Hoorah for the CIA—or Not

To the editors:

I’m writing to express my approval of a recent Crimson editorial condemning the “student hooligans” who disrupted last Tuesday’s career panel featuring recruiters from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (“A Tale of Two Protests,” Editorials, Apr. 15). It’s disgraceful that a gaggle of student activists, using the First Amendment as a cover, would behave this way. Although it’s true that the CIA has a long and clear record of attempting assassinations, overthrowing democratically elected leaders, supporting brutal dictatorships, toturing presumed enemies, and illegally spying on American citizens, I’m certain their representatives at the Science Center had prepared a rosy, well-honed spiel that glossed over all of this.

I was especially appalled to learn that the “protestors” used such devestating and pernicious tactics as “heckling” against the CIA, a scrupulous and above-board organization. As you so aptly put it: “How could [they] go so wrong?” (Also, thanks for the delegitimizing quotation marks around “protestors”—good call!) No one should ever be made uncomfortable, or provoked into ethical worry, in the presence of CIA reps. Besides, we need the CIA to continue to guard against the recent catastrophic intelligence failures that have befallen our nation.

JOHN C. MCMILLIAN

April 17, 2005

The writer is a tutor in Quincy House and a member of the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature.