Page 168 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 168 of 237

As the Mansfield resolution approached a vote in April of 1956, the powers-that-be in the Senate massed their
forces in a counter-attack.

"It would be more desirable," Russell declared, "to abolish the CIA and close it up, lock, stock and barrel, than to
adopt any such theory as that all the members of the Congress of the United States are entitled to know the details
of all the activities of this far-flung organization." [6]

Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, the former Democratic Vice-President, declared: "The information I
received as a member of the National Security Council, in my capacity as Vice-President, was so confidential that
I would lose my right arm before I would divulge it to anyone, even to members of my own family ...

"Some of the information gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency and laid before the National Security
Council itself was so confidential and secret that the very portfolios in which it was contained were under lock
and key. The members of the National Security Council were not even permitted to take those folders and
portfolios to their homes. They had to be unlocked in the presence of the other members ...

"To say that now we should establish a Joint Committee to pry into and look into secret documents, to submit
them before the Joint Committee, and to make them public seems to me incredible." [7]

Russell also raised the specter of critical national secrets leaking out of the Joint Committee. He contended that
the very creation of the committee would increase "the hazards to the lives of those who work for the CIA, and
dry up sources of information, which are vital to the national security." He insisted that the CIA was already
subjected to adequate scrutiny by members of the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees.*

"Although Mr. Allen W. Dulles has been before us" Russell said, "and although we have asked him very
searching questions about some activities which it almost chills the marrow of a man to hear about, he has never
failed to answer us forthrightly and frankly in response to any question we have asked of him." [8]

Republican Senator Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts said the CIA subcommittee met with CIA officials "at
least twice a year" * and that the witnesses stated their willingness to answer all questions.

"The difficulty in connection with asking questions and obtaining information," Saltonstall remarked, "is that we
might obtain information which I personally would rather not have, unless it was essential for me as a member of
Congress to have it." [9]

Nevertheless, Saltonstall would call his close friend, Allen Dulles, from time to time to get a personal explanation
of some CIA operation.

The CIA's view on whether there should be more Congressional scrutiny was stated officially in a letter to
Mansfield from General Cabell on September 4, 1953. "It is our opinion," he wrote, "that, from our point of view,
the present ties with Congress are adequate."

Allen Dulles agreed: "Any public impression that the Congress exerts no power over CIA is quite mistaken.
Control of funds gives a control over the scope of operations -- how many people CIA can employ, how much it
can do and to some extent what it can do ...

"The chairman of the House [Appropriations] Subcommittee [on the CIA) is Clarence Cannon, and a more careful
watchdog of the public treasury can hardly be found." [10]