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The controversy once again spotlighted the shadowy tightrope of paradoxes that the Helmsmen must walk in the interests of a nation that cherishes openness and fair play. The debate pitted the Puritan ethic against the pragmatism of cold-war survival. It matched the conspiratorial methods necessarily practiced by intelligence agencies against the emotionalism of young Americans who worship honesty. It aroused the outrage of many in the academic community who—mistakenly—regard CIA as an evil manipulator of foreign policy. And the furor showed again how readily Americans, who, while seldom acknowledging the quiet and generally successful performance of their intelligence community, will howl their indignation at the first hint of misjudgment.
"Sinister Specter." The story—and the storm—broke early in the week when Ramparts, the sensation-seeking New Left-leaning monthly, took full-page newspaper ads to trumpet an article scheduled for its March issue that would "document" how CIA "infiltrated and subverted the world of American student leaders." The story, according to Ramparts, was a "case study in the corruption of youthly idealism," and would prove that "CIA owes the youth of this country an apology." CIA's involvement with the academic community has been a target of Ramparts before: an article last April lambasted Michigan State University for providing cover for five CIA agents during a federally financed project to train South Vietnamese policemen. Predictably, its 10,000-word article on the U.S. National Student Association was larded with pejorative clichés about "the sinister specter" of CIA mixing with a student group.
Factually at least, the piece was essentially accurate. N.S.A., the nation's largest student organization, represents the campus governments of some 300 colleges. It arranges hundreds of foreign trips and wide-ranging student exchange programs, and holds an annual National Student Congress to debate a few domestic issues and countless international questions ranging from "Whither Africa?" to "How Now, Chairman Mao?" The association was founded in 1947 by 24 American campus leaders, including White House Aide Douglass Cater, then a recent Harvard graduate, after a trip to the 1946 World Student Congress in Prague, where lavishly financed Communist groups stole the show; one of their organizers was Komsomol Leader Aleksandr Shelepin, who was later to head the Soviet internal security agency.
From its inception, N.S.A. had financial problems; membership dues were minimal (they still add no more than $18,000 to an annual budget of some $800,000). Private foundations were not enthusiastic about contributing, partly because in those Red-scare days N.S.A. was thought to be too leftwing; the House Un-American Activities Committee even planted two agents among student association delegates to the 1962 Helsinki World Youth Festival. Nevertheless, N.S.A. managed to limp along; its representatives continued to attend a series of international student rallies. Invariably, they found themselves outmaneuvered, outshouted and outfinanced by Communist student organizations that went out of their way to impress delegates from the underdeveloped, uncommitted nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America.