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]