THE ROLE OF THE CIA IN THE WORLD OF TODAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200320029-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2010
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: June 1, 1965
• Content Type: TRANS

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THE ROLE OF THE CIA IN THE WORLD OF TODAY
ADDRESS BY SENATOR THOMAS J. DODD
BEFORE THE MID-CAREER DEVELOPMENT COURSE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
'UESDAY, JUNE 1, 1965
I.want to speak to you today about the nature of the world we live
in., about the special role of your own Agency in this world, and about
the relationship between year Agency and Congress.
The world today is not a very peaceful place.
STAT
In South Vietnam, the Government forces have, for more than four
years now, been fighting against a merciless insurgency inspired arid
supported by Hanoi, and we are now committed, massively and irrevocably,
to assist the South Vietnamese people in defeating this aggression.
In Laos, too, the Government has been under attack for more than
four years by insurgent forces directed from Hanoi.
In the Dominican Republic, a communist grab for power was frustrated
only by President Johnson's prompt and courageous intervention.
In Malaysia, Sukarno is pursuing his policy of confrontation and
aggression, with the complete support of both Peiping and Moscow.
In the Congo, within the past year, a communist insurgency that
appeared to be on the verge of taking power was frustrated thanks to
the energy and courage of Prime Minister Tshombe and thanks to the
support which we gave him when he assumed office.
The chances are that the years to come will witness no serious
improvement in this situation.
In Latin America, there is talk about the possibility of new
communist coups in Colombia and Venezuela and Chile and other countries.
In Africa, the Chinese Communists and the Moscow Communists are
vying with each other to see who can first subvert and control certain
of the key countries.
In India and the Philippines, there is alarming evidence of
increasing communist strength.
All of this does not bode too well for peace and stability over the
coming decade.
Can Conciliationism Terminate the Cold War?
To be sure, there are some visionaries and romantics who tell us
that the cold war can be liquidated and peace can be stabilized if only
we are willing to be more trustful, less provocative, and more generous
in our dealings with the communist states.
I wish that it were possible to put an end to the cold war simply
by drinking a few swigs of this conciliationist soothing syrup. But
any serious reading of the history of our times should be sufficient to
demolish the simplistic estimates of our conciliationists.
The conciliationists may feel that their formula is new and untried.
But the fact is that the approach they sponsor has been tried repeatedly
in our dealings with the Nazis, in our dealings with the communists,
and in our dealings with a variety of extremist dictators in Asia and
Africa. And the fact is, further, that this approach -- call it
conciliationism, call it appeasement, call it what you will -- has
failed in every single instance in which it has been tried.
We tried this approach with Hitler at Munich; and the result was
World War II.
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We tried the conciliatory approach in our dealings with the Soviets
during World War II; and the result was the forceable communization of
Eastern Europe.
We sought to conciliate Sukarno by giving him some $500,000,000
worth of foreign aid and by supporting his demand for West New Guinea;
and the result has been the wholesale confiscation of American
businesses, attack after attack on American Embassy installations, and
now the confrontation with Malaysia:
For more than a year and a.half after Castro took power, we pursued
the path of conciliation in our dealings with him. Until June of 1960
we continued to pay him a sugar subsidy that averaged $11,000,000 per
month.
For this show of restraint and conciliation, the payment we
received was first, the complete communization of Cuba; second, the
Cuban missile crisis; and third, Castro's massive subversive operation
directed against the free countries of Latin America.
I could go on and on with this listing, but I don't want to bore
you. The evidence, indeed, is so overwhelming that I simply fail to see
how any rational person can believe that the cold war will go away if
only we were willing to display a more conciliatory attitude towards
the communists.
For a Policy of Positive Containment
Although it is impossible to be optimistic about the immediate
future, I do not believe that the cold war is bound to go on forever;
nor do I believe that we have no alternative but to accept every
communist cold war victory, past, present or future, as permanent and
irreversible.
If we give ground before the communists -- if, for example, we act
on the advice of our appeasers and conciliationists and abandon Vietnam
and Southeast Asia -- then I think the future is bleak indeed.
To me, it is unthinkable that either Moscow or Peiping will ever
abandon the path of aggression and subversion so long as aggression and
subversion pay off.
Any retreat before communism, therefore, any concession made to it
in the name of avoiding escalation, can only have the result of encour-
aging the communists to further aggression, and of bringing about the
very escalation which the appeasers and conciliationists seek to avoid.
If, on the other hand, we can hold the line against further
communist expansion and severely punish every such effort at expansion,
it is my belief that, with the passage of years, this continuing
containment would weaken the extremists in both Moscow and Peiping and
would strengthen the hands of the more moderate element that unquestion-
ably exists in both countries.
In the current debate on Vietnam, I have been disturbed to find
Dr. Hans Morgenthau, for whom I have, up until now, had the greatest
respect, lined up with those who urge withdrawal from Vietnam.
Dr. Morgenthau is neither an appeaser nor a conciliationist. He
has on most cold war issues been a man of eminently sound judgment. For
example, I am in wholehearted accord with his view that we should make
political concessions from the communists a condition of increased East-
West trade. But in the case of Vietnam, Dr. Morgenthau apparently
feels that our position is unrealistic because we cannot make any
solution in Vietnam stick unless we are prepared to go to war with Red
China.
I think the best answer to Dr. Morgenthau would be the example of
South Korea. There we inflicted a decisive defeat on communist aggres-
sion, and the solution we achieved in Korea, although far from ideal,
has at least held fast for some thirteen years now.
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If we can inflict a similar defeat on communist aggression in
Southeast Asia, if we can purchase a pause of ten years or fifteen years
or twenty years in this area, if we can hold the line against the
expansion of communist power at other points, then there is at least
reason to hope that the extremists in Moscow and Peiping will be dis-
credited by their successive defeats, and that somewhat more moderate
elements will come to the helm.
Short of accepting total defeat on the installment plan, I see no
plausible alternative to this policy of positive containment.
The Nature of the Communist Offensive
Lenin instructed his followers to prepare for an era of wars and
revolutions.
But the wars we are involved in today, and the wars we shall have
to fight over the coming period, are different from the wars of the
past in a very fundamental way.
The wars of the past were for the most part fought with military
weapons for military objectives. They were uncomplicated and relatively
easy to follow, and where the war stood at any given moment was pretty
well determined by the position of the front line.
The so-called wars of national liberation, which constitute the
heart of communist subversive strategy, are infinitely more complex and
more difficult to deal with.
There are no front lines in these wars. And the military arm of
the communist conspiracy plays a much smaller role in these wars than
does its political arm.
To take over a country or a territory by purely military means
requires masses of men and equipment. Moreover, attempted military
takeovers run the danger - as the communists discovered in Korea of solidifying world public opinion behind the victim.
But, employing the arsenal of political weapons which they have
forged in almost four decades of experience, the communists have
demonstrated that it is possible, with relatively small numbers of men
and a small investment of funds, to completely disorganize the life of
a country or even to take it over.
There were only a handful of communists in the Castro movement
before he came to power. The evidence is indisputable, moreover, that
the overwhelming majority of those who were anti-Batista were also anti-
communist. But Castro and his handful of communists were able to take
over the Cuban revolution, pervert this revolution for freedom into a
communist dictatorship, and ruthlessly suppress the anti-communist
majority.
In the case of the Panama riots of January, 1964, it is my under-
standing that the chief incitation came from 45 identified communist
agents, of whom 18 had received training in Cuba.
And only within the last few weeks in the Dominican Republic we
have again seen how a small group of trained professional revolutionaries
can infiltrate and seize control of what started out as a popular
revolution.
In his historic speech before the Society of Newspaper Editors
after the Bay of Pigs disaster, President Kennedy gave a classic
description of this new kind of warfare.
He said that we face a relentless struggle in every corner of the
globe that goes far beyond the class of armies or even nuclear arma-
ments.
He warned that conventional and nuclear arms are only a shield
behind which the communists operate by means of subversion, infiltration
and other underhanded tactics.
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He said that in this way the communists had been able to occupy
vulnerable areas in the free world, one by one, in a manner which made
armed intervention extremely difficult.
Finally, he warned that our national security might be lost piece
by piece, country by country, without the firing of missiles or the
clash of arms.
The Role of .the CIA
But while the existence of this kind of warfare has been recognized
by virtually every authority and by government officials, I fear that
we have not done as much as we should do to equip our side with the
political know-how and political weapons essential to fight and win
this kind of war.
Thanks to those whose foresight was responsible for the establish-
ment of the Central Intelligence Agency, we have at least made a
beginning in this direction.
The CIA, as is common knowledge, has two distinct functions. Its
first function is the gathering and evaluation of intelligence. Its
second function is to conduct covert operations that have been authorized
by the National Security Council.
This combination of functions has opened your Agency to all kinds
of criticism.
On the one hand, there are those who say that ours is an open
society, that clandestine operations are immoral and that the
operational role of the CIA should be eliminated, no matter what the
communists themselves may do.
On the other hand, there are those who accept the need for covert
operations to deal with the covert operations of international
communism, but who argue that the CIA should be stripped of its opera-
tional functions, either because it is too powerful, or because a
separation of functions would make for greater efficiency.
In an open society, any government organization engaged in secret
and clandestine operations is bound to invite criticism.
When this organization is looked upon by the communists as a prime
target, and when the communist propaganda apparatus is instructed to go
all out against it, it can be taken for granted that the communists
will ultimately succeed in inspiring criticism of this organization
from completely respectable non-communist sources; yes, and even from
impeccably anti-communist sources.
And when this organization, because of the limitations imposed by
the requirements of secrecy, cannot speak up in its own defense, even
totally unfounded and reckless criticisms are bound to achieve some
currency and gain some credence.
It was to this situation that President Kennedy addressed himself
when he spoke to the CIA personnel at their headquarters in Langley,
Virginia, on November 28, 1961.
"Your successes are unheralded," said President Kennedy.
"Your failures are trumpeted.... But I am sure you
realize how important is your work, how essential it
is -?- and, in the long sweep of history, how significant
your efforts will be judged. So I do want to express
my appreciation toyou now, and I am confident that in
the future you will continue to merit the appreciation
of our country, as you have in the past."
I have not hesitated to disagree with your Agency on certain
points in the past, and. by the nature of things, I take it for granted
that there will be some points of disagreement in the future as well.
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The Record will show, for example, that I disagreed with the esti"
'mate of your Agency's consultant on the Advisory Committee on Export
Control when he approved the decision to export ultra-high precision
miniature ball-?bea.ring machines to the Soviet Union. And, despite the
formidable powers which are sometimes credited to your Agency, I am
happy to be able to report to you that President Kennedy accepted. the
findings of the investigation which I conducted, and ordered the ship-
ment of the bail-bearing machines canceled.
But I have seen something of the w ency, and I have
met with your Field Representatives in ountries in STAT
Europe and Asia and Africa.
And I speak from personal knowledge when I say that this country
and the entire free world owes your Agency and its personnel a very STAT
great debt of gratitude -- far, far greater than most people realize.
But here again, if what has been said about the role played by your
Agency is true, I truly believe that you deserve the gratitude of every
American and every freedom-loving person.
Your Agency came in for much misdirected criticism over the U-2
affair.
Unquestionably a case could be made against the manner in which it
was handled once it broke.
But the manner in which it was handled was determined not at your
level, but at the highest level of government.
And what was overlooked in all the excitement about the U-2 inci-
dent was the fact that as a result of the foresight and initiative of
your Agency, U--2 photographic reconnaissance planes had been overflying
the Soviet Union, without incident of any kind, for a period of four.
years, gathering information of vital importance to the security of the
free world.
For this, too, I believe, your Agency deserves a vote of thanks.
Coming down to the immediate present, the effectiveness of your
Agency has again been demonstrated in the Dominican Republic crisis.
As is now common knowledge, the Dominican Republic was only hours
away from a complete communist takeover when President Johnson decided
to intervene.
This decision could not have been made if the intelligence that
had reached him was incomplete, or if it had reached him late.
Here again your Agency performed the function which has been
assigned to it in a manner that effectively served our national interest.
I come back to the point that we live in an era of subversion and
violence, an era characterized by massive subterranean operations and
by so-called wars of national liberation.
There is every reason to believe that the tempo and intensity of
the cold war will increase rather than decrease over the coming years.
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Indeed all the present indications suggest that at least for some
time to come we can expect to be confronted with crisis after crisis,
each crisis posing the danger of a communist takeover in still another
country.
Under these circumstances it is only reasonable to assume that the
demands made on your Agency will be greater than ever before and that
our national security will, more than,ever before, depend on the ability
of your Agency to discharge the functions assigned to it, both in the
realm of intelligence and in the increasingly important realm of covert
defensive operations against communist aggression and communist insur-
gency.
I do not accept the argument that your Agency has been a power
unto itself, functioning without the knowledge of Congress or the
Administration.
I happen to know better than this.
I know that the operations of your Agency have been reviewed on
five occasions by Commissions appointed by the President.
I know, too, that your operations are conducted with the approval
and knowledge of the National Security Council and with the approval
and knowledge of four separate Subcommittees of the Senate and House.
On these Subcommittees are men like Senator Russell, Senator
Stennis, Senator Hayden and Senator Saltonstall, and Congressman Rivers,
Congressman Mahon and Congressman Bates.
I have complete confidence in the judgment and integrity of these
senior members of the Senate and House.
I do not believe that a Joint Congressional Committee of the CIA
could perform the function of supervision any more effectively.
Nor do I believe that knowledge about the details of your Agency's
operation should be more broadly disseminated than it now is.
Nor do I believe that anything can be gained, in terms of effi-
cieney or in terms of control, by separating the operational function
from the intelligence function, as some people have proposed.
On the contrary, I am profoundly convinced that covert operations
in the interest of freedom can most effectively be conducted when these
operations are organically combined with the careful processing of
intelligence that must govern their conduct.
The challenge that confronts you is great. Your responsibility is
enormous.
Indeed, in the absence of all-out war, it may very well be that
your Agency will constitute our first line of defense in the battle
against communist subversion throughout the world.
In shouldering this responsibility, you can expect to receive far
more abuse than plaudits.
You can expect an intensified barrage of attacks and charges and
planted articles by the communist propaganda apparatus, with its count-
less outlets, and its infinite subtleties.
You may also expect challenges, critiques, and repeated demands
for a, reduction of the Agency's functions and power from decent citi-
zens, yes, and from members of Congress, who have not yet come to
accept the harsh necessity of clandestine operations to counter the
clandestine operations of the communist apparatus.
You can, in short, expect little gratitude and much abuse.
But the consolation you may have is the certain knowledge that you
are serving the interests of your country and the interests of world
freedom, and the confidence that history will confirm this.
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