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THE 1960
CAMPAIGN -- AND NOW
UNKNOWN to the American people, the Bay of Pigs invasion plan played
a crucial role in the 1960 presidential campaign.
Despite the fact that millions of persons watched the four televised
debates between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy, the voters
went to the polls without knowing the secret reasons for the public
positions the candidates took on Cuba. Behind the scenes, on both
sides, there was deep concern over the pending CIA invasion.
To understand the secret drama that unfolded inside the Nixon and
Kennedy camps in 1960 over the planned invasion, one must go back to
a tradition that began in 1944.
In that year, wartime intelligence reports were made available to
Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican presidential candidate, by President
Roosevelt. Mr. Dewey received similar information in 1948. In 1957.
President Truman made CIA data available to General Eisenhower and
to Adlai Stevenson.
In 1956, following what by now had become an established custom,
Eisenhower arranged CIA briefings for Stevenson. And in 1960
Eisenhower sent identical telegrams on July 18 to Kennedy and to
Senator Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate,
offering them,
"periodic briefings on the international scene from a
responsible official in the Central Intelligence Agency ... Because
of the secret character of the information that would be furnished
you," said Eisenhower "it would be exclusively for your personal
knowledge."
Kennedy and Johnson accepted Eisenhower's offer. On July 23 Allen
Dulles, then Director of Central Intelligence flew to Hyannis with
two aides, James Brooke and Gate Lloyd. The CIA men arrived in an
Aero Commander that had the markings of a private plane. Brooke and
Lloyd carried secret papers in two slim dispatch cases.
In a two-and-a-half-hour conversation at Senator Kennedy's summer
home, on the brick terrace overlooking Nantucket Sound, Dulles
briefed the Democratic presidential candidate on what Kennedy
described afterward to reporters as "a good many serious problems
around the world." Kennedy said these had been discussed "in detail'
and indicated particular emphasis had been placed on Cuba and
Africa.
On July 27 Dulles flew to the LBJ Ranch in Texas and remained
overnight to brief Johnson. Dulles briefed Kennedy once more during
the campaign, on September 19.
A few days after this second briefing, in a reply published on
September 23 to a series of questions from the Scripps Howard
newspapers, Kennedy said:
"The forces fighting for freedom in exile
and in the mountains of Cuba should be sustained and assisted ..."
[2]
Then, on October 6, in Cincinnati, Kennedy delivered his major
speech on Cuba.
"Hopefully," he said, "events may once again bring
us an opportunity to bring our influence strongly to bear on behalf
of the cause of freedom in Cuba." Meantime, he called for
"encouraging those liberty-loving Cubans who are leading the
resistance to Castro." [3]
These sentiments were making the Nixon camp increasingly edgy. Nixon
and his aides did not know exactly how much, if anything, Kennedy
knew about the invasion plan. They did not know if Dulles had told
him about it. They certainly did not want the Democratic candidate
to be able to claim credit for an invasion that might be launched by
a Republican President. It was President Eisenhower, after all, who
had ordered the CIA to arm and train the exiles in May of 1960.
Nixon and his advisers wanted the CIA invasion to take place before
the voters went to the polls on November 8.
A top Nixon campaign adviser later privately confirmed this. He
explained that Nixon was hoping for an invasion before the election
because "it would have been a cinch to win" the presidency if the
Eisenhower Administration -- in which Nixon was the Number 2 man --
had destroyed Castro in the closing days of the campaign.
The best documentation of this is an article by Herbert G. Klein,
press secretary to Vice-President Nixon during the 1960 campaign. On
March 25, 1962, writing in the San Diego Union, of which he was the
editor, Klein revealed what had been going on behind the scenes in
the Nixon camp in 1960. It was a candid and most interesting news
story that did not gain the wide national attention it merited:
"From the start of the 1960 campaign many of us were convinced that
Cuba could be the deciding issue in a close election. Certainly, in
retrospect, it was one of the decisive factors in what was the
closest presidential election of modern history ...
"Only four of us on the Nixon staff shared the secret that refugees
were being trained for an eventual assault on Castro and a return to
Cuba. We had stern instructions not to talk about this, and, despite
many temptations, we protected security by remaining silent.
"For a long time, as we campaigned across the country, we held the
hope that the training would go rapidly enough to permit the beach
landing. The defeat of Castro would have been a powerful factor for
Richard Nixon ...
"But the training didn't go rapidly enough for a pre-election
landing ..."
Klein also wrote that a pre-election Cuban invasion would have made
it possible to reveal during the campaign that Nixon had written a
confidential memo in 1959, analyzing Castro as "either incredibly
naive about Communism or under Communist discipline."
*1 Klein added
that Nixon had urged a tough policy on Cuba "which led to the
training of refugees."
While the Nixon people were hoping the invasion would take place any
day, that was exactly what the Kennedy strategists hoped would not
happen. They were receiving persistent, and disturbing, reports that
some kind of Cuban exile operation was in the works. The reports of
invasion training were picked up from several sources, including
alert members of the press.
In mid-October, Andrew St. George and Hank Walker went to Florida to
shoot pictures for Life magazine of Cuban exiles training to invade
their homeland. The Kennedy campaign staff heard about this
assignment. While in Miami, St. George received several telephone
calls from William Attwood, a member of Kennedy's speech-writing
staff.
*2
Attwood was calling St. George for information on the state of
training of the Cuban exiles. According to St. George, Attwood
expressed concern that the Republicans would try to launch an
invasion of Cuba before election day. St. George said the question,
apparently, in the mind of the Kennedy aide was not whether there
was to be an invasion, but when.
St. George told Attwood that there seemed little possibility of an
immediate invasion, judging by the state of readiness of the exiles.
This word was passed on to Robert Kennedy, who was managing his
brother's campaign. At one point, there had been discussion among
Kennedy strategists of the possibility of the candidate's giving a
speech anticipating the invasion that seemed to be brewing, and
thereby neutralizing its political effect. The idea of a formal
speech was dropped, however, when investigation showed there was
little possibility that an invasion could be launched before
election day.
However, the Cuban issue was not dropped completely. On October 20
the Kennedy and Nixon campaign trails crossed in New York City,
where both were preparing for their fourth and final televised
debate the following night. That afternoon, newsmen accompanying the
Democratic candidate were alerted for an important statement by
Kennedy. The release was delayed, and when mimeographed copies
finally arrived at the pressroom in the Biltmore Hotel, it was after
6:00 P.M. On the very last page these key words appeared:
"We must attempt to strengthen the non-Batista democratic
anti-Castro forces in exile, and in Cuba itself, who offer eventual
hope of overthrowing Castro. Thus far these fighters for freedom
have had virtually no support from our government." [4]
At the Waldorf-Astoria, eight blocks away, the effect on Nixon was
immediate and explosive.
A year and a half later, in his book Six Crises, Nixon wrote that
when he read Kennedy's Biltmore statement, "I got mad." Nixon went
on to say that the "covert training of Cuban exiles" by the CIA was
due "in substantial part at least, to my efforts," and, that this
"had been adopted as a policy as a result of my direct support."
Now, Nixon felt, Kennedy was trying to pre-empt a policy which the
Vice-President claimed as his own.
Nixon wrote that he ordered Fred Seaton, Interior Secretary and a
Nixon campaign adviser, "to call the White House at once on the
security line and find out whether or not Dulles had briefed Kennedy
on the fact that for months the CIA had not only been supporting and
assisting but actually training Cuban exiles for the eventual
purpose of supporting an invasion of Cuba itself.
"Seaton reported back to me in half an hour. His answer: Kennedy had
been briefed on this operation."
Kennedy, Nixon continued, was advocating,
"what was already the
policy of the American government -- covertly -- and Kennedy had
been so informed ... Kennedy was endangering the security of the
whole operation ...
"There was only one thing I could do. The covert operation had to be
protected at all costs. I must not even suggest by implication that
the United States was rendering aid to rebel forces in and out of
Cuba. In fact, I must go to the other extreme: I must attack the
Kennedy proposal to provide such aid as wrong and irresponsible
because it would violate our treaty commitments." [5]
The next night, during their fourth debate from the ABC TV studio in
Manhattan, Nixon hopped on the Kennedy proposal as "dangerously
irresponsible." He said it would violate "five treaties" between the
United States and Latin America as well as the Charter of the United
Nations.
The Nixon camp was elated. All the next day, as the Republican
candidate barnstormed through eastern Pennsylvania, members of the
Nixon staff let it be known that they felt Kennedy had finally made
a serious error.
That night, October 27, in the crowded gymnasium at Muhlenberg
College in Allentown; Nixon attacked:
"He [Kennedy) called for -- and get this -- the U. S. Government to
support a revolution in Cuba, and I say that this is the most
shockingly reckless proposal ever made in our history by a
presidential candidate during a campaign -- and I'll tell you why
... he comes up, as I pointed up, with the fantastic recommendation
that the U. S. Government shall directly aid the anti-Castro forces
both in and out of Cuba ...
"You know what this would mean? We would violate right off the bat
five treaties with the American States, including the Treaty of
Bogota of 1948. We would also violate our solemn commitments to the
United Nations ..." [6]
Kennedy was campaigning in Missouri and Kansas that day. By the time
he reached Wisconsin the next day, he was feeling the heat of the
Nixon attack.
In North Carolina, Adlai Stevenson, campaigning for Kennedy, was
alarmed at Kennedy's stand on Cuba. Stevenson had spoken at Duke
University on October 21, and now he was at his sister's plantation
in Southern Pines, North Carolina. He placed a long-distance call to
Kennedy in Wisconsin. When he got through, Stevenson warned that the
statement urging aid to the exiles could develop into a political
trap for Kennedy if he were elected. He expressed strong opposition,
and urged the Democratic standard-bearer to back off slightly from
his New York statement.
In their conversation, Kennedy seemed embarrassed about the
statement and implied it had been issued without adequate clearance.
He told Stevenson he would pull back from it, and regain a safer
position. Accordingly, Kennedy dispatched a telegram to Nixon that
day in which he said he had "never advocated and I do not now
advocate intervention in Cuba in violation of our treaty
obligations." And he said no more about aiding Cuban exiles.
Three days later, the October 31 issue of Life appeared with St.
George's and Walker's pictures of Cuban exiles in training.
The campaign was now rushing to a climax. On November 2 Kennedy had
his last CIA briefing, this time from General Cabell, rather than
from Dulles. Kennedy had requested this briefing in order to be
brought up to date on any last-minute international developments.
The CIA deputy director flew to Los Angeles and talked with the
candidate aboard the Caroline, Kennedy's Convair, during a flight
from Los Angeles to San Diego. The two men were alone in the rear
compartment of the plane. Cabell left Kennedy at San Diego.
In March of 1962, when Nixon charged in his book that Kennedy had
been briefed about the Cuban invasion and had deliberately
endangered its security, the White House issued an immediate denial,
which was backed up by Allen Dulles. Pierre Salinger said Kennedy
"was not told before the election of 1960 of the training of troops
outside of Cuba or of any plans for 'supporting an invasion of
Cuba.'" Nixon's account was based on a "misunderstanding," Salinger
said. Dulles' campaign briefings had been general in nature, he
added. He said Kennedy was first informed of the Cuban operation
when Dulles and Bissell came to see him in Palm Beach on November
18, 1960, ten days after the election.*3
Dulles, too, attributed Nixon's version to,
"an honest
misunderstanding ... My briefings were intelligence briefings on the
world situation," he said. "They did not cover our own government's
plans or programs for action, overt or covert." [7]
And in fact, Nixon did not explain how Seaton, by telephoning the
White House, had learned what had transpired between Kennedy and
Dulles. He did not say to whom his adviser had talked. Seaton has
declined to shed any further light on this.
"It was an appropriate
White House official, a man who would be in a position to get the
answer," was all that he would say. "It certainly was not the White
House janitor." [8]
In fact, Seaton talked to Brigadier General Andrew J. Goodpaster,
the White House staff secretary and President Eisenhower's link with
the CIA. But there is no indication that Goodpaster checked with
Dulles, or that Nixon or Seaton ever checked with Dulles directly.
Exactly what transpired during Dulles' briefings of Kennedy -- the
nuances, the inflections, Dulles' precise words when the question of
Cuba arose -- these will never be known for certain, since the
meeting was top-secret and unrecorded. The same applies to General
Cabell's briefing aboard the Caroline November 2.
But there is some evidence that Kennedy did not want to be told
about operational matters -- such as the Cuban invasion -- because
of the very fact that this might limit his freedom of action.
In any event, Nixon's dispute with Kennedy and Dulles over who told
what to whom missed the point. Regardless of the content of the CIA
briefings, the Kennedy camp had learned informally from other
sources that an exile invasion was hatching.
The candidates for President of the United States were allowing
their campaign strategy and public positions to be influenced by a
secret operation of the Invisible Government.
(All three major
issues debated in the closing days of the 1960 campaign were related
to clandestine operations. First, there was Cuba. Second, there was
the issue of Quemoy and Matsu. Third, the question of whether
President Eisenhower should have "apologized" to Khrushchev after
the U-2 flight of Francis Gary Powers in order to save the Paris
summit meeting.)
The point is that as a by-product of operations of the Invisible
Government the electoral process -- the very heart of democratic
government -- was being confused and diluted.
In the case of the Cuban invasion, both candidates were concerned
about a secret plan of which the electorate knew nothing. In
choosing the man to fill the most powerful elective office in the
world, the voters were basing their decision, in part, on misleading
statements.
As has been noted, one candidate, Vice-President Nixon, confessed
considerably later that he took a false public position during the
campaign, exactly the opposite of his true feeling, in order, he
said, to protect the CIA invasion plan.
But the minions who watched Nixon and Kennedy argue the Cuban issue
on television had no way of knowing that the facts were being
distorted or suppressed.
This is not to suggest that the invasion plan should have been
announced on nationwide television. But it does seem reasonable to
ask how the voter can make an informed choice when a candidate is
not telling the truth, for whatever laudable patriotic motivation.
Those who argue against tighter controls over the secret branches of
the government are fond of making the case that the American system
already has enough built-in safeguards. The people elect a President
and place their faith in him. During his term in the White House, he
is free to run the government, including its secret machinery, as he
sees fit. But if the voters dislike how he is running the country,
they can turn him out of office in four years. For during every
presidential election campaign, the great issues are debated, there
is a full public accounting and the people can look, listen and make
their intelligent choice.
So the argument goes. What happens to this theory, however, when the
electoral process becomes so enmeshed in the tentacles of the
Invisible Government that a candidate tells the voters he stands for
one course of action, when he really believes just the opposite?
Obviously, the electoral process itself is fundamentally weakened.
That is what happened in 1960, and there is no reason to think it
could not happen again.
When the public positions of candidates for President are shaped (or
reversed) by secret operations which the voters are not entitled to
know about, something has happened to the American system, and
something for ill.
The Invisible Government participated in the presidential campaign
of 1960. It was unseen, but there. It provided a valuable lesson for
future presidential campaigns.
*1
In April, 1959, after a long meeting with Castro in his office in
the Capitol, Nixon drafted a confidential memo for the White House,
the CIA and the State Department. Key excerpts said: "As I have
already indicated, he was incredibly naive with regard to the
Communist threat and appeared to have no fear whatever that the
Communists might eventually come to power in Cuba ...
"My own appraisal of him as a man is somewhat mixed. The one fact we
can be sure of is that he has those indefinable qualities which make
him a leader of men. Whatever we may think of him he is going to be
a great factor in the development of Cuba and very possibly in Latin
American affairs generally. He seems to be sincere, he is either
incredibly naive about Communism or under Communist discipline -- my
guess is the former and as I have already implied, his ideas as to
how to run a government or an economy are less developed than those
of almost any world figure I have met in fifty countries. But
because he has the power to lead to which I have referred we have no
choice but at least to try to orient him in the right direction."
*2
After the election, Attwood was named Ambassador to Guinea, and in
February, 1964, he became Ambassador to Kenya.
*3
Immediately after the election, Dulles went to Eisenhower and
urged that the full details of the Cuban invasion plan be laid
before the President-elect. Eisenhower authorized Dulles to do so,
and the CIA chief, with Bissell, flew to Palm Beach for the November
18 meeting.
Back to Contents
A CONCLUSION
THE PRIMARY CONCERN of the men who drafted the Declaration of
Independence was the consent of the governed. By the mid-twentieth
century, under the pressures of the Cold War, the primary concern of
the nation's leaders had become the survival of the governed.
The Invisible Government emerged in the aftermath of World War II as
one of the instruments designed to insure national survival. But
because it was hidden, because it operated outside of the normal
Constitutional checks and balances, it posed a potential threat to
the very system it was designed to protect.
President Truman created the nucleus of the Invisible Government
when he signed the National Security Act of 1947, giving birth to
the CIA. He has asserted that he conceived of the CIA primarily as a
coordinating and intelligence-gathering aid to a modern President
who needed concise, centralized information on which to base
national policy. But by 1963 the intelligence apparatus had taken on
dimensions which Truman said he had never anticipated.
"With all the nonsense put out by Communist propaganda ... in their
name-calling assault on the West," he wrote, "the last thing we
needed was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin to a
subverting influence in the affairs of other people...
"There are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I
... would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment
as the intelligence arm of the President, and whatever else it can
properly perform in that special field -- and that its operational
duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.
"We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions
and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is
something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting
a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to
correct it." [1]
In effect, Truman was lamenting the damage to national prestige
caused by such special operations as the U-2 affair of 1960, the Bay
of Pigs, and the episodes in Indonesia, Burma, Laos, Vietnam and
elsewhere.
Yet the Plans Division, which conducts the CIA's special operations,
was established in 1951 under President Truman. And it was under
Truman that Allen Dulles came to Washington to be the first director
of that division. Since Truman could not have been unaware of these
events, the real question is whether the operational activities of
the CIA have grown to a size and shape that Truman had not intended
when he signed the 1947 Act.
Has the dagger, in short, become more important than the cloak?
Certainly, in the years since 1951, secret operations have grown
greatly in size and number. When they have gone awry -- and some
have gone sensationally awry -- they have brought notoriety to the
CIA.
Nevertheless, CIA officials have insisted that the majority of these
operations have been successful. However, there have been a large
number of known failures. There is only one logical conclusion, if
one is to accept the CIA's claim to a high percentage of success:
that the total number of secret operations has been much greater
than is supposed even in knowledgeable circles.
As in the case of the Bay of Pigs, some of these operations have
become so big that they cannot be practicably concealed or plausibly
denied. In other instances, clandestine activity has turned loose
forces which have proved uncontrollable. Around the world, the CIA
has trained and supported elite corps designed to maintain internal
security in pro-Western countries. But these police units have
sometimes become a source of acute embarrassment to the United
States, notably in Vietnam, where CIA-financed special forces raided
the Buddhist pagodas.
Despite these wide-ranging clandestine activities, and despite the
importance, the power and the vast sums at the disposal of the CIA
and the other agencies of the Invisible Government, there has not
been enough intelligent public discussion of the role of this secret
machinery.
In general, critics of the CIA have been hobbled by a lack of sure
knowledge about its activities. By and large, their criticism falls
into three categories: that the CIA conducts foreign policy on its
own, that it runs its affairs outside of presidential and
Congressional control, and that it warps intelligence to justify its
special operations.
There is a sophisticated notion that the problems raised by a hidden
bureaucracy operating within a free society can be resolved by
limiting the CIA to intelligence gathering and setting up a separate
organization to conduct special operations. The argument is that
when the two functions are joined, as they are now, the intelligence
gatherers inevitably become special pleaders for the operations in
which they are engaged.
There is little question that this has happened in the past and that
it poses a continuing, basic problem. But the difficulty is that an
agent who is running a secret operation often is in the best
position to gather secret information. A CIA man involved in
intrigues with the political opposition in a given country will very
likely know much more about that opposition than an analyst at
Langley or even the ambassador on the scene.
If the CIA were to be prohibited from carrying out secret
operational activity and that task were to be turned over to another
agency, it might be necessary to create another set of secret
operatives in addition to the large number of CIA men already at
work overseas. Such a situation would probably reduce efficiency,
raise costs and increase the dangers of exposure. The Taylor
committee grappled with the problem after the Bay of Pigs and came
to the conclusion that the present arrangement is the lesser of two
evils.
This problem, as important and complex as it may be, is secondary to
the larger question of whether the CIA sets its own policy, outside
of presidential control. While this accusation contains some truth,
it, too, is oversimplified.
There are procedures which call for the approval of any major
special operation at a high level in the executive branch of the
government. The public comments of Eisenhower on Guatemala and
Kennedy on the Bay of Pigs demonstrated that they not only approved
these operations, but took part in the planning for them.
However, many important decisions appear to have been delegated to
the Special Group, a small and shadowy directorate nowhere
specifically provided for by law. But because the Special Group is
composed of men with heavy responsibilities in other areas, it
obviously can give no more than general approval and guidance to a
course of action. The CIA and the other agencies of the Invisible
Government are free to shape events in the field. They can influence
policy and chart their own course within the flexible framework laid
down by Washington.
In Costa Rica, for example, CIA officers did not see fit to inform
the State Department when they planted a fake Communist document in
a local newspaper. In Cairo, "Mr. X" slipped in to see Nasser ahead
of the State Department's special emissary. In the Bay of Pigs
planning, the CIA men selected the political leadership of the Cuban
exiles.
Yet because of the existence of the Special Group and a generalized
mechanism for approving operations, intelligence men have been able
to claim that they have never acted outside of policy set at the
highest level of the government. In short, even when a clear policy
has been established, a President may find it difficult to enforce.
Presidential power, despite the popular conception of it, is diffuse
and limited. The various departments and agencies under his
authority have entrenched sources of strength. They cannot always be
molded to his will.
In his relations with the Invisible Government, the President's
problems are compounded. He cannot deal with it openly and publicly.
He cannot bring to bear against it the normal political tools at his
disposal. He cannot go over the heads of the leaders of the
Intelligence community and appeal to the people.
A President operates under a constant awareness of the capacity of
disgruntled members of the Invisible Government to undercut his
purposes by leaking information to Congress and the press. During
the deliberations leading to the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy obviously
realized the political dangers of canceling a plan to overthrow
Castro which had been brought to an advanced stage by a Republican
administration. Similarly, during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962,
White House officials suspected that someone high in the CIA was
attempting to undermine the President by providing the Republicans
with information.
This suspicion reflected the fact that the Invisible Government has
achieved a quasi-independent status and a power of its own. Under
these conditions, and given the necessity for secret activities to
remain secret, can the Invisible Government ever be made fully
compatible with the democratic system?
The answer is no. It cannot be made fully compatible. But, on the
other hand, it seems inescapable that some form of Invisible
Government is essential to national security in a time of Cold War.
Therefore, the urgent necessity in such a national dilemma is to
make the Invisible Government as reconcilable as possible with the
democratic system, aware that no more than a tenuous compromise can
be achieved.
What, then, is to be done?
Most important, the public, the President and the Congress must
support steps to control the intelligence establishment, to place
checks on its power and to make it truly accountable, particularly
in the area of special operations.
The danger of special operations does not lie in tables of
organization or questions of technique, but in embarking upon them
too readily and without effective presidential control. Special
operations pose dangers not only to the nations against which they
are directed, but to ourselves. They raise the question of how far a
free society, in attempting to preserve itself, can emulate a closed
society without becoming indistinguishable from it.
The moral and practical justification for secret operations has been
stated simply by Allen Dulles, who said the government felt
compelled to "fight fire with fire." The implication was that the
CIA could justifiably respond in kind to the unscrupulous practices
of the Soviet espionage machine. It could mirror the opposition.
"Today," Dulles has observed, "the Soviet State Security Service
(KGB) is the eyes and ears of the Soviet State abroad as well as at
home. It is a multi-purpose, clandestine arm of power that can in
the last analysis carry out almost any act that the Soviet
leadership assigns to it. It is more than a secret police
organization, more than an intelligence and counter-intelligence
organization. It is an instrument for subversion, manipulation and
violence, for secret intervention in the affairs of other countries.
It is an aggressive arm of Soviet ambitions in the Cold War." [2]
A free society has difficulty in adopting such practices because of
its moral tradition that the end does not justify the means. It must
proceed with caution, alert to the danger of succumbing to the
enemy's morality by too eagerly embracing his methods.
Special operations should be launched only after the most sober
deliberation by the President, acting upon the broadest possible
advice. This counsel should come not only from those within the
intelligence community, but from responsible officials with a wider
viewpoint. Operations such as those at the Bay of Pigs and in
Indonesia involved the potential overthrow of a foreign government.
They amount to undeclared war. They should be launched only when the
alternative of inaction carries with it the gravest risk to national
security.
If, nonetheless, it becomes necessary to undertake a secret
operation, it is imperative that the long- range repercussions be
weighed fully in advance. The consequences of failure must be faced.
Was it worth running the risk of national humiliation in attempting
to overthrow Castro? Was it worth running the risk of permanently
alienating Sukarno by supporting his enemies?
Equal consideration must be given to the problems that would result
from the success of a special operation. Is the United States
prepared to assume responsibility for the economic and political
conditions growing out of a successful CIA-supported revolt? How
much is really accomplished, in such cases as Guatemala and Iran, if
a pro-Communist government is removed, but the conditions which
permitted Communism to make inroads in the first place are restored?
It is a delusion to think that the problems of United States foreign
policy in a complex world can be resolved by the quick surgery of a
palace coup. The intelligence and espionage technicians, who have a
natural affinity for such activist solutions, should never be
allowed to dominate the deliberations leading to secret operations.
Nor should they be permitted exclusive control of the conduct of
operations in the field.
Both Eisenhower and Kennedy directed that the ambassador be in
charge of all United States activities in a foreign country. It is
essential that this theoretical supremacy become a reality. An
ambassador should never be put in the position of a William Sebald
in Burma. If he is to maintain the respect of the government leaders
with whom he is dealing, he must be kept informed about American
clandestine activity. If circumstances dictate a covert policy that
conflicts with the avowed policy of Washington toward a given
country, the ambassador must know about it.
Congress should also be kept informed. Under the Constitution,
Congress is supposed to act as a check upon the activities of the
executive branch. Traditionally, the Senate has given its "advice
and consent" to major commitments in the sphere of foreign affairs.
But in its relations with the Invisible Government, Congress has all
but voted away its rights. It knows relatively little about what
goes on in the $4,000,000,000-a-year intelligence complex for which
it appropriates the money.
The CIA subcommittees in the House and Senate are controlled by the
most conservative elements in Congress, men who are close personally
and philosophically to those who run the Invisible Government. These
subcommittees are now heavily weighted with legislators whose field
of competence is military affairs. They should be reorganized to
encompass men with a wider view and expert knowledge of foreign
affairs. Men such as Senator Fulbright (who foresaw the perils of
the Bay of Pigs with such clarity) should not be purposely excluded
from Congressional surveillance of the intelligence apparatus.
The shadowy subcommittees should be replaced by a joint committee,
including men from both the House and Senate. There is no reason why
secrets should leak in any greater degree from one formal committee
than from the present group of informal subcommittees. There has not
been any leak of classified data from the Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy.
Although the need for greater Congressional control is apparent,
both President Eisenhower and President Kennedy resisted it as an
infringement upon their executive power. They established a veneer
of outside control by creating advisory boards of private citizens.
This produced an anomalous situation. Selected private citizens are
privy to secrets of the Invisible Government, but the elected
representatives of the people are denied any meaningful knowledge of
the intelligence machinery.
Congress is not only ignorant of operations overseas, but it has
been denied information about the increasing involvement of the
Invisible Government in domestic activities. The mandate to gather
and analyze intelligence has been broadened into a justification for
clandestine activities in the United States.
Clearly, some foreign intelligence can be gathered at home, but no
rationale has been offered for a broad spectrum of domestic
operations: maintenance of a score of CIA offices in major cities;
the control of private businesses serving as CIA covers (such as the
Gibraltar Steamship Corporation and Zenith Technical Enterprises,
Incorporated); academic programs (such as the Center for
International Studies at MIT); and the financing and control of
freedom radio stations, publishing ventures and of exile and ethnic
groups.
There should be a thorough reappraisal by private organizations and
by the universities of the wisdom of their ties to the Invisible
Government. There is a real danger that the academic community may
find itself so closely allied with the Invisible Government that it
will have lost its ability to function as an independent critic of
our government and society. The academic world should re-examine its
acceptance of hidden money from the CIA.
These unseen domestic activities of the CIA have become disturbingly
complex and widespread. To the extent that they can be perceived,
they appear to be outside the spirit and perhaps the letter of the
National Security Act. No outsider can tell whether this activity is
necessary or even legal. No outsider is in a position to determine
whether or not, in time, these activities might become an internal
danger to a free society. Both Congress and the Executive ought to
give urgent attention to this problem.
In a free society attention should be given as well to the
increasing tendency of the American Government to mislead the
American people in order to protect secret operations. For example:
-
U-2: "There was absolutely no-N-O-no deliberate attempt to violate
Soviet airspace. There never has been." -- Lincoln White. State
Department spokesman.
-
Bay of Pigs: "The American people are entitled to know whether we
are intervening in Cuba or intend to do so in the future. The answer
to that question is no." -- Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
-
Indonesia: "Our policy is one of careful neutrality and proper
deportment all the way through so as not to be taking sides where it
is none of our business." -- President Eisenhower.
-
Missile crisis: "The Pentagon has no information indicating the
presence of offensive weapons in Cuba." -- Department of Defense.
-
Guatemala: "The situation is being cured by the Guatemalans
themselves."-- Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
-
Bay of Pigs fliers: "Unfortunately, at present neither CIA nor any
other government agency possesses the slightest pertinent
information on your son's disappearance." The White House.
Misleading statements related to covert operations have even
distorted the electoral process, as was demonstrated in the
presidential campaign of 1960.
It seems reasonable to suggest that there be fewer righteous
declarations and less public misinformation by the government and,
perhaps, more discreet silence in difficult circumstances.
The secret intelligence machinery of the government can never be
totally reconciled with the traditions of a free republic. But in a
time of Cold War, the solution lies not in dismantling this
machinery but in bringing it under greater control. The resultant
danger of exposure is far less than the danger of secret power. If
we err as a society, let it be on the side of control.
"It should be remembered," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1819, "that
whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also."
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NOTES
1. The Invisible Government
1. Speech by Allen W. Dulles at Yale University, February 3,
1958.
3. Build-Up
1. The entire text of the memorandum was published for the first
time in Fulbright of Arkansas, a collection of speeches and
papers by Senator J. W. Fulbright. Robert B. Luce, Inc.,
Washington, 1963.
5. The Case of the Birmingham Widows
1. Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, in U.S. News & World
Report, January 28, 1963.
6. A History
1. Article by Harry S. Truman, syndicated by North American
Newspaper Alliance, in the Washington Post, December 22, 1963.
2. Memorandum by Allen W. Dulles, contained in Hearings,
National Defense Establishment, PP. 525-28; Senate Committee on
Armed Services, 80th Congress, 1st Session on S. 758, 1947.
3. New York Times, May 28, 1949.
4. Interview with Allen Dulles, "Meet the Press," National
Broadcasting Company, December 31, 1961.
5. New York Herald Tribune, April 16, 1948. See also New York
Times of the same date.
6. New York Herald Tribune, June 27, 1950.
7. Truman, Harry S., Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 331. Doubleday &
Company, Inc., New York, 1956.
8. Ibid., p. 372.
9. Dulles. Allen W., The Craft of Intelligence, p. 166. Harper &
Row, Publishers, Inc., New York, 1963.
10. Interview by Eric Sevareid, "CBS Reports: The Hot and Cold
Wars of Allen Dulles," Columbia Broadcasting System, April 26,
1962.
11. Dulles, Allen W., The Craft of Intelligence, p. 224. Harper
& Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1963.
12. Hearings, The President's Proposal on the Middle East, p.
446; joint meeting of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
and Senate Committee on Armed Services, 85th Congress, 1st
Session, February 1, 1957. See also pp. 174-75. January 15,
1957.
13. Dulles, Allen W., "The Craft of Intelligence," article in
Britannica Book of the Year, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.,
Chicago, 1963.
14. The report cited by Mansfield had appeared in an editorial
in the Washington Post, January 9, 1953.
15. Hearings, Events Incident to the Summit Conference, p. 124;
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 86th Congress, 2nd
Session, testimony by Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates, June
2, 1960.
16. Television interview with Allen Dulles by David Schoenbrun,
Columbia Broadcasting System, August 18, 1963.
17. Hearing, Francis G. Powers, U-2 Pilot, Senate Committee on
Armed Services, 87th Congress, 2nd Session, March 6, 1962. The
interview cited in the footnote was taped by Mr. Clarke on March
12, 1962, during the home-town reception for the U-2 pilot in
Pound, Virginia.
18. Statement Concerning Francis Gary Powers, Central
Intelligence Agency, March 6, 1962. This document was made
public by Representative Carl Vinson, D., Ga., chairman of the
House Committee on Armed Services, in advance of Powers' public
testimony the same day before the Senate Committee on Armed
Services.
19. Dispatch by Walter Sullivan, New York Times, July 23, 1954
10. Vietnam: The Secret War
1. State Department situation paper, April 11, 1963.
2. White House statement, October 2, 1963.
3. Fifth Report, Senate Study Mission, February 24, 1963.
11. Guatemala: CIA's Banana Revolt
1. From a speech to the American Booksellers Association,
Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963. The former President later
related the incident in the first volume of his presidential
memoirs. See Eisenhower, Dwight D., Mandate for Change, Vol. I,
The White House Years, PP. 420-27. Doubleday & Company, Inc.,
New York, 1963.
2. Hearings, Part 13, pp. 865-66; Senate Internal Security Sub.
committee, Committee on the Judiciary, 87th Congress, 1st
Session, testimony by Whiting Willauer, July 27, 1961.
3. Ydigoras, Miguel y Fuentes, with Mario Rosenthal, My War with
Communism, PP. 49-50. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs,
N.J., 1963.
4. Speech to the nation by John Foster Dulles, June 30, 1954.
New York Herald Tribune, July 1, 1954. 382. 1.
12. The Kennedy Shake-Up
1. Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, in U.S. News 6 World
Report, January 28, 1963.
2. Interview with Robert F. Kennedy by David Kraslow, in Miami
Herald, January 21, 1963.
3. Ibid.
4. Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, in U.S. News 6 World
Report, January 28, 1963.
13. The Secret Elite
1. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Hearings on the
nomination of John A. McCone, January 18, 1962.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Congressional Record; January 30, 1962.
5. House Subcommittee on Appropriations, testimony by J. Edgar
Hoover, January 24, 1962.
15. The Defense Intelligence Agency
1. Dulles, Allen W., The Craft of Intelligence, p. 47. Harper &
Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1963.
16. CIA: "It's Well Hidden"
1. "Issues and Answers," American Broadcasting Company, June 30,
1963.
17. CIA: The Inner Workings
1. Kirkpatrick, Lyman, Military Review, May, 1961.
2. Memorandum by Allen W. Dulles, contained in Hearings,
National Defense Establishment, pp. 525-28; Senate Committee on
Armed Services, 80th Congress, 1st Session on S. 758, 1947.
Television interview with Allen Dulles by David Schoenbrun,
Columbia Broadcasting System, August 18, 1963.
18. The Search for Control
1. Dulles, Allen W., The Craft of Intelligence, p. 189. Harper &
Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1963.
2. Intelligence Activities, A Report to the Congress by the
Commission on Organization of the Executive Blanch of the
Government, June 29, 1955.
3. National Security Organization, A Report to the Congress by
the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the
Government, January, 1949.
4. Report to President Eisenhower by a special study group,
October 19, 1954. The group included William D. Franke,
Assistant Secretary of the Navy; Morris Hadley, New York
attorney; William D. Pawley, former Ambassador to Brazil.
5. Congressional Record, March 10, 1954.
6. Ibid., April 11, 1956.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., April 9, 1956.
10. Dulles, Allen W., The Craft of Intelligence, p. 261. Harper
& Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1963.
11. Compilation of Studies on United States Foreign Policy, 86th
Congress, 2nd Session, prepared under the direction of the
Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.
23. Black Radio
1. Speech by John Richardson, Jr., the president of the Free
Europe Committee, to the New York State Publishers Association,
Albany, N.Y., January 30, 1963.
2. Dulles, Allen W., The Craft of Intelligence, p. 155. Harper &
Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1963.
3. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 23, 1958.
4. Associated Press dispatch filed by Relman Morin in Cairo, in
the Washington Post, August 15, 1958.
5. Broadcast by Miklos Ajtay, by Radio Free Europe to Hungary,
November 3, 1956. This is one of several scripts of broadcasts
during the Hungarian revolt made available to the authors by RFE.
6. Michener, James A., The Bridge at Andau, p. 257. Random
House, Inc., New York, 1957.
7. All of these excerpts are from The Revolt in Hungary, A
Documentary Chronology of Events Based Exclusively on Internal
Broadcasts by Central and Provincial Radios. Pamphlet published
by Free Europe Committee, New York.
24. CIA's Guano Paradise
1. Mrs. Crowell's account, from which this and the following
quotations are taken, appeared in the Falmouth Enterprise, July
6, 1962.
25. The 1960 Campaign -- and Now
1. New York Herald Tribune, July 19, 1960.
2. Freedom of Communications, Part Ill, p. 432; The Joint
Appearances of Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice-President
Richard M. Nixon, Presidential Campaign of 1960, Senate
Committee on Commerce, 87th Congress, 1st Session.
3. Freedom of Communications, Part I, p. 515; The Speeches of
Senator John F. Kennedy, Presidential Campaign of 1960, Senate
Committee on Commerce, 87th Congress, 1st Session.
4. Ibid., p. 681.
5. Nixon, Richard M., Six Crises; PP. 354-55. Doubleday &
Company, Inc., New York, 1962.
6. Freedom of Communications, Part I, pp. 710-11; The Speeches
of Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, Presidentia1 Campaign of
1960, Senate Committee on Commerce, 87th Congress, 1st session.
7. Both the Salinger and Dulles quotes are from the New York
Herald Tribune, March 21, 1962.
8. New York Herald Tribune, March 25, 1962.
26. A Conclusion
1. Article by Harry S. Truman, syndicated by North American
Newspaper Alliance, in the Washington Post, December 22, 1963.
2. Dulles, Allen W., The Craft of Intelligence, p. 86. Harper &
Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1963.
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