NOTE FOR THE DIRECTOR FROM (Sanitized)

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CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2
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October 19, 1976
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Approved N Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M0 7A001700010001-2 CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGEN 19 October 1976 NOTE FOR: The Director STAT FROM : STAT A/DDCI Other than the two articles (attached) written by Greg Rushford, formerly of the House Select Committee staff, I do not know of any other articles published under the by-lines of former HSC or SSC staff members. There have been articles, however, which show every sign of House and Senate staff input, such as the Taylor Branch article (New York Times Magazine, 12 September 1976) which alleges that CIA managed to "outfox the Congressional investigators". The Searle Field article you referred to is just what I would have expected from him - whining, dishonest and pathetic. Attachment: As stated Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 Approved ?Rair Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M0NS7A001700010001-2 rieMir s: e C mmitt gle t tb Facts Aly e9s by Gregory G. Rushford Wciodrow Wilson observed that "Congress stands almost helplessly outside of the departments. Even the special, irksome, ungracious investiga- tions which it from time to time institutes... do not afford it more than a glimpse of the inside of a small province of federal administration. ... It can violently disturb, but it cannot often fathom, the waters of the sea in which the bigger fish of the civil service swim and feed. Its dragnet stirs without cleansing the bottom." This elegant statement summarizes what I learned during the irksome, ungracious, congressional investigation of the CIA. As a staff member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, I was charged with investigating how well the intelligence agencies had been doing their job. It was a simple and reasonable question, but in trying to get an answer, I encountered the Gregory G. Rushford was on the staff of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. 42 bureaucratic obstacles that hide the truth about government performance. The story of those obstacles, and our attempts to surmount them, sheds light on the present balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. Despite recent press stories that Congress is reasserting itself, the CIA?exceptional in many ways but in this one quite typical?used every ex- ecutive branch tactic to frustrate our investigation. The CIA's idea of a perfect investi- gation was roughly as follows: The committee's staff members would be investigated by the FBI, and if we passed, we would receive Top Secret security clearances. We would sign CIA employee secrecy oaths and would be denied access to the com- partments of information beyond Top Secret?that is, to most of the files. CIA censors would read every docu- ment we requested. Those censors would have authority to delete words, paragraphs, even entire pages. If we IApproved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2_ : Approved ReiRelease 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP7.9MONE7A001700010001-2 ,r took notes from documents at agency headquarters, the notes would be cen- sored. Monitors would be present every time we interviewed agency employees. Moreover, the committee would sign agreements limiting the areas of investigation and agree to disclosure restrictions. The chairman of our com- mittee, so the CIA intended, would keep much of his information from other committee members. The com- mittee, in turn, would keep informa- tion from the rest of Congress. Whenever I requested documents from the CIA (or the State Depart- ment, or the Pentagon, or whatever agency we were studying) the liaison officer would ask why I needed them. Did I realize how sensitive they were? Wasn't I worried about showing such secrets to congressmen? . We started off with a series of hearings on the intelligence budget. Senior officials came from all over the intelligence community to brief us. But the briefings were canned affairs The Washington Monthly/July-August 1976 ? in which the officials took hours to read from tables and charts and to initiate us into the nuances of bureau- cratese. We saw the same budget books they present to the appropria- tions committees. and learned how vague they were. After repeated tele- phone calls, we managed to get a few documents delivered right to our of- fices, but when we looked at them, we found entire pages missing?only the "Top Secret" stamp remained. Staff investigators who asked for further details could not get them. With only a week left before the scheduled opening of our hearings, Rep. Otis Pike had to call the Pentagon and threaten to hold a press conference before we received any information from them. The National Security Agency (which monitors foreign com- munications) would not give us even the basic document which controls its operations. Despite all this, we had, by July 31, assembled at least as much infor- mation as the standing appropriations 43 Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 -;:r;-...7,--4;42-' ? ^ ? , - F..; ? ^ ? ? tc7.7 .i.?:., 4.5.. e-. , .,,,,,.....,.. ?? tu- ',:-,..:..-.^7 Z,..-..ft-rj,?7.-:,:;:-.,,;----Z.--:._,,-, '',""f A.",..t?' 1. . .7]. ',---,7-7.1.Z. ?2:77.-:17'14.4 --17---2 .4f....7.-,11,. -.1 ,R.c. rka. Nr.4 1> ' .? . . l'::;::,?-"C,4- ... .... ? , William Colby and Otis Pike committees traditionally have, a re- flection less of our diligence than of the other committees' timidity. During the next eight days we held our first seven hearings. Deaf and Dumb The Comptroller General of the United States, Elmer Staats, was the first witness. He testified that he knew very little about where the intelligence agencies put their money because he h'ad to depend on them for all the information about their programs. The General Accounting Office, which Staats directs, had written to the CIA in January 1975, for instance, but 44 never received a reply. Even when the CIA came up . with the information Staats wanted, he had no way to verify it independently. Next came James Lynn, director of the Office of Management and Budg- et. Lynn repeatedly refused to discuss anything of substance as long as the committee sat in open session. If we would only lock the doors and go into closed session, Lynn said, he was ready to answer all questions. The committee closed the doors. After waiting for nearly a half hour, while experts "debugged" the hearing room, we discovered another problem. Lynn said he would not discuss certain subjects because the Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 . Approved For Release 211,05/03/16 ? CIA-RDP7T00467A00j700f010001-2 stenogapher was cleared on y for or Secret. When the committee finally got to question 'Lynn, he was not much more specific than he had been in the public session. Pike later called the experience "miserable and worth less." Lynn certainly could not dem- onstrate that his organization had any sort of grasp on the CIA's budget. The Lynn experience was repeated time and again that week with other witnesses. In public, we were prom- ised full cooperation; in private we did not get it. William Colby, then the director of the CIA, gave us little lectures on the evils of communism. illustrated with a "Freedom of Infor- mation" chart. "We live in a free society," he said, pointing to a series o 51.'s ori the mencan e o the chart. The X's marked off such insti- tittions as newspapers, television, gov- ernment publications, and, naturally, congressional hearings. That was how the Russians gathered intelligence on us. But on the Russian side?ahal?the X's were controlled. Such gimmickry prompted Rep. Philip Hayes to tell Colby he was tired of hearing "appeals to a very low level of political sophis- tication." The testimony of Colby and Gem Lew Allen .of the National Security Agency illustrated one other way the intelligence agencies have traditionally thwarted congressional oversighf. Over the years both the CIA and the NSA have answered hundreds of questions _,,-*1?14- '-,.,--7------ ? - --..-,--,z-_-_-:2- 4 .,,,1-.,-r ,----- --4....-- -,..,---1-L.--..----t - -,,,, ,.. .,?,?... ,:.:--_,-,..?.......-..,!,:-.-,-.7_,--tc - --,x - =,:,-- -- ,..:--,-- --? . - --- ,,,,t-N.-..,,,,,3-,-,---_-.::-,9:-..,,z,i.-,..? ?.".,,.,-,',.....,,Ft.,..:.,...r?,- _ ?-_,........-' ? ? ?,41.? ? ? J....N. cT ? -- - z? .xe.veri4fr ? _ ? 4?? , - , . ? --"3-"?"?*,,-7- --!.?????-7:. N ? / ? "t,} ? Nui?'?/: 4i 4? tv-r; a r, :.,...?ri /, ,.-'it'!'; "Si,?_'-A ? :7Az/ /70 , / 1,5."f-/.?...::?-z....r,.; .... Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 Approved RR` Release '2005./03/16 :-CIA-RDP79MOVidit7A001700010001-2 from congressional committees by providing summaries of internal docu- ments, almost always self-serving, and not the documents themselves. What is. the difference? Colby had said, in one of our closed sessions, that "cer- tain differences had arisen between a certain ambassador and the CIA per- sonnel" over the wisdom of one cov- ert operation. We finally got hold of the original document, which put the matter in somewhat different terms. The ambassador had actually said to the CIA station chief, "To hell with your headquarters. If you don't go along with this, I will instruct the Marine guards to take you and place you on the airplane and ship you out of here." In August, we questioned the Pen- tagon's top civilian intelligence offi- cial, Albert Hall. He explained, help- fully, that his organization worked very well. When asked if the system had broken down at any time in recent crises, Hall responded, "'Well, if you are talking about the 1973 Middle East war, in fact, the outbreak of war was foreseen, and this information was handled correctly and was pro- vided to the people who should have had it." Here too the documents told a different story. Weeks later we received the basic CIA post-mortem on that war, which began: "There was an intelligence failure in the weeks preceding the outbreak of war in the Middle East on October 6. Those elements of the intelligence commu- nity responsible for the production of finished intelligence did not perceive the growing possibility of an Arab attack and thus did not warn of its imminence." . Hall also demonstrated some of the more incongruous aspects of the clas- sification system. Published informa- tion put out by the Defense Depart- ment revealed that military attaches were stationed in 86 different coun- tries, including two recent additions, Algeria and Bangladesh. But the De- fense Department said that the numbers and locations of the attaches were, classified as "secret." Hall, 46 looking embarrassed, could not explain the disparity. Rep. Aspin termed such practices "bizarre" and. pointed out the weaknesses of a classification system which permitted executive branch officials to decide, apparently on whim, what to keep secret. Repeated experiences with this sort of capriciousness fostered the committee's subsequent decisions to publish information despite the executive branch's unwillingness to do so. Family Jewels A. Many frustrations lingered after the August hearings were over. On June 10, before the hearings had begun, President Ford said publicly that he would give the committee material from the Rockefeller Com- mission's investigation of intelligence abuses, "plus any other material that is available in the executive branch." Yet we did not receive an uncensored version of the "family jewels," the in-house CIA study of abuses, until mid-October, 15 minutes before Pike held a press conference to charge that there had been a covenip and more than four months after Ford had promised to supply the material. On September 11, the committee held a hearing on one of the most widely suspected instances of incom- petent intelligence?that associated with the 1973 Middle East war. We knew of several instances in the past when the intelligence system had failed?the 1968 Tet offensive, the Soviet invasion of. Czechoslovakia in 1968, the 1974 coups in Portugal and 'Cyprus, and India's nuclear explosion in 1974. The Mideast hearing was designed to explore why the intelli- gence agencies had failed at the job they were supposed to carry out? namely, to provide accurate informa- tion on international developments. Just one day after we held that hearing, President Ford announced that we would be denied any further classified information. He asked us to return our files and later compared us Approved For Release. 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-i to cornrhg?PcininttAIITHOecall5/Wifte ctiAtliiDffiggia,taTAKelgEtt0010001-2 mittee had done the previous after- noon was to vote in closed session to publish a portion of an official CIA post-mortem of the Mideast failure. Under the resolution which set up the committee, we were supposedly authorized to disclose information which related to the intelligence agencies' activities. In public session the CIA had read us two of the seven paragraphs of the post-mortem, both moderately favorable to the agency. But it had refused to declassify the other five., That afternoon the com- mittee spent hours on those five para- graphs and realized the CIA had no ? reasonable grounds for keeping them secret. They did not reveal any intelli- gence sources and methods?the two items the CIA might legitimately want to protect?but they did demonstrate just how badly U.S. intelligence had performed prior to the Middle East war. There was no "national security" at stake, only bureaucratic self- protection. For example, the CIA wanted to suppress one sentence.mhich revealed only. a misjudgment: "The movement of Syrian troops and Egyptian mili- tary readiness are considered to be coincidental and not designed to lead to major hostilities." Another para- graph the CIA wanted to censor noted that a "Watch Committee," which was supposed to judge the imminence of hostilities, failed to do so even after the war had begun. So the committee decided to pub- lish. The CIA's reaction was predicta- ble; among other things, it called a press conference and told reporters that the release of four words ("and greater communications security") en- dangered national security. President Ford finally agreed to deliver more classified information, promising we would get everything we needed?but only after a full month of negotiation and on the condition that he could veto any material the com- mittee chose to publish. But we still faced repeated delays. On October 20, for example, Pike The Washington Monthly/July-August 1976 sion for me to visit the National Security Council. There I was ..to obtain a list of all CIA covert opera- tions authorized by the top-level "40 Committee" since 1965 and to find out the committee's procedures for approving the operations. We needed this information in order to confirm or refute other indications that the procedures had often been haphazard. After repeated calls I did get the list. On it I found each CIA operation described as follows: "On [date giv- en] the 40 Committee approved a covert operation in ----." Or, "A media project was authorizad for ---." Not one actual operation was disclosed. CIA Monitors In one way, however, even this document contained a major revela- tion. Beside each blank from May 1972 until the end of 1974, the word "telephonic" appeared. I asked Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Ford's National Se- curity advisor, what that meant. He said that the approval had been given over the telephone, without formal meeting. In other words, the 40 Com- mittee, the most sensitive committee in government, had not met in more than two years. 'Nearly 40 CIA opera- tions had been approved without the opportunity for debate, or a consider- ation of risks and alternatives by anyone outside the CIA. (We held a public hearing On that point the fol- lowing week. Since then, President Ford has taken steps to insure that meetings are held-and accurate records maintained.) As the investigation.progessed, the CIA dropped even the pretense of cooperation. All of the intelligence agencies went to great lengths to keep us from informal contact or interviews with their employees. They were also adamant about having monitors pres- ent. A monitor came along from the National Security Agency when I in- terviewed an NSA Middle East ana- lyst. The poor monitor panicked when 47 Approved For Release '2005/03/16 : CIA-RD079M00467A001700010001-2 - . Approved Set 'Release 2005103/16 :CIA-RDP79M01k667A0017000100.01-2 Ir had discounted her courageous predic- tions. Truly excellent technical intelli- gence had gone unheeded. Henry Kissinger, of course, threw up the most obstacles. We had to request information from him; he chaired three crucial panels?the 40 Committee, the NSC's Intelligence Committee, and the Verification Pan- el, which handled intelligence related to the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT). But Kissinger refused to give up a single-piece of paper without a fight. He termed one of our subpoenas merely a "request" and refused to honor it. It took a contempt of Congress resolution approved by the committee to get him to honor several I left him behind in the front office. After a quick phone call to NSA headquarters, he broke past our Capi- tol Hill police guard and ran through the committee room yelling that the witness should not say anything to "those people." Genuinely afraid that the scene would lead to violence, committee staff director Searle Field agreed that the monitor could sit in on just this one interview. Kissinger Balks The NSA had reason for its fears. The analyst I interviewed was one who had accurately forecast war in the Middle East before it broke out on October 6, 1973. The NSA leadership ' - re?Z?k-7 1r24:M. ? ? ? Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 5.,"7 ? - ??? ? t#N. 247,7.3n, subpoenas. He silenced witnesses and at one point issued instructions that , nobody in the State Department was to talk to anyone from the Pike Committee unless an official State Department monitor was present. We wanted, for example, to ask one of Kissinger's subordinates to explain a mysterious contradiction in our policy toward Greece. We had heard that, when tensions were rising on Cyprus, the State Department had warned that Greek dictator Dimitrios Ioannidis was moving to overthrow Archbishop Makarios. But the CIA, at just that time, was conducting diplo- matic talks with loannidis in Athens. We learned that Thomas Boyatt, a The Washington Monthly/July-August 1976 foreign service officer, might be able to explain what the CIA station had been up to. But Kissinger refused to let us talk to Byatt without a State Department Monitor present, and the monitor forbade the man to tell ?us even the most basic details. Later I interviewed another foreign service officer on the same subject, with the same result. We called one of Kissin- ger's deputies to ask for cooperation. He asked us to put the FSO on the phone and then told him again not to give us any help. The committee was getting angry about treatment like this, especially because we had received almost .no documents on the Cypnis affair. So ? ? 49 Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 o? , ? ? r ? Approved Nor'' Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M004/ffA001700010001-2 the committee voted to subpoena a memo which Boyatt had written to Kissinger after the Cyprus affair. Once more we found ourselves in trouble. Among the other accusations that rained clown upon us was a compari- son to Joe McCarthy. The State De- partment said we were "interfering" with advice given on policy by a subordinate. But Boyatt, the subordi- nate in question, had said that he was willing to give us the information. Under existing law, there .was no way the State Department could prevent its employees from giving information to Congress. The State Department's claim that - it was protecting Boyatt from "inter- ference" like ours was somewhat dis- ingenous. Boyatt had been denied normal reassignment by two ambassa- dors and one assistant secretary, both' for his Cyprus dissent and for his activities on behalf of the Foreign Service Association, which lobbies for employee rights. We eventually pres- sured the State Department to reas- sign him. .? . . . A ?human victory, only ? we never learned what the intelligence network had told Henry Kissinger before the Cyprus coup, nor did we receive all the documents we sought. Bureaucratic Lessons ? Despite all these obstacles, by De- cember we had acquired a great deal of information the CIA did not want us to have, thereby meeting one of the tests of a good investigation. We had data about the intelligence budget which Congress had never obtained before. We had learned about every CIA operation the National Security Council had approved since 1965. We also had original documents on an. especial ance with .?SAL:r...aP'p.iments,.,thanks ocommitteeotes.to cite __Henry }issi?iifor contempt of Congress . _ 1,-vire'lf-1Cfirsi refused to, honor our s??a ?These were our successes. To a large extent they were achieved be- 50 cause of our reaction to the dismal failure of those first eight days of hearings, when the administration of- ficials just refused to cooperate. This inspired us to grit our teeth. Pike and Field set a basic rule for the investiga- tors: be so aggressive you get com- plained about. There were complaints every week. When. the CIA tried to distract us with proposals that we Investigate sexy trivia, such as a minor official's indiscretions with shellfish toxins and dther poisons, we refused. We learned One of the timeless lessons of bureaucratic life--that it is necessary to talk to people at the "working levels" of the bureaucracy - and not just the leadership. Leaders of huge agencies, responsible for any mismanagement, will always resist giv- ing evidence of their own corruption or incompetence. One senior official close to the CIA's hierarchy told me privately that he considered the CIA's analytic system "rotten," and that Colby's management was ruining the agency. "But why should I risk all and tell these things to the Pike Commit- tee?" he asked. ."Where were those congressmen when the CIA was not on the front pages, and where will they be when the Pike Committee's jurisdiction expires?" It was an argu- ment I heard often and could not really refute. It was different one step down. The majority of mid-level officials, contrary to the conventional wisdom, are competent and hard working. Above all, they are concerned with poor matzagenzent and will talk about it to anyone who seems interested in improving their condition. And even when these officials don't give you any valuable information, the .simple knowledge that you've talked with them makes their superiors more can- did. These interviews helped us pick out some of the weak points in the intelligence bureaucracy. Pentagon an- alysts would tell us what they thought of their counterparts in the CIA. Asking one agency about another, or one office in the same agency about Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 Approved FrgeRelease 2065/03/16 : CIA-RDP79MONIF/A001700010001-2 ?? another, is a simple but effective device. Everyone wants to tell his side of the story, and the rivalries among the intelligence agencies are as fierce as those anywhere in government. From analysts in the Defense Intel- ligence ? Agency, CIA, and State De- partment, I learned that the intelli- gence studies made. on the Soviet Backfire bomber might have been dishonest. The most important ques- tion was whether the Backfire could (or would) be deployed against targets in the United States. Answering this question correctly ? obviously was important for SALT. ? The accusations about the Backfire ranged all through the intelligence community. The Air Force was al- leged to have put pressure on a de- fense contractor, simply because the Air Force disagreed with a study the contractor had done for the CIA. One office of the CIA accused another of deliberately hiring a consultant who was known as a "downgrader" of Soviet aircraft in order to influence the Backfire study results. Another CIA office was accused of misrepre- senting the plane's performance char- acteristics, because that office had its own policy line to- peddle to our negotiators. The CIA takes 'great pride in its intellectual integrity, so these accusa- tions could hurt. The SALT negotia- tions_ were under way evens_we dr- ried out our investigation, and Pike riii-t?c47-a-iff -To- risk complicating them by having a public hearing on the Backfire. But the CIA did not know that. I was able to imply several times, when dealing with the CIA censor, that this issue could be very, very unpleasant if it were publicized. When I got fax enough into the story to present a threat, the CIA censor decided to call. The agency had found some documents I Might want to look at, he said. Those documents-which. ere--"SaTet.;"-but- Which served - the agen-CY's ends-reVeiled, among many -fiiiirgi? -that the director of the. DIA-dnd"-a- high- CIA official once thought thatKissinger might be The Washington Monthly/July-August 1976 _suppressing_vital _information_ about- Upset, they had gone to the acting CIA director, Vernon Walters, and asked him to approach President Nixon about the problem. Those doe- uments, which told us a great deal about the bureaucratic politics of SALT, were essentially a damage-limi- tation exercise by the CIA, which was concerned about its own reputation. Otherwise, we would never have ob- tained them. A Sorry Picture The intelligence administrators had shown us neat organization charts outlining their functions. What we actually found, however, was a very poorly administered intelligence sys- tem. The NSC's Intelligence Commit- tee, for example, which looked im- pressive on the charts, had had only two meetings-one of them to organ- ize itself. Perhaps our more important find- ing was that Congress cannot oversee the intelligence agencies without mak- ing a determined effort to separate the truth from lies. Other less aggressive committees had been over the same ground before. The House Armed Services Intelligence subcommittee, for example, had been told about the official CIA post-mortem study of the intelligence failure before the Middle East war. But that subcommittee nev- er saw the actual document; its brief- ing consisted of reading selected ma- terial from the study displayed on a slide projector. And it was not told there was a second Middle East post- mortem, which documented a shock- ing intelligence performance at the time of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation in late October 1973. Nor did the subcommittee know the official post- mortem covered up key weaknesses in the intelligence bureaucracy. Other official briefings I saw, including those related to nuclear arms matters, were always vague, always incomplete. We also found evidence that the true intelligence budget is several times larger than that which the Con- 51 Approved For Release. 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001.-2 . Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIALRDP7911/100W001700010001-2 Alai ? gress annually approves. The six for- eign episodes we selected for closer study .revealed mismanaged intelli- gence on a large scale. The CIA could offer no major analytical success. "Current intelligence" reports suf- fered because the leadership kept the analysts busy with meetings, phony deadlines, and "coordinating" policy differences between offices. There was precious little time left to think and write. The CIA's longer-term intelli- gence estimates were also weak, and. the bureacratic structure promised lit- tle improvement. We found an alarm- ing number of. cases in which crucial information had been collected in time, but had not been disseminated until after the war had begun-just like the classic Pearl Harbor failure. We found that Henry Kissinger kept valuable information away from the CIA. We had only to go beyond the official explanations to realize that reform of the analytical side of U. S. intelligence is long overdue and sorely needed. 'We also found pressures which distorted honest intelligence during the entire Vietnam war. The pressures came from the military, the State Department, and the White HMS; and had one purpose: to force the CIA to report 'facts" about Vietnam which: would support the war policy, regardless of truth. Many officials who resisted such pressures found their careers finished; those who kept quiet were promoted. Fight Like Hell But ..it was the question of ,how well we monitor ?S;Oviet adherence ,to the-S-ALTJgreeinenti- which I_ found Most:troublesome. It showed how dangerous bureaucratic rivalry can be- come for the whole country when the bureaucrats operate in secret. On October 1.7?1.9723.when...the agencies establislted_a_steering..mecb- ariisni"?to -rfcanitor Soviet .._SALT onfpc?with the agreements e trifle-10 keVibi& May, a colonel -on NSC staff called the CIA's 52 Director of_Strategic_Research to say: "Dr. Kissinger...wanted . to avoid .any written judgments to the effect ,that tIfE-Sr-o-Viits have violated .any of _the SALaeTh?ts. If the Director thatAne_Soviets may _be in Violation, this should be the subject of a".- iir?iuidunr from _ him _. to. Kissinger. 'The...judgment that...a viola- ja:riSidered_to,have_occurred is. one that wi ii?).?e..ma de .a t.. the highest _ I Fv-er. W.1.1.4t this_me.ant,_in_effect, was that. the_intelligenee.service had been , deprived., of its basic rationale. Henry Kissinger, the official most responsible for iiiakirig _SALT _policy, also. con- fielled information about. how well the was working-an affront not oiily to the 'purpose. of. the CIA but -t-ci every prudent notion about avoiding administrative disasters. --- To be ..sure, Kissinger had his prob- lem with some elements of the intern- gence-airnmunity, who were leaking to the press inaccurate information -about SOyietviolatfons: but, the .way to -handle .t11,4 .problem _was, With a? TIM alined .at the sinners .not_a_ shot- gun- bIa---sting-a-Wjf .0 the. entire. area_of TaaliErreliorting of SALT violations.... more disfurbing - than- what Kissinger.. was. doing...was _his _passion for _concealing.it .froan Congress. And even' rricire disturbing than that is the fact that Kissinger and the intelligence chiefs are typical of the executive branch leadership in their determina- tion to protect Congress from know- ledge of their affairs; in their tendency to ignore the fact that, after all, the executive and ,leslative branches work for the same employer. I am convinced that Wilson was wrong in thinking Congress cannot overcome this tendency. Congres- sional committees can probe the depths of the federal bureaucracy, and provide the information that we all need to know. But pending the' day when irrational adversary attitudes between the branches are replaced by a cooperative spirit of service, they had better be prepared to fight like hell. .Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 LOS MICEL'ES TIMES T/Cf, P APPEARED 5 SEPTEMBER 1976 ON PAGE' 8.fflgked Forlitelease 2005103/16 : CIA-RDP79M00464001700010001-2 . T* .te"bi ror 1 P - .v4r, VOIVAL.f. a ? . . . ?-. : -- them - .... : e...... ...... ? ,;;,-Th!::,:,': era idi , net'eyeri newer ; complicated ,-.V.e BY GREGOR.j."..? ;.:INS1.1. FOR1.1 ..,,..:yee .,;,?,. ., ... ??Pe.! cal institutions in Tran:Inardcally, in the vei ons sistemS are envisioned for delivery,':.;.;.i,...e. inanth that estimate as iSSI,:ed---May; 19' 'Ire terrorist murders -in Iran last weekend, - _ The.Admiriistratien's immediate reaction tOi ?two US- colonels were ambushed ztr.d.sla f three _AirterIcans ? emPlOyed by- Rockwell', the. three Atnericanst;deathS waS .tci- issue' a i in Iran, Much -as were the Rockwell. er nternational could. become crucial in the:clii7.,, ployes last weekend.-- . . ,. . ... 'cover stoikobicurine,,the p?ockNiielleniPloyee- tite between Coneress. a:Ail:el oat Admint: real mission to'develdP an intelligence cone& ?-:-- Secretary Kissinger and other officialaa.- Aration over the linprecedentsa sta..4, billion., titan ''sj,'Sterri..*With- .the, 'code: name Project allowed such _warnings to gather dust t a advanced US. v;eapOr.s. so :d eince,..WIZ_,.to-, .-IBE.X.". .Our. embassy iri?Tehran saicl:.the men. bureaucratic. Shelves. Now the Humphr: hat Persian" Gulf oil producer: : -.. ? --....:-;;; .,.....-..e.i;:,--,.. were ',-Working on :a ";''researehlt..-15rOjectt.':;:in subcommittee should summon them and il.15 .: In July a S-enate Foreier. RclatiCtIS subcorn-. Wisliingtdn,*.?US.:;officials:.*Yelus-ed.'"to answer they justify their positions?before any mo nittee issued a detailed report:eh:le-ging that questions' about' the Rockwell proiect.'"When arms deals are approved. _. .......-7?_ _ - ---- ,ems sales- to lieen were'. cut. oI central, and _I NBC New' reported the outlines': tat:TBEX, , .. - Iii. -aliitioa, the, U. might well declassi nat Trait Was unlikelyr..6"abisorb a large pro-,.., two chs passed beforeAii;ierican sour or- ..or- - ortiOn of the 'weaponsi4.t.i:ie coming del . .roboi:ated the StorYe?-;.:.';?...1";:y..?,..o!...ea,.,t:ee?....:...,.2,?; ...';:i. ..3.t.s. estimates about Iran- as a contribution ade; without increasede,US..: involvemerit.1, .. the public debate.. Those who have- read .t rherei.ttilow 24,000'Arhericans in Iran:. and ::- ?? ? ? .:' " 4' i '. ' ... f Project_. IBE: .1, -? ." CIA, estintates assure me they .could he 'in] 4.1lie.??atiiillohre.Y.:stibeOrrieiitiee-?liai":n0Set.. ? . {..,, . .. atelligince sources estiinate that number will? ?? . ..? - - ? ? . ' -- - "' Iished without revealing- any of our int Pentagon source cars 'ithe'"proje4jit4': only,: . - _ ise to 50,e00 by 1980yreee.e.a.::.......-..,.....,::-.1ic..:: ??' --? i -.? ? - ? ? - ' ? ? -? ' ?:? ... -. ---- ? - ligence sources br methods. -In the wake. .:dangeraus.:, but. also duplicative from an Intel-- Vietnam, we would be- well-advised to -pay : - Sem:Hubert. 11.-Htiriiphi4'.(0.71.1.inn.),_ v:hcp.. li,-gence collection standpoint, and alleges that rious heed to well-researched warnings of 1 ? atrosiuced the.report:aS_Subcornmittee .chair.!e. ,it. is likely to involve Americans in questiona- zards that could arise from our creepingm iian;ekpresse,i concern that. !both the execti.., hie. 'activities* on behalf of the Iranian govern-? ive branch. and the- Congress haVe. -thus* fa(' ,eel. Bey tarY involvement abreact._ ...-... ?e-......., a., 7. *pored ?.4the substantial and ? far: reaching.- 'f"'" ? . ' ' . ..*' . ' ''' '. ' ..?'..' .''' -i-- ." *'::-:' *'-rind all this, the Humphrey sulioriarr a ..:eIndeed Rockwell was not el.'en listed in toe ringn-policy 1711rAlcations.which result-frorre ? . pn..r...} .3 ? rep c? In ? -. s 10 contracts . tee has leveled serious charge of misraana: .:..i.r. deep inyoIvement'l in Jrzin..The Adrniriii- .:Iran. Be.fore approvinc any more arms saes e rnentiln- our arms program for Trans Irani ports are des.cribed 2.5 clogy aation's.response waS:delivered'by'Secretth-Y . .? the stibroraraittee should demand to know ex- ,-ed with. undel erect equipment, and the ability of the Irani 1 Stale."1-.I.em-y A.- KiSsinger the day before , ' h activ what?IBEX is. Any projects* with Intel-- ? .- -- air force to handle F-1 Phantom jets IS said e murders. Over Sl billion,i-orth..oladdi ' ..c,. - . . ce overtones warrantspecial overstgnt ?l ?. jeopardized by its atteriipts to masterl onal_v.wpons?will?be Sold to Iran, including . ..:y Congress,. for ?these' are . often the one.s - 1:1-' .. newl-aircra ft, the F46, unless Congress uses . which if .rnismanagecl; get t'ne country into- newer F-14- Tomcat---at the _very time 11 ..s pawer to block the deal. by. concurrent re-7 - .....: .. : ..e.t.:.ee,. e .,......,..._....4_. plans are 'announced to introduce yet anotl ,-erious tionble... -.': Dlution veithin 30 day-.S.e.:.---, - : -: . -.:-..-:-.1....:-.,..... complicated aircraft, theF-16 .. . - ?-- ?- :' --.. _ ..a,i:Secrecy *concerning ?arms sold to 'Iran has ? ' ..- -. --- - In the aftermath of the. triple sdayings, a ????- ? plagued Congress for years. The basic policy_ porMt any the including this, writer, si . , "es h 'challenge faces Humphreys subcommit-.?' behind . the *recent 810.4 billion in.. arms' basic polity of sellin ophstica' . . .: , .g s ee?which has jurisclictio-n?to recomme.nd.ac- ? emerged in private discussions 'between forL'INveaponi to our Iranian ally?up to a.point on .to the Congre -.s..?-when. it assesses. the,..: ... - .."'- ... e,... , .e-rner President. Richard M. Nixon and the fwe can help Iran keep the-peace id the -P - - :iersv. aillls deal propozed by Kissingene,--f-'5e,;.....-.. _ ; Shah' of Iran when Nixon visited Tehran in 1 sian Gulf, thus obviating our own' military. -SoureLreasons exist ? for.,COngress to....bloCi,:',., i ,May; 1972. More than two years later Secre- i Volvement there, so much the better: But , ;he atall .itional Sel billion. For. one thirvaetinanr:,:: ? ? --_. .. ..- ? ..: .. ?7- ,-- .---:- -.?--e. tary Kissinger refused to tell Congress V.hat ted to endanger ?Ameriean lives arid threzt sWered ".. questions.--remairi..i:abOute-:Whit- the ? Nixon had promised.- Thg. Senate Foreign Re- 1. sale of U.S.'arms to Iran must: not be pea; , ? p,e,ck7kell., employes-Tweredoijig in .Iran For:" Jations Committee, which. has just criticized still greater I.J.S. military involvement_ - Since the Ford Administration is unwill another thing, warnings-have coma frnfri.the....such'ecrecy, was denied access to documen- '-'? d CentrateIntelligence. i?:Agency , of i Iong?:terrn tation of Nixon's secret arrangements with do so?an obligation underscored 1 to c'nange its policy, Congress has theobli angers because of:increased .U.S;:invott?e:-: the shah. . " ' . . . i tion to. nient in Iran?warnings all too similar to.the ..,- t Surely, 'Air Vietnam experience provides the.F.ockwell employesa murder CIA's cautionary estimates In the .earlY. ..19.69s . ? further cause for diz-approving the new arrns about the .*dangers arising from our Vietnarh . sale.. Although Congrezs did not know it at - i ' ! Gregory - Rush ford,:: a. free-knee .r,Fri:e; policy.. (which the- Kenned), administration .the time, those early CIA projections of our a ' i Waslgton.,.was.ert inves!i6.cfor for a nd its.successors' chose. not. to heed .until long-term problems in Vietnam Warned that - Select coinnuttee orantelitgenee aiding' it South-Vietnam collapsed in 1975)1 ;-:.''....,':.:?*-.: the- South Vietnamese government was rife 1, e,.... ? ;?, ..,? .,; e -,,.? - A. further cause for the subcommittee's?Wa-::.1:cith corruption and inefficiency and, lackireg%i .e"-`1` a.z.(114"' -"" '''' ul':"--""?.71Soffile- CEA: tines,s. el , is that the scope of thatest .. a eMS. table political- institutions, .might ..Well col- i -' --e -- et., ??? = - . o --e -.. e.--.*:.:.-? ---.:;.- ?????,.ee package rnay heighten tensions between Iran; lapse without increased U.S. military invoIvell - and the united States because, quiteimplyeernent..........?.. _.:'? / _ ;-.,. ? :".. -,:',.-:. ',...,.-, ..:,. , ..:- ?,;/- ::,:.! we-have beeniinablApie-?c?risv4d?tliViikeisiTVOi:141. -0013116e-YO*A131441V1(?bitteltifiki 700010001-2 militzry. to handle the weapons ?already. sola? mand to ? see comparable.. ClAewarnings on , :Van Which, according to intelligence anatySts; 1 . i-e .no less cautionary. One such warning- is ! Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2 TRANSMITTAL SLIP TO: Executive Secr ROOM NO. BUI DATE REMARKS: Orig was handcarried to DCI by loffice. (1) Executive Secretary (2) ER via R.B. FROM: ROOM NO. BUILDING EXTENSION FORM NO.04 1 REPLACES FORM 36-8 1 FEB 55 Z- WHICH MAY BE USED. (47) Approved For Release 2005/03/16 : CIA-RDP79M00467A001700010001-2