CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS AROUND THE WORLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100090005-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 14, 2007
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: February 18, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEW CHASE, MARYLAND 20015 656-4068
ABC Nightline
February 18, 1982 11:30 PM
S T A T I O N W J L A TV
ABC Network
Clandestine Operations Around the World
Washington, DC
TED KOPPEL: The U.S. intelligence community. Its main
task is the collection and evaluation of information. But there
is another, less visible side: clandestine operations. Under
the Reagan Administration, they seem to be coming back into favor.
We'll discuss that apparent trend tonight with four experts:
former Deputy CIA Director Ray Cline; E. Howard Hunt, an intelli-
gence officer for more than 20 years; Senator Joseph Biden, who's
on the Senate Intelligence Committee; and former Senator Frank
Church, who used to chair that committee.
KOPPEL: Our focus tonight, what is sometimes referred
to as covert activities or clandestine operations. It is that
gray area, as it's been called, between diplomacy and combat,
the means by which an Administration can act against its adver-
saries while maintaining deniability. It was, until the U.S.
Senate began stripping away some of the classified wrapping paper,
among the CIA's better-kept secrets. During the Carter Adminis-
tration in particular, clandestine operations were reduced to a
minimum. They seem to be on their way back into favor.
Again and again and again today at President Reagan's
news conference, reporters gave the President the chance to deny
what is customarily denied in public -- namely, even the sugges-
tion that the U.S. Government would try to destabilize the gov-
ernment of another country by covert means. As White House cor-
respondent Sam Donaldson reports, however, Mr. Reagan chose to
rule out nothing.
SAM DONALDSON: President Reagan at his news conference
today.
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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MAN: Have you approved of covert activitiy to desta-
bilize the present government of Nicaragua?
DONALDSON: Destabilize. Or, in simpler terms, over-
throw. Is the United States trying to overthrow the government
of Nicaragua?
From the day it took office, the Reagan Administration
has strongly disliked the Sandinista junta that governs Nicaragua.
The junta is leftist-Marxist. But more importantly, the Adminis-
tration is convinced Nicaragua is a vital way station for a flow
of Cuban-supplied arms to leftist guerrillas in other countries,
particularly El Salvador.
SECRETARY OF STATE ALEXANDER HAIG: Nicaragua is being
exploited as a base for the export of subversion and armed inter-
vention throughout Central America. Cooperating with our friends
and allies in the region, we will do whatever is necessary to
contain the threat.
DONALDSON: And what is the United States doing? On
February 3rd, ABC News broadcast a report that the Administration
had discussed with Argentina the possibility of Argentine para-
military forces infiltrating Nicaragua to help stop the arms flow
and, more than that, to help destabilize or overthrow the Nicar-
aguan government. The Nicaraguan Foreign Minister said he thought
the report was correct.
FOREIGN MINISTER MIGUEL D'ESCOTA: We have manifesta-
tions of involvement of Argentine military personnel at very high
levels with the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionary efforts. And
obviously, everyone knows the attitude of the United States gov-
ernment with regard to our revolution and with regard to our gov-
ernment.
DONALDSON: The next day, ABC News broadcast a follow-up
story reporting that the Administration had prepared a broad plan
to overthrow the Nicaraguan government that contained both economic
and paramilitary elements. And last Sunday, the Washington Post
reported that the plan was aimed at countering Cuban activities in
a number of countries, particularly Nicaragua.
Again a Nicaraguan official said the reports of U.S.
activity were correct.
AMBASSADOR NAVARRO: We know that there are counter-
revolutionaries who are being trained in camps in Florida that
have flown to Honduras and they're training the camps of the
former national government against [unintelligible] there.
DONALDSON: Notwithstanding the statements of Nicaraguan
officials, neither ABC News nor the Washington Post have been able
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to confirm that any U.S. plan to overthrow the Nicaraguan gov-
ernment has actually been approved. It was, as recently as 10
days ago, the policy of the U.S. government, as stated by the
counselor to the President, not to attempt to overthrow other
governments.
EDWIN MEESE: Well, I think that we do have a policy
of not overthrowing other governments. That is basically the
policy of this country.
DONALDSON: But that was 10 days ago. Today the ques-
tion was put to the President himself.
MAN: Have approved of covert activities to destabilize
the present government of Nicaragua?
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: Here again, this is something
on which national interests, I just -- I will not comment.
MAN: ...you aprove [unintelligible] statement of what
the policy is as far as having American covert operations to de-
stabilize any existing government, without specific reference to
Nicaragua?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, again, I'm going to -- I'm
going to say this is like discussing the options. No comment.
DONALDSON: By refusing to comment, the President knows
he's leaving the impression that activities to overthrow other
governments may already be underway, an impression perhaps deli-
berately meant to worry America's foreign adversaries, but one
that also seems to worry a lot of America's citizens as well.
KOPPEL: Clandestine activities by the CIA was a subject
shrouded in secrecy for decades, known only to a few insiders.
It wasn't until the mid-seventies that the U.S. Senate investi-
gated covert actions by the agency.
John McWethy reports on what those hearings uncovered.
JOHN MCWETHY: It was at these hearings in 1975 that
Americans learned for the first time that the Central Intelligence
Agency had been involved in a lot more than just spying. Hidden
far from public view and arm's-length from Congress and the Presi-
dent, yet always with their tacit approval, the CIA ran full-scale
military operations, fighting wars never declared by the President
or approved by Congress. The agency rigged elections in other
countries, and sometimes plotted assassinations.
It all came out at these extraordinary hearings seven
years ago. Yet even today, though sources close to the CIA say
on a grossly smaller scale, covert activities continue.
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Between 1961 and 1975, the CIA ran an estimated 900
major covert operations and several thousand smaller ones. A
major operation, Chile, 1972 and '73. After failing to prevent
Salvador Allende's operation as President of Chile, the CIA
launched a yearlong campaign to unseat this Marxist politician.
Millions were spent supporting opposition newspapers and political
parties. Unions that crippled the economy with strikes were paid
by the CIA to stay off the job.
September Ilth, 1973. Allende was deposed. He died
the same day of gunshot wounds. His opponents say he took his
own I ife.
In Laos, the CIA hired a mercenary army, many recruited
from the ranks of American forces in Vietnam, and they fought
Communist insurgents. The CIA also owned and operated an entire
airline to support that force.
Similar paramilitary operations were run by the CIA in
Indonesia in the 1950s and Angola in the mid-1970s. Half a dozen
foreign leaders, such as Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and
Lumumba of the Congo, were killed in overthrow plots in which
the CIA was involved, one way or the other.
Fidel Castro has always been one of the CIA's favorite
targets. At least five plots were hatched by the agency to assas-
sinate Castro, including hiring a Mafia hit man. As if attempts
on his life were not enough, the U.S. also tried to take Cuba by
force, the Bay of Pigs invasion, an army of refugees trained,
armed and guided by the CIA.
Ironically, Cuban refugees are still undergoing para-
military training in the U.S. Their goal, return to Cuba and
overthrow Fidel Castro. There's no evidence they are today sup-
ported by the CIA, but there is ample evidence that the U.S.
government ignores their activities.
When President Carter took office, he reportedly scaled
back the CIA's covert operations to a mere shadow of what they
used to be. But when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, the Presi-
dent ordered the CIA back into action, running guns to the rebels,
making sure the Soviets continued to have a fight on their hands.
Since President Reagan took office, those close to the
intelligence community say spirits at the CIA have been on the
rise. At the same time, the small unit charged with directing
covert operations has been expanding.
KOPPEL: When we come back, we'll talk with four men
who've specialized in the intelligence community from outside
and from within. Somewhat predictably, they have differing views
on the value of covert operations.
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KOPPEL: With us to help look at the question of CIA
covert activities, are two men who used to work for that organi-
zation and two senators who have investigated it.
Ray Cline was a Deputy Director of the CIA. He is now
a Director of the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and
International Studies. He's with us here in our Washington Bureau.
At our affiliate WPLG in Miami, E. Howard Hunt, who
gained notoriety for his role in Watergate, but also spent two
less conspicuous decades working for the CIA, part of that time
in Latin America.
Also with us in Washington, former U.S. Senator Frank
Church. During 1975 he chaired that special Senate committee
that uncovered several, until then, unknown covert activities
of the CIA.
And at our affiliate WPVI in Philadelphia, Democratic
Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware. Senator Biden is currently a
member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Senator Church, let me begin, if I may, with you, because
it was your famous quote about that rogue elephant gone wild that
I think got about as much attention as anything back in the mid-
1970s, and perhaps was responsible for deemphasizing the role of
the CIA in covert or clandestine operations for a number of years.
Do you have the sense that it's coming back?
FRANK CHURCH: Well, I suspect it is, from what I read
in the newspapers. I have no other information. If so, I think
we should ask ourselves this question -- laying aside the situa-
tions that involve the overriding security interests of the United
States, the survival of this country, the avoidance of nuclear
war, that kind of thing -- we should ask ourselves the question:
If it's wrong for a foreign power to come into this country to
spread false information, to bribe, to attempt to assassinate our
leaders, and we wouldn't put up with that for a minute, then how
can it be right for us to engage in that same kind of activity
in other countries?
KOPPEL: All right. You've put it on a philosophical
basis. Let's leave it on that basis.
And philosophically, what about that, Dr. Cline? Is
that not a reasonable proposition? If it's wrong for them against
us, why isn't it wrong for us against them?
RAY CLINE: Well, I believe that there are two different
ideas of society or civilization at stake. I believe that we are
concerned, and have been for 20 or 30 years, with countries in
which highly disciplined minority groups, using primarily terror
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and guerrilla warfare, are trying to overthrow governments which
would like to have parliamentary or democratic systems, even
though they're far from perfect in many cases. I believe that
in those cases where our national security is involved, as the
Church Committee recommended, we should use covert action to
support democratic forces that are in danger of collapsing from
external attack. These are two different situations.
KOPPEL: All right.
Mr. Hunt, you were for many years a senior intelligence
officer. Is there any limit as to how far the United States gov-
ernment may go in its covert activities? Should there be a limit,
a moral limit? Does that even enter into the discussion?
E. HOWARD HUNT: I think you've almost answered the
question. I don't think that there is a moral limit, because the
KGB, our principal opponent, the Soviet secret service, sets the
parameters. And those parameters are absolutely boundless. There
is nothing that the KGB won't do, hasn't done in the past to
achieve its goals. Accordingly, we're forced to accept their
ground rules and follow them.
KOPPEL: Senator Biden, are we indeed forced to accept
those ground rules?
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN: Well, I think we should disting-
uish. You went through the first 10 minutes of this program
focusing on Latin America. And by implication, I think your
listeners assume that that must be a KGB operation.
Let's assume for a moment Mr. Hunt is right about the
KGB. I'm not sure it's at all correct that we should be involved
in covert activities that involve the violent overthrow of another
government without the American people knowing what we are about.
If it's that important to us, I think that should be overt, not
covert.
KOPPEL: But I mean isn't that -- I mean you've just
begun to answer the question I was going to ask, and that is,
once you put it up to the American public, it ceases to be covert.
SENATOR BIDEN: There are certain things, I think, Ted,
that must be and should be covert. That is, the collection of
information, the involvement in an assessment of where our in-
terests are, to what extent we should be prepared to support those
interests. Those all should and must be done covertly.
But the question of an active effort to overthrow, to
engage in war, if you will -- even if it's only with 20 people,
it's an act of war against another country -- are matters that
should be brought to the attention of the American people. If
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it's that important to us -- that is, to overthrow a government.
That's what I'm talking about now. If it's that important to us,
then that's something I think the American people should be in-
formed of and we should do it forwardly.
KOPPEL: Dr. Cline, let me raise with you a hypothetical
question. When the President, as he did today, refuses to address
a question like that, leaves open all possible options, is he
doing something useful or is he doing something potentially des-
tructive?
CLINE: I think the President is absolutely right to
refuse to comment on whether we are conducting secret activities.
One of the most clever sentences in the famous Church Committee
report was by Senator Baker, who said, "We cannot conduct a Gallup
Poll on whether we will conduct secret activities."
The question is not overthrowing governments. That's
seldom the question. The question is supporting governments or
peoples who are trying to have elections and democratic procedures.
And Salvadaor is the center of the problem here, and we're trying
to support a government. Nicaragua is trying to overthrow it with
help from Cuba and help from the Soviet Union, which is using Cuba
as a massive base for political and military infiltration in a
very important strategic area of the Caribbean.
That is the issue. And I think Senator Biden would
admit this is a serious matter.
KOPPEL: All right, gentlemen. When we come back, we'll
take up the issue that I was addressing a moment ago with Mr.
Hunt, and that is whether the United States ought to be involved
in what I think all of us might agree are immoral operations.
KOPPEL: Mr. Hunt, a moment ago you raised an intriguing,
if somewhat chilling, notion that if they do it to us, we've got
to be prepared to do it to them. Isn't there something about the
American system that dictates that we don't necessarily stoop to
the same depths as our adversaries?
HUNT: Well, I think, philosophically, we're talking
about two different levels. We're talking about the mythic level,
which is that we don't stoop to that sort of thing; and the prac-
tical level, which requires that we do.
I think it's important to understand, also -- and
statesmen do understand this -- that the first obligation of any
government is to preserve itself. If it can't preserve itself,
then it can't care for its citizens. And in order to see to its
self-preservation, it may be called upon to do what are normally
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8
very reprehensible things. But that's one of the facts of life.
KOPPEL: Senator Biden, does that then require -- and
you sit on the Intelligence Committee right now. Does that then
require that you gulp and swallow certain things that you know
about but put the politician's face to the rest of us, still
talking about democracy and the high ideals to which we adhere?
SENATOR BIDEN: The answer to that question is parti-
ally yes. I think there are times. I think morality is diffi-
cult to define in this area, just as it would be difficult, Ted,
if you suggested to me, is war moral? There can be secret wars
and public wars. In effect, I agree with the statement just made,
that there are certain circumstances where covert activities re-
quire us to do what the other team is doing also, just as in war
we're required to do things that the other team is doing.
My quarrel is whether or not things reach a point where
they are of such consequence to the future of this nation that
the American people have an obli -- we have an obligation to the
American people to let them know what we are about because it
involves their security.
Morality is a very elusive term to use in the area of
war. And covert activities, in fact, sometimes reach that level.
KOPPEL: All right. Let's take it, then, off the par-
ticular pedestal of morality and bring it down to a very practical
level.
Senator Church, is it in any respect impractical for
the United States to be involved in clandestine operations, covert
operations when, as has been the case several times over the past
couple of decades, we sometimes get our hand caught in the cookie
jar and we look very bad?
SENATOR CHURCH: Of course it's impractical. And I
have to disagree with many of the statements that have been made.
Of course there are circumstances where clandestine action may be
necessary. I said that at the outset. But there have been other
times when we have involved ourselves in cases, as in Chile, where
the government had been freely elected by the Chilean people. I
don't think we had a right to interfere there and to undertake to
bring that government down. That is a denial of self-determin-
ation. And when those facts came out, as they will inevitably --
as long as we keep our society free, an inquisitive press will
finally discover these secrets and bring them to light -- then
look at the terrible political price we pay.
All over the world today, there are millions of people
who make no distinction between the United States and the Soviet
Union, because they see us both playing the same game.
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I disagree with Mr. Hunt that we have to adopt Russian
methods everywhere in the world and adopt their values to save
ourselves. It's not a question of saving America in determining
what the politics should be in a postage stamp country the size
of El Salvador. That's simply nonsense.
KOPPEL: All right.
HUNT: I think this: that by talking about El Salvador,
we've gotten a little bit off the track. I realize that the Presi-
dent today begged the questions that were put to him with regard
to El Salvador.
But I do go back to my initial statement, that when the
United States deems it necessary to do certain things in its own
self-interest, it must do them. I certainly agree with Senator
Biden.
Now, to take up briefly a point that Senator Church just
raised, I think this: that there is a question of magnitude. When
an operation, a purportedly or supposedly covert operation, gets
too large to remain secret, then, clearly, CIA has no business
staying involved in it. And I think this was one of the great
problems of the Bay of Pigs. Everybody knew about it.
So we have not only a qualitative distinction, we have
a quantitative distinction as well.
KOPPEL: Is it, Dr. Cline, a self-perpetuating kind of
thing? One sometimes gets the impression that if you have the
capacity for it and if you talk about it as a realistic option,
that there are people then sitting over there in Langley, Virginia
desperately thinking up things to do.
CLINE: No, Ted. I think you're off the beam. One
thing I've been wanting to say is that that famous rogue elephant
charge, even Frank Church and his committee said was not true,
that CIA was responsive to executive review and control and auth-
orization. And Frank acknowledges that, of course, after the
investigation.
There is no large group of secret warriors champing
at the bit. This is a myth. And it should have been disposed
of when Carter and his people fired most of the old hands, both
intelligence collectors and covert operators, a few years ago.
What's happening is that this President, like every
President beginning with President Truman and Dwight Eisenhower,
has had to reinvent the wheel. They've had to invent a second
line of defense for supporting our friends and allies against
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external subversion by doing something between diplomacy and
sending in the Marines. Now, if that is successful in preserving
the chance of the Salvador people to have an election in March
and select a government of their own choice, which the guerrillas
are trying to prevent, I think it's a good thing for democratic
principles worldwide, and we ought to be proud of it.
KOPPEL: We have about a half a minute left.
Senator Biden, do you detect a great change between the
Carter Administration and the Reagan Administration in reality?
SENATOR BIDEN: I detect a change in attitude, not in
reality. I cannot discuss specifics. I've been on the committee
since its inception. But I think the assertions and concerns
about covert activities are vastly overblown. There's not any
great covert action going on that I am aware of, unless we are
not being told the truth in the committee. The fact of the matter
is that it's -- we have reason to be concerned about the attitude
expressed by some, but we are, I think, exaggerating what's hap-
pening.
KOPPEL: All right....
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