Word: covert
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...preferred to collect intelligence by electronic means. Casey did not have a single agent on Grenada until a few days before the American invasion last October, and could not provide an accurate estimate of the number of Cubans on the island. Casey takes special joy in having revived covert operations. He is said to have made several trips in unmarked planes to Honduras to check on the progress of contras training there. Says one associate: "He's happy as a clam when it comes to covert operations...
...Senate investigation left a permanent legacy of bitterness. Some Senators felt that Casey had misled them about his finances, and looked with increased suspicion on his running of covert operations. Casey felt that some lawmakers were conducting a vendetta against him and was strengthened in his natural tendency to tell them no more than the law requires. Says one official who worked closely with Casey during that period: "Casey gets mad, and he also tries to get even. The attacks from the Hill just compounded an existing disdain for the legislative branch of Government...
...that the agency is responsive to democratic control and the CIA director's necessity to keep delicate operations secret as long as possible. Intelligence Committee members argue, with justification, that they can keep a secret when performing their legitimate oversight functions: because of the very nature of such "covert" activities as mining Nicaraguan harbors and blowing up oil tanks, knowledge about the CIA's role in these operations is likely to become public, but generally not through Intelligence Committee leaks. But in turn, the CIA is justified in resisting congressional temptation to oversupervise the agency's programs...
Central America, it sometimes seems, is caught in a looking-glass war. Covert operations become overt, rebels in one country get aid so that rebels in another get squeezed. Liberals look at El Salvador and see Viet Nam, while conservatives look at the map and see pawns in a game of Great Power chess. In the din of charge and countercharge, moral and practical issues sometimes become tangled and blurred. Here are answers to some basic questions...
...justified in backing the contras, are covert operations a legitimate...