HOW KISSINGER RUNS OUR 'OTHER GOVERNMENT'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000200010006-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: September 30, 1974
• Content Type: NSPR

0
NEW YORK c J I ,tom
30 Sep 1971.
Approved For Release 2004/11/01 : CIA-RDP88-01315R06~10&4
C a I " S , t K?
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By Tad Szulc
... No such overt and covert power in fore
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been vested in any man, except the president
A shadowy group of five powerful
officials silently directing America's
clandestine foreign policy from the
basement Situation-Room in the White
House in Washington-the so-called
"40 Committee" of the National Secur-
ity Council-is the nearest thing we
have in this country to a secret super-
government body.
Headed by Henry A. Kissinger, this
committee is not always accountable
even to tWe president of the United
States, although it has access to virtual-
ly unlimited unvouchered government
funds and holds the power to order far-
ranging covert intelligence and para-
military operations around the world.
And during the Nixon Watergate era,
it may have had links with secret do-
mestic intelligence units, possibly in-
cluding even the? "Plumbers."
Deriving its name from National
Security Council Intelligence Decision
Memorandum No. 40, which set it up in
its present form ijt 1969, the five-man
40 Committee is the current incarna-
tion of similar top-secret White House
groups that since 1947 have authorized
dozens of major covert intelligence un-
dertakitrgs from Asia to Latin America
anal from Africa to Europe.
The most recent known large-scale
operation conducted by the 40 Com-
mittee was the assignment given the
Central Intelligence Agency, at the
cost of SS million, to help orchestrate,
from inside, the fall a year ago of the
regime of Chile's late Socialist presi-
dent, Salvador ?Allende Gossens, while
other branches of the United States
govern r nt applied a variety of simul-
taneous pressures from the outside.
This increasingly controversial enter-
prise was stunningly confirmed by Pres-
ide,ot l=ord at his news conference
last Monday. His justification was both
s':~r,lirtg in philosophy and sparse an,
the f -:ts, as he so.;=ht to aivc public
to the 40 Cornniintee.
T' is was sotu:thin no nresident had
ever done before; actually, no-senior
ofjiciat_had ever publicly mentioned the
committee.
Ford, in fact, institutionalized the
concept of covert intelligence action
(it was not even done during the cold
war) when he commented that "Our
government, like other governments,
does take certain actions in the intelli
Bence field to help' implement foreign
policy and protect national security .. .
I am informed reliably thaf'Communist
nations spend -vastly more money than
we do for the same kind -'opurposes."
Action against Allende between
1970 and 1973 was one of Kissing er's
high-priority projects. He personally as-
sumed control of the C.I.A.'s covert
moves, through the 40 Committee, and
of a parallel economic and financial
blockade, working through an interde-
partmental task force.
To Kissinger, it appears, Chile was
a "laboratory" test case to determine
whether a regime he opposed could be
"destabilized" or dislodged without the
use of military force that the United
States had chosen to apply elsewhere
in the past. Specifically, Chile was a
test of whether a democratically elec-
ted leftist regime, as was Allende's,
could be toppled through the creation
of internal chaos by outside forces.
Recent revelations of Kissinger's al-
leged role in the Chilean affair---he has
denied any American involvement, al-
though the C.1.A., in effect, has con-
firmed it-have set off the latest con-
troversy swirling around the secretary
of state, and have raised again ques-
tions about his credibility and future
intentions.
There are reasons to suspect. for ex-
ample, that the 40 Committee is study-
ing plans for possible covert American
intervention in the confused political
process in Italy, ,here the Communist
party may soon share power in a coali-
tion government. Actually, more thap a
year ago the former U.S. ambassador
in
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creation of secret armies and counter-i
insurgency units for- the protection ofd
governments 'enjoying our official fa-
vor. They have included political sub-
version. version, the subornation of statesmen,
politicians, labor leaders, and others
abroad, ..black" propaganda, and the,
oversight of "spy-in- -sky espionage,
over the Soviet Union, China, and
scores of other countries.
Overn-ad Intelligence rs the only form
of actua', espionage in the purview of
the 40 Committee. The C.I.A., ether
intelligence agencies, and separate
%Vnlte House Conn nl.;tt~ee3 (also 41;.21rt
by a re concerned ir,ith the
collection of normal iatelii_,ence.
The 40 Committee must approve.
every moatil,overhe d ii Celli ' ce
pro- the re-u!ar launching of
photo-sa:cllttcs to secret flights by the
Approved For Release 2004/11/01 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000200010006-9