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By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

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x BY WAY OF DECEPTIONRichard J. Kerr, on his nomination as deputy director <strong>of</strong> CentralIntelligence. Even before undergoing the public hearings,Kerr had to complete an exhaustive, 45-part questionnaire,airing everything from his biographical, academic, and employmentexperiences, to his finances, including what landhe owned, his salary during the past five years, and the size<strong>of</strong> his mortgage, along with questions on organizations hebelonged to and his general philosophy <strong>of</strong> life and intelligence.Opening the hearing, Senator Boren acknowledged that itwas a rare occasion for the committee to conduct its businessin public. "While some other nations provide for legislativebranch oversight <strong>of</strong> their intelligence activities, theextensive nature <strong>of</strong> the process in our country is trulyunique."Among other things, the committee conducts quarterly reviews<strong>of</strong> all presidentially mandated covert-action programsand holds special hearings whenever the president initiatesa new covert action."While we have no power to veto proposed covert actions,"he continued, "presidents have in the past heededour advice by taking actions either to modify or cancel activitieswhich the committee believed to be ill-conceived orwhich we believed posed unnecessary risks for the securityinterests."In Israel, even the prime minister, although supposedly incharge <strong>of</strong> intelligence, <strong>of</strong>ten doesn't know about covert activitiesuntil after they've occurred. As for the public, theyrarely know about them at all. And there certainly is no committeescrutiny <strong>of</strong> Mossad activities and personnel.The importance <strong>of</strong> appropriate political guardianship <strong>of</strong>intelligence was summed up by Sir William Stephenson inthe foreword to A Man Called Intrepid, in which he said thatintelligence is a necessary condition for democracies toavoid disaster and possibly total destruction."Among the increasingly intricate arsenals across theworld, intelligence is an essential weapon, perhaps the mostimportant," he wrote. "But it is, being secret, the most dangerous.Safeguards to prevent its abuse must be devised, re-

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