ALLEGED CIA OPERATION GONE ASTRAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301700009-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: May 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
STATION CNN-TV
Cable News
Network
DATE May 13, 1985 7:30 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
Alleged CIA Operation Gone Astray
ANNOUNCER: Crossfire. On the left, Tom Braden. On the
right, Congressman Robert Dornan. In the crossfire, New York
Times columnist Anthony Lewis and Richard Schultz (?), anti-
terrorism expert.
TOM BRADEN: Now let's do it to them before they do it
to us. That seems logical, on Hill Street Blues. But the
question before the house is whether it makes any sense in the
real world.
Consider that mysterious bombing in Beirut last March.
Eighty people killed, 200 wounded. We were all told that it was
just another example of extreme religious factionalism. Lebanon,
bloody Lebanon. Now it turns out that the bombing was a CIA
operation, a CIA operation gone astray, but nevertheless the
senseless carnage was paid for by you and me.
What do we do about this? Do we rein in the CIA? Or do
we say, "Oh, well. Back to the drawing board"?
REP. ROBERT DORNAN: We have with us, Tom, Anthony Lewis
up in New York City.
Tony, I'd like to ask you a question. Just when, if
ever, do you or your liberal friends and associates ever believe
in taking direct action? I know what you're against, but when
are you ever for striking back? I'm curious.
ANTHONY LEWIS: Well, I'm for striking back in a war
when there's aggression against us, Congressman, of course, as in
World War II and in many circumstances. We must be prepared to
defend ourselves and strike back at aggression. The question is
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whether we should be engaged in secret lawless covert activities
of this kind.
Now, I should say that I don't know that what Mr. Braden
said is correct, that that bombing was paid for by the CIA. The
evidence is hardly totally persuasive. But assuming that there
was some CIA connection, that's very different from fighting a
war to defend our moral view and our interests and our national
security.
BRADEN: Well, Mr. Lewis, just let me point out that the
Washington Post made the statement that it was a CIA operation
gone astray, and they had no quibbles about it. They did not use
the word "alleged."
The CIA has issued a statement. If you haven't seen it,
let me read it to you: The CIA, quote, never conducted any
training of Lebanese security forces, unquote, related to the
event described.
Well, there's a big gap there between training Lebanese
security forces and having to do with some hit squad that took a
few matters into its own hands.
But let me introduce our other guest, Congressman Dornan
and Anthony Lewis, because our second guest is an authority on
terrorism. He's testified many times before the Congress on that
subject. He's a professor of international politics at the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and his name is Richard
Schultz.
Now, Mr. Schultz, I have read the pamphlet that you
prepared for the Defense Department which talks about low-
intensity conflict, it talks about civic action forces, special
groups. I mean it's written, pardon me, in the style of a
document on how to prevent acid rain. And yet here you are
saying, look, we have to do all these things. And what it gets
down to, it seems to me, is the kind of tragedy that took place
on March 8th in Lebanon.
RICHARD SCHULTZ: Well, I think what it gets down to is
the question of war. And I think that that's what Mr. Lewis was
talking about. We have to understand that in the case of this
group, they have declared war on the United States. They are
going to drive the United States out of the Middle East and
they're going to do it through the most insidious means possible,
including the bombing of the U.S. barracks, which the leader of
the Shiite group that was the target of this strike, he helped
plan that exercise.
So, this is warfare. We just don't realize that it's
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BRADEN: But Mr. Schultz, wouldn't common sense suggest,
after all the business about the vital quality of Lebanon and we
had to be there, wouldn't common sense suggest, after watching
what's happened in that bloody country over the last two years,
that we just get out of there?
SCHULTZ: No, I don't think that that's suggested at
all. We have an interest in the Middle East, and we have to
defend that interest in the Middle East. And this is a group
that has declared war.
LEWIS: May I come in here on that?
BRADEN: Yes, Tony Lewis. Come in.
LEWIS: Declared war. The question, though, is whether
we mimic the lawless terroristic methods used by these evil
people on the other side.
SCHULTZ: Well, what would you do? I mean how would you
strike back?
LEWIS: Let me just give you a quote from that Washing-
ton Post story that struck me as just summing it all up: "A
Lebanese intelligence man, justifying the bombing, said, 'You've
got to stop terrorism with terrorism.'"
Well, you see all about you in Lebanon the results of
that policy: lawlessness, and everybody is a terrorist. I don't
want that.
SCHULTZ: The question I think you want to -- I think
you should answer is: How should we strike back?
Now, if you don't like the way it was done -- and that
is, we worked with an intelligence group that went out and then
hired someone to do it -- would you be in favor of having our CIA
work more closely to monitor how we strike at these groups?
LEWIS: I am very loath, to take your first point, to
use foreign groups that we don't control. That same thing
happened in the Congo and in other places. When you take on
board lawless groups that we can't control, things are just
naturally going to get out of control and not be what we want in
America.
SCHULTZ: So you're in favor of a closer CIA involvement
with groups to insure that instead of using an indiscriminate
bombing, maybe we should have trained a sniper team to get this
person.
LEWIS: Professor Schultz, do you think that we can be
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immune from the poison that comes from those groups? I think it
will come right back into this country. It worries me greatly.
The problem is not an easy one. Don't think I'm unaware
of that. It's a very difficult problem in a world full of really
nasty people. But I don't want to see that nastiness seep into
our bloodstream.
REP. DORNAN: Anthony, let me clarify a couple of things
here that I think are unfair to our CIA and the United States.
Number one, the Washington Post, more than any other
paper in the country, carries with it this heavy burden of always
looking like it's breaking some new hot story. The story
yesterday and today is under Bob Woodward's byline. But on March
24th -- and that's not so long ago -- The Post had another story
under the byline of Joe Piccirillo (?) and Ed Cody that we were
training teams in Honduras and in Lebanon and in a dozen other
countries to act against terrorists.
Now, that line jumped out at me, about "We have to fight
terrorism with terrorism." But that was a Lebanese line.
What Shultz said is far more interesting. And here he
is in the Middle East at this moment in Israel saying that the
Talmud itself, Israeli religious, or Hebrew religious writing,
said, "If someone is attacking you, then make haste and destroy
him," if he's coming at you with lethal intent.
So, it isn't fighting terrorism with terrorism. It's
fighting terrorism with lethal self-defense.
Now, Tony, if there was a group putting together the
dreaded Islamic bomb, they were playing around with a nuclear
device, I think even Tony Lewis would write a column that says,
"Get them with lethal self-defense before they blow up a whole
city."
LEWIS: Congressman, let me first make reference to your
first point about the story. The story does leave some holes in
doubts, which is why I said at the start, after Mr. Braden's
opening question, that we can't altogether assume that this thing
happened exactly as stated. I agree with you one has to have a
certain caution about that.
Now, as to the other thing. The Talmud is part of a
system based on law. It is one of the traditions that Jews have
given to the world and to this country. And we in America are
perhaps the most law-based society on earth. I want it to stay
that way. I don't want to jump to a conclusion that somebody's a
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terrorist without a trial, without any open process at all.
It's difficult. I repeat, we're up against really mean,
horrible people, in many instances. But I don't want to start
bombing left and right without any way of knowing...
REP. DORNAN: We don't have to do it left and right, but
we have to do something.
BRADEN: Congressman Dornan and Mr. Schultz, let me
--you mentioned make haste, you have to make haste. Here is the
National Security Council Adviser talking about not this operat-
ion, but counter-terrorism. Quote: For counter-terrorism to be
effective, we must be able to act quickly. We cannot be bogged
down in interminable consultation and debate.
Now just let me ask you, do you think it would have been
better if we bogged down a little bit over at the CIA in internal
consultation and debate before we sent that squad up to blow up a
hotel?
SCHULTZ: First of all, Congress knew that these sorts
of operations were going to take place.
Now, I think the question -- and again I want to address
it to you -- what kind of force do you want to use? And if you
don't like this, why not have a closer involvement of CIA...
SCHULTZ: ...some group that goes after a leadership
that is responsible, responsible for the killing of over 200
Americans.
BRADEN: Okay. But now just let me...
SCHULTZ: And we're not talking about an indiscriminate
BRADEN: You mentioned the sniper bullet. That would
have been an easier thing to do. I just want to remind you of
what happened to John F. Kennedy.
SCHULTZ: Well, again, John F. Kennedy wasn't respons-
ible for giving the directions to drive a truck into a building
that killed 200 Marines.
BRADEN: No. But John F. Kennedy was responsible for
trying to assassinate Fidel Castro. And there are some people
who have studied the matter closely who think that Castro got it
back.
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LEWIS: Let me just remind people of one thing about the
CIA and this point about law that I'm speaking of. Ten years ago
the CIA was caught out having done a lot of lawless things beyond
its charter. There was a Rockefeller Commission that put out a
big report. A member of the commission was, in fact, Ronald
Reagan. And we vowed at that time that the CIA was going to walk
a tight line of lawfulness and reporting fully to Congress. That
has slipped.
LEWIS: No. You heard the Vice Chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, Senator Leahy, saying he had not been
properly informed.
SCHULTZ: Moynihan said he was. Moynihan said he was
LEWIS: Yeah, but Leahy is the current Vice Chairman,
and he started an inquiry himself because he was not abreast of
what was going on.
We know what happened with the mining of the Nicaraguan
harbors. They were not informed.
SCHULTZ: That's not correct. That's not correct, Tony.
REP. DORNAN: There was much controversy that some
senators were sitting, bogged down with their work, and they
weren't listening carefully when they were being briefed.
BRADEN: Well, now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Look,
let's take that whole Nicaraguan operation. We have a law, the
Boland Amendment. I don't know whether you voted for it or
against it.
mously.
REP. DORNAN: I did. Everybody did. It passed unani-
BRADEN: All right, everybody passed it. All right. It
says the CIA can conduct no activity intended to overthrow the
government of Nicaragua. Well now, what are we doing in Nica-
ragua?
REP. DORNAN: Ah, but Tom, that's a separate issue. It
can be debated...
BRADEN: What's a separate issue? The issue is whether
or not anybody...
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we're talking about terrorism. I don't think Tony Lewis answered
specifically the idea of a gang of little wild Shiites playing
with nuclear devices.
BRADEN: All right. That's a good point.
REP. DORNAN: But let's come back. If Tony read the
whole story, then he read that we now, after the fact, discovered
photo imagery, either radar imagery or actual low-level photo-
graphy, of the very van that killed almost 300 Marines making --
excuse me. It was making practice runs on the front of our Annex
Number 2 of our embassy, a simulated mock embassy, that led up to
the September 20th bombing where dozens of people were being
killed.
Obviously, if we could have determined what they were
doing, we should have surgically taken them out.
Cap Weinberger says not with naval aircraft carrier
fighters, attack planes on a strike. We have to do it with
counter-terrorism methods, covertly.
SCHULTZ: Tom, I think you asked the right question.
And the broader question is, shouldn't we have -- should we have
a policy that leads us to try to move governments, like the
Nicaraguan government, out of power? And I think that the
problem with the Reagan Administration's policy to this point is
that they've been doing something covertly that we need to have a
public debate on and make a decision about in our public policy
circle.
BRADEN: Okay, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Schultz. We're going
to talk about, right after the break, about whether or not Mr.
Reagan is conducting too much war too covertly for the interests
of a democratic country.
REP. DORNAN: Tony Lewis, I'd like to ask you again, a
little bit different direction here. Obviously, mass media,
liberals in mass media, when they approve of something, like our
obvious covert help to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, they don't
try to discredit that policy and tear it up and write about it.
It's only when they don't approve of something in foreign policy
do they jump all over it.
Do you approve of our helping the guerrilla fighters in
Afghanistan?
LEWIS: Yes, I do, Congressman. And I was very much
opposed, and wrote about it, to the Soviet invasion of Afghani-
stan. Of course I was. And we must do everything we can to
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defend that country, difficult as it is, right on the border of
the Soviet Union, a very long distance away. But, yes, open
aggression we have to resist.
SCHULTZ: Would you do it openly?
BRADEN: Mr. Dornan, are you suggesting for a moment
that liberals, such as Tony Lewis, or myself, believe that Mr.
Hussei Fadlallah, if that's -- if I pronounce his name correctly
-- who is believed to have engineered the bombing of the Marine
Corps barracks, should go unpunished?
REP. DORNAN: Oh, no, no, no. Liberals want to punish
him. But you pray to God that he'd get a heart attack or some
fast terminal disease. Liberals never know how to take action.
BRADEN: Let me make myself clear. And I think I speak
for Mr. Lewis. And he can make himself clear if he wishes. What
I want to be clear about is that I believe in punishing terror-
ism. But I don't believe in punishing terrorism where you kill
80 innocent people and injure 200 bystanders. And I think that
kind of thing is going to get this country into a pack of
trouble.
SCHULTZ: How would you do it, Tom? All right, so you
don't like that tactic. What would you do? You don't want to
call in an air strike, because that's indiscriminate. How are
you going to do it?
REP. DORNAN: And that's why Cap Weinberger has a
problem with this issue.
BRADEN: I'll tell you what I would do. I would do a --
pardon me. I was about to swear. I would do a heck of a lot
better job of training a covert operation than, obviously, Bill
Casey is doing.
Now, let me tell you something about Casey. I was in
World War II with him in the O.S.S. He is one heck of an
operator. But he learned his trade, for the CIA job he holds, in
a total war where anything went. All you had to do was go to
Bill Donovan and say, "Look, I want to hang off the back of an
airplane and drop a bomb on a squad over here in the trenches."
And Bill would say, "Fine. Let's give it a try."
REP. DORAN: Tom, he didn't have to be accountable to
Tony Lewis or to Senator Leahy and a bunch of liberals who are
wringing their hands over bad guys like Fadlallah.
BRADEN: But it's not World War II. That's my point.
SCHULTZ: But here is the problem. What we have to
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decide is how much leeway we want to give the CIA to be involved
in operations. The reason they don't want to assist a group like
the one that blew up the building is because of the charter,
which says that you can't be involved in assassinations.
REP. DORNAN: I feel Tony -- I feel him both wringing
his hands and chuckling up there in New York.
Go ahead, Tony.
LEWIS: I'm not chuckling, because it's a very serious
subject. But there's an assumption here that I think we have to
get behind.
We've been talking as if the only resource the United
States has in a terrible world is covert action or force or
terrorism, or whatever. You know, there's such a thing as
politics and brains and planning.
We never should have been in the pickle we were in
Lebanon. And we can also mention the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon, which set loose all kinds of dragons that should not
have been set loose.
The Shiite Moslems in Lebanon used to be the most
peaceful, submissive people. They have been radicalized by
political events.
SCHULTZ: And by Khomeini?
LEWIS: And you've got to do some thinking.
And by Khomeini.
SCHULTZ: ... by Khomeini, also.
LEWIS: Absolutely. I agree with that.
SCHULTZ: We have to look at what they do as not simply
an action in Lebanon, but the Shiites in Lebanon are part of a
larger policy that goes to Khomeini, that goes to the PLO. And
so this -- by our being out of Lebanon, I don't think it's going
to eliminate the problem of attacks against us in the Middle
East.
example.
LEWIS: No, it's not. But let me just give you an
I think the most useful thing that could be done to calm
the situation of the Shiites in South Lebanon is being done right
now, and that's the Israeli withdrawal from that area. That was
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the best thing to do, far more effective than any bombs and other
things.
You have to think, as well as be a terrorist.
SCHULTZ: But don't we have here, Tony, really some
small cells? And these small cells, whether or not the Israelis
pull out of Southern Lebanon, are still going to be attacking
either the United States or Israel or other groups that they
perceive -- that Khomeini perceives as being part of a threat.
REP. DORNAN: I think the key here is covert action.
Let me ask Tony.
Do you believe, Tony, in any covert action whatsoever
under any circumstances?
LEWIS: Well, I will tell you that I find it very hard
to say I do not believe in any. But if you look at the activi-
ties, the desperately wrong activities: Sending poisoned diving
suits to poison Fidel Castro. That was a foolish thing. The
interventions in Chile. The whole business in Nicaragua. The
result of all those things is to give us a black eye and to
destroy what our greatest strength in the world. Not terrorism.
Why are we strong in the world? It's our economic power
and our moral force. People admire us because we're a law-
abiding country, a decent, humane country. And I don't want to
throw that away.
REP. DORNAN: Why is the Soviet Union strong? Why is
the Soviet Union perceived as equally strong, or by many Third
World nations as stronger than we are strong?
LEWIS: Fear only, Congressman, I think. And a will-
ingness to give money, in some cases, when we're not.
But if you ask most ordinary people in the world which
system they would prefer to follow, I believe it's our system,
because I believe in our system, as you do. And I think it is a
much more decent, humane one that people want to follow. Don't
let's bring it down to other people's level.
BRADEN: Let me ask Mr. Schultz one last question.
Maybe it's the last one.
Look, the President seems to rely on covert action more
and more. And Bill Casey sells him on it. And we're doing more
and more of it.
Now, Mr. Lewis brought up the last CIA investigation.
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And it was decided at that time -- and I don't know why congress-
men don't go back and read it -- it was decided that the CIA
would engage in covert operations only when they could be kept
covert and when they were very, very small.
Now, why don't we do that?
SCHULTZ: Well, I think, in fact, in this case, if
you're talking about Nicaragua -- and that's what we talked about
earlier -- we have to make a decision on whether or not we want
to do this. And if we decide we want to do it, we have to do it
overtly. Paramilitary opeations of this size, I think, are very
difficult to keep covert.
But by the way, to go back to what Tony Lewis said, the
final report of the Church Committee actually said that the CIA
was not a rogue elephant, that the CIA, in fact, was not running
amok, as he suggested.
BRADEN: We didn't say it was a rogue elephant. We just
said it carried out a bad operation.
SCHULTZ: But further, in this particular instance, I
think that Casey may support certain kinds of covert action, but
there's a great deal of resistance within the intelligence
community and within CIA among all those people that went into
the operations side thanks to Admiral Turner. And so what we
have is people at CIA who support Turner's definition of covert
action: that it can't be controversial.
BRADEN: Okay. I'm sorry, we're out of time.
REP. DORNAN: Tom, the poisonous element here is the
word suicide. We don't fight fire with fire, we're not willing
to send our men out to die in suicide raids. This is what they
do to us. That requires direct, precise, lethal means to stop
them before they kill.
BRADEN: There is no question there ought to be precise,
direct, lethal means. But it ought to be carefully planned so
that you don't murder a lot of innocent people.
I am chary of Secretary Shultz and others who say we've
got to get at the terrorists right now.
We have to look into it and we have to do it right.
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