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CIA's Private Successes and Public Failures
Aired July 16, 2003 - 15:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: It's the nature of the intelligence business that mission success stories are rarely publicized, while major failures often make huge headlines.
CNN's Bruce Morton has more on decades of success and failure at the CIA.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The CIA has had its ups and downs: U-2 spy planes flying over the Soviet Union taking valuable photographs. But, in 1960, the Soviets shot one down, a weather plane off course, the U.S. said. But the Soviets had captured the pilot, Francis Gary Powers. And he confessed to spying.
Nikita Khrushchev canceled a summit out of Pike (ph). The agency's intelligence on how good Soviet anti-aircraft missiles were was obviously faulty. The CIA was all for the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, a big embarrassment for young President Kennedy in 1961. But in '62, the old U-2s took more pictures, the evidence Kennedy needed to prove the Soviets had put missiles in Cuba, a victory.
The agency failed to predict the 1973 Mideast war. It used mind- altering drugs on Americans without their consent. During the Vietnam War, it spied on anti-war Americans, contrary to its charter. In Vietnam, it ran Operation Phoenix, which rounded up and sometimes killed suspected Viet Cong leaders.
When Richard Nixon tried to get the CIA to try to cover up Watergate by saying it was a national security matter, the agency said no. But a 1976 Senate report listed some astounding blunders, including a plan to involve the mafia in a plot to make Fidel Castro's beard fall out. And the CIA backed the Nicaraguan Contras, which some Americans approved of and some did not.
One big blunder, in 1985, an agent named Aldrich Ames turned double and started spying for the Soviet KGB. It took the U.S. years to catch him. And, of course, the agency never predicted that the Soviet Union would implode, that the Cold War would simply end. The late Senator Daniel Moynihan urged abolishing the CIA, but it hung on, facing new challenges, concentrating on terrorists now, not communists.
And now it and its director are in the middle of another flap: How did information you questioned wind up in the president's speech?
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 16, 2003 - 15:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: It's the nature of the intelligence business that mission success stories are rarely publicized, while major failures often make huge headlines.
CNN's Bruce Morton has more on decades of success and failure at the CIA.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The CIA has had its ups and downs: U-2 spy planes flying over the Soviet Union taking valuable photographs. But, in 1960, the Soviets shot one down, a weather plane off course, the U.S. said. But the Soviets had captured the pilot, Francis Gary Powers. And he confessed to spying.
Nikita Khrushchev canceled a summit out of Pike (ph). The agency's intelligence on how good Soviet anti-aircraft missiles were was obviously faulty. The CIA was all for the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, a big embarrassment for young President Kennedy in 1961. But in '62, the old U-2s took more pictures, the evidence Kennedy needed to prove the Soviets had put missiles in Cuba, a victory.
The agency failed to predict the 1973 Mideast war. It used mind- altering drugs on Americans without their consent. During the Vietnam War, it spied on anti-war Americans, contrary to its charter. In Vietnam, it ran Operation Phoenix, which rounded up and sometimes killed suspected Viet Cong leaders.
When Richard Nixon tried to get the CIA to try to cover up Watergate by saying it was a national security matter, the agency said no. But a 1976 Senate report listed some astounding blunders, including a plan to involve the mafia in a plot to make Fidel Castro's beard fall out. And the CIA backed the Nicaraguan Contras, which some Americans approved of and some did not.
One big blunder, in 1985, an agent named Aldrich Ames turned double and started spying for the Soviet KGB. It took the U.S. years to catch him. And, of course, the agency never predicted that the Soviet Union would implode, that the Cold War would simply end. The late Senator Daniel Moynihan urged abolishing the CIA, but it hung on, facing new challenges, concentrating on terrorists now, not communists.
And now it and its director are in the middle of another flap: How did information you questioned wind up in the president's speech?
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
