sinister vehicles of U.S. foreign policy. Its a sphere of operations covers the globe and, through U-2 spy planes,” extends into the stratosphere. Many consider it to be "an invisible . government" more powerful than even the president.
Carl Rowan, former director of the United States Information Agency, wrote last year that "during a recent tour of East Africa | and Southeast Asia, it was made clear to me that suspicion and fear ~ of the CIA has become a sort of. Achilles heel of American foreign policy.' 7
How well grounded is this suspicion and fear? Although most of its work is secret and unpublicized,. two disclosures in the past weeks have shed some light on the nature of its operations. The April Ramparts magazine published an article, authenticated by one of the professorial participants, telling how the CIA planted at least five agents among Michigan State University scholars who engaged in a project to set up and arm. the Diem dictatorship in south Vietnam from 1955 to 1959. -
In a trial now going on in Baltimore, it has been brought out that the CIA ordered one of its hirelings, Juri Raus, to discredit another Esthonian emigré leader by accusing him of being a Soviet agent. The accused, Eerik Heine, has challenged the government to arrest and try him so he can get. a legal hearing on the charges. To shield its agent from questioning, the CIA has asked the court to summarily dismiss the slander suit on the ground that it would com promise "the security of the United States."
So widespread is the apprehension about the nefarious role of the CIA that the New York Times assigned a team of its top correspondents to collect available information about its activities. The results of their research over. several months were digested in five articles. published from April 24 to 29.
This extensive account certifies that the CIA is as much an executive arm of official policy as the armed forces and the State Department. It performs those special functions which demand secrecy and illegitimacy. Although. its staff may occasionally overstep directives in the zealous pursuit of its duties; the executive branch of the government headed by the president supervises and con— trols its operations.
The CIA initiates such a diversified range of activities from running radio stations and buying elections to the overthrow of governments and military actions by proxy that even the Times series cannot deal adequately with.them. It fails, for example, to delve into the penetration of the labor movements in foreign lands with the aid of compliant AFL-CIO officials, the participation of its agents in political assassinations or its clandestine operations in
Venezuela, Peru, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.
But enough is related to demonstrate how vicious a threat this instrumentality of worldwide subversion is to the principles of democracy and the cause of socialism. The’ CIA does not hesitate to violate the sovereignty of any nation or regime that gets in the way of the aggressions of American corporate capital and its _Tepresentatives in Washington. i
It is generally assumed that CIA agents are hard at work in the Communist countries. The U-2 flights, the discovery of the tun- . nel wiretaps underneath East Berlin that eavesdropped on Soviet Army. headquarters, the burnings of crops and buildings in Cuba have focused attention upon its espionage and sabotage.
The Times lists the following "achievements" along these lines as follows -- “its precise prediction of the date on which the Chinese Communists would explode a nuclear device; its fantastic world of electronic devices; its use of a spy, Oleg Penkovsky, to reach into the Kremlin itself; its work in keeping the Congo out of Communist control; or the feat -- straight from a spy novel -- of arranging things so that when Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in Egypt the 'management consultant' who had an office next to the Arab leader' Ss and who was one of his principal advisers was a CIA operative.
Here we shall: simply. itemize the cases related by the Times — correspondents of its clandestine interventions in the internal. affairs of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
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Singapore: When this strategic port was about to get its independence from Britain and enter the Malaysian Federation in 1960, the CIA decided to infiltrate the city with. its own agents, not only to check on the large Chinese population, but also on its British col- leagues. This operation was uncovered when the lie detector of one of its recruiters, intended to test the reliability of a local candidate for the spying job, blew out the lights in his hotel. The CIA man and the would- be spy were arrested and “processed” by the Local authorities.
In negotiations for their release Premier Lee was offered . $3. 3 million but the deal fell through when he held out for $33 million. — In 1961 Secretary of State Rusk wrote a letter of apology to the offended premier.
When news of this incident leaked out in 1965, U.S. State Department officials at first denied the facts. But they retracted when Mr. Lee published Rusk's letter and. threatened also to play some interesting tape recordings for. the" press.
_ - Burma: In the early 1950's the CIA gathered remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's defeated armies in the jungles ‘of northeast Burma, sup- ~
plied them with gold and arms, and encouraged them to raid Communist China: With: the help of General Phao Sriyanod, the police chief of > Thailand and a leading narcotics dealer, the Nationalist mercenaries, with U.S. planes and gold, went into the opium trade. They are still doing business in that area.
Cambodia: In 1958 the CIA mounted an operation involving south Vietnamese agents and native rebels to overthrow Prince Sihanoul because: of his neutralist leanings. This, effort failed.
Indonesia: That same year the CIA flew in supplies from Taiwan and the Philippines to aid army officers in revolt against President Sukarno in Sumatra and Java. An American pilot, shot down on a bombing mission in connection with this venture, was released only at the urgent insistency of the Kennedy administration in 1962.
“Tn 1965 the CIA chalked up greater success in Indonesia. Here is how the Times delicately describes its part in the bloody army takeover last October. "In Southeast Asia over the last decade, the CIA. has been so active that the agency in some countries has been the: principal arm of: American policy.
"It is said, for instance, to ‘have been so successful at infiltrating the top of the Indonesian government and army that the United States was reluctant to disrupt CIA covering operations by withdrawing aid and information programs in 1964 and 1965. What was presented officially in Washington as toleration of President Sukarno's insults’and provocations was in much larger measure a desire | to keep the CIA fronts in business as long as possible.
"Though it is not thought to have been involved in any of the maneuvering that has curbed President Sukarno's power in recent months, the agency was well. poised to follow events and to predict the emergence of anti- Communist forces "
Laos: On orders from Eisenhower and Dulles, in 1960 CIA agents, disguised as "military advisers," stuffed. ballot boxes and engineered local uprisings to help a hand-picked strongman, General Phoumi Nosavan, set up a "pro-American government." Later the Kennedy administration changed this policy and negotiated with the Soviet Union and other powers to substitute the neutralist regime now in office.
Thailand: Here the CIA, acting through foreign aid officers. and subsidized airlines such as Air America, is working among hill. tribes along the Burmese and Laotian borders and helping to build a. provincial police network to guard the Loas and Cambodian borders.
Iran: In 1954 the CIA masterminded the overthrow of the radical bourgeois nationalist Premier Mohammed Mossadegh who threatened the interests of the oil companies. This piece of subversion was directed by Kermit Rodsevelt who afterwards boasted of his success. in bribing mobs to act: against the Premier. and restore the Shah to. his throne. ;
South | Vietnam: The CIA built up Diem as its prize puppet and its support sustained his tyranny until 1963. The . Times ‘says nothing about dts more recent activities there. ras |
Philippines: CIA money went to elect Ramon Magsaysay presi-_ dent in 1993.
‘China: A major part of the CIA's intelligence efforts is of course aimed at:Comminist China. Among other enterprises, it sends U-2 spy planes over its territory, dispatches agents to stir unrest in Tibet, and obtains information on China's nuclear capability and installations: AFRICA
The CIA network covers the entire continent from Capetown to Cairo. The best known and most flagrant example of its intervention is in the heart of Africa.
Congo: After the Congo gained independence in 1960, says the Times, "a modest little CIA office in Leopoldville mushroomed overnight into a virtual embassy and miniature war department....The CIA dispersed its agents to learn Congolese politics from the bush on up, to recruit likely leaders and. to finance their bids for power. Doe
"The CIA soon found Joseph Mobutu, Victor Nendaka and “Albert Ndele. Their eventual emergence as President of the country, Minister of Transportation and head of the national bank, respectively, proved a tribute to the Americans' judgment and tactics," as well as to the power of their ‘purse.
The Times. absolves the: CIA of Lumumba's assassination, while admitting that it did play a major role in making Adoula his successor.
The present government is bought and paid for by the U.S., even though an American agent did complain at one juncture: "Purchased? You can't even rent this: group for the afternoon."
In 1964 the CIA recruited and paid for "an instant air force" to help crush the Congolese rebels. This was staffed by anti-Castro Cubans, left over from the Bay of Pigs invasion three years before, who were enrolled in Miami. Their planes were serviced by twenty British mechanics. They strafed the rebel fighters who had ambushed a column of 600 government troops and 100 South African and Rhodesian white mercenary killers.
Algeria: The agency, writes the Times, "gathers special dossiers on the activities of various nationalist and liberation movements and befriends opposition leaders in such countries as Algeria and the United:Arab Republic, in the hope that it can predict upheavals or at least be familiar with new rulers if their bids for power are successful.
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"Me CIA, long in advance, had information on the plan by . which Algerian Army. officers overthrew Ahmed Ben Bella last June -- =. but it did not know the month in which the officers would make their move, and it had nothing to do with plotting or carrying out the coup."
Egypt: "Thanks to contacts with Gamal Abdel Nasser before he seized power in Egypt, the CIA had almost intimate dealings with the Nasser government before the United States drew his ire by reneging on its promised aid to build the Aswan dam."
. Ghana: The Times gives no information on the recent military coup against Nkrumah, although it has: been widely rumored that both the CIA and: British intelligence had a hand in the conspiracy that brought .about his overthrow while on a trip to the Communist countries in:East Asia. .
LATIN AMERICA
‘Latin America swarms with CIA agents, as the Times indicates. "CIA analysts reading the punchcards of their computers in Virginia can determine that a new youth group in Bogota appears to have fallen under the control of suspected Communists, but it takes an agent on the spot to trade information with the local police, collect photographs and telephone taps of those involved, organize and finance a countermovement of, say, young Christians or democratic labor youth,’ and help them erect billboards and turn mimeograph machines at the next election.’
The: CIA has conducted two counterrevolutionary wars in Latin 7 America so far. ;
Guatemala: In 1954 it engineered the coup against the reformist government of Arbenz who was not sufficiently subservient to the United Fruit Company and other American interests. One incident during this operation shows how little consideration the CIA gives to national sovereignty and international legality not only of its opponents but of its allies. A P-38 fighter, piloted by an American, bombarded a British ship which was believed to be carrying aircraft to the legal Arbenz government.
Cuba: Seven years later the CIA sponsored the expedition o which took off from secret training camps in Guatemala and Nicaragua to invade Cuba. The defeat. at the Bay of Pigs is responsible for much of the opposition to the CIA and suspicion of its motives in the United States today.
Less well-known was the contamination of the cargo of Cuban sugar aboard a British freighter which had to put in for repairs in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in August 1962. When this stroke was brought to President Kennedy's attention, he was "furious, because the oper- ation had taken place on American territory, because it would, if : discovered, provide the Soviet Union with a propaganda field day, and because it would set a terrible precedent for chemical sabotage ©
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in the undeclared: 'back~alley' struggle that rages constantly between the’ West and the Communist countries.
‘According to the Times, "it finally required the combined efforts of the CIA, the Justice Department, the FBI, the State Department, customs agents and harbor authorities to dis- intrigue the intrigue.'
“Not so melodramatically,": the ‘Times sums up, “the agency runs dozens of other operations : throughout — the hemisphere.
"Tt provides ‘technical assistance' to most Latin nations by helping them establish anti-Communist police forces. It promotes :.: anti-Communist: front organizations for students, workers, professional and business:men, farmers and political parties. Tt arranges : for contact between these groups and American labor organizations.,.. ° institutes and foundations.
"It has poured money into Latin-American election campaigns in ‘support of moderate candidates and against leftist leaders such as Cheddi Jagan of British Guianai" ve
The Times editors*expréess‘:no objections in principle. to the existence or activities of the CIA. They are primarily concerned about the question whether it’ is:firmly enough controlled by the appropriate government councils. "Far more significant than whether the CiA is right in subverting this or that government abroad," they say, "is the question of whether exclusive Executive control of the intelligence community does not subvert the American system of government itself. "
This servant : of American imperialism is undoubtedly a grave danger to American democracy, no matter who formally directs its operations. But the principal criminality of the CIA consists in its brutal violations of thé sovereign rights of other peoples to choose ‘their own form of government and social regime.
In countries that have had first-hand experience with American beneficence, it has long been customary to spell Uncle Sam as Uncle gam; it: fits the character better. Now they have added. an honorary degree in keéping with the unusual efforts undertaken by the generous uncle to maintain his standing in the world -- Uncle fam, C.I.A.
KOREANS DEMONSTRATE IN