarica-
tions.
Even I am disinclined
to accept such an esti-
mate of congressional ob-
tuseness. The fact, obvi-
another. His success
abroad is predicated on
the fact that foreigners
believe him. Indeed, his
lies are so credible that,
even now that the rules of
congressional testimony
have been changed on
him in midstream, the
Congress and the Presi-
dent can look us right in
the eye without blinking
and say:
Gosh, he sounded so
convincing, I believed
him. It looks like Henry,
the 40 committee and the
CIA pulled the wool right
over our eyes.
And mugs that we are.,
we'll buy it, content once
more to let those with re-
sponsibility shift the
blame to others.
?0739
Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020070-6