THE CIA SCANDAL CONTINUES TO
REVERBERATE IN THE U.S.
The biggest political scandal in decades -- the ever-widening exposure of the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency inside the United States -- continues to preoccupy the American public. The campus activities of the CIA proved to be but the beginning. Press seminars, the clerical field, social work and cultural affairs -- the CIA has been active everywhere. Among the groups appear such names as the Newspaper Guild, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the Friends of the Middle East, the Conference on the Atlantic Community, the International Union of Young Chris-— tian’ Democrats, Pax Romana, Crossroads Africa, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and the Institute for International Labor Research.
The latter organization, set up to train democratic politicians and labor leaders in Latin America, received $1,000,000 from the CIA funneled through the J.M.Kaplan Fund. The chairman of the Institute for International Labor Research, the well known Social Democratic figure Norman Thomas said he was unaware that the organization was the recipient of CIA funds. It can well be believed that he was an innocent dupe and not a conscious fellow traveler of the CIA.
The usefulness of such figures in CIA operations was well illustrated when Thomas went to the Dominican Republic to “observe" the elections conducted under the American occupation of the unhappy country. He came back swearing that the elections were completely honest and aboveboard. And there is no doubt he really believed it himself.
Another revelation of the same order was the admission in Washington February 21 that CIA operatives were behind the strikes in British Guiana in 1962 and 1963 that were used in a series of actions that eventually unseated Dr. Cheddi Jagan as prime minister. According to Neil Sheehan of the New York Times, "The sources said the international affairs department of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was actually run by two intelligence agency aides who operated out of the union's former headquarters in Washington with the knowledge of the union leadership."
The union used CIA funds for four and a half years, from 1959 to May 1964, "to finance its overseas activities, mainly in Latin America, the source said."
The latest revelations appeared to center more and more around the AFL-CIO. On February 24, Drew Pearson, the Washington columnist, claimed that the truth had barely begun to emerge.
"Revelation that the Central Intelligence Agency has paid almost $1,000,000 to the Newspaper Guild in six years gave the public a look at only the above-water part of the CIA-AFL-CIO iceberg," said Pearson. "The rest of the CIA money paid to organized labor, estimated at around $100, 000, 000 a year, is probably the biggest fund dished out by Central Intelligence to anyone." -
Pearson further claims: "This payment and the foreign policy which goes with it are the chief bone of contention between AFL-CIO president George Meany and AFL-CIO vice president: Walter Reuther. It has come close to once more splitting the Powerful AFL-CIO combine into two separate units.
According to Pearson, "the huge CIA subsidy to organized labor" goes mainly through the following:
Jay Lovestone, who handles foreign affairs for Meany. "Lovestone takes orders from Cord Meyer of the CIA. No CIA money for labor is spent without Lovestone's approval, and few labor attachés are appointed to American embassies abroad without his OK."
The International Oil Workers Union, which disposed of considerable amounts of CIA money, “especially in Indonesia."
The Food and Restaurant Workers Secretariat; the PIT Secretariat for the postal, telegraph and telephone unions, "all working closely with Joe Bierne, president of the Communications Workers of America"; Irving Brown, who is Jay Lovestone's chief lieutenant and "who operates largely through the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions"; the American Institute for Free Labor Development, which works out of Washington and which "spends millions in Latin America"; the African-American Labor Center "which spends CIA money in Africa"; the Inter-American Regional Labor Organization [ORIT] which operates in Latin America.
Drew Pearson entitled his article appropriately enough, "AFL-CIA."
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Meany's reaction was to call Drew Pearson a "liar" for having alleged that Jay Lovestone took orders from the CIA. Meany also "heatedly" denied that Jay Lovestone had ever been involved with the CIA.
Meany further denied that he had any knowledge of any union in the AFL-CIO having received any funds either directly or indirectly from the CIA. Later in his press conference, Meany said, "I can assure you that I will look into it." oo
It appeared however that the promised inquiry might not provide many headlines for the press. The investigating body would consist of George Meany himself. This body, which certainly does not lack in authority, would confine itself to "asking questions here and there." And while the inquiry might not be extensive, neither would it suffer undue delay. Meany said, in fact, that he did not "think it will take too. long to get what information I want to get."
The inquiry to be undertaken by this august body will be conducted in the most responsible way; that is, its results will not be made public.
The embarrassment of the Johnson administration was only exceeded by that of the liberals who were faced with the need to explain why it was that the CIA found their politics so much in the interests of spying that it made them and the labor movement the chief beneficiaries of the millions of dollars poured out to subvert the "free" institutions of "free" America.
On February 15 the White House announced that Johnson had ordered a "careful review of the circumstances surrounding subsidies" by the CIA to the National Student Association. Evidently when the scandal first broke, Johnson thought he could get away by playing the innocent dupe and ordering an "inquiry."
The liberal New York Post responded February 17 with editorial applause: "The White House has acted with dispatch in directing an inquiry into the program of furtive federal aid to education conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency." The Post even ventured toclimb out on a limb: "Every time one of these CIA horror stories breaks —and they have broken fairly often in recent years -- it is officially reported that all the agency's activities are invariably approved at the highest Administration levels. We doubt it. If this claim were true, the President would now stand exposed as a crude dissembler who, after personally approving the CIA-NSA arrangement, now seeks to exculpate himself by cynically ordering an inquiry."
. On -February 23 Johnson stood exposed as a crude dissembler. The very committee which he had set up to make an "inquiry," reported back that the CIA wasasclean as a hound's tooth. It had acted "in accordance with national policies established by the National Security Council in 1952 through 1954." The head- of the committee, Nicholas Katzenbach, indicated that these policies had been approved by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and all the senior review committees concerned including those of the State Department and the Defense Department.
Finally -- cruelest blow of all -- Senator Robert F. Kennedy said February 21 that it was unfair to let the CIA "take the rap." The basic: decisions for- the secret subsidies were made by "the executive branch in the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations." Kennedy even defended the subsidies, saying: "We must not forget that we are not dealing with a dream world, but with a very tough adversary." Kennedy, of course, as a top figure in his brother's. administration, knew about the. subsidies.
It was. thus evident that.the powers that be found the exposure so big, so farreaching and so shocking to the American public that there was not the slightest chance of ducking it by having Johnson play innocent and order an "inquiry." They had no choice but to admit their knowledge and therefore their participation in the CIA's activities. This left them no alternative but to try to justify their hypocrisy. And by doing that they dealt a stunning blow to their own propaganda about America representing freedom and democracy and enjoying a government unmarred by the invidious influence of a secret political police.