New York, Feb. 24—It is reassuring to note that a few members of the Establishment came together for a highly publicized informal testimonial dinner in honor of Mr. Richard Helms, lately director of the Central Intelligence Agency, for the purpose of repulsing the shock troops engaged in a war against the CIA in which they want unconditional surrender. Averell Harriman, for instance, was there, detaching himself from his younger colleagues, hungry to do to the CIA what they really want to do to the United States of America, namely, humiliate her. I do believe that if it were possible, some of these gentlemen would disrobe the Statue of Liberty, to expose American Shame.
Really what we have failed to take into account is that nowadays the differences between formal states of war and of peace are less clearly defined than they were. Clearly we fought a war in Indochina, but we did not denominate it as such. Nor did we declare war against Castro Cuba even while mounting a huge military operation against it. All of this is because a formal declaration of war carries the implicit obligation of the warmaking power to use its total resources, and our total resources come close to the power to blow up the globe. Accordingly, we stress war less; but the obligations to keep the general peace impose upon us a condition of alertness, an attraction to the minor operation for the purpose of aborting the major operation. This factor the critics of the CIA give insufficient attention to in pursuing Operation Impotence.
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