CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100090073-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 73
• Publication Date: January 17, 1976
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST n -r
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100090073-2
THE ECONOMIST
17-23 January 1976
CIA
Can you keep a
secret?
Washington, DC
Beneath the continuing uproar con-
cerning the Central Intelligence 'Agency
and its abuses of power lies a funda-
mental and difficult question: how
shall a secret intelligence organisation,
which needs confidentiality to be effec-
tive, operate within the context of an
open, democratic society that, for
reasons of recent domestic -political
crises, is reluctant. to trust very much
to the hands of the president and his
executive branch? The question had
a new test, which it did not really need,
in the recent revelation by the press
that the CIA was planning an infusion
of $6m in aid to the non-communist
political parties in Italy. Outraged mem-
bers of Congress and the public felt
they were catching the agency at its
old dirty tricks, and the agency (sup-
ported by the White House and Mr
Henry Kissinger, the secretary of state)
feared it would ultimately be prevented
by the disclosure from acting discreetly
in the national interest in this and
other instances.
Congress for decades looked. the
other way while the intelligence agency
went about its business, dirty or other-
wise. In some cases, such as the long
secret war in Laos, Congress specifi-
cally voted the funds for operations
that were conce-: ed from the public.
But it has, in the post-Watergate
period, become self-conscious about
asserting its authority over this and
other dark areas of government be-
haviour. In 1974 it passed a law requiring
that the appropriate officials inform six
separate . congressional subcommittees
about any covert actions being under-
taken by the CIA beyond its ordinary
intelligence-gathering functions. Under
that requirement, the Ford Administra-
tion went to Capitol Hill last autumn
to say that it was aiding the anti-
communist factions in Angola with an
estimated $5Ofn worth of arms and, more .
recently, to give notice of its plans to
revive a traditional, if confidential, post-
war American role in Italy.
What happened from there is very
much of the order of mutual self-
fulfilling prophecy. As far as outspoken
opposition congressmen are concerned,
this is all proof of the Administration's
intentions to go off on adventures of its
own, guided only by the particular world
view and diabolical schemes of Mr
Kissinger. Details of the CIA actions,
leaked to the press, have provided all
the proof that the agency needs for its
view that Congress simply cannot be
trusted with such information. (Though
Congressman Michael Harrington got
himself into deep trouble with his
colleagues back in 1974 for being care-
less with details of past covert American
involvement in Chile, the congressional
art of leaking such information has
since been substantially refined; it is
an easy matter to accomplish, and there
is little peril to the congressman's
reputation or manoeuvrability in the
process) Once the feelings of recrimina-
tion are established, it is an easy step
for the CIA to begin intimating that
the climate of distrust encouraged by
Congress is to blame, in part, for the
recent murder of the agency's station
chief in Athens, Mr Richard Welch.
That is going further than most
reasonable commentators are prepared
to go. Even Counter spy, the left-wing
Washington --magazine that published
Mr Welch's name and those of other
CIA people after they had already been
published overseas, cannot realistically
be held to account for the shooting.
The names of CIA station chiefs in
foreign capitals are scarcely concealed
and widely known; Mr Welch lived in
the same house as several of his pre-
decessors and has already been replaced
by another man publicly linked to the
intelligence agency.
One way out of the problem is to
establish a new, and more genuine,
system of congressional oversight of
the intelligence community-a major
goal of the House and Sena* committees
that are concluding their investigations
of the CIA, FBI and related agencies
of government. The proposal now
gathering support would set up a com-
mittee on each side of the Capitol, with
rotating membership and no other
responsibilities beyond supervising
intelligence activities. Some would
include in the ground rules of any
such new committee stiff penalties for
unauthorised disclosure of information
by its members, perhaps even fines or
expulsion from Congress.
Agreement on these issues between
Capitol Hill and the White House-
where Mr Gerald Ford's own proposals
for reform and restructuring are in the
works-will not be ' asy to reach. Many
members of both the House and the
Senate are in a mood to demand a con-
sultative role for Congress in the early
planning stages of any covert _CIA
actions. But that, says the Administra-
tion, would usurp the legitimate authority
of the executive branch. It may have to
compromise, however, in order to get
out of the present situation, in which
members of Congress in effect wield
a potential veto power over CIA activi-
ties through the threat of disclosure.
Why not get the United States out
of covert actions altogether and make
initiatives like those in Angola and
Italy matters of public debate and open
knowledge? Impossible, says Mr William
Colby, the outgoing director of Central
Intelligence: the rules of the inter-
national game do not permit such things.
"The kinds of activities that big nations
need to conduct in the complicated
-and difficult world that we face" must
be done in secret. And if the United
States does not do them, they will be
left to others "who are tough and mean
enough". -
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100090073-2