Word: coverting
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...posts gather the bulk of the information to verify Soviet compliance with SALT, some data are also provided by the high-flying U-2 and SR-71 aircraft and the Navy's electronic intelligence vessels. And, of course, the U.S. still employs such non-technical means as having covert agents in the U.S.S.R. and using Moscow-based diplomats to scrutinize the weaponry paraded through Red Square...
While virtually everybody recognizes the need for reliable intelligence, the CIA's other function-covert actions-is much more controversial because of past efforts to "destabilize" certain governments perceived to be inimical to the U.S. Yet covert actions have generally been more modest in scope and supportive of friendly, usually democratic nations and political parties. Few CIA officials, past or present, defend the large-scale paramilitary operations that led to disaster in Cuba and to considerable controversy, at least, in Laos. "Our mission was much inflated," says Jack Maury. "Covert operations can support but not substitute for overt policies...
...covert operations, however, can be as dangerous as too many. Such actions used to consume about half the agency budget; today they account for a mere 2%. Certainly one of the worst setbacks the U.S. has suffered in recent months was the fall of the Shah, including the loss of CIA electronic listening posts in Iran; this equipment was extremely valuable for verification of Soviet weaponry, a key issue in the SALT debate. Though some observers argue that nothing could have been done to save the Shah or promote an acceptable successor regime, nothing was really tried. CIA activities...
Oversight of the CIA, both executive and congressional, must be clear and rational. Until the CIA came under attack, the President was able to evade responsibility for covert actions even though he had initiated them. Currently the President is required by law to approve all covert actions. That makes him the only major chief of state who is not insulated from potential embarrassments caused by his intelligence arma situation that the services of other nations regard with horror. Nevertheless, it is probably the only workable system in the U.S. today...
Until the mid-1970s. Congress exercised oversight through powerful committee chairmen who did not examine covert actions closely, if at all. Now any plans for similar operations must be submitted to eight different congressional committees, far too many to keep anything secret. When the CIA proposed aiding anti-Communist forces in Angola in 1975, the plan was quickly leaked to the press by a hostile Senator and thus killed by exposure. The oversight committees should be reduced to the two current Select Committees on Intelligence, which, as a matter of fact, have taken their job fairly seriously and have avoided...