C.I.A.: MAKER OF POLICY, OR TOOL?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82R00025R000700050014-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2005
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: April 25, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

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THE NEW YORK TIMES Monday,
April 25, 1966
: Maker of Policy, or Tool?
Survey Finds Widely
Feared Agency Is
Tightly Controlled
Following is the first of five
articles on the Central Intelli-
gence Agency. The articles arc
by a team of New York Times
correspondents consisting of
Tom Wicker, John W. Finney,
llfax .a'rankel, E. W. Kenworthy
and other members of the Times
staff.
spcdal to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Apill '24?
One day in 1960 an agent.of the
Central Intelligence Agency
aught a plane in Tokyo, flew
to Singapore and checked into
a hotel room in time to receive
a visitor. The agent plugged a
lie detector into an overloaded
electrical circuit and blew out
the lights in the building.
In the investigation that foie
lowed, the agent and a C.I.A.
colleague were arrested and
jailed as American spies:
The result was an interna-
tional incident that infuriated
London, not once but twice. It
embarrassed an American Am-
bassador. It led an American
Secretary of State to write a
rare letter of apology to a for-
eign Chief of State.
Five years later that foreign
leader was handed an opportu-
nity to denounce the perfidy of
all Americans and of the C.I.A.
in particular, thus increasing
the apprehension of his Oriental
.neighbors about the agency and
'enhancing his Own political pp-
-
!sition. '
Ultimately, the incident lea
the United States .Government
, to tell a lie in public and then
'to admit the lie even more pub-
licly. ,
The lie was. no sooner dis-
closed than a world predisposed
to suspicion of the C.I.Ae and
unaware Of what really had
happened in Singapore five
years earlier began to repeat
questions that have dogged the
intelligence agency and the
United States Government for
years:
giWas this secret body, which
was known to have overthrown
governments and installed
others, raised armies, staged an
The Central Intelligence Agency, which does not often".
appear in the news, made headlines CO two counts in recent
days. The agency was found to have interceded in the
slander trial of one of its agents in an effort to obtain his
exoneration without explanation except that he had done its
bidding in the interests of national security. And it was
reported to have planted at least five agents among Michi-
gan State University scholars engaged in a .foreign aid
project some -years ago in Vietnam. Although the specific.
work of these agents, and the circumstances of their em-
ployment are in dispute, reports of their activities have
raised many questions about the purposes and methods of
the C.I.A., and a.bbut its relationship to other parts of the
Government and nongovernmental institutions. Even larger
questions about control Of the C.I.A. within the framework
of a free government and about its role in foreign, affairs
are periodically brought up in ? Congress and among other
governments. To provide background for these questions,
and to determine what issues of public .policy are posed by,
thengency's work, The New York Times ? has spent several:
months looking into It's affairs. .This series 'is the result.:
invaiion of Cuba,' spied and
counterspied, established air-
lines, ,radio stations and schools
and supported books, magazines
and businesses, running out of
the control of its supposed poli-
tical master?
it ? in, fact damaging,
while it .sought to advance, the
national interest? Could it spend
huge sums for ransoms, bribes
and subversion without check
or regard for the consequences?
it lie to or influence the
Ipolitical leaders of the United
-States to such an extent that it
really was an "invisible govern-
ment" more powerful than even
the President?
These are questions constant-
ly asked around the world. Some
of them were raised again re-
cently ? when it was disclosed
that Michigan State University
was the cover for some C.I.A.
agents in South Vietnam during
a multimillion-dollar technical
assistance program the univer-
'say conducted for the regime of
the late President Ngo Dinh
- Last week, it also became
known that an Estonian refugee
who was being sued for slander
in a Federal 'District Court in
Baltimore, was resting his de-
fense on the fact that the al-
leged slander had been commit-
ted in. the course of his duties
as a agent.
Approved For Release
In a public memorandum ad-
dressed to the court, the C.I.A.
stated- that it had ordered, the
agent, Juni Raus, to disclose no
further details of the case, in
order to protect the nation's
foreign intelligence apparatus.
Mr. Rans is claiming complete
legal immunity from the suit on
the grounds that he had acted
as an official agent of the Fed-
eral Government. ? -
Such incidents, bringing the
activities of the C.I.A. into dim
and often dismaying public view,
have caused members of Con-
gress and many publications to
question ever More persistently
the role and propriety of one- of
Washington's - most discussed
and least understood institu-
tions. Some of the misgivings
have been shared by at least
two American President, Harry
S. Truman and John F. Ken-
nedy.
A Wide Examination
To. seek reliable answers to
these questions; to sift, where
possible, fact from fancy and
theory from condition; to deter-
mine what real questions of
public policy and International
relations are poSed by the exist-
ence and operations of the
C.I.A., The New York , Times
has compiled information and
opinions from, informed Ameri-
cans throughout the world.
It has obtained reports from
20 foreign -correspondents and
editors with recent service in
more than 35 countries and
from reporters in Washington
who interviewed more than 50
present and former Govern-
ment officials, members of .Con-
gress and military officers.?..
This study, caiTied out over
several months, disclosed, for
Instance, that the Singapore
affair resulted not from a lack
or political contrel or from reck-
lessness by the C.I.A., but from
bad fortune and diplomatic
blundering.
It found that the C.I.A., for
all its fearsome reputation, is
under far more stringent politi-
cal and budgetary control than
most of its critics know or con-
cede, and that -since the Bay of
Pigs disaster in Cuba in 1961
these controls have been tightly
exercised;
The consensus of those inter-
viewed was that the critics'
favorite recommendation for a
stronger rein on the agency ?
a Congressional committee to
oversee the C.I.A.?would prob-
ably provide little more real
control than now exists and
might both restrict the agency's
effectiveness and actually shield
It from those who desire more
knowledge about its operations.
A Matter of Will
Other important conclusions
of the study include the follow-
ing: ,
tlWhile the Institutional forms
of political control appear ef-
fective and sufficient, it is really
the toil/ of the political officials
who must exert control that is
important and that has most
often been lacking.,
,gEven when control is tight
and effective, a more important,
question may concern the extent
to which C.I.A. information and
policy judgments affect political
decisions in foreign affairs.
cWhether or not political con-
trol is being exercised, the more
serious question is whether the
very existence of an efficient
C.I.A. causes the United States
Government to'rely too Much on
clandestine and illicit activities,
back-alley tactics, subversion
and what Is known in official
jargon as "dirty tricks."
611Finally, regardless of the
facts, the C.I.A.'s reputation in
the world is so horrendous and
Its role in events so exaggerated
that it is becoming a burden on
American foreign policy, rather
that the secret weapon it was
intended to be.
The Singapore incident, with
its' bizarre repercussions five
years later, is an excellent lesson
in. how that has happened, al-
though none of the fears of the
critics are justified by the facts
of the particular case.
? Problem In Singapore
The ill-fated agent who blew
out the lights flew from Tokyo
to Singapore only after a pro-
longed argument inside the
C.I.A. Singapore, a strategic
Asian port with a Ime''se Chinese
population, was soon to get its
Independence from Britain and
enter the Malaysian Federation.
Should C.I.A. recruit some well-
placed spies, or should it, as be-
fore, rely on MI-6, the British
secret service, and on Britain's
ability to maintain good rela-
tions and good sources in Singa-
pore?
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1/41 t
4 Allen W. Dulles, then the
CIA's .director, decided to in-
filtrate the city with its own
agents, to make sure that the
British were sharing everything
they knew. Although the deci-
sion was disputed, it is not un-
cornenon in any intelligence serv-
ice to bypass or double-check on
an ally.
(On Vice President Humph-
rey's visit late last year to the
capitals of Japan, South Korea,
Taiwan, arid the Philippines;
Secret Service agents found at
least three "bugs," or listening
devices, hidden in his private
quarters by one of his hosts.)
The agent who flew from
Tokyo to Singapore was on a
recruiting mission, and the, lie
detector, an instrument used by
the C.I.A. on its own employes,
was intended to test the relia-
bility of a local candidate for a
spy's job.
When the machine shorted
out the lights in the hotel, the
visiting agent, the would-be spy
and -another C.I.A. man were
discovered. They wound up in a
Singapore jail. There they were
reported to have. been "tortured"
?either for real, or to extract
a ransom.
The Price Was high
Secret discussions?apparent-
ly through C.I.A. channels ?
were held about the possibility
of buying the agents' freedom
with increased American for-
eign aid, but Washington even-
tually decided Singapore's price
was too high. The men were
subsequently released.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk
? the Kennedy Administration
had succeeded to office in'Janu-
ary, 1961?wrote a formal apol-
ogy to Premier Lee Kuan Yew
of Singapore and promised to
discipline the culprits. , ?
That appeared to have ended
the matter until last fall, when
!Premier Lee broke away from
the Malaysian Federation and
sought to establish himself for
Political reasons as more nearly
a friend of Britain than of the
United States, although his anti-
Americanism was short of pro-
Communism.
To help achieve this purpose,
Mr. Lee disclosed the 1960 "af-
front' without giving any de-
tails, except to say that he had
been offered a paltry p.3-million
bribe when he had demanded
$33-million.
The State Department, which
had been routinely fed a denial
Of wrongdoing by C.I.A. officials
who did not know of the Rusk
apology, described the charge as
'false. Mr. Lee then published
Mr. Rusk's letter of 1961 and
threatened also to play some
interesting tape recordings for
the press. ?
Hastily, Washington confessed
?not to the bribe offer, which
Id hotly denied by all officials
connected with the incident, or
to the incident itself, but to
having done something that had
merited an apology.
London, infuriated in the first
instance by what it considered
the C.LA.'s mistrust of MI-6,
now fumed 'a, second time about
clumsy tactics 4agag
Acting on Orders
Errors' of bureaucracy and
mishaps of chance can easily be
found in the Singapore incident,
but critics of the C.I.A. cannot
easily find in it proof of the
charges so often raised about
the agency?"control," "making
policy" and "Undermining pol-
icy."
The agent in Singapore was
acting on direct orders, from
:Washington. His superiors in
the C.I.A. were acting within
? the directives of the President
and the National Security Coun-
cil. The mission was not con-
trary to ? American foreign pol-
icy, was ? not undertaken to
!change or subvert that policy,
and was not dangerously fool-
hardy. It was net much more
than routine-and would not
have been unusual in any in-
telligence service in the world.
Nevertheless, the Sinagpore
incident -- the details of which
have been shrouded in the
C.I.A.'s enforced secrecy?add-
ed greatly to the rising tide of
dark suspicion that many people
throughout the World, including
.many in this country, harbor
-about the agency and its activi-
ties.
I Carl Rowan, the former di-
rector of the United States In-
formation Agency and former
Ambassador to Finland, wrote
last year in his syndicated col-
umn than "during a recent tour
of East Africa end Southeast
Asia, it was made. clear to me
that suspicion and fear of the
C.I.A. has become a sort of
Achilles heel of American for-
eign policy."
, President Sukarno of Indo-
nesia, Prince Norodom Siha-
nouk, Cambodia's Chief of State.
;President Joino Kcnyatta of
Kenya, former President 1i:wattle,
'Nkrumah of Ghana and many!
other leaders have repeatedly
insisted that behind the regular
American government there is
an "invisible government," the
C.I.A., threatening them all
with infiltration, subversion and
even war. Communist China and
the Soviet Union sound this
theme endlessly.
"The Invisible Government"
was the phrase applied to
American intelligence agencies,
and, particularly the C.I.A., in
a book of that title by David
" Wise and Thomas B. Ross. It
was a beet-seller ? in the United
States and among many gov-
ernment officials abroad.
Subject of Humor
So prevalent is the C.I.A. rep-
utation of menace in so much
of the world that even humorists
have taken note of it, The New
Yorker magazine last December
printed a -cartoon -showing two
natives of an unspecified coun-
try watching a vocano erupt.
One native es saying to the
'other: "The- C.I.A. did it. Pass
the Word."
In Southeast Asia, even the
most rational leancre are said
to be ready to believe anything
about the C.I.A.
I "Like Dorothy Parker and the
'things' she said," one observer
.notes, "the C.I.A. gets. credit or
'blame both for what it does and
for many things it has not even
thought of doing."
Many earnest Americans, too,
are bitter critics of' the C.I.A.
Senator Eugene J. McCarthy,
Democrat of Minnesota, has
charged .that the agency "is
making foreign policy and in so
doing is assuming the roles of
President and Congress." He has
introduced a proposal to. create
a special Foreign Relations sub-
committee to make a "full and
complete" study ofthe effects of
C.I.A. operations on United
States foreign relations.
Senator Stephen M. Young,
Democrat of Ohio, has proposed
that a joint Senate-House com-
mittee oversee the C.I.A. be-
cause, "wrapped in a cloak of
secrecy, the C.I.A. has, in effect,
been making foreign policy."
Mayor Lindsay of New York,
while a Republican member of
Congress, indicted the C.I.A. on
the House floor for a long series
of fiascos, including the most
famous blunder in recent Amer-
ican history?the Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba.
Former President Harry S.
?Truman, whose Administration
established the C.I.A. in 1947,
said in 1963 that by then he saw
"something about the way the
C.I.A. has been functioning that
Is casting a shadow over our
'historic positions, and I feel
that we need to correct it."'
Kennedy's Bitterness
And President Kennedy, as
the enormity of the Bay of Pigs
disaster came home to him, said
to one of the highest officials
of his Administration that he
wanted "to splinter the C.I.A. in
a thousand pieces and scatter
it to the winds."
Even some who defend the
C.I.A. as the indispensable eyes
and ears of the Government--
for example Allen Dulles, the
agency's most famous director?
now fear that the cumulative
criticism and suspicion, at home
and abroad, have impaired the
C.I.A.'s effectiveness and there-
fore the nation's safety.
They are. -anxious to see the
criticisms answered and the sus-
piciens allayed, even if?in some
cases?the agency should thus
become more exposed to domes-
tic politics and to compromises
of' security.
"If the establishment of a
Congressional committee with
responsibility for intelligence
waild quiet public fears and re-
store public confidence in the
C.I.A., Mr. Dulles said in an
interview, "then I now think it
'would be worth doing despite
some of the problems .it would
cause the agency.'
1'
this view IS shared
In varying degree by numerous
friends of the C.I.A. and because
its critics are virtually unani-
mous in calling for More "con-
trol," most students of the prob-
lem have looked to Congress for
a remedy.
. In the .19 years that the
:C.I.A. has been in existence, 150
resolutions for tighter Congres-
sional control have been intro-
! duced?and put aside. The stat-
istic in itself is evidence of
widespread uneasiness about the
C.I.A. and of how little is known.
. about the agency.
i For the truth is that despite.
Ithe C.I.A.'s international repu-
tation, few persons in or out of
the American Government know
much about its work, its organ-
ization, its supervision or its re-
lationship to the other arms of
the executive branch.
A former chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, for in-
stance, had no idea how big the
C.I.A. budget was. A Senator,
experienced in foreign, affairs,
proved, in an interview, to know
very little about, but to fear
very much, its operations.
Many critics do not know that
virtually all C.I.A. expenditures
must be authorized in advance
? first by an Administration
committee that includes some of
the highest-ranking political of-
ficials and White House staff
assistants, then by officials in
the Bureau of the Budget, who
have the power to rule out or
?reduce an expenditure.
They do not know that, in-
stead of a blank check, the
C.I.A. has an annual budget of
a little more than $500-minion--
only one-sixth the $3-billion the
Government spends on -its over-
all intelligence effort. The Na-
tional Security Agency, a cryp-
tographic and code - breaking
Operation run by the Defense
Department, and. almost never
I
'questioned by outsiders, spends
twice as much as the C.I.A.
The critics shrug aside the
fact that President Kennedy,
after the most rigorous inquiry
into the agency's affairs, meth-
lods and problems after the Bay
'of Pigs, did not "splinter" it
after all and did not recommend
Congressional supervision.
They ,may be unaware that
since then supervision of intelli-
gence activities has been tight-
ened. When President Eisen-
hower wrote a letter to all Am-
bassadors placing them in charge
of all American activities in their
countries, he followed it with a
secret letter specifically exempt-
ing the C.I.A.; but when Presi-
dent Kennedy put the Ambassa-
dors in command of all activi-
ties, he sent a secret letter spe-
cifically including the C.I.A. It
IS still in effect but, like all
directives, variously interpreted..
- 'Out of a Spy Novel
The critics, quick to point to
the agency's publicized blunders
and -setbacks, are not mollified
by its genuine achievements ?
its precise prediction Of the date
on which the Chinese Commu-
nists would explode a nuclear
device; its fantastic world of,
electronic -devices; its use of al
spy, Oleg Penkovskiy, to reach
Into the Kremlin itself; its work
in keeping the Congo out of
Communist control; or the feat
?straight from a spy novel?
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of arranging things so that;
when Gamal Abdel Nasser camel
to power in Egypt the 'manage-
ment consultant" who had an
;office next to the Arab leader's
and who was one of his prin-
cipal advisers was -a C.I.A.
operative.
When the U-2 incident is men-
tioned by critics, as it always is,
the emphasis is usually on the
C.I.A.'s ? and the Eisenhower
Administration's ? blunder in
permitting Francis Gary Pow-
ers's flight over the Soviet Union
in 1960, just before Ia scheduledi
summit conference. Not much is;
usually said of the incalculable
intelligence value of the undis-
turbed U-2 flights between 1956
and 1960 over the heartland of
Russia. I
And when critics frequently
charge that C.I.A. operations
contradict and sabotage official
; American 'policy, they may not
;know that the C.I.A. is often
, overruled in its policy judg-
ments.
As an example, the C.I.A.
'strongly urged the Kennedy Ad-
ministration not to recognize
the Egyptian-backed Yemeni
regime and warned that Presi-
dent Nasser would not quickly
pull his troops out of Yemen.
Ambassador John Badeau
thought otherwise: His advice
was accepted, the republic was
recognized, President Nasser's
troops remaaned?'and much miii
,tary and political trouble fol-
lowed that the C.I.A. had fore-
seen and the State Department
had not.
? I
Nor do critics always give the
?C.I.A. credit where it is due for
its vital and daily service as an
accurate and encyclopedic source
of quick news, information, anal-
ysis and deduction about every-
thing from a new police chief in
Mozambique to an aid agree-
ment between Communist China
and Albania, from the -state of
President Sukarno's health to
the meaning of Nikita S. Khru-
shehev fall from power.
Yet the critics' favorite indict-
ments are spectacular enough
to explain tne worm's suspicions
and fears of the C.I.A. and its
operations.
A sorry episode in Asia in
the early ninteen-fifties is a fre-
quently 'cited example. C.I.A.
agents gathered remnants of
tlle defeated Chinese Nationalist
armies in the jungles of north-
west Burma, supplied them with
gold and arms and encouraged
them to raid Communist China.
One aim was to harrass. Pek-
ing to a point where it might
retaliate against Burma, forcing
the Burmese to turn to the
United States for protection.
Actually, few raids occurred,
and the army became a trouble-
some and costly burden. The
C.I.A. had enlisted the help of
Gen. Phao Sriyanod, the police
chief of Thailand?and a leading
narcotics dealer. The National-
ists, with the planes and gold
furnished them by the agents,
wont into the opium business.
By the time the "anti-Commu-
nist', force could be disbanded,:
and the C.I.A. could wash its:
nounced American aid, threat-1
hands of it, Burma had re-
and moved `CIRTJV 'fd" 'Prit n .
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Moreover, some of the Nation-
alist Chinese are still in north-
ern Burma, years later, and still
fomenting trouble and infuriat-
ing governments ill that area,
although they have not been
supported by the C.I.A. or any
American agency for a decade.
In 1958, a C.I.A.-aided opera-
tion involving South Vietnamese
agents and Cambodian rebels
was interpreted by Prince Siha-
nouk as an .attempt to over-
throw him. It failed bat drove
him farther down the road that
ultimately led to his break in
diplomatic relations with Wash-
ington.
Indonesian Venture
In Indonesia in the same year,
'against the advice of American
diplomats, the C.I.A. was au,
Ithorized to fly in supplies from
iTaiwan and the Philippines to
aid army officers reheling
against President Sukarno in
Sumatra and Java. An Ameri-
can pilot was shot down on a
'bombing mission and was re-
'leased only at the insistent urg-
ing of the Kennedy Administrsi-
ition in 1962. Mr. Sukarno, nit-
!turally enough, drew the obvious
'conclusions; now much of his
fear and dislike of the United
States can be traced to those:
; days is hard to say.
; In 1960, C.I.A. agents in Laos,
disguised as "military advisers,"
;stuffed ballot boxes and engi-
neered local uprisings to helps,
!hand-picked strongman, Gena
IPhoumi Nosavart, set up a "pro-
American" 'government that was;
desired by President Eisenhower;
and Secretary of State 'John'
-Foster Dulles.
This operation succeeded?sol
much so that it stimulated So-
viet intervention on the side of
leftist Laotians, who counter-
attacked the Phouini govern-
Intent. When the Kennedy Ad-
ministration set out to raverse
the, policy of the Eisenhower
Administration, it found the
C.I.A.. deeply committed to
Phoumi Nosovan and needed
two years of negotiations and
threats to restore the neutralist
regime of . Prince Souvanna
Phouma.
Pro-Communist Laotians, how-
ever, were never again driven
from the border of North Viet,
nam, and it is through that re-
gion that the Vietcong in South
Vietnam have been supplied and
replenished in their war to de-
stroy still another C.I.A.-aided
project, the non-Communist gov-
ernment in Saigon. ? .
Catalogue of, Charges
It was the C.I.A. that built
up Ngo Dinh Diem as the pro-
American head. of South 'Viet-
Y1 aril after the French, through
Emperor Lao Dai, had found
him in a monastery cell in Bel-
gium and brought him back to
Saigon as Premier. And it was
the C.I.A. that helped persuade
the Eisenhower and Kennedy
Administrations to ride out the
Vietnamese storm with Diem?
probably too long.
? Thee recorded incidents not
only have promptgai much soul-
searching about the influence of
an instrument such as the C.I.A.I
on .Agnerican policies but also
have given the C.I.A. a reputa-
tion for deeds and misdeeds far
beyond its real intentions and
capacities.
Through spurious reports, gos-
sip, misunderstandings, deep-
seated fears and forgeries and
falsifications, the agency ? has
been accused of almost any-
. ?
thing anyone wanted to accuse
it of.
It has been accused of:
f^:Plotting the. assassination Of
Jawaharlal Nehru- of India.
(1Provoking the 1965 war be-
tween India and Pakistan.
c.EIngineering the "plot" that
became the pretext for the mur-
der of leading Indonesia gen-
erals last year.
(I Supporting the rightist army
plots in Algeria.
QvIurdering Patrice Lunium-
ba .in the Congo.
c.Kidnapping Moroccan agents
in Paris.
filPlotting the overthrow of
President Kwame Nkrumalt of
Ghana.
All a these charges and many
Similar to them are fabrications
authoritative officials outside
the C.I.A. insist.
The C.I.A..'s notoriety even
enables some enemies to recover
from their own mistakes. A for-
; mer American official uncon-
nected with the agency recalls
that pro-Chinese elements in
East Africa once circulated a
document urging revolts against
several governments. When this
inflammatory message backfired
on its authors, they promptly
spread the word that it was
a C.I.A. forgery designed to dis-
credit them?and some believed
the falsehood.
Obvious Deduction
"Many otherwise rational Af-
rican leaders are ready to take
forgeries at face value," one ob-
server says, "because deep down
they honestly fear the C.I.A. Its
image in this part of the world
couldn't be worse."
The image feeds on the rank-
est a fabrications as well as on
the wildest of stories?for the
simple reason that the wildest
of stories are not always false,
and the 'C.I.A. is often involved
and all too often obvious.
When an embassy subordi-
nate in Lagos, Nigeria, known
to be the C.I.A. station chief
had a fancier house than the
United States Ambassador, Ni-
gerians made the obvious deduc-
tion about who was in charge.
When President Joao Goulart
of Brazil fell from power in 1964
and C.I.A. men were accused
of being among his most ener-
getic opponents, exaggerated
conclusions as to who had oust-,
ed him were natural.
It is'not only abroad that such
C.I.A. invelvements ? real or
irnaginery ?have aroused dire
fears add suspicions. Theodore
C. Sorensen has written, for in-
stance, that the Peace Corps in
its early days strove manfully,
and apparently successfully, to
keep ita ranks free of C.I.A.. in-
filtration.' '
' Other Government agencies,
American newspapers and busi-
ness concerns, charitable foun-
dations, research institutions
and universities have, in some-
cases, been as diligent as Soviet
agents in trying to protect
themselves from C.I.A. penetra-
tion. They have not always been
so successful as the Peace
Corps.
' Some of their fear has been
misplaced; the C.I.A. is no long-
er so dependent on clandestine
agents and other institutions'
resources. But as in the case of
its Overseas reputation, its ac-
tual activities in the United
States?for instance, its aid in
financing a center for interna-
tional studies at the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology?
have made the fear of infiltra-
tion real to many scholars and
businesses.
The reVelation that C.I.A.
agents served among Michigan
State University scholars in
South Vietnam from 1955 to
1959 has contributed to the fear.
The nature of the agents' work
and the circumstances of their
employment are in dispute, but
their very involvement, even
relatively long ago, has aroused
concern that hundreds of schol-
arly and charitable American
efforts abroad will be tainted
and hampered by the suspicions
of other governments. '
Thus, it is easy for sincere
men to believe deeply that the
C.I.A. must be brought "to heel"
in the nation's own interest. Yet
every well-informed official and
former official with recent
knowledge of the C.I.A. and its
activities who was interviewed
confirmed what Secretary of
State Rusk has said public-
ly?that the C.I.A. "does not
initiate actions uhltnown to the
high policy leaders of the Gov-
ernment."
. The New York Times survey
left no doubt that, whatever its
miscalculations, blunders and
misfortunes, whatever may have
been the situation during its
I bumptious early days and dur-
ing its over-hasty expansion in
and after the Korean War, the
. agency acts today not on its
own but with the approval and
under the control of the political
leaders of the United States,
Government.
But that virtually undisputed;
!fact raises in itself the central;
questions that emerge from the;
survey: What is control? And
who guards the guards?
For it is upon information
provided by the-C.I.A. itself that
' those who must approve its ac-
tivities are usually required to
decide.
It is the C.I.A. that has the
money (not unlimited but ample)
and the talent (as much as any
; agency) not only to conceive
;but also to carry out projects
of great importance?and corn-
mensu rate risk.
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Action, If Not Success
It is the C.I.A., unlike the
Defense Department with its
service rivalries, budget con-
cerns and political involvements,
and unlike the State Depart-
ment with its international dip-
lomatic responsibilities and its
vulnerability to criticism, that
is freest of all agencies to advo-
cate its projects and press home
its views; the C.I.A. can prom-
ise action, if not success.
And both the' agency and
those who must pass upon its
plans are, shielded by security
from the outside oversight and
review under which virtually all
other officials operate, at 'home
and abroad.
Thus, while the survey left no
doubt that the C.I.A. operates
under strict forms of control, it
raised the more serious question
whether there was always the
substance of control.
In many ways, moreover,
'public discussion has become
too centered on the question of
control. A more disturbing mat-
.ter may be whether the nation
has allowed itself to go too far
in the grim and sometimes
deadly business of espionage
and secret operations.
One of the best-informed men
,
on this subject in Washington
described that business as "ugly,
mean and 'cruel." The agency
loses men and no one ever hears
of them again, he said, and
when "we catch one of them"
.(a Soviet or other agent), it be-
comes necessary "to get every-
thing out of them and we do it
With no holds barred." .
Secretary Rusk has said pub-
licly that there is "a tough
struggle going on in the back
alleys all over the world." "It's
a tough one, it's unpleasant, and
no one likes it, but that is not,
a field which can be left entirely,
the other side," he ,said. ?
1 The back-alley ' struggle, he
concluded, is "a never-ending
war, and there's no ; quarter
asked and none given."
'Struggle for Freedom'
But that struggle, Mr. Rusk
Insisted, is "part of the strug-
gle for freedom."
No one seriously disputes that
the effort to gain intelligence
about real or potential enemies,
even about one's friends, is a
vital part of any government's
activities, particularly a govern-
ment so burdened with resPonsi-
Linty as the United States Gov-
ernment in the 20th ,century.
But beyond their need for in'
formation, how far should the
political leaders of the United
States go in approving the clan-
destine violation of 'treaties and
borders, financing of coups, in-
fluencing of parties and govern-;-
merits, without tarnishing and
retarding those ideas of freedom
and self-government , they pro-
claim to the world?
And how much of the secrecy
land autonomy necessary to car-
!ry out such acts can or should
be tolerated by a free society?
There are TM certain or easy
answers. But these questions
cannot even be discussed knowl-
edgeably on the basis of the few
glimpses ? accidental or inten-
tional?that the public has so
far. been given into the private
world of the C.I.A.
That world is both .dull and,
lurid, often at the same time.
A year ago, for instance, it
was reported that some of the
anti-Castro Cuban survivors of
the Bay of -Pigs were flying in
combat in deepest, darkest At-,
rica. Any Madison Avenue pub-
lisher would recognize that as
right out of IanFleming and
James Bond;
But to the bookish and tweedy
men who labor in the pastoral
setting of the C.I.A.'s huge
building on the banks of the?
Potomac River near Langley,.
Va., the story was only a satis-
fying episode in the back-alley'
,version of "Struggle for Free-
dom." ? " .
Drawing by Al6n Dunn; 1065 The NewYorher MnrMile. or.
THE C. A.?GOOD, BAD OR OTHERWISE? Much discussed and criticized, the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency has not escaped humorous treatment either. Its detractors
loudly condemn it, nearly everyone talks about it, but very few really understand it.
???????111.....
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