Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP73-00475R000102540004-2
Body:
STAT
. TIMES 1-1EnAti).
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/03/10: CIA-RDP73-00475R000102540004-2
izoa
? ;.These lays .
Camelot Equaled 'Costaloe
? ?
THE LATIN American
countries that waxed furi-
ous when they learned that
the Pentagon was contem-
plating a
multimillion-
dollar study
of "the
potential for
internal
war" in
Chile, Ar-
gentina, Co-
lombia, Peru
and V e n e-
p.ela might Chamberlain
have spared
;themselves some ?agony.
For even? if the so-called
Project Camelot had not
been publicly buried by
President Johnson, it would
have revealed nothing that
.is not known already to
practically anybody who has
good Latin American.
sources?and it /would have
revealed that much too late.
These surveys! They as-
semble so much ponderous
machinery to measure over
a protracted period of time
,what a good reporter can
?get by judicious interview-
ing within a couple of
weeks that they are invaria-
bly on the slow freight. I
remember working on the '
editing and illustrating end
.of a Government study of ?
the comparative strength of
Nazi Germany and Soviet
Russia on the Eastern Front
In 1942.
For six months a group of
? professors, many of them
'quite able,: made like .
beavers to correlate every
last scrap ? of information
.they could get. Much of it.,
?
?
By John Chamberlainl
? .
?
?
came. from the daily 'news-- j lHcq and the ;
? papers. ITET?d-igki of the Slate Dc-!(
. partment itself? the. CIA:
,BY THE TIME the job files aren't filled to the gun-
'was completed the German wales with relevant stuff
army had made a decisive about Latin American revo-
move?and the work had to lutionary potentialities, then
be done all over again: The why are we spending bil-
cream of the ironic jest is ? lions to keep CIA personnel
that the U.S. military at- employed? And why do we
tache in Moscow had been have a State Department?'
feeding more?and ?better? ?? Or are we to 'believe that!
material to Gen. George the CIA? and the State De-
Marshall than he would ??partment have secrets that
have gotten from the survey are too precious to divulge
even if it .had reached his to the Pentagon on request?
desk in time to be of any
use. OF COURSE, you might
All' of which raises 'a say that our military at;
question: Why did the Pen- ? taches and CIA operatives ?.!
tagon feel it needed a and diplomats are not social
Project Camelot to tell it ; scientists. As is well known;
about Latin American revo- "social science research"
.;
lutionary potentialities if its ? consists of surveying the In-'
own
own military attaches are dians of the Peruvian alti- ;
on the ball? No possible.. piano and reNtding their !
Project Camelot for pre- - grunts as thei, are asked",
World War II Nazi Germany leading questions. ,i
k
could ever have matched The researcher invariably"
the material that our mili- , finds that the Indians don't !;
tary attache in Berlin, Col. ' live very well, and they1
Truman Smith, gathered in might very well be predis-,
the course of his, daily du- posed to listen to Castroites. I
ties. Which is the sort of thing;l
A good military or naval ' that anyone can glean from i
attache is supposed to be on ..?the reports put out eac10
top of situations, with month by Paul D. Bethel,
sources that it would take ''the able editor of the bulle???1
months for a team pf aca- tin published by the Citi- '4
demic researchers to tap. If zens Committee for a Free
a Project Camelot was in- , Cuba. The. bulletin can be,
? deed n e e d e d -for Latin
for free. ?
America, then we must as- l
1 Information is what we,;':
sume that. our military, , lave in abundance. The?
naval and air force attaches ,1
main troubc is that nobody.(
?
in Chile, Argentina and the
has time tO read it, it's se;i,
other countries are spend.,.
all-fired voluminous. '
ing all too much time op , 7
the cocktail 'circuit.
? lc . . .. .., 1965,. Xing reaturto-a' radiate:1nd
, ... ....,..
Moreover, if a , Project ';
Camelot was justified, what..;
are we to say, of the etec. jrntal?
.
Declassified in Part= Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2614/03/10 : CIA-RDP73-00475R000102540004-2