James Woolsey
* CIA Director James Woolsey obviously has to go, as suggested by Marvin Ott (Commentary Nov. 8), and a major overhaul is needed to avert future disasters. It is crucial to recognize that combining intelligence and operational functions in a single agency invites abuses that can evade the most vigilant oversight--especially if funding is generous and accountability lax.
Among CIA in-house schemes that cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and still plague U.S. foreign policy, have been the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s Mossadegh government, the ouster of Guatemala’s last freely elected government in 1954 and the awful fiasco of the 1961 invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs.
MARSHALL PHILLIPS
Long Beach
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