LETTERS
EDITORS: In his comment on the CIA, "A Modest Proposal: Abolish the Damn Thing," May June 1967, Stanley Plastrik states that he wishes to discuss "the failure of most people to grasp...
...The dichotomy should rather be conceived of as one between the Congressional and Executive branches of government...
...I do not recall Dr...
...But, as everyone knows, cancerous growths have a way of taking off on their own and of dragging the rest of the organism along...
...Fred Ross, a major organizer for the IAF who functioned also as the field director of the Syracuse Projectl It would seem that Dr...
...Haggstrom prior to the develop...
...I suggest that a misleading dichotomy has been set up when we talk of the CIA on the one hand and the proper institutions of government on the other hand...
...In his reference to me, Dr...
...First, I have not been convinced that the formation of domestic and foreign policy have been taken out of the proper institutions of government, if this is meant to imply that the CIA has assumed these functions...
...Hagg...
...as yet, no such data is available from him...
...In fact, the basic liaison between Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation and the Syracuse Project was executed through Mr...
...As I have suggested, these activities are not a product of the CIA but rather, the CIA is a product of a society which engages in these activities...
...Saul Alinsky did not resign from the Syracuse project: he was fired by the university administration...
...I have never suggested that poor people do not need money, nor has it been my view that militant social action unrelated to environmental change is therapeutic, nor does my organizational orientation derive from the Alinsky model...
...We had an agreement that he would not discuss Syracuse, with which he was unacquainted, especially in view of the fact that the organizational model used in Syracuse was not that developed by Alinsky...
...I did not suggest that Alinsky organized the Syracuse Project but included it among a group of projects stimulated by Alinsky...
...Editors: In his article "The Myth of Saul Alinsky" (July–August 1967), Frank Riessman wrote: Alinsky resigned from the Syracuse project not long after the going got rough, and the Office of Economic Opportunity (which had founded the organization) required that the project be placed under the umbrella of the city-wide antipoverty agency...
...I have no quarrel with him or his assertion that our world and society tend to produce this type of criminal activity...
...Moreover, the idea that Alinsky "did not discuss Syracuse with which he was unacquainted" seems highly questionable because Mr...
...ment of the Syracuse Project I had the overwhelming impression that he was a powerful Alinsky advocate and that he intended to develop a variant of the Alinsky model in Syracuse...
...Haggstrom publishing any strong disclaimers at that time...
...In short, return the formation of both domestic and foreign policy back to Congress...
...EDITORS: In his comment on the CIA, "A Modest Proposal: Abolish the Damn Thing," May June 1967, Stanley Plastrik states that he wishes to discuss "the failure of most people to grasp what, precisely, the CIA is...
...This is particularly surprising because he was typically interviewed by the newspaper and magazine writers in question...
...Clearly, as to Mr...
...assassination, intervention, etc., engaged in by an arm of the U.S...
...FRANK RIESSMAN replies: If one were to take seriously Dr...
...Plastrik himself tells us that the CIA does not report to Congress and is responsible only to the President...
...It is the latter which concerns me and I fail to see how the abolition of the CIA will remedy this situation...
...He had been employed to come to Syracuse for four days a month to teach a seminar which primarily concerned the formation of the Back of the Yards Council in Chicago...
...That is, abolish the CIA...
...It is very likely that these same activities would be carried out by another of the "proper institutions" of the government...
...Alinsky has publicly discussed projects in a variety of cities (e.g., Rochester, Buffalo, etc...
...Still, today and in this society, it's the CIA that is guilty...
...Dr...
...A second point of confusion is Plastrik's phrase, "Abolish the Damn Thing...
...Finally, I should note that in the time Alinsky was in Syracuse there were frequent newspaper and magazine articles describing the Project as an Alinsky-type project...
...He informs us that providing funds for various organizations accounts for only 10 per cent of the functions engaged in by the CIA...
...In long personal conversations with Dr...
...But the fancy of Frank Riessman obviously does not have patience for such a pedestrian enterprise...
...Riessman was similarly inventive...
...Haggstrom is asking us to take the Syracuse charade at face value rather than the way it was understood by everyone connected with it: the OEO, the Syracuse staff, social scientist observers in Syracuse, and the press...
...government...
...Alinsky seemed completely unable to develop tactics to respond to this condition...
...He was never involved in the formulation of tactics in Syracuse...
...Basically, of course, I recognize the omnipotent Presidency as the center for the formation of foreign policy...
...There are many illustrations of how the CIA has created situations and presented the authorities with faits acocmplis...
...It is not clear to me whether Plastrik is outraged at the existence of an agency called the CIA or whether his outrage is directed at the activities, i.e...
...with which he was equally unacquainted...
...Two major points made by Plastrik are not clear to me...
...Oromaner's second point, I am opposed to both the CIA and its activities...
...STANLEY PLASTRIK replies: The CIA is a creature of the government's executive branch, spawned by the cold-war phase of American foreign policy...
...The remaining resources of the organization are divided between the "vanguard" operations which are devoted to assassination, bribery, sabotage, political intervention, etc., and the research and scientific personnel who feed the vanguard...
...We should venture beyond the superficial discussions of the abolition of the CIA and employ the phrase, "Abolish the Damn Thing" to mean, abolish assassination, bribery, intervention, etc...
...Incidentally, since 1963 I have been hearing from him that he intends to provide a critical empirical examination of the Alinsky model...
...The Syracuse project was not an Minsky project, nor was Alinsky's salary in Syracuse paid for by funds secured through the Office of Economic Opportunity...
...the reader can only judge this for himself by reading Haggstrom's article entitled "The Power of the Poor," an article published in a book I coauthored entitled Mental Health of the Poor (Free Press, 1964...
...Plastrik concludes that the CIA should be abolished and that the formation of both domestic and foreign policy be turned back to the proper institutions of government...
...Alinsky came to the Syracuse Project coincidentally at the time it was funded by the OEO and departed coincidentally at the time the Project came under criticism from the OEO...
...It would be useful to subject organizational efforts, including those of Saul Alinsky, to a critical examination...
...strom's comment, one would have to believe that Mr...
...As the (former] director of the Syracuse project, I want to point out that this statement has little basis in fact...
...The case of the CIA must be seen in the light of the progressive growth of the power of the Executive branch...
...Its dismantlement would not usher in a moral international order, but it would at least remove one of the worst odors from a poisonous atmosphere...
...Haggstrom in a further paragraph writes that I misinterpret his views in summarizing them under a sociotherapeutic rubric...
Vol. 14 • September 1967 • No. 5
