Page 167 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 167 of 237

Earlier studies of the CIA had been less critical. The 1949 Hoover Task Force, headed by Ferdinand Eberstadt. a
Wall Street broker, found the CIA "sound in principle," although it recommended that "vigorous efforts be made
to improve the internal structure ... and the quality of its product." [3]

In 1954 a special presidential study group, led by General James H. Doolittle, said the CIA was doing a
"creditable job." But it detected "important areas in which the CIA organization, administration and operations
can and should be improved." [4]

Inbetween, Allen Dulles surveyed the CIA for President Truman prior to joining the agency. But his report was
kept secret.

By 1954, substantial pressure had built up in Congress for a closer scrutiny of the intelligence community. Mike
Mansfield, then a freshman senator from Montana, submitted a resolution that would have carried out the Hoover
Commission recommendation by creating a Joint Committee on the Central Intelligence Agency. In its final form,
the resolution called for a twelve-man committee, six from the Senate and six from the House, and for the
appropriation of $250,000 for staff expenditures during the first year.

Thirty-four senators joined Mansfield in sponsoring the resolution. But by the time the proposal came to a vote on
April 11, 1956, fourteen of these sponsors had reversed themselves, and the resolution was defeated, fifty-nine to
twenty-seven. Thirteen of those who had changed their minds were Republicans evidently reflecting White House
pressure. Many of the Democrats who voted against the resolution clearly were worried about disturbing Senator
Richard B. Russell, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and other Democratic titans who opposed the
idea.

Mansfield's language in introducing the resolution was not calculated to please the conservative inner club of the
Senate, which enjoyed special relations with the Invisible Government.

"An urgent need exists" Mansfield said, "for regular and responsible Congressional scrutiny of the Central
Intelligence Agency. Such scrutiny is essential to the success of our foreign policy, to the preservation of our
democratic processes and to the security of the intelligence agency itself ...

"If we fail to establish some sort of permanent, continuing link between Congress and the CIA, the only result will
be growing suspicion ... In the first place, the whole concept of peacetime foreign intelligence operations has been
alien to the American tradition ...

"Our form of government ... is based on a system of checks and balances. If this system gets seriously out of
balance at any point the whole system is jeopardized and the way is opened for the growth of tyranny ...

"CIA is freed from practically every ordinary form of Congressional check. Control of its expenditures is
exempted from the provisions of the law which prevent financial abuses in other government agencies. Its
appropriations are hidden in allotments to other agencies ...

"I agree that an intelligence agency must maintain complete secrecy to be effective. However, there is a profound
difference between an essential degree of secrecy to achieve a specific purpose and secrecy for the mere sake of
secrecy. Once secrecy becomes sacrosanct, it invites abuse.

"If we accept this idea of secrecy for secrecy's sake, we will have no way of knowing whether we have a fine
intelligence service or a very poor one. Secrecy now beclouds everything about the CIA -- its cost, its efficiency,
its successes and its failures." [5]