THE CIA AND THE PRESIDENCY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67-00318R000100790027-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 29, 2013
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: May 13, 1961
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/29: CIA-RDP67-00318R000100790027-3
INDIANAFULts king.)
NEWS
Front Ed
Page Pag
170,519
Other
Page
Date: MAY 13 1961_ -
ITORIALS
ivt on ?-? ? -
The CIA and the Presidency
In its frantic efforts,' to overlica-01
intelligencedperatiO0'..iN. the ?w 'kb
of the ill-starred CUbffiasionJhe
Kennedy administratiOt 1i created
mand
-Tfie precise furittions'Otithis com-
mand post and the hopsenter-
tained for it have not been made
clear. All we can:Otper from read-
ing about it is that itwill operate
'under_ the State 12kpartinaga?but
will include rez:e_senia_t_iveS of the
Defense Department, thg_celgrALta:
telligencaAgency, and possibly the
? United States Information Agency?
and will sift intelligence data on a
24-hour-a-day bis to make sure
the President's orders_ are being car-
ried out.
Maybe this makes sense. We
don't know. In any ease, it probably
losikgood on the r_eykeLl zgaliza-
tional charts orThe executive \bu-
reauaraFrTrifie chart viewer; it
makes it look as though Something
Is Being Done.
We do not say this altogether
. sarcastically. Intelligence - in-depth .
is a murky half-world operation at
best. There 'are bound to be slip-ups,
and a system of doublecheCks is one
way of lessening the. goofs.
But the CIA fumbl_t-inf the Cuban
opefitia- appears .t6 have involved
some rather Jantastiexercises in
sindependeaLa.c1j,gLly?;,,,the-,..agency.
Did the Presidenticnow' CIA, repre-
sentatives had assured Cuban in-
vaders of their success? Did he
know?as Dr. Rodolfo Nodal Tarafa
h?charged?that Tarafa and 16
other' anti-Castro vglunteers were
held incommunicado for 11 weeks
by the CIA 'under brutal conditions
on an island off the Guatemalan
coast? (We do not say this charge
is true._ yv.e_upailiik?liether
the PresIdeat klew. about it if it is
true="gid if he knew about other
serious charges and countercharges
involving CIA operations.)
On the face of it, it appears that
side-.Kennedy, like Presidents
Eisenhower and Truman before him,
was not JuBy_ayvare of_ what the
massive ..Caxasloing.
This-Lis_am...kgres_tely_ gerous
situation._ If the creation OT a
miniaturized inner intelligence agen-
cy on top of the CIA will serve to
rectify it, well and good=even
though the move does have the out-
ward aspect of another futile bit of
chart-juggling.
Furthermore that_ in
police work "th,s,t__wDc,wo.LK,aig-i
do.gTha AirtIA?igents
i-iktrtheic-c."?ixesjie ex-
,. ,
pected to be lily-white.
eirr?qur opinion, and a growing
body of, opinion elsewhere, is that
? the CjiLaitiply has got too big, for
its 1221tsleg.,Jt should be confined
to Intelligence work and separated
from command of paramilitary oper-
ations, for one thing. And, above
all, it should be made closely re-
sponsible to the President for its
every action.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/29: CIA-RDP67-00318R000100790027-3