textfiles/politics/splitcia

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*[ Split the CIA in Two Parts! ]*
Marchetti: (continued)
One, the good CIA so to speak, would collect and analyze
information. The other part, in the dirty tricks business,
would be very small and very tightly controlled by Congress and
the White House, and if possible, some kind of a public board so
that it didn't get out of control.
My theory is, and I've proved it over and over again along
with other people, is that the basic reason for secrecy is not
to keep the enemy from knowing what you're doing.
He knows what you're doing because he's the target of it, and
he's not stupid. The reason for the CIA to hide behind secrecy
is to keep the public, and in particular the American public,
from knowing what they're doing.
This is done so that the President can deny that we were
responsible for sabotaging some place over in Lebanon where a lot
of people were killed. So that the President can deny, period.
Here is a good example:
President Eisenhower denied we were involved in attempts to
overthrow the Indonesian government in 1958 until the CIA guys
got caught and the Indonesians produced them. He looked like
a fool. So did the N.Y. Times and everybody else who believed
him. That is the real reason for secrecy.
There is a second reason for secrecy. That is that if the public
doesn't know what you are doing you can lie to them because they
don't know what the truth is.
This is a very bad part of the CIA because this is where you
get not only propaganda on the American people but actually
disinformation, which is to say lies and falsehoods, peddled to
the American public as the truth and which they accept as gospel.
That's wrong. It's not only wrong, its a lie and it allows the
government and those certain elements of the government that can
hide behind secrecy to get away with things that nobody knows about.
If you carefully analyze all of these issues that keep coming up in
Congress over the CIA, this is always what is at the heart of it:
That the CIA lied about it, or that the CIA misrepresented something,
or the White House did it, because the CIA and the White House
work hand in glove.
The CIA is not a power unto itself. It is an instrument of power.
A tool. A very powerful tool which has an influence on
whoever is manipulating it.