Covert Action: secret operations in foreign countries to influence the political scene there. Iran, 1953. The CIA helped Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlavi overthrow the government and take the power he has held for twenty-five years.

Cuba, 1961. The CIA backed the Bay of Pigs invasion, its activities were publicized, as later were its plans to kill Fidel Castro.

Chile, 1964 and ‘70. The CIA commits money and influence against Salvador Allende in two elections. He wins the second.

We have to face the possibility, the very real possibility that the agency may have been behaving like a rogue elephant on a rampage.

In the seventies, criticism of the CIA mounts -- part of a general mistrust of government. It presents new obstacles to covert operations and curbs CIA response to Soviet and Cuban intervention in Africa. Today, it is generally accepted in Washington that major covert operations are at a standstill.

I truly believe that the United States and the people, the American people have got to make a decision here, do they want a secret service and if they do, do they want an effective one. If so, they've got to decide to back it. If they're not going to back it, it would be better not to have any at all because a hobbled service, the illusion that you have an effective service but don't have one, is worse than having no service at all.

Good evening, I'm Marilyn Berger, welcome to The Advocates. Tonight we begin the seventh season of The Advocates, and we're delighted to be coming to you this year from the new home of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Tonight we're debating the future role of the Central Intelligence Agency. The role the CIA should play in the foreign policy of the United States. For some thirty years, the CIA has acted in two ways. First it gathers intelligence, the information which could effect American interests overseas. In the parlance of the agency this is known as clandestine operations. Then there are covert actions, secret operations to change the course of events in foreign countries. These actions have ranged from using money to influence elections, all the way to actually fielding hundreds of soldiers without uniforms. Our debate tonight concerns that second function of the CIA, covert action to influence events in foreign countries. The precise question is this: Should our foreign policy include covert action by the CIA? Advocate Barney Frank is the Massachusetts State Representative from Boston.

To defend the proposition that some forms of covert action are perfectly legitimate parts of a rational foreign policy, I'm going to call Mr. William Colby, the former director of the CIA and Professor Lyman Kirkpatrick now at Brown University, a former CIA official. In an emotional subject like this, precision of terms is important. By covert action we mean such things as intervening in an election in a foreign country particularly where one side is being aided by another foreign power, efforts to muster political influence, efforts to engage in persuasion, propaganda, if you will, particularly in closed societies which try and control that kind of information and keep it from getting to its own people. Fundamentally, when we talk about covert action, we're recognizing that there are situations when formal diplomatic action would be ineffective, military action excessive, but that there still is a reason for the United States government to try and influence foreign political actions, and we don't think, despite some past errors that the American government is so fundamentally flawed that we've got to join Monaco and the grand duchy of Luxembourg among those countries which simply declare unilateral political disarmament.

It's our very strong feeling that in areas all over the world today, in the Gulf where our oil is so important, in Southern Africa, where important political changes have to come, but hopefully will come with a minimum of bloodshed, that a country such as the United States, with our values, can in a reasonable and democratic fashion, make a decision that we want to bring our influence to bear in the full range of ways and that may very well include in political situations where one side is being secretly, covertly funded, by Colonel Qaddafi in Libya or by the Communists or by any other group. We ought not be the ones to say unilaterally we won't play, we'll simply set a moral example, you guys win the game, and we'll go home feeling better losers.

Advocate Margaret Marshall is a Boston Attorney. Mrs. Marshall.

Bribery, extortion, false propaganda, kidnapping. These are covert actions. The dirty tricks of the CIA that pollute our foreign policy. Tonight to give us a clearer perspective on why covert actions hurt us abroad and at home, I shall call to the stand, Morton Halperin and Robert Borosage. Mr. Halperin has served on the National Security Council and in the Department of Defense. He currently is head of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington. Mr. Borosage is a lawyer, and expert on covert activities of the CIA. He has researched and written about them. He is the director of the Institute for Policy Studies. Covert actions are illegal and uncontrollable, we have no idea how many of our tax dollars they cost us. We do know that for the past 30 years the CIA has systematically embroiled our nation in assassination attempts, coups, civil wars and terrorism throughout the world, from Chile to Iran. The result-we've lost influence where we should have made friends. The weapons of covert action are weapons of war. To use that in times of peace as we are doing now breeds contempt abroad and cynicism at home. Watergate and the President, the Presidency Richard Nixon have taught us, that secrecy and democracy do not mix.

Let me mention just a couple of things about the CIA before we go to cases. The CIA was established in 1947, just after World War II and it grew out of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services. The CIA was supposed to coordinate the intelligence activities of about seven governmental agencies. Obviously intelligence activities by their very nature are not known to the public. Those of the United States are no exception, except of course for the Bay of Pigs, in 1961. Then with Watergate, Congress and the public rejected the whole idea of secrecy in government and it was in this new climate that certain activities of the CIA that had hitherto been under heavy cover, became public knowledge. We learned of actions in Chile, Laos, Angola, even in Italy, back in 1948. Now it's the future role of the CIA that's at issue. In the context of the serious setback in Iran on the one hand and the prospect of a SALT agreement and an opening door to China on the other, people in Washington are spending a good deal of time trying to determine what the proper role of the CIA should be in our national security. Just how should the agency function? This Congress is trying to decide on a new charter for the CIA and committee hearings have already started. So our question comes down to this: Are covert actions a proper part of our foreign policy? Mr. Frank.

I call William Colby.

Welcome to The Advocates, Mr. Colby.

Thank You.

Mr. Colby, we've defined covert actions somewhat and you may expand on that, why is it important today, is it just a hangover from the Cold War, which some of you, out of nostalgia, are trying to perpetuate?

Well, I think it's important because we need to be able to influence foreign situations. We need to be able to influence them through diplomatic action, through economic action, and if necessary, through military action. But the last would be an extreme way of using our influence against some threat to our country. There are lesser means which we could use which are assistance to some group in another country.

But why covert? I mean isn't that unworthy of a great country? What are we skulking around for? Why don't we be proud of what we're doing and do it openly and let everyone know?

Because there are some situations in which you cannot operate openly. It's just plain impossible. It's illegal or it discredits people, it gives people a reason for discrediting, ah, ah, friends of ours in another country. When the Soviets were putting fifty million dollars a year into Italy to support the Communist part there, and its various front groups, the United States could have stayed out of that and seen Italy taken over, through that means. But instead, we believe it important to support the democratic and socialist forces there, so that they could have the parties and they could have the Congresses and the publications and the activists. That kind of secret activity had to be secret on our side because it was illegal under the laws of Italy, it was illegal for the Soviets and it was also illegal for us.

Let me ask you though, today, that's some time ago and it was successful, what about today, where in the world, literally, would we want to do covert activity today?

Well I think there's several occasions right now that call for a good hard look at it. In Central America, are we condemned to sit idly and watch the situation polarize between brutal dictator and leftist extremists? Or could we give some quiet help to some decent reasonable people in that country to build their political strength and offer an alternative. In Southern Africa, there's no question about whether black majority rule is going to come, but the question is whether it's going to come through violence, or through compromise and whether it will be led by the extremists of white and black or by responsible black leaders.

You say we find some good people and help them, that's not what we saw up on the screen there, we saw people shooting at other people, I mean, what do you mean, what is covert action in those situations you talk about in the Third World. There are people who will say that it's a case when we go into Third World countries of us bullying ourselves in there and buying up people and pushing people around, what would a covert action of a successful kind look like in, in ideally to you, in a situation like that?

Well, I think the lesson we've learned about covert action is that you can't do it from here with wires. You have to fiat fine people in another country in their cause will struggle for it, and if necessary, die for it. And they will do that, if they can get the aid that's necessary, sometimes that aid has to be secret. That's what the people in the Bay of Pigs were doing. They believed it important to try to replace the totalitarian government that Castro was establishing with a democratic government, not to reestablish Bastista's rule, but to replace it by a political coalition and if they had succeeded, incidentally, I think the American people would have met it with a roar of approval and we would not have had a Cuban missile crisis a year and a half later.

Thank you Mr. Frank, before we go to Mrs. Marshall for cross examination, may I just ask a question? There seems to be a long distance between aiding a political party and fielding an army in another case, Is it possible to have covert action that has limits, or once you give the agency the right to have covert action, must they have the right to do everything?

No, I don't think they need to have the right to do anything. One of the early presidential directives to CIA was to go out and be more ruthless than our adversaries and in the twenty five years that followed there were some situations that I would not defend at all. Such as the attempts to assassinate Mr. Castro. But, in, there are situations, where mere help to a political pro-program by help to posters and leaflets and things like that is that not enough when they're facing a brutal enemy with weapons and in those situations you need to give your friends the weapons with which to fight that enemy.

I see, Mrs. Marshall, it's your turn for cross examination.

Assassinations, Mr. Colby, I take it that you and I agree as you just mentioned that assassinations are sort of out of the range, we don't do that.

I'm the fellow who issued the regulations against it.

That's right so in theory you don't object to the United States issuing directives against certain kinds of actions, if they go beyond the bounds.

Right.

As we agree on that, I'd like to look a little bit at what you consider or have called the lessor means or the "quiet help." Take for example, payments to ah, elected officials in foreign governments, those are illegal in some situations, aren't they?

Surely, espionage is illegal, and frequently we have to pay for information for that.

That's fine now…

Now those payments incidentally for covert actions are

Are Illegal.

Are not to influence their vote in most cases, they are to support them to rally political strength.

Mr. Colby, it's not the most cases that we're concerned about. I think in many cases they are to influence votes but let us agree to disagree on that. I want to focus for a moment

Well, I beg your pardon, I think my factual knowledge of what these cases were- most of the cases were exactly the support of political figures.

Mr. Colby, you probably do have more information than I do because most of the information is secret, that is one of the problems that a citizen of the United States has, it can't get the information, I can't get the information.

It hasn't been secret from the Senate and the House Committees and the Presidential Commission that invested, investigated CIA.

It has been secret for nearly thirty years and that's why they.

Because by definition it has to be secret.

Mr. Colby, to return to the payments to the bribery of foreign officials if I may call it that. You are aware of course of the attempts by the South Korean government to bribe our officials here. Did you agree with that particular tactic on behalf of the South Korean government?

Of course not, it's illegal under our laws and we enforce our laws. I told you the action was illegal.

But you somehow approve of when the United States does that abroad but you don't approve when another country does it to us.

I don't approve when foreigners try to recruit spies here and I don't approve of it when foreigners try to influence our politics illegally. But nonetheless, I don't disarm myself from espionage abroad nor from aid to friends of ours abroad.

Believe me, Mr. Colby, I'm not suggesting that we disarm ourselves, I'm suggesting that we arm ourselves, that we act openly and not in secret. I'd like to mention another example. I take it that you and I would agree that you don't approve of torture.

I certainly don't.

Would you agree of giving support to people that you know torture?

No, and I think the best evidence the CIA hasn't been doing that, has been presented by Mr. Philip Agee in a book attacking CIA, accounting a case in which he said that he had recommended that people be sent to Washington for CIA training so they would not use torture anymore.

I understand that. Are you suggesting to me that the CIA gave no support whatsoever to the Savak security police of Iran, the Dina, the security police of Chile, we have been giving no support whatsoever...

I said that CIA has not been giving support to torture. Now what other countries do in some cases may not meet our standards, that's right.

I see, so we do give support to people who may be torturing, that we know are torturing but we don't give support to them to torture.

The United States gave a great deal of support to Joseph Stalin in a big war, and he was the runner of the great Gulag Archipelago.

We're not talking about wars, Mr. Colby, we're talking about peace time activities.

I am talking about a struggle.

A struggle we may talk about.

A level of struggle.

Are you telling me that the United States is permanently at war with the rest of the world, is that what you're telling me?

No, I'm not saying that, I'm saying you use it selectively, when the President approves it and now when the committees of Congress are aware of it and accept it. And that happens to be the conclusion that Mr. Senator Church came to after suggesting the possibility of CIA being a rouge elephant. He signed the report eight months later after the investigation that CIA was not out of control.

Mr. Colby, given that we seem to disagree on what is appropriate behavior for countries such as ours which supports democratic values, I hate to quote quotes, but not too long ago you said that to abandon covert action would not have a major impact on the current security of the United States. Is that a position that you still adhere to?

I said that in 1972 and at that time, as I remember, it was 1972, approximately 1972.

1974 by my records.

And at that time, I think that was an accurate statement.

And at this time it's not.

I would say that at this time with the additional troubles we're facing in the Persian Gulf in Central America that we have some new situations, that now, in my mind, call for it.

I would suggest to you Mr. Colby, that the troubles that we face in the Persian Gulf, especially in Iran, can be directly traced to the intervention of the CIA, and not to anything else.

No, I just disagree with you on that. There are lots of other reasons for those troubles.

I have no further questions. Thank you Mr. Colby.

Mr. Frank, you have some further questions for Mr. Colby?

Yes, Mr. Colby, you referred to Senator Church and I think people many of them feel it would be nice if we could do this kind of covert activity, if it could be controlled, but Senator Church said the problem is inherently with the secrecy here, ah you guys have been a rogue elephant. Now you were sabooed during much of that period that he was talking about. Isn't it the case that you're going to be inherently going off doing things on your own or can we as a democratic society maintain a covert action capability and still have some democratic controls over it?

We can have all the controls we want. For twenty years we didn't want to have controls. And those were the twenty years in which Senator Church concluded that CIA was not under control, but reported to its president and did his will. At this time, we have a new' situation in which we have presidential rules, we have a clear set of guidelines including certain things that are prohibited, and we have two very effective committees of the Congress watching what CIA is doing to make sure that it stays within the guidelines. Yes, you can have controlled operations of this nature. Under our constitution.

Let me ask you though, whether, maybe Americans are just kind of too gaucky for this kind of thing, what about it just being inherently unsuccessful, I mean everybody always hears about this one that got messed up and that one messed up. Can we as a people run a successful, covert, sophisticated, subtle, political, kind of thing or do we have to leave that to the British?

We have run a number of successful ones, I've mentioned the ones in Western Europe when we defeated a Soviet attempt to take the Western Europe over through subversion. In the Congo in the middle sixties, the question was whether that great country soon to be independent, would fall under the hand of leftist extremists supported by the Soviet Union and Chequevara, or under Belgium puppets of the mining companies there. And the answer was that we supported a black nationalist leader who made that country independent, it didn't make it the finest and most beautiful country in the world, but it did certainly give a better solution than either of those two alternatives.

Thank you Mr. Frank, thank you Mr. Colby for joining us on The Advocates. Mrs. Marshall, you now have an opportunity to call a witness in rebuttal, please.

I call Morton Halperin. Mr. Halperin, we have heard Mr. Colby expostulate at length about controls over covert action of the CIA, let me just make clear that we are not talking about intelligence gathering, we're talking about the covert operations. What do you think about the controls?

Well, I think Mr. Colby is right that by and large the CIA has been under the control of the President although there are some instances when they've gone off to some extent on their own. The main problem is that the President cannot be controlled. The presidents have used covert operations to bypass the democratic process within the United States.

Why would a President who has access to a whole range of alternatives want to use covert operations?

Because if he wants to do something, as in Chile, Richard Nixon wanted to urge the military to have a coup, to end constitutional government and to overthrow the democratically elected government of Chile. He knew that if he tried to do that openly, it was the American public and the Congress that would object and therefore he resorted to covert operations. Similarly, President Ford in Angola, knew that the public would not stand for that intervention and so it was kept secret from the American public, not from the people in Angola.

So you're suggesting to me that the reason why we need covert activities is to shield the American public from what its government is doing and not to shield the people abroad, because of illegal laws of the other realm of activity?

I would say that's the primary role, that the people abroad generally know that we're intervening in their society. The people that it's kept from is the American public, people inside the executive branch of the American government and from Congress.

Mr. Halperin, let me raise another issue. Mr. Colby has made a great deal of the fact that we have a diplomatic intervention and then we bring in the Marines. And in between, there's nothing except "God bless the CIA with its covert operations." Is that what were talking about?

Of course there's a great deal in between. The case of Western Europe which he cited in, which is always cited, it's the one great success of the CIA which involved a whole range of activity we had a massive economic aid program called the Marshall Plan. We had a massive military assistance program we had American citizens openly writing letters to people in Italy, saying to vote for a non-Communist government. The United States government was openly, actively intervening in many different ways. As we can do in other places in the world and as we do do. And covert operations at best is a marginal addition to that but it comes at an enormous cost to our democratic society.

So I take it you're not talking about stopping Americans interference or attempts to influence abroad, but you do have a strong reaction to covert operations.

That's right, because they are outside the possibility of control within a democratic society. People in the United States cannot reject that policy because they don't know that we're engaged in it.

I want to pick up on some of the examples that Mr. Colby used. He seemed to be concerned about two areas as far as I could tell, in fact, he said that things had deteriorated dramatically from 1972 to 1978. The first is in Southern Africa. He says that black majority rule is inevitable, but we must be in there supporting the moderates. What do you think about that policy?

Well if you take the case of Rhodesia, there is an illegal government in Rhodesia. It's not recognized by anyone, the UN has labeled it illegal, and those who are opposing that government have asked for our assistance.

Does the United States consider it an illegal government?

Yes it does.

Official policy of the United States government?

Yes, yes, and there's no reason why we cannot give aid and assistance to those who are opposing that government and choose if we want to among the different groups that are opposing that government and give them aid openly.

You're talking about open aid, open support.

Open aid and open assistance.

Technical support of whatever. What about the second area that Mr. Colby

Halperin; I'd say even military assistance.

What about the second area that he's concerned about, ah, namely the Gulf areas, the access to oil?

Well, I think the Iranian case demonstrates that the CIA cannot give us that protection. Iran

What do you mean by that?

Well, Iran is a country in which the CIA has been operating openly and fully, engaging in covert operations, cooperating with the Iranian secret police, advising the Shah of what to do and the result of that was a government that became so out of touch with its people that it's in effect been overthrown and what I think the United States government would now recognize is a movement with broad support within the society. That I think demonstrates is that letting the CIA loose in a country far from guaranteeing that will have access to the raw materials and the resources we need, in fact makes it likely we will alienate the population and have people running through the streets screaming "First the Shah, now the Americans."

Mrs. Marshall, we'll need a very short question and a short answer.

Concerning the endless struggle, that Mr. Colby talks about the threat from abroad, what do you think about that?

I think our strength is to be an open democratic society and to openly support other open democratic societies and that's how we will win the struggle.

Thank you Mr. Halperin.

Thank you. Mr. Frank, do you have some questions for Mr. Halperin?

Yes. I'm all for being an open democratic society, but, and, talking to other open democratic societies, but that would be somewhat of a limited conversation, so I guess the question is what happens in those parts of the world which are in fact not open democratic societies? Now what I'd like to understand is the nature of your opposition. As I understand from what you told Mrs. Marshall, it is not that you oppose interfering in other countries affairs. You pointed out in fact that there are other ways we can do that, openly, politically, financially, we can have trade embargoes. So you say the problem is that we are doing it at an enormous cost to our society, and that I'd like you to explain what the enormous costs to our society are. I know Mr. Nixon

The fundamental principle of a democratic society is that the people can decide whether to elect or reelect their leaders based on what they've done. If our leaders are doing things that we don't know about for example, the Ford Administration was intervening in Angola, doing it secretly, testifying to Congress in way that kept secret the fact that we were intervening. If that had not come out, people would have voted on whether to elect Mr. Ford again, or not, without knowing that he was in fact in Angola.

Mr. Halperin, do you think that the Angolian intervention played any significant part in the 1976 election? You must talk to voters I never heard of.

I think that the people have a right to know what their government is doing. They then have a right to decide whether they want to take that into account or not.

But I think that's the point. Yes I think it is possible for people to exaggerate the value of anything, including covert action.

It's not a question of exaggerating

No, but please, I was trying to agree with you that covert action is not essential in many ways and people have mentioned its marginal use. But I think there's also marginalia on the other side and you talked about two Presidents, and you said you know these guys get away with all this stuff, Nixon and Ford, Nixon in '73 and Ford in '75, two of the less successful political Presidents, and one got himself thrown out of office, and one became the first incumbent to get defeated in quite a while.

In part because these things happened to come out. But the CIA will tell you that they cannot perform those operations unless the leaks stop.

Well let me ask about that question, not defending the past things, Mr. Nixon did not like constitutional government in Chile, he didn't like it much in Washington. I'm not here to talk about that. The question is whether in the future we are capable as a people, and there are people on the right mostly who say, "look government is inherently a bad thing, and it's too many people and it's too crowded and you can't handle these things, and you'd better not try, you'd better not try secret action, you'd better not try to get housing built for low income people, you'd better not try and stimulate the economy because it's too complicated for you." Now my question is on secrecy. If we swear off secrecy because it's not compatible with democratic government, what about espionage? Doesn't that have to be done in secret? Don't we have to do espionage secretly and in some ways withhold from a lot of people what we're doing?

Well, but the issue there, people know that we're engaging in espionage and trying to gather information around the world

But they know were engaging in covert activity, as a general principle.

No they don't.

I'm telling them right now, let them listen.

No, you're not yet the president, and the president does not admit that he engages in covert operation or what countries he's intervening in and I think there's a fundamental difference.

Should we announce what countries we're spying on? Is that your principle? Please announcement: We are spying on the following countries: But we won't tell you who the spies are, I mean what, what's the difference.

I agree that espionage raises some of the same kinds of issues and I think there's a question of how far.

Well why don't you give it the same kinds of answers?

Because it's a different subject.

Well we can talk about it, we've got a couple of minutes left.

No, Mr. Frank, the subject tonight.

Why, yes to covert action and no, to espionage?

I think that there should be in fact very severe limits on the kind of espionage we conduct in the developing countries of the world for exactly the same reasons that we should not be conducting covert operations.

But your principle does say we don't do much espionage, like terrorists.

But if you look at... you've raised the question of developed, of closed societies, if you look at what the United States did in Europe and in the Soviet Union, we conducted for many years a clandestine radio broadcast to the Soviet Union and we said we had to do those covertly, it was called Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, when it became public. We now do it openly, it's voted...

But espionage is a little different. I would not want to be the guy who openly spied on Black September or some of the other terrorists groups or the, and I do not think that that would be a good idea.

We have an international treaty with the Russians in which we each agree that we're going to conduct espionage against the other.

Mr. Frank, the subject tonight is covert operations, not the clandestine operations.

Yes, yes Ms. Berger, but when arguments are used against covert operations which will remain alive if we still have espionage, what's the point, well let me get off espionage then, and let's get this to law enforcement. Now I'm a member of a legislature which authorizes state police to go, I hope, sneak around, and do a little bit of deception and secrecy. We do a lot of secret law enforcement, I mean the basic principle is this.

You do what is legal, as Mr. Colby has admitted, covert operations are illegal.

No, no, no, when the Washington DC police set up their sting, when they fenced stolen goods they were acting. If you and I acted that way we'd be away right now if they caught us. But they did it and it was very successful.

Mr. Frank, a quick question and a quick answer.

But it was legal for them to do that.

Alright, it was only a legality we're worrying about, not secrecy.

No, and it's also secret and it corrupts the society.

Thank you very much. Mr. Halperin, thank you very much for joining us. For those of you who may have joined us late, we're debating whether the Central Intelligence Agency should engage in covert operations. Mr. Frank has presented one witness in favor of covert operations by the CIA and Mrs. Marshall has presented one witness against it. And before we go on, I'd like to mention that his season study guides based on research materials for the Advocates are being distributed to 90,000 social studies teachers around the country and we'd like to welcome them and especially their students into our audience and we look forward to hearing their reactions and comments on the series. Now let's go back to the case about CIA covert operations. Mrs. Marshall, I believe you have another witness.

I call Robert Borosage. Mr. Borosage has spent the past several years investigating the covert actions of the CIA, he has also defended American citizens whose lives have been violated by our intelligence agencies. Mr. Borosage, I want to get away from espionage and back into what we're talking about. We are talking about using covert actions to secretly meddle in the internal affairs of other countries. Over the past couple of years, there have been scandals, public outcries, Congressional testimony, have the scandals of the CIA ended?

Well certainly the exposure of them has, for the most part, but what s clear is that the plumbing is still in place, the clandestine apparatus that the CIA maintains around the world is still there and nothing has changed there. Moreover, no substantive legal restrictions have been issued on the CIA the president has issued an executive order which banned assassination, but it also gave the CIA the authority to do covert operations, covert actions around the world.

Are you telling me that after all the Congressional testimony and all of the debates there have been, no substantive restraints placed on the CIA and its covert operations?

Exactly, except for the presidential limitation on assassination.

Mr. Borosage, I understand that one of the problems that we have tonight is that covert operations are by definition secret, but based on your investigations of what the CIA has been doing in the past, does that tell you anything about what they are doing right now, today?

Well it's hard to project, but what's clear from the Congressional investigation is that most CIA activities are broken into about three parts.

What are those?

One is election bribery, the massive influx of aid and assistance to people that the CIA denotes as the people we're going to support, in otherwise free elections.

Could you give us some examples of that?

The classic example is that of the interference in Chile for over a decade trying to keep Salvador Allende from being elected by the people of Chile to office.

And you hear Mr. Colby say that he would agree that that should go on in the future so we can assume that that's going on today.

I think that's certainly one of the areas the CIA wants to continue working in.

What are some of the other areas?

The second major area is propaganda.

Excuse me, wants to continue working in or is working in?

Well, they're secret, as an American citizen, I don't know the next revelation will find out where they're working. I would suspect that they're working in that area right now to the extent that there are free elections left in the Third World. The second area is massive propaganda. The beaming of false messages through radio networks, through press services, the Senate Committee found for instance the CIA had over a hundred press services that it controlled which had blanketed newspapers

What do you mean by "it controlled?"

Well, it literally controlled the news articles that they would disseminate. Its agents or its contract agents, etc.

You're telling me they were manufacturing news?

Well they disseminate both true news, false news and true news in a false way to distort reality. The way they like to do it is to do it in a concentrated way that overlaps so they can have an effect on an entire world view of a group of people in a small country.

Mr. Borosage, listening again to Mr. Colby, he seems to be focusing on the Third World. Don't we have a legitimate foreign policy objective of countering hostile Soviet or any other hostile activity in situations which are somewhat volatile? Isn't that what we are really talking about?

Well, let me just... the third area of the CIA'S activities are paramilitary operations and those are directed to the Third World.

They are directed to the Third World?

For the most part, and certainly in the last decade. The interesting thing about them is in time after time that we've seen it exposed, the CIA is not generally involved in those things in countering the Soviet Union. Too often it's involved in trying to support a faction that we agree with or disagree with.

What are some paramilitary operations?

For example, when Mr. Colby mentioned the Congo, the CIA'S own intelligence report said that Lumumba in the Congo was independent of the Soviet Union, he was a nationalist leader who was incredibly popular. The CIA'S covert action program was designed to keep the Congoese parliament from meeting, because if they met they would elect Lumumba, and it was designed in the end to try and assassinate Lumumba. That, Mr. Colby would describe as countering Soviet influences there. I would describe it as going after nationalist often socialist leaders who are very independent. Mossadegh is another example in Iran.

Thank you. Excuse me Mrs. Marshall, Mr. Frank has a chance to redirect, ah to cross examine the witness.

Thank you. Mr. Borosage, I believe that Mr. Colby's example was in the post- Lumumba period in the Congo. But I want to get again the basis for the objection. Is your objection to our intervention in the Third World countries or anywhere else by covert action, that it's ineffective? I mean if it could be effective, if we could help counteract a Qaddafi or somebody in a Gulf state with a more moderate type, would you oppose that in principle?

I would say two things. One is Vice-President Mondale concluded that one of the things about covert action that was wrong with it was that we don't do it very well... I think that's probably good and the reason is that we tend to be a society that tries to open up and work in free ways. That means the press meddles in the covert operations, something that the CIA objects to and tries to restrain, that means that our people are not quiet. They want to know what our government's doing.

But if it worked, would you be for it? If we could do it better?

No, I

Well then, why don't we talk about that, cause we can maybe all agree that

Well, take the CIA success. The CIA was successful in Chile. It ended a hundred eighty years of democratic government and we ended up with a military coup.

No, but that's not the question, Mr. Borosage. I agree that there are a lot of things that have happened in the past. Let me say that if we were going to dismantle everything in the government that Richard Nixon misused, we could move the White House from the Potomac to Walden Pond and grow peas. The question is whether because Richard Nixon abused something, we quit and say "oh, we can't handle it", we'd have no housing program, we'd have nothing. My question is, again, I think it's important to understand the basis for your objection.

Let's get to the question, Mr. Frank.

The question is, if it could work, would you be willing to try it, or do you have some objection in principle to our using propaganda, or political influence, leave aside paramilitary if we could intervene by political, financial, or propaganda means would you be opposed in principle to it?

I oppose in principle and in practice, the maintenance of a secret clandestine apparatus around the world to engage in covert operations, the whole range of covert operations.

Why, on moral grounds?

On moral ground, on what this country stands, on terms of what this country stands for, on practical grounds, because it's counterproductive.

Well how does what we stand for... suppose you go into a situation where it's an undemocratic society, or a, how about aid to Suarez in Portugal when they were coming out of a dictatorial period, when we gave them some money.

That's an excellent example of why we don't need to do covert operations. The social democratic parties throughout Europe aided the Suarez government, they did so openly, everyone knew about it. It was only the CIA that was meddling about, trying to slip a few dollars under the door.

Might it be that the Portuguese people would see other Western Europe countries somewhat differently than the United States? Are you saying that a form of action that's politically effective for the social democrats in West Germany or the socialists in France is the same for the United States?

I'm saying that you can't support free elections abroad by subverting them with secret money.

How is that subverting them? Well let me ask you, we did give money to Suarez. Was that therefore not a free election? Let's stick with that.

I think it subversed the process, yes.

Does that mean Suarez is an illegitimate government? It was not a free election? Let's examine the consequences of what you say. We gave money you said secretly in Portugal, others gave it openly. You say when we give money secretly we subvert a free election. Did they then not have a free election in Portugal? Is he an illegitimate guy?

Mr. Frank, if you would let me answer the question.

Mr. Frank, let him answer the question.

Ok, over time, if you continue to subvert elections, you continue to gain the election of parties that are not supported by the people. In reality, over time, what that leads to is a massive frustration among the majority of people in a country and what that leads to is the kind of activity that takes place in countries where the election

Excuse me

You still didn't answer the question. We're talking about what happened in Portugal.

Borosage; But what I'm saying if that over time the secret influence, the secret development of money, etc. subverts the whole process.

But how about if we did it as a one time thing, in an emergency situation. My question is…

That's what Richard Nixon thought, he thought one time.

Excuse me Mr. Borosage, what if the Communists were putting money in for the Communist side, thereby subverting the election. Would you oppose a countervailing contribution?

Yes, I would, a secret contervailing contribution. I think the way to respond to that is to do so openly. I don't think we should operate in the back alleys just because the Soviet Union does so. You can respond to that in two ways. You can help the friendly party or the friendly government, expose the Soviet contributions and use that as part of the electoral platform or you can give open money to people of your choice as the social democrats did in Portugal.

What if it's going to be very ineffective and they're doing it one way. Why should we not go into the back alleys...

But Mr. Frank, we can't argue about effectiveness cause you said we can't point to the last twenty five years of CIA failures.

But we can argue, I'm trying to pose a question you will answer, Mr. Borosage, and I'm willing to vary it to get an answer.

Mr. Frank, we're up to Mrs. Marshall now for some further questions for Mr. Borosage.

Mr. Borosage, let me clarify one thing. Mr. Frank keeps referring to Mr. Nixon and Mr. Ford. Are those the only two presidents that abused the covert actions of the CIA?

Well CIA covert operations have been going on since 1948 and I would say that there have been abuses since then, from the beginning.

Let me take a hundred and eighty degree about turn. We've been focusing on foreign affairs, let's look at the domestic implications. What has been the impact of us here at home by having the CIA, having this capability of secret interference in other countries?

I think we are just beginning to discover the kinds of implications of maintaining a clandestine apparatus.

What do you mean?

Mr. Colby mentioned that the Bay of Pigs invasion would be a success if it had succeeded. Well it didn't succeed and one of the legacies of the CIA is a pool of terrorists trained by the CIA that exist in Miami and have done hundreds of bombings in Miami, New York, ended up working with the Chilean Dina , the Chilean secret police in engaging in covert operations and assassinations of people in the hemisphere and even on the streets of Washington. That's the legacy of the CIA. More directly, I think what you get is that you create a mentality in the government, you create a clandestine bureaucracy that is engaged in lawless activity, that believes that no restrictions can govern its behavior, because it has a higher morality in quote "the struggle." The result is inevitably that that mentality comes home. I don't think it's an accident that Howard Hunt and the four Cubans found in the Watergate were CIA related.

And are you suggesting that that mentality cannot be controlled by Congressional supervision?

I don't think that it can be controlled. In 19, ah , when they set up the CIA, it was going to be controlled by Congressional oversight and it wasn't. In 1961, with the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy announced that he would control the CIA and he didn't. In 1967, when the student scandals came out we were told the CIA was under wraps, a year later operation CAOS started which was the massive spying on American citizens. I think that people who believe you can control a clandestine bureaucracy with Congressional oversight are far more naive that people who hope that America will represent democracy in the world.

Thank you Mr. Borosage, thank you for coming to the Advocates. Mr. Frank, would you call your next witness please.

Yes, I'd like to call Lyman Kirkpatrick please. Mr. Kirkpatrick, having had a lot of experience with the CIA as inspector general and elsewhere, let's start with this question of control, we're told that it's inevitable that we can't control a clandestine bureaucracy. In your experience has the CIA been out of control during the periods that we've talked about, the sixties that Mr. Borosage just referred to for instance?

I don't think the CIA was ever out of control. I think you're talking about policy makers as much as anything. I think any clandestine or any bureaucracy can be controlled if there's a will to control it.

Well you say policy makers, in other words, you suggest what people have been critical of the CIA in the sixties had in mind, or in the seventies, was that they didn't really like the foreign policy of the United States and that CIA as part of that foreign policy is being criticized, but it is not that the, let me ask you, has the CIA in your experience been acting at variance with general American foreign policy?

Whenever the CIA tried to act at variance with foreign policy generally the people concerned were gotten rid of. The CIA is a service organization. It has no end in itself, it's responsible to the government of the United States.

Well what about the argument that Congressional oversight is not going to work, and that a clandestine organization cannot be in its nature subjected to Congressional oversight? Has Congressional oversight functioned in your experience, or can it in the future?

It has functioned and it can function and it is my impression that the two committees, one under a Massachusetts Congressman in the House and the other in the Senate, are both functioning as effective oversight bodies. Now, I've talked to members and the staff of both committees recently, they feel that they're effectively overseeing the intelligence system.

Let me ask you from your dual perspective as a member of an academic faculty now, a political scientist, and as a former CIA person. We've heard that the CIA corrupts America, there was reference to four Watergate people involved in the CIA. Of course, we'd probably abolish the legal profession before we abolish the CIA if Watergate involvement with the criteria, but in your experience from both perspectives, has the CIA been a corrupting force in American politics? Has there been negative feedback from CIA activity?

Well I think that when the perspective of history is seen and the emotions of moments that may loom large when their particular failure is known, one of the disconcerting factors about the discussion this evening is we've been talking primarily based upon failures, and the ones that have become well known publicly. A lot of CIA covert operations have never become known publicly.

Are there successes, are we capable as a people of having successful covert action that's not morally outrageous?

Well if you, if you're meaning covert action as being operations which are secret from the inception through the operation and forever thereafter, I think we are capable of it if we want to, the interesting part is generally the revelations of the successful ones have not come from within.

Are there successful ones that can't be revealed or haven't been?

There have been.

What about the future, if you were making American foreign policy now would there be cases where you think there would be some successful covert activity of a type that would not be morally offensive to the American people?

I would think that it would be very wise for the United States government to keep a facility, a capability for covert action available, for use under discreet circumstances, for use when the President and his senior advisors having analyzed the situation and being assured by the top intelligence people, that it was feasible and could be carried out covertly to use it, but only under those circumstances.

With a Presidential sign-off.

Correct as the law now requires, the President must sign-off on each covert action. This was passed in 1974, incidentally, and certified to Congress that it was in the national interest.

But we heard from Mr. Borosage that that's really not necessary that when the Russians start acting covertly in the back alleys or Colonel Qaddafi or someone else, we ought to, true to our traditions, respond in an open way with the stars and stripes forrowed and out there and tell everybody we're there. Can we do it as effectively, openly?

Well, I don’t think you can be, you can engage in political action effectively. I think as a politician, if you don't object to that phrase, you know perfectly well that foreign, open foreign support, can be the death knell for most political figures, or political parties even. If it seems that they're being wielded and manipulated by a foreign body and I think this is so.

So if we countered secret Russian influence with open American influence we would not be countering that influence effectively.

I think we'd be totally innocuous.

Mrs. Marshall, do you have some questions?

I most certainly do, Mr. Kirkpatrick. You seem to have brushed aside the domestic implications of the capability of the CIA to conduct covert operations. You are now a university professor. Do you believe in academic freedom?

Certainly.

Are you aware of the fact that the Church committee concluded that the current CIA activities on United States campuses were a threat to academic freedom?

The Church committee was in 1975 Mrs. Marshall, We're talking about future United States foreign policy.

I understand.

I've always objected to CIA activities covertly on any United States campus.

So you would not agree that the CIA should have any activities on United States campuses?

I do not believe the CIA should have any covert activities of any sort in the United States.

I understand so we now have it as clear differentiation. If the constitution goes to the territorial boundaries of the United States and then stops you can go three miles out of sea and then it’s a free zone.

Well the law of 1947 said the CIA would have no domestic activities.

Let me ask you about one of the other questions that you raised. You have talked about successes and you've indicated that we don't know about successes and I'm having the same problem with you that I had with Mr. Colby, namely, I'm a citizen, I don't belong to the CIA, I don't work for the CIA, I don't have access to their data. But you have talked about endless successes. You also have said the CIA is a service organization in carrying out our foreign policies. Are you aware of the fact that the same Church committee having reviewed twenty five of CIA successes as they were presented to that Committee by the CIA concluded that it did not advance our foreign policy objectives?

Well the Church committee said many things. After all there are nearly eight thousand pages of reports from the Church committee.

They are not eight thousand pages of conclusions.

But the Church committee also commended the CIA for its general effectiveness.

I understand that. Mr. Kirkpatrick, I want to know exactly what you talk about when you mention maintaining a capability. What exactly do you mean by maintaining a capability?

I mean, I mean Mrs. Marshall that you cannot create covert activities full blown from one' s forehead, that you have to have trained professionals. They are based upon the same type of activities that clandestine intelligence operations are. You have to know how to operate in a secret way to get information or money or whatever you're using to a foreigner without jeopardizing that person's political integrity.

But isn't that precisely the problem we're talking about Mr. Kirkpatrick, to maintain the capability we are going to have hundreds of thousands of people trained in the United States to operate secretly abroad. Are you telling me that they won't operate secretly abroad until there's some determination back in Washington?

I'm telling you that they will not operate secretly abroad unless they're authorized to by the policy level of the United States government.

Are you suggesting to me that it was the foreign policy of the United States government to overthrow the constitutional government in Chile, was that our foreign policy?

I certainly suggested that.

That we should overthrow a constitutional government?

I believe it's pretty well established in the official documents, particularly Congressional hearings.

That we should overthrow constitutional governments?

Well they certainly did not want a Allende in the government.

I see, so that when we don't want somebody in a government, even if they have democratic processes, even if they have free elections, even if they have freedom of speech and the United States does not like them, we go in and overthrow them?

I didn't say that, I said the policy makers made that decision. I think they were totally wrong.

I see, but the CIA carried it out in any case.

Well the CIA has just two alternatives. They either refuse to obey the President's order and have people put in that will do it.

But isn't the problem that we have here Mr. Kirkpatrick, that it's precisely because the President has available to him, every single president as Mr. Borosage has said, has had available to him an organization that will first operate secretly, second, will not challenge the presidential orders, and that is precisely why the American people cannot put any kind of check on the executor.

But Mrs. Marshall. If our system of checks and balances established by the Constitution of the United States, which was written in 1787, bears any value at all, we have a Congress which is supposed to be doing this.

I understand that.

And I would say that the fault we're talking about tonight lies with three elements of the government, not just the CIA, but Congress for failing in oversight, presidential misuse, and the CIA for failures.

I understand, but the fact that Congress fails in oversight should not be an argument for giving the CIA license to conduct, to carry out covert activities, surely you cannot be arguing that.

But surely Mrs. Marshall, the Congress can stop anything that it starts. There is a saying in Washington that what Congress grants it can also take away.

That is precisely why there are many people in this country who are strongly urging that the Congress outlaw secret activities.

Well they're your representatives and if they decide that they're going to declare covert operations illegal, then they will not be carried out.

Thank you Mr. Kirkpatrick. I have no further questions,

Thank you very much. Mr. Kirkpatrick, thank you very much for joining us on The Advocates. Now let's go to the closing arguments. Mr. Frank you have one minute.

Thank you. Let's start with the Church committee, because Mrs. Marshall forgot to mention that the Church committee recommended that we continue our covert action capability. They're not for ending it. Because they don't buy the argument on which the right and the left have come to converge in some ways, that past failures in a particular government program mean that you abolish that government program in the future. The question is whether we as a country are somehow uniquely disqualified among countries in this world to defend legitimate and important needs through a range of issues and tools which would include some things that have to be done secretly. We've been told that that's the problem, that a democratic society cannot do anything secretly. Mr. Halperin admitted to his credit that his argument really means that you don't do much espionage. It also means that you don't do much law enforcement because if you're worried about people who are trained to do secret things lurking around your society, you're probably going to have to dismantle a large part of your police forces who, to be effective, do some things secretly. In this world in which we live, if you argue for some reason that secrecy is out and everything has to be done openly you're simply not going to be able to do an effective job at some very important things. And the question is in some ways a philosophical one. Can a majoritarian society such as ours legitimately delegate to a part of itself the right and duty to do certain things that are important in self defense secretly? And if we say that because people have done those badly in the past or because we didn't like the policy which they were serving, that we can't do it, we cripple ourselves in a substantial number of areas, not just foreign policy.

Thank you Mr. Frank, Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Marshall, you too have one minute.

Our country says that its foreign policy is based on a desire to see freedom and full human rights for everyone. Tonight our opponents have suggested that in order to achieve that goal we need something called covert operations. Let me remind you what that euphemism means, it doesn't mean just slipping a few dollars to an occasional political party. What it does mean is planting false information in the foreign press, hiring mercenaries to fight undeclared wars, getting involved in assassination plots, supporting secret police who engage in torture, that is what covert action has meant in the thirty years of history with the CIA and we have no right to believe it will be any different. Our opponents seem to think that there is weakness in acting openly and honestly. We see strength in acting on our principles. They believe the ends justify the means, I would suggest to you that without the right means we'll never get to the ends. They say as you heard so clearly, the CIA doesn't make foreign policy, it's just carrying out orders. That's a chilling and all to familiar reminder of an abdication of responsibility. I would suggest to you that we use the weapons of war in times of war when we're trying to wield a just peace we lock them away and hope we never have to use them.

Thank you. Now we hope, we hope that we'll hear from you in our audience. How do you feel about it. Should our foreign policy include covert action by the CIA? Send us your comments and you vote yes or no on a postcard to: The Advocates, Box 1979, Boston 02134. And we hope you'll join us next week. Thank you Mr. Frank, Mrs. Marshall, and your distinguished witnesses, for joining us on The Advocates. And thanks to our hosts here at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Good night.