Covert Action WK2

Covert Action and Accountability: Decision-Making for America's Secret Foreign Policy Author(s): Loch K. Johnson Source: International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 81-109 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The International Studies Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2600495 . Accessed: 14/05/2013 15:09

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International Studies Quarterly (1989) 33, 81-109

Covert Action and Accountability: Decision-Making for America's Secret

Foreign Policy

LOCH K. JOHNSON

University of Georgia

This study examines the way in which the United States decides upon and oversees the use of covert action-the pursuit of American foreign policy objectives through secret intervention into the affairs of other nations. First, the definitional nuaiices of covert action are explored, illustrating the ambi- guities inherent in the term. Second, the magnitude of funding for covert action is estimated for the years 1947-86, revealing fluctuations in the attractiveness to policymakers of this "quiet option" as an instrument of foreign affairs. Third, the global targeting priorities for covert action are presented, again disclosing fluctuations but within a broad pattern of pri- mary attention to small, developing nations. With this background, the study then turns to its main focus: the procedures by which the government approves of and reviews covert action. During the Ford and Carter Admin- istrations, this decision process evolved into a complex matrix of check- points and overseers, including unprecedented legislative involvement. The Reagan years produced dramatic evidence, however, that these efforts at closer supervision of America's secret foreign policy-the "democratiza- tion" of covert action-had fallen short of the goals espoused by reformers. The Iran-contra scandal of 1986-87 cast doubt on the effectiveness of the new oversight procedures and stirred further debate on whether the United States could maintain both a robust secret service and reliable safe- guards against the abuse of hidden power.

Introduction

Covert action (CA) is a phrase used to identify the pursuit of American foreign policy objectives through secret intervention into the affairs of other nations. This study examines the approval procedures for covert action established within the government of the United States. To set the stage for the analysis, the definitional nuances and modus operandi of covert action are presented, followed by a look at its

Author's note: The author presented an earlier version of this paper at the 1986 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington, D. C. He would like to thank Stephen J. Flanagan, Arthur S. Hulnick, Thomas K. Latimer, and Harry Howe Ransom for their helpful suggestions on this initial draft; also Lincoln Bloomfield and Glenn Hastedt, as well as the editors and anonymous reviewers of this journal, for their valuable guidance toward the present rendition. The author also takes this opportunity to express his sincere appreciation to the over 150 intelligence professionals and other government officials who gave their time to provide insights into this arcane subject. The Department of Political Science and the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Georgia generously provided research support, for which the author is further grateful.

C 1989 International Studies Association

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82 Covert Action and Accountability

estimated funding levels and regional targeting priorities from 1947 to 1986. Then the heart of the study-the decision process-is addressed. The central purpose of this paper is to illuminate the intricate procedures for covert-action approval and supervision that have evolved since the intelligence agencies were rocked by congres- sional investigations in 1975-76. The study also explores the recent involvement of Congress in the detailed review of covert actions and the failure of this new oversight to curb the Iran-contra affair of 1984-86. The findings illustrate that despite the presence of a highly formal and comprehensive decision process in recent years, covert action has managed to escape the full accountability envisaged by reformers during the 1970s.

Few foreign-policy options within the federal government are held as closely as covert action, and no intelligence operations-with the exception of domestic spy- ing-have been so controversial. These characteristics make the subject resistant to scholarly analysis. The researcher is forced to rely heavily upon interviews with those who have a working familiarity with covert action, supplementing this source of data with the published recollections of former practitioners, the occasional congressional document on the subject, and the few existing scholarly works (see Appendix). The approach must be rooted chiefly in historical description rather than the more satis- fying methods of transhistorical generalization. In a region inhospitable to more exacting forms of scientific inquiry, the scholar is pushed toward a search for "wis- dom," though the obligation remains, always, to bring to bear as much analytic rigor as possible even in this difficult terrain.

Nomenclature: The Language of Covert Action

Covert action is sometimes referred to as the "quiet option" at the Headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that entity in the federal government usually called upon to formulate and implement the policy. The phrase comes from a supposition that covert action is apt to be less noisy and obtrusive than the overt use of force in American foreign policy, such as the landing of a Marine brigade (an assumption frequently proven false-most notoriously with the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation on the southern coast of Cuba in 1961).

Sometimes professional practitioners also refer to covert action as the "third op- tion," one between diplomacy and open warfare. As former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger once put it: "We need an intelligence community that, in certain complicated situations, can defend the American national interest in the gray areas where military operations are not suitable and diplomacy cannot operate" (Kissinger, 1978). Still others prefer the euphemisms "special activi- ties" or "special operations"-though, usually, special operations is a term reserved for Department of Defense unconventional warfare using such units as the Army Rangers or Special Forces (the Green Berets), the Navy Seals, and various new entities that remain highly classified, or narrowly to CIA paramilitary operations (see below).

Formal definitions of covert action may be found in several public documents. An executive order on intelligence signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, for in- stance, refers to covert actions ("special activities" in this document) as operations "conducted abroad in support of national foreign policy objectives which are de- signed to further official United States programs and policies abroad and which are planned and executed so that the role of the United States Government is not apparent or acknowledged publicly, and functions in support of such activities, but not including diplomatic activity or the collection and production of intelligence or related support functions" (Carter, 1979:194-214). An earlier formal statement, contained in the 1974 Hughes-Ryan Act and reiterated in the 1980 Intelligence

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 83

Accountability Act, provides this simple definition of covert action, the one most widely used in government circles: "operations in foreign countries, other than activities intended solely for obtaining necessary intelligence."' In short, operations other than espionage.

Though the examples of covert action offered below further refine these defini- tions, covert action remains a complex-and sometimes slippery-phrase. The exec- utive regulations and laws that address covert action, for instance, are keyed to secret intervention abroad by U.S. intelligence agencies; yet the National Security Council (NSC) staff-a White House entity not normally considered an intelligence agency (though it routinely offers advice on and coordination for intelligence policy)-has attempted on occasion to influence events overseas in a clandestine fashion. When Kissinger directed the NSC staff during the Nixon years, he carried out major foreign policy initiatives in secret, among them negotiations with the North Vietnam- ese and the fashioning of a Sinai disengagement between the Israelis and the Egyp- tians. Did this constitute "quiet diplomacy"-or secret intervention and therefore covert action? Most experts would say diplomacy in these cases, but the examples illustrate how fine the line between the two can sometimes be.

In another more recent-and notorious-example, the Reagan Administration turned to the NSC staff in 1984 as a means for carrying out a secret arms sale to Iran in exchange for that nation's influence over the release of American hostages held in the Middle East. Profits from this sale were then diverted by the NSC staff to U.S.- backed counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua (the contras, from the Spanish con- trarevolucionarios)-now known as the "Iran-contra affair." Both of these operations fit the standard definitions of covert action, for they involved secrecy, the use of the CIA, and the goal of influencing another country; yet, subsequently, the Reagan Administration attempted to argue that since the NSC staff was the prime mover in this operation-not the CIA (though it participated) or some other intelligence agency-the normal covert-action decision procedures became unnecessary and even irrelevant (Tower Commission, 1987:III-22, C-2; Inouye-Hamilton Commit- tees, Report, 1987:4 1). This represented a significant blurring of the normal means of authorizing and reporting covert action operations.

So the seemingly straightforward official definitions of covert action belie sophisti- cated nuances that have made efforts to isolate and examine this policy all the more difficult for both overseers and scholars. A further blurring of distinctions has oc- curred with attempts by the Reagan Administration to "privatize" covert action, that is, to raise funds for this option outside the government's established appropriations process by soliciting money from foreign nations (Brunei and South Africa, among others) and wealthy private citizens (Inouye-Hamilton Committees, Report, 1987:85- 100, 352-53; New York Times, 1987d:4). Moreover, some private groups (like the Civilian Material Assistance organization based in Alabama, a spinoff of a network nurtured by the Reagan Administration) have taken it upon themselves to raise funds for anti-communist guerrillas like the contras outside U.S. government chan- nels but with the knowledge and encouragement of the President and the NSC staff. With the admitted clouding effect that these ambiguities present, most practitioners and outside experts on the subject nonetheless treat covert action as essentially those operations carried out clandestinely by U.S. intelligence agencies; and, no doubt, the overwhelming majority of covert actions implemented by the United States are of this sort-in excess of 95 percent of the total number, according to those interviewed for this study, with almost all of these operations conceived of and carried out by the CIA.

I Respectively, 88 Stat. 1804. sec. 662, 22 U.S.C. 2422 and 94 Stat. 1981, Title V, sec. 501, 50 U.S.C. 413.

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84 Covert Action and Accountability

Whatever the variation in terminology, the objective of covert action remains constant: to influence events overseas, secretly and in support of U.S. foreign policy. The primary concern has been, in the words of a former chief of the CIA's Covert Action Staff (CAS; see below), "the global challenge of communism . . . to be con- fronted whenever and wherever it seemed to threaten our interests" (Tovar, 1981:194-95). In pursuit of this objective, the CIA has employed four broad types of covert action: propaganda, political, economic, and paramilitary (PM)-that is, the global projection of an American viewpoint on world affairs, the manipulation of political events abroad, the disruption of economic systems anathema to the United States, and the use of force in war-like operations. These categories represent, re- spectively, about 40, 30, 10, and 20 percent of the total number of covert actions over the years-though paramilitary operations have been by far the most expensive and controversial.2

Propaganda

No form of covert action is used more extensively than propaganda (sometimes called psychological warfare, or simply "psy war"). To supplement the overt flow overseas of official Department of State information about the United States, the CIA provides a flood of supportive but unattributed propaganda, distributed through its vast network of media "assets" (paid agents): reporters, newspaper and magazine editors, television producers-the whole range of personnel in the print and electronic media. Whatever policy the White House may be extolling at the time-the virtues of neutron bombs or Pershing missiles for Western Europe, and hundreds of other propaganda themes over the years-the CIA will likely be ad- vancing the same slogans through its hidden channels.

In addition, the CIA uses its media assets to help or hurt foreign political leaders (or aspirant leaders), depending upon how these individuals are apt to affect the interests of the United States. The classic example in the public domain is the CIA's attempt to discredit the Chilean Marxist-socialist leader, Salvador Gossens Allende (Church Committee, 1975a; Treverton, 1987). The CIA routinely attempts to infil- trate Western literature (books, magazines, newspapers, and the like) into totalitar- ian regimes, to be distributed covertly by Agency assets. Among other approaches, the CIA has dropped leaflets from airplanes, tied transistor radios and Bibles onto balloons lofted toward hostile nations, and broadcast from make-shift radio stations in remote rain forests.'

The extensive CIA propaganda capability produces a great tide of information flowing secretly from Washington into hundreds of hidden channels around the world-some seventy to eighty media insertions a day.4 Once released, the informa- tion cannot be bottled up or directed to only one spot on the globe, as one might apply an antiseptic to a sore. Rather, it is free to drift here and there, and even back to the United States. This can lead to "blow back" or "replay" whereby false informa- tion directed toward America's enemies can find its way back home to deceive citi- zens of this nation.

2 The percentage estimates are based on periodic interviews of varying length with CIA officials from 1980-87. For roughly comparable figures, see the Pike Committee (1975).

3Interviews with CIA officials, Washington, D.C., June 6, 1984.

4Interviews with former CIA officials, Washington, D.C., October 22, 1980, and June 8, 1984.

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 85

Political Covert Action

Sometimes the quiet option takes the form of financial aid to friendly politicians and bureaucrats abroad-bribes, if one wishes to put a harsh light on this technique, or stipends to advance the cause of democracy, if one prefers a rosier interpretation. Whatever one chooses to call this assistance ("King George's cavalry" is the favored expression among British intelligence officers), the record is clear that through the CIA the United States has provided substantial sums of money, off and on over the years, to members of the Christian Democratic Party in Italy, to King Hussein of Jordan, and to pro-Western factions in Greece, West Germany, Egypt, Sudan, Suri- name, Mauritius, El Salvador, Lebanon, South Yemen, Cambodia, Angola, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Iran, Ecuador, and Chile, to mention some of the examples on the public record.

The CIA has directed political covert action against a wide range of groups and individuals in addition to high-ranking officeholders abroad. The Agency has fi- nanced anti-communist labor unions in Europe and has an extensive stable of "agents of influence" around the world-that is, individuals (from valets and mis- tresses to secretaries and aides) who have sufficient access to important political figures that they might be in a position to influence their decisions. Propaganda and political covert actions are meant to work hand-in-glove, and both are sometimes combined under a "political" heading; both aim to influence the minds of key indi- viduals abroad to make them more favorably disposed toward the interests of the United States.

At times the Covert Action Staff at CIA Headquarters has resembled nothing less than a group of political campaign consultants, producing slick materials for favored foreign candidates: speeches, brochures, handbills, placards, campaign buttons, and even bumperstickers for remote regions of the globe where donkeys and camels are more common than cars. The CIA sent to one anti-communist faction in an African civil war 50,000 political lapel buttons proclaiming the partisan affiliation of the wearer: "I am a member of the Party." Bullets proved to be more telling than buttons, however, and the CIA's side was pushed back into the jungle.

Economic Covert Action

Another approach sometimes included under the broad heading of "political" is the attempt to disrupt, again secretly, the economies of U.S. adversaries. In one instance during the Kennedy Administration (though without the knowledge of the Presi- dent), the CIA planned to damage Cuban-Soviet relations by lacing sugar bound from Havanna to Moscow with an unpalatable, though harmless, chemical substance. A White House aide learned of the operation and informed the President. Kennedy scotched the plan and quickly had the 14,125 bags of sugar confiscated before they were shipped to the U.S.S.R. (Wicker et al., 1966:1).

During the efforts to undermine Allende, the CIA used various overt and covert measures to disrupt the Chilean economy. By heightening the level of unrest in the regime, the U.S. government hoped that local military forces would finally decide to strip Allende of his power. Other economic operations have reportedly included depressing the world price of sugar to undermine the Cuban economy, contaminat- ing oil storage tanks in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and, more recently during the Reagan years, detonating explosives to destroy power lines and fuel pipelines in Nicaragua, accompanied by the covert mining of Nicaraguan harbors to disrupt international commerce.5

5See note 4.

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86 Covert Action and Accountability

Paramilitary Covert Action

No covert actions have been riskier or more controversial than paramilitary, or war- like, operations. They often involve large-scale "secret" wars-as if anything of this scope could remain secret for long. From 1963 to 1973, the CIA backed the Meo hill tribes of North Laos in a war against North Vietnamese puppets, the Pathet Lao, in what was essentially a draw until the United States withdrew from the struggle. The CIA has sponsored other guerrilla wars, providing support for insurgents in the Ukraine, Poland, Albania, Hungary, Indonesia, China, Oman, Malyasia, Iraq, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, North Korea, Bolivia, Thailand, Haiti, Guatemala, Cuba, Greece, Turkey, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua, to recall some examples from the public record.

In addition to support for groups engaged in insurgency the CIA has funded various paramilitary training activities, including counter-terrorist techniques, has provided military advisers, and has shipped abroad-directly or indirectly-arms, ammunition, and other military equipment. Further, the CIA's paramilitary pro- gram has included assistance to the Department of Defense in the development of its own unconventional warfare capability and has provided training for military and police units from other countries responsible for the protection of their leaders.

A special case within the realm of paramilitary operations is the murder of individ- ual enemies: the assassination option, sometimes referred to euphemistically within the CIA as "executive action" or "termination with extreme prejudice," and at one time approved within the Agency by a "Health Alteration Committee." Insofar as the Church Committee was able to ascertain, this option has been resorted to infre- quently and never successfully against a head of state-despite a goodly amount of trying in the instance of Fidel Castro (Church Committee, 1975b). More recently, in 1984, CIA personnel distributed a manual in Nicaragua that instructed the contras in the art of "neutralizing" local civil officers. Agency officials denied that assassination was the intention (an executive order prohibits assassination), but in its investigation of CIA assassination plots, the Church Committee discovered that the verb "neutral- ize" in Agency cables sometimes did mean "murder" (Church Committee, 1975b:4 1).

The Incidence and Targeting of Covert Action

To what extent has the CIA engaged in covert action, and against which nations? This section of the paper examines estimates on the funding for covert action since the creation of the CIA in 1947, as well as the global focus of covert action operations during this period. While both funding and target priorities have fluctuated over the years, the CIA has usually dedicated a significant portion of its annual budget to covert actions and has aimed them chiefly at nations in the developing regions of the world.

Incidence

Figure 1 presents a longitudinal estimate of the percentage of the CIA's budget dedicated to the various forms of covert action from 1947 to 1986. The number of operations started off low, though not at zero. While the CIA began to develop a global "infrastructure"-a network of spies built upon contacts established during World War II by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, America's first civilian intelli- gence agency created during the war)-it continued selected projects initiated by the OSS. At first, the CIA's interest in covert action resided exclusively in the realm of propaganda operations. By 1948, the Agency "had acquired a radio transmitter for broadcasting behind the Iron Curtain, had established a secret propaganda printing

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 87

plant in Germany, and had begun assembling a fleet of balloons to drop propaganda materials into Eastern European countries" (Church Committee, 1976a:29).

From these modest beginnings, the CIA-strongly encouraged by the Policy Plan- ning Staff in the Department of State and with the approval of the NSC-soon turned to a wider range of covert action projects. Influencing the outcome of elec- tions overseas (political covert action) became the main focus-especially the Euro- pean elections of 1948. And by the summer of that year, the Agency had received further authority through NSC directives to launch operations involving economic and paramilitary warfare as well. Propaganda activities remained important, particu- larly the nurturing of media assets, but now high on the list of priorities were operations directed against communist attempts to control labor and refugee groups, assistance to friendly political figures, and the establishment of paramilitary "stay-behind" forces should war resume in Europe (this time against the Soviet Bloc).

So within the brief span of a year after its creation, the CIA had been assigned the major responsibility within the U.S. government for the conduct of a secret Cold War against-primarily-the Soviet Union, using the full range of covert action capabilities at its disposal. The Agency concentrated first on the Soviet threat to Western Europe, in part because these war-wrecked nations seemed vulnerable to communist intervention and in part because General Douglas MacArthur, com- mander of U.S. forces in the Far East, had declared "his" region of the world off- limits to the CIA. By the time the Eisenhower Administration had settled into Wash- ington in 1953, covert action was in full swing as the United States responded to intensified Soviet experiments in global interventionism, as the CIA infrastructure became more elaborate, experienced, and reliable, and as John Foster Dulles (Presi- dent Eisenhower's secretary of state) and his brother Allen (the CIA director from

100

80-

60- % CIA Annual Budget O - / \ Dedicated to Covert Action (Estimated)

a- 40-

20A

0

1948 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86

YEARS

FIG. 1. Covert action: A longitudinal perspective, 1947-86. This trend-line represents a "best guess" based on the open-source material cited in this study and on interviews with CIA and legislative officials from 1979 to 1988. The technique used by the author was to draft a trend-line that reflected the occasional references in the public record to covert action funding (e.g., Harrison Salisbury's interview with former CIA Director William E. Colby; Salisbury, 1975). This estimate was then shown to officials during interviews, and they were asked how they would adjust the line to make it more accurate. The line in this figure represents the approximate mean, or best fit, of these various interview responses-all of which were in high agreement. A total of sixty-four officials commented on all or, more commonly, part of the time-span.

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88 Covert Action and Accountability

1953 to 1961) reached key positions in the government to advance their anti-Soviet policies.

With the fascination of the Kennedy Administration for "counterinsurgency" (its name for paramilitary operations conducted by the CIA and the military), this more violent form of covert action came to dominate the genre during the 1960s, "surpass- ing covert psychological and political action in budgetary allocations in 1967" (Church Committee, 1976a:67). In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs disaster, Presi- dent Kennedy scaled back large-scale covert actions, but this remission was short- lived. As America became more involved in Vietnam's civil war, covert action at- tracted a greater percentage of the Agency's budget than ever before-a reflection of the extensive use of expensive paramilitary operations by the United States in this part of the world from 1962 through the early 1970s.

For a number of reasons, covert action declined after a peak budgetary allocation in 1967. An expose published in 1967 by the muckraking magazine Ramparts, which revealed CIA ties to the National Student Association and other organizations, forced the Agency to sever its covert action support (propaganda and political) to these entities. Moreover, Richard Helms had become the Agency's director in June of 1966, and he looked upon the usefulness of covert action with skepticism. He preferred to see Agency resources directed toward improvements in the clandestine collection of intelligence (Powers, 1979:28).

During the Nixon and Ford years, funding for covert action went into a precipi- tous slide, facilitated by press exposes in December of 1974 of the CIA's covert action operations against the democratically elected president of Chile, Allende, and by the revelation of assassination plots during the Church Committee proceedings in November of 1975 (New York Times, 1974:1; Church Committee, 1975b).

Jimmy Carter defeated President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 and entered office with a strong bias against covert action, which he had expressed many times during his campaign for the presidency. The CIA budget allocated for covert action fell to less than 5 percent during Carter's early years, a continuation of the trend away from the quiet option begun in the Nixon years and carried through the Ford Administration (despite all the public furor over President Ford's unsuccessful effort in 1975 to gain congressional support for covert action against Marxist rebels in Angola). With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979, however, Carter reversed him- self and gave increasing support to the use of covert action.

When the Reagan Administration came to Washington in 1981, with its inflamed cold-war rhetoric and a CIA director (William J. Casey) impressed by secret opera- tions from his days as an OSS officer in Europe, the covert action budget climbed further. The Reagan Administration also went to the extreme of placing responsibil- ity for key covert action operations in the hands of NSC staffers in the White House, outside normal procedures, and began to raise funds from private Americans and foreign heads-of-state for further "off-the-shelf, self-sustaining, stand-alone" secret operations (an objective attributed to Casey by NSC staffer Lt. Col. Oliver L. North; Inouye-Hamilton Committees, Hearings, July 8, 1987, vol. 7:122). Once revealed in 1986, these activities precipitated large-scale inquiries by government investigators and stimulated extensive public debate over the proper decision paths and supervi- sion for covert action.

Targeting

Senator Church concluded during his committee's investigation of covert action in 1975 that covert action was, for the most part, directed against "small, weak coun- tries" (1976:9). The accuracy of this observation is borne out by interviews with

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 89

intelligence officials: most covert actions have taken place in the developing nations, not because the United States has invariably viewed these nations as enemies (though some have been) but because the so-called Third World has become the main arena for competition between America and the Soviet Union over raw materials, strategic position, and popular support.

The countries targeted for covert action are grouped according to region in Table 1, illustrating a predominant focus (as measured in this table by the frequency of operations) on the developing nations from 1947 to 1986-though Europe and the Soviet Bloc have by no means been ignored. East Asia has been the region of greatest attention, both in the frequency of operations and in money spent (in significant part because of the great number and cost of paramilitary operations associated with the war in Vietnam).

The high-through-low categories of Table 1 offer a portrait of U.S. covert action priorities aggregated over the years. These priorities change from time to time, however. If, for example, one were to examine just a decade from 1977 to 1987, the regional priorities (according to interviews with CIA officials) would shift somewhat to Europe, Latin America, the Near East, the Soviet Bloc, East Asia, and Africa. If one were to look at only the last couple of years, the expanding paramilitary opera- tion in Afghanistan would give the Near East an even higher profile. Covert actions aimed directly at the Soviet Bloc have been limited; in this region, the necessary assets are too hard to recruit, and the United States has had to settle mainly (though not exclusively) for limited propaganda operations.

Decision and Accountability

The official approval process for covert action in the modern era has evolved from the simple to the complex. This portion of the study examines that evolution, begin- ning with a look at how the United States approved covert actions before the intelli- gence investigations of 1975-the so-called Year of Intelligence or the "Intelligence Wars" (Johnson, 1988).

TABLE 1. Frequency of covert action targeting, 1947-86 (estimated).a

Form of covert action

Regionb Propaganda Political Economic Paramilitary Combined

East Asia High High High High High Europe High High Low Low Moderate Africa High Moderate Low Moderate Moderate Latin America Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Soviet Bloc High Moderate Low Low Moderate Near East Moderate Moderate Low Low Moderate-Low

a Based on the open-source materials cited in the Appendix and notes, and on periodic interviews from 1979 to 88 with officials of the CIA's Operations Directorate. The categories "High," "Moderate," and "Low" are subjec- tive, stemming from characterizations of covert action frequency in the various regions made by experts in the literature and during the author's interviews. In the interviews, CIA officials were asked to comment on the frequency with which the major forms of covert action were used in the different regions, employing the three broad categories for their estimates (similar to the "thermometer" technique in voting studies, where respondents are asked to comment generally on the extent of warmth that they feel toward a particular party or candidate).

b The regional categories are based on The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency: April 1984), with Egypt placed in the Near East, and East Asia combined with South Asia and Oceania.

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90 Cover-t Action and Accountability

Choosing Covert Action. The Era of Executive Discretion

In the early days of the CIA, officials drew upon a brief "catch-all" passage of the 1947 National Security Act for covert action authority, namely, the vague language that directed the Agency to "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct."6 While today CIA attorneys admit that these words represent a flimsy legal foundation for the conduct of covert action (they turn instead to the Hughes-Ryan Act of 1974), at the first meeting of the NSC in December of 1947 its members relied upon this "authority" to approve NSC Directive No. 4 and its annex, 4/A. This document ordered the CIA to engage in covert actions designed to dis- credit international communism. The quiet option attracted broad support among the NSC principles because "it held the promise of frustrating Soviet ambitions without provoking open conflict" (Church Committee, 1976a:26; 1976b,48-49).

This and subsequent NSC directives on covert action were (until December of 1974 when Congress passed the Hughes-Ryan Act) subject to minimal discussion and supervision (Church Committee, 1976a:36). In the early years, the CIA's Office of Policy Coordination (OPC, established by the NSC in June of 1948) provided a forum for the discussion of covert action proposals with officials outside the Agency, namely, representatives from the Departments of Defense and State. These meet- ings, though, were not designed to give approval to CIA plans. The sense among OPC participants was that the Agency already had all the approval it needed as a result of NSC-4 and 4-A, along with subsequent supporting directives. The purpose of the OPC forum was simply to offer "guidance"; the CIA could conceive of and implement covert actions largely as its senior officials saw fit, in harmony with the broad mandate from the NSC to combat communism. The Church Committee re- ported (1976b:50) that during this period, "loose understandings rather than spe- cific review formed the basis for CIA's accountability for covert operations."

In a fresh look at the approval procedures for covert action after the Bay of Pigs shock, the Kennedy Administration instituted more frequent meetings of the NSC subcommittee dealing with covert action and spelled out more clearly the criteria the CIA would be expected to follow in seeking approval for covert action. Expense- any project costing over $25,000-was to be the key criterion for NSC review and approval.

Yet these attempts at greater accountability for covert action stood at odds with a resilient counter-philosophy: the doctrine of plausible denial. According to this con- cept, the president and other high officials had to be shielded from clear responsibil- ity for covert actions so that, if an operation were exposed ("blown"), they could deny culpability without-in the words of one former CIA professional-"the govern- ment's being caught in a barefaced lie" (Rositzke, 1977:153). In this manner, the president and therefore the country could presumably save face.

The juxtaposition of accountability and plausible denial presents an obvious di- lemma: under a system of plausible denial it can become unclear as to who in authority really knows about and has approved of a covert action. The lines of accountability wash away like markings in the sand. Moreover, it may be fatuous to believe that a president can escape blame simply by claiming ignorance; he (one day, she) is, after all, the chief executive and as such is ultimately responsible for the acts of government minions at the operational level. Of special concern is the possibility that the president might not only be unaware of an operation but would actually be opposed to it if he were aware. This appears to have been the case in 1986 when the assistant for national security affairs, Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter, approved-

6 Sec. 101 [50 U.S.C. 402] (b) (2).

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evidentally without President Ronald Reagan's knowledge-the diversion of illicit funds to the contras from a secret arms sale to Iran (both, by prevailing definitions, paramilitary operations).

"Although I was convinced that we [the NSC staffl could properly do it [divert funds to the contras] and that the President would approve it if asked," testified Poindexter before Congress, "I made a very deliberative decision not to ask the President so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability for the President if it ever leaked out" (New York Times, 1987d: 1; Inouye- Hamilton Committees, Hearings, July 15, 1987, vol. 8:94). Yet, subsequently, the President said he would never have approved the diversion (Inouye-Hamilton Com- mittees, Report, 1987:55 1). This case, a result apparently of Poindexter's attempt to maintain plausible denial for the President, stands as a damning commentary on the doctrine (though the cynic might wonder if the President, despite the protestations to the contrary, had simply carried this doctrine to its logical end: sustaining the lie to protect the office of the presidency and himself).

Throughout the administrations from Truman to Carter, a major weakness in the decision process for covert action remained the failure to refer most proposals to the president, or even to his top Cabinet officials responsible for foreign and defense policy. In 1962, for instance, only about 16 percent of all covert action projects received approval from the NSC, according to a CIA internal memorandum dated February 21, 1967, and reported by the Church Committee. The Church Committee added that, according to its reckoning, only about 14 percent of all covert actions from 1961 to 1975 had been approved by the NSC (Church Committee, 1976b:56, 57). In the Committee's opinion (1976a:89), "These ambiguous arrangements were intentional, designed to protect the President and to blur accountability."

The Congress Awakes

During the years preceding the Carter Administration, Congress was rarely in the decision loop for covert action. In December of 1974, however, a post-Watergate Congress, troubled by press revelations alleging domestic spying and unsavory cov- ert actions in Chile, formally confronted this lack of accountability. In a flurry of last- minute legislative activity before the end of the session, its members approved the Hughes-Ryan Act, sponsored by Senator Harold E. Hughes (D, Iowa) and Represen- tative Leo J. Ryan (D, California). This legislation required the president himself to approve all important covert actions (the understanding at the time was that he would do so in writing), and established a procedure for informing Congress of these decisions. The provisions of the law required that "[n]o funds appropriated under the authority of this or any other Act may be expended by or on behalf of the [CIA] for operations in foreign countries, other than activities intended solely for obtaining necessary intelligence, unless and until the President finds that each such operation is important to the national security of the United States and reports, in a timely fashion, a description and scope of such operation to the appropriate committees of the Congress...." This legislation, the first step by Congress to place statutory controls on the CIA since its founding, represented a bold attempt to replace plausi- ble denial with a clear pathway of accountability for covert action-one that led straight to the Oval Office. The law formally forbade all covert actions not approved by the president himself.

From the verb "finds" came the term of art "finding," that is, the anticipated written document of approval bearing the president's signature. The "appropriate committees" to whom this finding was to be delivered "in a timely fashion" (within twenty-four hours quickly came to be the expectation in Congress) were initially three in the House of Representatives and three in the Senate: the committees on

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92 Covert Action and Accountability

appropriations, armed services, and foreign affairs. In 1976, legislators added a Senate Intelligence Committee to the list, and, in 1977, a House Intelligence Com- mittee; then, in 1980, with the passage of the Intelligence Accountabilities Act (usu- ally referred to more informally in Washington circles as the Intelligence Oversight Act), Congress trimmed back the list to include only the two intelligence committees (Johnson, 1980a, 1988).

This 1980 statute, the most important formal measure taken by the Congress to tighten its control over intelligence operations, also clarifyied that the Congress wanted to be informed of all important covert actions, not just those sponsored by the CIA.7 This language represented an attempt to close a loophole for possible presidential recourse to other agencies for carrying out covert action- presumably the military, but possibly any entity from the NSC to the Department of Agricul- ture-as a way of bypassing the Hughes-Ryan reporting requirements. Moreover, with this legislation the Congress took a firm stand in favor of prior notification of covert action, not after the fact as "timely fashion" allowed. In emergency situations, the president was permitted to limit his prior notice to eight leaders in Congress (the so-called "Gang of Eight"; Aspin, 1980a:H10047). The wording of the statute is quite clear on this point: ". . . if the President determines it is essential to limit prior notice to meet extraordinary circumstances affecting the vital interests of the United States, such notice shall be limited to the chairmen and ranking minority members of the intelligence committees, the Speaker and minority leader of the House of Repre- sentatives, and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate...."

Yet, in spite of this language, CIA directors have resisted the obligation of prior notice (Turner, 1985a: 170; House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 1987a:44-76); and, as the congressional hearings on the Iran-contra scandal made clear, the Reagan Administration failed to report to Congress at all on these covert actions-indeed, the retroactively signed finding for the secret sale of arms to Iran explicitly forbade the CIA from reporting (Tower Commission, 1987:B-39, 676; Inouye-Hamilton Committees, Report, 1987:380-8 1; New York Times, 1987c: 10). The matter remains unsettled, as does much of the relationship between the intelligence community and the Congress in the wake of the investigations of 1975, the increas- ingly stringent oversight procedures of 1976-1980, and the collapse of trust between the CIA and the Congress that came with the Iran-contra scandal in 1986 (Johnson, 1989).

The Congress was not alone in its fresh insistence on improved controls over the intelligence community. In 1976, Jimmy Carter campaigned for the presidency in part on a platform of intelligence reform. Once in office, President Carter tempered his campaign zeal but nonetheless instituted far-reaching changes in the structures and procedures of the intelligence community. On January 26, 1978, he signed a major Executive Order on United States Intelligence Activities (No. 12036), which, among other things, established a remodeled and much more rigorous decision cycle for covert action (Carter, 1979:194-214).

The Approval Process for Covert Action in the Carter Administration

Under President Carter, the National Security Council remained the highest organi- zation in the executive branch to review and guide the conduct of all national foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activities. Two new committees were created to fit within the NSC structure, each with important intelligence responsibilities: the Policy Review Committee (PRC) and the Special Coordination Committee (SCC). The Policy Review Committee was directed to set the requirements for foreign

7For the 1980 Act, see Title V of the National SecuLrity Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 413).

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 93

intelligence collection, to review resource allocation for this mission, and to evaluate the intelligence product; the Special Coordination Committee was to be the central authority for the approval of all covert action proposals before they were forwarded to the president. The SCC was further responsible for the review and approval of especially sensitive intelligence collection and counterintelligence programs. Since the SCC had primary control over covert action, its membership warrants listing here: the secretary of state, secretary of defense, attorney general, director of the Office of Management and Budget, assistant for national security affairs, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and director of the CIA.

President Reagan abolished the interdepartmental consultation that characterized NSC proceedings on covert action in prior administrations, in what was said to be an attempt to tighten secrecy for covert actions (Gelb, 1984:1). In place of the military and diplomatic experts on the Special Coordination Committee, Reagan's new NSC committee for covert action-named the National Security Planning Group (NSPG)-included more of his own personal advisers. On the NSPG, he retained the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, the assistant for national security affairs, and the CIA director; but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the others were excluded, while three political advisers were added: the White House chief of staff and his deputy, plus the president's counselor.

According to a former senior official, the Reagan changes were actually made less to preserve secrecy-very few of the total number of covert actions have been dis- closed to the public-than to assure that the President had "his senior advisers to focus on the issues themselves and not have people around always saying why things could not be done" (Gelb, 1984:1). The end results seems to have been a loss of expert staff advice and a sharp increase in funding for covert action during the Reagan Administration-some five-fold over the nadir reached during the Carter years.8

Organization. The director of Central Intelligence (DCI, the title held by the CIA director in his capacity as chief of the entire intelligence community) provides the vital link in the chain of command between the NSC and the CIA. Within the Agency, covert action is housed inside the Operations Directorate (OD), headed by a Deputy Director for Operations (DDO). The Directorate is composed of a division for international affairs, for counterintelligence, and for several geographic desks responsible for the collection of foreign intelligence.9 These compartments are somewhat artificial, though, since many of the CIA's agents abroad carry out more than one function.

Among these divisions within the Operations Directorate, the one for interna- tional affairs is of primary importance in the formulation of covert action. It houses the Covert Action Staff as well as special groups for paramilitary operations, for counterterrorism and counternarcotics, for tracking nuclear proliferation, for moni- toring international energy issues, and others. The international affairs division provides policy guidance and staff support for the geographic desks and for the Deputy Director for Operations in his planning and implementation of covert actions. In addition, the division provides special air, ground, maritime, and training support for the Agency's intelligence collection operations.

While Headquarters must provide planning and guidance, the field has the tougher job of achieving results. The heart of covert action lies in the activities of the

8Initerviews with CIA officials, 1979-87. The Reagan Administration "has gone wild [with covert action]," according to former DCI TuLrner (1985b).

9 For a suLccinct outlin-e of this Directorate's struLcture, see Richelson and Ball (1986:100-12).

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94 Covert Action and Accountability

Operations Directorate abroad. The CIA maintains "stations" around the globe. Operations Directorate personnel in the field are called "case officers," each respon- sible for recruiting and managing ("running") local agents ("assets," if on the CIA payroll)-several of whom they will have inherited from a predecessor. The ob- jective is to use the indigenous population for espionage (human intelligence or HUMINT), for counterintelligence, and for covert action-the three primary mis- sions of the CIA. Case officers report to the country's chief-of-station (COS), the CIA equivalent of an ambassador, and all operations conducted in support of approved covert actions are supervised by the chief-of-station. The stations in turn report to their country-desk back in the Operations Directorate at Agency Headquarters and, if relations are cordial, to the American chief-of-mission in the field (the ambassador).

Process. During the Carter Administration, the normal line of authority for covert action ran from the CIA through the Special Coordination Committee (the National Security Planning Group, or NSPG, during the Reagan Administration) on to the president and back, touching a number of key entities and officials along the way (see Figure 2.) Most covert action proposals originate in the CIA stations (roughly 85 percent'0), but some come from the Department of Defense, the Department of State, ambassadors in the field, and occasionally from the president himself or his close advisers in the White House.

The Hughes-Ryan Act required that before the CIA conducted any operations abroad (other than intelligence collection), the president must have found the activ- ity "important to the national security of the United States." Before the president issues his "finding" (or approval), however, it is reviewed by several policy groups. Typically, after a covert action proposal originates from a station overseas, it ad- vances through the Agency hierarchy, requiring approvals from the appropriate staff components of the international affairs division within the Operations Director- ate, from the Deputy Director for Operations, from other offices inside Headquar- ters, and eventually from the DCI himself.

Prior to gaining final approval from the DCI, a variety of offices within the CIA reviewed covert action proposals during the Carter Administration, including the Comptroller, the Office of General Counsel, the Legislative Counsel, and the Na- tional Foreign Assessment Center (the name of the Intelligence Directorate during the Carter years, that is, the division of the Agency dedicated to the production and analysis of intelligence reports for policymakers). Two organizations outside the CIA also reviewed the proposals before they returned to the DCI for his final imprima- tur: the Department of State and a Special Coordination Committeee working-group for covert action of all these entities; the working-group normally provided the acid bath for covert action proposals.

The working-group consisted of senior staff aides from each organization repre- sented on the parent Committee. Here each proposal received close scrutiny. A high percentage were rejected outright at this stage, or, in most cases, at least sent back to the CIA for clarifications or modifications. In preparation for this review before SCC staffers, the CIA had to make sure that its proposal addressed several points: justifi- cation of the project, expense, alternatives, risks, prior coordination, ethical implica- tions, past related activities, and whether the proposal was important enough to warrant presidential review and a report to congressional overseers (as required by Hughes-Ryan and reiterated in the 1980 Oversight Act). Consideration of covert action proposals, then as now, depended greatly upon the attitudes of individual reviewing officers; but risk, compatibility with U.S. foreign policy goals, likelihood of

10 Interview with senior DDO official, Washington, D.C., November 16, 1980.

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 95

Presictl

Finding Recommendation (reported back on final proposal I to the DCI)

National Security Council r----- I Subcommittee on Covert Actiona OMB Reserve l

I Release ----------- DCI

I DCI Second DCI clearance Two separate DCI

briefings to the

NSC Staff Intelligence working-group Committees

'1 ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~House Senate I First DCI clearance

Legislative Counsel, CIA Ljj IA S

General Counsel, CIA

Comptroller, CIA Hea(lquarters guidanice to

the fiel(I

Intelligence Directorate, CIA CIA State Department | (IA

Field

Draft proposal issued Stations within CIA Headquarters

Operations Directorate Implementation CIA Covert Action Staff

(CAS)

Initiation of new Agency Evaluation by proposals (or Initiator: Headquarters modification of CIA, State, and field current operations) Other personnel

FIG. 2. Covert-action decision process. aKnown as the Special Coordination Committee (SCC) during the Carter Administration and the National Secu- rity Planning Group (NSPG) during the Reagan Administration.

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96 Covert Action and Accountability

success, value of outcome, cost, and the prevailing political climate were all weighed in the balance.

The working-group for special activities was not a decision committee; rather, it acted in a staff advisory relationship to the principals on the Special Coordination Committee and as a conduit back to the initiating agency (usually the CIA). Its job- like that of the staff group attached to its successor, the NSPG-was to insure that full and complete deliberations, including supporting and dissenting opinions, were reported to the parent Committee and to the director of the agency that generated the proposal.

If a covert action proposal was supported at the level of the staff working-group (typically following one or more revisions) and then by the DCI, the full Special Coordination Committee would examine its merits and submit a policy recommen- dation to the president, along with comments and dissents (if any) of individual SCC members. An affirming decision by the president (the finding) was expected then, as now, to be reported to the Congress. This last provision applied only to the CIA until the 1980 Oversight Act, at which time it applied to all government entities involved in intelligence activities; it applies not at all during times of declared war or when (in a potentially mischievous loophole) the president is operating under the War Powers Resolution passed in 1973.

Broad Findings. The Hughes-Ryan Act required a presidential finding for all important covert actions but provided no guidance on how detailed a finding should be. During the Ford Administration, the President elected to sign a series of "world- wide" findings that guaranteed authority in advance to the CIA for the conduct of covert action against terrorism, the narcotics trade, and counterintelligence targets (Hersh, 1978: 1). The purpose of the worldwide findings apparently was to allow the CIA some flexibility to carry out routine covert actions, that is, to task its interna- tional infrastructure without imposing on the president the need to make a separate finding with respect to each such operation. Subsequently, in response to legislative criticism that the worldwide findings provided too much of a blank check to the CIA, the Carter Administration combined the worldwide findings approved by President Ford into a single, somewhat more detailed finding. In his initially limited use of covert action, President Carter relied chiefly on this generic finding, which he aug- mented later with a few overarching propaganda themes and selected specific find- ings focused on individual countries."I

The congressional intelligence committees remained concerned, nontheless, that the use of broadly worded findings might encourage President Carter and his succes- sors to endorse proposals that were too open-ended and vague-a Gulf of Tonkin Resolution for intelligence policy. Admiral Stansfield Turner, DCI to President Carter, has commented on this dispute over broad and narrow findings (1985a: 169): "Under a broad finding, an operation can be expanded considerably; with a narrow one, the CIA has to go back to the President to obtain a revised finding if there is any change of scope. The Congress is wary of broad findings; they can easily be abused. The CIA is afraid of narrow findings; they can be a nuisance. What has evolved is a working understanding that whenever the activity being carried out under a finding is widened past the original description to the Congress, the CIA will advise the committees."

Executive Control. The CIA divides covert actions into the "important" and the "routine." Since Hughes-Ryan, the former require a presidential finding and the

"1 Interviews with CIA and Department of State officials, Washington, D.C., November 1980, June 1984, and August 1984.

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 97

latter flow from broad findings already approved. The existence of findings-even when broad-reduced somewhat the discretion of DCIs in determining whether a covert action should be considered routine or important enough for presidential decision, though the DCI continues to play a significant role in sorting out this distinction. Some proposals, however, always require NSC review-especially eco- nomic and paramilitary schemes, strategic deception operations, and political or propaganda operations directed toward prominent foreign leaders or groups.

The line between the important and the routine can be fuzzy, nevertheless, be- cause "important" is a subjective word. One high-ranking CIA official suggests that overseers will simply have to trust the director for Central Intelligence to make an accurate judgment on what is important, or else enter into the "micromanagement" inspection of each and every proposal.'2 While administratively attractive, this pre- scription of trust makes overseers uneasy. The Congress trusted the CIA blindly for almost three decades, only to learn in 1975-76 that the Agency had abused this confidence on some occasions (for a catalogue, see Johnson, 1988). In light of the Iran-contra episode, Agency appeals to "trust" will be all the more strained on Capitol Hill.

The finding process under the Carter Administration, then, was quite exhaustive in its consideration of covert action recommendations. Proposals were studied closely by staffers within the CIA and those on the Special Coordination Committee's work- ing-group, who drafted recommendations of their own for the President on each proposal. The President in turn considered each proposal and the advice of SCC principles, including dissents, before coming to a final decision.'3 While the working- group and its parent Committee focused primarily on the substance of proposals, the Office of Management and Budget sent a representative to these deliberations to review the funding aspects. The membership of the Special Coordination Commit- tee and its working-group was designed to assure that each proposal received de- tailed consideration by a range of foreign-policy specialists from throughout the executive branch. The attorney general was always present, also, during SCC delib- erations (a first) to provide legal counsel-a practice discontinued by the Reagan Administration.

Congressional Supervision of Covert Action

Since the passage of the Hughes-Ryan Act, the Congress has become a part of the decision process for covert action, though its role continues to be ill-defined and uncertain-and totally ignored during the Iran-contra affair. This section examines in closer detail the scope and significance of legislative involvement in the supervi- sion of covert action.

Reporting to Congress

Once the president "makes a finding," the DCI or his designee (often the Deputy Director for Operations) has the responsibility to notify the House and Senate Intel- ligence Committees (each with broad memberships from throughout the chamber, usually including some legislators who sit as well on the foreign affairs, armed ser- vices, and appropriations committees). When the notification should take place and with what degree of specificity continue to be matters of dispute between the

12 Interview, CIA official, Washington, D.C., June 1983.

13 According to interviews with CIA officials (Washington, D.C., June 1984), about 54 percent of all covert action proposals in recent years have been rejected at the SCC and NSPG levels. Of those that made it to the president, about 15 percent were turned down.

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98 Covert Action and Accountability

branches. The wording of the 1980 Intelligence Oversight Act requires "prior no- tice" and this is indeed the expectation of at least some key members of the Intelli- gence Committees.

"The Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 provides that the Intelligence Commit- tees of Congress should be given prior notice of activities such as those involving the transfer of arms to Iran," states, unequivocably, the Chairman of the House Intelli- gence Committee (Hamilton, 1987:69). Recent DCIs, however, have hedged on this point. Admiral Turner (1985a:170) claims that the law does not always require advance notification, and his successor, William Casey, did his best to avoid a clear statement on this dispute over prior notice (and most other subjects).

Once the Committees learn of a finding (its invariably succinct wording bearing the president's signature is hand-carried to the Committees by the DCI or his designee), they must decide if and when they wish to receive details on the covert action. If either Committee wishes to hear more, the practice has been for the members to listen to an oral briefing without a written report (beyond the finding itself). The quality of these briefings has varied, usually depending upon how inter- ested the legislators are in asking questions and how well informed these questions (and follow-ups) prove to be (see Johnson, 1980b).

At the very first briefing on covert action presented to the newly established Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House of Representative's in 1978, Admiral Turner attempted-almost successfully-to prohibit a verbatim re- cording of the briefing by the Committee for its files and subsequent study. The Admiral said that such a record would present an unnecessary security risk. Repre- sentative Les Aspin (D, Wisconsin) objected and persuaded the Committee members that they and the staff could hardly carry out their oversight work thoroughly and responsibly without a clear record; relying on memory alone could lead to misunder- standings, elusiveness, and poor accountability. This "hard copy" proved invaluable to the Committee subsequently when it needed to compare new proposals against those the CIA already had underway (Aspin, 1980b). The Senate Committee also demanded a verbatim transcript.

Sometimes covert action briefings can last hours, spilling over to a second meeting; sometimes only minutes, when the operation is self-explanatory and noncontrover- sial, or when the legislators have had insufficient time or inclination to consider the proposal. Thorough briefings are more often the rule, because they take place infre- quently enough so as not to become too taxing on busy legislators; moreover, covert action has a certain aura of mystery, usually enticing enough to capture the interest of legislators and stimulate a series of questions (not always on the mark, to be sure). On one occasion in 1978, an annoyed Chairman of the House Intelligence Commit- tee, Edward P. Boland (D, Massachusetts), sent DCI Turner back to his Agency to prepare a briefing on a finding with more thoroughness than he seemed ready to provide at the time. Upon his return, the newly contrite Director offered a full- blown description of the details and implications of the project-sans the names of agents and sensitive methods, which are properly omitted.

The most egregious example of a poor briefing occurred in April of 1984-before the Iran-contra scandal, the lowest point in Senate-CIA relations since the intelli- gence investigations of 1975. In a briefing to the Senate Committee on covert action in Nicaragua, DCI Casey mentioned-inaudibly and all too quickly-that the Agency had escalated its operations in Nicaragua to include the mining of harbors (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1984:15). The President had approved this finding in February, but at least some members of the Senate Committee- probably most-remained unaware of the risky operation, which endangered not only Nicaraguan vessels but international shipping, including that of American al- lies. The CIA had briefed the House Committee fairly well (though only because of

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 99

persistent questioning by members on the details of secret operations in Nicaragua), and a few individual members of the Senate Committee; but when the full Senate Committee met (after several delays caused by legislative floor business, not the CIA), only one sentence in a briefing that lasted over an hour dealt with the mining and it had been mumbled in Casey's inimitable fashion. In the days that followed, the DCI tried to deflect questions on the subject by flatly denying that harbors had been mined. Only later did senators discover this was merely a subterfuge. Casey had relied on a technical distinction: the CIA had mined piers within the harbors.'4

Not even the Committee's chairman, Barry Goldwater (R, Arizona)-a reliable advocate for CIA proposals in the past-heard and understood the reference to mining. Later, when he learned of the operation from a member of his Committee who had requested an additional private briefing, he was furious and sent a letter to Casey. "It gets down to one, little, simple phrase," he wrote, "I am pissed off!"'5 Casey had managed a difficult feat: the alienation of one of the CIA's best and most powerful allies in the Congress. Possibly, as the Agency later argued, some of the Senate Committee members and staff had been inadequately alert during the brief- ing.'6 With his succinct reference to the mining, it may be true that Casey had honored the letter of the law-but, observes his predecessor, Admiral Turner (1985a: 168), "hardly the intent. . . . The CIA did go through the motions of informing, but it wasn't speaking very loudly."

About the secret arms sale to Iran in 1985 and the funneling of profits to the contras, the CIA failed to speak at all. Despite the 1980 Oversight Act, no report was provided to the Congress-indeed, by presidential order (Tower Commission, 1987:B-39, 67). The President evidently hoped to guarantee the secrecy of the arms deal by taking refuge in the ambiguous escape hatch found in the preamble to the 1980 Oversight Act, with its fleeting reference (among other ambiguities) to the right of the president to remain "consistent" with his constitutional authorities and duties (New York Times, 1987b; on these ambiguities, see Johnson, 1980a, 1985). The refusal to report was doubly disconcerting for the Senate Intelligence Committee, because after the mining flap Casey had entered into a series of "understandings" with the panel (communicated by letters) that henceforth he would report promptly, fully, and even audibly on all new covert actions, as well as on any notable changes in those already reported (Ottaway and Tyler, 1986:A1, AIO).

The arms-for-hostages deal was a shock to legislative overseers in another impor- tant respect: for the first time, a finding had been based on oral approval from the president with no written documentation (Inouye-Hamilton Committees, Report, 1987:379; New York Times, 1987a)-precisely the slippery accountability Hughes- Ryan had been designed to overcome. "The oversight process has been fractured," concluded the Vice-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Patrick Leahy (D, Vermont), in the wake of the Iran-contra disclosures (Brinkley, 1986).

Legislative Prerogatives

The CIA's covert action briefings are, by law, supposed to be provided when a "new" covert action is approved or, by custom, when a "significant change" to an existing program is made. Following a briefing, Committee members face a decision: how to react to the covert action already approved by the president and on the brink of implementation, if not already underway. Under current law, the Committees are

14 Interviews, staff, Intelligence Committees, April 1984 and JuLly 1986.

15 The letter was dated April 9, 1984.

16 Interviews with senior intelligence officials, including DCI Casey, Jutne 11, 1984, Langley, Virginia.

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not required to approve or disapprove a finding. The CIA must only report the finding to the Committees and, by custom, then inform the White House of any dissent. Failure to dissent, however, is widely regarded within the executive branch as tacit approval of the finding by the Congress. The briefing on a finding, therefore, takes on greater significance than other CIA briefings; the Committees, which meet in their separate chambers, must decide whether to place their tacit authority and reputation behind each covert action.

If members of the Intelligence Committees are displeased with the covert action, they may respond in a number of ways. One or more members may voice reserva- tions during the briefing and ask the CIA to make these objections known to the president. Obviously, the greater the number of those objecting, the more serious the negative response is apt to be taken in the White House. Exactly who is objecting is important too; if the dissenter is the chairman of the Committee or, worse yet for the executive branch, the chairman and the ranking minority member, here is a force to be reckoned with. To emphasize the seriousness of their opposition, one or more members of the Committees might formally write-or even visit-the president to stress why the project is ill-advised. A Committee may even decide to take a formal vote on a finding to register its feelings clearly, as the Senate Committee has done on a few occasions. At least twice a negative formal vote by the Senate Committee has caused a president to rescind his approval of a covert action (one instance reportedly involved the renewal of funding for the Christian Democratic Party in Italy'7).

So even though the Congress has no legal role in the approval of findings, it clearly has an opportunity to offer its critique of an operation. A formal negative vote by a committee-or even a tacit "veto"-may be ignored by the president, but he may have to pay a heavy political price in the future. He must continue to work with these Committees, and the CIA must come to them for budgetary requests and other items of business now that the Congress has insisted on greater involvement in the making of intelligence policy. The members of the Intelligence Committees, especially the senior ones, are not convenient enemies for the White House and the DCI to make. The power of the purse held by Congress remains a potent corrective to uncoopera- tive behavior in the executive branch. In 1978, the Senate Intelligence Committee terminated one covert action during the panel's review of the CIA's annual budget request simply by striking the monies designated for it.18

Either of the Committees may also take its opposition to the full house, which by the rules can meet in secret session to hear the case-though it is unlikely any project would remain "covert" with so many members hearing about it. Explicit resolutions before the parent chamber to terminate a covert action suffer the same problem: they lead to public exposure of a supposedly secret operation. Still, as illustrated by the Clark and the Hamilton amendments to curb covert action in Angola, as well as by the Boland amendments to restrict covert action in Nicaragua, Congress occa- sionally reaches a point of sufficient frustration over some policies that a majority of its members are prepared to hold a debate in the chamber and vote on a "covert" action. '9 The Reagan Administration even seemed to encourage publicity on selected

17Interviews, senior intelligence officials, November 1980, Washington, D.C.; see, also, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, (1977:2), and Gelb (1986). Former DIC Turner has said that, under congressional pressure, "three times Reagan signed, then cancelled, covert action operations" (1985b).

]8 Interview, staff aide, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, December 12, 1980, Washington, D.C. Most of the time, though, the Intelligence Committees have been supportive of the intelligence agencies, wvhose bhLdgets have reportedly tripled in the past decade (see Gelb, 1986).

19 Respectively: Section 118 of the International SecuLrity and Developmen-t Cooperation Act of 1980 (22 U.S.C. 2293 note); HR 4759; and Section 793 of the FY 1983 Defense Appropriations Act (P.L. 97-377). The Clark amendment was passed in 1975 and then repealed by the Reagan Administration; the Hamilton amen-dmen-t, an

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 101

"secret" operations (creating a new phenomenon, the "overt-covert operation"; Hamilton, 1987:69) as a way of generating pressure on legislators to fall in line behind a popular President.

Ultimately, any Committee member who hears a briefing (or one of the few staff- ers who have access) could return to his or her office and telephone a reporter about the finding. This "leak-item veto" could put a quick stop to the whole operation. It has been shown time and time again, though, that few leaks come from the Con- gress; most seep from the executive branch and its private-sector contractors, where far more individuals are aware of any given covert action, and where bureaucratic rivalries and slips of the tongue by presidents and their aides have been responsible for many a disclosure.

In sum, while the Congress has no direct authority over the approval of covert action, the very requirement of reporting on these operations serves as a deterrent against madcap proposals like those that surfaced within the intelligence bureauc- racy more easily in the past (for examples, see Johnson, 1988). As the Iran-contra case illustrates, though, stringent reporting requirements can produce an unintended incentive to bypass the established decision process. In most instances, however, a major force of congressional influence over covert action continues to be the "law of anticipated reactions," which Carl Friedrich knew to be so important in all executive- legislative relations; the potential for negative reaction on Capitol Hill can have a sobering effect on most bureaucrats who must obtain funding from the Congress- even if occasional disregard of statutory prohibitions (like the Iran-contra affair) proves that this "law" is by no means made of iron. If a sufficient number on an intelligence committee (presumably a majority, or at least an intense minority) ob- jects to a particular operation, a prudent chief executive might well have second thoughts about what he believed was going to be a "quiet" option. The indictment by an independent special prosecutor, in March of 1988, of four individuals involved in the Iran-contra operations-including President Reagan's assistant for national secu- rity affairs, Vice Admiral Poindexter-should provide in the future an additional dimension to Friedrich's law of bureaucratic restraint.

Potential for Abuse

Though largely invisible to the general public and to most elected representatives as well, the decision process for covert action has nonetheless matured since 1975 into a complex matrix of check-points and overseers-too much so from the perspective of most intelligence professionals. "What we have is covert action by national consen- sus," complained a recent CIA Deputy Director for Operations.20 This section fur- ther explores the possibility of the abuse of power by the CIA in its conduct of covert action, despite the more rigorous forms of oversight now in place.

The approval process for covert action can be time-consuming, exhausting, and nerve-wracking. One recent project was conceived in May of one year but not carried out until February of the next. In another instance involving a terrorist hijacking of an airplane, a counter-terrorist team in a NATO country requested help from the CIA. The team sought expert advice from the United States on how to blow out the door of the airliner without harming passengers inside, a skill the CIA and one other Western intelligence agency had developed to a high degree. The CIA station in the

attempt to reinstate the prohibition- against covert action in Angola, failed on September 17, 1986. Congress passed a series of six Boland amendments between 1982 and 1986; for an outline of these var-ious measures, see Kissinger- (1987:V1).

20 Interview, June 11, 1984, Washington, D.C.

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102 Covert Action and Accountability

NATO country cabled Headquarters for permission to help in this covert action. The hours passed. Finally, two days later, with still no decision from the United States, the NATO nation turned to the other Western intelligence agency, which responded affirmatively over the telephone on the first call. Within a few hours, paramilitary commandos from this agency were enroute to the hijacked plane and soon successfully blew off the door for the counterterrorist team.21

For intelligence professionals, the conclusion to be drawn is obvious: U.S. intelli- gence has been paralyzed, or at least maimed, by oppressive layers of decision- makers and overseers brought on by congressional inquiries and investigative jour- nalism run wild. The new circumspection has also produced, according to some intelligence officials, an avalanche of required paperwork for even the most minor operations and has spread a deep sense of caution throughout the intelligence hier- archy-overcome only partially by President Reagan's efforts to "unleash" the U.S. community. No CIA official wants to be the focus of the next congressional inquiry.

This attitude of restraint is, from one viewpoint, laudable; excesses of the past might now be less likely. The nation, though, can ill afford to have a crippled intelligence service in situations that require bold and prompt action. The intelli- gence bureaucrats make a strong case against "micromanagement"-too many exec- utive and legislative policymakers enmeshed in the small wheels of covert action and other delicate operations best left to professionals. "The CIA needs horsepowver!" emphasizes a former high official, discouraged by the 1980 Oversight Act and other restraints on intelligence (Cline, 1987).

A case can also be made, however, that too much discretion exists in some parts of the chain of command. Senator Church (1975) concluded at one point in his investi- gation that the CIA had lost control of its clandestine operations; it had become, in his words, "a rogue elephant on the rampage." In 1983, after chairing the House Intelligence Committee for six years, Representative Boland observed similarly that the CIA was "almost like a rogue elephant, doing what it wanted to" (Oberdofer, 1983:13). These harsh judgments came from a deep sense of frustration over what the key legislators had found to be dangerous CIA excesses: in the instance of Church, the assassination plots with their Mafia connections, domestic spying (Oper- ation CHAOS), and sequestered shellfish toxins despite a presidential order to de- stroy them (among other things); and in the instance of Boland-well before he learned of the Iran-contra end run-efforts by the CIA to circumvent his amend- ments limiting paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.

The past and present validity of the "rogue elephant" hypothesis remains a lively debate, but the potential for covert action command-and-control abuses is widely acknowledged. As the diversion of funds to the contras outside the view of legislative overseers demonstrates, opportunities clearly exist to encourage covert actions even when they have been expressly restricted by the Congress. To achieve its goal of overthrowing the Sandinista regime-despite the Boland amendments to limit fur- ther spending on paramilitary operations in Nicaragua-the Reagan Administration urged Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Brunei, among other nations, to supply weapons and funding to the contras, lobbied wealthy American civilians for additional funds, "borrowed" weapons from the Pentagon for the operations (since the CIA was prohibited from supplying weapons under the Boland law), gave gov- ernment monies to the contras beyond the legislatively imposed limits, and assigned a NSC staffer experienced in guerrilla warfare-Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, one of those indicated by the special prosecutor in 1988-to provide paramilitary guidance (see Turner, 1985c; Tower Commission, 1987:111-13; Inouye and Hamilton Commit- tees, Report, 1987:138-39).

21 Interviews, CIA officials, November 1980, Washington, D.C.

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Although the 1980 Oversight Act explicitly covers any "entity" in the government involved in intelligence activities, the Reagan Administration attempted to argue that the NSC was excluded from intelligence reporting requirements. This raised the possibility that to elude the Congress the executive branch might call upon any number of other unexpected agencies to carry out covert action, say, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA, which in fact did become involved in the Iranian arms- for-hostages scheme; Inouye and Hamilton Committees, Report, 1987:361-66). Or the executive branch might bypass the government altogether by establishing an outside intelligence capability funded not through the appropriations process but by wealthy foreigners and private U.S. citizens (as also occurred during the Iran-contra affair)-the so-called "privatization" of covert action. Were these extraordinary methods of bypassing the normal appropriations process allowed to continue, it would spell the end of constitutional controls over American intelligence.

A further difficulty arises in the lower echelons of the CIA, where sometimes covert actions have taken a direction unauthorized from above. Individuals working for this Agency, as in any other organization, may simply ignore properly authorized policies, guidelines, directives, orders, and laws promulgated by the Congress, the president, and the DCI. The notorious Nicaraguan assassination manual is only a recent example (House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 1985:15; New York Times, 1984: 1).

A constant quandary in the CIA, as in every other bureaucracy, has been how to control overzealousness or plain unlawfulness at lower echelons less visible to the public, to the Congress, and to the bureau chiefs themselves. This difficulty is magni- fied in the intelligence community where agencies are virtually invisible to the public from top to bottom. Commenting on this problem during the Carter years, a senior official in the Operations Directorate said with some anguish and with particular reference to his paramilitary cadre: "What do you do with the firehorses when there's no fire!" Ruthless former Somosa National Guardsmen now in the contra army in Nicaragua, Mafia hitmen, and ideologically fervent Cuban exiles have num- bered among the CIA assets who have proved difficult if not impossible to control (not to mention a few CIA officers, like Edwin P. Wilson and Edward Less Howard, who have sold weapons and secrets to terrorist groups and enemy intelligence ser- vices).22

Further, career incentives and other bureaucratic pressures can lead to covert action plans merely to justify the existence of paramilitary cadres, covert action case officers, and their global infrastructure. A former senior CIA administrator points to the "bureaucratization" of this mission as an unfortunate development within the Agency: "In the early years it was a bunch of ex-OSS officers who were, in effect, free-lancers. But when it became institutionalized and [the CIA] began recruiting junior people from the Ivy League, training them, setting them upon career pat- terns, one began to create incentives and bureaucratic pressure for routine covert- action operations. . . it was a great incentive, because of the bureaucratization of covert action, to create a "Communist menace." 23

Successful control over covert action seems to depend heavily upon the attitudes of the men and women in the national security establishment, and the leeway that they are given by the public and its representatives. The interplay between the two can be complex. Sometimes the public seems willing to allow wide discretion in the use of

22 On the Mafia connection, see the ChuLrch Committee (1975b); on the difficulty of controlling CuLban assets, see Wyden (1979); and on CIA defection-s and related counterin-telligence pr-oblems, see Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1986) ancd the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (1987b).

23 Interview conducted by the Church Commiiittee staff, Washington, D.C., May 21, 1975 (ChuLrch Committee files, U.S. Sen-ate).

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104 Covert Action and Accountability

America's secret power. In an attempt to achieve leeway, the White House may try to stimulate a sense of crisis and affect the public's perception of external events. The preoccupation of the Reagan Administration with the Soviet threat, U.S. vulnerabili- ties, and tumult in the developing world seems to have created, to some degree, a public uneasiness about America's security and an increased tolerance for the use of covert and overt force abroad. Sometimes public anxiety springs directly from media reports about events that present danger to the United States, as with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In such instances, questions of accountability and civil liberties may be displaced by concern for order and security. The internment of American citizens of Japanese descent following the attack on Pearl Harbor is a classic illustration.

In contrast, the public may express dissatisfaction with the unchecked use of intelligence agencies. When an intelligence agency (or any other government organi- zation) has been proven to be a lawbreaker without credible justification, or in some other way has transgressed acceptable boundaries, a period of public criticism and bureaucratic retrenchment sets in. During the Carter Administration, intelligence officers commented frequently that "in the prevailing atmosphere" strong pressures existed inside and outside the CIA to tighten command-and-control and reduce as much as possible any risk of further controversy. When asked if the CIA would scrupulously follow the Hughes-Ryan reporting requirements, the Deputy Director for Operations responded in 1978 with a resounding, "Yes! I'm not going to jail!"24 Within the National Security Council, President Carter's assistant for national secu- rity affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski (1987), recalls that withholding information about important covert actions from the President (as Admiral Poindexter claims to have done in the Reagan Administration) ". . . simply didn't occur to us. There was, if you will, a legalistic, an ethical mind-set which simply precluded that as a possibility."

Ransom has argued (1987:43) persuasively that when a foreign-policy consensus exists, as with the staunch anti-Soviet mood of the 1950s, the intelligence agencies are given greater discretion. Recently, such consensus has been lacking, despite efforts by the Reagan Administration to speak with alarm about the dangers of Soviet global machinations, and the intelligence agencies have felt the close eye of reformers-doubly so since the Iran-contra revelations. Real or contrived threats from abroad can lead, in a word, to public tolerance for intelligence discretion; in contrast, an absence of perceived threat, or the presence of a scandal involving the intelligence agencies, can result in a call for tighter controls.

"With today's supervision, and with the command structure trying to keep things straight, the people in CIA know what they should do and what they should not do- as distinct from the fifties, in which there were no particular rules," former DCI Colby has stated (1978:114). "If CIA people today are told to violate their limits, or if they are tempted to violate those limits, one of thejunior officers will surely raise that question and tell the command structure, and, if not satisfied there, he will tell the Congress, and, if not satisfied there, he will tell the press, and that is the way you control it." The Iran-contra disclosures demonstrate that this control system is far from perfect; but the checks now in place-and the added warnings to future ad- ministrations from the 1987 congressional investigations and the criminal indict- ments handed down by a special prosecutor in 1988-sum to a vastly more serious effort to supervise covert action than was even remotely attempted before 1975.

Conclusion

From 1947 to 1974, covert actions were decided upon and conducted in a setting of limited accountability; but with the passage of the Hughes-Ryan Act in December of

24 Remarks (February 24, 1978), Langley, Virginia.

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1974, the decision process was made much more formal with the inclusion of several new actors in the authorization and monitoring of this policy option. From 1975 to 1980, Congress and the Carter Administration further tightened the controls over covert action, which culminated in the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980. For better or worse, covert action had been democratized, with representatives of the people in Congress now more closely involved in its supervision.

Insufficient accountability continues to create problems even with the rigor of the new procedures, as illustrated by the harbor mining and the assassination manuals in Nicaragua, and, most conspicuously, by the Iran-contra affair. Short of further clari- fying congressional reporting expectations and instituting legal sanctions against those who lie to the Intelligence Committees (or withhold the truth, which amounts to the same thing), the existing oversight procedures seem to have struck an appro- priate balance between control and discretion. The larger problem lies in the unwill- ingness of some executive officials to honor the procedures and, as the Inouye- Hamilton Committees put it, to "deal in a spirit of good faith with the Congress" (Report, 1987:383). When asked by congressional investigators why he had withheld information from the Intelligence Committees about the secret sale of arms to Iran, Vice Admiral Poindexter responded: "I simply didn't want any outside interference" (Inouye-Hamilton Committees, Hearings, July 15, 1987, vol. 8:159).

While the new procedures have worked for the overwhelming majority of covert actions, they have been most likely to be ignored by the executive branch in its planning and implementation of paramilitary operations, as the Iran-contra affair vividly illustrates. In their investigations of this scandal, the Inouye-Hamilton Com- mittees and the Tower Commission revealed weak links throughout the covert action chain of command. President Reagan delayed reporting to the Congress on the Iran arms sale far beyond the intent of the 1980 Oversight Act; DCI Casey, the Presi- dent's close friend and political ally, went along with this failure to report (perhaps advocated it) and seems to have encouraged the questionable exploits of Lt. Col. North, as well as efforts to establish private funding for covert action; top CIA Operations Directorate personnel participated in the diversion of funds to the con- tras, even though they realized this represented a violation of the Boland amend- ment; several officials, including Operations Directorate personnel and the Depart- ment of State's assistant secretary for Latin America, misled the Congress about the existence of these operations; and the CIA's chief-of-station in Costa Rica aided the contra army, again in violation of the Boland law. A decade earlier, the Church Committee revealed other startling examples of CIA case officers exceeding proper limits-one of whom went so far as to hire Mafia hitmen in an attempt to kill Castro. The apparently unauthorized distribution of assassination manuals in Nicaragua by a case officer in 1984 provides a further illustration.

Irregularities at the top of the chain of command are the most alarming, for there people with great power can do much mischief. This is the link that deserves the closest scrutiny by overseers. Yet consistently the weakest link-that is, where the new rules of accountability are most likely to be ignored-seems to be at the bottom, beneath the case officers, at the level of agents in the field. Here is where rogue elephants are most likely to roam, far away from the rules and regulations of Head- quarters and the Washington community; here are the sometimes unsavory and unpredictable soldiers-of-fortune-such as the Mafia hitmen, factions within the Afghan mujahedeen accused of shooting down civilian aircraft and selling CIA weap- ons to Iran, and the former Somosa national guardsmen among the contras-who often have personal agendas that may or may not be in tune with NSC directives.

Like original sin, covert action is unlikely to disappear. Presidents, regardless of their ideological persuasions, are apt to find the quiet option an attractive alternative to the overt use of force. In light of this reality, the objective must not be to ban

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106 Covert Action and Accountability

covert action but as far as possible to bring it within a democratic framework. The remedies are clear, though difficult: at every level of the chain accountability will depend upon, as always, clear guidelines, timely and candid reporting, honest offi- cials, and dedicated, responsible overseers willing to invest the necessary time to provide adequate supervision-through hearings, audits, inspections, and less for- mal discussions with intelligence officials.

Beyond these efforts to find a proper balance between micromanagement, on the one hand, and insufficient management, on the other, lies a broader policy question on which the use of covert action directly depends: To what extent should the United States intervene in the affairs of other countries, especially through hidden means that hold limited opportunity for open debate? While Americans continue to wrestle with this difficult question, friends of democracy may take some comfort in the knowledge that judgments about the use of America's secret foreign policy are now more likely to be made with the participation of elected representatives in Congress and not by the president and his clandestine agencies alone.

Appendix

The author has been conducting interviews since 1975 with CIA officials knowledg- able about covert action and other intelligence subjects, first as a congressional inves- tigator on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the Church Committee), then as an aide on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (the Boland Committee), and, since 1979, as a university researcher. The interviews are hard to characterize, for they have been of many forms and lengths. Some have been full-blown, in-depth sessions lasting several hours and probing the nuances of the entire subject of covert action: history, definitions, targets, modus operandi, decision paths, accountability, ethics. Others have been less extensive, either because the official's time was limited or because the purpose was to probe only a specific aspect of the subject (say, CIA-State Department coordination for propaganda operations). Needless to say, no classified information derived from these interviews-the details of specific operations, or sources and methods-is included here; the staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence kindly read an earlier draft of this study to check for the presence of any classified information the author might have inadvertently included.

In the twelve years from 1975 to 1987, the author probed the subject of covert action with 158 CIA, Department of State, and congressional officials. Of these, seventy-four were affiliated with the CIA: thirty-five on active duty and the rest retired. Their positions ranged from directors of the CIA through every major covert action position down to case officers, former secretaries of state through desk officers, and members of Congress and their staff. The rule of thumb used to select people for interviews was simple: the higher up in the hierarchy the better, but anyone knowledgeable about the subject who would speak.

The interview sessions took place in private homes, Washington offices and restau- rants, CIA Headquarters (where as a scholar the author has occasionally lectured and attended conferences), and in hotel rooms in between panels at conferences (no hospital bedsides). In each instance, the author asked the respondent to comment on the issues that comprise this study: the types and targets of covert action, how the decision to use covert action is reached, how the operations are supervised, and the like. Intelligence officers will not respond to an overly formal set of questions on the subject (certainly not a written questionnaire), at least not in any insightful fashion. The author discovered early that the best approach was to raise general questions about the decision process and then proceed in a conversational tone-staying away from highly sensitive topics like the details of specific operations abroad (which were

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LOCH K. JOHNSON 107

of no interest to the author's purpose, a scholarly examination of the decision paths and the extent of accountability for covert action).

Though the attempt was made to be conversational, these sessions were far more than "conversations." The author always had in mind, and gently directed the inter- views toward, the subjects covered in this study. Notes were almost always taken during the interviews, except for three occasions in which a tape-recorder was per- mitted. Immediately after the interviews, the author would find a quiet place to write down further recollections of the responses. Each of the observations presented in this study has been substantiated by at least three independent interviews with indi- viduals holding relevant institutional positions within the government.

With rare exception, those interviewed insisted on anonymity-an instinct based on a career of hidden identity. This, of course, raises serious methodological ques- tions of the kind that have emerged over the reliability of Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's study of the CIA under Director William J. Casey (1987). Since most CIA officials refuse to be identified in print, and since this Agency is too important for scholars to ignore, methodology presents a dilemma. For some, the answer is straightforward: any subject that cannot hold up to the normal canons of falsifiability is unworthy of scrutiny by academicians. Studies must lend themselves to replication. For the most part the author shares this view, but intelligence policy seems to be a special case. Here the best the researcher can do is try to reduce the need for anonymity to the lowest possible level and then supplement anonymous interviews with as much other information as can be unearthed. Even then, one is left with some findings that simply cannot be replicated in the usual way. In these instances, the accuracy and integrity of the researcher's other writings serve as one guide to his or her reliability; moreover, other researchers can try to interview intelligence officials about covert action to see if comparable responses are forthcom- ing-one form of replication (more and more of this is now being done; see, for example, Treverton, 1987).

A final word is in order on the possible biases of those interviewed. Virtually all the CIA respondents were clearly biased, as former or current practitioners, in favor of covert action. To one degree or another, they thought it worked. For the purposes here, though, these biases are largely irrelevant; by cross-checking the various inter- views with each other and with materials in the public domain, the author believes he has obtained a reliable account of what he set out to understand: how the United States decides upon and supervises (or fails to supervise) the so-called "quiet option."

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