Executive Secrets
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7. The threshold level was set at $25,000. FRUS/MEA, “5412” notes that while the Kennedy administration approved 163 covert action programs and the Johnson administration 142, these numbers represent only a fraction of the total programs run, in that the DCI through those years was still able to run minor programs without White House approval. It is also worth noting that many of Johnson’s covert operations approved by the 303 Committee were in support of the war in Southeast Asia and, thus, outside the scope of this work.
8. Amazingly, the speaker was Henry Kissinger, who was architect of some of the programs that intervened directly in countries that manifestly did not present a genuine danger to American national interests (in Twentieth Century, Need to Know, at 39).
9. See Richelson, Community, 343–70, for a list of covert action programs in this era, not all of which have been officially acknowledged by the U.S. government.
10. O’Toole, Treachery, 483. Arguably, however, Bill Casey’s tenure as DCI was a second “golden age of covert action.”
11. Isenberg, “Pitfalls,” 9.
12. Andrew, Eyes Only, 276; Dr. Ray S. Cline has remarked that both the president and his brother, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, held “very bitter personal feelings” toward Castro, even referring to it as an “obsession.” See Weber, Spymasters, 201–3.
13. Andrew, Eyes Only, 272, 275; Ranelagh, The Agency, 411; Richelson gives the operational dates for Mongoose as November 1961 to January 1963 in Community, 343.
14. Barry, “Managing,” 22; Godson, Tricks, 45. As with Iran and Guatemala, analysis of the Chilean program has assumed a life of its own, and as such exceeds the scope of this work. Hence, just the basic policy elements will be mentioned. Much of the information in this section and in subsequent chapters comes from the findings of the Church Committee. See Staff Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, “Covert Action in Chile 1963–1973,” 94th Cong., 1st Session, December 1975. The version used in the book is found at http://foia.state.gov/Churchreport.htm (the printout is seventy-eight pages, and page numbers will refer to this version, vice any published edition). A highly readable synopsis of the program may be found in Kristian C. Gustafson’s “CIA Machinations in Chile in 1970: Reexamining the Record,” Studies in Intelligence 47, no. 3 (2003, unclassified version).
15. Godson, Tricks, 45; Colby, “CIA’s,” 76–77.
16. Kaiser, Tragedy, 15; Gaddis, We Now Know, 186.
17. Rabe, Eisenhower, states that it was the assistant secretary of state for Latin America, R. Richard Rubottm, who approved the arms transfers, at 157.
18. Weber, Spymasters, 83–90
19. Knaus, Orphans, 245.
20. Ibid., 245–46.
21. Ibid., 296.
22. McNamara, Retrospect, 129; Weber, Spymasters, 254. DCI Richard Helms believed that the book revealing the Special Group was The Invisible Government by Thomas B. Ross and David Wise; however, another work by the same authors, The Espionage Establishment, references the 5412/Special Group at 169–70. Helms also states that he, as DCI, was a member of the group and not the DDCI (Weber, Spymasters, at 254). For some reason mythology has the 303 Committee taking its name from a room it supposedly convened in, either in the Old Executive Office Building or at Main State.
23. These programs were considered for acknowledgment (which is not synonymous with “declassification”) by a “high level” panel of officers from the State Department, the CIA, and the NSC, for possible inclusion in the FRUS series.
24. Minutes, 303 Committee, Section 7, Italy-Covert Action Program for Italy in FY 1966, of 28 June 1965. The document may be found either in State’s INR Historical Files or on the Web at www.fas.org/sgp/advisoryu/state/italy.html.
25. Hinchey, 3. This report was ordered in the FY 2000 Intelligence Authorization Act, which required the National Intelligence Council and the intelligence community to review documents relating to Chile. Page numbers for this source relate to the Web document printout.
TEN: RICHARD M. NIXON
AND GERALD R. FORD
1. Opening epigraph quoted in Smist, Congress, 213.
2. Andrew, Eyes Only, 387; Prados, Presidents’, 298, 337.
3. Kissinger, White House Years, 660; Richelson, Community, 394. Prados is skeptical of the press exposure reason; see Presidents’, 322.
4. Treverton, Covert Action, 234; Richelson, Community, 394; Ranelagh, The Agency, 539.
5. See Smist, Congress, 191–94, for enlightenment as to how Kissinger (mis)used this confluence of power.
6. Kissinger, White House Years, 660, 465n, 661; Prados, Presidents’, 323; Ranelagh, The Agency, 500.
7. Kissinger, White House Years, 660.
8. According to Prados, Mitchell contributed almost nothing to the meetings he attended save for pipe smoke (Presidents’, 323).
9. Kissinger, White House Years, 660.
10. Ibid.
11. Prados, Presidents’, 322, 472, 516n; Treverton, Covert Action, 234; Church Report, 52, 64, 77. For examples of how this tightly controlled secrecy was hidden from CIA analysts, some of the issues involved, and the consequences, see Colby and Forbath, Honorable, 355–56.
12. Prados, Presidents’, 323, 516n; Smist, Congress, 195; Church Report, 53, 61.
13. Andrew, Eyes Only, 370; Church Report, 34. As with Iran and Guatemala, there has been much written on this particular program, and therefore, it shall not receive a fulsome account in this work.
14. Brewer and Teitelbaum, Policy, 263.
15. Johnson, “Accountability,” 85; Ranelagh, The Agency, 539; Andrew, Eyes Only, 371–72.
16. Andrew, Eyes Only, 371–72; Prados, Presidents’, 317, citing Special Group minutes (not further specified).
17. Church Report, 11.
18. Hinchey, 2.
19. Melvin Goodman, in Eisendrath, National Insecurity, 32.
20. Pike Committee Report, 192–218. See also Lowenthal, Intelligence, 134; Treverton, Covert Action, 115; Codevilla, Statecraft, 262–63; Prados, Presidents’, 313–15; Nutter, Black, 155–56.
21. See Kissinger, White House Years, 1202–57, for his detailed account of the summit. Also Nixon, RN, 609–21.
22. Wicker, One of Us, 664; Kissinger, White House Years, 1265.
23. Pike Committee Report, 195 et. Seq; Pallister, “Abandoned,” 2 (page numbers coincide with Lexis-Nexis printout).
24. Pallister, “Abandoned,” 1; Codevilla, in Statecraft, gives similar figures at 263.
25. Pike Committee Report, 197. See inter alia Sick, All Fall Down, 13; Prados, Presidents’, 313–15; Codevilla, Statecraft, 263; Schorr, “Kissinger,” at D3; Pallister, “Abandoned,” 2; Nutter, Black, 155–56; Wise, “CIA,” at A35.
26. Executive Order 11905, 18 February 1976, 41 FR 7703; Ranelagh, The Agency, 627 (text and note); Cline, CIA, 264; Andrew, Eyes Only, 419; Prados, Presidents’, 349.
27. Johnson, “Accountability,” 96.
28. Gates, Shadows, 76.
29. Treverton, Covert Action, 26, 59, 148–60, 167–68, 173–74.
30. Meyer, Reality, 243.
31. Gates, Shadows, 66; Meyer, Reality, 249–53.
32. Gates, Shadows, 66. Codevilla claims in Statecraft that the July Finding was for $32 million in “food, arms, and other supplies,” at 264.
33. Isenberg, “Pitfalls,” 10.
34. Codevilla, Statecraft, 265.
ELEVEN: JIMMY CARTER
1. Opening epigraph is from Gates, Shadows, 567.
2. Twentieth Century, Need to Know, 50; Gates, Shadows, 136. A succinct recounting of this “180” transformation may be found in Crile, Charlie Wilson’s, 14–15.
3. Tuttle, “Secrecy,” 512. Tuttle mentions that Carter’s first choice to head the CIA was Ted Sorenson, who had been a speech writer in the JFK administration and a conscientious objector during Vietnam, and who held “hostile views” toward the CIA (530n47).
4. Executive Order 12036, United State
s Intelligence Activities, 24 January 1978, 42 FR 4311. The national security advisor chaired SCC meetings. See also Brzezinski, Power, 59–63; Johnson, “Accountability,” 96.
5. Johnson, “Accountability,” 96.
6. Turner, Secrecy, 169; also cited in Johnson, “Accountability,” at 96.
7. Johnson, “Accountability,” 96–97.
8. Gates, Shadows, 85, 89–91, 142; Godson, Tricks, 18.
9. Gates, Shadows, 91; Meyer, Reality, 395.
10. Brzezinski, Power, 461; Bernstein and Politi, His Holiness, 258–59; Gates, Shadows, 90–95.
11. Gates, Shadows, 145–46; Blum and Gibbs, “Révélations,” 1.
12. Blum and Gibbs, “Révélations,” 2.
13. Gates, Shadows, 148–49.
14. Smist, Congress, 326.
15. Gates, Shadows, 149–50.
16. Woodward, “Carlucci,” A1.
17. Ibid.
18. Godson, Tricks, 55.
19. Gates, Shadows, 150–51.
20. Ibid., 73–74; Brzezinski, Power, 429.
21. Gates, Shadows, 143.
TWELVE: RONALD W. REAGAN
1. Opening epigraph is from Woodward, VEIL, 233, and refers to differences between Casey’s CIA and the U.S. Congress in December 1983.
2. See Gates, Shadows, 251, for the Afghan Finding and program; 346–48 for the Angola program; 242 for mention of the Findings on Central America, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Lebanon; 73–74 for the Ethiopian program; 536 for the covert programs for the USSR and Eastern Europe; 358 for the Polish/pro-Solidarity program; 319–21, 322 for Cambodia; and 348–50 for Afghanistan. The unclassified Joint Inquiry Into The Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 cites the March 1986 Finding for Counterterrorism in the Appendix, “Evolution of the Terrorist Threat,” at chart 2. See Bearden and Risen, Main Enemy, 205–368, for a fulsome accounting of the Afghan program.
3. See inter alia Gates, Shadows, passim; Godson, Tricks, 278n89; Bernstein and Politi, His Holiness; and West, Third Secret.
4. National Security Decision Directive-2, National Security Council Structure, 12 January 1982.
5. Woodward, VEIL, 173; Persico, Casey, 227.
6. Treverton, Covert Action, 251; Prados, Presidents’, 376; Persico, Casey, 227; Woodward, VEIL, 181.
7. Schewizer, Victory, xix and 19.
8. Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities.
9. Prados, Presidents’, 376.
10. Reisman and Baker, Regulating, 124; Bruemmer and Silverberg, “Impact,” 235.
11. The first iteration of this document was NSDD-276, which Secretary of State George Schultz rejected over differences of chairmanships of the two review committees subordinate to the NSC. Reagan signed it, but it was soon replaced by NSDD-286. See Schultz, Turmoil, 903–9.
12. Intelligence Authorization Act, FY 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-88.
13. Schultz, Triumph, 292–97; Woodward, VEIL, 240.
14. Gates, Shadows, 358; West, Third Secret, 201.
15. Bernstein, “Alliance,” 28; Andrew, Eyes Only, 168; Schewizer, Victory, xvi.
16. Gates, Shadows, 357. There is unapproved discussion of NSDD- 32’s alleged covert action content in Schweizer, Victory, at xviii–xix, 77, 228, 257; and in Bernstein, “Alliance,” at 28.
17. Gates, Shadows, 357.
18. NSDD-54, United States Policy Towards Eastern Europe, 2 September 1982.
19. NSDD-75, U.S. Relations with the USSR, 17 January 1983.
20. Schweizer, Victory, 189, 249.
21. Gates, Shadows, 536; Weiss, “Farewell,” 5.
22. Bernstein, “Alliance,” 28.
23. Ibid. The administration had decided within two weeks of inauguration that it would “make a stand on Poland—not only to prevent a Soviet invasion but to seek ways to undermine [Communist] power” there; Bernstein and Politi, His Holiness, 262.
24. Bernstein, “Alliance,” 28.
25. Ibid.
26. Schweizer, Victory, 75; Bernstein, “Alliance,” 28.
27. Schweizer, Victory, 159; Andrew, Eyes Only, 468.
28. Gates, Shadows, 358; West, Third Secret, 206–9.
29. Bukovsky, “Secrets,” 9–11; Gates, Shadows, 242, 297.
30. Woodward, VEIL, 173; Pike, “Budget,” 7. Highlighting the difficulty that the administration would ultimately have in keeping covert operations in Central America secret, the Christian Science Monitor published detailed information about the Argentine unit and the costs associated with operations in Honduras and Nicaragua within a year of the administration’s signing of the Finding (“Nicaragua,” 24).
31. Related to the author by a staff member of HPSCI.
32. Johnson, Bombs, 48; Schultz, Triumph, 308; Persico, Casey, 373. The author was told by several senior Agency officers who briefed the NSPG in the Reagan years how surprised they were initially when the president personally showed up to chair these meetings.
33. Cline, “Prerogative,” 367; Newsom, “Guerrillas,” 14.
34. Gates, Shadows, 295. One shining example of zealotry passing as patriotism is the case of former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs Elliott Abrams, who was considered to be such a zealot that his trustworthiness was placed in question. Some members of Congress would let him testify only if he was placed under oath first. Indeed, Lawrence Walsh, the Iran-Contra special prosecutor, intended to indict Abrams on a felony charge of lying to Congress but ultimately accepted a plea bargain of two misdemeanor counts of withholding information. While in office, Abrams was quick to label those who spoke in opposition to the Reagan administration’s Central American policy as “Un-American,” “unpatriotic,” or worse. Yet after his sentencing, Abrams, while talking to the press and alluding to the criticism that he was subjected to, bemoaned how unfortunate it was that American citizens couldn’t express their beliefs without becoming the target of personal attacks!
35. Gates, Shadows, 299–301. It has been alleged that the program leaked soon thereafter and the seizure of arms dwindled; Woodward, VEIL, 228–29.
36. Cline, “Prerogative,” 367. The story of Congress’s most ardent supporter of the Afghan program is told in George Crile’s Charlie Wilson’s War. See also Bearden and Risen, Main Enemy.
37. Richelson, Community, 363; Smist, Congress, 327.
38. Bearden and Risen, Main Enemy, 210; Gates, Shadows, 319–21; Pike, “Budget,” 7; Grier, “Beefing Up,” 20.
39. Schweizer, Victory, 283.
40. Ibid., 213–14.
41. The author has been told, but has also been unable to verify, that the death toll was even higher, as Marines listed as “missing in action” have never been redesignated as “killed in action,” despite the passage of two decades.
42. This bomber was shot dead by the bodyguard before he could enter the embassy garage. The bombing never should have happened, but the American ambassador, Reginald Bartholomew, was so anxious to move from temporary quarters in the British Embassy to the new Annex that he insisted the move take place before all the antiterrorist devices were in place, including especially the “pop-up” barriers that would have stopped a vehicle well before it could get close to the building. As it was, only the good shooting by the bodyguard waiting outside the Annex kept the bomber from the underground garage. For this egregious act of poor judgment, Bartholomew went on to bigger and better assignments in the State Department and administration.
43. Schultz, Triumph, 645.
44. Clarridge and Diehl, Spy, 324–27. See Joint Inquiry at 279 for confirmation to Congress of the existence of the 1986 Finding.
45. Codevilla, Statecraft, 273; Woodward, VEIL, 157–58, 215.
46. Gates, Shadows, 336; Schultz, Triumph, 1119.
47. Mathias and Leahy, “Covert,” 14.
48. Woodward, VEIL, 216, 373; Reisman and Baker, Regulating, 209, citing language in the vetoed version of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1991.
THIRTEEN: GEORGE H.W. BUSH
AND
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
1. Opening epigraph may be found in Hoagland, “Costs,” A27, citing George H.W. Bush’s biography for the 1988 presidential campaign, Looking Forward.
2. Johnson, Bombs, 180.
3. National Security Review-29, Intelligence Capabilities 1992–2005, of 15 November 1991.
4. National Security Directive-1, Organization of the National Security Council System, 30 January 1989.
5. Presidential Decision Directive-2, Organization of the National Security Council, 20 January 1993.
6. Killing Pablo, by Mark Bowden, is an excellent account of how the most dangerous cartel and its leader were destroyed.
7. Joint Report, Appendix: “Evolution of the Terrorist Threat and the US Response,” 8.
8. Joint Report, Appendix: “Evolution of the Terrorist Threat and the US Response,” 9.
9. Joint Report at 281, 285.
10. Pincus, “Boutique,” A-06.
11. Ibid.
CONCLUSION
1. Opening epigraph is found in Twentieth Century, Need to Know, at 75.
2. Ignatius, “Innocence,” C1.
3. Johnson, “Accountability,” 106.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SOURCES AND IDENTIFICATION IN NOTES
Foreign Relations of the United States—FRUS
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945–1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment—FRUS/EIE
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Africa—FRUS/AF
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Mainland Southeast Asia; Regional Affairs—FRUS/MSA
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Western Europe—FRUS/WE
Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. III, British Commonwealth; Western and Central Europe, 1947, FRUS/BC