GIFTS UNCLOAKED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000400220036-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 17, 1998
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: April 8, 1967
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

CPYRGHT CPYRGHT
tit Y 6~
ttF
L
~
t
T
.
(,t
l .
~
T
Sanltltdd = Alf babFor R
eastern liberals and wealthy internationalists
have been wondering whether Mr Romney
might not be their man. The new
liberal Senator from Illinois, Mr Percy, is
a possible and seemingly willing alternative
and his daughter's much-publicised marriage
last week to a Rockefeller could Help him.
But the really knowing bets are concentrating
more and more on the bridegroom's uncle,
the Governor of New York. Mr Nelson
Rockefeller is a controversial figure and he
insists, with genuine credibility, that. he is
no longer interested in the Presidency. But
he is said to be the potential Republican
contender of whom the Democrats are really
afraid.
Gifts uncloaked
President Johnson, with the help of a
Cacioet-level committee, has managed
neatlt to ti?ini the wings of th Central Intel-
ligence Agency while patting it on the head.
He has ordered the CIA to stop giving secret
gifts to private organisations, cultural, edu-
catioual or whatever. But he also asked for
a new half-public, half-private agency to be
created to carry on the CIA's good works
abroad. What is more, he told the CIA
not to suspend its subsidies so quickly that
valuable organisations would collapse before
they could find new patrons. The President
defended the espionage agency's furtive
philanthropies, saying that it had never acted
without government supervision. In fact,
its support of the National Student Associa-
tion, the root of the current furore, had been
endorsed by the past four Administrations.
What might take on the job of channelling
federal funds to those non-political inter-
national groups that America wants to help
might be an independent agency along the
lines of the British Council. This was spelled.
out carefully by the distinguished committee,
consisting of the Attorney General, the
Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare
and the head of the CIA, which looked into
the CIA's extra-curricular activities at the
.President's request. Already Mr Rusk, the
Secretary of State, has agreed to head a
group to consider the next stage with some
urgency ; December 31st was mentioned as
the date by which the CIA could be
expected to have disengaged itself from its
own cultural relations. Whether Congress
will like the idea is another question ; in
the past it would not have subsidised many,
if any, of the free-thinking associations on
the CIA's gift list.
The ban on undercover giving applies to
all federal agencies, not only to the intelli-
gence-gatherers. I .Pfl*l~ oleAjf1
major to some, miniscule o other
v
e
CIA is to be allowed to retain the right to
groups in historical perspective by tracing
it back to the post-war era, when students,
scientists and housewives were all forming
international federations and when there was
not sufficient private support in the United
States to enable American groups to be
represented in these international arenas.
But, the report said, times have changed.
The new policy should make it clear from
now on that the activities of private
American organisations abroad are, in fact,
private. .
Lurleen's lost cause
Of all the states Alabama has done the least
to dismantle the colour bar in its schools ;
only 2.4 per cent of its Negro children are
If this time the a ace c ctermin~
on a fight (and after all it would be Mrs
Wallace, not her husband, who would bear
the brunt), the South will be subjected to
one more of the great racial confrontations
and one which may be particularly trouble-
some. But Mrs Wallace ignored history
when she mimicked Andrew Jackson's sneer
about the Supreme Court : " John Marshall
has made his decision. Now let him enforce
it." Reluctant as any Administration is to
use force against a state, in the past decade
or.so of racial controversy no President has
failed to,require respect for the order of a
federal court when this was defied.
Bankers' order
educated with whites. State officials, instead, Bankers; who thought that Congress had
have forced local school systems to drop any cleared a way for their mergers through
plans for compliance with federal standards. the anti-trust barbed wire, have to think
But now Alabama is'at the end of the road, again. Since Congress passed the Bank
A federal court in Montgomery has ordered Merger Act early in 1966 half-a-dozen
all school boards to, submit within twenty lower courts have brushed off the objections
days plans for abolishing segregation of the federal anti-trust authorities to con-
throughout the schools next autumn and has solidations of banks. But last week the
ordered the state to assist ; positive action Supreme Court held unanimously that
to end the colour bar must be accompanied y
by efforts to wipe out the disadvantages banks were still subject to the Clayton Act,
children as a result of giving the Department of Justice a famous
suffered by Negro
victory. in the past. This is the first time . Back to the lower courts for trial
that an injunction has been issued against and the men which had been approved by
a whole state. the Comptroller of the Currency, the official
In New Orleans last week' the Court of'
who regulates banks which are chartered
Appeal for the Fifth Circuit, which covers by the federal government.
not only Alabama but the other most recal-
citrant states, Georgia, Mississippi and The application of the Clayton Act to
Louisiana, as well as Texas. and Florida, bank mergers dates only from a decision of
issued a similar decree, ordering school the Supreme Court in 1963 ; before that it
officials in seven districts to end the dual was thought that banking, a regulated
school system by next autumn. The lower industry, was exempt. Congress responded,
courts will extend the decree to the whole after a long dispute, with the Bank Merger
area. Simple mingling of pupils will not Act, which was to weaken the application
satisfy the courts, whose orders go into of the anti-trust laws'in the field of banking.
detail over the assignment and promotion Banks which had merged before the 1963
of teachers, the provision of books and build- decision were given complete exemption
ing of new schools and the reform of school from them and, for the future, the Act pro-
bus services. vided that mergers would be permitted
Prompted (and, it is said, carefully where the benefits which they brought to
rehearsed) by her husband, Mr George the community " clearly outweighed " the
Wallace, the new Governor of Alabama has damage to competition. Lower courts
piped defiance. She has asked the State assumed that it was up to the Department
Legislature to turn control of the schools of Justice to prove that. these benefits were
over to her, on the tattered theory that the insufficient. But the Supreme Court placed
state can " interpose " itself between the the burden of proof on the merging
schools and the federal courts and the more banks. . The Court also held that lower
valid assumption that the courts will be courts should consider cases independently
reluctant to send a Governor to gaol. More of the views of the bank regulators and that
ominously, she has hinted that more state mergers which were challenged by the
police may be needed. Department of Justice should be held up
It seems probable that Mr Wallace is until litigation was complete, Bank mergers,
seeking simply to stir up emotions for the which have. been running at the rate of
in pas 5x01 U0$ ~0~t `6c tam
d up or abama uit le past an s
f'l stoo R
11 it
cie
to drop
stood down again quite peaceably once he Hopes that Congress will step in again to