HOW THE CIA CAN HELP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100020042-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 6, 2000
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: July 20, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

FOIAb3b
Approved For Release 206,6f,
20 f?
dU.!_3T j f,
RDP75-0000
While there is much fe call le
criticized in tier, secrets revealed in.
the Pentagon paa.pers, one agency that
comes out of them with a record for
calling its shots correctly is the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency. As Crocker
Snow .ll . 1 ointed out in lest Sunday's
Globe, it, suggests that the last few
Presidents should have listened mare
to the CIA than to the U,,te Depart.,
nlent, the 1"entafon, the National
Security Council and the White
,House mlvisers.
For it e}?pears that if. they had,
there Would have been no doubts
about President Dion-l's regime in
Saigon; the domino theory would not
have been trotted out to justify the
,war, and the y, ar would not have
been escalated,
.Why were not the CIA. reports
given greater credence? The answer
may come only with less secrecy ill
Washington. lint perhaps part of the
answer lay in the disastrous 1961
'invasion the agency ran at the Lay of
Pigs in Cuba (for v.-hich Presid('nt.
Kennedy, nonetheless, took all the
blank).
And perhaps another pert lies in
a deliberate downplaying of the
CIA's role. It had been an operational_
as well as an intelligence agency
w,lcll J o In osier ut
Lary of Stale and his
was CIA. director. lsllt
of Pi s, 1,obert IIcue
tight control of opera
cording to what CIA. di
Helms told the editm
CIA was urged to presc.ei options
rather than hard rcconlnlcnciations,
It. is not publicly isoawn wli;+t rol.c
if any the CIA. played in ih-; futile.
,?
invasion of C