CONCERN AT CIA ACTIVITIES (New York Times Survey) by Georr Coggan The US Central Intelligence } Anerican press ome Siti success, in the slander trial of one of its exoneration without explanation i é x e This agent is claim amunity fro: 3
pias’ y _— — Governuent, adding point to oo ee _—-.* = ng ° the membership of the Concressional sub-committee a a <<. ~~ pated to have access to CYA. information op & further intensified by the Now Yor: T : : es i = oe five part survey, of the results of an fuesiiiastinn coe
out over the last few months into the activities of the CIA. Auongst numerous examples of blatant interference i. the New York Times states that “in South Hast Asis over the past decade, the CIA has been so active that the agency in some countries has become the principal arm of American policy. Tt is said, for instance, to have been so successful at infiltrating the top of the Indonesian Gow rnment and Aruy that the US was reluctant to disrupt CIA covering operations by withdrawing aid and information programs in 1964 and 1965."
agents in an effort to obtain
n many parts of the world,
"Yn 1960 CIA agents in tacos, disguised as military advisers, stuffed ballot boxes and engineered local uprisings to help a hand-picked strong man, General Phoumi Nosovan, set up a promAmerican government that was desired by President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles. ... When the Kennedy Administration set out to reverse the policy of the Eisenhower Aduwinistration, it found the CIA deeply coumitted to Phoumi Nosovan and needed two years of negotiations and threats to restore the regime of Prince Souvana Phouma," “after helping to elect Ramon Mgsaysay as President of the Philippines in 1953, buttressing the family Governmentsof Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu in South Vietnam in 1954, the CIA agents responsible obviously became for long periods much wore intimate advisers and effective links to Washington than the formally designated American Ambassadors to these countries, Moreover, the CIA's skill .... drew for it many assignuents in South East Asia that’ would normally be given to the Defense Department. It was, for instance, able to fly supplies to the Mso tribesuen in Iaos at a tine when treaty. obligations forbade the assignuent of military advisers to the task." Of operations on the African continent, the New York Times describes how the CIA delivered an “Instant Air Force" to Leopoldville: "At the Ituri River in North Eastern Congo, a column of 600 Congolese troops and 100 white mer~ cenaries had been ambushed by a rebel force and was under heavy fire. Suddenly three B-26's skimmed in over the rain forest and bombed a path through the rebel ranks. .... At the controls of the American-built planes were anti-Castro Cubans, veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, who had been recruited by a purportedly private company in Florida. Guiding them into action were American 'diplomats' and other officials in apparently civilian positions. The sponsor, paymaster and director of all of theu, however, was the CIA." The survey admits that - "the CIA, long in advance, had information on the plans by which Algerian Army officers overthrew Ahmed Ben Bella last June." "The CIA's talent for secret warfare is known to have been tested twice in latin America. It successfully directed a battle of ‘liberation’ against the leftist governuent of Col. Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala in 1954. Seven years later, a CIA sponsored army jumped off from secret bases in
Mounting Concern at CIA Activities continued /
icara for the disastrous engagement at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. SS naa the agency runs dozens of other operations ew the hemisphere. .... It provides anti-Coumunist front organisations A: ue dents, workers, professional and businessmen, farmers and political par _ Tt has arranged contact between these groups and American labor organisat _— institutes and foundations. It has poured mon¢cy into Tatin~American — on campaigns in support of moderate candidates and against leftist leaders like Cheddi Jagan in British Guiana." The NYT survey puts the number of CJA agents stationed overseas at about 2,200, though it admits this conflicts with Arthur Schlesinger's estimate of around 6,000. In American diplomatic missions, one staff member in three is said to be a CIA employee, while in certain missions the proportion is as high as three out of four. “Within the US, the CIA maintains field offices in 30 cities. At one time these field offices sought out scholars, businessmén, students and even ordinary tourists whom they knew to be planning a trip behind the Iron Curtain. .... Very little of this is assertedly done any more, probably because of some embarrassing arrests and imprisonuents. .... In greater secrecy the CIA subsidises, in whole or part, a wide range of enterprises - ‘private’ foundations, book and magazine publishers, schools of international studies in universities, law offices, ‘businesses’ of various kinds, and foreign broadcasting stations. .... ‘Encounter’ magazine was for a long time one of the indirect beneficiaries of CIA..... When Air~America or any other false front organisation has run into financial difficulties, the agency has used its influence ... to drum up some legitimate sources of income. Unknown to mst of the directors and stockholders of an airline company, for instance, it may approach the leading officials of the company, e-plain its problem and come away with some profitable air cargo contracts.”
"As in the case of its overseas reputation, its actual activities in the US - for instance its aid in financing a centre for international studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - have made the fear of infiltra~ tion real to many scholars and businessmen. .... The revelation that CIA agents served amongst Michigan State University scholars in South Vietnam from 1955 to 1959 has contributed to the fear. .... Their involvement has aroused concern that hundreds of scholarly and charitable American efforts abroad will be tainted by the suspicions of other governments." The New York Times survey, though it clears the CIA of the charge of acting on its own, ~ “without the approval or control of the political leaders of the US Government", adds that this raises in itself the central questions: "What is control ? And who guards the guards 7 It concludes that - “While the institutional forms of political control appear effective and sufficient, it is really the will of the political officials whe mst exert control that is important and that has most been lacking." Shameful Footnote: CIA revelations apart, the NYT last week, and all week, carried many expressions of protest at Awerica's self appointed role in the world. These ranged from editorial coument on - "Dean Rusk's flimsy legal case for intervention in Vietnam” to Sen. Pulbright's - "Unmistakeably America is succumbing to that arrogance of power which has afflicted, weakened, and in some cases destroyed, great nations in the past... It is showing signs of that fatal presumption which brought ruin to ancient Athens and Nazi Germany." In shameful juxtaposition with such comments appears the NYT report from London: “Britain's Labour Government firmly backed US Vietnamese policy tonight, and warned that an American withdrawal could be a disaster."