Da Secrecy News
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
CIA
COVERT ACTION IN ITALY
Covert action involving clandestine U.S.
government support of Italian
democratic parties during the 1960s was
documented for the first time
in the latest volume of the State
Department's Foreign Relations of the
United States (FRUS) series, released on
April 21.
The covert action program was predicated on
the idea that with sufficient
financial support, "the democratic
parties' appeal in the next national
election should increase and that of the
Communist Party should
decrease," according to a 1965 National
Security Council document.
The newly disclosed documents on the covert
action in Italy
are available here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/state/italy.html
The complete FRUS volume in which the
documents appeared (FRUS,
1964-1968, vol. XII, Western Europe) is
posted here:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xii/
The covert action in Italy is one of a
rather small number of U.S. covert
actions that have now been officially
acknowledged. But these are only a
fraction of the number that were actually
carried out during the cold war.
There were no fewer than 163 covert actions
approved during the Kennedy
administration alone, according to the
State Department, and 142 covert
actions during the Johnson administration
through February 1967.
See the "Note on U.S. Covert Action
Programs" prepared by the
FRUS editors here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/state/covert.html
Characteristically, the CIA resisted
declassification of the records on
covert action in Italy. Approval of their release had to be sought
from the
so-called High-Level Panel, composed of
representatives from State, CIA
and NSC.
This was the first issue ever brought before the High-Level Panel
(in 1998) and it authorized disclosure of the
newly published records. In a
regrettable concession to CIA budget secrecy
policy, however, the dollar
figures associated with the Italy operation
were excised.
In a sign that dissatisfaction with CIA
disclosure policy is spreading
beyond the community of historians and
advocates, the CIA's reluctance to
declassify old records was blasted in an
opinion column that appeared last
week in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"Pardon the American people for
caring, but foreign affairs isn't some
abstract thing that impacts only uptight men
in expensive suits who work
inside the Beltway," wrote Star-Telegram
editorial writer J.R. Labbe.
"[DCI George J.] Tenet and his minions
in the spook world appear to be
arguing that this material should remain
secret forever. `Forever.' That's a
long time and is unjustifiable under the
Constitution, a document that they
themselves swore to protect," Labbe
wrote.
There is of course no specific
constitutional requirement to declassify
historical records. But the CIA is in direct violation of the U.S.
Constitution when it withholds historical
budget information since there
is a specific constitutional requirement to
publish an account of all
expenditures "from time to
time." The CIA's casual defiance
of this
provision diminishes the power of the
Constitution and is genuinely
subversive of American democracy.
See "CIA must stop sitting on
historical briefings " by J.R. Labbe
in the April 26 Fort Worth Star-Telegram: