NOT SO COVERT AID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100470004-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 9, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/18: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100470004-8
2
BALTIMORE SUN
9 March 1986
NOT SO COVERT AID
Advertising doesn't mix
with secret operations
By Allan E. Goodman
Washington
0 n Feb. 26, man newspapers
pub-
Itshed a picture o the vice president,
the secretaries of state and defense,
and her key White House officials
on as President Reagan sib a-nygsage o
ngress requesting authorization to use
8 m on o defense menrun -& for a covert action. The president wants the
money to buy arms and material for the
rebel forces fighting to overthrow the Sandi-
nista government of Nicaragua. As part of
his campaign to convince a skeptical Con-
gress to release the funds, Mr. Reagan re-
ceived rebel leaders in the Oval Ofllce, and a
private group, the National Endowment for
the Preservation of Liberty, plans to spend
more than 81 million for television advertis-
iirg to support the "contras."
Such publicity about covert action would
have been considered a serious breach of
security, a national scandal, as recently as a
decade ago.
From 1947, when the Central Intelli-
gence Agency was created, to the mid-
1970s,
covert action was a t tl held state-
secret, authorized a handful o officials
operating in back rooms at the White use
and the CIA, through a process that con-
e the president's involvement. But in
e united States today, covert action is nei-
ther very covert nor something that the
president or the government as a whole can
plausibly deny. By law, the president must
personally issue a finding that each covert
action is in the national interest, and so
notify Congress.
When President Reagan reorganized the
U.S. intelligence community in 1981 and is-
sued the executive o w ch now eras
its activities, covert action was n as
activities conduct in support of national
fore ign policy o lectives abroad which are
planned and executed so that the role oRFie-
U-S. govt-en is not apparent or ac-
knowl ed Publicly.
In 1985, however, the concern with
whether the hand of the United States
should be concealed began to disappear. In
President Reagan's State of the Union mes-
sage that year, he called for support of "free-
dom fighters" defying Soviet-supported ag-
gression. Shortly thereafter, senior adminis-
tration spokesmen called openly for covert
military and economic aid to anti-commu-
nist guerrillas in Afghanistan, Nicaragua,
Angola and Cambodia. Such aid is seen by
the administration as an essential ingredi-
ent of a strategy to combat aggression and to
counter the activities of such states as Nica-
ragua, Cuba, Libya and Iran, which export
revolution and subversion.
As Secretary of State George P. Shultz
argued in a speech last December, effective
resistance to Soviet influence sometimes.re-
quires that the U.S. government help free-
dom fighters without open acknowledge-
ment. But the administration has grown in-
creasingly open about its willingness to fi-
nance covert action and the propriety of do-
ing so.
Overt covert action, however, is self-de-
feating y does
require concealing American involvement
and support.
Secrecy is vital for two reasons. First, it
protects the U.S. government if the covert
action should fail. Second, it protects the
recipients of the aid from the charge that
they are merely puppets of a foreign power
and, thereby, are as illegitimate as the al-
leged puppet governments or dictators they
are seeking to overthrow.
Consider, for exam le, what would have
happen a new pres en o e
nes, ' razor uno had been "a recipi-
t o U.S. covert aid antic t is had some ow
become public. If the leak had occurred be-
fore-the Filipino election, Mrs. Aquino might
have been discredited as a candidate, and
American interests might have become even
more vulnerable to pressure from supporters
of Ferdinand E. Marcos, who would have
been outraged. If such covert aid had been
revealed after her victory, she would almost
certainly be compelled now to act more cool-
ly toward the United States to prove the le-
gitimacy of her government and her own
independence.
By going public on many of its covert
action programs, the Reagan administration
tarnishes the American image abroad and
weakens the public appeal of those it sup-
ports who - unlike the "contras," who have
engaged in grizzly reprisals against their
prisoners and civilians - may be admirable
freedom fighters.
Many intelligence professionals disagree
with both the present cavalier attitude to-
ward revealing covert action an e en
to which the administration haste
_such activity to bolster its foreign po icy o
jectives. When m. stanstield Turner be-
came director of central Intelligence in ,
brow t more harm and criticism to the CIA
than use urn."
Most pro ess ovals contend that covert
action is a risky weapon and should be con-
sidered only when all other options have
been exhausted. "But e trouble with
Reagan andTM wunam J. one to la me in an Interview. "is that look at cove action as just another option.
it's on the lP from the beginning. And the
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GG The trouble with covert
action is that it is too easy
to use when diplomacy
seems to befrustrating.>
INTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL
trouble with covert action is that it is too
easy to use when diplomacy seems to
frustrating or too time-consuming.-
Other intelligence officers argue, in fact,
that whenever the government's hand in an
international move can revealed or ac-
I owledQgdopen or diplomatic channels
are appropriate and much to be preferred.
Under President Reagan-,Tn-e-v-erFM-eTe-ss,
the number of covert operations has in-
creased substantially since the Carter ad-
ministration - to more than 50. Aside from
support of freedom fighters, the Reagan ad-
ministration is supporting such covert oper-
ations as those aimed at overthrowing the
regime of Col. Muammar el Kadafi of Libya,
channeling money to pro-American political
parties in Latin American and African coun-
tries, and backing paramilitary operations
aimed at preventing and countering terror-
ism.
Most of these o rations were requested
by tw icy makers at he State De rtm n or
'in the White House, intelligence profession-
als today remain very gun-shy about pro pos-
in covert operations, and are reluctant to
rtk their careers to carry them out. As a
is
result much the work cover action
done by contract employees who usually do
not end up as career officers in the CIA.
My own view is that the United States
should get out of the business of covert ac-
tion altogether. It is anachronistic and im-
practical in an era when intelligence agen-
cies no longer appear able - and the presi-
dent seems disinclined - to maintain the
level of secrecy required to keep these opera-
tions from coming to public light. In addi-
tion, I do not think that the extent to which
the president and the White House have be-
come enthusiastically and deeply involved in
the process of deciding on and authorizing
covert actions enhances the image of the
chief executive.
Covert action is always a risky course.
Most congressional leaders say the adminis-
tration has yet to make a compelling case for
it in Nicaragua. More important, the presi-
dent has yet to prove in this instance that
when he asks for money for covert action,
the normal tools and channels of conducting
foreign policy and influencing other coun-
tripr have been fully and sincerel; explored.
Mr. Goodman, associate dean at
Georgetown University's School of Foreign
Service, is a former official of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
a.
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