FOR MORE C.I.A. BOOKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600080075-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 2004
• Sequence Number: 75
• Publication Date: June 4, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

-AR ARTICL p~ Aj NEW YORK TIi S
,~....proved For Release 200$103/9 : WDP81 M00980R000600080075-6
For More C.I:A. Books
By A.J. Langguth
had three defectors from the Central
Intelligence Agency, and by my calcu-
lations we need 300 more. To root out
the undergrowth in our democracy
will require that at least that many
former C.I.A. officers come forward to
write about their secret activities
I ? The scholars. Academicians have
LOS ANGELES-So far, we have been slow to believe that their Govern-
While some, like- Philip: Agee,. may
describe their trail of lies and corrup-
tion in more than one country, the
average memoirs, like the books by-
Frank Snepp or John Stockwell, Will-'-
probably inform us about C.I.A. ac
lions in a single country. So to do the.'
job. properly we. must have 300 -men---
and women - one who served in each
scribed in detail the fall of Brazil's
President, Joao Goulart, who was de.
posed in the same way that Salvador
Allende Gossens of Chile was brought
down nine years later. But except for
Dr. Jan Black's recent account,
"United States Penetration in Brazil,"
the professors have often accepted un-
critically the denials of United States.
involvement from Washington and
from our Embassy in Rio de Janeiro.
? The victims. In prison, they are
usually inaccessible. On their release, .
many are understandably reluctant to .
risk a return to the torture chambers.
women did agree to speak with me.
.But even in their own homes, they.
. spoke in- guarded whispers - this in
Uruguay, a model of democracy only a~.
dozen years ago. When-exiled outside
books are in the stores. When Victor their own countries, they can be in-
Marchetti and John D. Marks were duced to speak, they have much to tell
more forthright, the C.I.A. took their - It was a Brazilian student, ban-
blank to court, and the result was those fisus. hed to Paris, who l told e that the
CIA spaces many pages .The head of one of the cruelest prisons in .
CIA and the Cult lt of Intelligence." . ~
We can't accept those gaps any long-. Rio de Janeiro and a man directly fin-
er. Much of the impact of Mr. Agee's volved with the torture there had af-
"Inside the Company: CIA Diary" de- terward been appointed director of the
rives from its sheer numbing length: new National Police Academy in
all those Latin-American politicians.:. Brasilia, a training school supported
and policemen. and journalists-sub-:1 by our Government.
orned, all that hectic underhanded ac- . Such exiles, however., are scattered
tivity to maintain the status quo: , in Algeria, Stockholm, Geneva, Paris.
Journalists alone, even a Seymour ' - Amnesty International regularly com-
am-
in
rif
h
i
i
1960's and the 1970's. They should be en-
couraged to take the risk,. gather up
their notes and break their vows of si-
lence. And, if necessary, to proceed
with appropriate caution until their
expose enough of what we need to;
know. Nor can scholars, Congressional
committees or the C.LA.'s? political
victims.
g p
y
or
n
piles their stor
es
phlets, but that admirable organiza-
tion cannot serve as a true investiga-
tive agency.
? The United States Congress. Even
for such well-intentioned men as Sena-
tors James - Abourezk and Frank..
Church, armed with subpoena powers
gether the United States role in over- and conducting their hearings under-
throwing Brazil's democracy in 1964: oath, the men of the C.I.A; and their
and our.complicity in the subsequent. cohorts have proved too slippery. Ei-.
torture that has stained Latin-Ameri-.- -they they behave like Richard Helms,
can history ? through the last decade. the former Director of Central Intelli-
But each group also has its severe. gene;. or they become tantalizingly
limitations.... ; .,.. , ,: . ,x..?i elusive, wanting to look ingenuous
even at the cost of seeming incompe-
? Reporters. Those Yew, United
States correspondents based in Latin
America are usually responsible for
covering an entire continent, on which
Brazil alone is larger than the United
States mainland. When they are delib-
erately misled, they don't always have
the time or the resources to expose a
lie or evasion. .
An example: The director of the en-
tire United States program for train- .
ing foreign policemen - a retired
C.I.A. officer - assured me that he
had assigned Dan Mitrione, who was
later shot to death by Tupamaro guer-
rillas, to Uruguay because in 1969 it
was "one of the nicest, most peaceful
places" on earth. Eighteen months
after that interview, under the Free-
dom of Information Act I obtained
copies of the internal police reports
sent back to Washington during that
period and read by this man. I found
them filled with alarms about the ram-
paging Tupamaros. Clearly, for a
United States police adviser, Uruguay
was to be no vacation resort. But, it
had taken repeated written requests
and telephone calls over a year and a
half, well past the deadline for the
average journalist, to get those for-
merly confidential documents.
Perhaps some day the civilian
protagonists will tell us the truth about
Brazil and Chile and all the rest. But I
suspect it's more likely that their
books will prove worthy shelf mates for
Mr. Nixon's "R.N." That leaves only
C.I.A. officers with hands they want to
get clean. Two years ago,. I asked
Philip Agee whether some C.I.A.
agent from Brazil wasn't at work on a
confession that would simplify my re.
search. "I don't know," Mr. Agee said...'
"And you understand that even if I
knew, I couldn't tell you."
Quite right. But I. watch the book--
stores.
A.J. Langguth is. author of "Hidden
Terrors,'.' about- the Central Intelli-
gence Agency and Latin America.
Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R000600080075-6