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Political Police. Much to the agency's discomfiture, criticism has come from disillusioned former CIA employees. For two years, the agency struggled in court to stop publication of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, whose principal author is ex-CIA Officer Victor Marchetti. The book accused the agency of using outmoded cold war methods and urged that it be prohibited from intervening in other nations' affairs under any circumstances (TIME, April 22).
Another critical book, Inside the Company: A C.I.A. Diary, will be published in London this January. In it Author Philip Agee, who, after twelve years of undercover exploits for the CIA in Latin America, switched to the side of the leftist revolutionaries he had been hired to defeat, calls the CIA "the secret political police of American capitalism."
On the contrary, CIA directors have maintained since the agency's founding 27 years ago last week that clandestine actions constitute only a small part of CIA activities. Indeed, over the years, the agency has provided a huge volume of reliable analysis and intelligence data that has served in part as the basis for U.S. defense and foreign policies. But Marchetti reports that the CIA devotes two-thirds of its annual budget (which totals around $750 million) and some 60% to 70% of its estimated 5,000 overseas employees to clandestine operations.
That evidently was not the intent of Congress in creating the CIA and giving it almost complete autonomy to safeguard its secrecy. Originally the agency's principal task was to gather intelligence and keep the Government informed about other countries, particularly the Communist nations.
That mission was incorporated symbolically into the CIA's seal: an eagle signifying strength and alertness, and a compass rose representing the collection of intelligence data from all over the world. But as the cold war grew, so did the scope of the CIA'S duties. The law provided that in addition to collecting information, the CIA was "to perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct." Under that directive, the CIA actively began trying to penetrate and even roll back the Bamboo and Iron Curtains, and to counter Communist influence in other countries. Its methods included support of pro-American political parties and individuals, covert propaganda, economic sabotage and paramilitary operations.
Under Cover. In theory, at least, the station chiefs who head CIA offices overseas operate under the cover of some innocuous-sounding embassy job such as attaché or special assistant. In practice, some chiefs are well known and some remain under deep cover, depending on the nature of the country. In London, for example, practically anyone who is interested can learn the identity of the CIA station chief; his arrival was even disclosed in the Manchester Guardian. In Saigon, the station chiefs identity is well known but, by tacit agreement, never publicized by reporters. In politically turbulent countries, the identity of the station chief is a closely