http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/bernie-sanders-cia-219451 Sanders once urged abolishing CIA
As anti-Vietnam War activist, he called the spy agency 'a dangerous institution that has got to go.'
By Michael Crowley
02/22/16 05:01 AM EST
In his most recent debate with Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders befuddled some viewers with an arcane reference to a 1953 U.S.-backed coup in Iran, which Sanders called an example of America’s history of “overthrowing governments.”
It turns out that the Vermont senator has railed against that coup — assisted by the Central Intelligence Agency against Iran’s primeMinister, Mohammad Mosaddegh — since he was a young radical activist in the mid-1970s.
One big difference between then and now: Forty years ago, Sanders didn't just complain about CIA interventions abroad; he called for abolishing the spy agency altogether.
The CIA is “a dangerous institution that has got to go,” Sanders told an audience in Vermont in October 1974. He described the agency as a tool of American corporate interests that repeatedly toppled democratically elected leaders — including, he said, Iran’s Mosaddegh. The agency was accountable to no one, he fumed, "except right-wing lunatics who us it to prop up fascist dictatorships.”
At the time, the 33-year-old socialist was running for U.S. Senate on the ticket of the Liberty Union Party, an anti-war group that likened the draft to “a modern form of slavery” and called for reducing the U.S. military in favor of local militias and the Coast Guard.
While Sanders’ extreme leftist past is well known, many of his specific views from the 1970s and ’80s remain unfamiliar even to Democratic insiders. And while those views have mellowed considerably over time, Sanders’ unexpectedly strong performance in the presidential race has party leaders increasingly alarmed that Republicans would make devastating use of his early career should he win the Democratic nomination.
For now, it’s Democratic allies of Hillary Clinton who are on the attack. “Abolishing the CIA in the 1970s would have unilaterally disarmed America during the height of the Cold War and at a time when terrorist networks across the Middle East were gaining strength," said Jeremy Bash, who served as chief of staff to CIA director Leon Panetta and now advises Clinton’s campaign. “If this is a window into Sanders’ thinking, it reinforces the conclusion that he’s not qualified to be commander in chief.”
Sanders allies bristle at questions about his views from four decades ago, saying they have little to do with his current candidacy.
“I think people should look at his 25-year congressional career,” said one person who worked for Sanders in the House of Representatives, and whose employment circumstances prohibit him from speaking on the record. “You don’t have to look at some speech from the early ’70s to know where he is on issues. There’s a very clear congressional record. I think he should be measured and judged on that.”
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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/bernie-sanders-cia-219451#ixzz40v7CEGW4
