INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES UNDER FIRE FOR WATERGATE ROLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75B00380R000200010022-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 18, 2001
• Sequence Number: 22
• Content Type: REPORT

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Intelligence Community
INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES UNDER FIRE FOR WATERGATE ROLE
To many Americans, the most serious aspect of the
Watergate scandal-apart from the President's pos-
sible involvement-was the misuse of the nation's various
intelligence agencies for partisan political purposes.
And to many others, the most ominous aspect of the
Watergate affair was the extent of domestic surveillance
-spying, bugging, wiretapping, breaking and entering,
data gathering-on individual citizens. For it is this
attempted corruption of the intelligence function in a
free democratic society that has led some observers to
equate Watergate, at least in its ultimate intent, with
the imposition of a police state.
In the past,'-the intelligence community has most
often been subject to criticism for lack of public account-
ability-for becoming an "invisible government" or
"secret establishment." Today, ironically, the attack
is for the opposite reason-for becoming too directly
responsive to the White House. The CIA and the FBI have
been tainted by Watergate disclosures and some military
intelligence units have been implicated. The CIA ap-
parently took part in domestic operations-a violation
of its legal charter-and the FBI was accused of playing
politics in law enforcement-a violation of the spirit, if
not the letter, of the law. Many members of the intelli-
gence community are reported to have been left shaken
by this perversion of their agencies. The most likely out-
come will be a thorough review of intelligence activities
and closer scrutiny in the future.
America's intelligence community is a diverse col-
lection of agencies, most of them shrouded in secrecy,
which may employ 100,000 to 1.50,000 persons and spend
$5 billion to $6.2' billion annually., Their activities are
largely unknown to the public and many of their budgets
-hidden among those of other agencies-are not subject
to the same congressional accounting as are other govern-
ment institutions. The principal agencies are the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation (FBI), the Defense Department's intelligence di-
visions-Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Army, Navy
and Air Force intelligence services, and the National
Security Agency (NSA)-the State Department's Bureau
of Intelligence and Research, and the Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC) and Treasury in some of their func-
tions. All are represented on the U.S. Intelligence Board.
The CIA director is the board chairman. (Footnotes, p. 65)
Watergate Revelations
One of the most disturbing of the Watergate dis-
closures thus far was the Nixon administration's attempt
to set up a special unit---with the title of Interagency
Group on Domestic Intelligence and Internal Security-
to coordinate expanded surveillance of activities within
the United States. This effort was referred to on May 22
by President Nixon in a lengthy statement on Watergate
as "the 1970 intelligence plan." It called for the crea-
tion of an "interagency committee" to help provide
"better intelligence operations" to deal with campus
violence and a rash of terrorist bombings. Nixon said the
committee's "specific options for expanded intelligence
operations" were first approved on July 23, 1970, but that
approval was "rescinded" five days later because of op-
position from J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director, who was
chairman of the special committee.
This revelation of the President being overruled by
the FBI director was followed by Nixon's statement that
"coordination among our intelligence agencies.. con-
tinued to fall short of our national needs." Accordingly,
he said, an Intelligence Evaluation Commitee was
created in December 1970 after Hoover had ended
the FBI's normal liaison with all other agencies except
the White House. Nixon emphasized: "I did not autho-
rize nor do I have any knowledge of any illegal activity
by this committee. If it went beyond its charter and did
engage in any illegal activity, it was totally without
my knowledge or authority."
On June 7, 1973, The New York Times published
three White House memoranda-all classified "Top
Secret"-written by former Nixon aide Tom Charles
Huston which outlined the intelligence plan. Nixon had
alluded to these on May 22 as "extremely sensitive"
documents based on "assessments of certain foreign
intelligence capabilities and procedures, which of course
must remain secret." He identified them as the materials
which presidential counsel John W. Dean III had re-
moved from the White House and placed in a safe
deposit box, giving the keys to U.S. District Court Judge
John J. Sirica.
But the documents obtained by the Times contained
more references to domestic operations than to foreign
intelligence, including acknowledgement that parts of
the plan were "clearly illegal" and involved "serious
risks" to the administration if revealed. ."We don't
want the President linked to this thing with his signature
on paper...all hell would break loose if this thing leaks
out," the newspaper quoted Huston as telling the White
House chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, in a letter? Of the
three memoranda, one summarized the report, another
informed the heads of major intelligence agencies of the
decision approving the committee's recommendations,
and a third gave Haldeman background information and
proposed a strategy for gaining Hoover's cooperation.
The newspaper did not obtain the full report or the com-
plete text of Huston's letter to Haldeman. But the docu-
ments that were printed revealed, among other things,
that the report had requested:
? Permission for the National Security Agency to monitor com-
munications of U.S. citizens using international facilities, such
as overseas telephones and telegraphs.
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e Intensification of "electronic surveillance and penetrations"
of "individuals and groups in the United States who pose a
major threat to the internal security."
? Removal of restrictions on legal and illegal "mail coverage"
-recording of mail sent and received by certain individuals
and covert opening of mail before delivery.
e Allowance of "surreptitious entry"-breaking and entering
-despite the admission that use of this technique is "clearly
illegal" and "amounts to burglary."
? Development of more student informers on campuses and
increased CIA coverage of American students traveling or
living abroad.
? Establishment of a permanent committee to improve domes-
tic intelligence operations because "the need for increased
coordination, joint estimates and responsiveness to the White
House is obvious to the intelligence community."a
The apparent intention was for the Nixon administra-
tion to organize and employ at home the same techni-
ques that had been developed and used successfully in
clandestine operations abroad. In the memo to Haldeman,
Huston wrote: "In the past there has been no systematic
effort to mobilize the full resources of the intelligence
community in the internal security area and there has
been no mechanism for preparing community-wide domes-
tic intelligence estimates..... Unlike most of the bureauc-
racy, the intelligence community welcomes direction and
leadership from the White House."
Although Nixon said the plan was killed after five
days because of Hoover's opposition, and although Huston
was shortly thereafter dismissed from his job, questions
remained about, what happened to the plan. No docu-
ments have yet been produced verifying its cancellation.
And the Intelligence Evaluation Committee-secretly
lodged in the Justice Department-was not ordered
dismantled until May 31, 1973, although department
officials claimed it never had been an operational
unit but merely a "clearinghouse" for information.
Both the FBI and the Senate Watergate investigating
committee4 are looking into the possibility that parts
of the plan were put into operation. After reading the
full plan, Committee Chairman Sam J. Ervin Jr. (D N.C.)
said that its contents "would be a great shock to the
American people if they were released" and that the
makers of the plan "had the same mentality employed
by the Gestapo in Nazi Germany."
CIA, FBI INVOLVEMENT
CIA. In his statement on May 22, Nixon said the
publication of the Pentagon Papers,5 which he called
"a security leak of unprecedented proportions," led him
to organize an investigations unit in the White House.
"The plumbers," as these leak investigators came to be
known, undertook an investigation of Daniel Ellsberg,
who was accused of making copies of the Pentagon Papers
available to the press. This effort resulted in the illegal
break-in of the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis
Fielding, in Beverly Hills, Calif., by "plumbers" G.
Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, and ultimately the
dismissal of charges against Ellsberg and co-defendant
Anthony J. Russo.6 But perhaps more important, this
burglary brought about the direct involvement of the
CIA.
Gen. Robert E. Cushman Jr., then CIA deputy di-
rector (now U.S. Marine Corps commandant), told the
House Armed Services Intelligence Subcommittee that
at White House request he supplied Hunt, a former CIA
employee, with a disguise (red wig, glasses and a speech-
alteration device) and bogus indentification papers
(driver's license, Social Security card and several asso-
ciation membership cards in the name of Edward Joseph
Warren, Hunt's alias).
Cushman further testified that the CIA later gave
Hunt a camera hidden in a tobacco pouch and a disguise
and identification papers for Liddy. The agency also
developed film for Hunt and allowed him and Liddy to
use two CIA "safe houses"-secure secret locations-in
the Washington area in which to meet and to store equip-
ment. In addition, Cushman continued, the CIA prepared
a psychological profile of Ellsberg at White House re-
quest-said to be the first such report on an American
civilian. But the agency cancelled its assistance to Hunt
after five weeks when it learned that "clandestine
political operations" were taking place, according to
documents made public at the Pentagon Papers trial.
Shortly after the Watergate arrests on June 17, 1972,
rumors began to circulate that the CIA was fully respon-
sible for the incident. The discovery that all of the sus-
pects had previous connections with the agency made the
story seem credible. In the days immediately after the
arrests, according to CIA officials, White House aides
asked the agency to assist in the Watergate cover-up.
This concerned an FBI investigation of funds for Nixon's
re-election campaign that had been routed through a
Mexican bank ("laundered") to conceal the identity of
the donor. The CIA was asked to say that the investiga-
tion in Mexico would interfere with covert CIA operations.
Richard M. Helms, who was then CIA director, indicated
that he felt such an investigation would not interfere.
However, the CIA deputy director, Lt. Gen. Vernon
Walters, told of a meeting at the White House on June 23,
1972, at which Haldeman was quoted as telling CIA repre-
sentatives that the investigation "was leading to a lot of
important people and this could get worse," and that
President Nixon wanted the inquiry stopped. Walters
said Haldeman, told him to personally ask FBI Acting
Director L. Patrick Gray III that the probe not be pur-
sued in Mexico. Haldeman and Ehrlichman disputed
this version of the meeting in depositions they filed in
court.8 CIA officials stuck to their account, and on June
4, 1973, The New York Times published a series of mem-
oranda written by Walters after each of the meetings
which seemed, to confirm his version of what was said.
One Walters memo stated that Dean had suggested
that the CIA provide bail for the Watergate defendants
and pay them the equivalent of salaries if they went to
prison. Another memo indicated that Walters raised the
possibility of blaming Watergate on Cuban patriots. The
memos disclosed that Walters made an effort all along
to cooperate with the White House cover-up attempt.
although he said he did not have the authority to make
some decisions that were asked of him. Dean told the
Senate Watergate committee that Wal ers had gotten
his job at CIA because he was a "good friend"-that
Ehrlichman said the White House wanted to "have some
influence over the agency."
Helms told the Senate Armed Services Intelligence
Subcommittee that he "wanted to stay as head of the
agency and keep it out of all this." But there was evidence
that his reputation had been damaged by the scandal.
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He remained silent through the 1972 election campaign
even though, he acknowledged, he knew of the effort to
manipulate his agency for partisan political purposes. In
one of the 1970 intelligence plan memos, Huston wrote:
"I went into this exercise fearful that CIA would refuse to
cooperate. In fact Dick Helms was most cooperative and
helpful." In the long run, Helms evidently was not co-
operative enough. Nixon relieved him in December 1972 as
CIA director and named him as ambassador to Iran. He
has refused to discuss publicly the reason for his removal,
but there has been press speculation that it was his
lack of enthusiasm for White House attempts to control
the CIA.
FBI. Under Gray, the FBI apparently became
entangled in the Watergate affair to an even greater ex-
tent than did the CIA. Gray was named acting director
by Nixon in May 1972 upon Hoover's death and later was
nominated for the permanent directorship. His nomina-
tion was withdrawn in April 1973 after lengthy hearings
by the Senate Judiciary Committee indicated that re-
jection lay ahead. During the hearings, Gray admitted
that he had turned over FBI files on its Watergate investi-
gation to Dean and he conceded that Dean probably lied
to the bureau in one instance.
Gray's personal involvement deepened when on April
26 the New York Times reported that in July -1972
he had destroyed documents belonging to Hunt under
orders from Ehrlichman and Dean. Gray immediately
announced his resignation as acting director. One dossier,
according to the newspaper, included phony State De-
partment cables fabricated by Hunt to implicate Presi-
dent Kennedy in the assassination of South Vietnamese
President Ngo Dinh Diem, and another contained ma-
terials on the 1969 automobile accident involving Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy (D Mass.) at Chappaquiddick Is-
land,
CIA-RDP75B0038OR000200010022-9A
principles but with public relations. person identified
as a longtime FBI man and Hoover loyalist was quoted
as saying: "For Mr. Hoover, jurisdiction was paramount.
He didn't object to clandestine entries. We opened mail
but we :never talked about it or wrote memos. We cracked
safes when we felt it was a case of compelling national
security. Hoover's law as that you didn't get caught and
bring embarrassment on the bureau."9
History of Intelligence Services
Intelligence operations have had a long and influ-
ential, if little-known, history. Richard W. Rowan wrote
in his encyclopedic history of intelligence, Secret Service
(1967): "Spies and speculators for thirty-three centuries
have exerted more influence on history than on historians."
Indeed, spying is an ancient function, and the importance
of intelligence information to civil and military strategy
and decision-making is a concept as old as government
itself. In 500 B.C., the Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu,
in an ageless treatise on spying called Roots of Strategy-
Art of War, stated: "Knowledge of the enemy's dispo-
sition can only be obtained from other men. Hence, the
use of spies,"10 The Bible records that God instructed
Moses to send out agents "to spy out the land of Canaan"
(Numbers 13:20), and the provocative tradition of women
in intelligence later was begun by Rahab, the harlot
of Jericho, who sheltered the spies of Israel (Joshua 2:1).
"The pattern of history suggests that aggressive, expan-
sionist societies have the best organized intelligence sys-
tems," wrote Professor Harry Howe Ransom of Vander-
bilt University, one. of the most respected contemporary
analysts of intelligence. 11 -
The creation of a systematic, institutionalized in-
telligence service in modern times is widely credited to
Frederick the Great of Prussia, who transormed the hap-
hazard intelligence-gathering operations of the 18th cen-
tury into a general military staff function. By the late
19th century, Europe had become a network of spies. Even
so the United States inherited almost no semblance of
organized intelligence, relying for many years on diplom-
ats and military attaches for foreign information. The
Revolutionary army's spy network was an informal, rag-
tag operation. Both sides employed spies during the
Civil War, but they were largely ineffectual. By its own
official history, the U.S. Army was "slow to recognize the
importance of military intelligence and backward in
its use in the solution of military problems.', 12
World War I brought about the first significant ex-
pansion of U.S. intelligence activity, as the Army's Mili-
tary Intelligence Division staff grew from a small hand-
ful to some 1,200 during the war. It was cut back
severely during the isolationist years between the two
world wars, however, largely because of congressional
skepticism and the lack of emphasis in State, War and
Navy Departments on peacetime intelligence. But on Dec.
7, '1941, all that ended.
But revelations of the FBI's involvement., were not
over. William D. Ruckelshaus, who had become acting
director, revealed at a news conference on May 14 that
records of 17 wiretaps of newsmen and government offi-
cials had been found in Ehrlichman's White House safe.
Ruckelshaus said the records had been ? removed from
FBI files in September 1971 by former agent William C.
Sullivan and transferred to the White House out of fear
that Hoover would use them to blackmail the Nixon
administration. The same day, The Washington Post re-
ported that Gray had been warned by other FBI officials
that the White House was trying to cover up the Water-
gate scandal but that Gray had claimed he could not
`relay the warning to Nixon because it would be "im-
proper" to involve the President in an FBI investigation.
Hoover received post mortem press praise for his
resistance to politicization of the bureau but, ironically,
it appeared that if Hoover had cooperated the special
White House Watergate team might never have been
formed. In any case, some elements of the far-reaching
domestic intelligence plan apparently became effective
despite Hoover's opposition to White House pressure. In
particular, the FBI increased surveillance of black mili-
tant groups and New Left organizations. In addition,
FB[ offices were opened in 20 foreign countries to investi-
gate alleged involvement of radical students with un-
friendly governments-despite CIA jurisdiction over
operations abroad. Some believe that Hoover's objections
to the 1970 intelligence plan were not concerned with
It is generally agreed that the CIA traces its begin-
nings to the gross intelligence failure that made the sur-
prise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor possible. The at-
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tack resulted not CIn.RRP75B00380ROO0200flffl q
the lack of an agency to evaluate intelligence. Many
warnings of the imminent assault were received but CIA's Legal Foundations
ignored because officials did not believe that such a mass
attack was within Japanese capabilities t3 President Roose- The 1947 National Security Act gave the CIA five
velt in July 1941 had asked Col. William J. Donovan. to set specific statutory duties:
up a new intelligence service for possible wartime use. "(1) To advise the National Security Council in
"You'll have to start from scratch. We don't have an in- matters concerning such intelligence activities of the
telligence service," FDR told Donovan. First called the government departments and agencies as relate to na-
Office of the Coordinator of Information, the service was tional security;
transformed in 1942 into the Office of Strategic Services "(2) To make recommendations to the National
(OSS). Originally intended to supplement intelligence- Security Council for the coordination of such intelli-
gathering activities of the military, the OSS under the gence activities....;
imaginative leadership of "Wild Bill" Donovan quickly "(3) To correlate and evaluate intelligence
gained a reputation for derring-do such as parachuting relating to the national security, and provide for the
spies behind enemy lines. Critics sometimes claim that if appropriate dissemination of such intelligence within
the OSS had supplied one-third the intelligence that it the government.... Provided that the agency shall
did anecdotes, the war would have been over sooner.'" have no police, subpoena, law-enforcement powers, or
Soon after the war, President Truman abolished the internal security functions....;
OSS. But the need for intelligence continued, and in "(4) To perform, for the benefit of the existing
January 1946 Truman issued an executive order estab- intelligence agencies, such additional services of
lishing a successor to the OSS and a precursor to the common concern as the National Security Council
CIA-the Central Intelligence Agency. The new body determines can be more efficiently accomplished
operated under an executive council called the National centrally;
Intelligence Authority, consisting of the secretaries of "(5) To perform such other functions and duties
state, war, navy and the President's personal military related to intelligence affecting the national security
adviser. At first it, was primarily a coordinating group as the National Security Council may from time to
which prepared daily intelligence summaries for Truman, time direct."
but it also was authorized to perform special intelligence The 1949 Central Intelligence Act firmly buttoned
services under the direction of the executive council or up the CIA's cloak of secrecy by exempting it from
the President, The first director of Central Intelligence - numerous federal laws which governed other a.-
en-was Rear Adm. Sidney W. Souers, succeeded in five Gies. Congress allowed the agency to disregard laws
months by Air Force Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, who gave that required "disclosure of the organization, func-
way in May 1947 to Rear Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter. tions, names, official titles, salaries or numbers of
During lengthy postwar debate in Congress on military personnel employed by the agency." It gave the direc-
reorganization, the form of congressional legislation on tor power to spend money "without regard to the
intelligence took shape. The National Security Act of provisions of law and regulations relating to the ex-
1947, which placed the armed services under a new De- penditure of government funds."
part.ment of Defense, also created both the Central In-
telligence Agency and the National Security Council 15 from a shadowy business into a respectable professional
(Box, this page) career, attracting young and liberal intellectuals from all
But it is clear from the hearings on the 1947 act that over the nation to join the agency. Personally, Dulles
no one knew exactly what the nature of the new beasts was a colorful figure who received wide coverage in the
would be. Rep. Fred E. Busbey (R Ill.) once asked Navy press despite the CIA's intended secrecy and gained an
Secretary James V. Forrestal: "I wonder if there is any almost legendary reputation as America's "master spy."
foundation for the rumors that have come to me to the "There is something about intelligence that seems to get
effect that through this Central Intelligence Agency they into the blood," he once remarked.17
are contemplating operational activities." 16 It was a During the 1950s, the CIA expanded its activities in
crucial question, but the congressman received a vague the realm of covert political operations. It did this not
reply. David Wise and Thomas B. Ross stated in their under the 1947 or 1949 acts, but through a. number of
revealing examination of the CIA, The Invisible Govern- super-secret National Security Council intelligence direc-
ment (1964): "It is doubtful that many of the lawmakers tives which Ransom calls "the real operating constitution"
who voted for the 1947 act could have envisioned the of the CIA and which "only a few high government officials
scale on which the CIA would engage in `operational have ever seen."16 These filled the "loopholes" in the
activities all over the world." congressional legislation and created what many now call
The growth of the CIA in size and scope parallels the the CIA's "secret charter." Today, through its Director-
development of the Cold War, and the agency's early ate of Operations, until this year called the Directorate
leaders were military men. Admiral Hillenkoetter re- of Plans, the CIA collects intelligence information and
mained as director until 1950, when he was replaced by coordinates or engages in extensive secret operations
Army Gen. Walter Bedell Smith. The agency became around the world. The other half of the agency, called the
more aggressive internationally under Smith, but the man Directorate of intelligence, researches and analyzes the
who was to put his stamp on the CIA was a civilian, Allen information which is gathered and makes reports to the
W. Dulles, who was named director by President Eisen- President and the National Security Council. The agency
bower in 1953. The younger brother of Secretary of State is believed to have about 18,000 employees and an an-
John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles changed intelligence nual budget of between $750 million and S1 billion.
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nor does it have the largest budget. Those honors fall to
the Defense Department, which oversees the multiple in-
telligence functions of the Defense Intelligence services,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Agency.
The DIA was set up in 1961 by Defense Secretary Robert
S. McNamara to coordinate and eliminate duplication in
the separate intelligence units of the three armed ser-
vices. Although its staff has grown to more than 5,000 and
its budget to nearly $130 million, the DIA still has little
independent power and the other three units continue to
thrive. In addition, the DIA quietly feuds with the CIA
over their roles. 19
Army intelligence, commonly called G-2, expanded
in size during World War Il and in prestige after the Kore-
an War. With a staff of some 38,500 and a budget of $775
million, Army intelligence has been severely criticized in
recent years for involvement in domestic surveillance ac-
tivities. In January 1970, an article in The Washington
Monthly by former Capt. Christopher H. Pyle about the
Army's domestic intelligence operations created a sensa-
tion in Congress and led to hearings by Sen. Sam J. Er-
vin Jr. (D N.C.) as chairman of the Constitutional Rights
Subcommittee. The hearings revealed that the Army had
some 300 offices and 1,200 agents around the country col-
lecting information on civilian "radicals," "militants,"
students, politicians and other citizens. The expanded
military operations, begun during the Johnson administra-
tion, was reported to have compiled vast microfilm files
and computerized dossiers on some 25 million individuals.
The Office of Naval Intelligence, with 10,000 person-
nel and a $775 million budget, is responsible for gathering
information on foreign navies, submarine forces and beach,
port and harbor characteristics. It claims to have elimin-
ated spy ships such as the Pueblo, captured by North
Korea in 1968, and the Liberty, attacked and badly
damaged in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The largest mili-
tary intelligence unit is the Air Force's A-2, which runs
the "spy-in-the-sky" satellite program. It has become
perhaps the most important element of the U.S. intel-
ligence effort, employing 60,000 persons and a $2.8 billion
budget, spent mostly on reconnaissance equipment. Fleets
of planes retrieve in giant nets the satellite data which is
dropped from orbit.
National Security Agency. Among the l Tense De-
partment's intelligence agencies, the ultra-secret National
Security Agency (NSA) is almost in a class by irtself. It is
believed to be primarily responsible for "communications
intelligence"-making and breaking codes, conducting
electronic surveillance, and applying computer technology
to the intelligence field. Created in 1952 by a classified
presidential directive, the NSA has about 25,000 employees
and its budget is estimated at some $1-billion.20 "NSA's
outposts listen to Soviet pilots flying MIGs over the Soviet
Union and to Bulgarian army telex traffic-just to cite
two examples," a reporter recently wrote. 21 NSA equip-
ment was on the U-2 spy plane shot -down over Russia in
1960. The agency has a huge, $40-million complex of
buildings at Fort Meade, Md., and several branches over-
seas.
Sen. Milton R. Young (R N.D.), a member of the
special Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Intelli-
gence Operations, has commented: ."As far as foreign
policy is concerned, I think the National Security Agency
and the intelligence that it develops has far more to do
with foreign policy than does the intelligence developed
CIA Covert Activities
Richard G. Fecteau, were captured when their plane
was shot down in Communist China as they attempt-
ed to drop supplies to teams of Chinese agents which
they had helped organize and train. Both have now
been released, Downey in March 1973 after more
than 20 years in Chinese prisons.
1953. The CIA organized and directed a coup
which overthrew the government of Premier Mo-
hammed Mossadegh in Iran and thus kept Shah Mo-
hammed Reza Pahlevi on the throne.
1954. The agency helped overthrow the Com-
munist-dominated government of Guatemala's Presi-
dent Jacobo Arbenz.
1958. A CIA team attempted, unsuccessful-
ly, to bring down the government of President Sukar-
no of Indonesia by providing insurgents with ' B-26
bombers and CIA pilots.
1960. A U-2 spy plane flown by CIA pilot Fran-
cis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union
by a Russian missile. President Eisenhower took
responsibility for the U-2 spy program and a Paris
summit meeting with Khrushchev collapsed.
19,61. The CIA-directed invasion of Cuba, by a
small army of exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro was
overwhelmingly repulsed at the Bay of Pigs. It was the
Kennedy administration's worst disaster.
1962. CIA began organization, training and
support of secret army in Laos to resist the Com-
munist Pathet Lao. The army grew to some 30,000
men and cost $300 million annually.
1963. The agency advised and worked closely
with a group of South' Vietnamese generals who
staged a coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem in
which Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were
killed.
1964. CIA spent enormous sums to help elect
Eduardo Frei as president of Chile over Marxist Sal-
vador Allende. Allende was elected in 1970 despite
U.S. efforts to prevent it.
1957. CIA was revealed as having subsidized
the National Student Association and having mani-
pulated the group's leadership, as well as channeling
funds through several foundation conduits to other
business, labor, church, university and cultural organ-
izations.
1970. The agency was suspected of involvement
in the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cam-
bodia.
1971. Staff report of Sen. Stuart Symington
(D Mo.) outlined deep CIA involvement in secret war
in Laos.
1973. CIA acknowledged that it trained U.S.
policemen from about a dozen different police forces
in the handling of explosives, the. detection of wire-
taps and the organization of intelligence files.
OTHER INTELLIGENCE SERViCES
Military Branches. Despite its fame, the CIA is
neither the biggest of the nation's intelligence services
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by the CIA." Ransom believes NSA's potential role is more Bureau of Investigation. The bureaus reputation sank
h t 15 ears under a succession
t
l
ominous:
The National Security is a symbol of the pervasiveness
of technology. Because it chiefly involves machinery, it has
managed to stay on politically neutral ground.... But NSA is
a huge, secret apparatus that bears watching, for it could
become `Big Brother's' instrument for eavesdropping on an
entire population if `1984' were ever to come in the Orwellian
sense.
Other Major Groups. Other members of the Ameri-
can intelligence community include:
Atomic Energy Commission keeps watch on atomic
energy development and nuclear weapons capability of
other nations.
State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Re-
search, relatively small (335 employees, $8 million bud-
get), concentrates on gathering and analyzing informa-
tion relevant to U.S. foreign policy.
Treasury Department has about 150 persons involved
in intelligence, mostly obtaining economic and narcotics
information.
Bureau of Customs, with 800 agents, investigates
all smuggling cases except those dealing with narcotics.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has some
1,600 agents to investigate illegal traffic in spirits, ciga-
rettes, firearms and explosives.
The new Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),
as of July 1, 1973, was placed in charge of all federal
narcotics investigations. It will-have 2,000 agents..anda
$110 million budget during its first year.
Secret Service investigates counterfeiters and guards
the President and other top federal officials. It was ac-
cused during the 1972 campaign of providing the Nixon
administration with information on the Democratic nom-
inee, Sen. George. McGovern. The agency denied the
charge.
Internal Revenue Service has some 2,300 agents in its
intelligence division and a $76 million budget. The IRS
was pressured by top White House staff members to
provide politically valuable tax information to the Nixon
administration but, according to memos published June
28, 1973, by The New York Times, the agency resisted
these efforts.
U.S. Postal Service has about 1,750 inspectors looking
into postal-law violations on a $9 million budget.
Still other agencies with intelligence functions: the
Agency for International Development, the U.S. Informa-
tion Agency, the Federal Communications Commission,
and the departments of Commerce, Interior, Agriculture
and Justice.
Any consideration of the intelligence community must
necessarily include the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Primarily responsible for domestic counterespionage, the
FBI also has jurisdiction over a wide range of crimes in-
cluding assassination, bank robbery, kidnapping and in-
terstate auto theft, and is the closest U.S. equivalent to
a national police force. The FBI had its origins in Con-
gress's establishment of the Justice Department in 1871.
Justice was soon found to have insufficient investiga-
tive resources. So Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte
in 1908 set up a small group of special investigators in a
e nea y
y m
steadi
of corrupt and political attorneys general.
With the appointment of J. Edgar Hoover as director
in 1.924 the bureau steadily withdrew from political or
illegal activities. According to Don Whitehead in The
FBI Story (1956), Hoover agreed to the job on the condi-
tion that the bureau "must be divorced from politics and
not be a catch-all for political hacks.... Second, promo-
tions will be made on proved ability and the bureau will
be responsible only to the Attorney General." Attorney
General Harlan Fiske Stone, who named Hoover to the
post, said in 1933 that his appointee had "refused to
yield to any kind of political pressure; he appointed to
the bureau men of intelligence and education.... He
withdrew it wholly from extra-legal activities and made
it an efficient organization for investigation of criminal
offenses against the United States." 23
The bureau during the 1930s won its reputation for
capturing such "desperadoes" as John Dillinger, "Pretty
Boy" Floyd, "Baby Face" Nelson and "Ma" and Fred
Barker. In 1935 it was renamed the Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation and in 1936 was given jurisdiction over es-
pionage and sabotage. As the years passed and the gang-
ster threat faded, the FBI turned to such matters as
spying and subversion, civil-rights strife, organized crime
and political terrorism. Its record during World War II
is almost universally regarded as outstanding; with the
onset of the Cold War the bureau turned its attention to
Communist subversion. The FBI infiltrated the Commu-
nist Party U.S.A. so thoroughly that people joked that
the party had more FBI informers than bonafide mem-
bers, but Hoover soon began to stir criticism as being
preoccupied with Communists and insensitive to civil
rights in the South. Complaints mounted during the 1960s
as many argued that Hoover had grown autocratic and
vindictive and was long overdue for retirement.
The late Hale Boggs (D La.), then House majority
leader, charged in April 1971 that the FBI had tapped his
home phone. The allegation was never proved. It was
revealed at about the same time that the bureau had
monitored conversations of Rep. John Dowdy (D Texas),
who was convicted of accepting bribes, and had spied on
1970 Earth Day rallies and on radical leaders. In March
1971, the theft and later publication of documents from
the' FBI's office in Media, Pa., revealed that the bureau's
surveillance activities were much more extensive than
had previously been imagined.
But the criticism had a certain irony. In 1963 the FBI
had been accused of negligence because it had not notified
the Secret Service of Lee Harvey Oswald's presence in
Dallas at the time of President Kennedy's fatal visit.
Hoover retorted that close surveillance of everyone with
a background like Oswald's would amount to "totalita-
rian security." Then when the FBI expanded its surveil-
lance of political dissidents, as widely demanded in 1963,
the bureau was impugned on the very ground that
Hoover had warned against.
Although many federal officials have maintained that
domestic surveillance of civilians has ceased, the Water-
gate revelations have brought new questions to bear on
that contention. Many now argue that all domestic sur-
veillance activities should be examined in a public forum,
and warn that the vast files compiled in the past by the
FBI might be subject to misuse by government officials in
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the future.2' "Perhaps the best clue of all," Thomas
Powers wrote in The Atlantic in October 1972, "is the
35,000 square feet devoted to domestic intelligence files
in the FBI's massive new Washington headquarters. All
other crimes will get only 23,000 square feet..."
Prospect of New Controls
The Watergate revelations about the misuse of the
intelligence agencies for partisan political purposes have
given rise to new demands for increased controls. Similar
demands have arisen at various intervals over the past
dozen years, usually following some widely publicized
blunder by one of the agencies. But control or reform ef-
forts have been successfully resisted by the intelligence
establishment. Not since 1955 when the Hoover Com-
mission Task Force on Intelligence Activities' was set up,
has there been a comprehensive inquiry into the total in-
telligence system. Some observers believe such a survey
should be made at least every five years. The only de-
tailed official studies of the intelligence community in
the past 15 years were directed by leaders of the major
agencies.
Since it is the most controversial of the intelligence,
agencies, the CIA has been the focus of most control ef-
forts. Any thorough reforms, however, would no doubt
have to encompass all of the intelligence community. The
interplay-and even competition-between the various
branches is what gives the community its strength, many
believe. Some of the most dramatic. demands for reform
have come from former CIA agents. Victor L. Marchetti,
a CIA employee from 1955 to 1969, resigned in objection
to what he called militarization, politicization, duplica-
tion and waste in the intelligence establishment and to
increasing CIA involvement in domestic affairs. Mar-
chetti. said that as the Cold. War fades, "there'll be a
great temptation for these people (CIA leaders) to sug-
gest (domestic) operations and for a President to approve
them or, to kind of look the other way." "You have the
danger of intelligence turning against the nation itself,
going against `the enemy within,' " he told a reporter
in 197 1. 26
Marchetti attempted. to publish a book about the
CIA, but the agency obtained a court injunction prohibit-
ing its publication on the ground it would violate the
security contract which Marchetti signed when he was
first employed. The Supreme Court in December 1972
let the injunction stand after an appeal on Marchetti's
behalf. Nevertheless he has written numerous articles
about his former employer: "It's not a matter of reform-
ing the CIA. The need is to reform those who govern us,
to convince them that they must act more openly and
honestly, both with the people whom they represent
and with the other nations of the world.... The CIA is only
an agency; but secrecy, like power, tends to corrupt."27
One notable effort to reform the CIA came after
the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. President
Kennedy told a high official in his administration that
he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and
scatter it to the wind" after the Cuban debacle. He
ordered a thorough investigation of the agency, replaced
Allen Dulles with John A. McCone and directed that am-
bassadors once again assert their supremacy over CIA
personnel in foreign countries. But after the rigorous
inquiry was completed, JFK dropped his plan to break
up the CIA or limit it to intelligence gathering and shift
clandestine operations to the Defense Department. The
only significant outcome of the study was an order that
sizable military operations be left to the Pentagon.
Ransom makes several suggestions for reform in his
study of the intelligence establishment. He believes the
CIA's ' covert operations branch should be separated from
its research and analysis section. This combination "has
made it patently impossible to maintain secrecy for that
which ought to be secret; has made it difficult to re-
cruit high-quality personnel for research and analysis;
and has prompted serious duplication had conflict in
some overseas operations," Ransom wrote. But he also
stated: "Beyond a certain point the secret agent, whether
spy, secret propagandist, or guerrilla warrior cannot be
controlled. To set loose expensive networks of secret
agents is to open a Pandora's box of potential blunders,
misfortunes, and uncontrollable events."
NEW QUESTIONING OF CIA
President Nixon intended to make major changes
at the CIA when he installed James R. Schlesinger as
director in February 1973, succeeding Helms. Schlesinger,
former Atomic Energy- Commission chairman, had written
a lengthy intelligence reorganization plan when he was in
the Office of Management and Budget in 1971. Late that
year, Nixon ordered the various agencies to reduce dup-
lication and make more economical use of their resources,
but interagency rivalry impeded improvement. Schles-
inger was under orders to reduce personnel-perhaps by
as much as 10 per cent-eliminate obsolete functions and
shake up high-level management to increase efficiency.
But Schlesinger was in office only a few months before he
was named Secretary of Defense. William E. Colby, a
career CIA official, was chosen to succeed him.
Testifying on his nomination July 2 before the Senate
Armed Services Committee, Colby said he would insist
that the CIA refrain from domestic intelligence activities
and limit its clandestine political operations abroad. He
also said he would resign rather than do anything illegal.
The main criticism of Colby has resulted from his super-
vision in Vietnam of the controversial Operation Phoenix,
which was the darker side of the "pacification" pro-
gram which he also headed between 1968 and 1971.
Phoenix was designed to neutralize the Viet Cong "in-
frastructure" through captures, defections and
killings. According to figures which Colby gave a House
subcommittee in 1971, Phoenix claimed the lives of
20,537 Vietnamese.
After Colby's testimony on July 2 the committee's
acting chairman, Sen. Stuart Symington (D Mo.), the
only member present,. was enthusiastic in his support of
the nominee. Since then difficulties have arisen. Com-
plaints against Colby have been made by at least two
former CIA agents, Paul Sakwa and Samuel C. Adams, and
the hearing was reopened July 20 to hear still other ob-
jections. In a related development, Sen. John C. Stennis
(D Miss.), the committee chairman, said the CIA's charter
should be reviewed by Congress in view of the agency's
domestic activities and its role in Laos.
PAST OVERSIGHT EFFORTS
Over the years, more than 200 bills and resolutions
aimed at making the CIA more accountable to the legis-
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lative branch have been introduced in Congress, but
none has been approved and only two have emerged from
committee. One frequently suggested control technique
is creation of a joint congressional oversight committee
similar to the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, but op-
ponents of this proposal say that a new committee would
provide little additional control and might actually re-
strict the agency's effectiveness or shield it from those who
desired to learn more about its operations. A team of
New York Times reporters, in an extensive survey of the
intelligence community in 1966, observed that while the
agency "operates under strict forms of control," the real
question was whether there was always "the substance of
control," The "overwhelming consensus" of those inter-
viewed was that Congress should not attempt to "control"
the agency through the establishment of a new com-
mittee, 28
As for the FBI, numerous officials have expressed a de-
sire to impose greater congressional control over this
agency. One of the most recent to speak out was William
D. Ruckelshaus, acting FBI director for two months prior
to the confirmation of Clarence Al. Kelly as permanent
director. At an Ohio State University commencement
speech on June 8, 1973, Ruckelshaus said that for too long
the annual appropriations hearings on. FBI budgets have
merely rubber-stamped the agency's plans.
Most of those who favor tighter controls over the intel-
ligence community acknowledge a national need for in-
formation about real or potential enemies abroad. "Knowl-
edge and information are the most powerful weapons a
government possesses in determining its foreign policy,"
Tad Szulc wrote in the Washingtonian magazine. "No
modern state, particularly one as -important as the
United States, can even attempt to conduct foreign
policy without the product of intelligence."
But many believe that changing international condi-
tions have decreased the need for certain types of in-
telligence information and operations while boosting the
need for other data, particularly political and economic,
rather than military. James Fallows of The Washington
Monthly wrote recently: "Just because economic changes
'
are not secret, there is
a tendency not to take them as
seriously as missiles or subversive movements. But they
are the most difficult challenge the CIA's analysts will
face in the coming years."
SECRECY VS. DEMOCRATIC VALUES
The central problem is reconciling the conduct of
intelligence operations with values of a free democratic
society.-In_th-e-ory at least, government secrecy is basically
aniltlu tical _to.. denlpcracy._ slid is rriorc~ characteristic of
4.otalitali nism. So any government agency which operates
inecrec employs totalit rian tactics to achieve its,.go ls.
Thus, such organizations inevitably violate the ethics of a
constitutional democracy and may undermine due process
of law which safeguards democratic rights and liberties.
One who has expressed that argument is Sen. J.
William Fulbright (D Ark.). He contends that "fighting
fire with fire" is both bad morals and bad policy: "It
tends to undermine the very purpose for which it was
intelligence - 8
undertaken. It has not yet, thank God, made us a police
state, but it has brought us closer to it and, what is even
more alarming, to greater public acceptance of certain
practices associated with a police state-secret policy
making, unchecked executive power, subversion of foreign
governments, bugging and spying and wiretapping against
our own people-than we have ever been in history."?3U
In the half-dozen years since those words were written,
America has come even closer to this image of a police
state. It remains to be seen what effect the Watergate
affair will have on continued public acceptance of such
tactics by the intelligence community, and what changes
the outcome will make in the nation's history.
1 The higher estimates were made by Sen. William Proxmire (D Wis.): the lower
figaren have appeared recently in The Ncna York Times.
2 Quoted by John M. Crewdsou in The Neu York Times, June 7, 1973.
3 For complete texts of memos, see Congressional Quarterly libekly Report, ,tune 9,
1973, p. 1416.
4 Formally, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. The
committee opened hearings May 17, 1973.
5 In June 1971, first 7'he Now York Times and then several other newspapers pulls it.
ed excerpts of a 7,000-page Hi.stun' of the United States I1ren:.ion-Making Process on
Vietnam Policy. These _,o-called Pentagon Papers were conunisvioned in 19117 by Robert
S. McNamara when lie was Secretary of Defense. The study was classified as "lop
secret-sensitive" and consisted of a critique of U.S. Indochina policy up till 19f9, plus
teats of relevant documents.
6 On May 11, 1973, Judge W. Matthew Byrne of U.S. Dial rict Court in Los Anlgeles
dismissed charges of espionage, theft and conspiracy against the two and declared a
mistrial because of government misconduct. Byrne released a Justice Department
memorandum saying that Liddy and Hunt broke into the office to steal medical
records about Ellsberg.
7 Five men were arrested that night in the act of breokiog into Democratic National
Headquarters in the Watergate office-aportment buildings in Washington, D.C. Thee
were l3ernard L. Barker, James I. McCord Jr., Virgilio Gtmzalez, Eugenio R. Martinez
and Frank A. Sturgis. Liddy and Hunt. were later implicated in the crime. All seven
pleaded guilty or were found guilty at a federal district court trial presided over by
Judge John J. Sirica.
8Itt connection with a civil suit filed by the Democratic National Committee alter the
Watergate break-in.
9 Quoted by Laurence Stem, The A'a hington Post, June 17, 1973.
10 Quoted by Sanche de Gramont in The Secret War (191/2), p. 64.
11 The Intelligence Establishment (1970), p. 49. Ransom's comprehensive volume is
an updated version of an earlier book, Central Intcilipence and National Serurits
(1958).
12 Department of the Army, American Military Ifisto p 1607-1953 (1956). p. 491.
13 When Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox got word of the attack. lie exclaimed:
"My God, this can't be true. This must mean the Philippines."
14 The OSS has no published, official history, Among the more reliable hooks about
its activities are Corey Ford's Donovan of OSS (1970) and Robert H. Alrom'r. No
Be..,, No Bonds (1965).
15 See Congressional Quarterly's Congress and the Nation, Vol. 169,65). pp. 247.249.
16 House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, hearings on the
National Security Act of 1947.
17 For Dulles' views on his career, see his book The Craft of /ntcllidcnre (19631.
18 Ransom, op. cit., p. 89.
19 One of the best recent books on the intelligence community reveals much about
DIA activities: Patrick J. McGorvey's CIA: The Myth and the Madness (1972).
20 Little documented information exists on the NSA, but one useful book is David
Kahn's The Code Breakers (1967). In 1960, two NSA employees, Bemon F. Michell
and William H. Martin, defected to Russia and released a detailed statement on the
organization and operations of the agency.
21 Ted Szulc, "The Great American Foreign Policy Machin c," )Yaohingtonian, June
1973, p. 114.
22 Ransom, op. cit., p. 133.
23 Quoted by Alpheus T. Mason, Harlan Fi.skr Stone: Pillar of the Lacy ( I9',6t. p 152.
24 See "Future of the FBI," Editorial Research Reports 1971, Vol. 1. pp 473-4!,9
25 Headed by Gen. Mark W. Clark, the commission conducted an extensive surrey
and produced two reports. One, concerning organizational aspects, was made public.
the other, dealing with operations, was classified top secret.
26 Edward K. DeLoug of United i'rrsa International, as quoted in U.S Sets' d
World Report, Oct. 11, 1971, p. 78.
27 The Nation, April 3, 1972, p. 433.
28 The New York Times, April 28, 19136. The reporting learn included Tom Wicker,
Max Frankel, John Finney and E. W. Kenworthy.
29 James Follows, "Putting the Wisdom Back Into Intelligence," The lt'aa.hincran
Afonthly, June 1973, p. 17.
30 "We Must Not Fight Fire With Fire," The Now York Ticnes Magazine, April 2:t,
1967, p. 27,
ate'
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