Home › Features › Essays › Covert Action and Open Society

Covert Action and Open Society

Gregory F. Treverton
Summer 1987
Summary -- 

Should the USA, in the light of the Iran/Contra affairs, attempt major covert operations at all? If so, under what circumstances can they be reconciled with the requirements of an open democracy? Moral concerns are not absolute and must be weighed against the gravity of the threat and the adequacy of other available responses. Covert action is justifiable provided it is conducted as a last resort and constrained within clear guidelines.

Gregory F. Treverton, a faculty member of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, served on the first Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the Church Committee) in 1975-76, and on the staff of the National Security Council during the Carter Administration. This article is adapted from the author’s forthcoming book, Covert Action: The Limits of Intervention in the Postwar World. Copyright © 1987 by Basic Books, Inc. Adapted by permission of Basic Books, New York.

We're sorry, but Foreign Affairs does not have the copyright to display this article online.

Related

Essay, Jan 1972
The CIA and Decision-Making
Chester L. Cooper

"The most fundamental method of work ... is to determine our working policies according to the actual conditions. When we study the causes of the mistakes we have made, we find that they all arose because we departed from the actual situation . . . and were subjective in determining our working policies."-"The Thoughts of Mao Tse-tung."

Read
Essay, Fall 1991
Intelligence for a New World Order
Stansfield Turner

With the decline of the USSR, the US intelligence agencies are faced with the challenge of re-focusing their energies on a new strategic environment. In particular, they will need to adapt themselves to serve economic and industrial aspects of national security. A discussion of how this change of focus might be accomplished, and of concomitant organizational changes, including the creation of the new post of DNI (director of national intelligence).

Read
Essay, Nov/Dec 1998
Catastrophic Terrorism: Tackling the New Danger
Ashton B. Carter, John Deutch, and Philip Zelikow

The specter of weapons of mass destruction being used against America looms larger today than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. The World Trade Center bombing scarcely hints at the enormity of the danger. America is prepared only for conventional terrorism, not a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons catastrophe. With the right approach and organization, however, the United States can be ready. Herewith a plan to reorganize the U.S. government to ensure that it can handle the threats of the next century.

Read
Cover image

In the Magazine

November/December 2009 / 6, 88
Essay
In the Quicksands of Somalia
Bronwyn Bruton

Washington's repeated attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have failed, even backfired. It should renounce political intervention and encourage local development without trying to improve governance
Read