Operation CHAOS:

A Domestic Ethical Divide

INTL305 B001: Law and Ethics in Intelligence

Goorjian A. Ferrell

April 26, 2024

Introduction

Operation CHAOS, also known as Operation MHCHAOS, was a Central Intelligence

Agency (CIA)-led domestic covert operation directed at monitoring and infiltrating domestic

anti-war and civil rights groups within the United States (U.S.) who were under suspicion of

having ties to foreign powers. Established under the orders of President Lyndon B. Johnson and

further expanded by President Richard Nixon, the mission was shrouded in controversy as it

enabled the agency to conduct surveillance on U.S. soil, raising ethical concerns about its

conduct and whether it violated the Fourth Amendment, which protected American citizens from

unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the potential to seek to obstruct their First

Amendment right to freedom of speech and assembly. Operation CHAOS would create debates

on the ethical implications of intelligence agencies being used for political purposes, the lack of

ethical constraints they were bound by, and their conduct within the United States.

Definitions and Ethics on Covert Operations

The U.S. has long practiced its foreign policy abroad through covert and clandestine

activities within its intelligence agencies, primarily that of the CIA, using its often ethically

concerning directives to interfere and shape the affairs of others in the U.S. favor. Before

Operation CHAOS can be addressed, I want to define what covert action is and then address

whether it is ethical in a brief summary.

Covert action (CA), as defined by the 1948 National Security Directive 10/2 is, “an

activity, or activities, of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or

military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the [government] will not be

apparent or acknowledged publicly, but does not include…traditional counter-intelligence,

diplomatic, military, or law enforcement activities.” (“Historical Documents - Office of the

Historian,” n.d.) Coined originally by President Eisenhower, covert actions, or 'special

activities’, are commonly committed overseas in most countries, with a few exceptions, such as

domestic operations conducted by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Intended to be

strategic in nature, covert actions focus on larger objectives beyond immediate operational needs

to influence a location; this is particularly useful where military force is either not desired or

incapable of being used to further foreign policy goals. In essence, it is a hidden approach to

shaping events and people overseas through the use of propaganda, political and economic

programs, or paramilitary operations. (Miller, Regan, and Walsh 2022)

Having properly defined covert action, the ethicality of covert actions will now be

addressed. For as long as there has been statehood, the act of spying and collecting information

on allies and enemies has existed; the act of intelligence itself is inherently amoral and benign,

with covert actions in particular being focused on the collection of information to better inform

policymakers, and is rarely ever the commitment to an action as clandestine operations are. The

act of prying into the internal affairs of allies and enemies alike is often considered in public

ethics questionable, particularly in a secular society such as the United States. It should be noted

that a steady flow of information allows decisionmakers to create effective policy strategies. Due

to the obscurity of special activities, one especially ridden by controversy and scandal in U.S.

history within the CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), are such actions truly ethical

in any free society, and can they be conducted while maintaining the country's fundamental

values? (Strait, 1989) Covert actions, if not inherently unethical, are certainly unlawful according

to the Vienna Convention based on their ruling on diplomatic injunctions and interference within

domestic affairs (Stempel, 2007), and to push the narrative further, if one is to take the statement

of Catholic theologian John Courtney Murray into account, the ethics of the nation-state will
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vastly differ from that of the public, for its ethics are based on pragmatism and its security and

are not inherently ethically concerned with immoral or unlawfulness but justifiability. (Strait,

1989) This is not, of course, to state that such pursuits are justifiable by any means, especially if

they violate the core tenets of a country, such as those laid down by the U.S. Constitution.

Operation CHAOS

Purpose

Faced with urban race riots and a growing domestic protest against the war in Vietnam,

upon presidential requests the Director of Central Intelligence, established within the

Counterintelligence Staff a Special Operations Group (SOG) in August 1967, to collect,

coordinate, evaluate, and report on foreign contacts that would influence American dissidence.

(“Rockefeller Commission Report” 1975) With surveillance programs previously led by the FBI,

this new direction was unprecedented and was, at first, limited to American left-wing activists

overseas. When the first report provided little to no foreign involvement in U.S. domestic affairs

in protest groups, first President Johnson and later President Richard Nixon would expand the

collection parameters to domestic soil, which by law the CIA was prohibited from conducting as

its agency charter is strictly foreign intelligence in nature. Ultimately, it was the CIA's job to be

able to answer the president's questions and concerns, while internal security was strictly handled

by the FBI. (Carlisle 2015)

Methods

Led by Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms, responsibility would

ultimately be delegated to Chief of Counterintelligence James Angleton, with Richard Ober

being the group chief. Ober was instructed to collect and disseminate information on foreign

involvement in domestic extremism and dissidence connected to the Vietnam War protests, and
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ultimately to maintain a supporting database for the information collected by the FBI. Due to the

scale of the program, more than 30 people were initially recruited by mid-1969, with further

additions likely being required in the future to meet minimum demands, according to Obers

estimations. Multiple divisions were brought into a collaborative fold for the task, with

counterintelligence (CI) remaining the lead to maintain the CIA's control over the operation. The

Office of Security (OS), a collection division that monitors all incoming raw information,

believes that it should provide any pertinent information to Obers mission as it collects per its

normal security mission. (Rafalko 2011) During the first report submitted to the White House by

Ober in 1969, the report concluded that there was very little evidence of communist funding, or

training, within such movements or any communist influence from a foreign state that would

prove subversive or intentionally obstructive in nature. (Janos and Janos 2018)

As the team expanded to over 50 officers, there were two worldwide branches

established: one for the U.S. black militant movement and the other for the American New Left.

Knowledge of CHAOS was highly restricted on a need-to-know basis and compartmentalized

within the Counterintelligence Division (CID). The groups would collect open-source

information (OSI) on the actions and whereabouts of these groups and individuals whenever they

traveled abroad, and the intelligence collected would be forwarded to the CI within the FBI.

Active investigations of targets who traveled to or took residency in countries where few

counterintelligence assets existed were common, and so penetrating foreign groups and assessing

the chances of foreign manipulation being active or existent on American personnel to determine

in what ways they could be detrimental to U.S. national security was common practice in

preparing an intelligence brief. No piece of information was discarded; nothing could be thrown

out, as any scrap could prove pivotal in uncovering a potential spy, who, at the height of the Cold
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War and its dying days, was at the forefront of many intelligence officers whose heads turned

towards the Communist Bloc. (Rafalko 2011)

Outcomes

By 1972, as the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam and anti-war protests ceased, the SOG

which was responsible for CHAOS, quietly ceased to exist. By 1973, the Director of

Counterintelligence, William Colby, curtailed any further operations by CHAOS, ultimately

ending its lifespan in 1974. Following its termination and handover of operational documentation

to the FBI, an article written by The New York Times accused the CIA of domestic espionage.

While the CIA sought to address the public's displeasure and outcry over the perceived mass

gathering of personal information through a press conference and the release of the ‘Family

Jewels’, these did little to reduce public and Congressional paranoia, and soon the Rockefeller

Committee was underway to investigate the CIA's involvement during that period in time, which

perpendicularly ran with the Church Committee that investigated the FBI and the intelligence

community as a whole. 1976, President Ford issued Executive Order 11905, which further

stressed the missions of the CIA and FBI in their respective charters; 1978, President Carter

created Executive Order 12036, which further protected American privacy by adding that any

intelligence activities against U.S. citizens must be coordinated with the FBI and approved by the

attorney general, while prohibiting mail-opening or physical and digital surveillance unless it is

for prospective Federal employees. (Carlisle 2015)

The intelligence community as a whole faced a backlash and a tremendously high price in

reputation for its actions during this period of time, with loss of morale being high and public

skepticism being prevalent in present times. This only worsened as there was never any evidence

of foreign involvement in these protests.

Ethical Dilemmas of Operation CHAOS

Primarily, Operation CHAOS set several ethical dilemmas; firstly, it greatly went against

the CIA's charter of being solely responsible for foreign intelligence operations, and while

initially this was the case, it expanded into the collection of U.S. nationals with little-to-no

oversight or what would be considered ‘probably cause’ beyond presidential suspicion.

Secondly, there is a very real concern about it interfering with the Fourth Amendment, which

protects U.S. citizens from unjust searches and seizures. However, under Article 11, Section 1,

Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution, it does give the President the authority to protect the

government against those who would subvert or seek to overthrow it by unlawful means, which

empowers the executive to order domestic or foreign surveillance against individuals who may

seek to destroy the American way of life. (Rafalko 2011)

Referring to the concept of jus in intelligentia, the collection of open-source material,

would raise little, if any, ethical problems, as the collection of information is in itself amoral and

not intended for harm but to have intelligence on hand for moments in which it may be required.

It would be more, in the public's moral sense, ethically acceptable than engaging in devious and

coercive means to obtain intelligence from organizations or states in which livelihoods are put in

danger and laws are actively broken. While these means would prove more highly beneficial if

the information is obtained in this manner, as it is a more closely guarded kind, it nevertheless is

the ‘dirty’ business that most agencies choose to use as a last resort when the sake of the public's

safety is concerned. (Omand and Phythian 2012)

The irresponsibility in Operation CHAOS does not stem solely from the CIA but also

from the President, who refused to accept the provided intelligence and pushed the agency

beyond its strategically mandated boundaries.

My Recommendations

Many of the preventative measures I would recommend have already been addressed and

set in place. The presidents providing statutes to formalize and further emphasize the charters set

by these intelligence agencies and creating an oversight intelligence committee have proven to

be adequate in monitoring and ensuring that as few ethical-related problems would occur again,

such as the Patriot Act by President Bush that would lead to a special court being assembled to

review cases in which agencies need to probe into the personal lives of targeted Americans by

having evidence of malfeasance. While a more ethically codified approach, such as using the

Preventing, Allowing, and Doing (PAD) approach, is useful for determining how ethically viable

an approach is for an operation, it is equally useful as moral dilemmas are far more common in

the intelligence field than in the private sector. My recommendation would be to continue to

develop the PAD method of approach for internal development. Many of the other systems are

quite robust and only require experienced members to properly function, so staffing the oversight

committee with members who are experienced or ensuring their terms are indefinite to maintain

consistency is an important factor in monitoring intelligence activities and providing feedback.

Bibliography

“Rockefeller Commission Report.” 1975. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. United
States: Assassination Archives and Research Center. Accessed April 22, 2024.
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Taylor & Francis Group. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?pq-
origsite=primo&docID=2005326.

“Historical Documents - Office of the Historian.” n.d.

Miller, S., M. Regan, and P. F. Walsh. 2022. National Security Intelligence and Ethics. eBook.
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Janos, A., and A. Janos. 2018. “Nixon and Johnson Pushed the CIA to Spy on U.S. Citizens,
Declassified Documents Show.” HISTORY. September 3, 2018.
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Omand, S. D., and M. Phythian. 2012. “Ethics and Intelligence: A Debate.” International Journal of
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https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2012.705186.

Rafalko, F. J. 2011. MH/CHAOS The CIA’s Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black
Panthers. Book. 1st ed. United States: Naval Institute Press.
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=845064&pq-origsite=primo.

Stempel, John D. 2007. “Covert Action and Diplomacy.” International Journal of Intelligence and
Counterintelligence, 122-135. Published February 15, 2007. https://www-tandfonline-
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Strait, Alan K. 1989. “The Dilemma of Covert Action.” U.S. Army War College. Published April 20,
1989. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA209583.pdf