CIA MOVES TO DEFEND AIDE SUED FOR SLANDER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400190120-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 28, 2000
• Sequence Number: 120
• Publication Date: April 22, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

STATINTL
WASHINGTON POST
AND TIMES HERALD
Approved For Release 2000/08/26 :.CIA-RDP75-00001R0004001
APR 2 2 1966
0
oves to
Aid A U- ` S u A U- &
By Stephen S. Rosenfeld
WRshintton Post staff Writor
The next turn in a bizarre
slander suit against an Es
who doubles as a Central In-
telligence Agency operative
will be taken Thursday in Bal-
timore Federal Court.
Chief Judge Roszel C. Thom-
sen -will have before him a
motion to dismiss slander
charges brought against Juri
Raus, who served tile CIA in
unspecified "specific assign-
ments" among Estonian emi-
gres in the United States and
abroad.
Raus was identified as a
clandestine U.S. intelligence
agent in an unusual-and per-
haps unprecedented-affidavit
and Al. Helms. It was sub-
mitted to defend Raus against
a $110,000 damage claim filed
18 months ago by a second
Estonian emigre Eerik Heine.
Normally the CIA follows a
strict policy of not identifying
its agents.
Smearing Charged
Leine, 46, , a self-described
freedom fighter and anti-Com-
munist, charged that three
times Raus smeared him by
telling Estonian emigre groups
Hine was an agent of the
Soviet secret police.
Estonia is a Baltic state
swallowed by the Soviet Union
In - 1939, occupied by the Ger-
mans in World War` II and re-
taken by the Russians. In-
at the prospect of Heine being
denied justice on the basis of
Raus's immunity from prose-,
cution. "You are not going to
persuade this Court that there',
is anybody in this country who
does not have some rights,"
the Judge declared.
Helms or a re-
presentative pear in court to
that the CIA has long been' bac u . affidavit. The
interested in emigres by rea-j sCage s set for this next Thurs.
former homelands, and that IHelp To CIA Stated
Soviet intelligence, in turn, i
has an interest in penetrating Helms, in a second affidavit
and demoralizing e m i g r e of April 1, said that "for a
ranks. number of reasons, including!
Raus, a 39-year-old Bureau his past history and his posl-{
of Public Roads engineer who tion as National Commander;
lives in Hyattsville at 6508 of the Legion of Estonian Lib-;
Osborne, rd., has raised a oration, Raus has been a '
unique defense, according to source to this agency of for-!
the lawyers hired for him by eign intelligence information
CIA Paul R. Connolly Jr. pertaining inter alia among
and E. Barrett Prettyman Jr. others to Soviet Estonia and
Defense Case Stated to Estonian emigre activities
in foreign countries as well as
The defense was stated in, in the United States."
Helms's affidavit last Dec. 30,i~ The CIA "employed" Raus
which said that when Raus, from time to time" on "speci-
spoke about Heine, he "was in tic assignments," the second
possession of information iur-;affidavit said, adding that be,
nished to )aim by the CIA
and ... was acting within the
scope and course of his em-)
ployment by the agency onl
behalf of the United States."
"Under these circumstances,"said Raus's lawyers ask-
ing the court to dismiss-the suit, "there arises in favor of
(Raus) an absolute privilege
which precludes, even under'--a showing of actual malice,
any possibility of recovery" of:
damages by Heine.
Their authority is a 1959
Supreme Court decision, Barr
v. Matteo, decided 5 to 4,
shielding "responsible govern-
mental officers" from the
harassment of damage suits
"brought on account of action
taken in the exercise of their
-official responsibilities." The
words are . from Associate
Justice 'John M.. Harlan's
majority opinion,
Heine's lawyers, Ernest C.
Raskauskas and 'Robert J.
Stanford, are trying to pierce
this immunity barrier by get-
ting the CIA to reveal whether
iact Raus said about Heine
u ha- at le""Cl"A instructed him
to say:`1'lMis a'S not yet been,
n a hearing March 11,1
Judge Thomsen reared back;
was "instructed to disseminate'
(information about Heine) to
members' of the Legion so as.:
to protect the integrity of the,
Agency's foreign intelligence,
sources."
Adding state security to his
earlier claim of "privilege,"i
Helms said he had personally
determined that further dis-'
closures would injure Amer!
can security. He said Raus had
been ordered, in line with a
gag agreement Raus signed in.
1963, to make no more disclo-'
sures to the court.
Heine's lawyers argue that
if Raus and the CIA are going
to duck behind "security,"
then they and not Heine must
take the consequences of it,
Raus, a University of Con-
necticut engineering graduated
who also attended Yale's Bu
reau of Highway Traffic, re-t
fused yesterday. to discuss his)
case with a reporter. The CIA
refused, too. Heine was not
available,
Approved For Release 2000/08/26 : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000400190120-1