Dark Horses

It seems the words “covert action” have acquired a darkly sinister meaning faintly reminiscent of Watergate: they mean doing to innocent people overseas what Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman did to us ten years ago. The result is that, as a former CIA official has put it, by the end of the Seventies, the practice of “covert action” by the American Government displayed “all the appearances of a dying art form.”

A distinguished and interesting volume—Intelligence Requirements for the 1980s: Covert Action (Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, National Strategy Information Center, Inc., 1730 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; $7.50), edited by Roy Godson—applies itself to the problem. The caliber of the essays included here is unusually high; among the authors are Vernon A. Walters, Donald Jameson, and Theodore Shackley, ex-CIA operatives and officials. Taken together they have a sobering and instructive case for more and better “covert action.”

CW

About the Author

Chilton Williamson Jr.

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It seems the words “covert action” have acquired a darkly sinister meaning faintly reminiscent of Watergate: they mean doing to innocent people overseas what Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman did to us ten years ago. The result is that, as a former CIA official has put it, by the end of the Seventies, the practice of “covert action” by the American Government displayed “all the appearances of a dying art form.”

A distinguished and interesting volume—Intelligence Requirements for the 1980s: Covert Action (Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, National Strategy Information Center, Inc., 1730 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; $7.50), edited by Roy Godson—applies itself to the problem. The caliber of the essays included here is unusually high; among the authors are Vernon A. Walters, Donald Jameson, and Theodore Shackley, ex-CIA operatives and officials. Taken together they have a sobering and instructive case for more and better “covert action.”