CAMELOT EQUALED 'COSTALOT'

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP73-00475R000102540004-2
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 23, 2016
Document Release Date: 
March 10, 2014
Sequence Number: 
4
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
August 14, 1965
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP73-00475R000102540004-2.pdf92.97 KB
Body: 
STAT . TIMES 1-1EnAti). Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/03/10: CIA-RDP73-00475R000102540004-2 izoa ? ;.These lays . Camelot Equaled 'Costaloe ? ? THE LATIN American countries that waxed furi- ous when they learned that the Pentagon was contem- plating a multimillion- dollar study of "the potential for internal war" in Chile, Ar- gentina, Co- lombia, Peru and V e n e- p.ela might Chamberlain have spared ;themselves some ?agony. For even? if the so-called Project Camelot had not been publicly buried by President Johnson, it would have revealed nothing that .is not known already to practically anybody who has good Latin American. sources?and it /would have revealed that much too late. These surveys! They as- semble so much ponderous machinery to measure over a protracted period of time ,what a good reporter can ?get by judicious interview- ing within a couple of weeks that they are invaria- bly on the slow freight. I remember working on the ' editing and illustrating end .of a Government study of ? the comparative strength of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia on the Eastern Front In 1942. For six months a group of ? professors, many of them 'quite able,: made like . beavers to correlate every last scrap ? of information .they could get. Much of it., ? ? By John Chamberlainl ? . ? ? came. from the daily 'news-- j lHcq and the ; ? papers. ITET?d-igki of the Slate Dc-!( . partment itself? the. CIA: ,BY THE TIME the job files aren't filled to the gun- 'was completed the German wales with relevant stuff army had made a decisive about Latin American revo- move?and the work had to lutionary potentialities, then be done all over again: The why are we spending bil- cream of the ironic jest is ? lions to keep CIA personnel that the U.S. military at- employed? And why do we tache in Moscow had been have a State Department?' feeding more?and ?better? ?? Or are we to 'believe that! material to Gen. George the CIA? and the State De- Marshall than he would ??partment have secrets that have gotten from the survey are too precious to divulge even if it .had reached his to the Pentagon on request? desk in time to be of any use. OF COURSE, you might All' of which raises 'a say that our military at; question: Why did the Pen- ? taches and CIA operatives ?.! tagon feel it needed a and diplomats are not social Project Camelot to tell it ; scientists. As is well known; about Latin American revo- "social science research" .; lutionary potentialities if its ? consists of surveying the In-' own own military attaches are dians of the Peruvian alti- ; on the ball? No possible.. piano and reNtding their ! Project Camelot for pre- - grunts as thei, are asked", World War II Nazi Germany leading questions. ,i k could ever have matched The researcher invariably" the material that our mili- , finds that the Indians don't !; tary attache in Berlin, Col. ' live very well, and they1 Truman Smith, gathered in might very well be predis-, the course of his, daily du- posed to listen to Castroites. I ties. Which is the sort of thing;l A good military or naval ' that anyone can glean from i attache is supposed to be on ..?the reports put out eac10 top of situations, with month by Paul D. Bethel, sources that it would take ''the able editor of the bulle???1 months for a team pf aca- tin published by the Citi- '4 demic researchers to tap. If zens Committee for a Free a Project Camelot was in- , Cuba. The. bulletin can be, ? deed n e e d e d -for Latin for free. ? America, then we must as- l 1 Information is what we,;': sume that. our military, , lave in abundance. The? naval and air force attaches ,1 main troubc is that nobody.( ? in Chile, Argentina and the has time tO read it, it's se;i, other countries are spend.,. all-fired voluminous. ' ing all too much time op , 7 the cocktail 'circuit. ? lc . . .. .., 1965,. Xing reaturto-a' radiate:1nd , ... ....,.. Moreover, if a , Project '; Camelot was justified, what..; are we to say, of the etec. jrntal? . Declassified in Part= Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2614/03/10 : CIA-RDP73-00475R000102540004-2