On the Right

New York, Sept. 20—Two questions have been raised on the CIA-in-Chiie front. The first is whether State Department officials deceived congressional committees by reporting that the United States Government had taken no action to frustrate the inauguration or success of Salvador Allende as president of Chile. The second is whether the United States Government should have done so. Needless to say the second question, which is more important than the first, is receiving practically no attention. The first absorbs the front page.

Frankly, I do not know what is the correct prescription for State Department officials appearing before congressional committees that ask deeply sensitive questions. The routine answer is to demur, on the grounds of Executive privilege. But that privilege, as we all know, is in high disrepute these days, so that congressional interrogators tend to press on, where yesterday they’d have let things lie. How, for instance, would you, if you served as an ambassador say to Hitler Germany, and you were collusively intriguing with the resistance movement, answer such a question as: “Mr. Ambassador, is the State Department engaged in any contacts whatever with the opposition to the official government of the Third Reich”? You could say: “No”—which would be a lie. You could say: “Yes”—which would be the truth, and would blow the operation. Or you could say: “I can’t discuss that.” In which case the press —yes, the press, because as we have just seen with the supposedly secret testimony of CIA chief William Colby before a congressional committee, in due course we all end up reading what he said—is invited to draw inferences, namely that in fact you are in touch with the resistance.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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New York, Sept. 20—Two questions have been raised on the CIA-in-Chiie front. The first is whether State Department officials deceived congressional committees by reporting that the United States Government had taken no action to frustrate the inauguration or success of Salvador Allende as president of Chile. The second is whether the United States Government should have done so. Needless to say the second question, which is more important than the first, is receiving practically no attention. The first absorbs the front page.

Frankly, I do not know what is the correct prescription for State Department officials appearing before congressional committees that ask deeply sensitive questions. The routine answer is to demur, on the grounds of Executive privilege. But that privilege, as we all know, is in high disrepute these days, so that congressional interrogators tend to press on, where yesterday they’d have let things lie. How, for instance, would you, if you served as an ambassador say to Hitler Germany, and you were collusively intriguing with the resistance movement, answer such a question as: “Mr. Ambassador, is the State Department engaged in any contacts whatever with the opposition to the official government of the Third Reich”? You could say: “No”—which would be a lie. You could say: “Yes”—which would be the truth, and would blow the operation. Or you could say: “I can’t discuss that.” In which case the press —yes, the press, because as we have just seen with the supposedly secret testimony of CIA chief William Colby before a congressional committee, in due course we all end up reading what he said—is invited to draw inferences, namely that in fact you are in touch with the resistance.