SCIENCE OF SPYING, THE (TV)
Summary
This documentary examines the role of the CIA (Central
Intelligence Agency), with particular emphasis on the
period of the Cold War. Host John Chancellor begins by
describing the CIA as the Pentagon of the secret war;
its mission is to use intelligence gathered from the
enemies of the United States to promote U.S. policies
and overthrow governments of which the U.S. government
does not approve. Chancellor interviews former CIA
director Allen Dulles, who defines the CIA's actions as
coming into play only when United States officials
believe that activities in another nation may endanger
the safety and peace of the world. Chancellor shows
footage of a discussion by an American and a New
Zealand pilot who flew missions in Laos, part of the
CIA-related activities carried on in that country. He
then briefly summarizes the U.S.-inspired overthrow of
Iran's Muhammad Mussadegh by the Shah of Iran, the
deposing of Indonesia's President Sukarno, and American
and Russian undercover activity in the Congo and Tibet.
Dulles then gives examples of Soviet covert plans in the
form of KGB work in Czechoslovakia and Cuba and
stresses the CIA's adherence to standards of morality
lacking in the KGB. Next, Chancellor interviews former
CIA director of plans Richard Bissell, debating whether
moral ends justify immoral means in espionage and
delineating the difference in morality between cold and
hot wars. Senator Eugene McCarthy voices his
dissatisfaction over the CIA's frequent action without
official sanctions from Congress. Much of the remainder
of the program focuses on CIA involvement in Guatemala.
Fred Sherwood, a former attache with the U.S. embassy
in that country, reviews the replacement of the leftist,
Communist-influenced President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman
with the U.S.-backed Castillo Armas. While Bissell
calls this action a success, McCarthy criticizes the
CIA's role in Guatemala. Armas's successor, the
pro-American Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, describes the
CIA's use of his country as a training camp for the
Cuban refugees who landed in the Bay of Pigs, the
largest covert operation ever organized. Bissell then
talks about the American propensity to support
right-wing dictatorships as often the only viable
alternative to communist-sympathetic regimes. NBC
reporter Robert Rogers interviews Marco Antonio
Yansoza, chief of Guatemalan guerilla warfare, who
explains that his movement sprang up in response to the
interventionist policies of the United States. In
summary, Bissell argues that the CIA is a necessary
government agency dedicated to working behind the
scenes so that public military actions do not become
necessary, McCarthy expresses his concerns over the
agency's intrusions on representative government, and
Dulles stresses the CIA's determination to act under
national policy. Chancellor ends the program by posing
the challenge of reconciling the necessity of the CIA's
secret offenses with the American nation's public
morality. Commercials deleted.
Cataloging of this program was made possible by The
Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, 1999.
This program contains minor technical problems. This
represents the best copy of this program currently
available to the Museum.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: November 30, 1959
- RUNNING TIME: 0:52:17
- COLOR/B&W: B&W
- CATALOG ID: T:31738
- GENRE: Public Affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: U S Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Cold War; Espionage; U S - Officials - Talk/Interviews; U S - Foreign relations - Guatemala
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Ted Yates … Producer
- Robert Rogers … Associate Producer
- Georges Klotz … Director
- John Chancellor … Narrator
- Robert Rogers … Reporter
- Castillo Armas
- Richard Bissell
- Allen Dulles
- Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes
- Jacobo Arbenz Guzman
- Eugene J. McCarthy
- Muhammad Mussadegh
- Shah of Iran, The (See also: Pahlavi, Muhammad Reza)
- Fred Sherwood
- Achmad Sukarno
- Yansoza, Marco Antonio (audio i.d. only)