Fu CIA
Go to CIA.gov
FOIA
Secondary Navigation
Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room
Requestor Portal
Historical Collections
Browse the Collections | Advanced Search | Search Help
Search formSearch Query for FOIA ERR:
-AA+A
GOD AND MAN AT
Document Type:
CREST
Collection:
General CIA Records
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP90-01208R000100050007-1
Release Decision:
RIPPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
1
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
February 25, 2011
Sequence Number:
7
Case Number:
Publication Date:
December 1, 1983
Content Type:
OPEN SOURCE
File:
Attachment Size
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-01208R000100050007-1.pdf 137.04 KB
Body:
;STAY-- I !II I I I I -1 H'ASHINGTONIAN December 1983 God and Man at Religion? .The CIA Has Thought a Lot About It, and Has Concluded How Does an Intelligence Agent Reconcile espionage; it once encouraged its em? chats, author of The Marriage of Figaro ployees to lie to Congress; and it has and The Barber of Seville. enshrined slippery former director Rich- It was Beaumarchais who persuaded and Helms as the CIA soldier most wor- a reluctant King Louis XVI to aid the thy of emulation. That so many CIA em- American Revolution by making it ap- ployees miss the irony of the Biblical pear that the French funding came from inscription is testimony to the capacity private citizen Beaumarchais, not from of human beings to disregard a moral the French government. In a persuasive code when they're in the service of a letter to the king, which is in the CIA's cause or of a state. Historical Intelligence Collection, the Most CIA employee recruits hear the dramatist presented the moral case for "basic speech," during which instruc? covert action: tors, describing espionage as a worthy "Generally speaking there is no doubt calling, proclaim that to be patriots they that any idea or project that violates jus- must work in silence and without ac- lice must be rejected by a man of integ- claim. The speech calls spying the world's ~ riry. But, Sire, State policy is not the second-oldest profession ("and just as same as private morality... . honorable as the first"), adding that God "If men were angels, we ought no Himself founded thecalling when Moses 'doubt to despise or even detest politics. seat leaders of the twelve tribes to "spy But if men were angels, they would havc out the land, of Canaan." no need for religion to enlighten them, In a less well-known reference, CIA or laws to govern them,. or soldiers to. officials like to note that America may subdue -them, and the' earth, instead of owe her existence to the covert action of being a living image_of hell, would itself Pierre-Augustin Caron de Besumar- be a region of heaven. But in the end we bate Van A~ is a )ack Anderson associate must take them as they are ...and a a gin natioaal?axtuity issues, including king who alone wished to be absolutely just among the wicked and to remain Tl~,at the Bible and God Are on T ~re~ir Side. _ _._. By Dale Van Alta fur the cornerstone of the Cen- tral Intelligence Agency's head- quarters in Langley, Virginia, had been laid in 1959, CIA DirectorAl- len Dulles cast about for a suitable inscription. What message, he won- dered, would be most apropos to grace the foyer of this $46 million monument to spying? Eventually Dulles settled on the Biblical quotation now carved in marble on one side of the entrance hall; "And ve shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you -free. John VIII- ?IXJ~." Ironic words, given that the CIA is the ..one American institution whose mission often demands distortion of the truth. The agency plants misinformation in newspapers, magazines, and books throughout the world; routinely its agents misrepresent themselves to gather the in- fomiationa] gold that is the currency of good among the wolves would soon be devoured along with his flock." The Frenchman's -point that covert ac- tion- and intelligence itself-is a "nec- essary evil" is further emphasized by CIA instructors who eulogize one of his American contemporaries, Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary Waz hero who, posing as a Dutch schoolteacher behind British lines, was captured and hanged for spying. His statue stands outside CIA headquar- tens today, and his words have been so inspirational to some agents that one for- mersenior official carried this Hak speech in his wallet: "I wish to be useful, and . every kind of service; necessary to the public good, becomes honorable by being necessary. If the exigencies of my coun- try demand a peculiar service, its claims to perform that service are imperious." From Hale's day until the founding of the CIA in 1947, this country had re- sisted establishing afull-time intelli- gence organization. Pearl Harbor and World War II, however, overcame America's reluctance. Though public ap- prove] of the CIA has never been whole- -II, Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25 :CIA-RDP90-012088000100050007-1
Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version
Agency
About CIA
Organization
Director of the CIA
CIA Museum
News & Stories
Careers
Working at CIA
How We Hire
Student Programs
Browse CIA Jobs
Resources
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI)
The World Factbook
Spy Kids
REPORT INFORMATION
CONTACT CIA
Connect with CIA
Search CIA.govSite PoliciesPrivacyNo FEAR ActInspector GeneralUSA.govSite Map
back to topback to top
Z D
B
a
N\(M)
Go to CIA.gov
FOIA
Secondary Navigation
Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room
Requestor Portal
Historical Collections
Browse the Collections | Advanced Search | Search Help
Search formSearch Query for FOIA ERR:
-AA+A
COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN: SPECIAL: THE CIA AND RELIGION
Document Type:
CREST
Collection:
General CIA Records
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4
Release Decision:
RIFPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
68
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
June 9, 2010
Sequence Number:
4
Case Number:
Content Type:
OPEN SOURCE
File:
Attachment Size
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4.pdf 8.38 MB
Body:
Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 INFORMATION Number 18 Winter 1983 $3.00 Special: The CIA and Religion Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 Editorial In this issue we concentrate on the CIA and religion, especially in Central America. We believe that an under- standing of the degree to which intelligence agencies at- tempt to manipulate religion and organized churches is even more essential today than it was in 1975, when Sena- tor Church's Committee examined the CIA's use of mis- siori ries as spies. Central America threatens to become another Vietnam for U.S. involvement, and in many countries repression against the poor has become brutal beyond comprehen- sion. The people of Central America are very religious, a factor on which the CIA has always relied, as noted in Sources and Methods, and elsewhere in this issue. Using religious beliefs against the people and controlling and manipulating religious-sponsored relief agencies is nothing new :or the CIA, as is shown in our articles on Thailand and Guatemala, and on the Miskitu Indians of Nicaragua. The reason for the critical role of religion in Central America is clearly the development of what is known as liberation theology. For hundreds of years, until the late 1950s and early 1960s, the church in Latin America primarily the Catholic Church- was essentially conserva- tive and therefore supportive of the repressive national security states. But in recent decades there has been a decisive shift in the emphasis of religious workers to an identification with the poor and underprivileged. Grass roots work flourished; the Second Vatican Council (1962-5) encouraged this work; and in 1968 the Medellin, Colombia conference of Latin American Bishops recognized the pri- macy of struggles against social injustice and the legiti- macy of those struggles even when violence was the only means left to achieve those goals. Table of Contents Editorial 2 Summer Linguistics 41 The Masaya Affair 4 World Medical Relief 47 "Secret" War in Nicaragua 7 AID's Carrot and Stick 50 Opus Del' 11 The CIA and BOSS 52 Ideology in Nicaragua 16 South African Torture 55 The Miskitu Case 21 The Puzzle Palace 57 War Fever in Honduras 25 Vietnam Defoliation 58 U.S. Military in Honduras 29 News Notes 60 Evangelicals in Guatemala 34 CIA Religion 68 On the Cover: Pro-Government Townspeople in Masaya, Nicaragua Take Cover as Counterrevolutionaries Fire at Them From Inside Catholic School. Credit: El Nuevo Diario. C'ox'riAction Information Bulletin Number 18, Winter 1983, published by Covert Action Publications, Inc., a District of Columbia Nonprofit Corpo ation, P.O. Box 50272, Washington, DC 20004; telephone: (202) 265-3904. All rights reserved; copyright 1982 by Covert Action Publications, Inc. Typography by Art for People, Washington, DC; printing by Fac lh Press, Brooklyn, NY. Washington staff: Ellen Ray, William Schaap. Louis Wolf. Board of Advisers Philip Agee, Ken Lawrence, Elsie Wilcott, Jim Wilcott. Indexed in the Alternative Press hn/e.r. ISSN 0275-309X. Number 18 (Winter 1983) Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 Of course, the rank and file, the "base communities," as they are called in Latin America, often moved faster than the Church hierarchy, as our articles on Nicaragua show. And the Reagan administration was quick to recognize the overwhelming significance of this spiritual conflict. The Santa Fe document, prepared for President-elect Reagan, noted: "The war is for the minds of mankind. Ideo-politics will prevail.... U.S. foreign policy must begin to counter (not react against) liberation theology as it is utilized in Latin America by the `liberation theology' clergy. The role of the church in Latin America is vital to the concept of political freedom . . . [found in] private property and productive capitalism." As we demonstrate throughout this issue, the New Right has attacked liberation theology both within the Catholic Church, among the Jesuits (see the article on Opus Dei), and within the Protestant denominations. The liberal Na- tional Council of Churches has been attacked and spied upon relentlessly, as have several of its denominational members which have actively supported social progress in Latin America. The attacks have come from sources as diverse as the Pope, evangelists, and Reagan administra- tion officials like Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who has taken to telephoning bishops to ask if they know "what's happening in Nicaragua." His cynicism and hypocrisy are apparently boundless, as he defends the regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala whose death squads systematically torture, mutilate, and murder thousands of poor people. Number 18 (Winter 1983) The significance of the evangelical groups-of which there are now hundreds in Central America- -is described in our articles on General Rios Montt of Guatemala, and on the Summer Institute of Linguistics. The Destabilization of Nicaragua The return to an era of rabid anti-communism and of a CIA unleashed is epitomized by the massive program to destabilize and overthrow the government of Nicaragua. In three articles in this issue we analyze various facets of that program, manipulation of the Church, manipulation of the Miskitu Indians, and the use of paramilitary bands. Paramilitary mercenary gangs have found great favor with the new administraiton, and meet, train, practice, and recruit in this country with impunity. Perspectives have become so warped that in Miami, for example, the city government voted a $ 10,000 grant for a "homeless refugee center" to Alpha 66, a terrorist group dedicated to the overthrow of the government of Cuba. Alpha 66 admitted that its concern for refugees extended only to training them to "send them back as fighters." This Issue Once again, we must apologize to our readers for the lateness of this issue. Our subscribers are a loyal and pa- tient group and we hope the size and content of this issue make up for our tardiness. The rumors of our demise, as Mark Twain said, are premature! t Grenada: Nobody's Backyard A sixteen mm., 60-minute color documentary celebrating the Grenadian Revolution on its first an- niversary and examining the campaign of destabiliza- tion being waged against Grenada, the tiny "jewel" of the Caribbean. Includes interviews with Maurice Bishop, Cheddi Jagan, Isabel Letelier, Trevor Mon- roe, and Philip Agee. Produced by CovertAction Information Bulletin; directed by Ellen Ray; for rental information, tele- phone (202) 265-3904, or write to P.O. Box 50272, Washington, DC 20004. Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 ?he Malaya Affair By Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap Tie market town of Masaya, less than half an hour's drive from Managua, is considered the center of the Nica- ragL.an revolution; the barrio of Monimbo there, its very heart. In July 1982, the third anniversary of the triumph of the revolution was celebrated in Masaya, with the slogan, "Monimbo is Nicaragua," honoring the legendary bravery of the people of that poor district in the struggle against the bloody Somoza regime. Thus, to the enemies of that revolution there would be enormous propaganda value to an anti-Sandinista riot in Monimbo. And in August there was a concerted effort to create just such an illusion. All the elements of a compli- cated script were present: preliminary skirmishes, rumors, wild tales in the media, outside agitators, and more. The events themselves are well worth studying. The Father Carballo Incident O ie might have guessed that the right-wing press especially those professing to be Catholic-would have a field day. According to William Buckley's venemous Na- tional Review (September 17, 1982): "Sandinista thugs jumped the archbishop's spokesman, Father Bismarck Carballo, at lunch, forced him to strip, and drove him through the streets." Reactionary columnist Patrick J. Buchanan was equally strident ( Washington Inquirer, Sep- tember 3, 1982): "In the most recent and outrageous inci- dent, Rev. Bismarck Carballo, spokesman for the arch- dioc,-se, was set upon while lunching with a woman friend; both were stripped naked and paraded through the streets to jail where he was held six hours." But even some of the wire services, which purport to give both sides in a dispute, presented the above version as fact. The September 3 Associated Press article entitled, "Church, Sandinistas On Collision Course," gave this ren- dition: "In mid-August, the Rev. Bismarck Carballo was at the home of a woman parishioner when a gunman entered the house, forced the couple to undress and then pushed there into the street where a crowd of photographers and television crews from pro-government media were waiting." What none of these "objective"journalists reported was that the couple was caught in flagrante delicto, and the "gunman" was the woman's lover. Media people were nearby covering an embassy demonstration into which the terrified, naked priest practically collided. The journalists also failed to note that the government ordered the media not to publish reports or photos of the incident out of respect for the Church. However, when Father Carballo broke the silence by calling a press conference and pre- senting his incredible version, the censorship order was lifted and the incident-as well as Carballo--was fully revealed. Moreover, El Nuevo Diario subsequently learned that the priest and his "parishioner" had been having an affair for years, and it published an interview with the woman in which she admitted their relationship and pro- duced photos of the couple in bathing suits, trysting at the seaside. These additional facts appeared well before the pious denunciations by Buckley and Buchanan, including a re- port on the August 19 Reuters wire; they were not, of course, alluded to by the right-wing press. The same day as the Reuters report, the State Department denounced the "treatment meted out to Carballo" as a sign of a "systemat- ic campaign against religion in Nicaragua." As recently as mid-December, a CBS-TV network news report made passing reference to the priest who had been stripped and beaten. Big lies, even outrageous and in- herently unbelievable big lies, die slowly. The Reporting On Masaya On certain events, everyone agreed. Monday, August 16, nearly 100 people barricaded themselves inside the Catho- lic Salesian School in Monimbo. Late in the day, when a large group of protesters assembled in the streets in front of the school, shots rang out three people were killed and six wounded. Patrick Buchanan wrote that "outraged Catholic stu- dents seized high schools around the country, and in Mo- nimbo ... barricades were thrown up against Sandinista mobs and troops, and three people were killed and six wounded." Elliott Abrams, whose title is Assistant Secre- tary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, wrote a column for the August 22 Washington Post in which he claimed, "violent clashes in Masaya between Sandinista mobs and Catholic school students and their supporters have resulted in three deaths...." Even some progressive reporting was fuzzy; the September 1 Guardian said that "shooting between pro- and anti-Sandinista dem- onstrators left at least two dead and seven wounded in Masaya August 16."(One of the wounded later died.) Most of these accounts give the impression, stated in some media reports, that "Sandinistas killed students." What none of the explanations clarifies, however, is that the shooting came exclusively from inside the school, where the only armed people were gathered. The dead and wounded were government supporters, outside protesting the closing. Moreover, there were students on both sides, and virtually everyone was Catholic. When the dust settled it turned out that of the 18 people arrested inside the school-in rooms littered with spent rifle shells-only nine were local residents. The major role of outsiders as agents provocateurs and the rapid dissemi- nation of false and misleading propaganda suggest a well- planned scenario. Several days after the incident, CAIB editors visited Monimbo and interviewed residents. What Really Happened at Masaya? The Father Carballo incident led, indirectly, to the events which caused the greatest distortions in the media, as part of what appears to have been a carefully staged plan. A few days after the Carballo affair, there was a significant confrontation in Monimbo. On August 14, Mi- guel Obando y Bravo, the conservative Archbishop of 4 CovertAction Number 18 (Winter 1983) Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4 Managua (see sidebar) came to Masaya to participate in a religious ceremony. During the procession, a large group of townspeople gathered and confronted the Archbishop, angry that he had not publicly denounced the recent mas- sacre at San Francisco del Norte. Other priests had spoken out against the brutal raid in which counterrevolutionary exiles from Honduras had killed 15 villagers and kid- napped eight others, but Obando y Bravo, the senior reli- gious figure in the country, had been strangely silent. The petitioning townspeople were rebuffed by followers of Obando y Bravo, a right-wing mob who took the oppor- tunity to throw rocks at them. Then, on the morning of Monday, August 16, the direc- tor of the Silesian School in Monimbo ordered it closed in protest against "aggressions suffered by the Church." A number of youths who supported the closing occupied the school, barricading it against a large number of students, supporters of the government, who did not want it closed. Students and townspeople began gathering in the streets in front of the school, some in favor of the closing, most against. In one incident, a pedestrian was hit by a passing government car. The victim later stated that he had been pushed into the car by some strangers who were not from Monimbo. But this incident led to a near rampage by armed bands who appeared from the hills behind Masaya and attacked a police substation. It was these same armed bands who brought their weapons inside the school, al- though the people outside did not realize this at the time. Ultimately, after attempts to negotiate an opening of the school failed, townspeople and students began to march along the street in front of the school. As they neared the building shots rang out from inside. The marchers, who had no guns, dove for cover; three people were killed in the street and six others wounded. Shortly thereafter, security forces cleared the school, arresting 81 people. Five priests -a Spaniard who had evidently instigated the boy- cott and four Costa Ricans-were taken by the police to their respective embassies for protective custody. Within the next few days most of those arrested were released. Only those determined to be connected with the shootings were held. The residency permit of the Spanish director of the school was revoked and he was in effect deported; the other four priests returned to work at the school. Most revealing about the whole incident was the imme- diate, totally inaccurate reportage which swept around the world. Items noted above were mild compared to some. An Associated Press report which went out over their New York wire early the morning of August 17 stated that students "took over at least 17 Roman Catholic schools around the country and protesters in Masaya barricaded their slum neighborhood against security forces." There were, in fact, three or four other student protests that day, though nothing as dramatic as in Monimbo. Moreover, protesters did not barricade the neighborhood from securi- ty forces; they demanded that security forces come in and arrest the persons inside the school who were shooting. At no time were the townspeople armed, which renders ques- tionable the following paragraph from the AP wire: "`At this moment, as you can see, we're building barricades with paving stones to keep out police and groups of government supporters. They will surely come and we'll be obliged to confront them,' one armed resident of Monimbo, a slum on the edge of Masaya, told reporters." The article went on to report that "some 2000 residents built barricades." This is incredible, since the only people barricaded anywhere were the 81 people inside the school-and only nine of them were local residents. More- over, the AP story "from the scene" doesn't even mention that people were killed! It is possible the story was outlined even before the events occurred. But even the AP reportage paled by comparison with some of the blatant Latin American disinformation pieces. The local reporter for Excelsior, the prestigious Mexico City daily, sent, he later said, two separate stories to his paper. One dealt with the subject of 81 people being arrest- ed. The other covered the fact that five foreign priests were in their embassies. The front page headline in Excelsior: "Eighty-one Priests Arrested in Nicaragua." The following day Excelsior ran a correction confirming that there were no priests in jail in Nicaragua, but their original story was picked up all over the world. This anti-Sandinista media blitz indicates considerable coordination, exacerbated by the apparent willingness of the foreign press corps to believe anything anti- government. It is a sad indictment of the "investigative" journalists of Latin American coverage. Only now that the covert plot against Nicaragua has become so obvious are these same journalists jumping on the bandwagon. How many deaths might have been averted if they had done their homework earlier? Other Media Manipulation Some of the blatant distortions which have appeared in the Nicaraguan opposition press, and in papers in neigh- boring Honduras and Costa Rica and elsewhere, strongly suggest a coordinated campaign which can only be seen as an integrated part of the destabilization plot aimed at Nicaragua. The photograph on the cover of this issue shows townspeople in Masaya who were protesting the right-wing takeover of the Salesian School diving for cover as they were shot at from inside the school. The photo was sent by AP wire to Honduras and elsewhere, with, AP later insisted, the correct caption. Nevertheless, the following day it appeared in a major Tegucigalpa newspaper with a caption which said that it showed "Catholics" dodging "Sandinista bullets." At the height of the tensions over events in Masaya, Bishop Salvador Schlaefer from the Atlantic coast was asked by the government to come to Managua to help in the various negotiations and meetings that were taking place. He was provided with government transportation. La Prensa editor Horacio Ruiz reported to the Brazilian paper Correo Brasileno, for which he was a correspondent, that Schlaefer had been arrested by the Sandinistas. He also gave this "information" to other reporters in Mana- gua, and the story, which was a complete lie.... TY
About the Bible Quote Carving
Allen Dulles, the fifth and longest-serving Director of Central Intelligence, took a personal interest in the construction of the Original Headquarters Building (OHB). At the dedication ceremony for OHB, Dulles included a quotation in his speech: "And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free" – John 8:32. Dulles insisted that the quotation be fixed in stone in the OHB Lobby.
The inscription reads: "And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free – John 8:32."