End Covert CIA Operations...Democratize Policy-Making

THE FORD ADMINISTRATION's self-serving desire to keep the Pike committee report secret, and its extensive use of covert operations to achieve foreign policy objectives, stems from its essential belief that the American public must be prevented from participating in foreign policy decision making, a belief that has guided the conduct of U.S. foreign policy since World War II. The Pike committee report reveals that Kissinger systematically deceived the public on the progress of the SALT agreements. Similarly, Ford and Kissinger claimed that American intervention in Angola was merely a response to massive prior Soviet involvement, while the committee discovered that "the military intervention of the Soviet Union and Cuba is in part a reaction to U.S. efforts to break a political stalemate in favor of its clients."

Clearly, the administration's motive for concealing the truth about the SALT talks, Angola, and similar situations is its desire to forestall opposition to its policies. Kissinger--still the single most influential figure in foreign affairs--defends his policies and the secrecy surrounding them through an appeal to transcendent "national security interests;" the U.S. he claims, must not "create the impression that, in times of crisis, either threats or promises of the U.S. may not mean anything because our divisions paralyze us." Kissinger implies that his policies are direct expressions of the national interest, and any opposition to or public discussion of those policies, whether in Congress or in the press, constitute an illegitimate and divisive assault on that interest.

The Ford administration's anti-democratic and covert conduct of foreign policy is unconstitutional; it clearly usurps congressional prerogatives in that area. But more importantly, it represents a fundamental threat to any public control over foreign policy decision making. Americans must be able to determine the ends for which their funds and lives are expended. This is impossible unless they know what the government is doing abroad. The Ford administration, like its predecessors, believes that the purpose of American foreign policy should be the defense of America's status as a great power. This requires the U.S. to defend American military and economic hegemony wherever it seems threatened, as in Vietnam and Angola.

To prevent the continuation of the Ford administration's anti-democratic practices, the secret conduct of foreign policy must stop. The House should reverse its previous decision and officially release the rest of the Pike committee report. Acting on the basis of that report, Congress should prevent the CIA from undertaking further actions without scrutiny, and it should also strip the Ford administration of its power to set policy autonomously. These solutions are admittedly incomplete, since Congress is by no means a direct representative of the American people, and has consistently failed to exercise the oversight powers it already possesses to control the use of the CIA by the executive branch. Nevertheless these steps would make a significant contribution toward restoring foreign policy decision-making to public scrutiny and control.