Word: coverted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...similar wariness has afflicted the agency's covert and paramilitary operations. The CIA used to propose about 90% of these missions (the rest coming usually from the State Department or the National Security Council). At least twice during the past two years, Government sources claim, the CIA has played a key (but unpublicized) role in defusing potential outbreaks of war in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. Now the agency's recommendations have dried up. Intelligence sources variously describe the Directorate of Operations as "dead in the water" and "paralyzed." While CIA leaders call such characterizations overblown...
...ground rules that assigns responsibility to the White House. In the past, the formal responsibility was assumed by a small group of top intelligence, defense and foreign affairs officials known as the "40 Committee" and headed by Henry Kissinger. Presidents have almost always given their direct authorization for covert operations abroad (although their roles in the agency's various alleged schemes for assassinations are still far from clear), but they could always avoid personal blame if a secret operation was "blown" by disclosure. This insulating of the President is of course one of the factors that is now frustrating...
...President himself to certify that any proposed operation "is important to the national security of the U.S.," and to report on the mission "to the appropriate committee of Congress." With the responsibility now clearly his and his alone, any President is going to think twice before approving a risky covert operation, however necessary he may deem...
...furor continues, the White House is trying to decide how to reform the CIA without ruining it. Essentially, the President and his close advisers believe that the agency should be maintained in its present general form and have the capability to mount covert operations. The Administration is not likely to accept the advice of former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford and others who argue that the CIA should be split into two separate units: one for intelligence gathering and one for covert operations. White House officials believe that this could be inefficient, since the two functions often involve the same agents...
Colby's experience has been almost entirely in the covert field from the time he parachuted into France in 1943 to lead an underground operation until he served as head of the CIA'S plans, a job he left to become director in June 1973, just a year before the roof fell in. Since the beginning of 1975, Colby has had to spend most of his working hours coping with the criticisms of the organization. He has testified 36 times this year before a variety of congressional committees,* maintaining his poise admirably and replying frankly to hostile questions...