Uneasy over a Secret War

By WALTER ISAACSON

When should an open society resort to covert action ?

The debate was not merely over the activities involved, although they were indeed controversial. What caused greater worry was the fact that, at least in theory, the operation was secret, evoking disquieting memories of dubious CIA ventures that had backfired in the past. After a decade of discomfort over even the thought of using covert action to interfere in the affairs of other nations, President Reagan was unabashedly restoring the role of that weapon by supporting contra guerrillas fighting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

The issue came to a head last Tuesday when the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence defied Reagan and recommended cutting off covert aid to the contras. The lawmakers decided that the Administration's professed goal of stemming the flow of arms to rebels in El Salvador could best be accomplished in the open. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence rejected this proposal on Friday, and the covert funds are likely to continue at least until the end of September. But the committee insisted that in the future it have the right to approve or veto specific covert activities. The anguished public debate over Washington's clandestine involvement in Central America, a region where the nation's interests are clearly at stake and the evidence of foreign subversion is widespread, called into question whether covert methods can be used effectively by the U.S.

During his 1980 campaign, Reagan pledged to rebuild the nation's intelligence agencies as part of his overall plan to end America's post-Viet Nam timidity about asserting its interests abroad. The Republican platform specifically addressed covert operations, calling it "a capability which only the U.S. among the major powers has denied itself." Supporters argue that covert action is an essential tool, lying somewhere between a diplomatic demarche and a landing by the Marines.

Opponents of covert activities say that the U.S. should hold itself to a higher standard and not meddle in an underhanded way in the affairs of other countries. They also argue that given the nature of American society, covert activities are unlikely to stay secret for long. One reason is that after the Watergate-era investigations of abuses by the CIA, Congress insisted on a more stringent watchdog role. Another is that the nature of journalism has changed. In 1961 the New York Times voluntarily withheld information it had about the impending Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba; today major news organizations are inclined to publish that type of story.

Despite their uneasiness over the Administration's activities in Nicaragua, most Congressmen believe that clandestine operations can play a legitimate role in protecting national security. "The adversary uses them all the time and a hell of a lot more than we do," says Edward Boland of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "I think they're a necessity." Indeed, members last year approved Reagan's request for secret funding to the contras as a way of interdicting Nicaraguan arms shipments to the Salvadoran rebels. But Boland attached an amendment barring the use of any of the funds "for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua."

As news reports over the past few months disclosed more and more about the CIA involvement with the contras, members began to feel political heat for apparently condoning the program. More important, many became convinced that the Administration was violating the Boland Amendment by using the aid as a way to destabilize the Marxist-led Sandinista regime. In an attempt to resolve both dilemmas, Boland and Clement Zablocki of Wisconsin proposed a second amendment, this one "to prohibit U.S. support for military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua and to authorize assistance, to be openly provided to governments of countries in Central America, to interdict the supply of military equipment from Nicaragua and Cuba."

For the first time since the House Intelligence Committee was given its oversight role in 1977, the members split on party lines. The breakdown of the committee's traditional nonpartisan approach threatened to undermine its sensitive role. "The one thing I don't want is to see this committee deteriorate into a partisan group," lamented Boland after the vote.

Reagan was less philosophical. He told aides that the House committee action was "irresponsible as hell." But in an interview with six reporters on the day after the vote, Reagan stumbled repeatedly in trying to explain his policies. He seemed to confirm that assistance to the contras was more than just a way to stop arms shipments to the Salvadoran rebels. He referred to the contras as "freedom fighters" and praised their struggle as a legitimate response to the broken promises of the Sandinista regime.

Reagan said the cutoff, of covert authority by Congress "was taking away the ability of the Executive Branch to carry out its constitutional responsibilities." Another member of the Administration, U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, impugned the motives of some members in an interview with a Buenos Aires newspaper: "There are people in the U.S. Congress who do not approve of our efforts to consolidate the constitutional government of El Salvador and who would actually like to see the Marxist forces take power in that country."

The Senate Intelligence Committee adopted a compromise proposal drafted by its chairman, Republican Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Under its provisions, the money already appropriated for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, will remain available. But to get any more funds, the President will have to submit a plan defining the objectives of CIA covert action in Central America, and have it approved by both intelligence committees.

Covert action, which is defined by the CIA as "any clandestine operation or activity designed to influence foreign governments, organizations, persons or events," has played a role in U.S. policy since the CIA was formed shortly after World War II. The agency was assigned the covert role of shoring up Western democracies in the face of spreading Communist influence. The first notable success occurred in Italy, where money and propaganda helped defeat the Communist Party in the 1948 elections.

The CIA was involved in two important coups a few years later. In Iran, American influence was solidified by the overthrow of Premier Mohammed Mossadegh's Soviet-supported regime in 1953 and the installation of the Shah. When the Guatemalan government of left-wing President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman threatened to expropriate the property of the United Fruit Co. and other U.S. interests, he was toppled in 1954 and replaced by a pro-American regime. In both cases, the interventions were successful but left a legacy of anti-U.S. bitterness.

During President Kennedy's term, the agency sponsored the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion and initiated a paramilitary operation in Laos that became a sustained "secret war" against the Communists. Throughout the 1960s, the CIA ran clandestine operations in Viet Nam. The most ambitious of these was the Phoenix program, a long-term coordinated attack against the civilian leadership of the Viet Cong that resulted in the murder of 20,000 people.

The free rein given to clandestine operations ended in the mid-1970s. Hearings chaired by Frank Church, then a Democratic Senator from Idaho, revealed a panoply of dirty tricks that shocked the American public. From 1960 to 1965, according to the Church report, the CIA concocted at least eight plots, none ever carried out, to kill Cuba's Fidel Castro, as well as a bizarre scheme to dust the dictator's shoes with a powder designed to make his beard fall out. The agency was also implicated in the assassination of Dominican Republic Dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1961 and a failed attempt on the life of Premier Patrice Lumumba of the Congo. The pro-Soviet Lumumba was killed in 1961, a year after the CIA attempt, by rivals acting on their own.

In the wake of these revelations, the CIA carried out a draconian house-cleaning program. Stansfield Turner, director under President Carter, cut more than 800 jobs, leaving the agency to concentrate on the task of intelligence collection and assessment. An Executive order signed by President Carter prohibited involvement in assassination attempts, and Congress passed a law requiring the Executive Branch to certify that any anticipated intelligence activity was considered "important to the national security." By the time Reagan took office, the CIA had fewer than 200 clandestine operatives, compared to the more than 2,000 in the heyday of the 1960s.

Public agonizing over the role of covert activity does not, of course, constrain the Soviet Union. There is evidence linking the Soviets to terrorist groups such as Italy's Red Brigades and West Germany's Baader-Meinhof gang, as well as to elements of the antinuclear movement in Western Europe. America's Western allies, including such sturdy democracies as France and Britain, seem able to mount covert operations when necessary. "It would be illogical for us to discuss our covert operations in full view of the rest of the world," says a former French counter-intelligence chief. "We see such operations as instruments of dissuasion, but that doctrine wouldn't work at all if France publicly indicated what it was or was not prepared to do."

The spate of detailed disclosures in the past few years about the CIA's dirty work has shown that covert projects, even if successful, can result in resentment of U.S. influence. The absurd lengths to which it can be stretched were revealed last week in the West German parliament when members of the antinuclear Green Party charged that the U.S. was responsible for the death of a West German doctor who was executed by contras in Nicaragua two weeks ago. Party Leader Petra Kelly raised a banner in front of the speaker's podium reading: SUPPORTING THE U.S.A. MEANS TO BE IMPLICATED IN THE DEATH OF ALBRECHT PFLAUM.

Such barbs do not seem to bother Reagan or his CIA director, William Casey. When Casey took over the agency, he promised his staff "good new days ahead." The CIA is expanding its program to supply arms to rebels fighting the Soviet Union puppet regime in Afghanistan (see box). According to intelligence analysts, the U.S. is believed to be helping Libyan dissidents forge an opposition to Dictator Muamar Gaddafi and is suspected of circumventing the ban on covert operations in Angola in order to keep alive the anti-Communist insurgency there.

The full-scale CIA association with the Nicaraguan contras began last October. A State Department official in Central America who is intimately involved with the covert operation says, "So far, they're doing better than expected, but in limited geographic areas." This official argues that the growing strength of the contras provides an effective way for the U.S. to apply pressure on the Sandinista government to end its backing of rebels in El Salvador. Agrees a senior State Department official in Washington: "Now we have got an element of reciprocity that gives Nicaragua an incentive to sit down and talk. We've got some bargaining chips: you call off your dogs and we'll call off ours."

If intercepting the arms flowing to the Salvadoran rebels were the Administration's only objective, there would be little reason to keep the operation covert. Money for border patrols and similar activities could be openly provided, as it now is to Honduras and other friendly nations. But restricting the arms flow will not dissuade the Nicaragua regime from trying to export its revolution. The only way to do that, the Reagan Administration evidently feels, is to aid the contras fighting inside Nicaragua. Such support cannot be supplied overtly; it violates international law, including the charter of the Organization of American States.

Nor can the U.S. openly channel aid to the contras through friendly countries. Central American governments are understandably loath to be the bagman for what is seen by many in the region as Yanqui imperialism. As Reagan said last week: "We'd be asking some other government to do what our Congress has said we can't do."

At the moment, the paramilitary pressure being brought to bear on Nicaragua seems to be working. The Sandinista leaders have recently shown a willingness to negotiate. Moreover, it is a sign to friend and foe alike that the U.S. is prepared to draw the line against the spread of Marxist-Leninist revolution. But as usual, covert action carries heavy risks. For one, the operation could prove unsuccessful, leaving a sediment of anti-American feelings. For another, the domestic debate over covert action is costing Reagan valuable political capital. The question now is whether the U.S. can sustain its covert operation long enough to wear down the Sandinistas or, failing in that, develop an overt response that will accomplish the same end. --By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Christopher Redman/ Washington

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Christopher Redman/Washington This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.