A MODEST PROPOSAL: ABOLIST THE D

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R001101110001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 13, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 1, 1953
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/06/13:
CIA-RDP74-00297R001101110001-9
A Modest Proposal: Abolisl: ilte Damn
A Comment by Stanley Plastrik
There is little J. see to quarrel with in Irving Howe's original state-
ment on the CIA and students (March?April DISSENT) or with Lewis
Coser's forceful statement published above. I would only call attention
to the disappointing fact that too many of the NSA leaders have tried
to brazen their way through the moral jungle into which they have
wandered, while others have failed to. grasp what was wrong in their
action. Certainly, the least one might have expected was some gesture
on their part?a mass resignation of the NSA officers and executive
board, for example, or that the whole issue be submitted to discussion
in the form of an emergency national convention that might elect a
new leadership.
I wish to discuss briefly a somewhat different side of the question
?namely, the failure of most people to grasp what, precisely, the CIA
is. The sensational side of the revelations has distorted this and given
the impression that its main activity revolves around the feeding of
money to various organizations with the aim of subverting them to CIA
purposes. I submit that this is a minor part?one-tenth of the submerged
iceberg?of the CIA. It is such misunderstanding which leads, for in-
stance, to such feeble conclusions as those contained in a New Republic
editorial (March 4, 1967) . After detailing the, by now, well-known
instances of CIA payments, use of conduits, etc., the editorial concludes:
There is nothing evil in working for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Many who have taken Agency money to do what they believed needed
doing are not villains. The results have not been all bad and were often
good?and would have been just as good, or better, if the financing had
been open and above-board. . . .
If this is true, why all the fuss? Clearly, the author of these naive
comments hasn't much notion of what the CIA is all about.
In a column entitled "Inside the CIA," Washington correspondent
Drew Pearson showed he understood much more about the real nature?
the nine-tenths?of the CIA. He understands that the CIA engages in
activities beyond our borders which would be considered highly immoral
and bordering on the criminal if done within our borders; that the
agency operates as a state within a state under the direction of "faceless
men."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/06/13:
CIA-RDP74-00297R001101110001-9
STAT
41.1A
282
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/06/13: CIA-RDP74-00297R001101110001-9
In its insatiable quest for "intelligence," the CIA has supported many
corrupt and unpopular politicians around the world. Their political
operations have received CIA financing actually as payment for "intelli-
gence."
There is also an impatience inside the CIA with sophisticated diplo-
macy, a lack of understanding of the social ferment which is building
up steam in many underdeveloped countries. Some CIA men have diffi-
culty distinguishing, say, between a democratic Socialist and a Marxist
Communist.
The New York Times estimates the CIA's annual (secret) budget
at half a billion. Since the CIA was established 20 years ago, this comes
to a total of $20 billion. Is it conceivable that more than 10 per cent
($200 million) has been spent on the activities revealed to the public
thus far? 90 per cent of its budget remains unaccounted for. Deducting
operating expenses still leaves billions spent overseas in political ac-
tions. This is the real CIA.
The 1949 CIA Act says its director may spend money ". . . without
regard to the provisions of law and regulations relating to the expendi-
ture of government funds." He does this on a voucher certified by
him alone. Nor does the CIA report to Congress or to any federal
department; it is an independent agency, responsible only to the
President. It does, however, give some (limited) information about its
activities to a select group of yrn.pathetic congressmen.
The CIA has had its own significant internal evolution in the 20 years
since it was set up. Until World War II, intelligence work was carried
on by the armed services and the State Department who employed
agents?"spies who came in from the cold"?at so much per head. During
the war, intelligence mushroomed into a huge and complicated affair,
most notably centered in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) . With
the Cold War, all intelligence functions outside of those strictly mili-
tary were lumped together in 1947 into the new agency, the CIA. Thus,
the CIA is the creation of the Cold War. It was the government's answer
to Stalin's revived Comintern and aggressive Communist activity. It be-
came a political arm (as often as not, the political arm) of the Adminis-
tration. It initiated and conceived policy (Bay of Pigs) . President
Truman wrote in 1963 that it had become "a symbol of sinister and
mysterious foreign intrigue?and a subject for Cold War enemy propa-
ganda." He urged that its operation be halted immediately and its role
be limited to the evaluation of information.
There is not a single country in the world today without a CIA
presence. Its "vanguard" operators in overseas spy roles are active in-
terventionists in political struggles in every corner of the globe: as-
28.3
.r!?,sitia bribery, sabotag,' and subversion, political intervittion at.
all levels. The record of their activities includes Cuba (Bay of Pigs);
Guatemala; the Dominican Republic; Iran (ousting of the late pre-
mier Mossadegh.); the Congo; Vietnam; etc., etc. The history of our
time is impossible to understand without reference to the CIA; it is a
force with its own momentum and influence on events. Behind the
.relatively small percentage of CIA "vanguard" operatives stands a
vast, logistical array of research and scientific personnel and a dazzling
computer and monitoring system; but this exists basically for the
guidance and feeding of the CIA "activists." The role of the CIA
cannot be separated from its use in American aggressive intervention-
ist policy. Never before have we had anything like the CIA; it cannot
be separated from the turn toward belligerence, interventionism, ex-
pansionism. Properly understood, the CIA cannot be separated from
an analysis of American foreign policy and the role which Administra-
tion leaders have cast for the country on a global scale.
If this view is correct, then it follows that our opposition to the
CIA is much more fundamental than opposition to its criminal ac-
tivity in subverting American domestic movements and organizations.
It becomes part and parcel of our opposition to present American
political policy throughout the world. For my part, the only possible
stand one can hold regarding the CIA is to propose its immediate
termination, its abolition, and the cessation of all its activities. What
of the "normal" gathering of intelligence and information? The answer
is quite simple: send the spies out into the cold again; remove them
from the warm, sheltering arms of the CIA headquarters. In short,
return the formation of both domestic and foreign policy back to the
proper institutions of government.
THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE
"When his former. speechwriter, Richard Goodwin, accused the
White House of deceiving the public on the war in Vietnam (Address
to National ADA Convention, September 17, calling for a "National
Committee Against Widening The War"), Mr. Johnson is reported to
have commented: "It's like being bitten by your own dog.' "
?Charles Bartlett, "In Washington,"
The Arizona Republic, 10/3/66.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/06/13: CIA-RDP74-00297R001101110001-9