BOGOTA

One who has viewed an election south of the Rio Grande, from the vantage point of lying on his belly beneath gunfire across a plaza, may conclude that the affair of April 9, 1948, was just another burst of Latin American temperament. This was not true of Congressmen, columnists, and patriots of the press who thought simultaneously of "another Pearl Harbor" and of the Panama Canal so close to Colombia. They were quick to ascribe it all to agents from the Kremlin.

Politicians who aspired to be President found Harry S Truman responsible, not for the assassination of Jorge Gaitan, to be sure, but for failure to know about it in advance. Governor Dewey, in a special broadcast to voters in Nebraska, declared that during the war the United States had the finest intelligence service ever developed, operating all over South America under J. Edgar Hoover. "After the war," said Dewey, "Mr. Truman ordered that entire service discontinued. He cut off our ears and put out our eyes in our information services around the world." The Governor evidently was not troubled at the time with knowledge of the facts concerning the institution and development of the Group and the Agency since the war, nor with the real reasons why the agents of the FBI were replaced by representatives of the CIA in Latin America. 138

The President added his bit to the confusion by stating in a news conference that he was as surprised as everybody else. He had information that there might be picketing and demonstrations against the Pan-American conference. But he had no indication, he said, that anybody was going to get shot in Bogota. 139

There had to be a scapegoat and so, without waiting to separate facts from fears, some to attract attention and others perhaps to avoid it nominated the Director of Central Intelligence and the Agency for that honor in American life. Admiral Zacharias, once Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, was positive that he knew what was wrong and offered his services to Congress. They were declined. On the air, however, Zacharias criticized the Agency for lacking qualified personnel and failing to make use of overt intelligence. The American delegation went to the conference, he said, without an "overall plan for raising the standard of living in Latin America." 140

Stephen J. Spingarn, for the Counterintelligence Corps of the Army, wrote a paper explaining why the Agency had not done its job properly. It "may have competently discharged" its functions of' collecting information in Colombia. There was question whether its evaluation of that information was good. Spingarn was certain that it "did not have the ability to get its information in properly evaluated form rapidly to the top policymaking officers concerned." The ineffable conclusion for the reader was that Hillenkoetter tried hard to do well but he lacked that something which intelligence officers properly trained, in the Army, were more likely to possess. 141

Representative Brown, who had taken so important a part in the hearings during the previous spring and had made a definite contribution to the establishment of the Agency, declared to the press that Congress intended to have an effective intelligence system and he would find out why it did not have one. There would be an investigation of the Agency immediately. "Surely our State Department officials," he said, "would have insisted on the South American conference being held elsewhere if they had been informed a bloody revolution was impending in Bogota and Colombia, and that they and other Americans would be forced to barricade themselves to preserve their lives. . . ." When he did find out what had happened, Mr. Brown's manner of speech and the tenor of his remarks were different. His apology to Admiral Hillenkoetter was gracious. 142

The facts were these. The Ninth International Conference of American Republics met in Bogota, Colombia, on March 30, 1948. From the beginning of the year, warnings had been coming into the Central Intelligence Agency that a campaign of anti-imperialism would be aimed at the United States, that there might be an attempt by Liberals to overturn the Conservative Government in Colombia, and that Communists were interested in the plans for demonstrating against the United States during the conference. Finally on March 23, a week before the conference was to begin, there came a dispatch saying that "Communist-inspired agitators" would attempt to "humiliate" the Secretary of State upon his arrival "by manifestations and possible personal molestation." Admiral Hillenkoetter did not send this message on to the Department of State. Why he did not, and what he thought of that "mistake," we shall discuss in a moment. 143

There was no attempt to molest Secretary Marshall at Bogota. The first ten days of the conference were peaceful. The delegation of' the United States was not doing well with its plan for hemispheric solidarity nor stirring much enthusiasm over its economic views. The offer of a loan from the Export-Import Bank of $500,000 was greeted by the delegates with silence. And then on April 9 Jorge Gaitan, leader of the left wing of the Liberal Party who had withdrawn all Liberals from the Government in March, was assassinated. 144

It is established now that one Jose Sierra killed Gaitan because he had successfully defended in court that morning the murderer of Sierra's uncle. But the assassination of a political leader started rioting that virtually became war between the army, which stood by the Conservative Government, and the police of Bogota, who were loyal to the Liberals. Mobs wrecked churches, public buildings, and the Capitolio where the International Conference was in session. The damage to the city was estimated at $150,000,000. The Confederation of Workers of Colombia, in which Communists had influence, called a general strike. But a new government, consisting of six Conservatives, six Liberals, and one nonpartisan, gained control on the next day and adopted an anti-Communist policy.

The conference resumed its meetings on April 14. Secretary Marshall told the delegates that international communism was responsible for the rioting. Harriman, then Secretary of Commerce and present at the conference, stated that Communists had exploited if they had not started the uprising; it looked to him like a swift Communist operation carried out on the European subversive plan with which he was familiar. This became the view accepted generally. The rioting, however, had not been directed against the United States. Although casualties, conservatively estimated, numbered more than a thousand dead and wounded, no member of the American delegation nor any other national of the United States was injured. 145

When the warning that Secretary Marshall might personally be molested came into the Agency at Washington, Admiral Hillenkoetter's first thought was to take it at once to Under Secretary Lovett in the State Department. To do so, however, would violate the directive NSCID 2 stipulating that the "senior U.S. representative" in an area should "coordinate" -- that is to say, release -- the intelligence collected there. The advance agent of the State Department, Orion J. Libert, in Bogota to prepare for the International Conference, decided that this dispatch should not be delivered to the State Department in Washington. Ambassador Willard L. Beaulac agreed with Libert. They did not want to alarm the delegates unduly. Adequate protection, they were sure, would be given by the police. It is to be said also that Marshall had known of the earlier warnings from Bogota, before leaving Washington, and had expressed himself in "salty language" against letting any threats interfere. 146

Still, this was direct information [one line deleted] that the life of the Secretary of State might be in danger. It is easy to imagine what the reaction would have been in this country if George Marshall instead of Jorge Gaitan had been assassinated in Bogota. As Hillenkoetter recalled the affair in 1952, he should have taken the dispatch to Lovett. Hillenkoetter made a "mistake," and it was, he said, entirely his own. 147

The Director of Central Intelligence as head of the Agency by Act of Congress was ultimately responsible for coordinating intelligence and distributing it to the departments and agencies under the direction of the National Security Council. This direction had been given for all normal purposes in NSCID 2. It was questionable that Congress ever intended to have the Director bound in critical situations by such a directive. But Hillenkoetter gave that point no particular thought. He was the responsible head of the Agency. He should violate the directive, if necessary, and take the consequences personally. There were other considerations which entered into his thinking and influenced him against his own judgment to make what he considered the wrong decision. 148

Hillenkoetter and his advisers talked at length over matters not generally known then or since regarding the experiences of the Central Intelligence Agency in Central and South America. The Agency had just been established there in place of the FBI. With the exception of Ambassador James Bruce in Argentina, said Hillenkoetter, the diplomatic representatives of the United States were not giving much support to the Agency, and "in many places" the attitude amounted almost to "hostility." To improve the relations [two fines deleted] Hillenkoetter decided to defer to the request of Beaulac and Libert and not take the warning to Lovett. "By following the Ambassador's request, we could build up some credit for ourselves." If it were to be done again, he would violate the directive and ignore the resentment of the diplomatic officers in the field. 149

The irony of the affair was that, except for Lovett's private comment to Allen W. Dulles, Hillenkoetter was not elsewhere criticized for the failure which he charged against himself. The omission may be ascribed in part to the fact that knowledge of NSCID 2 was well confined to the Agency, the Council, and the departmental intelligence services. It was no time for chief's of intelligence to blame the Director of Central Intelligence for failing to exercise supervision over collection in the field when they had been largely responsible for denying him that power in the directives of the National Intelligence Authority and the National Security Council. The Council too could share the blame, for it had accepted the draft of the directive without provision for such authority. 150

Walter Lippmann, for once, was off the target when he chided Hillenkoetter for talking as if the public had a right to expect the Central Intelligence Agency to "appraise" the situation in Colombia. Hillenkoetter was talking about the coordination, correlation, and evaluation of intelligence, the production of estimates; he was not talking, as Lippmann seems to have concluded, about the construction of policy from those estimates. If to "appraise" means to "determine the worth" of intelligence, it was the duty of the Agency Under the Act of Congress to appraise the information from Bogota and to deliver it without delay to the department most in need of it, in this case the Department of State. 151

Representative Brown summoned the Director of Central Intelligence on April 15 before a special subcommittee of the House. Brown's purpose was "to explore this matter vigorously" to determine why intelligence reports did not reach their proper destination "in time for protective action." As he listened to Hillenkoetter's testimony, Brown learned of NSCID 2 and Libert's action in Bogota under that authorization from the National Security Council. Brown did not remark that coordination by the "senior U.S. representative" in the field had proved itself once again no coordination at all, as it had in the abortive Dominican affair during the fall of 1947. But then he may not have heard of that fiasco in cooperative interdepartmental enterprise. 152

Instead, Brown concentrated his attention upon the facts concerning the action of the State Department in relation to the Central Intelligence Agency. And he reached conclusions as a member of Congress who took satisfaction now in what the framers of the National Security Act had intended to do. It was not the intent of Congress, he said in the committee meeting, to give any agency of the Government "the right of censorship" or control over the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. 153

Brown warmed to his theme in his statement for release to the press. "Our Central Intelligence Agency," he declared, "must be protected against censorship or intimidation by any arm of the Executive Branch." Ten days later he was warmer still. He was thinking of legislation to free the Agency from such control. "Otherwise," he declared, "one might as well turn the intelligence agency over to the State Department and let those dumb clucks run it." 154

Brown may not have known at the time, but that was just what certain officers in the State Department were planning to do with regard to propaganda, economic manipulation, and other covert operations overseas against Communism. As Hillenkoetter received public exoneration in the affair at Bogota, and private apology from Brown for having contributed to the attack in the press upon his administration of the Agency, Hillenkoetter faced inquiry at the request of Forrestal, Secretary of Defense, and a concerted plan by the Department of State and the National Military Establishment to guide and control the Central Intelligence Agency.


Footnotes:

138. New York Times, April 13, 1948. See above, pp. 120-21.

139. New York Herald Tribune, April 16, 1948.

140. W L. Pforzheirner to R. H. Hillenkoetter, April 19, 1948 (CIA News Clippings); WINX reported in Washington Post, April 19, 1948.

141. April 16, 1948, copy in CIA News Clippings, Jan.-June 1948 (Pforzheimer's file).

142. April 10, 1948, copy in CIA News Clippings, Jan.-June 1948 (Pforzheimer's file); R. H. Hillenkoetter to A. B. Darling, Dec. 2, 1952.

143. New York Times, April 16, 1948.

144. J. F. Devlin, paper on the Bogota Riots, April 1948 (File: Bogota Riots, April 1948).

145. Harriman's statement reported in New York Times, April 22, 1948; Devlin, paper on the Bogota Riots.

146. 11. H. Hillenkoetter to A. B. Darling, Oct. 24, 1952. See above, p. 223. See 1). 148 for Vandenberg and CIA 18, NIA Directive 7. F. Kuhn, Jr., Washington Post, April 16, 1948. New York Sun, April 16, 1948.

147. R. H. Hillenkoetter to A. B. Darling, statements of Oct. 24, pp. 19-21, and Dec, 2, 1952, p. 22.

148. Public Law 253, 80th Congress, Section 102(2-3).

149. R. H. Hillenkoetter to A. B. Darling, Oct. 24, 1952, pp. 19-21.

150. See pp. 223-24, 309.

15 1. New York Herald Tribune, April 20, 1948.

152. Members of Subcommittee of the House: C. Hoffman, Representative of Michigan, A. McCormack, Representative of Massachusetts. Statement to the press, April 16, p. 2 (CIA News Clippings, Jan.-June 1948). R. H. Hillenkoetter to W. P. Armstrong, S. J. Chamberlin, T. B. Inglis, G. C. McDonald, Oct. 16, 1947 (File: CIG 20.03, Cuba).

153. NSC File, p. 13 (CIA 1948-5).

154. Statement to the press, April 16, p. 3 (CIA News Clippings, Jan.-June 1948); Newsweek, April 26, 1948.