TOP SECRET

- 9 -

Two documents which have been supplied to the Committee graphically demonstrate attitudes which can lead to tactics that erode and could ultimately destroy the very ideals we must defend.

The first was written in 1954 by a special committee formed to advise the President on covert activities. The United States may, it said, have to adopt tactics "more ruthless than [those] employed by the enemy" in order to meet the threat from hostile nations. The report concluded that "long standing American concepts of American fair play must be reconsidered."*

Although those proposals did not involve assassinations, the attitudes underlying them were, as Director Colby testified, indicative of the setting within which the assassination plots were conceived. (Colby, 6/4/75, p. 117)

* The full text of the passage is as follows:

... another important requirement is an aggressive covert psychological, political, and paramilitary organization far more effective, more unique, and, if necessary, more ruthless than that employed by the enemy. No one should be permitted to stand in the way of the prompt, efficient, and secure accomplishment of this mission.

The second consideration, it is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the U. S. is to survive, long standing American concepts of American fair play must be reconsidered.

NW 50955 DocId:32243539 Page 518