Anti-Communism and the CIA

I have one major disagreement with Lew Coser’s article: this concerns his firm belief in the long-run ineffectiveness of CIA subversion in the fight against Communism. His example is a democratic union in India struggling against a Maoist union. He writes: “the minute it is revealed that this supposedly indigenous organization in effect relied on American secret subsidies, it will inevitably succumb to the onslaught of its Maoist rivals.” Well, maybe. But there is nothing inevitable about the outcome. It depends on how strong the democratic union has grown during the period when the subsidies were secret, on its capacities for internal reform once secrecy is broken, on what has happened in the meantime to Maoism in China, on the internal cohesion of the Maoist union, on the strategic skills of its leaders, etc. Surely, there is no invisible hand at work, guaranteeing that policies that make us indignant will also be politically ineffective. The case becomes much more interesting (and indignation less easy) if we assume what I expect is the case, that CIA subversion is at least sometimes effective in weakening local Communist forces. Then we must ask: does this victory justify the means employed? When the act a...