Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!burl!we13!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!pollack From: pollack@uicsl.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Intelligence in 1984 - (nf) Message-ID: <5231@uiucdcs.UUCP> Date: Sat, 28-Jan-84 22:35:11 EST Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.5231 Posted: Sat Jan 28 22:35:11 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 5-Feb-84 04:38:03 EST Lines: 58 #N:uicsl:16300043:000:2861 uicsl!pollack Jan 28 16:26:00 1984 There are many people who work for our National Security by collecting and analyzing information from around the world. Besides the paranoid militaristic ideological spooks which pervade the Intelligence Community, there are many objective and well-informed citizens who contribute to our national security without being beholden to a particular ideology. When a document, secret or otherwise, is produced, dissenters have, in the past, been able to communicate their opinions through various communication channels; for example, when the infamously dubious "White paper on communist interference in El Salvador" was published in Feb. 81 and made it "clear that over the past year the insurgency in El Salvador has been progressively transformed into another case of indirect armed aggression against a small Third World country by Communist powers acting through Cuba", (thus laying the misinformation groundwork for a confrontational policy), a large group of analysts within the intelligence agencies published a Dissent Paper, in which they persuasively argued for a diplomatic, rather than a militaristic solution to the problems in Central America. Now, for the bad news -- there is no more dissent: >From NY Times, Fri 1/27, p. 10, col. 1: "The secret report on Soviet Violations of arms control agreements that the Reagan Administration sent to Congress this week surprised some intelligence authorities because it seemed so unequivocal. Ordinarily, interagency documents compiled by the DIA, CIA, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and NSA include footnotes or similar devices in which dissent [...] can be expressed... "But the 55-page report by the NSC, whch Congress had ordered from the executive Branch last year, did not include any indications of possible fallibility or doubt. Dissents were reportedly eliminated by the White House in meetings led by Robert McFarlane... "The pressures involved were substantial. Conservative Republicans in Congress have been seeking official documentation of instances in which the Soviet Union has failed to abide by its arms control pledges, and the State Department has been reluctant to respond because of the complexity of the material and obvious international repercussions. [...] The dissent-free intelligence report that finally emerged seemed tailored to their interests." The elimination of Intelligence dissent by pressure from the Administration is yet another indication -- following mandatory lie-detector tests and permanent censorship -- of the erosion of the Freedom of Speech under Reagan. The current trend is towards a unification of the voice of our government, and a goverment which speaks in one voice shares the tongue of Big Brother. I stopped hugging Teddy Bears long ago... Jordan Pollack University of Illinois ...pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!pollack