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In defence of the C.I.A.Frederic W. Collins aa Member of the Washington staff of theChristian Science MonitorPublished online: 15 Apr 2008.

To cite this article: Frederic W. Collins (1967) In defence of the C.I.A., TheRound Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 57:225,115-121, DOI: 10.1080/00358536708452658

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IN DEFENCE OF THE C.I.A.TOO MUCH PIOUS HYPOCRISY

FREDERIC W. COLLINS

THE Central Intelligence Agency, the C.I.A., its logotype as renownedas 007, is going through another time of troubles with a certain segment

of the American public which thinks it finds some political profit or fulfilmentof conscience in flailing at a foe forbidden by its own very nature openly tostrike back. The impulse for self-examination and self-criticism and theconduct of public affairs in a goldfish bowl may be among the cardinalAmerican virtues; but like all virtues they can if permitted to run wild begin tobecome an end in themselves without relevance to practical context.

It simply cannot be argued within the boundaries of common sense that theintelligence functions of a major power, using the word " intelligence " in allits connotations, can be conducted in full view of the public. The C.I.A. musthave the protection of secrecy. That this imperative is at odds with some ofthe cherished principles of an open society is regrettable, but it does not presentan insoluble problem. It requires a compromise fundamentally no moredisturbing than that by which the United States government, rather thanprivate enterprise, assumes the task of carrying mail.

This compromise in respect of the CIA. has been worked out. Its termsare wholly compatible with the principles of representative government. Itconfers upon a limited number of people, a very limited number, the respon-sibility of monitoring on behalf of everyone else the activities of the C.I.A.It is possible to trace, and in the course of this article there will be traced, aclear linkage between what the public wishes to permit the C.I.A. to do andthe effective terms of the CLA.'s licence to operate. This linkage holds theC.I.A. to its functions as an instrument of the Presidency. It permits the C.I.A.to carry out a responsibility essential to today's unique American undertakingas the strongest champion of freedom in a world unique in the scope, intensity,profundity and obstinacy of the conflicts which beset it.

The C.I.A. has made some mistakes, but many of them have been morein the nature of errors in public relations than in objectives and methods. It isa young agency, not yet 20 years old. Having such an agency was a novelexperience for the United States, at a time when the country entered upon aperiod of its history in which it suddenly found itself having one nightmareafter another, and could not at once realize they were not nightmares. Themeans of controlling a secret agency had to be invented, or evolved bytrial—and error.

It is my personal conviction, firmly held even if only my own, that the

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116 IN DEFENCE OF THE C.I.A.

most serious deficiencies in control of the C.I.A. by the United States govern-ment arose from the accident of history which brought Dwight Eisenhower,Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles together at, among other places, the top of theAmerican intelligence process. I have the highest regard for Allen Dulles,for his qualities of character and mind and personality, and for his owncapabilities as both an operator and administrator in the field of intelligence.My opinion of Foster's performance as Secretary of State is not relevant towhat I am saying here; the relevant circumstances are that he was a Dulles,Allen's brother, and was Secretary of State. This presented a situation astricky as nepotism always presents. Even then, the consequences might havebeen different had Mr. Eisenhower, as President, possessed impulses ofcuriosity and critical analysis with respect to what his trusted officers were upto. But it was all trust, a trust that they would not deliberately do wrong,innocent of any recognition that operating unaudited they might together err.In my opinion it was this situation which permitted the C.I.A. to drift intothe course along which the Bay of Pigs project could develop a disastrousautonomy.

Accusations of Infamy

npHE Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco in April of 1961 served to call the attentionX of President Kennedy, very early in his administration, to the need for

stricter control of the C.I.A. That control has been established, and will beexamined in detail further along in this discussion. In the long course ofevolution, unfortunately, the C.I.A. provided a supply of raw material forcritical ammunition. Apart from the sniping from domestic sources, theenemies of the United States abroad and pious hyprocrites on the roster ofsupposed friends found it possible to construct such a plausible case for C.I.A.infamy that serious question arose whether the very existence of the agencywas not on net balance detrimental to the U.S. national interest. " Counter-productive" is the bureaucratic word. Wherever the Communist cause washurt abroad, no matter by whom, it was easy to construct an assertion thatthe C.I.A. had been subverting democratic processes. The French persuadedthemselves that the C.I.A. had abetted the revolt of the generals in Algeria in1961. The international slogan became, " When in trouble, blame the C.I.A.".

The C.I.A. kept out of the papers pretty well, and out of the stream ofinternational gossip, from the time it was established by Congress in 1947until the overthrow of Premier Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. It was some timelater, however, before the C.I.A. role in that operation, in co-operation withthe British Special Operations Executive, began to be mentioned inprint. Tardy though the reporting may have been, it destroyed a journalisticconvention of silence about specific activities of the C.I.A. The following year,1954, a C.I.A. role in the overthrow of President Arbenz in Guatemala washinted at in the press ahnost from the moment the enterprise was launchedacross the border by Guatemalan forces formed up in Honduras by CastilloArmas. I well remember writing a dispatch from Washington at that time

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IN DEFENCE OF THE C.I.A. 117

suggesting that the C.I.A. was involved (knowing full well what I was talkingabout) and having my knuckles rapped by an American editor for what heconsidered irresponsible journalism harmful to the national security. To thisday, responsible editors writhe in anguish when confronted by a questionwhether to admit in print what their reporters know the C.I.A. is doing indelicate situations.

After Guatemala, the C.I.A. succeeded rather well in receding into theshadows again until the embarrassing moment in 1960 when the Soviet Unionsucceeded in shooting down a U-2 reconnaissance plane over its territory.The uproar over that incident had hardly died down when the Bay of Pigshappened. Less than a year and a half later, in the fall of 1962, the C.I.A.was again at the centre of controversy: United States Senators were claimingthat the Kennedy Administration was suppressing conclusive C.I.A. informa-tion that Soviet offensive missiles were emplaced in Cuba, and made theseclaims before the date when, in the official Kennedy chronology of events, theemplacement became a fact.

Even during this time, the C.I.A. role in the labyrinthine politics ofSouth Vietnam was becoming more and more the subject of critical publicdiscussion, reaching a climax with the overthrow and death of President Diemin November 1963. The controversy goes on and on. This year the C.I.A.has been in public trouble twice (so far). It was charged with poisoning thesprings of academic integrity by taking cover in a faculty team fromMichigan State University working in South Vietnam (some years ago). Itacknowledges having planted a counter-spy in the Estonian emigre communityin the United States, although most Americans have the somewhat inaccuratebelief the C.I.A. is not supposed to do that. (The C.I.A. has no role ininternal security; in the Estonian case, it could claim external security—that is,against espionage—was involved.) What new exploits of the C.I.A. will showin the newspapers tomorrow has become a fascinating question.

It is small wonder that more than 200 resolutions have been introducedin Congress seeking to attach stronger congressional reins to the C.I.A. It issmall wonder that C.I.A. directors have become expendable items. AllenDulles went out in 1961, a casualty of the Bay of Pigs. John A. McCone, agiant of industry, commerce, and public service, lasted through 1964, but hisnumber was up after the overthrow of Diem. Admiral William F. Raborn,who had been good enough to manage the development of the Polaris missilefor the Navy and to run a huge aerospace company in retirement, lasted 14months as C.I.A. director. Now Richard M. Helms, described by everyoneas a brilliant professional in intelligence, has been moved up from theNumber Two spot to head the C.I.A. Richard M. Helms: June 1966 ?

" Invisible Government"

THE criticisms of the C.I.A. are many, and often have to do withtechnicalities of organization and administration. The major criticisms

fall over any given period of time into a fairly standard pattern. It is called

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118 IN DEFENCE OF THE C.I.A.

an "Invisible Government", the title of an excellent book on the agencydemonstrating an amazing penetration of its secrets. This invisible governmentis alleged to operate beyond the direction and control of the Visible Govern-ment. Critics charge, too, that^ in addition to doing what it wants to whetherthe President and the National Security Council like it or not, the C.I.A.exercises a sinister influence on policy making and action which causes thevisible Government to take courses and undertake operations its betterjudgment and established principles would cause it to reject. There is theobvious criticism that the C.I.A. is too conspicuous, and that this is onereason it gives the United States a bad name abroad. Recurrently, the demandis heard that the collection of intelligence should not be combined in oneagency with operations, the dirty tricks department.

I believe that this general pattern of criticism had some foundation in thepast, particularly during the period when the C.I.A. was run by the firm ofDulles & Dulles, Unltd. Even at that, I do not think the agency's record wasas black as its critics made it out to have been. After all, when Foster Dulleswas Secretary of State, he was the dominant personage of the Visible Govern-ment in foreign policy. The operation against Mossadegh was susceptible ofinterpretation as a power play in petroleum diplomacy, but after all, in 1953,Soviet penetration of the Middle East was a threat to be overcome for manygood reasons other than protection of oil revenues. The overthrow of Arbenzwas consistent with a policy of interdicting the flow of Communist powerfrom outside into Latin America, and in the specific case of Guatemala, into acountry just the other side of Mexico on the American isthmus. Thedenouement was triggered, incidentally, by a first-class C.I.A. exploit, thetracking of a shipload of arms loaded under false manifest at Stettin all theway along a hide-and-go-seek course to Puerto Barrios in May of 1954. TheU-2 surveillance of the Soviet Union was a technological triumph, howevermiserable the public relations performance in Washington when it wasdiscovered. The Bay of Pigs invasion would probably have brought limitlesslaurels to the C.I.A. had it succeeded, and it is not established that the C.I.A.was wholly or even principally at fault for the destruction of an operationwhich was " too big to be covert, too small to be overt". The CLA.'s per-formance in spotting Soviet missiles in Cuba was considered by PresidentKennedy and Secretary McNamara to have been excellent; whether theintelligence (or its incisive evaluation) was tardy is a question still so sur-rounded by political controversy that a sure answer remains elusive.

The CLA.'s role in South Vietnam has generated an infinite complexity ofcharges, counter-charges, opinions and counter-opinions. On the basis ofextensive inquiry, I am firm in an opinion that the C.I.A. has been blamedfor much it did not do, and has failed to receive credit for much it did do. Asfar as I am concerned, the events of late summer and early autumn of 1963which led up to the overthrow of Diem occurred partly (within whatever

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IN DEFENCE OF THE C.I.A. 119

measure responsibility attaches to the United States) because the Kennedygovernment permitted itself to be touted off its own intelligence by theoutcries of a swarm of American journalists in Saigon against Diem and hishousehold.

Senator Fulbright's Failure

BUT without rehearsing CIA. history further, and deliberately excludingone or two incidents during 1966 in which the C.I.A. seemed to be

nothing more than a figure of fun, let me make one or two points about themanner of control to which it is subject. In mid-summer, there was a decisivevote on Capitol Hill as to whether the congressional supervision of the C.I.A.should be extended. This was a small but intense drama, because it had asits self-chosen leading man the chairman of the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee, J. William Fulbright, who probably is known around the worldand certainly would like to think he is. He wished to add some members ofthe Foreign Relations Committee to the group overseeing the C.I.A. Thatgroup, members of the Senate and House, is rooted in committees having pri-mary jurisdiction in military affairs. This is incontrovertibly correct, becausethe ordinance creating the C.I.A. is a part of, a passage in, a section of, the1947 law creating the Department of Defense.

Now, there were extensive complexities of internal Senate politics involvedin the process whereby the Senate after an extraordinary secret session, toldFulbright to go chase himself. It was one of those cases in which Fulbright'sopponents were foxier and more skilled in the politics of the small room, theSenate antechambers, than Fulbright. But more than that, and this is my firstpoint about control: A weighty factor in the Senate's decision was itsacknowledgement, however subconscious, that the greater the number ofSenators privy to C.I.A. secrets, the greater the chance that somehow, some-where, some agent would find his cover blown sky-high, find himself suddenlytaken dead, and then as he looked down from above, see a whole netdisintegrate. It sounds fearfully melodramatic. It is a fearfully real possibility.I have talked with any number of Senators and Representatives who dohave licence to oversee C.I.A. It is one of their most distinguishing traitsthat they don't want to know too much about it. Who can blame them for notwanting more people (in the Senate or House) to know too much about it.Members of Congress are for the most part responsible. They are alsoaffable and garrulous. They can, and they have, blown secrets—in all inno-cence, but at great cost just the same.

More important, in my mind, are a series of other controls and supervisionswhich exist largely out of sight of the public, as indeed they ought to. As amatter of continuing procedure, representatives of the President, the Pentagon,and the Department of State preview in detail what the C.I.A. proposes to do,in order to square its projects with national policies and objectives.

There also exists an ad hoc group, ordinarily chaired by the President's

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special assistant for national security affairs, which has a limitless charter tolook not only at what the C.I.A. is doing but what it has done, and bringit up short if it seems to be stepping out of bounds. Again—and this is oneof the things little known to the public—the C.I.A. is subjected to the moststringent kind of budgetary control on behalf of the White House. TheBureau of the Budget is an arm of the President. Its staff includes specialistsin different areas of expenditure, including intelligence. Although the C.I.A.gets its money from Congress clandestinely—that is, there is no item in anypublished budget or appropriation measure openly identified as C.I.A.money, except perhaps for its most overt needs—it does not have a blankcheque. It must justify its proposed budget to the President. Its proposalsmust survive scrutiny by Budget Bureau persons, some of them perhaps C.I.A.graduates, who know where bodies are buried. Furthermore, and this isimportant, the C.I.A. is competing with other parts of the governmentengaged in intelligence functions when the available money is being divviedup. I happen to think that most guesses as to the expenditures of the UnitedStates on intelligence work are almost meaningless, even in the roundest kindof lump sums. But I do feel able to make an educated guess that out of allthe money spent in this field every year the C.I.A. probably does not getmore than one-sixth.

The same competition which rages over funds rages in the field. Almostevery branch of the United States government overseas is an intelligence branchat least part of the time, simply because it is sending information back home.It makes no difference whether the source is a military attache or a foreignaid officer. The C.I.A. is always in competition as to the validity and integrityof its reporting, whether its sources be open or secret. It cannot escape thischeck upon its performance except in areas where no other foreign missionsof the United States exist. In such places, it ought to pray that it did havesome cross-check by its rivals.

An Important Check

HOWEVER, the strongest and most effective and valuable check upon theC.I.A., in my opinion, is a body known as the President's Foreign

Intelligence Advisory Board. Many knowledgeable people will laugh at mefor saying this. Let them. I still believe it. On the record, the F.I.A.B. doesn'tmeet very often, perhaps once every six weeks. I nevertheless have everyreason to believe that by reason of the depth and diligence of its work whenit does meet, the extraordinarily high quality of its membership, and thesupport of a small full-time staff, it probably does more to " keep the C.I.A.honest" than any of the other monitoring devices.

Many of the persons on it may not be known abroad. Perhaps a samplingwill do. The chairman is Clark Clifford, who was general counsel to PresidentTruman, and almost immediately upon Mr. Truman's accession to the

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Presidency in 1945 was given the task of trying to make sense out of what wasthen a cat's cradle of intelligence systems in the United States government.Now a prosperous lawyer in private life, he is still dealing, as F.I.A.B. chair-man, in the business of trying to require that an organism he helped bring intobeing twenty years ago fulfil the ambitions he and Mr. Truman cherished thenin its behalf.

The rest of the board is a conglomeration of business men and formerpublic officials, all distinguished. General Maxwell Taylor is one. ProfessorWilliam Langer, of Harvard, former State Department ornament, is another.But the nature of the board is perhaps most clearly exemplified by Dr. EdwinLand, head of the Polaroid Corporation. Few would argue that Dr. Land isan authentic genius and what might be called a genius of a rare type: acreative scientist with a striking talent for the kind of business organizationand administration which coins money by the millions.

Nobody is going to tell me that this group of men is not addressing itselfseriously and responsibly and sharply to its given work of watching theC.I.A. It is my distinct impression that the F.I.A.B. can find out anythingit wants to about the C.I.A.; that it represents a de facto grievance committeeto which other parts of the government can complain when the C.I.A.stumbles (or seems to); that it has access to the President; that it has thefull confidence of the President; that it makes scores of specific recommenda-tions to the President for improvement or restraint in C.I.A. operations; andthat its recommendations more often than not are given effect.

So it seems to me after a great deal of inquiry and thought that the C.I.A.has been fitted rather well into the principles of representative government,that it possesses the consent of the governed, and is subject in remarkabledegree to the control of the governed. It comes down to a simple matter ofwhether one trusts or does not trust one's delegates. If the people trustdistinguished, senior and honourable members of the House and Senate whohave a responsibility about the C.I.A., if they trust the President, if they trustpersons the President has designated to direct and to discipline the C.I.A., then,in my earlier words, a clear linkage exists between what the public wishesto permit the C.I.A. to do and the effective terms of the C.I.A.'s licence tooperate. One may note also that people abroad may settle their own questionsabout the C.I.A. by reference to the same criterion of trust.

United States of America,November 1966.

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