GOD AND MAN AT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100050007-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 25, 2011
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: December 1, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

;STAY-- I !II I I I I
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H'ASHINGTONIAN
December 1983
God and Man at
Religion? .The CIA Has Thought a Lot About It, and Has Concluded
How Does an Intelligence Agent Reconcile
espionage; it once encouraged its em? chats, author of The Marriage of Figaro
ployees to lie to Congress; and it has and The Barber of Seville.
enshrined slippery former director Rich- It was Beaumarchais who persuaded
and Helms as the CIA soldier most wor- a reluctant King Louis XVI to aid the
thy of emulation. That so many CIA em- American Revolution by making it ap-
ployees miss the irony of the Biblical pear that the French funding came from
inscription is testimony to the capacity private citizen Beaumarchais, not from
of human beings to disregard a moral the French government. In a persuasive
code when they're in the service of a letter to the king, which is in the CIA's
cause or of a state. Historical Intelligence Collection, the
Most CIA employee recruits hear the dramatist presented the moral case for
"basic speech," during which instruc? covert action:
tors, describing espionage as a worthy "Generally speaking there is no doubt
calling, proclaim that to be patriots they that any idea or project that violates jus-
must work in silence and without ac- lice must be rejected by a man of integ-
claim. The speech calls spying the world's ~ riry. But, Sire, State policy is not the
second-oldest profession ("and just as same as private morality... .
honorable as the first"), adding that God "If men were angels, we ought no
Himself founded thecalling when Moses 'doubt to despise or even detest politics.
seat leaders of the twelve tribes to "spy But if men were angels, they would havc
out the land, of Canaan." no need for religion to enlighten them,
In a less well-known reference, CIA or laws to govern them,. or soldiers to.
officials like to note that America may subdue -them, and the' earth, instead of
owe her existence to the covert action of being a living image_of hell, would itself
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Besumar- be a region of heaven. But in the end we
bate Van A~ is a )ack Anderson associate must take them as they are ...and a
a gin natioaal?axtuity issues, including king who alone wished to be absolutely
just among the wicked and to remain
Tl~,at the Bible and God Are on T ~re~ir Side.
_ _._.
By Dale Van Alta
fur the cornerstone of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency's head-
quarters in Langley, Virginia, had
been laid in 1959, CIA DirectorAl-
len Dulles cast about for a suitable
inscription. What message, he won-
dered, would be most apropos to grace
the foyer of this $46 million monument
to spying? Eventually Dulles settled on
the Biblical quotation now carved in
marble on one side of the entrance hall;
"And ve shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you -free. John VIII-
?IXJ~."
Ironic words, given that the CIA is the
..one American institution whose mission
often demands distortion of the truth.
The agency plants misinformation in
newspapers, magazines, and books
throughout the world; routinely its agents
misrepresent themselves to gather the in-
fomiationa] gold that is the currency of
good among the wolves would soon be
devoured along with his flock."
The Frenchman's -point that covert ac-
tion- and intelligence itself-is a "nec-
essary evil" is further emphasized by
CIA instructors who eulogize one of his
American contemporaries, Nathan Hale,
the Revolutionary Waz hero who, posing
as a Dutch schoolteacher behind British
lines, was captured and hanged for spying.
His statue stands outside CIA headquar-
tens today, and his words have been so
inspirational to some agents that one for-
mersenior official carried this Hak speech
in his wallet: "I wish to be useful, and .
every kind of service; necessary to the
public good, becomes honorable by being
necessary. If the exigencies of my coun-
try demand a peculiar service, its claims
to perform that service are imperious."
From Hale's day until the founding of
the CIA in 1947, this country had re-
sisted establishing afull-time intelli-
gence organization. Pearl Harbor and
World War II, however, overcame
America's reluctance. Though public ap-
prove] of the CIA has never been whole-
-II, Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25 :CIA-RDP90-012088000100050007-1