When you work closely with murderers, you learn to make fine distinctions: between degrees of involvement, between paying and condoning, between omission and commission.
Over the past year (1984), a number of detailed press accounts have described a pattern of official cooperation between the Central Intelligence Agency and Salvadoran security officers said to be involved in death squad activities. The reports include allegations that the CIA has recruited as paid agents Salvadorans notorious for ties with the death squads. They also include reports that the CIA has provided Salvadoran intelligence agencies with information about individuals that may have become the basis for political assassinations.
Last April, the Senate intelligence committee began an investigation of these allegations. In October, the committee released an unclassified report summarizing a series of longer, classified annexes. This public statement noted that some problems had arisen through contacts with Salvadorans involved in death squad activities, but said the committee had found "no evidence to support the allegation that elements of the U.S. government have supported, encouraged or acquiesced in acts of political violence in El Salvador." The report said elsewhere, without intended irony, that "the public deserves to be reassured" about the activities of the U.S. government abroad.
This article contrasts the results of the Senate committee's investigation with the news accounts that led to the investigation. It also suggests possible explanations for the striking difference between these two versions of events.
Original Title
First Principles Vol. 10, No. 2. "The CIA and Political Violence in El Salvador," Center for National Security Studies, December 1984
When you work closely with murderers, you learn to make fine distinctions: between degrees of involvement, between paying and condoning, between omission and commission.
Over the past year (1984), a number of detailed press accounts have described a pattern of official cooperation between the Central Intelligence Agency and Salvadoran security officers said to be involved in death squad activities. The reports include allegations that the CIA has recruited as paid agents Salvadorans notorious for ties with the death squads. They also include reports that the CIA has provided Salvadoran intelligence agencies with information about individuals that may have become the basis for political assassinations.
Last April, the Senate intelligence committee began an investigation of these allegations. In October, the committee released an unclassified report summarizing a series of longer, classified annexes. This public statement noted that some problems had arisen through contacts with Salvadorans involved in death squad activities, but said the committee had found "no evidence to support the allegation that elements of the U.S. government have supported, encouraged or acquiesced in acts of political violence in El Salvador." The report said elsewhere, without intended irony, that "the public deserves to be reassured" about the activities of the U.S. government abroad.
This article contrasts the results of the Senate committee's investigation with the news accounts that led to the investigation. It also suggests possible explanations for the striking difference between these two versions of events.
When you work closely with murderers, you learn to make fine distinctions: between degrees of involvement, between paying and condoning, between omission and commission.
Over the past year (1984), a number of detailed press accounts have described a pattern of official cooperation between the Central Intelligence Agency and Salvadoran security officers said to be involved in death squad activities. The reports include allegations that the CIA has recruited as paid agents Salvadorans notorious for ties with the death squads. They also include reports that the CIA has provided Salvadoran intelligence agencies with information about individuals that may have become the basis for political assassinations.
Last April, the Senate intelligence committee began an investigation of these allegations. In October, the committee released an unclassified report summarizing a series of longer, classified annexes. This public statement noted that some problems had arisen through contacts with Salvadorans involved in death squad activities, but said the committee had found "no evidence to support the allegation that elements of the U.S. government have supported, encouraged or acquiesced in acts of political violence in El Salvador." The report said elsewhere, without intended irony, that "the public deserves to be reassured" about the activities of the U.S. government abroad.
This article contrasts the results of the Senate committee's investigation with the news accounts that led to the investigation. It also suggests possible explanations for the striking difference between these two versions of events.