Spectator's J ournal / Spooks and Scholars

Beichman, Arnold

S P E C T A T O R ' S J O U R N A L Spooks and Scholars Its name is the Consortium for the Study of I n t e l l i g e n c e (CSI). Its 25 founding members are academics drawn primarily from the...

...That CSI is determined to foster awareness about intelligence among social scientists does not mean that CSI is a crew of ideological academics full of Mittyesque dreams of espionage...
...T h e s e , of course, are my views, not necessarily shared either by CSI or any of its members...
...The CIA, as Norman Podhoretz has described it, represents "the main institutional capability the nation possesses for conducting a covert policy of containment...
...Why has Dannhauser lent himself to such an endeavor...
...They proposed two tasks for the Consortium: first, to encourage objective, scholarly, unclassified research into the relationship between intelligence, foreign policy, and U.S...
...20036...
...Five volumes of the proceedings have already been published.~ After two years of experience, CSI's members decided to survey several hundred universities to see whether there was ]'The five volumes, Elements of Intelligence, Covert Action, Counterintelligence, Analysis and Estimates, Clandestine Collection, are available from Transaction Books, New Brunswick, N.J...
...The KGB will see to that...
...An intelligence agency, if it is to function at all, must always test the outermost limits of its legitimate powers...
...FAYETTEVILLE, NY 13066 V/SA :::::::::::::::::::::::: TIlE AMERICAN SPb(~TATOR ILLY 1~)82 "'J participants included nine academics, twelve former CIA and other intelligence agency officers, and eight congressional committee staffers, among others...
...intelligence agencies, the CIA and FBI in p a r t i c u l a r , had been in the doghouse for several years...
...But these points have been raised at CS'I meetings and will be again next fall in a special session devoted to the problem of "domestic i n t e l l i g e n c e . " ' These meetings follow two rules: First, no secrecy to the proceedings...
...If we are not p r e p a r e d to have a CIA which occasionally will operate outside the law and with nobody the wiser, then we'd be better off without an intelligence agency...
...intelligence even with what material was then available, much of the unpleasantness that emerged during the congressional investigations of the 1970s might have been avoided-and much of the subsequent injury, some of it perhaps irreparable, to American intelligence as well...
...I n t e l l i g e n c e has been a no-no, the untouchable, unteachable area in the academy, despite the fact that intelligence--for good or ill--is integral to the foreign policy of any modern nation...
...Is The American Spectator thus now straining to be chic...
...One reason--ideology notwithstanding--for the paucity of academic research on intelligence has been that reliable information about the elements of intelligence has hitherto been unavailable, aside from sensational exposSs by former agents such as Philip Agee, Thomas Braden, Victor Marchetti, and others...
...If it adheres to the letter of the law, it will not function...
...For The American Spectator I very much regret to hazard that its participation in this sordid affair is due to the fact that, as with its left-wing opponents, it has discovered the power of playing to the expectations of its audience, and thus, like Der Spiegel some months ago, it trots out the Nazis and Nietzsche for the prurient delectation of its readers...
...Certainly, what information was available until the mid-1970s would hardly have met acceptable standards for a doctoral dissertation...
...BOX 506, FAYETTEVILLE STA...
...Its 25 founding members are academics drawn primarily from the social sciences.* Its existence dates from the spring of 1979, a time when U.S...
...It is no exaggeration to say that this assault on the CIA and F B I - - indeed, upon the very concept of intelligence itself marked the first time, certainly in modern history, that the leadership of a large country deliberately undertook a campaign of unilateral intelligence disarmament at the same time that another country, a sworn adversary, was multiplying its intelligence armament...
...While some issues in public life can be envisioned as s o l v a b l e - - "solutions" to poverty, busing, abortion, recession--the functioning of the CIA or the FBI in a free society is not one of them...
...Wherein, thus, does Dannhauser differ from those he says "trivialize" Nietzsche...
...Arnold Beichman O O O O O Q O O O O O J O O O O O e Q O O O O I O O O O O O O O O O O Q CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 38) tivity) before an audience he thinks will always applaud in all the right places...
...counterintelligence forces and some exposed by sheer accident, e.g., the Falcon and the Snowman, it is safe to assume that for almost a decade the KGB never had it so good...
...Another faculty seminar is scheduled this summer again at Bowdoin...
...Since then, four other symposia have been held, also in Washington, each one dealing with one of the major elements of intelligence...
...Indeed, if there had been such a grasp of intelligence during the 1950s, and if there had been objective academic study and analysis of U.S...
...We will never fully know what this anti-intelligence campaign meant to American security--and what it still means...
...second, to provide " a n i n s t i t u t i o n a l focus for a balanced, coherent understanding of the role of intelligence in a free society...
...Even granting the connection you assume between this reading and "the Left," would not any reading which undermines the fantasies of Marxism be a cause for 40 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1982...
...Underlying these themes is a consensus that intelligence is not some luxury a democratic government can do without, even though it can be argued that a successful intelligence establishment in a democratic society is virtually impossible to come by...
...Intelligence, of course, is one of the most misunderstood functions of democratic governments, particularly in the United States where the CIA is barely 35 years old...
...or the National Strategy Information Center, 1730 Rhode Island Ave., Washington, D.C...
...The first symposium, April 27-28, 1979, in Washington, D.C., introduced the subject" Elements of Intelligence' ' - - c o v e r t action, clandestine collection, counterintelligence, analysis, and estimates--all of which are, of course, i n t e r r e l a t e d . The Flags of the World IRELAND ISRAEL ITALY W. GERMANY 3'x 5' HIGH QUAUTY FLAGS Suitable for Decorative or Outdoor Use FLAG PRICE FLAG PRICE Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . $18.70 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.70 Confederate . . . . . . . . . . 18.00 Denmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.70 Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.70 Finland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.70 France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.70 W. Germany . . . . . . . . . . 18.70 Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.70 Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.70 Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.70 Italy . . . . . . . i . . . . . . . . . 18.70 Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.70 Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 5 . ] 0 Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . ,24.70 P h i l l i p i n e s . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.70 Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.70 Portugal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.70 S. Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.70 Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.70 Sweden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.70 United States . . . . . . . . . . 18.00 All US Forces Flags (Army, Navy, USAF, USCG, USMC . . . . $27.70 All Nations & U.S...
...You either belidve in the need for a CIA despite all the concomitant problems and the CIA's own self-inflicted wounds, or you do not, preferring rather "spy-inthe-sky" surveillance of the USSR, which is about as valid as promises of "pie-in-the-sky...
...The proceedings are published in book form for public sale...
...If after five years of congressional oversight, there is no scandal, no hue and cry about the CIA or FBI, no newspaper exposes, then you can be sure that the intelligence agencies have failed in t h e i r mission: namely, as Ray Cline has written, in providing " p r o p e r l y evaluated information from all sources, however collected...
...Unfortunately, all my years of study have convinced me that there are no two ways about it...
...they were t e a c h e r s of law, history, and political science concerned that neither they nor the informed public, nor even the i n t e l l i g e n c e community itself, understood the function of intelligence in an open society...
...Arnold Beichman, a founding member of the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, will he a visiting Scholar at the Itoover Institution this fall...
...However, a flood of m a t e r i a l , formerly classified, became publicly available in the wake of House and Senate intelligence committee investigations, new legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, and the presidential guidelines for the ClA and FBI...
...To Dannhauser: Why in heaven's name is the French appropriation of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche an undesirable thing...
...In July 1981, twenty-five faculty members from American universities convened for eight days at Bowdoin College in Maine to study and discuss the subject matter of the CSI symposia and how to turn the material into academic courses, complete with bibliography, reading lists, and examination questions...
...In the light of ever-increasing Soviet KGB activity, however, some of which was d e t e c t e d by depleted U.S...
...State Flags Available by Special Order Call 1-800-426-4747 Operator 806 (In Washington S t a t e , 1-800-562-4555) OR WRITE: NICHOLSON ENTERPRISES P.O...
...decisionmaking...
...F u r t h e r , I am persuaded that controls over intelligence agencies are difficult to enforce...
...versities to include, as part of their curriculum, any discussion of intelligence and its relation to the government's decision-making machinery...
...Samuel P. Huntington, John Norton Moore, Robert Nisbet, Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Richard E. Pipes, Antonin Scalia, Paul Seabury, Allen Weinstein, and James Q. Wilson...
...And why, by the way, is liberating Nietzsche from the Nazis a move in the trivialization of Nietzsche ? The point of all this is to say that the question of Nietzsche and the Nazis is a pseudo-issue of concern only to those whose preoccupations are with the titillating and the vulgar rather than with philosophy, politics, or scholarship...
...Why has The American Spectator sponsored his undertaking...
...A major cause of this misperception has been the unwillingness of most American uni*Among the academics are Professors Adda B. Bozeman...
...Second, papers on various intelligence topics are commissioned and assigned to e x p e r t s , no m a t t e r whether they are ex-ClA officers, congressional staffers, or academics...
...For Dannhauser whose good intelligence occasionally has been put to better use I can hazard no guess...
...Neither the papers presented, nor the commentaries, debates, or discussions are classified...
...Hence, the CSI's underlying theme, "Intelligence Requirements for the t980s": What can be done to restore the s t r u c t u r e s of U.S...
...The main difficulty today derives from the fantasy that we can somehow pass a law to establish an intelligcnce agency composed of nature's noblemen, and that under the supervision of keen-eyed, closemouthed congressional oversight commktees everything will work out as it should...
...The response was favorable...
...Professor Roy Godson of Georgetown University and the National Strategy Information Center has been CSI coordinator from its inception...
...any interest in a teaching seminar on intelligence for full-time university teachers...
...intelligence and counterintelligence to some effectiveness...
...Some members of Congress and then-Vice President Walter Mondale were even prepared to lock up the doghouse for good and throw away the key...
...Has it been taken over by beauticians ? Finally, I shall bring these calm, even-tempered observations to a close with a set of questions to Dannhauser and an exhortation to The American Spectator...
...The academics who formed CSl were no experts in intelligence...

Vol. 15 • July 1982 • No. 7


 
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