Arthur Krock
New York Times
October
3, 1963 p. 34
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2—The
Central Intelligence Agency is getting a very bad press dispatches from Vietnam
to American newspapers and in articles originating in Washington. Like the
Supreme Court when under fire, the CIA cannot defend itself in public retorts to
criticisms of its activities as they occur. But, unlike the Supreme Court, the
CIA has no open record of its activities on which the public can base a judgment
of the validity of the criticisms. Also, the agency is precluded from using the
indirect defensive tactic which is constantly employed by all other Government
units under fire.
This tactic is to give
information to the press, under a seal of confidence,
that challenges or refutes the critics. But the CIA cannot father such
inspired articles, because to do so would requires some disclosure of its
activities. And not only does the effectiveness of the agency depend on the
secrecy of its operations. Every President since the CIA was created has
protected this secrecy from claimants—Congress or the
public through the press, for example—of the right to share any part of
it.
With High
Frequency
This Presidential policy
has not, however, always restrained other executive units from going
confidentially to the press with attacks on CIA operations in their common field of responsibility. And
usually it has been possible to deduce these operational details from the nature
of the attacks. But the peak of the practice is revealed almost every day now in
dispatches from reporters—in close touch with intra-Administration critics of
the CIA—with excellent reputations for reliability.
One reporter in this
category is Richard Starnes of the Scripps-Howard newspapers. Today, under a
Saigon dateline, he related that, “according to a high United States source
here, twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador
Henry Cabot Lodge … [and] in one instance frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge
brought from Washington because the agency disagreed with it.” Among the views
attributed to United States officials on the scene, including one described as a
“very high American official … who has spent much of his life n the service of democracy … are the
following:
The CIA’s growth was
“likened to a malignancy” which the “very high official was not sure even the
White House could control … any longer.” If the United States ever experiences
[an attempt at a coup to overthrow the Government] it will come from the CIA,
and not the Pentagon.” The agency “represents a tremendous power and total
unaccountability to anyone.”
Disorderly
Government
Whatever else these
passages disclose, they most certainly establish that representatives of other
Executive branches have expanded their war against the
CIA from the inner government councils to the American people via the press. And
published simultaneously are details of the agency’s operations in Vietnam that
can come only from the same critical official sources. This is disorderly
government. And the longer the President tolerates it—the period already is
considerable—the greater will grow its potentials of hampering the real war
against the Vietcong and the impression of a very indecisive Administration in
Washington.
The CIA may be guilty as
charged. Since it cannot, or at any rate will not, openly defend its record in
Vietnam, or defend it by the same confidential press “briefings” employed by its
critics, the public is not in a position to judge. Nor is this department, which
sought and failed to get even the outlines of this agency’s case in rebuttal.
But Mr. Kennedy will have to make a judgment if the spectacle of war within the
Executive branch is to be ended and the effective functioning of the CIA
preserved. And when he makes this judgment, hopefully he also will make it
public, as well as the appraisal of fault on which it is
based.
Doubtless
recommendations as to what his judgment should be were made to him today by
Secretary of Defense McNamara and General Taylor on their return from their
fact-finding expedition into the embattled official jungle in
Saigon.
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