Office of the Historian

241. Letter From Director of Central Intelligence Dulles to the Secretary of State’s Special Assistant for Intelligence and Research (Armstrong)1

Washington, November 25, 1955.

Dear Park:

This is with reference to your letter of 5 October 19552 concerning the statements made in the report of the Task Force on Intelligence Activities (Clark Committee)3 regarding the attitude of the Department of State toward intelligence collection activities.

As you point out, there is no substantiating data or argumentation for the implied charges made against the Department of State in the Top Secret Task Force Report, dated May 1955—at least not in that [Page 734] portion of the report, which excludes pages 76–204,4 made available to this Agency.

We have once again carefully reviewed Appendix II which deals with certain aspects of CIA’s work.5 The pertinent portions of this report appear to be:

“The allocation of funds for all projects of psychological warfare to specific areas, more particularly for propaganda, has been consistently influenced and too frequently interfered with by low-level State Department representatives since the beginning of the cold-war program. This intervention in the program by such representatives, whose interests are narrow and restricted to their assigned country areas, has at times in the past resulted not only in misdirected efforts on the part of the Clandestine Services, but in serious financial losses to the Government also, without a fair measure of gainful return. These might have been avoided had the DCI been given long-range national policy guidance at higher State Department level and had been permitted then to act on his own judgment, or, better still, had NSC more clearly defined the prerogatives of the DCI in carrying out his cold-war mission. To the surveying officer it is significant that NSC gave to the DCI the sole responsibility for carrying out cold-war operations aimed at the Communist bloc. Nowhere in NSC directives pertaining to this mission is it indicated that the DCI’s responsibility therefor may be delegated to, or shared with, any other Government agency.… While there is no evidence revealed in this survey concerning any serious disagreement between CIA officials and these same representatives with respect to psychological warfare, it is clearly indicated that, as far as the Office of the Secretary of State is concerned, such policy advice has come on a piece-meal basis and too often not from specifically designated representatives of that agency.”

[1 paragraph (3½ lines) not declassified]

I consider that there is no real basis of fact for the above allegations regarding the State Department’s attitude. As regards policy guidance, the Department has been wholly cooperative and I do not consider that there has been any improper “intervention” or “interference” in the carrying out by CIA of cold war programs. [3 lines not declassified]

Sincerely,

Allen W. Dulles
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1955–60, 711.5200/11–2555. Top Secret. The letter is attached to a November 29 memorandum from Armstrong indicating that Dulles’ letter was being forwarded to Hoover, Murphy, and MacArthur.↩
  2. Document 236.↩
  3. Documents 220 and 221.↩
  4. Pages 76–88 concerned the Department of State and pages 89–205 examined the intelligence role of the Department of Defense. (Memorandum from Dillon Anderson to Goodpaster, February 14, 1956; Eisenhower Library, Hoover Commission Report on Intelligence Activities, May 1955–October 1956)↩
  5. Appendix II, which discussed the clandestine service of the Central Intelligence Agency, is not printed.↩