Latin Americans "Join the US in Helping South Vietnam"/Liberals and the CIA

September 25, 2007

Among the 37 nations listed by the State Department as having "joined the United States in helping South Vietnam" (The New York Times, 12 March 1967) are the following Latin American benefactors: Argentina ...... 5,000 tons of wheat flour Brazil ........ Medical supplies and coffee Dominican Republic....an offer of cement Guatemala ...... Medical supplies Honduras ...... Drugs and dry goods for refugees Uruguay ....... Relief supplies and medicines Venezuela ...... Rice for refugee relief and medical assistance

Liberals and the CIA: The following is excerpted from the March 1967 issue of The Movement, a publication of the San Francisco SNCC office: "One central fact emerges from all the revelations about the CIA's subsidizing the NSA, the AFL-CIO, and other independent liberal institutions: When it comes to Cold War politics, you cannot be both an honest, independent liberal and an anti-communist. That is what the outcry is really about....

"The essence of the affair is that the CIA has, by and large, only been encouraging these 'respectable institutions' to continue their self-appointed functions.... "The 'independence' which comes from breaking ties to the CIA is no solution to the problems which these revelations have made evident. What is needed is to revise the structure and purpose of such organizations as the NSA so that they are not simply independent at all, but wholly dependent upon the interest and support of their members, so that they are dedicated to ending of the Cold War, not to the prosecution of that war.

"What the students and working people of this nation need is not the end of CIA support for organizations, but the creation of organizations which the CIA dare not support."

Tags: aid to South Vietnam, US aid


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