Page 66 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 66 of 237

might be picketing or demonstrations. But, he added a trifle plaintively, there had been no indication that anyone
was going to get shot.

At the State Department, Lincoln White said it was "inconceivable" that the department had suppressed any CIA
communications. Besides, he said, Secretary Marshall had known all about the Communist plans and had brushed
them aside with what White diplomatically called "salty remarks." That about ended this painful episode. It did
not, however, end the recurring question of the adequacy of the CIA's forecasting abilities.

1950: Korea

To an extent, the CIA's role in the Korean War became clouded and fuzzed because it was caught up in the
emotional storm touched off when Truman finally decided to fire General Douglas MacArthur. What the CIA had
or had not predicted, and its freedom or lack of freedom to operate within MacArthur's command, became a
subject of dispute between the imperious general and the angry chief executive. Yet the main outline of the CIA's
performance and the precise issues in dispute are not difficult to pinpoint from the record.

Harry Truman was sitting in the library of his home in Independence, Missouri, on Saturday, June 24, 1950, when
the telephone rang a bit after 10:00 P.M. It was Secretary of State Dean Acheson, calling to say that the North
Koreans had invaded South Korea.

Truman hastened back to the capital the next day. On Monday he summoned to the White House the man he
assumed should have had the most advance knowledge about what had happened -- Admiral Hillenkoetter.

It was something like Bogota all over again, although of course much more serious. The intelligence agency again
had to defend itself for not precisely predicting a future event. And once again the CIA had become a subject of
domestic political controversy.

After the meeting with Truman, Hillenkoetter told reporters at the White House that his agency had predicted the
possibility of such an attack for a year. "The capabilities were there for a year, anyway," he said. He then hurried
to Capitol Hill to give the same explanation to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Before testifying, he talked
to newsmen about the Communist build-up along the 38th parallel.

"The condition existed for a long time," he said. "It has been expected for a year." Had the attack been anticipated
over the weekend? "You can't predict the timing," the admiral replied.

Then the CIA chief appeared in secret before the Senate committee. One of the members said afterward that
Hillenkoetter had read a series of reports on troop and tank concentrations in North Korea. The CIA reports
covered a period of a year. The last one was dated June 20, four days before the attack. "If I had received those
reports," said the senator, who asked that his name not be used, "I certainly would have been alerted to the
danger." [6]

Five years later Truman, in his memoirs, supported in part the position Hillenkoetter had taken. He wrote:

"The intelligence reports from Korea in the spring of 1950 indicated that the North Koreans were steadily
continuing their build-up of forces and that they were continuing to send guerrilla groups into South Korea.

"There were continuing incidents along the 38th parallel, where armed units faced each other.