Page 166 - Gobierno ivisible
P. 166

Date: 4/5/2011                                                                                Page: 166 of 237



            CIA men generally have the Special Group in mind when they insist that the agency has never set policy, but has
            only acted on higher authority.

            "The facts are," Allen Dulles has declared, "that the CIA has never carried out any action of a political nature,
            given any support of any nature to any persons, potentates or movements, political or otherwise, without
            appropriate approval at a high political level in our government outside the CIA." [1]

            To the average citizen, Dulles' statement might logically conjure up a picture of the Cabinet, the National Security
            Councilor some special presidential commission meeting in solemn session to debate the wisdom of a dangerous
            clandestine operation.

            But, in fact, some decisions of this type have been made by the Special Group in an informal way without the
            elaborate records and procedures of other high government committees. And these fateful decisions have been
            made without benefit of outside analysis. Little detached criticism has been brought to bear on the natural human
            tendency of the leaders of the Invisible Government to embark upon ventures which might prove their toughness,
            demonstrate their vision or expand their power.


            The "euphoria of secrecy goes to the head," as C.P. Snow, the English scientist-novelist. has observed, and the
            Special Group has operated in an atmosphere of secrecy exceeding that of any other branch of the United States
            Government.

            It is apparent, then, that the two presidential watchdog committees, the Board of Consultants on Foreign
            Intelligence Activities of the Eisenhower Administration and the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board of the
            Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, have had great difficulty getting to the bottom of things. Both committees
            were composed of part-time consultants who met only occasionally during the year.

            The original committee had, in fact, been established by Eisenhower in 1956 at least partly to head off closer
            scrutiny of the Invisible Government. In 1955 the full Hoover Commission had recommended that such a
            presidential committee be established. But it had also proposed the creation of a Joint Congressional Committee
            on Foreign Intelligence.

            The Eisenhower Administration compromised. It complied with the first and more innocuous of the
            recommendations, but opposed the Joint Congressional Committee, which was anathema to the CIA.

            The Hoover Commission's Intelligence Task Force, headed by General Mark W. Clark, had submitted a much
            stronger recommendation. It had proposed a single watchdog commission composed of senators, congressmen,
            and presidential appointees.


            "The Task Force ... is concerned," its report stated. "over the absence of satisfactory machinery for surveillance of
            the stewardship of the Central Intelligence Agency. It is making recommendations which it believes will provide
            the proper type of 'watchdog' commission as a means of re-establishing that relationship between the CIA and the
            Congress so essential to and characteristic of our democratic form of government."


            The Task Force was critical in tone: "There is still much to be done by our intelligence community to bring its
            achievements up to an acceptable level.


            "The glamour and excitement of some angles of our intelligence effort must not be permitted to overshadow other
            vital phases of the work or to cause neglect of primary functions. A majority of the Task Force is convinced that
            an internal reorganization of the CIA is necessary to give assurance that each of these functions gets adequate
            attention without diversionary interest." [2]
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