C.I.A. Considerations

If Anthony Lake, President Clinton's nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, is "a closet leftist," as some Republican senators have charged, does that mean the C.I.A. would reverse course under his leadership and foment rebellions against oppressive regimes in Central and South America?

The Pentagon's notorious School of the Americas since 1946 has guided military, police, and intelligence operatives of other countries in how to retain power and control populations - courses that have emboldened more than a few of its 50,000 or 60,000 alumni, some with continued C.I.A. links, to commit immoral acts in the reputed furtherance of democracy. Would it become a training ground for counterinsurgents?

Throughout its cold war history, the C.I.A. worked to maintain, promote, and, in some cases, install through military coups what it viewed as the forces of order. Stability has been the goal, not democracy.

United States Representative Joseph Kennedy has for the past few years sought to ban further funding for the School for the Americas, which has been in residence at Fort Benning, Ga., since 1984. It has been a comparatively lonely cause.

Americans are loath to consider whether the continued existence of the C.I.A. is advisable or necessary in this post-cold-war era, but they just might be stirred to fight for its becoming fully accountable to Congress. At the very least, the C.I.A. must be redirected so that the agency can no longer be said to be an agent of oppression.

Intelligence-gathering to protect national security is one thing. Clandestine programs that contravene proclaimed foreign policy and countenancing torture and murder are quite another.