MEMORANDUM TO JACK MARSH FROM PHIL BUCHEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78M02660R000800120046-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 38
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 29, 2005
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: January 2, 1976
• Content Type: MF

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January 2, 1976
MEMORANDUM FOR: JACK MARSH
FROM: PHIL BUCHEN(.
Attached is a copy of an article entitled "The CIA and
'American Foreign Policy" by Ernest W. Lefever, which
appeared in a recent issue of the "Lugano Review. "
'L C 76.. o ooV
It occurs to me that this article deserves additional circulation
and that we might want to see that copies are distributed to
people in the Congress and to appropriate media people. It
also occurs to me that Ernest Lefever may be a useful addition
to the group we have used as consultants.
cc: Max Friedersdorf
Director William Colby b
Ambassador George Bush
Mike Duval
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International Advisory Editorial. Board:
GANO REVIEW
\1'.A.C. Adie, Senior Research Fellow'.in International Relations, Research School of Pacific
Studies, The Australian National .Un'ibersi y, Daniel Bell, Professor of Sociology, Harvard;
Max Beloff, Principal, UniversiyCollege at Buckingham; ZbigniewBrzezinski, Director,
Research Institute on Communist AffairColumbia;Joseph Coates, Science Consultant, Office
oJ' Technology Assessment, Washington, D. C.; Maurice Cranston, Professor of Political Science,
University of London; Brian Crozier, .'Director, Institute for the Study of Conflict, London,
John Holloway, Professor of :Modern English, Cambridge; Leonard Schapiro, Professor
of Political Science, London School of Economics; Sir Robert Thompson, KBE, Consultant.
to Governments; William Walsh,. Professor of Commonwealth Literature and Chairman of the
THE'CIA AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
by DR ERNEST W. LEFEVER
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
N THE WESTERN HEMISPHER
by JOHN J.TIERNEY, JR.
PHOENIX.
Myths and Irrelevances of the Vietnam War
by SIR ROBERT THOMPSON
by LEO CHERNE
An Appeal on Behalf of the Cambodian People
INTO A DARK BOTTOMLESS HOLE
SOLZHENITSYN'S SPEECH TO THE AFL-CIO
MIMEMMEM
School of English, University of Leeds.
S 1o.ooisFr.25.- Editor: James (Paddy) Fitzsimmons 1975/4
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THE CIA AND AMERICA
FOREIGN POLICY
B Y ERNES T W LEFE VER*
INTELLIGENCE, DEMOCRACY, AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
April 18, 1948, was a fateful clay for the Italian people and the emerging At-
lantic alliance. On that day the first postwar election in Italy was held. The vig-
orous Communist Party in Italy, with substantial support from the Soviet Union,
was making a strong bid for power against the Christian Democrats and allied
parties. Earlier that year Czechoslovakia had been seized by Moscow. President
Harry Truman was determined that Italy should not fall and that the United
States should "make full use of its political, economic, and if necessary, military
power" to prevent a "Communist take-over." t Consequently, U. S. civilian
agencies actively supported the Christian Democrats in the campaign, mainly by
providing financial support. The democratic forces won. an absolute majority
and the Communist coalition received only 30.7 per cent of the vote.
The 1948 election did not end Soviet efforts to gain political control of Italy. In
fact, the efforts were intensified. With Soviet support, the Italian Communists in-
filtrated labor unions, the universities, and other major centers of influence. The
U. S. government continued to provide quiet assistance to the Christian Demo-
crats, occasionally using novel means.
In late` 1951, for example, an enterprising U.S. embassy official in Rome
launched a small operation to expose Soviet duplicity among Italian Communist
* Dr. Lefever, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at The Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C., is
author of Ethics and World Politics: Four Perspectives (John Hopkins 1972) and TV and .National Defense:
An .lnalysis of CBS Aezcu, 1972-1973 (Institute for American Strategy Press 197r1). His paper on the CIA
is excerpted from a longer study which will appear in book form and was not prepared for Brookings.
.,New York Times, February 12, 1975.
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 Party nppixredlt??~Rdl~a~t~Ob~d~llih114P12T~M9a~~1 ~OPB~
Lasting Peace"), skillfully designed to look like a typical Communist handout.
Its sub-title was : "25 Years of Soviet Efforts Toward Lasting Peace," and its red
cover carried a picture of Picasso's dove of peace.
The leaflet, which bore no authorship, carried a long list of Moscow's interna-
tional pledges since 1925, noting that the Soviets had "violated or denounced i o
non-aggression or neutrality pacts in 16 years" and had "violated 14 military al-
liances in 13 years. When the Soviet Union talks about peace, remember these
facts!"2
In addition to distributing a million of these leaflets through regular trade un-
ion channels, the U. S. official had a bulk shipment sent to a major Communist
Party mailing room in northern Italy, where the well-disciplined faithful auto-
matically sent out twenty thousand more copies to Party members before they
realized they had aided "the enemies of peace." The imaginative officer responsi-
ble for this operation was not the CIA station chief, but the chief of the U. S. In-
formation Service in Rome.
This incident which occurred almost 25 years ago can serve as an introduction
to the current debate on the role of the CIA and the value and morality of covert
activities abroad. As an official U. S. operation involving secrecy and an element
of deceit and designed to influence the internal affairs ofa friendly state, the leaf-
let episode is similar to covert efforts in other countries since then, including U. S.
financial support recently provided through the CIA to the Christian Demo-
cratic party in Chile.
Some Americans who supported U. S. covert activities in Italy in the 1950s
and similar efforts in many countries in the i 96os under the Kennedy Adminis-
tration, have opposed identical U. S. activities in Chile in i 97o and 1972. What
they once praised, they now condemn. What has happened during the past
quarter of a century? Have these critics of covert CIA operations been converted
to a higher morality that condemns the activities because they are secret, because
they are ineffective, or because their objectives are wrong?
In 1948 the vast majority of Americans and their leaders in the government,
the university, and the communications media, believed that Soviet foreign pol-
icy was expansionist and that it, including its subversive support of local Com-
munist parties, was a serious threat to Western Europe and ultimately to the se-
curity and freedom of the United States. In spite of growing Soviet military
might and continued subversive efforts in the Third World, this earlier assess-
ment of danger has been eroded by a conviction in some quarters that the Soviet
2 Edward W. Barrett, Truth is Our Weapon, New York, 1953, pp. 152 -( .
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 thn@ppi vg F nR* ?tZQQ@l7flIi :W[4r g7a$ W6, 99?Pq)~ a46o- i the
threshold of or have already entered an era of peaceful competition.
There are those, in short, who believe that the Cold War has ended. Some of
these people hold that the U. S. Government created the Cold War in the first
place by sensing a danger from the Soviet Union which did not exist. Other
Americans continue to regard the foreign and military policies of Moscow and
Peking as a'serious threat to the United States and its allies as well as to non-
aligned countries in the Third World.
Intelligence In A Free Society
One's perception of external danger is a chief point of reference for judging the
adequacy or inadequacy of U. S. foreign policy and the instruments used to
support it. Such perceptions affect one's view toward the intelligence gathering
operations and covert political activities of the CIA. Consequently, the present
essay attempts to examine the particular problems raised in the current debate
over the CIA within the larger context of America's foreign policy. Five inter-
related issues are discussed:
i. What are the principal threats to the security and independence of the
United States and its allies? What are the major external responsibilities of the
United States as a nuclear superpower dedicated to democracy at home and
peaceful change abroad? What are the chief U. S. interests and objectives in the
Third World?
2. As one instrument of U. S. foreign policy, what is the mandate of the CIA?
What is the CIA's relation to military, diplomatic, economic, and information
instruments? What kind of clandestine and covert activities has the CIA engaged
in?
3. Have CIA covert political operations helped or hindered the achievement
of legitimate U. S. foreign policy objectives?
4. Can covert activities carried out in another sovereign state, however suc-
cessful in advancing U. S. objectives, be morally justified? Is there a different
moral code for peacetime than for wartime? Is the moral distinction between
peace and war valid in today's world? Under what circumstances is it appropri-
ate to provide assistance to a government subjected to external subversive pres-
sures?
5. In our free society, how can we reconcile the contradictory demands of se-
crecy essential to an effective foreign policy and the need for the public to be in-
formed? By what means can the CIA be held accountable? Should Congres-
sional oversight procedures be altered? What can be done about the problem of
irresponsible and unauthorized disclosures of secret information by members of
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media which publish sensitive, classified information? What can be done to give
the American people a better understanding of the necessity for foreign intelli-
gence activities and the requirements for secrecy along with a recognition that
these activities can be carried out in confidence without violating American dem-
ocratic values?
America's Security and World Responsibilities
The primary responsibility of the U. S. Government, like that of any other
government, is to defend its territory and institutions from enemies domestic and
foreign. But unlike any other country, the United Staates is a nuclear super-
power committed to democracy and peaceful change. In this unique situation,
we have unique responsibilities commensurate with our power, wealth, and
capacity to influence external events.
Most Americans agree on the basic facts about U. S. military power and eco-
nomic strength, but we disagree about our capacity to influence the course of his-
tory and about the nature of our external responsibilities. In recent years our mil-
itary power has declined in relation to that of the Soviet Union, though we still
retain clear economic superiority. More important, there has been an erosion of
confidence in'th.e fundamental justice of our foreign policy and a weakening of
our resolve to keep our commitments, demonstrated dramatically by our failure
in Vietnam. Our disagreements over external objectives and obligations reflect
the cleavage that has broken the great American foreign policy consensus that
prevailed from 1945 to the mid- i 96os.
The burden and ambiguities of the Vietnam War contributed greatly to the
shattering of this consensus among intellectuals, policy makers, and other Ameri-
cans. Since the mid- i 96os a growing number of revisionist writers on postwar
U. S.. foreign policy have asserted that the United States, not the Soviet Union,
has been the chief cause of the protracted conflict we call the Cold War, or that
Washington, not Moscow or Peking, is the chief external obstacle to constructive
development in the Third World. 3 These revisionists often define development as
"revolutionary" change in the direction of authoritarian socialism.
The present writer finds these revisionist interpretations of U. S. postwar pol-
icy unconvincing. There have been and are serious errors in U. S. foreign policy
stemming largely from underestimating the tenacity of our enemies and the per-
William Appleman Williams, D. F. Fleming, Gar Alperovitz, Diane Clemens, and Gabriel Kolko are
well-known "Cold War revisionists." Their views and scholarship have been criticized by Robert Jaynes
Maddox, The ,A/ew Left and the Origins of the Cold War, Princeton, 1973; and John Lewis Gaddis. The United
States and the Origins of the Cold War, New York, 1972.
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 sistence of raddF~on nR et c ruru vVoxld and d irom7o~M02 60~R g tn~ c200 a aci 8 of
other societies for democratic government and our capacity to control or influ-
ence external events.4 Our errors, as Reinhold Niebuhr has said, are rooted not
so much in arrogance as in innocence, although there has been and still remains a
crusading strain in the American character. 5 The series of recent failures in U. S.
policy leaves few believers in what Denis Brogan once called "the illusion of
American omnipotence."
Most of the states in the World today are economically underdeveloped, ethni-
cally divided, and politically weak. The majority of the regimes in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America are authoritarian and socialist-oriented. Their leaders are at-
tracted by Communist rhetoric and envious ofAmerican economic productivity.
Their prevailing ideology, as Daniel P. Moynihan' has pointed out, is a kind of
vague state socialism which emphasizes economic distribution rather than pro-
duction and severely limits political competition and personal freedom.6 They
are politically ambiguous and confused - an attitude often expressed in emo-
tional anti-American outbursts. In rhetoric at least, Third World leaders fre-
quently attack the alleged sins of the United States (e. g. "repression" in Puerto
Rico) and overlook the real sins of the Soviet Union (e. g., the 1968 invasion of
Czechoslovakia). Though reprehensible, this split-level ethic demonstrates that
our critics expect more from us than they do from the totalitarian governments,
and perhaps from themselves.
Against this backdrop, the United States, as a democratic super-power com-
mitted to humane goals, has two primary foreign policy objectives: to defend our
national security and the values and institutions protected by that security and to
work for a world order in which all states - large and small - can develop and
pursue their legitimate interests without coercive interference from other states.
These twin objectives must be pursued in two major arenas: the arena of big-
power, strategic confrontation and the arena of the Third World.
The multiple responsibilities Washington has undertaken to prevent nuclear
war and to neutralize nuclear blackmail attempts by the Soviet Union may be
called the strategic task. And so far, U. S. policies dedicated to these ends have
been totally successful - there has been no nuclear war and we have not capitu-
lated to or engaged in nuclear blackmail.
Relating our power to the power of the Soviet Union is difficult, but relating
our power to the weakness of Third World states is an even more complex task.
i See Charles Burton Marshall, The Limits of Foreign Policy, Baltimore, 1968.
See especially, Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony ofAmerican Ilislony; New York, 1952.
6 Daniel P. Moynihan, "The United States in Opposition," Coinmenlait, March, 1975, PP.31--44.
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 Our chief obedct or'ged9k9 &of t/4d I '?Rbpg 2~b@IRO OO;12bt11~1"a
conditicrpo?peace that will permit each country to develop its own human and
natural resources in its own way without external coercion. In pursuing this
objective, we are confronted by political chaos, inexperience, and a vaguely so-
cialist and largely irrelevant ideology in the Third World, and determined efforts
by Moscow and Peking to exploit this situation for their own purposes.
In sum, the first objective of U. S. foreign policy is to maintain our national
security and independence. The second objective is to strengthen interstate sta-
bility in both the strategic and Third World arenas. By virtue of our power, not
by virtue of our virtue, we have a responsibility for keeping the peace commen-,
surate with our capacity to do so. We have no mandate to remake other societies
or to meddle in their affairs for the sake of internal reform. Intervention can be
justified only if it is undertaken to strengthen or restore stability, a balance of
forces that will permit peaceful continuity, adaptation, or change.
SOVIET F OREIGJV POLICY AND THE KGB
During and since World War II the foreign policy of the Soviet Union has
been expansionist in territorial, political, and ideological terms. Eastern Europe
was occupied by-the Red Army and incorporated into the Soviet orbit in defiance
of the Potsdam agreements. Only Yugoslavia and Albania have succeeded in
breaking loose. Efforts by Hungary and Czechoslovakia to assert greater inde-
pendence were speedily crushed by Moscow. West Berlin has remained free only
because of American support.
The Soviet Union has actively sought to weaken and destroy NATO by efforts
to subvert or replace the governments of Western Europe. Working through in-
digenous Communist parties and other local groups, Moscow has exercised con-
siderable influence at different times and places. In 1947, Soviet influence was
;great in Greece and Turkey. Currently, it is pronounced in Portugal.
The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China have supported the mil-
itary efforts of North Korea and North Vietnam to take over the southern por-
tions of their respective countries. South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos have be-
come the victims of Communist aggression.
Elsewhere within the Third World, Moscow has supported terrorist activity
and other forms of insurgency and subversion designed to weaken and overthrow
existing regimes. Cuba fell into the Soviet orbit and Chile under Allende- with
massive subversive pressure from Havana and Moscow - almost met the same
fate. Moscow has also made strong bids to become the controlling external influ-
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Afro-Asian countries.
Motivated by their messianic dream and historic drive for power, and conf-
dent in the ultimate triumph of their totalitarian system, the two principal Com-
munist powers engage in diplomatic, economic, propagandist, and subversive be-
havior designed to overthrow moderate governments, to destroy mutually bene-
ficial economic ties between Third World states and the West, and to develop
client states subservient to Moscow or Peking. These policies often exacerbate in-
ternal chaos and compromise or destroy the political and economic instruments
of peaceful and constructive development.
The Power of the KGB
One of the chief instruments for achieving Soviet external objectives has been
the KGB, the powerful and massive successor to the clandestine apparatus cre-
atcd by Lenin to be the "sword and shield" of the Communist Party. As a vehicle
of totalitarian control, the KGB has no peer, past or present. At home, it pene-
trates every nook and cranny of Soviet life to control the words, actions, tastes,
loyalty, and even the thoughts of Soviet citizens. Abroad, the KGB controls and
supplements all other Soviet agencies and attempts to use local Communist par-
ties as instruments of its will. Today the KGB may not deal as ruthlessly with So-
viet citizens as did its predecessors. during the dark days of the Gulag Archipelago
under Stalin, but its wide range of subversive and sometimes brutal activities
abroad have undergone little or no change.
The long tentacles of the KGB reach out in support of all Soviet strategic and
Third World objectives. KGB officers hold key positions in the Foreign Ministry
and all other Soviet agencies overseas. The KGB has been well represented at the
SALT negotiations. I KGB officers accompany all Soviet scientific, cultural, and
trade groups abroad. Members of these missions are required to report all impor-
tant conversations with their foreign counterparts to the KGB control officer in
their respective agencies.
While there are superficial similarties between KGB operations abroad and
those of Western clandestine agencies, there are many significant differences, all
rooted in one fundamental fact - the KGB is the instrument of a totalitarian re-
gime ideologically committed to the neutralization or destruction of selected
Former U.S. SALT negotiator, Paul H. Nitze, estimates that one-third of the Soviet delegation at the
first SALT session in Helsinki was involved in espionage work. The executive secretary of the delegation was
a senior KGB agent who had been expelled from Finland. See: Paul H.Nitze, "The Strategic Balance
Between Hope and Skepticism," Foreign Policy, Winter 1974-75, PP. t-11-44.
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munist system is destined to prevail in the world.
The KGB enjoys a power and autonomy not accorded any other Soviet gov-
ernment agency. It is accountable only to the Politburo. Unlike the CIA, the
KGB is a major policymaker as well as an instrument of policy. It participates
actively in all foreign policy decisions as well as in carrying them out.. Unlike the
CIA, the KGB is never criticized in the Soviet press, but it is authorized to criti-
cize any other government agency or official. Unlike the CIA, the KGB is not
subject to the rule of law, even Soviet law. Hence, it is constrained neither by law
nor by fear of public disclosure. And unlike the CIA, the KGB has a massive do-
mestic role.
The KGB, in short, is a creature of the Communist Party and the Leninist eth-
ic, both of which sanction any means, however inhumane, that yield the desired
results. Unlike Western intelligence agencies, the KGB is not constrained by the
Judaeo-Christian ethic which insists that the means employed by the state, even
in war, be limited by law and humane considerations. The Western ethic cate-
gorically rules out on moral grounds torture, the deliberate killing of noncomba-
tants in war, and certain other means, even if they are used in a just cause. West-
ern governments often violate their own norms, but this does not invalidate either
the norms or the fact that partial observance of the norms results in less cynical
and brutal policies and. behavior.
In Communist doctrine, truth and justice are defined pragmatically and cyni-
cally by the Party, but according to the Western ethic, truth and justice are tran-
scendent norms by which all parties, governments, and individuals must be
judged. It is widely recognized that the KGB is the epitome of Communist cyni-
cism because it "denies every value a civilized society treasures." 2
KGB Activities Abroad
According to John Barron, an authority on the KGB, "Officers of the KGB and
its military subsidiary, the GRU [Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet
General Staff] ordinarily occupy a majority of [Soviet] embassy posts" as much
as 8o percent in some Third World countries. 3 In Washington, the FBI estimates
that over 5o per cent of the 200 or more Soviet representatives, including trade
officials and Tass correspondents, work for the KGB. In addition, the KGB has
placed many of its agents on the U. N. headquarters staff in New York and in the
Soviet embassy in Mexico City for operations against the United States. For sev-
2 Editorial, Washington Post. April 3, 1975?
John Barron, KGB: The Secret Work of Secret Soviet Agents, New York, 1974, p. 17.
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siovsky, a KGB agent, says Mr. Barron. He also says that probably half of the
some 200 Soviet citizens employed by the U. N. Secretariat are KGB agents, at
least one of whom was assigned to the KGB's Executive Action Department
which is responsible for political murders, kidnappings, and sabotage. This de-
partment has employed professional gangsters in Germany, Ireland, Mexico and
perhaps elsewhere to do its dirty work.4
In September 1971, the British Government publicly expelled 105 KGB and
GRU officers, but only after Moscow had "contemptuously ignored" London's
quiet request to desist from a campaign to "suborn politicians, scientists, busi-
nessmen, and civil servants." Between 197o and July 1973, says Mr. Barron, 20
governments expelled a total of 164 Soviet officials because of their illegal, clan-
destine activities.
In earlier years, the Soviet Union supported only those terrorist groups which
KGB agents controlled or thought they could control. Today the KGB trains and
materially supports a larger number of terrorist organizations, including some
operating against black and white regimes in Africa, several in the Middle East
and Latin America, the Quebec Liberation Front, and terrorists in Northern Ire-
land.
Many terrorist leaders have been trained in the Soviet Union, but assistance
to their groups is frequently assigned to the KGB-controlled or influenced clan-
destine services in Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, or Hungary.
At the KGB's behest, the Cubans have trained both Palestinian and Irish terror-
ists. KGB operatives are also active in encouraging, supporting, and organizing
"peace demonstrations," riots, and other disturbances to discredit regimes in
many countries whose character or policies Moscow opposes.
One of the lesser known KGB activities is the "disinformation" program de-
signed to discredit individuals, institutions, and governments by disseminating
forgeries, literary hoaxes, and false information and by committing murder and
other crimes for psychological-political effects. One such effort was the campaign
charging that the United States used germ warfare in Korea. Disinformation ef-
forts can be seen as a supplement to the partially factual, the seriously slanted,
and outright false propaganda against the United States and other targets that
issues almost daily from Tass and Radio Moscow.
If it were not for the KGB and all that it represents, we would be living in a
freer and more peaceful world and the external responsibilities of the United
States would be less complex and demanding. Wishing for a world without the
Ibid., An entire chapter is devoted to the Executive Action Department of the KGB, pp. 306-31.
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 KGB recalls a statement attributed to Tames Madison in The Federal*st
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ublish u~i y ", men were an e s no government woAj be
necessary." To paraphrase, if there were not KGB operations abroad, there
would be little need for CIA operations. It is almost, but not quite that simple.
MANDATE AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CIA
Of the four principal U. S. agencies gathering foreign intelligence, the CIA is
the best known, probably because of its cloak and dagger mystique. Two operate
under the Defense Department - the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which
focuses on the military capabilities and intentions of foreign states and the Na-
tional Security Agency (NSA) which is primarily concerned with breaking and
monitoring the secret codes of other governments. The National Reconnaissance
Organization (NRO), which engages in satellite photography, is a joint CIA-De-
fense Department activity. All four agencies are involved in some secret activi-
ties, although the DIA emphasizes "open" intelligence gathering in accord with
the accepted international practice of the military attaches of all governments
who are assigned to embassies abroad. Satellite= reconnaissance is also open.
Washington and Moscow each know the other is photographing its territory.
A distinction should be made among three words that are used in the intelli-
gence community - secret, clandestine, and covert. Secret is the broad inclusive
word simply referring to activity conducted without the knowledge of others,
such as secret meetings or negotiations. Clandestine refers to secret activity which is
intended to remain secret indefinitely, such as the names of intelligence agents
and other sensitive sources of information. Covert political activity is also secret,
but it has a public manifestation: the result becomes known. For example, if the
CIA provides newsprint for an opposition newspaper in a Latin American coun-
try, the paper will be published although the public will not know the source of
the funds.
Both clandestine collection and covert political activities imply an element of
craft or deception. Covert operations are usually undertaken in an adversary sit-
uation in which the United States is attempting to assist one side. Deception is
regarded as a desirable asset in a variety of human contests ranging from football
to warfare. When a quarterback fakes a pass or a commander sends out false sig-
nals about where his troops will strike, each is attempting to deceive his adver-
sary.
Under Western ethical norms, however, deception is not permissible in a situ-
ation of trust and confidence. When the director of the CIA testifies before a
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to the President and the Congress and through them to the American peo-
ple, the CIA director is morally and legally obligated to answer questions about
CIA activities, though by law he is required to protect "intelligence sources and
methods from unauthorized disclosure."
Mandate of the CIA
The CIA is primarily an agency for gathering and evaluating foreign intelli-
gence. Only asmall portion of its activities involve covert operations. It was estab-
lished by the National Security Act of 1947, partly in response to a growing
American perception of threat from the Soviet Union to U. S. interests in Europe
and the Middle East. President Truman and the Congress agreed that we needed
a peacetime intelligence agency to augment other instruments for safeguarding
our security and that of our allies. At that time and later many thoughtful Ameri-
cans, including Mr. Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson, expressed
some concern that the new agency be kept accountable to the President and the
American people, recognizing that clandestine overseas activities are often more
difficult to monitor and evaluate than those of a more open agency operating on
American soil. It was unanimously agreed that the CIA should have no domestic
police functions.
The 1947 act specifies that the CIA "correlate and evaluate intelligence relat-
ing to national security, and provide for the appropriate dissemination of such
intelligence within the Government..." The act calls upon the CIA to perform
services of "common concern as the National Security Council (NSC) deter-
mines can be more efficiently accomplished centrally" and "to perform such
other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security"
as the NSC "may from time to time direct."
The act says the "Director of Central Intelligence shall be responsible for pro-
tecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure." The
CIA act of 1949 further states that the agency is exempted from any "law which
requires the publication or disclosure of the organization, function, names, offi-
cial titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed by the agency..." The 1947
act states that the CIA "shall have no police, subpoena, law enforcement powers
or internal security functions."
Operating within this broadly-worded directive, the CIA has three main func-
tions, all clearly related to foreign intelligence gathering and operations, accord-
ing to'its current director, William E. Colby:
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t product is in the form of publications and bulletins on
current development, estimates of future international
situations, and in-depth studies on various topics - for
example, a study of the origins and growth - over time - of
potentially hostile strategic weapons programs.
2. To develop advanced technical equipment to improve
the collection and processing of U.S. intelligence.
g. To conduct clandestine operations to collect foreign
intelligence, carry out counterintelligence responsibilities
abroad, and undertake - when directed - covert foreign
political or paramilitary operations.
The most controversial CIA activities have been "covert foreign political or
paramilitary operations" which are carried out under the agency's authority "to
perform such other functions and duties" as directed by the NSC. A variety of
small and large covert political operations have been undertaken. Of those
known to the public, some have been successful, some have not.
Gathering Foreign Intelligence
The principal responsibility of the CIA is to gather and evaluate foreign intel-
ligence. Much information is collected from open sources like radio broadcasts
and newspapers ofmore than a hundred countries. Among the clandestine intel-
ligence gathering operations that go beyond the normal range of classic espio-
nage, and which have an element of deception, three are mentioned here to indi-
cate their variety and utility, Each involves sophisticated and innovative tech-
nology.
First, in the mid 1950s the CIA developed the high-altitude U-2 plane. This
specialized aircraft took a warehouse full of high-quality photographs of military
and industrial facilities in the Soviet Union before one of them flown by Francis
Garry Powers was shot down over Russia in 1960 by a Soviet surface-to-air
(SAM) missile. The U-2 was also used extensively and successfully to photograph
sensitive facilities in the People's Republic of China.
U-2 flights played a key role in identifying the Soviet surface-to-surface mis-
siles in Cuba in 1962 which precipitated the first nuclear confrontation between
Washington and Moscow. With the aid of agent reporting, the U-2 cameras spot-
ted the offensive missiles in Cuba before Soviet SAM sites were fully operational.
When operational, the medium range SAMs would have been capable of deliver-
ing nuclear warheads to targets covering two-thirds of the United States, all of
From a statement by William E.Colby, Director of Central Intelligence, submitted to the Senate
Appropriations Committee, January 15, 1975..jVeev York Times, January 16, 1975, p.30.
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the U-2 plane was essential in developing the U. S. strategy that successfully
forced Moscow to withdraw its missiles from Cuba.
These U-2 operations, widely regarded as brilliant successes, were overtaken
by further technology - Soviet SAMs able to reach high-altitude planes and the
capacity of the United States and the Soviet Union to place high resolution cam-
eras in orbit around the earth. The U. S. reconnaissance satellite system was de-
veloped by the CIA in cooperation with other government agencies and is now
operated jointly with the Defense Department. These orbiting cameras have
gathered a wealth of valuable information about Soviet and Chinese military
capabilities.
These satellites also played a role in the October 1973 Arab-Israel war by
photographing Soviet paratroopers and supplies at Soviet airports, some
of whom were alert and ready to take off for Egypt. This detailed intelligence was
one of the key pieces of evidence, along with a harsh diplomatic note from Mos-
cow, which led to a worldwide U. S. military alert that may have aborted the
Soviet adventure.
The third operation involves not the sky but the ocean - the CIA's successful
effort to salvage portions of a Soviet submarine which in 1968 exploded and sank
to the bottom of the Pacific, 750 miles from Hawaii. Project Jennifer, as it was
called, involved the construction of a large and unique salvage vessel, the Glornar
Explorer, which for cover purposes was described as a ship to mine minerals from
the sea floor. The construction of 'the vessel and the 1974 summer operation
which recovered significant portions of a Soviet Golf-class diesel-electric submar-
ine from i6,ooo feet beneath the surface of the Pacific is reported to have cost
356 million. U. S. listening devices planted on the ocean floor heard the explo-
sion which destroyed the Soviet submarine and computers plotted its location.
Meanwhile Soviet trawlers were searching for it 500 miles away from the wreck.
Project Jennifer is universally regarded as a great technical achievement, and
widely praised as an intelligence coup. A New York .Times editorial said: "The
CIA is only to be commended for this extraordinary effort to carry out its essen-
tial mission,".2 and the Washington Post said the CIA "was performing its prime
function brilliantly." 3
The accomplishment would probably have been even more brilliant if the
press had refrained from publishing this sensitive information until the salvage
operation could be completed in the summer of 1975. The press knew the CIA
2 -.J1 ea) York Times, March 20, 1975.
3 Washington Post, March 23, r 975?
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clear warheads and the coding equipment. If this now proves impossible, the
United States will be denied valuable additional information about Soviet nu-
clear warhead technology and about Soviet code traffic in 1968, the year the Rus-
sians invaded Czechoslovakia.
These technical means for gathering intelligence have their limits. Cameras
can provide a great deal of information on an adversary's military capabilities,
but they cannot reveal his research and development capabilities or his inten-
tions. To gain some understanding of the motives and strategies of other govern-
ments, we must continue to rely on CIA officers and the clandestine service and
their agents and on information provided by refugees, defectors, and Americans
who live or travel abroad. In this fundamental sense, espionage has changed little
over the centuries.
Covert Political Activities
As distinguished from clandestine information-gathering operations, the CIA
has engaged in covert political activities designed to alter what the U. S. Govern-
ment believes to be critical or dangerous situations, such as the potential victory
of the Communists in Italy in 1948 or the imminent subversion ofa friendly gov-
ernment.. Various means have been used to support governments, political lead-
ers, parties, labor unions, business firms, farm groups, and other organizations or
individuals carrying out policies which appear to serve both the interests of the
countries concerned and U. S. objectives. This covert support has been given in
the form offina.ncial contributions, equipment, advice and training. The volume.
of such covert operations has greatly declined since the i 95os and i 96os, reflecting
in part a change in the official perception of specific threats. All such activities
have been authorized by the President or high officials speaking in his name.
Covert political activity is usually calculated to achieve short-range objectives
like an election victory. It has sometimes been directed toward a longer-range
goal of weakening extremist groups, which are often supported by the KGB and
attempt to gain power by violence or other illegal means. The CIA has occasion-
ally supported opposition efforts to overthrow regimes that were collaborating
with Moscow or with its allies, such as East Germany or Cuba.
The essence of CIA political activity is to identify and strengthen indigenous
organizations, not to manipulate or control them. The CIA does not inject an
alien force or ideology into a Third World country, but rather cooperates with
local labor, student, farm, business, or political groups which are disposed to sup-
port a moderate and effective government that will pursue a non-belligerent for-
eign policy.
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positions of power or influence over the years, both within the existing regime
and in opposition groups. The KGB has an easier task because it has ready access
to the political situation through the local Communist Party. In a case where the
regime is in danger of being subverted by Moscow (e. g., Iran under Mossadegh)
or is developing a belligerent foreign policy (e. g. , Indonesia under Sukarno), in-
ternal opposition groups naturally arise. They do not have to be created, but they
do frequently ask for U. S. support. If the group espouses moderate policies and
seems reasonably well organized, the NSC may authorize the CIA to assist it. In
virtually all situations, the CIA responds to opportunities. But if prior contacts
had not been built up over time, there would be few opportunities to respond to.
In some turbulent situations where the government in question has been as-
sailed by subversion or even insurrection, or where it is not clear who is in charge,
the KGB and the CIA have found themselves engaged in a kind of undercover
war, each helping the faction or factions closest to its government's objectives.
Seen in this light, covert operations arc a supplement to U. S. diplomacy, eco-
nomic aid, information, or cultural exchange efforts which seek to modify the
economies, public opinion, and foreign policies of other countries through quiet
persuasion and various open programs.
The CIA has also subsidized or established American organizations to assist in
operations and to serve as a cover. In the i 95os and r 96os, the CIA financed and
operated Radio Free Europe, which broadcasts to Eastern Europe, and Radio Lib-
erty, which broadcasts to the Soviet Union. These efforts to influence opinions
behind the Iron Curtain were open, but their sponsorship was concealed. In the
past, the CIA also helped finance certain activities of the National Student Asso-
ciation, the Asia Foundation, and Encounter, a journal published in London, all
designed to counter Communist propaganda and KGB efforts to penetrate legiti-
mate international student and intellectual groups. The CIA did not attempt to
mould the thinking of those assisted, but rather to provide them with wider op-
portunities to express their own views. As Gloria Steinem, who accepted such as-
sistance put it, the CIA "wanted to do what we wanted to.do- present a
healthy, diverse view of the United States," adding that "I never felt I was being
dictated to at all.'.'4 Nevertheless, there was an element of deception in a situation
where confidence should have prevailed, and this practice by the CIA was dis-
continued. Such educational and cultural groups are now openly supported by
U. S. Government funds.
Technical support efforts for the CIA, however, fall into a different category,
.1 ?Weer York Times, November 21, 1967.
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cealed, at least until the operation is completed. ProjectJennifer is a case in point.
This would have been impossible to execute without the secret cooperation of
various American firms.
CAN COVERTACTIVITIES BE JUSTIFIED?
All clandestine intelligence gathering activities and covert political operations
carried out in another sovereign state are illegal in that state. All such activities
involve an element of deception and are largely hidden from the eyes of the peo-
ple whose government carries them out as well as from those of the country where
they take place.
Can illegal, covert activities of the CIA, which serves a democratic govern-
ment and represents an open society, be morally justified? Are such activities es-
sential to the security of the United States?
Perhaps the second question should be addressed first. We are living in a dan-
gerous world. To protect their interests, all major powers have extensive clandes-
tine intelligence services which sometimes cngage..in. covert political operations.
On the purely pragmatic level, the United States would be at a disadvantage if it
denied itself an instrument fully available to its allies and adversaries. Faced with
the threats of two expansionist and nuclear-armed Communist powers, and
many lesser threats around the world, our government would be derelict in its
duty if it did not have the best and most modern means available for gathering
intelligence. There is little dissent on this. And most Americans would agree that
the United States should not unilaterally abstain from covert operations, though
some CIA critics take the opposite view.
Moving from pragmatic to moral considerations - and the two should never
be wholly separated - can a free society engage in covert activities abroad with-
out violating its fundamental values? These values, of course, include the security
of our country and the survival of our free institutions. To serve these ends, for
example, we fought in World War II and we believe our participation was justi-
fied both by our objectives and the actual outcome.
Foreign intelligence can be thought of as a form of warfare. Like war, intelli-
genceisanextensionofdiplomacy. Covert operations in peacetime, like all foreign
policy instruments, are designed to serve our fundamental national interests,
which include efforts to protect the security of our allies. Hence, all activities of
our government in peace or war can and should be judged by the same funda-
mental political and moral standards.
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The "Just War" Theory as A Moral -'Yardstick
The doctrine of the, "just war" has been an essential,part of the Western Chris-
tian moral tradition for a thousand years. This doctrine which defines the proper
relationship between military force and political responsibility is deeply rooted in
Catholic and Protestant ethics. Though it specifically. relates to military conflict,
the just war theory can be applied generally to the problems of "political authori-
ty, political community, and political responsibility."' In short, this Western
view of statecraft has direct relevance to all facets of foreign policy and provides a
moral yardstick for assessing the justice or rightness of particular intelligence op-
erations.
The just war theory does not serve as a guide as to what specific activities our
government should undertake. That must be determined by the nature of the
threat, the resources available, and other circumstances. But it does advance
three criteria which place certain limitations on what is acceptable according to
Western political ethics. In contemplating military or other political action,
three questions must be addressed : i) Is the objective of the action just? 2) Are
the means bath just and appropriate? a) Does the action have a reasonable
chance of success?
Before discussing these questions, it should be noted that all societies and pol-
itical philosophies have their own "just war" theories. For Mussolini and Hitler,
wars of territorial expansion were justified. For the Communists, revolutionary
wars and "wars of national liberation" are just. "There are wars," said V. I. Len-
in, "which are just and unjust, progressive and reactionary, wars of the leading
classes and wars of the backward classes, wars which serve to strengthen class op-
pression and wars which are aimed at overthrowingit." 2
i. Is the objective of the action just? Different actors in the international drama
naturally define justice differently, often to suit their own immediate and self-
serving interests. But according to Western norms, embodied in international
law and the U.. N. Charter, military action solely for the purpose of conquest or
subjugation is always wrong. Any aggression against another state is illegal,
whether by overt military action or by covert means. Conversely, military action.
designed to defend the territory of one's state or that of an ally against external
attack or aggression is justified. Aggressors usually attempt to justify their action
by asserting that it was taken in self-defense. Hitler so described his attack on Po-
land in 1939. The situation is often confused and complex, but the distinction be-
Paul Ramsey, The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility, New York, 1968, p. xi. See also, pp.vii-
xvii, and 178-98, See also, Robert W. Tucker, The Just War: A Study in Contemporary American Doctrine,
Baltimore, ig6o.
= Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 38, p? 337.
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 tween tl ppg ved(R=R,btbaseiQO05A9714&il9l Q9 r2 AORaOQWVl2QR
observers.
The just objective requirement can also be expressed by this question: If the
military action succeeds, will the post-belligerency situation likely provide a bet-
ter chance for peace, security, justice, and freedom than the antecedent condi-
tion? Which, for example, would have been the better outccime for World War II
-- an allied victory- or an 'axis victory?
A just war or a just covert operation can never be undertaken for trivial mo-
tives, such as the desire to bolster the ego ofa ruling group, or inappropriate pur-
poses, such as the reform of other societies or institutions.
2. Are the means both just and appropriate ?Just ends can be betrayed by unjust and
inappropriate means, but the question is not simply a pragmatic one. The force
to be used must be proportionate to the problem. Excessive force is always wrong,
though it is often difficult for a commander to know how much force is required to
achieve a specific objective. Assuming one is engaged in a just cause, e. g., repel-
ling an invader, the use of too little force is also wrong because it may prolong the
struggle or even make possible. the success of the aggression, thus causing a
greater loss of life, a setback for justice and independence, or both.
Certain uses of force are categorically wrong. These include the wanton, pur- I
poseless, or nihilistic destruction of life or property. Hence, the U. S. military
code prohibits the deliberate killing of civilians, troops who.are surrendering, or
prisoners of war, and, on the contrary, requires that these groups be protected
and cared for. Because of our principles, the.U. S. armed forces in Vietnam went
to great lengths, expense, and some risk to spare civilians and help resettle refu-
gees.
For the same reason, the American people were shocked by the senseless killing
by U. S. soldiers of 22 to 347 unarmed civilians in My Lai in 1968. On the Com-
munist side, in contrast, vengeance killings, such as the cold-blooded murder of
at least 2,700 civilians (but perhaps as many as 5,000) in Hue during the 1968 Tet'
offensive, and the shooting at refugee columns in 1975, are rationalized by a pe-
culiar Leninist logic that transforms its innocent victims into non-persons. The
massive flow of refugees from the Communist to the non-Communist -sides in
Vietnam and Germany provides dramatic evidence that the contrasting ethics of
the Communist and Western worlds have very practical, life and death conse-
quences.
3. Does the contemplated action have a reasonable chance of success? However noble the
end and just the means, military action is not justified if its has little or no pro-
spect of achieving its objective. Assessing the chances of success or failure is a
moral as well as a practical imperative. A parable of'jcsus makes this point : "Or
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 `'117eYfl~d'RA~~S/t1~85:tQF74~IPSA~OP860(9At20Q,4~E8vn to
consider whether with ten thousand men he can face an enemy coming to meet
him with twenty thousand? If lie cannot, then, long before the enemy approach-
es, he sends envoys, and asks for terms." (Luke 14: 3 I -32.)
The just war theory has special pertinence to wartime or other conflict situa-
tions in which coercion is an accepted means of pursuing the state's objectives.
Since 1945 we have been living in a condition of Cold War in which Moscow,
Peking, and their clients, employ both peacetime and wartime (i.e. military)
means to achieve their expansionist objectives.
Confronted by these dangers, it would appear that the United States, its allies,
and other endangered governments are justified in employing unusual, and even
coercive means, as long as they meet the three just war standards. In the follwing
discussion, each of these requirements is used to evaluate a variety of CIA covert
activities which have become publicly known.
Are the Objectives ust?
Have CIA activities been undertaken to achieve just ends? This, raises the
larger question: have U. S. foreign policy objectives been just? The United States
during and since World War II has sought to defend its security and that of its
allies and attempted to develop a structure of interstate stability that would per-
mii all countries to develop peacefully. These are just ends.
But occasionally, Washington has pursued policies designed to reform other
societies, to alter their indigenous institutions, motivated by a kind of'crusading
impulse to export liberal democracy and not directly related to the fundamental
purpose. of our foreign policy. It is difficult to justify efforts to reform other peo
pies acid governments, whether the reformer be Washington, Moscow, or Peking.
External reformers tend to be arrogant and imperialist and to overlook the se-
verely limited capacity of any outside agency to influence and reshape alien cul-
tures.
The crusading impulse to reform should be clearly distinguished from the hu-
manitarian motive that has prompted the U. S. Government to do more for the
foreign victims of famine, earthquake, and war than any other government in
history. Earthquake relief is not designed to restructure institutions, overthrow
regimes, or promote "free elections."
Reform. intervention should also be distinguished from intervention designed
to deal with threats to or breaches of international peace, e. g., U. S. military in-
volvement in Korea. Such intervention is justified if it meets the just war criteria.
According to these definitions, most U. S. postwar policies can be justified,
though some have not met the test. All efforts to impose alien institutions in a
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ments of interstate stability, are highly questionable or wrong, whether under-
taken overtly by AID, USIA, the Peace Corps, or covertly by the CIA.
Any U. S. activity, covert or overt, designed to strengthen interstate stability
can.be said to meet the requirement of the just end. Conversely, any activity cal-
culated solely to reform domestic institutions within a friendly state falls short.
Hence, the U-2 flights over Russia can be justified because they sought to provide
intelligence about the adversary's military might which would enable the United
States to take prudent measures to deter a first nuclear strike by Moscow.
U.S. support for the Bay.of Pigs invasion cannot be faulted because of its ulti-
mate objective. The Cuban people, like Moscow's clients in Eastern Europe, had,
no peaceful political alternative to Castro. The CIA-supported landing of Cuban
exiles was designed to provide the Cuban people with an alternative to the totali-
tarian and expansionist regime, with the hope that the people. would be able to
establish a moderate government that, among other things, would refrain from
subversive military action against other Latin American states. Washington
clearly had and still has a special treaty and moral obligation to help maintain
peace in the Western Hemisphere. The Bay of Pigs effort was a fiasco, not because: ,
of its objective, but because it failed to meet the other two just war requirements
appropriate means and a reasonable chance of success. 4
In Chile, the CIA's financial aid to the Christian Democratic and other mod-
erate parties and to their newspapers during President Allende's Marxist regime
cannot be faulted by the short-term or longer-term ends sought. The more imme-
diate objective was to keep political competition alive in a situation where the
minority Allende government, which received only 36.4 per cent of the vote, was
using a variety of illegal and coercive means to neutralize the legislature, the Su-
preme Court, the opposition parties, and non-subservient news media. If politi-
cal opposition could be maintained, it was hoped that the 1976 election would
result in a return to power of a democratic coalition which would pursue a re-
sponsible and peaceful foreign policy.
Evidence indicates that Allende and his violent revolutionary supporters were
attempting to. transform Chile into a totalitarian state on the Cuban model which
would be increasingly used by Havana and Moscow as a staging ground for sub-
version against neighboring states. This would endanger the stability of the re-
gion. During the Allende period, large quantities of Soviet arms were illegally
brought into the country via Cuba, Chilean and foreign terrorist groups were
formed, and the Cuban embassy became the center of subversive KGB activity.
The CIA's support of opposition forces failed in its ultimate purpose of pre-
serving the minimum conditions for peaceful and democratic change. Internal
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 disruW&
tionary forces supporting him - including strikes, massive inflation, and a vir-
tual state of civil war-forced the reluctant military to respond to popular pres-
sure to intervene to prevent full-fledged civil war and to restore order and a
semblance of justice.The regrettable excesses, including summary executions and
abuse of prisoners, attending the take-over were largely the result of the enormity
of the social, economic, and political earthquake wrought by Allende and his fol-
lowers and the inexperience and ineptitude of the armed forces.
Are the Means Just?
Morality is a discipline of ends and means, but it is in the selection and use of
means where the most perplexing problems arise. According to the Western eth-
ics, ends do not justify means. Some means are categorically ruled out. To what
extent have CIA covert activities violated the requirements of just and appropri-
ate means? What about the morality of secrecy, deception, and coercion?
Clandestine activities always embrace an element of deception and have cer-
tain moral pitfalls for those who engage in them. In principle, lying is wrong. But
in adversary situations such as football and war, deception is accepted. During
World War lithe British attempted to deceive the Germans-about the strength of
their coastal defense by deploying inflated rubber artillery pieces along the Eng-
lish Channel. The USIA officer in Italy who deceived Communist Party workers
oint
`
in
ca
h
.
p
se
er
into distributing a pamphlet critical of the Soviet union is anot
.In all clandestine activities abroad, deception is essential to provide cover for
U S. officers, to protect cooperating agents, and to gain access to the persons and
organizations for collecting intelligence or engaging in political operations. Fre-
quently. of course, the identity of CIA officers is made known to officials of the.
host government, whether allied or neutral, but this practice is hardly appropri-
ate in an adversary environment.
All cover stories involve deception. How long should a cover story be main-
tained and for whom? The CIA holds that the cover of the Glomar Explorer was
blown too soon. The U-2 flights over the Soviet Union present an interesting
case -The were known to Moscow a few days after they started, but theyre-
Y_
mained highly secret in the United States until .the plane flown by Powers.was
brought down in i g6o. If the successful U.-2 operation would have been reported
earlier in the American press, the greatly embarrassed and angered Soviet Union
would have been forced to protest, with the probable result that we would have
been denied this valuable source of strategic intelligence. During the early years
of reconnaissance satellites, both powers collaborated in keeping the secret from
the general public on both sides.
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 The use ai`t~~r?Ir2 ' c1( /~. 1 Te t 1 0 46-8
manly because it confronts the actor with the necessity o(weig~ing the immedi
ate and relatively certain human costs of force or bloodshed against future and
uncertain benefits. But it is precisely in this murky realm that the just war theory
provides useful guidance, if not clearcut answers.
From what is publically known, covert CIA operations in peacetime rarely, in
volve coercion. Even more rarely do they involve recourse to violence. The Bay of
;Pigs, as a large-scale paramilitary operation, was a very-rare exception. In war-
time situations like Laos, the CIA provided covert support to military efforts of
the Teo tribesmen to protect their territory against North Vietnamese troops.
Assuming the cause to be just, this covert support can be justified, though it could
be argued that it should have been provided by the U. S: Army.
The question of violence becomes more complicated in non-war situations i;1
which the codes of acceptable military behavior are not automatically applied.
Frequently, the United States has had to face situations in Third World countries
in which the. government began to pursue foreign policies that endangered the
independence of allied or friendly states or otherwise threatened regional peace.
To some extent, this was the situation in Cuba under Castro, Indonesia under.
Sukarno, Egypt under Nasser, the Congo under Lumumba, Ghana under Nkru
mah, and. Chile under Allende. In the near future, countries like Portugal, Peru,
Panama, and Ethiopia may present similar threats.
Whatshould the United States do when a moderate and friendly government is
about to be subverted or overthrown by hostile internal forces with or without ex-
ternal support? Orwhenan existing regime, for whatever reason, engages in hostile
behavior short of war toward the United States or its allies? The answer depends
on several factors, including the size, power, and location of the country and its
capacity to disturb the peace. Portugal, Panama, Brazil, Nigeria, Iran, and Indo-
nesia are obviously ofgre a ter significance to the United States than Finland, Para-
guay, Chad, or Nepal. Moscow, Peking, and their clients show little inhibition
against fishing in troubled waters or in troubling calm waters in the first place.
We could wash our hands of internal turmoil and external dangers in the
Third World and leave the situation to chance, chaos, and the Communist pow-
ers, but every postwar President, supported by the Congress, has affirmed our re-
sponsibility to maintain that minimal degree of interstate stability essential to
normal diplomatic intercourse and mutually beneficial economic relations. It
should be recalled that President Truman intervened in Greece and Korea for
these reasons. The CIA has been called upon to support this basic policy. Occa-
sionally it has used covert operations to prevent an extremist faction from seizing
power, to moderate the policies ofa regime, or in rare cases to change its leaders.
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 ~lcpcord ii g to heI ease 0D~/p9/ f WvdfA tbt
6FC 6696 1 &9 mier
1 16t~
to sac~egh in Iran in 193. and of the Aregime in Guatemala in 1954. In
both instances the United States supported indigenous forces opposed to these
pro-Soviet leaders. If the cause of installing a moderate government was itself
just, the use ofillegal means, involving some violence, can also be justified in prin-
ciple.
The murky situation in Laos in 1962 presented President John Kennedy with
a choice among three unpleasant courses. The 5,000 North Vietnamese troops in
Laos in violation of the Geneva accords were being used to support Hanoi's at-
tack against South Vietnam. The President could limit his response to a diplo-
matic protest, he could send regular U. S. troops into this neutral country, or he
could use covert means to deal with the problem. He chose the third course and
directed the CIA to provide military support to protect. certain areas known to
and approved by the Lao government, thus avoiding a direct challenge to Hanoi.
This effort grew into a large paramilitary operation and came to be known as a
"secret war," but compared to other military efforts in Southeast Asia, it was re-
markably successful. The areas of government control remained essentially un-
The Laos experience points to the difficult choices confronting the United
changed during the whole period of CIA involvement and only about a dozen
Americans lost their lives.
States in complex situations where its interests are involved, but where for politi-
cal and humane reasonsitdoes not want to employ or encourage its allies to em-
ploy conventional military force. In such cases, the CIA can sometimes provide,
as CIA Director Colby has said
test or a risky military action..
Is There A Good Chance For Success?
:According to the just war doctrine the cause can be good and the means can be
appropriate in principle, but the contemplated action whether involving coer-
cion or not - cannot be justified unless there is a reasonable chance ofsuccess. If
the operation is successful, the new situation should provide a better chance for
peace,, security, and justice. than the previous condition.
country independent of Soviet control justify the political cost of U. S. support for
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Returning to the Iran case, did the probable benefit of keeping that oil-rich
continous process before, during, and after any operation, covert or overt, do-
mestic, or foreign. Ends, means, costs, and consequences should be constantly
weighed.
ple means, and multiple consequences. This moral-political calculus should be a
Moral choice'de"mands calcula ion -an accPCCmenr nfmi ltir,lP . anePC .,-,,,1+;_
 the public/q?#btd~l~~L19~'T9sfr~11116$D#Zb~0~F-8
viet-dominated Iran have jeopardized U. S and allied interests? It would appear
plausible to conclude that the ouster of an unstable and pro-Soviet premier was a
cause accomplished by acceptable and proportionate means, when compared to
the probable cost in conflict and bloodshed thatwould likelyhave resulted from a
Soviet take-over of Iran.
The. Bay of Pigs operation was a failure precisely because this moral-political:
calculus was, not pursued rigorously .enough. The objective was worthy, but the
means were inadequate. The means were not intrinsically unjust, but they were
unjust in the sense that they were incapable of bringing the operation to a success-
ful conclusion. Because of uncertainty about how Moscow would react, Presi-
dents Eisenhower and Kennedy ruled out an. open U. S. invasion to overthrow
Castro Instead, under directives from both Presidents, the CIA trained and
equip; ed Cuban exile units to do the job. The force was probably too small and
because of last-minute changes it lacked adequate air support. Two days before
the landing the number of air strikes was reduced from 3.0 to 8 sorties. The effort
failed because the means were inadequate. If the moral disciplines had been ob-
served, either there. would have been no Bay of Pigs landing or the operation
would have becn:.modifiedto succeed.
In contrast, the CIA contributed to the successful overthrow of the pro-Soviet
Arbenz regime it Guatemala seven years before, Again this, like, war itself, was
an illegal operation. A full-fledged Soviet client in Central America could have
become a source of instability. Guatemala could have become .a staging ground
for guerrilla forays against neighboring countries or a launching pad for nuclear
missiles aimed at the United States, as the later experience. of Cuba demon-,
strated. The just U.S. intention in Guatemala was supported by appropriate
means and.it had a successful result. In retrospect, it would appear that the bene-
fits to peace in the area amply justified the methods employed, including the
political cost of U. S. intervention.
Indonesia provides examples of both poor U. S. calculation and an unplanned
and unexpected opportunity for covert activity. In the late r 950s President Su-
karno fell increasingly under the political and military influence of Moscow. On
return from a trip to the Soviet Union in February 1957, Sukarno declared par-
liamentary democracy in Indonesia a failure and assumed near-dictatorial pow-
ers under a new system he called "guided democracy." His foreign policy contin-
ued to be expansionist. For years he sought to take over West Irian by diplomatic
pressure and military force. He was later to inaugurate his military conquest
against the eastern provinces of Malaysia.
Many Indonesian political leaders shared Washington's apprehensions about
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 Sukar~pp~iQt~i~rl~"~~~bp8~0~!1~'fi3~F31~e~21~F~i $'IVIbQ~~b~'~~1 ~OU"~~?
Revolutionary Council in oil-rich Sumatra proclaimed a new government for the
whole of Indonesia. On March 12, Jakarta announced a paratroop invasion of
Sumatra and the rebels formally appealed for American arms. The United States
responded with covert military assistance through the CIA, including modest air
support for the rebels. U. S. involvement became known because a CIA-re-
cruited American flier was captured by Jakarta. The rebel leaders overestimated
their popular support and underestimated the capacity of the Jakarta regime to
deal with the situation. The revolt was quickly crushed. U. S. officials, including
CIA officers in Indonesia, based American support for the rebels on the same
miscalculations and must, therefore, share responsibility for the failure to install a
new government which was expected to pursue moderate policies at home and
abroad.
i
an
By 1965, the Sukarno regime had virtually become a captive of the Indones
Communist Party which decided that year to consolidate its already strong posi-
tion by neutralizing Indonesia's pro-West army. Though the plotters killed five
of the seven top army generals, they failed to accomplish their objective. In the
ensuing confusion the anti-Sukarno and anti-Communist leaders who emerged
asked experienced CIA officers and U. S. military advisers to assist them in res-
toring order and establishing a viable government. They came to CIA officers. for
help only because the leaders and officers had developed a relationship of trust
over a period of time;
CIA o?fi--
h
if
e
t
Such close relationships; however, can lead to miscalculations
cers become too emotionally identified with the cause of the local leaders or fail to
recognize that there may be significant differences between their goals and U. S.
objectives. Miscalculations in the field are usually corrected by checks within the .
nalyzed in
st b
e a
system, including the requirement that all covert operations mu
W
h
ington and
as
Only in the most dangerous situations should Washington become involved
in a violent overthrow of an existing regime. There have been such situations
and there may be again in which U. S. support for a military coup, or less drastic
action, can be. justified to prevent a serious threat to peace and security from
coming to a head. Portugal today may be such a case. As James Reston pointed
out, Moscow is waging "with vengeance" an "undercover war" in Portugal
while the CIA is virtually helpless in its present condition to prevent the sub-
version of that strategically important country."3 If the Soviet-supported Com-
munist Party efforts to take over the Armed forces Movement in Lisbon succeed,
3 New York Times, March i6, 1975?
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 Portugal could no re nin t NNAAB~ A11~
Anrovedor'ee seQ5IQT1 : C1eD~l1t9~16b4d~1~
~--- --~.~~... ?=wV .~~. ~.~. ',V1JL1Jit Lv LUI LI UIC U
lose its itary base in the zores. At an earlier stage, a little U. S. moral
support and perhaps a bit of material aid for the democratic forces in Portu-
The United States cannot effectively-compete by Marquis of Queensbury rules
while our adversaries trample Western values and laugh at our moral hang-
ups. Former Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson is quoted as saying: "Gentle'
'
men don
t react. other gentlemen's mail." This is a high ideal for politics, but it is
neither prudent nor just for us to try to live by it in the international arena if our
adversary is not a gentleman and if his violations of the rules go far beyond read-
ing our mail. We Americans cannot permit our moral fastidiousness to subvert
our political responsibility.
Effective covert activity in Portugal or the Middle East now maypayaffwell
in preventing a great deal of suffering later. A low-grade coldwar is far preferable
to an all-out hot war. Our capitulation to a series of small thrusts against our in-'
terests may lead to the big confrontation nobody. wants:: The CAA is one impor
taut weapon in our larger arsenal designed to prevent nuclear war and nuclear
blackmail. Though we should always recognize that our best calculations may {
come back to haunt us, we must not permit this recognition to rob us of our ca-
CO`CL USIONS AND RECOMMENDA TIO /S
The theme of the last volume of Sir Winston Churchill's monumental study
,
The Second World War, carries a warning-which is just as valid today as it was in
1953 when it was written: "How the Great Democracies Triumphed, and so
Were able to Resume the Follies Which Had so Nearly Cost Them Their
Life."`
In the uncertain world bequeathed by the tragedy of Vietnam, the United
States is being severely tested. Our friends abroad are worried that we may re-
turn to the folly of an earlier isolationism and our adversaries fervently hope we
do. Our allies, especially in Asia, wonder if they can depend on us to keep our
commitments and our enemies are acting as though our determination to do so
has already been seriously eroded.
Even Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the apostle of detente, has found it
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, Volume 6, Boston, 1953, p. ix.
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 nec prti4@d1F01^'R6WfS 4O'65Ob i'3 r~Na [ 1d11~ 0 'd~t6 ~'t~'a 18?> t its
eagerness to "exploit strategic opportunities" and to exacerbate conflict in "peri-
pheral Areas," insisting that the United States is determined to resist such pres-
sures. 2 In the same speech, he urged America to end its "self-doubt and self-
punishment'."and resume its role of leadership in the world. Just because we have
failed in Vietnam, he said, does not mean that we should "flee from responsibility
as uncritically as we rushed into commitment a decade ago."
Vital Need for U. S. Intelligence
The international drama and our views about our role in it are changing, but
the United States is still a nuclear superpower with heavy and unique responsi-
bilities in a dangerous world. We cannot escape with honor the disciplines of
maintaining our own national security and helping our allies to maintain theirs.
In this double task, intelligence and occasional covert political operations are es-
sential supplements to our military, diplomatic, and economic policies. As a New
York Times editorial put it: "To deprive a major world power of up-to-date infor-
mation concerning its potential adversaries would increase: rather than diminish
the risk of international stability and conflict. The United States cannot afford to
walk blindly through a world divided by clashing interests, aspirations, and sus-
picions." 3
The most severe critics of the CIA are not really against the agency as much as
the policies it serves. They are particularly critical of covert activities because
these activities support persons, institutions, and parties they regard as enemies of
the progressive and revolutionary forces they hope will prevail. The radical crit-
ics are using the CIA as a foil to attack U. S. policy in the Third World. Would it
not be more honest if they criticized the policies directly and openly, rather, than
trying to discredit them by attempting to destroy or cripple one of the instru-
ments for carrying them out?
The Lesser of Two Evils
.Returning to the question ofmorality, we must recognize that all war is evil,
but that in certain situations a particular war can. be just -it.can be the lesser of
two evils It is. morally just for a state to fight an invader rather than submit to
him, if the state has a good chance of prevailing. The classicial requirement of the
"just war" theory can and should be applied to foreign intelligence and covert
operations in peacetime too, because they, like diplomacy itself, are extensions of
2 Washington Post, May 13, 1975.
Vetz. 2'ork Times, April 2, 1075.
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 war by o ler rnea~ There is no clear dividin line between war and peace, and
pprgve or ele a 22005/07/
all foreign policy programs ola cremocrat~ ~t tl~s~lt~~~ lltn p&4 ~
the justwar the objectives must bejust, the means must be just and appropri-
ate, and there should be a good chance of success. So measured, it is reasonable to
conclude that by and large the CIA has met these criteria.
Our analysis also suggests that the CIA has served U. S. national'security and
foreign policy interests without violating the constitutional rights of American
citizens or damaging-our democratic institutions. Again, there have been a few
Watergate-related exceptions, but available evidence indicates that the outcry
against ``massive domestic surveillance" has turned out to be a tempest in a tea-,
pot.
If our foreign policy objectives have been wrongly defined, the CIA and other
agencies can perhaps be faulted for supporting them, but that is their duty as in-
struments of Presidential policy backed by the Congress. Under our political sys-
tem the President is responsible for foreign policy and he should be held account-
able. If, however, the CIA has been unresponsive to the Presidential will or in-
.subordinate, it should be faulted. Public evidence suggests that this has not been
the case.
Itshould be emphasized that the validity of U. S. foreign policies or supporting
vere
programs must be judged by the requirements ofour national interest, these
limits imposed by external circumstances, available resources, and the criteria of
the just war,. Policies cannot be justified or condemned by. the instruments used to
pursue them, but only by-the fundamental intentions of the government and the
consequences which flow from them. Instruments- whether the CIA, USIA, or
AID - can advance policy objectives when rightly employed and can subvert
policy goals by inefficiency, stupidity, or corruption. The occasional manifesta-
tion of one or more of these vices does not, however, invalidate the instrument.
Congress and Political Control
U. S. agencies are accountable to. the President and the Congress and through
them to the American people. Observers.see the CIA accountability problem in
different ways. Those who believe that the CIA has somehow got out of control
recommend tighter and more comprehensive Congressional oversight proce-
dures. The present inquiry rejects this conclusion and holds the view that the pre-
sent oversight arrangements are adequate.
Whether the oversight procedures remain the same, or are entrusted to a new
joint committee or committees, each Representative and Senator involved has a
solemn obligation to examine seriously the aims, objectives, and problems, as
well as the budget of the CIA. If the arrangement is adequately safeguarded
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28
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against unauthorized disclosures, each member has a right to expect candor from
the CIA director, consistent with his legal obligation to protect agents, sources,
and methods. Mr. Colby has promised as much: "There are no secrets from these
oversight committees" and we "are in continuing contact with the staffs."4 He
added: "I have more than a duty to respond to these committees; I must under-
take to volunteer to them all matters which are of possible interest to the Con-
gress." CIA officers have also frequently reported to other Congressional com-
mittees, both in public and executive session.
It should be recognized that there is a wide spectrum of political, legal, and ad-
ministrative controls that have effectively kept the CIA faithful to its assigned du-
ties. Consider the elaborate system of checks and balances. First, the CIA direc-
tor is appointed by the President, who is directly accountable to the American
people. If the President misuses the CIA, this will inevitably become known and
the Congress can take corrective action. In an extreme situation, the President
can be retired at the next election or, as we have seen, before.
Within the Executive Branch, the CIA is accountable to a series of NSC com-
mittees, including the Forty Committee on which sit ranking representatives of
the State Department, Defense Department, and theJoint Chiefs of Staff. CIA ac-
tivities are also reviewed by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
The State Department must approve all covert political operations.
Further, the four Congressional oversight committees have a continuing role
to play through advice and consent, though there is no way Congress can or
should attempt to oversee or run day-by-day operations of the CIA, or any other
agency for that matter. The Congress approves or disapproves of the President's
choice for director. And the Congress may, as it has in 1975, launch a thorough
investigation of the intelligence community.
The CIA is also kept responsive to the security needs and moral values of the
American people because its top leadership and its ranks represent both a broad
cross section ofAmerican life and opinion and a rich variety ofskills. The internal
administrative controls are reasonably effective in keeping a firm rein on the
sprinkling of knaves and fools who seem to find their way into every organization.
In short, the remarkably resilient American political system and the good sense of
the American people provide the ultimate guarantee that our government and its
agencies will remain responsible and responsive. In this system the Congress and
the media have special obligations.
The primary problem faced by Congress is not a CIA that has got out of con-
trol, but rather that an unchecked attack against the CIA will damage the Presi-
4 New York Times, January 16, 1975.
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 dent's 9 dVAdaFdt?fMVeJJ 6 /i31~1 P ~I '$8 ~~0 8 O~~r$
fronted by ari unsavory mixture of malicious charges, unfounded attacks, and
honest concern and a climate of confusion sponsored by elements of the media.
President Ford has properly warned that "a sensationalized public debate over
legitimate intelligence activities" would be "a disservice to this nation and a
threat to our intelligence system," adding: "Any investigation must be con-
ducted with maximum discretion and dispatch to avoid crippling a vital national
institution." 5
To meet the legitimate need for Congress to be informed of CIA activities and
to prevent unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information, I offer five sugges-
tions for consideration.
i. Congress should amend the 1947 act creating the CIA to make it clear that
the jurisdiction of the agency is confined solely to the collection and evaluation of
foreign intelligence and associated activities. The intelligence gathering function
and covert political operations should remain within the CIA.
2. New legislation should be enacted to deter unauthorized disclosures ofsensi-
tive and classified information by present or former government employees or by.
members of Congress. Our First Amendment would make it difficult for us to pass
a law similar to the British Official Secrets Act which provides criminal penalties
for any person (official, member ofParliament, or ordinary citizen) who transmits
"any official document issued for his use alone" to an unauthorized person. Ironi-
cally, as Mr. Colby points out, there are effective U. S. "criminal penalties ... for
the unauthorized disclosure of an income tax return, patent information, or crop
statistics." 6 But not for sensitive national security documents or their contents ! The
law proposed here would provide for criminal prosecution against any ex-CIA
officers who violate their secrecy pledge by transmitting classified data to the
press or other unauthorized parties. It would also apply to all other government
employees who have made secrecy pledges. Effectively administered, such a law
would tend to dry up leaks to the press at the source. In the absence of measures
along this line, there will be increasing pressure to enact something like the Brit-
ish Official Secrets Act which could subject both the offending official and the
press to criminal sanctions.
3. The present Congressional oversight procedure for reviewing the CIA and
other elements in the intelligence community should be continued or replaced by
a similar arrangement involving approximately 12 members, six from the House
5 Fro in the Presidents State of the World address, New York Times, April 11, 1975. See also: Charles
J. V.Murphy, "Uncloaking the CIA," Fortune, June 1975. This article contends that the "investigative
hysteria in Washington" endangers U.S. sccurity.
New York Times. Lanuarv 16 197
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 aAF~I tf i~ ~ F 2~ /~7 1i gfdfk- RtWM-026UWdN8Q i20 mittee
on Intelligence, including two members each from the appropriations, foreign
affairs, and armed services committees in each chamber. This would eliminate
the need for four separate hearings under the present plan and allow for a more
thorough examination of CIA activity. Each member of this joint committee
should have the approval of the chairman of each of the six parent committees
and the leaders of both houses to insure maximum reliability and discretion.
Each staff member of the oversight committee or committees should. have a se-
curity clearance "commensurate with the sensitivity of the classified informa-
tion" which he needs to handle, to quote Senate Resolution 21 which created the
Select Committee on Intelligence on January 27, 1975. Each staff member
should be required to sign a pledge that he will not transmit classified informa-
tion to any unauthorized person and that he will not "accept any honorarium,
royalty or other payment," again, to quote Resolution 21, for any information
gained in connection with his committee work.
Further, appropriate Congressional committees should untertake a study to
determine if it would be desirable for members of committees dealing with sensi-
tive national security information to undergo a security clearance and to sign a
pledge, such as the one now required by the staff.
4. The 1974 Ryan amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act (Part III, Section
662) should be repealed to minimize the chances of security leaks and Congres-
sional meddling in day-to-day CIA operations. This non-germane appendage to
the AID bill appears to require the President to report all covert political opera-
tions to six Congressional committees with a total of about 150 members. Since
this requirement would greatly increase the chances of leaks, the effect of the
amendment is to paralyze CIA political activity. As two journalists put it: the
amendment forces the President "to risk virtually uncontrollable security
breaches by hostile members of Congress." 7 If the intent of the amendment is to
give Congress .the opportunity to review covert activities, that intent is already
adequately cared for in the present or here proposed oversight arrangements.
5. The new amendments to the Freedom of Information Act passed in 1974
should be repealed. The amendments require that any agency hand over the re-
quested data within ten working days or give an explanation of why it cannot,
and provide for elaborate appeal and judicial procedures to protect the reques-
ter. Whatever their intent, the new amendments place a potentially heavy bur-
den on the CIA and give critics a ready instrument to harass the agency. The
7 Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, "Congressional Straightjacket for the CIA," IFaskviKton Post,
January 22, 1975.
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 process of harassment has already Nun. Even more serious the amendments
A ro ed For Ref ease 005/0 13d CIA- DP7 M02~66dR0008( 0120046-8
turn ove to tue courts e aut on y to ec assl y na zona security ocuments.
Responsibilities of the Media
Turning from Capitol Hill to the Fourth Estate, it is pertinent to emphasize
the power of the mass media, particularly television, in a society where the gov-:
ernment does not own or control a single newspaper or broadcasting station.
Abraham Lincoln underscored the influence of those who.mold popular opinion
"With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Conse'
quently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes
or pronounces decisions." $
The press plays an essential watchdog function in our political system. The
people must be ever alert to the abuses of power by the government and the abuse
of information by the press. By deciding what stories should have page-one atten-
tion and how to slant them, major newspapers, wire services, and networks have
a great influence in setting the national agenda, determining the parameters
of debate, and limiting policy options.
Major sectors of the media have performed less than responsibly in reporting,
and commenting on the current CIA debate. They have sensationalized and
given credence to unsupported charges against the agency. The New York Times
has been a major offender by publishing as hard news what Hanson W. Baldwin
has called "exaggerated, inaccurate or irresponsible" stories.9 The Times and
other media have acted as though they were above the law by arrogating . to
themselves the decision of whether the disclosure of certain classified information
would or would not harm the national interest. This responsibility rests with the
democratically elected representatives of the people, not with any self-appointed
elite.
Hardcore critics of the CIA in Congress and the media are united in their
insistence on substituting their private judgment on highly complex matters: for,
the whole political process rooted in the rule of law. A classic example is the Glo-
mar Explorer story which Mr. Baldwin described as one of "the most damaging
and irresponsible leaks" in U. S. intelligence history when "the media, in the
name of freedom damaged the defense of freedom." 10 Walter Cronkite of CBS
News on the other hand said "I don't think the press should have held the story",
in spite of the Government's request to do so."
Lincoln's debate in Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858.
9 New r ork Times, May 8, 1975?
Ibid.
IVas/,ington Slar, April 20, 1975.
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 4pargrijok Eof if t?afookZ05i*PRI-$evQAt4R1E)1R;1 QWgr69 A06$ ;1-26p4F grealy
published top secret documents taken from.the Defense Department, but has re-
fused to give Congress or the U. S. government the names of CIA employees who
violated their contract by giving classified information to Seymour Hersh. The
Times justified its refusal to assist the government by saying that it received the
information on a confidential basis. 12 This dual ethic recalls a morally refreshing
statement of British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan: "Let us be honest. All
of us at some time seem to apply double standards. None of us should be proud of
it, but let none of us be ashamed to admit it." 13 The Times, of course, does not
speak with one voice. C. L. Sulzberger has warned that efforts "to cripple our in-
telligence service" will let "the Soviet KGB move into the vacuum."14 Former
Times reporter, Harrison E. Salisbury says the "CIA not only cons the public
and the rest of the government - it cons itself." 15
A major.part of the problem is advocacy journalism in the guise of presenting
straight news - a malady that afflicts network radio and TV as well as the
printed press. Unfortunately, there is little the government or the public can do
about it, except to plead for the media to be more fair and accurate and to sup-
port those sectors of the media that perform more responsibly. In the case of
broadcast journalism, we can urge the Federal Communications Commission to
enforce the requirements of the Fairness Doctrine. 16
There is an even deeper problem- the tendency of influential voices in the
media to give more attention to the alleged abuses of American power than to the
real dangers confronting the United States. They seem more intent on attacking
the military establishment, the civil police, and the intelligence community than
on exposing the dangers these instruments of security are designed to protect us
against. This disquieting bias in the press, regardless of motivation, gives aid and
comfort.to our adversaries at home and abroad by providing the American pub-
lic a distorted picture of the dangers we face and the measures essential to cope
with them
The minimum we should expect of the media is what Mr. Colby requested at
the annual. conference of the Associated Press: "I do not ask that `.bad secrets' be
suppressed.:. But I do make a plea that `good secrets' be respected, in the interests
not of intelligence, but of our nation." 17 As President Ford said, "a sensational-
= Washington Post, January g, 1975-
'3 Wall Street Journal, April 9, 1975?
" C. L. Sulzberger, "The Superpower Cop-out," New York Times, April 6, 1975?
Harrison E. Salisbury, "The Gentlemen Killers of the CIA," Penthouse, May 1975, P? 53-
16 See Ernest W. Lefever, TV and National Defense : An Analysis of CBS :dews, 1972-1973, Boston, Virginia,
197.3, especially pp. 1-2o and 149-67.
17 New York Times, April 8, 1975
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33
 a ed ptdro ed Fo skill vast 8
operate
Y,
The present debate about the CIA is only one aspect of a larger foreign policy
crisis brought on by the burdens of American power and increasing uncertainty
about how to exercise our power and influence in the face of new dangers and
opportunities. If we lose confidence in our Western values and permit the institu-
tions designed to defend us to be eroded, whether through self-hate or moral fas-
tidiousness, we can be certain that the determined enemies of freedom will take
full advantage of our self-inflicted wounds and moral paralysis.
8 New York Times, April I z 197j
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 f DCr/DDCI C ~
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