International Journal of Intelligence and

CounterIntelligence

ISSN: 0885-0607 (Print) 1521-0561 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujic20

(C)overt Action: The Disappearing "C"

FREDERICK L. WETTERING

To cite this article: FREDERICK L. WETTERING (2003) (C)overt Action: The Disappearing
"C", International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 16:4, 561-572, DOI:
10.1080/716100474

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/716100474

Published online: 02 Feb 2011.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 438

View related articles

Citing articles: 4 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ujic20
International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 16: 561–572, 2003
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Inc.
ISSN: 0885-0607 print/1521-0561 online
DOI: 10.1080/08850600390229341

FREDERICK L. WETTERING

[C]overt Action: The Disappearing ‘‘C’’

Office of Strategic Services (OSS) veteran Frank Wisner, who created and
headed the Office of Special Operations (OSO), is quoted as describing his
covert action (CA) mechanisms as his ‘‘mighty Wurlitzer,’’ a covert action
organ that could play propaganda, political and economic action, labor
and student activities, and paramilitary operations, at his direction. This
office was ordered into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by General
Walter Bedell Smith in 1952, but nevertheless, for fifteen years, sat as an
autonomous operations unit outside the control of the line area division
commanders of the Deputy Director of Plans (DDP). These DDP leaders
saw themselves the successors of the OSS, incorporated initially as the
Office of Special Operations in 1948, then as the Deputy Directorate for
Plans, and finally as the Directorate for Operations (DO).
Wisner’s ‘‘mighty Wurlitzer’’ has almost completely disappeared, and with
it most of the CIA’s covert action capability. Much of the covert action
methodology has been passed on to overt organizations which receive
public funding. As a result of ‘‘flaps’’—covert action failures embarrassing
to the political leadership — covert operations have been subjected to far
greater scrutiny both within the CIA and without, and in Congress, and
authorization for them has been made far more difficult to obtain. Further,
CA actions have been banned by new laws and Executive Orders.

Frederick L. Wettering, a retired Central Intelligence Agency operations

officer, managed clandestine operations in Europe and Africa for more than
three decades. After serving as a senior director for Africa for the National
Security Council from 1981–1984, he became the CIA’s National Intelligence
Officer for Africa from 1985–1987. Later, he was assigned to the U.S.
Department of Energy as a counterintelligence advisor and liaison with the
CIA. Mr. Wettering is now a consultant to government and business on
counterintelligence and counterterrorism.

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 4 561

562 FREDERICK L. WETTERING

Bureaucratic warfare from the mainstream elements of the DDP=DO

eventually eliminated or absorbed the CA infrastructure and made service
in the CA Staff (the successor name to the OSO, also from time to time
called the International Organization staff) a career killer for young DO
officers. Veteran CA specialists were pensioned off and not replaced.
Bureaucratic warfare from other United States government agencies has
resulted in encroachment upon the CIA’s exclusive control of CA
functions and turf. Even those recent CA operations still under CIA
control have become overt through leakage and media exposure.
Among the developments which have led to the breakdown of Wisner’s
Wurlitzer are public exposure, embarrassment, and legal and political
curtailment; transfer of CA functions to overt organizations; and
bureaucratic politics, within both the CIA and the rest of the U.S.
government.

PUBLIC EXPOSURE, EMBARRASSMENT, AND LEGAL AND POLITICAL

CURTAILMENT
Despite an embarrassing failure in a paramilitary operation in Indonesia in
1958 and the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, the CIA’s covert action capability
remained relatively free from exposure troubles until 1967, when a series of
articles by Ramparts magazine exposed a major portion of the CA Staff’s
covert action empire, the cultural and propaganda assets around the
Congress for Cultural Freedom, including media outlets such as the
London-based Encounter magazine and Forum World Features Service,
and youth and student activities involving the U.S. National Student
Association and the World Assembly of Youth. These exposés were
quickly followed by an ‘‘outing’’ of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty,
and the Free Europe Foundation as CIA-controlled mechanisms.
As a result, Congress removed RFE=RL from the CIA’s control in 1972
and funded it overtly, establishing a Board of International Broadcasting
(later changed to the Broadcasting Board of Governors) of the United
States Information Agency. Laws were passed greatly circumscribing the
CIA’s use of U.S. organizations for operations, and precluding the CIA
from inserting propaganda into media outlets that might be expected to
receive coverage in the U.S. domestic media. A clear signal was sent by
Congress which CIA managers received: propaganda activities risked
violating these new laws and were to be avoided, except in very rare
circumstances. The CIA’s global propaganda infrastructure, a vital part of
the Wurlitzer, was quietly terminated.
In Vietnam, the CIA’s early and effective paramilitary program of
supporting highland villagers was quickly taken over by the military and
given to the Army’s Special Forces. Similarly, paramilitary operations into

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

[C]OVERT ACTION: THE DISAPPEARING ‘‘C’’ 563

North Vietnam were put into the military’s covert Special Operations Group.
The CIA received the consolation prize of exclusive paramilitary turf in Laos,
where a highly publicized program of support to the Hmong people
devastated Soviet-supported Laotian elements but, in turn, was eventually
wiped out by North Vietnamese regular forces. In the course of this
program, a CIA air proprietary, Air America, became publicly exposed.

Harmful Exposures
The years 1974 and 1975 were filled with exposés which did terrible damage
to the CIA’s CA infrastructure. First came the retirement of Jay Lovestone
from the AFL-CIO’s International Office. Thanks to the militant anti-
Communism of the AFL’s leadership, particularly George Meany and
David Dubinsky, American labor had fought Communist involvement in
world labor from 1945. Lovestone, together with his lieutenant Irving
Brown, had a magnificent record of successful covert labor operations in
Europe and elsewhere, and had been a collaborator with CIA’s CA Staff
from its OSO onset in 1948. While CIA-organized labor collaboration
would continue, it would not have the intimacy it had with Lovestone’s
office. 1 Next came exposés by The Washington Post and The New York
Times, alleging CIA murder plots and domestic operations (the so-called
‘‘Chaos’’ operations), which led to investigations in the House of
Representatives (the Pike Committee) and the Senate (the Church
Committee). Members of both of these committees leaked their final
reports, which contained sensational top secret information provided by
William E. Colby, the then Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). Details
of a series of CIA covert political and economic actions in Chile in 1970–
1973 were made public. At the same time, a disgruntled CIA DO officer,
Philip Agee, wrote — possibly with the help of hostile intelligence
services — an extremely detailed account of his CIA career, naming names
of agents and contacts throughout Latin America. Among others, leaks
alleging CIA connections to the American Institute for Free Labor
Development and ORIT, the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU) regional office in Latin America, further damaged the
CIA’s labor operations capability.2

Restrictions Galore
Reacting to revelations made to the Pike and Church Committees, Congress
passed new legislation making it nearly impossible to conduct future CA
operations. The Hughes-Ryan Amendment of 30 December 1974
mandated that any CIA covert action proposal must be considered by six
committees of Congress, a total of 163 senators and congressmen, plus
their staffs. By 1980, through the creation of the permanent Senate and
House oversight committees, the number of committees and congressmen

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 4

564 FREDERICK L. WETTERING

required to be in the loop was significantly reduced. In addition, the Hughes-

Ryan Amendment required the President to submit a written ‘‘finding’’ to the
Congress stating his authorization of the proposed clandestine action,
together with detailed information in a ‘‘scope note’’ and other papers.
Through these congressional actions, covert action became nearly
impossible. With so many people in Washington ‘‘witting’’ (informed) of
covert actions, they were bound to leak, and did. As a practical result, the
CIA became very gun-shy of CA. Both Congress and CIA directors also
placed certain occupations, including journalists, for use as ‘‘cover’’ for
clandestine operations, out of bounds and required that U.S. persons be
made aware of CIA sponsorship before being used, recruited, or even
debriefed. Then, President Gerald R. Ford issued an Executive Order
banning assassinations or even involvement with groups planning
assassinations.
To add to a bad decade, in 1977 newly elected President Jimmy Carter
appointed Admiral Stansfield Turner as DCI. Turner had no love of the
DO in general, or CA in particular. I personally recall briefing Turner on
one proposed covert operation in Africa, an aerial reconnaissance, as a
result of a Cuban-sponsored invasion into southern Zaire in 1978. Turner
opposed it and made several other suggestions, none of which proved
feasible, before grudgingly authorizing the first reconnaissance flight. He
insisted on retaining a personal ‘‘go=no go’’ control over each flight. As it
turned out, these flights proved vital in saving Western lives in the
threatened area.
Turner was instrumental in allowing the covert action cadre of specialists
to disappear, causing major problems in 1979 when President Carter ‘‘got
religion’’ regarding CA and demanded a paramilitary program to assist the
Afghan mujaheddin in its battle against the Soviet Union. As a result of
the decline of the paramilitary cadre, much of the CIA’s CA effort was
perforce using foreign ‘‘friends’’ such as the Pakistani intelligence service,
the ISI.3

Flops
The list of unsuccessful covert action which has altered both public and
bureaucratic perception of the wisdom of CA programs is unfortunately
long. Among the notable failures in the public record are: northern
Burma=China (1949–1961); Indonesia (Operation ARCHIPELAGO, 1958);
Bay of Pigs (Operation ZAPATA, 1961); Syria (Operation STRAGGLE,
1957); Tibet (1959–1968); Zaire (1960–1965); Angola (Operation
FEATURE, 1975); Lebanon (1985); Cuba (Operation MONGOOSE,
1962–1965); Chile (1970–1973); Libya (Operations FLOWER and TULIP,
1984–1986); Nicaragua (1981–1986); Iraq (1996); Laos (1961–1972); and
the early paramilitary programs into Eastern Europe in the 1951–1953

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

[C]OVERT ACTION: THE DISAPPEARING ‘‘C’’ 565

period.4 Even some successful covert actions have come under criticism for
what is sometimes called the ‘‘blowback factor.’’ The overthrow of leftist
governments in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954), and the supply of
Stinger missiles and other arms to the mujaheddin in Afghanistan (1979–
1986) have come under criticism as having negative longer-term effects.

Public Notice
The 1980s and 1990s saw even more disclosures of covert actions. Major
paramilitary operations such as in Angola, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan
were impossible to keep secret. Indeed, Congress insisted on debating such
‘‘covert’’ assistance in open sessions. Bob Woodward’s book, Veil: The
Secret Wars of the CIA, published in 1987, disclosed dozens of previously
unpublicized or little publicized covert actions during the presidency of
Ronald Reagan.5 Professors Ernest May and Roy Godson, both esteemed
intelligence scholars, spoke for many when they concluded that keeping
covert actions secret was almost impossible, given the current rulebook.6
Godson went on to conclude that CA operations should occur only when
the authorizing authority can stand the pain of disclosure, and when there
is consensus between the Executive and Congress on the interest being
served. Godson considered only counterterrorism and counterproliferation
covert actions as meeting these requirements today.

An Obsolete Concept
Covert action secrecy is a thing of the past. Articles and books on a long list
of identified covert actions, sometimes complete with CIA codename, have
appeared in the news media. Major daily newspapers such as The
Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times have
reporters who specialize in covering the intelligence community, and
regularly report on CIA secrets, as does The Washington Times through
the columns of Bill Gertz, probably the best connected journalist of them
all into intelligence secrets. A classic example was the leaking in 1996 of a
CA plan to remove Iran’s fundamentalist leaders, reported by New York
Times reporter and intelligence specialist Tim Weiner on 26 January 1996.
The article was appropriately titled, ‘‘US Plan to Oust Iran’s Leaders Is an
Open Secret Before It Begins.’’
Beyond this, there is a cottage industry of anti-CIA advocates whose
findings appear regularly in such publications as the Covert Action
Information Bulletin (now called Covert Action Quarterly). Intelligence
abounds on Websites: at www.clandestineradio.com readers can check
covert radio broadcasts, including frequencies and sponsors, while at
www.globalsecurity.org, readers can check out the latest satellite imagery,
including images of U.S. bases in the Middle East. An increasing number
of former CIA officers have gone public in one medium or another. In

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 4

566 FREDERICK L. WETTERING

Search of Enemies by ex-CIA officer John Stockwell in 1978 described a 1975

Angola covert action in damaging detail.7 Increased congressional oversight
and executive branch oversight has vastly increased the number of people
‘‘witting’’ of covert actions. Those opposed to a proposed action have been
known to attempt to kill the program by leaking it. This is unlikely to
change; indeed, intelligence scholars such as Professor Loch K. Johnson
advocate increased congressional vigilance over covert action.8

TRANSFER OF CA FUNCTIONS TO OVERT ORGANIZATIONS

As a result of the public exposure of CIA’s sponsorship of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty, Congress in 1972 acted to publicly fund these
institutions. While given some autonomy, they were placed under U.S.
Information Agency supervision through a Broadcasting Board of
Governors (BBG). By 1999, the BBG had assumed responsibility for all
U.S. international broadcasting, including the Voice of America, Radio
and TV Marti, and the new Radio Free Asia and Radio Sawa (servicing
the Middle East). Despite being overt U.S. government entities, these
outlets have been credited with playing a major role in the 1989 collapse of
Communism in Eastern Europe. While precluded from broadcasting false
information, these media do naturally push the U.S. ‘‘line,’’ making them
the nation’s premier propaganda organs.

The National Endowment for Democracy

In 1983, President Reagan created the National Endowment for Democracy
to promote democracy worldwide. This publicly funded but private
or g a n i z a t i on , w h a t t he B r i t i s h wo ul d c a l l a ‘ ‘ qu a n g o’ ’ ( q ua s i -
nongovernmental organization), has four subsidiary organizations: the
International Republican Institute (IRI), closely connected to the
Republican Party; the National Democratic Institute (NDI), closely
connected to the Democrat Party; the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI),
closely connected to the AFL-CIO; and the Center for International
Private Enterprise, closely connected to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
During the period fiscal year 1996–1997, the NED disbursed $99 million in
public funds: $56 million of this went to the four subsidiary organizations,
and $30 million went to 647 NED grants, fellowships, and discretionary
programs, including its magazine, the Journal of Democracy.9
The NED has taken over most of the covert political action activities
formerly performed by the CIA. The NDI and IRI aggressively support
democratic and non-Communist political parties in elections. Critics charge
that the NED organizations were instrumental in funding and supporting
the victory of Violetta Chamorro against Daniel Ortega in 1989–1990 in
Nicaragua, and again in 1996. 10 And an insightful article by Michael

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

[C]OVERT ACTION: THE DISAPPEARING ‘‘C’’ 567

Dobbs in The Washington Post of 11 December 2000, ‘‘U.S. Campaign

Tactics Toppled Milosevic,’’ credits the NED organizations with
organizing, funding, and supporting the election campaign in Yugoslavia
in 1999–2000 which unseated incumbent Slobodan Milosevic. Some of this
support included posters, stickers, tee-shirts, and instructions on organizing
street rallies. NED-funded polling data was also provided to the
opposition; in other words, classic political CA, except that it is now overt.
Another example of replacing CIA action is the FTUI’s support of the
American Institute for Free Labor Development, which, according to
Phillip Agee and others, was closely connected to the CIA in the 1960s and
1970s. 11 Thomas Henricksen notes that NED election operations in
Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia were instrumental in turning
out Communist leaders in the 1990s. 12 An NED program in Zimbabwe
was proudly described by a State Department official in 2002 as designed
to bring about the fall of the incumbent government of President Robert
Mugabe.13 In 2002, the NED was active in Venezuela, supporting political
opponents of President Hugo Chavez. The FTUI supported the
Venezuelan labor federation CTV in its efforts to resist infiltration by pro-
Chavez elements, while the IRI supported the opposition political parties
COPEI and Primo Justicia.14 A list of NED global programs, available on
their websites, reflects an impressive program of overt political action.15

The State Department’s Role

A very recent development is the involvement of the U.S. State Department
in political and paramilitary action in Iraq. In the Iraq Liberation Act of
1998, Congress authorized $97 million (and more, subsequently) to
overthrow Saddam Hussein, and gave the State Department control over
much of it. Reportedly, there was a parallel CIA covert action as well.16
State Department officials then began passing funds to Iraqi dissident
parties; funding an Iraqi National Congress newspaper, television station,
regional offices and humanitarian relief; as well as working with the
Defense Department on training Iraqi dissidents in military skills.17 State
Department officials traveled to those parts of northern Iraq under
Kurdish control to meet with Iraqi dissidents. Former DCI R. James
Woolsey stated that ‘‘This [the overthrow of Saddam Hussein] can all be
done overtly.’’18

Contracts with the Private Sector

Another recent development is the outsourcing, while still using public funds,
of what used to be covert actions to private entities. The State Department’s
Narcotics Bureau has contracted with Dyncorp to create what one critic
called a ‘‘private air force in the Andes’’ to monitor and surveil drug

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 4

568 FREDERICK L. WETTERING

shipments and growing areas.19 Dyncorp was also contracted to deliver up to

$3 million in aid to Sudanese opposition in southern Sudan in 2001.20
A private organization that provides military=paramilitary training, the
MPRI, was very active in Croatia and Angola in the 1990s, and is credited
with helping Croatia defeat the Serb army in 1995–1996, and the Angolan
army find and kill insurgent leader Jonas Savimbi in 2002. Allegations
abound that the MPRI has extensive contacts with the Defense and State
Departments, and was quietly encouraged in both programs by senior
United States officials.21 The MPRI is now in Macedonia, allegedly on a
U.S government contract.22 In recent years both the CIA and the Defense
Department have reportedly hired the Rendon Group, a private firm, for
propaganda work.23

BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS
Within the CIA, bureaucratic warfare immediately broke out between the
OPC’s covert action officers and the OSO’s clandestine collection officers
when they were merged by General Smith in 1952. The former OPC slowly
lost ground, losing its overseas CA stations, which rivaled the mainline,
collection-oriented CIA stations. The last ones to go went after the 1967
exposures cancelled out major CA programs in Europe and Latin America.
The covert action element became a true staff rather than a line element in
the 1960s. As a young officer then, it was made clear to me that by the
mid-1960s pursuing a career in covert action operations was career suicide;
the only way up the ladder was though the line area divisions formed from
the old OSO.
When Stansfield Turner became DCI, the CA’s cadre of experts, now long
in the tooth, was mostly allowed to retire without replacement. While there
was a brief renaissance of covert action under DCI William J. Casey
during the Reagan years, the CA infrastructure was not permanently
augmented. Short-term contractors lacking extensive covert experience and
area knowledge became the rule rather than the exception for CA
operatives. This still seems to be to be the case.

Encroachments on Power
The CIA has also suffered, and is still suffering, from turf grabs by both the
State and Defense Departments. State’s move into the propaganda and
political action fields is described above.
In 2002, the Defense Department attempted to set up a major component
to undertake worldwide propaganda activities called the Office of Strategic
Influence. This office would encroach on USIA=VOA functions, and also
would engage in unspecified ‘‘black’’ programs. The Office contracted with
the Rendon Group, a firm allegedly well-known for running propaganda

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

[C]OVERT ACTION: THE DISAPPEARING ‘‘C’’ 569

campaigns in Arab countries.24 However, a large congressional and public

outcry forced Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to table this move,
at least for the moment. Rumsfeld also stated recently that he wanted
military special forces to be able to go clandestinely into countries in mufti
for covert operations. He is said to have expressed unhappiness at relying
on CIA officers to contact opposition political and guerilla movements.
Such a shift would be a major raid on the CIA’s paramilitary mission.
Rumsfeld has apparently forgotten the previous history of Army and Navy
undercover intelligence efforts. The Navy’s Task Force 157 (originally called
the Navy Field Operations Support Group) was disbanded by Admiral
Bobby Inman in 1976 after a scandal in which it was disclosed that TF
157 had engaged Edmund Wilson, a convicted Libyan spy.25 The Army
had a similar effort, beginning in 1979 when a clandestine unit initially
called the Foreign Operating Group was formed. Special Forces=Delta
units were sent in-country in mufti to Latin America and Iran, and, in
1982, conducted negotiations with Iraqi government sources to purchase
Soviet military equipment (poaching on a CIA preserve).
Later renamed the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), it got into trouble
in 1983 when an ISA-front company, part of Operation Yellow Fruit, was
discovered to have serious financial irregularities. The Army began a
criminal inquiry, and courts-martial were ordered. ISA was also reportedly
involved in funding the highly questionable private rescue mission, led by
former Colonel Bo Gritz, of alleged Vietnam POWs which gained
considerable notoriety. ISA seemingly disappeared, but one source alleges
that it has been folded into the Joint Special Operations Command, and
has even been deployed in Bosnia to hunt Serb war criminals.26

A BYGONE ERA
My former colleague and mentor Charles Cogan has written that ‘‘the era of
. . . covert action is largely a thing of the past’’ because ‘‘covert action has
become so difficult in terms of authorities and in terms of carrying it out,
that military action has come to be regarded almost as a substitute for
covert action: in Libya in 1986, in Panama in 1990, and in the Gulf in
1990–91.’’27 To Professor Cogan’s enumeration we can add Afghanistan,
2001–2002, and the subsequent military action against Iraq. The transfer of
many covert action functions to overt organizations, such as the NED,
appears to be functional, and the combination of covert and overt actions
seemed to work well in Yugoslavia in 1999.
But I personally believe that the State Department is incapable of running
a political action campaign effectively and securely. State’s officers lack
training and experience, and the military’s record does not inspire
confidence that they can fully replace the CIA’s paramilitary capability.

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 4

570 FREDERICK L. WETTERING

Roy Godson, Richard Kerr, and Ernest May probably have it right when
they maintain that CA secrecy is increasingly impossible and that CA will
work only when there is broad policy consensus—a rare occasion anytime.28
United States history and good sense argue that a centralized covert
action capability is a vital national asset. I remain somewhat hopeful that
the CIA’s authority will be reconstructed, and that the CIA will defend
its political action and paramilitary turf from further encroachment. As
Kerr, a former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, concludes,
‘‘covert action will be necessary in this increasingly complex and
contentious world.’’29
From the very beginning, with George Washington, American Presidents
have found a need for covert action. There is no reason to believe that
George W. Bush or his successors will eschew what both former Secretary
of State Henry A. Kissinger and covert action specialist, the late Theodore
Shackley, termed ‘‘the middle option,’’ even if covert action is now
essentially ‘‘overt-covert action.’’30

REFERENCES
1
Ted Morgan, A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone, Communist, Anti-Communist, and
Spymaster (New York: Random House, 1999).
2
Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, (New York: Stonehill, 1975), p. 611.
3
For a detailed description of the 1979–1986 Afghan covert action and the
relationship between CIA and ISI, see The Bear Trap, by Mohammed Yousaf
and Mark Adkin (London: Leo Cooper, 1992). See also Charles Cogan,
‘‘Partners in Time: The CIA and Afghanistan,’’ World Policy Journal, Summer
1993, Vol. X, No. 2.
4
Following are some of the sources which describe the covert actions mentioned:
Burma=China: Bertil Lintner, Far Eastern Economic Review, 16 September 1993,
and Robert Borosage and John Marks, The CIA File (New York: Grossman,
1976), p. 20;
Indonesia: John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars (New York: William Morrow,
1986), Chapter 8, and Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin, Subversion
as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower-Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New
York: New Press, 1995).
Cuba=Bay of Pigs: John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars, Chap. 9; Syria:
Douglas Little, ‘‘Cold War and Covert Action: Syria, 1945–58,’’ Middle
Eastern Journal, Winter 1990; Peter Gill, Anthony Gorst, and W. Scott
Lucas, ‘‘The Other Collusion: Operation Straggle and Anglo-American
Interventions in Syria, 1955–56,’’ Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 4,
No. 2, Summer 1989; Scott Lucas and Alistair Morey, ‘‘The Hidden
Alliance: The CIA and MI-6 Before and After Suez,’’ Intelligence and
National Security, Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer 2000.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

[C]OVERT ACTION: THE DISAPPEARING ‘‘C’’ 571

Tibet: Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002), and John Kenneth
Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War (New York: PublicAffairs, 1999).
Zaire=Angola: Stephen Weissman, ‘‘CIA Covert Action in Zaire and Angola:
Patterns and Consequences,’’ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 94, No. 2,
Summer 1979; and Rene Lemarchand, ‘‘The CIA in Africa,’’ Journal of
Modern African Studies, September 1976; Angola: John Stockwell, In Search
of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978).
Cuba=Operation Mongoose: John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars.
Chile: John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars, pp. 315–324.
Libya: Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community (Cambridge, MA:
Ballinger, 1989) p. 346 (paperback); and Bob Woodward, Veil (New York:
Pocket Books, 1988), pp. 472–473 (paperback).
Nicaragua: Jeffrey T. Richelson, The US Intelligence Community, pp. 346–350,
and Bob Woodward, Veil, numerous pages.
Iraq 1996: Robert Baer, See No Evil (New York: Crown, 2002) and Kevin
Fedarko, ‘‘Saddam’s CIA Coup,’’U.S. News and World Report, 21 September
1996, pp. 42–44.
Laos: Stansfield Turner, Secrecy and Democracy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1985), pp. 75–89. See also Roger Warner, Backfire: The CIA’s Secret War in
Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1995).
Early Paramilitary Programs: Peter Gross, Operation Rollback: America’s Secret
War Behind the Iron Curtain (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000).
5
Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987 (New York: Pocket
Books, 1988).
6
Roy Godson, Richard Kerr, Ernest May, Covert Action in the 1990s, Working
Group on Intelligence Reform, 1992, Washington, D.C.
7
John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York: W. W. Norton,
1978).
8
Loch K. Johnson, ‘‘Controlling the CIA: A Critique of Current Safeguards,’’
Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Spring 1989.
9
Report: Office of Audits, Memorandum Report USIA 99-CG-007: Audit Report
of the National Endowment for Democracy, February 1999, p. 3.
10
William Blum, ‘‘Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy,’’ a
chapter from his book Rogue State: A Guide To The World’s Only Superpower.
It is found at www.thirworldtraveler.com=CIA=National%20Endowment
Demo.html. See also Barbara Conry, ‘‘Loose Cannon: The National
Endowment for Democracy,’’ The Cato Institute Foreign Policy Briefing No.
27, 8 November 1993, at http://www.cato.org=cgi-bin=scripts=printtech.cgi=
pubs=fpbriefs=fpb ¼ 027.html.
11
Philip Agee, Inside The Company: CIA Diary (New York: Bantam, 1976), pp. 620,
638.
12
Thomas Henricksen, ‘‘Covert Operations, Now More Than Ever,’’ Orbis, Winter
2000.

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 4

572 FREDERICK L. WETTERING

13
Chris McGreal, ‘‘US Admits to plan to bring down Mugabe,’’ The Guardian
(UK), 22 August 2002; also, Ben Barber, ‘‘Bush: Mugabe No Longer
Legitimate Leader of Zimbabwe,’’ The Washington Times, 21 August 2002.
14
David Corn, ‘‘Our Gang in Venezuela,’’ The Nation, 5 August 2002.
15
Websites are www.ndi.org and www.iri.org.
16
‘‘Movement Grows To Topple Saddam,’’ The Washington Times, 17 June 2002;
‘‘Getting Saddam: Bush Authorizes CIA To Overthrow Saddam — Killing Him
If Necessary,’’ ABC News, 17 June 2002.
17
State Deputy Press Spokesman Reeker, 14 August 2002, State Department Press
briefing.
18
Vernon Loeb, The Washington Post, 20 October 1998.
19
Jason Vest, ‘‘State Outsources Secret War,’’ The Nation, 5 June 2001.
20
Alan Sipress and Nora Boustany, ‘‘US Slates $3 million for Sudanese
Opposition,’’ The Washington Post, 25 May 2001.
21
James Risen and Doyle McManus, ‘‘US OKd Arms for Bosnia, Officials Say,’’
The Los Angeles Times, 5 April 1996. Also Bill Ellis, ‘‘A Cheney Scandal You
Haven’t Heard, Yet,’’ Guerrilla News Network, 28 May 2002, found at
www.csf.colorado.edu=forums=pvs=2002II=msg00765.html.
22
Michel Chossudovsky, ‘‘Macedonia: Washington’s Military-Intelligence Ploy,’’
the Transnational Foundation, www.transnational.org=forum=meet=2001=
Chossudov_WashingtPloy.html.
23
Jeff Stein, ‘‘When Things Turn Weird, the Weird Turn Pro,’’ TomPaine: A Public
Interest Journal, 28 February 2002, www.tompaine.com=feature.cfm=ID=5188.
24
James Dao and Eric Schmitt, ‘‘Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment
Abroad,’’ The New York Times, 19 February 2002.
25
Don Nielson, ‘‘Task Force 157: Born 20 Years Too Soon,’’ American Intelligence
Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, Winter=Spring 1993, pp. 23–27.
26
Dominique Sumner and Peter Tomich, ‘‘US Army Intelligence Support Activity,’’
www.specwarnet.net
27
Charles G. Cogan, ‘‘Covert Action and Congressional Oversight: A Deontology,’’
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1993.
28
Roy Godson, Ernest R. May, Gary Schmitt, U.S. Intelligence at the Crossroads:
Agendas for Reform (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1995) pp. 154–177.
29
Ibid., pp. 171–173.
30
For a good, all-around history of Presidents ordering covert action, see Stephen
F. Knott, Secret and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE