Agents for Dollars
The creation of centralized foreign intelligence organizations is traditionally a product of a nation's drive for empire. All colonial powers have formed informa- tion gathering and clandestine...
...CIA, Ford Foundation, Institute for Defense Analysis and United Aircraft Corp...
...Known widely as "Oh So Social," it was organized and run by upper- class men directly involved in international commercial transactions (e.g., William J. Donovan, New York international lawyer...
...OSS was model The most important wartime model for postwar intelligence operations, including the CIA, was the Office of Strategic Serv- ices (OSS...
...While these individuals had extensive contacts with the European upper class and commercial elite, they realized that winning the war and maintaining the "peace" (i.e., extending U.S...
...The same Act established the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S...
...A careful survey of any major organization will inevitably reveal at least one individual with an intelligence background...
...In short, the international commercial elite clearly realized that the demands of empire could no longer be subject to cumbersome democratic procedures, public scrutiny or pro- vincial bureaucracies...
...OSS and Kennedy adviser), Arthur Goldberg (OSS and ambassador to the UN), Douglas Cater (OSS, journalist and Johnson adviser), Morris Abrams (Air Force Intelligence and newly appointed president of Brandeis University), Walt W. Rostow (OSS and KennedyJohnson adviser), William Sloan Coffin, Jr...
...Allen Dulles, partner in the inter- national New York law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell...
...Long before the federal government got involved, large U.S...
...But the passage of the 1947 National Security Act ensured their success by creating the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA...
...David K. E. Bruce, ambassador to Euro- pean nations and...
...They further recognized that only after detailed and accurate information is available can short-term and long-term objectives be clarified and priorities set for effective decision-making...
...Thus, among the first units created was the Research and Analysis Branch that enlisted some of the best brains in the academic world (including such left4eaning intellectuals as Herbert Marcuse, Paul Baran and Carl Marzani...
...Within the military structure, intelligence sections emerged to aid in the task of securing, protecting and administering new territories and trade routes...
...banks, investment houses, law firms and exportimport corporations created their own worldwide intelligence network...
...Within capitalist nations, intelligence bureaus were first created by the private commercial corporations that financed expansion and became dependent on its maintenance...
...Those from the upper class usually occupy high administrative i.e.tions while those with lower-class origins capitalize on their grooming and intelligence contact to achieve mobility...
...a Mellon heir through marriage...
...Air Force...
...The strategic information provided gave the corporations the opportunity to stay ahead of events affecting the marketplace...
...But U.S...
...Those who served A brief list-and it could be much longer-would include such persons as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr...
...international elite almost lost their centralized intelligence operation to more parochial elements in the military and State Department...
...To ward off this threat smaller nations have erected equivalent operations, especially during the 20th century, and as a result international intrigue has reduced diplomacy to mere formality...
...Stewart Alsop (OSS and journalist) and John K. Galbraith (World War II Strategic Bombing Survey, ambassador to India and Har- vard University faculty...
...All colonial powers have formed informa- tion gathering and clandestine operations to further penetration, manipulation and control of alien societies...
...immigrants, the OSS set up a Foreign Nationalities Branch that encouraged stronger bonds between ethnic groups in the U.S...
...GUARDIAN / MARCH 16, 1968 This column is prepared by the staff of the North American Congress on Latin America The thousands of individuals who have passed through the CIA and its sister organizations constitute by now an internal intelligence community...
...and abroad...
...Within the sphere of more direct action, such as clandestine information gathering (espionage) and guerrilla resistance in enemy-occupied territories, they drew upon exiles and experienced revolutionaries...
...In formalizing the nation's transition from a republic to an empire, the act sanctioned government-byfiat and secrecy, and swept aside what was left of the democratic process...
...Well-placed within leading public and private organizations, this network of intelligence personnel, directed by their "former" employers, can harness an enormous amount of power for promoting programs favored by the international commercial elite...
...power) would require mobilizing support among indigenous populations...
...At the close of World War II, the U.S...
...John Justin McDonough, an official of Chicago's Harris Trust and Savings Bank...
...With their access to privileged information they usually demonstrate outstanding skills...
...New civilian agencies, such as the Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (headed by Nelson Rockefeller), the Board of Economic Warfare and the Office of War Information, were foun- ded to encourage and/or coerce nonbelligerent nations to support the Allies and pave the way for postwar expansion...
...Only the United Nations remains without an elaborate intelligence system, and the consequences of this deficiency were most ap- parent in the Congo affair...
...intelligence really came into its own after the outbreak of World War II, when the commercial elite rushed to centralize and rationalize its operations within the federal government...
...To better utilize the knowledge and contacts of U.S...
...CIA), Edwin M. Martin (OSS and ambassador to Argentina), W. Willard Wirtz (Board of Economic Warfare and secretary of labor), Robert Heilbroner (OSS and economist), Richard M. Bissell, Jr...
Vol. 2 • March 1968 • No. 1
