INVASION, SPYING ARE AGENCY JOBS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP68B00432R000500020004-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: OPEN

Approvecarta RdIeWseYIDEM/07/128EtIAMBitetiiiindiatird001030b06004-5
How C.I.A. Put an 'Instant Air Force' Into
Congo, to Carry Out United States Policy
How C.I.A.Put`InstantAirForce IntoCongo,
Intervention, Invasion, Spying All in a Day's W9rk
Following is the second of
five articles on the Central In-
telligence Agency. The articles
are by a team of New York
Times correspondents consist-
ing of Tom Wicker, John W.
Finney, Max Frankel, E. W.
Kenworthy and other members
of The Times staff.
Special to to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, April 25?
At the Ituri River, eight miles
south of Nia Nia in the north-
east Congo, a government col-
umn of v600 Congolese troops
and 100 white mercenaries had
been ambushed by a rebel force
and was under heavy fire. Sud-
denly, three B-26's skimmed in
over the rain forest and bombed
and strafed a path through the
rebel ranks for the forces sup-
ported by the United States.
At the controls of the Ameri-
can-made planes were anti-Cas-
tro Cubans, veterans of the Bay
of Pigs invasion of Cuba in
1961, three years before. They
had been recruited by a pur-
portedly private company in
Florida. Servicing their planes
were European mechanics so-
licited through advertisements
in London newspapers. Guiding
them into action were Ameri-
can "diplomats" and other
officials in apparently civilian
positions.
The sponsor, paymaster and
director of all of them, however,
was the Central Intellfgence
Agency, with headquarters in
Langley, Va. Its rapid and ef-
fective provision of an "instant
air force" in the Congo was the
climax of the agency's deep in-
volvement there.
The C.I.A.'s operation in the
Congo was at all times respon-
sible to and welcomed by the
policy-makers of the United
States.
It was these policy-makers
who chose to make the agency
the instrument of political and
military intervention in another
nation's affairs, for in five years
of strenuous diplomatic effort
it was only in Langley that the
White House, the State Depart-
ment and the Pentagon found
the peculiar combination of
talents necessary to block the
creation of a pro-Communist
regime, recruit the leaders for a
pro-American government and
supply the advice and support to
enable that government to sur-
vive.
From wire-tapping to influ-
encing elections, from bridge-
blowing to armed invasions, in
the dark and in the light, the
Central Intelligence Agency has
become a vital instrument of
American policy and a major
component of American govern-
ment.
It not only gathers informa-
tion but also rebuts an ad-
versary's information. It not
only organizes its own far-
flung operations but also
sists an adversary's operation.
Against the Soviet Union
alone, it performs not only cer-
tain of the services performed
in Moscow by the K.G.B., the
Committee for State Security,
but also many of the political,
intelligence and military serv-
ices performed by pro-Soviet
Communist parties around the
world.
When the Communist and
Western worlds began to
wrestle for control of the vast,
undeveloped Congo in 1960 after
it had gained independence from
Belgium, a modest little C.I.A.
office in Leopoldville mush-
roomed overnight into a virtual
embassy and miniature war de-
partment.
This was not to compete with
the real United States Embassy
and military attaches but to
apply the secret, or at least dis-
creet, capacities of the C.I.A.
to a seething contest among
many conflicting forces.
Starting almost from scratch,
because the Belgians had for-
bidden Americans even to meet
with Congolese officials, the
C.I.A. disprsed its agents to
learn Congolese politics from
the bush on up, to recruit likely
leaders and to finance their bids
for power.
Capable of quickly gathering
Information from all sources, of
busying informants and disburs-
Continued on Page 30, Coltpan
Approved For Release 2003/03/25 : CIA-RDP68600432R000500020004-5