INTELLIGENCE: The CIA: Time to Come In From the Cold

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testimony was leaked to the press two weeks ago. By the time Ford met with the press, Colby's revelations were more than a week old; the President had been briefed by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and doubtless was ready to field reporters' questions. Said Ford: "Our Government, like other governments, does take certain actions in the intelligence field to help implement foreign policy and protect national security. I am informed reliably that Communist nations spend vastly more money than we do for the same kind of purposes."

Since so much had already leaked out, Ford perhaps had no choice but to make an admission. But his statement seemed to set no or few limits on clandestine intervention in another country. A somewhat sharper but still highly flexible limit was set afterward by Kissinger. He told TIME: "A democracy can engage in clandestine operations only with restraint, and only in circumstances in which it can say to itself in good conscience that this is the only way to achieve vital objectives."

Moreover, there was an unsettlingly disingenuous quality to Ford's words. Was the intent of the Chilean operation really to preserve freedom of the press and opposition political parties, as he insisted, or simply to undermine Allende? In this context, it is worth noting that after the coup, the U.S. did not object when the new military regime banned all political parties and shut down all opposition publications.

There were other disquieting notes in the statement. Ford described the operation as being "in the best interest of the people of Chile"—a throwback to an America-knows-what's-best-for-you line of years past that was particularly offensive to many countries. In addition, Ford did not make the small but crucial distinction between intelligence gathering and covert operations, which led some critics to suspect that he was not wholly familiar with the subject.

Misled Congress. There was a degree of ingenuousness, perhaps even hypocrisy, in much of the indignation, since the CIA is widely known to have carried out Chile-style operations elsewhere before. What galled Congress and many other U.S. and foreign leaders was the fact that members of the Nixon Administration had repeatedly misled Congress about the Chile operation. At his confirmation last year as Secretary of State, Kissinger assured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that since 1970, the U.S. had done nothing in Chile except try to "strengthen the democratic political parties"—although critics argue that fostering strikes and demonstrations amounted to a lot more than that. During another hearing, then CIA Director Richard Helms was asked if the CIA had passed money to Allende's political opponents. Helms' response: "No, sir." Former Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs Charles A. Meyer, former Ambassador to Chile Edward Korry and other Administration officials gave similar testimony, though they may not have known about the operation.

The revelations, and Ford's confirmation of them, stunned many in Congress. "Unbelievable," declared Democratic Senator Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota. "Unsavory and unprincipled," said Church. Democratic Senator Stuart Symington said that the disclosure "certainly does not coincide with the testimony that this