Covert Action

by Gregory F. Treverton

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465014399
• ISBN13: 9780465014392
• Release Date: November 1987
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 293 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Book review

Under Cover, or Out of Control? The New York Times November 29, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition (Review of 2 books, including The perfect failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs, only this book review included here) The torrent of revelations about the Iran-contra affair during the summer's televised hearings, and in the recently released report of the Congressional committees that conducted the hearings, has made Americans aware both of the importance of covert action in the foreign policy of their country and of its risks and costs. These two books do nothing to rehabilitate its reputation or to improve its image... Both men show how much euphoria about covert action was created by two early successes of the C.I.A.: in Iran in 1953, when Kermit Roosevelt, with the help of what Mr. Treverton calls a ''strange assemblage'' - a pro-Shah mob controlled by one Iranian leader, ''complete with giant . . . weight-lifters recruited from Teheran athletic clubs'' - overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh's Government and consolidated the Shah's shaky power; and in Guatemala in 1954, when the regime of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was toppled by a small group of rebel soldiers moving in from Honduras. The action in Guatemala led officials to believe that such successes could be repeated elsewhere; it ''consolidated the ascendancy of covert action over espionage, and of operations over intelligence in the CIA,'' in Mr. Treverton's words - and it led directly to the Bay of Pigs and to the later operations in Chile that toppled that country's Government. Most of the men who planned these later activities had been involved in the Guatemalan affair. ''Covert Action'' is valuable not only for its brief, sharp accounts of covert enterprises (the one in Chile was undertaken even though none of the official assessments had concluded that the election of Salvador Allende Gossens in 1970 threatened any vital United States interest), but above all for the lessons Mr. Treverton draws from history, and for his own assessments. The lessons are stark. As the targets of United States action became more formidable (Fidel Castro learned from Arbenz's fate), the chances of success decreased. Success requires bigger operations - and big operations can't remain secret (as the Reagan arms sales to Iran demonstrated). If the covert activities go on for a long time, as they have in Angola and, since 1981, in Nicaragua, the purposes tend to expand, along with the commitment and public knowledge. When the operations entail the manipulation of foreign elements with their own agenda (the Cuban exiles mobilized for the Bay of Pigs landing, or the Nicaraguan contras, or the anti-Allende factions in the Chilean military), American ability to control them is often limited. In any case, the fine-tuning of covert actions is difficult. In Chile, the United States Government tried to maintain a barrier ''between supporting opposition forces and funding groups trying

Book review

Under Cover, or Out of Control? The New York Times November 29, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition (Review of 2 books, including The perfect failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs, only this book review included here) The torrent of revelations about the Iran-contra affair during the summer's televised hearings, and in the recently released report of the Congressional committees that conducted the hearings, has made Americans aware both of the importance of covert action in the foreign policy of their country and of its risks and costs. These two books do nothing to rehabilitate its reputation or to improve its image... Both men show how much euphoria about covert action was created by two early successes of the C.I.A.: in Iran in 1953, when Kermit Roosevelt, with the help of what Mr. Treverton calls a ''strange assemblage'' - a pro-Shah mob controlled by one Iranian leader, ''complete with giant . . . weight-lifters recruited from Teheran athletic clubs'' - overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh's Government and consolidated the Shah's shaky power; and in Guatemala in 1954, when the regime of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was toppled by a small group of rebel soldiers moving in from Honduras. The action in Guatemala led officials to believe that such successes could be repeated elsewhere; it ''consolidated the ascendancy of covert action over espionage, and of operations over intelligence in the CIA,'' in Mr. Treverton's words - and it led directly to the Bay of Pigs and to the later operations in Chile that toppled that country's Government. Most of the men who planned these later activities had been involved in the Guatemalan affair. ''Covert Action'' is valuable not only for its brief, sharp accounts of covert enterprises (the one in Chile was undertaken even though none of the official assessments had concluded that the election of Salvador Allende Gossens in 1970 threatened any vital United States interest), but above all for the lessons Mr. Treverton draws from history, and for his own assessments. The lessons are stark. As the targets of United States action became more formidable (Fidel Castro learned from Arbenz's fate), the chances of success decreased. Success requires bigger operations - and big operations can't remain secret (as the Reagan arms sales to Iran demonstrated). If the covert activities go on for a long time, as they have in Angola and, since 1981, in Nicaragua, the purposes tend to expand, along with the commitment and public knowledge. When the operations entail the manipulation of foreign elements with their own agenda (the Cuban exiles mobilized for the Bay of Pigs landing, or the Nicaraguan contras, or the anti-Allende factions in the Chilean military), American ability to control them is often limited. In any case, the fine-tuning of covert actions is difficult. In Chile, the United States Government tried to maintain a barrier ''between supporting opposition forces and funding groups trying