UNFAIR TO CIA.... DELAY VERDICT TILL EVIDENCE IS IN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000300030023-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 1, 2005
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: February 18, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

Q^ PAM R 4%1 ved r lea a 5/11/21 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300030023-7
Unfair to CIA .
0 By William S. White
Delay Verdict Till Evidence Is In
THIS COUNTRY'S many
articulate victims of the
great ultraliberal syndrome
of our time-that is, a quiver-
Ing fever of
conviction
that t h i a
Government
is inevitably
wrong in any
c o n ceivable
attempt to
set off any
really tough
backfire to
the fires of
C o mmunist
subversion -- have again
automatically convicted the
poor old Central Intelligence
Agency,
CIA's crime this time is
the disclosure, first made by
a violently left-wing and
bitterly anti-Vietnam war
little magazine called Ram-
parts, that for some 14 years
the Agency has been giving
financial assistance to anti-
Communist or non-Com-
munist student groups who
seek to resist the incompa-
rably more heavily financed
Communist program to in-
doctrinate the universities
everywhere and to dominate
any and all student con-
ferences on Cold War issues.
Not all of the facts are
yet at hand, but the liberal-
syndrome verdict of guilty
as charged is, of course, al-
ready in before the jury has
even entered the box. The
jury is a group of three of-
ficials headed by Under
Secretary of State Nicholas
Katzenbach which has been
charged by the President to
look into this business--into
all the facts, and not simply
into such facts or alleged
facts as the lefties have seen
fit to produce.
The President's instruc-
tions are for a review of any
governmental activity that
might endanger the inde-
pendence of the educational
community. But the Presi-
dent's instructions do not
stop there. For he recalls
as well "the great need of
American private organiza-
tions to participate in the
world community." "Other
WHAT THIS MEANS is
that for decades the Commu-
nists have provided a "sub-
stantial subsidy" to every
kind of world student convo-
cation so that they could
pack these supposedly open
discussions with their own
people. On the evidence now
available, what CIA has
mainly been doing is provid-
ing the means to non-Com-
munist students to attend
these student conferences
and offer a point of view dif-
ferent from that of the Com-
munists.
If this turns out to be the
truth of the business, and if
it turns out that CIA has not
mortally corrupted Ameri-
can youth by helping it to
participate in student con-
vocations that would other-
wise have been totally con-
trolled by Communist
stooges, it will be difficult
for some people to believe
that a capital offense has
been committed here.
For the long-observable
truth is that Communist
money for the indoctrination
of students both here and
abroad has been most lavish-
ly expended. Any rational
man can see as much when
he looks at some of the so-
called "student demonstra.
tions" which have been oc-
curing on some American
campuses under the un-
doubled leadership of pro-
Chinese Communist forces.
BUT IF WE want to look
at the whole matter of "sub-
sidy" with any honesty we
also want to look well be-
yond what the CIA alone
has done. Some of the larg-
est and most prestige-laden
of American foundations
have for years undeniably
offered much shelter to writ-
ers and others whose oppo-
sition to any strong stand
anywhere to Communist ex-
pansionism is perfectly clear
on the record.
Now, in this columnist's
opinion, this is no crime; for
there is nothing in the law
or in American tradition to
forbid multibillion-d o I I a r
foundations to give the bet-
ter of it to the left if they
so choose. But it is a little
absolutely private. The sim-
ple fact is that it, too, is very
near to being public money
-that is to say Government
money-for had it not all
been poured into precisely
these foundations a very
great part of it would have
been quite rightfully seized
by Government tax collec-
tors.
The central point of this
piece, however, is simply
this: There Is a spreading
American characteristic of
self-indictment, alike of the
Government under any Pre r
ident and of our national
motives at any time, that
amounts to a n a t i o n a l
neurosis.
So let us not for a mo-
ment exculpate the CIA;
but let us on the other hand
be willing to wait for all
the evidence before consign-
ing it to the outer darkness.
? 1967, United Features Syndicate
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vide substantial subsistance form of2la'aundatian money
for such activity." is absolutely chaste or even