Feb. 3, 1986
C.I.A. Is Too Modest About Sponsoring Books
To the Editor:
Has the Central Intelligence Agency returned to secretly propagandizing the American people? The case of Prof. Nadav Safran of Harvard, who used a $107,000 grant from the C.I.A. to write a book published in the U.S. last fall, suggests that it has.
Unfortunately, your otherwise informative front-page article reporting restored C.I.A. links to campuses (Jan. 20) conveyed little sense of the dangers inherent in C.I.A. sponsorship of academic research that is then introduced into the marketplace of ideas without any indication of its origins.
The C.I.A. is well aware of the power of the written word. In 1961, its chief of covert operations wrote: ''Books differ from all other propaganda media, primarily because one single book can significantly change the reader's attitude and action to an extent unmatched by the impact of any other single medium.''
Disclosures in 1967 that the C.I.A. was financing domestic institutions, academics and journalists prompted a major revision in C.I.A. policy. The deputy director for plans promised, ''We will, under no circumstances, publish books, magazines or newspapers in the United States.''
These assurances were repeated in 1973 by William Colby, then C.I.A. director, who stated, referring to journalists, ''C.I.A. will undertake no activity in which there is a risk of influencing domestic public opinion, either directly or indirectly.'' The agency's contract with Mr. Safran was a sharp departure from these promises.
The C.I.A. should have two choices: to classify the results of agency-funded research, which I think would be unnecessary in most cases, or to allow the material to be published with an acknowledgment of C.I.A. sponsorship, so readers may evaluate it accordingly. In a free society, no secret government security agency should be allowed clandestinely to finance books that can influence domestic opinion.
DON EDWARDS
Washington
Jan. 22, 1986
The writer is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights.