<ul><li><p>This article was downloaded by: [Columbia University]On: 13 November 2014, At: 11:08Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK</p><p>International Journal of Intelligence andCounterIntelligencePublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujic20</p><p>Covert Action and DiplomacyJohn D. StempelPublished online: 15 Feb 2007.</p><p>To cite this article: John D. Stempel (2007) Covert Action and Diplomacy, International Journal ofIntelligence and CounterIntelligence, 20:1, 122-135, DOI: 10.1080/08850600600829924</p><p>To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08850600600829924</p><p>PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE</p><p>Taylor &amp; Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (theContent) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor &amp; Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor &amp; Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.</p><p>This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &amp;Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions</p><p>http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujic20http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/08850600600829924http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08850600600829924http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions</p></li><li><p>JOHN D. STEMPEL</p><p>Covert Action and Diplomacy</p><p>Covert action and diplomacy have had a long and checkered career togetherfor more than two millennia. From the earliest organized governments, whenfunctions were not yet sufficiently differentiated, clandestine operations werestandard practice in international relations.</p><p>Beginning with the Achaemenid Persians between the sixth and fourthcenturies B.C., the organization of intelligence as part of government wasdeveloped to a very high degree, and copied by Arabs, Turks, Afghans,Mongols, and Hindus over the following centuries. Activities that are nowconsidered covert actionassassination, co-opting the Kings councilor (ormistress), paramilitary support for insurgencies, and propagandawerecommon. Little or no distinction was made between intelligence andcovert action until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thatdeveloped in the West as a result of the evolution of WestphalianDiplomacy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.1</p><p>ORDER OUT OF DISORDER</p><p>The emergence of Western diplomacy was driven by the disastrous desolationcaused by the Thirty Years War. Crude but temporary diplomatic missions</p><p>Dr. John D. Stempel, a Senior Professor at the University of KentuckysPatterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, was itsDirector from 1993 to 2003. Prior to that he spent twenty-three years in theUnited States Foreign Service, including three postings in Africa and fouryears in Iran, and as Director of the State Departments Operations Center.His final posting was Consul General in Madras, India. A member of theCouncil on Foreign Relations, he is the author of Inside the IranianRevolution (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1981). Thisarticle is adapted from his chapter of the same name to be published inStrategic Intel l igence , Loch K. Johnson, ed. , forthcoming fromGreenwood=Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, in 2007.</p><p>International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 20: 122135, 2007</p><p>Copyright # Taylor &amp; Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0885-0607 print=1521-0561 online</p><p>DOI: 10.1080/08850600600829924</p><p>122 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE</p><p>Dow</p><p>nloa</p><p>ded </p><p>by [</p><p>Col</p><p>umbi</p><p>a U</p><p>nive</p><p>rsity</p><p>] at</p><p> 11:</p><p>08 1</p><p>3 N</p><p>ovem</p><p>ber </p><p>2014</p></li><li><p>began in the fifteenth century in Venice and the Italian states, and spread toEurope. Intelligence, and eventually secret operations, were an integral partof these activities, though fairly simple by modern standards. In theElizabethan period, British covert action multiplied the effective power ofEngland, especially when the use of gold and Protestant mercenaries asdiplomatic weapons saved the Protestant cause in France and the LowCountries.</p><p>By end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, the Treaty of Vienna included theregulation of diplomatic ranks and began the formal organization ofdiplomacy under international laws regulating diplomatic rights and duties.It included the principles that diplomats are not to interfere in the internalaffairs of states, and an outright condemnation of espionage.2</p><p>Of course, the treaty did not stop spying, but intelligence services wereforced to become more professional. Thus began the differentiationbetween intelligence and diplomacy in terms of norms, objectives, andmeans and methods.</p><p>As other European societies followed Britain through the industrialrevolution, and as continental European politics became more complexthrough the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, intelligence services andcapabilities grew. The United States of America entered the diplomaticarena in the late eighteenth century after winning its independence fromBritain, but distance, communications, and time kept it from playing aserious role in European and world politics until nearly a century later.The 1898 Spanish-American war, coupled with World War I nearly twodecades later, brought the U.S. into the world arena.</p><p>THE U.S. EXPERIENCE</p><p>Because of this history, the United States lagged behind its world brethren indeveloping an organized intelligence capability. Throughout most of thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both U.S. intelligence anddiplomacy were ad hoc affairs which included secret operations on thoseoccasions where needed and possible. President Theodore Rooseveltsmaneuvers involving the acquisition of the Panama Canal are a goodexample. In fact, the U.S. had no professional diplomatic community untilthe Rogers Act of 1924, and until 1940, no formal intelligence organizationsexcept the intelligence departments of the military services.</p><p>George Washington created his own informal intelligence network duringthe American Revolution, but it dissolved after the American victory atYorktown. The United States Army began to develop intelligence unitsduring and after the Civil War experiment with outsourcing intelligence toAllan Pinkertons organization. Formal organizations were not createduntil the 1880s in the Army and Navy departments.3</p><p>COVERT ACTION AND DIPLOMACY 123</p><p>AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 20, NUMBER 1</p><p>Dow</p><p>nloa</p><p>ded </p><p>by [</p><p>Col</p><p>umbi</p><p>a U</p><p>nive</p><p>rsity</p><p>] at</p><p> 11:</p><p>08 1</p><p>3 N</p><p>ovem</p><p>ber </p><p>2014</p></li><li><p>In World War I, the military services ran their own shows, and a civilianCommittee on Public Information under George Creel focused largely onpropaganda and internal security. During the interwar years 19191939,U.S. intelligence lapsed back into previous peacetime routines, with themilitary service units dominating the field. American code-breaking effortswere terminated in 1929.</p><p>Wartime Necessity</p><p>As the war clouds grew over Europe again in the late 1930s, PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt selected William J. Donovan to create the Office ofthe Coordinator of Information (COI) in June 1941, which became theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) the next year. This was the firstorganized American effort to conduct what became known within the nextdecade as covert activitiespropaganda, political operations, economicoperations, and paramilitary activitiesas well as sabotage, espionage andcounterespionage during World War II.</p><p>When the OSS was disbanded in September 1945, President Harry STruman transferred its intelligence functions to the State Department,where they became the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He alsocreated the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) a year later to keep the restof the trained professionals, including covert action operators, togetheruntil the U.S. could sort out its postwar needs.4</p><p>The CIA Arrives</p><p>Most of todays scholarly work cites the creation of the Central IntelligenceAgency (CIA) in 1947 as part of that years National Security Act as the realbeginning of professionalized intelligence in the American government.5 Thevast increase in technological capabilitiesbetter communications, spacephotography, etc.required a much greater concentration of resources andmanpower to succeed. Cooperation with Allied intelligence services inWorld War II socialized Americans to international intelligence work. Theimperatives of postwar politics and the rise of the Cold War made suchefforts necessary on a continuing basis.6</p><p>Over the years, the CIA has maintained its links with the StateDepartment and the military in Washington. Abroad, U.S. and othercountries embassies often host resident personnel under official cover.But an overall tension between the utility of covert action and therequirements of diplomacy and foreign policy continues to this day,occasionally breaking out into open hostility.</p><p>124 JOHN D. STEMPEL</p><p>INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE</p><p>Dow</p><p>nloa</p><p>ded </p><p>by [</p><p>Col</p><p>umbi</p><p>a U</p><p>nive</p><p>rsity</p><p>] at</p><p> 11:</p><p>08 1</p><p>3 N</p><p>ovem</p><p>ber </p><p>2014</p></li><li><p>COVERT ACTION: METHODS AND OPERATIONS</p><p>Covert action is formally referred to in Presidential Executive Ordersas special activities. Perhaps the most inclusive general description isDr. Jeffrey T. Richelsons:</p><p>Covert action, also known as special activities, includes any operationdesigned to influence foreign governments, persons, or events in supportof the sponsoring government s foreign policy objectives while keepingthe sponsoring governments support of the operation secret. Whereasin clandestine collection, the emphasis is on keeping the activity secret,in covert action the emphasis is on keeping the sponsorship secret.7</p><p>Such activities are aimed at keeping the sponsoring governments rolesecret, but they nevertheless violate the Vienna Conventions diplomaticinjunctions against interference in the domestic affairs of a host country.</p><p>When a covert action is uncovered, the sponsoring countrys relations withthe target country are adversely affected. This generally brings diplomatsback into the problem, since they are the ones who take the brunt ofcriticism and later raise the general foreign policy question of whether suchaction was=is worth the cost. Several types of actions and individual issuesor problems emerge. While much is known about historical covertoperations, details on present-day activities are of necessity scarce. Thiscircumstance hampers complete and fully informed discussion ofcontemporary situations.</p><p>Varieties of Clandestine Actions</p><p>Among the various types of correct activities, the most common are:Propaganda, sometimes called psychological warfare, or psy ops, has</p><p>both overt and covert aspects. The press and cultural sections of embassiesdistribute overt, or white, information that is attributed to officialsources and represents the sponsoring governments official view. Gray,or partially concealed propaganda, and black propaganda that isattributed to someone else, such as falsified statements from a foreigngovernment, are concealed variants. These types of propaganda were usedto influence the 1948 elections in Greece and Italy against theCommunists. The Soviets made massive use of all three types from 1945 tothe demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.8 Other countries consistently usewhite propaganda, for example, the British Broadcasting Company(BBC), and the French Press Agency (Agence France Presse), whichproduces news favorable to themselves.</p><p>Examples of black operations include Americas establishment of aclandestine radio station in Guatemala in 1954 that broadcast news of arevolutionary army so convincingly that the pro-Communist president,</p><p>COVERT ACTION AND DIPLOMACY 125</p><p>AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 20, NUMBER 1</p><p>Dow</p><p>nloa</p><p>ded </p><p>by [</p><p>Col</p><p>umbi</p><p>a U</p><p>nive</p><p>rsity</p><p>] at</p><p> 11:</p><p>08 1</p><p>3 N</p><p>ovem</p><p>ber </p><p>2014</p></li><li><p>Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, resigned before he could be overthrown. Sovietefforts to convince Africans that the U.S. was responsible for creating theAIDS disease are similar black efforts. A similar clandestine operation,publicized in late 2005, told of U.S. military officials having paid to havestories placed in the Iraqi press lauding the role of American soldiers intrying to enhance security in Iraq.</p><p>For many years, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Liberty (RFE andRFL) dispensed gray information while they were covertly supported bythe CIA as privately supported organizations. In 1973, Congress gaveRFE=RFL independent status under the Board for InternationalBroadcasting to whiten their offerings.</p><p>Such activities are estimated to constitute about 40 percent of the CIAscovert activities.</p><p>Economic operations have been the least-used covert activities by the CIA,accounting for only 10 percent of U.S. covert activities. Economic support interms of the shipment of goods to support friendly governments, orwithholding trade with unfriendly countries, occurs on both the overt andcovert levels. Sanctions are overt; manipulating a national currencyclandestinely is covert. Much of the action against the Salvador Allendegovernment in Chile in the early 1970s involved economic issues, includingthe incitement of labor strikes and depressing the world copper price.Positive efforts include measures to restore Iraqs economy after theAmerican defeat and removal from office of Saddam Hussein in 2003, andshipments of Public Law 480 food to friendly countries.</p><p>Economic measures are often overt as well as covert. These include foreignaid, as well as favorable trade pacts. Efforts to beef up the cattle and foodindustries in Africa are normally overt, but given sensitivities in some areasto the HIV=AIDS problem, covert measures to give additional vaccinesand medicines to people in certain places may be necessary.</p><p>Political action is a more diffuse and complex category involvingeverything from financial support to key leaders, to creating insurgencies.Such action accounts for about 30 percent of U.S. covert activities. Someknown examples include payments to Jordans King Hussein, givingmoney and campaign advice to the Solidarity movement in Poland in19811982, and supplying political and organizational personnel andmoney to politicians in Afghanistan since the inception of the new regimein 2002.</p><p>I..</p></li></ul>