MEETING AT THE WHITE HOUSE WITH THE PRESIDENT, SENATOR BAYH, AND SENATOR HUDDLESTON ON THE QUESTION OF CHARTER LEGISLATION, 26 APRIL 1978

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000800030014-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 16, 2006
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: April 26, 1978
• Content Type: MFR

Approved For Release 2006/11/16: CIA-RDP81M00980R0008
78-8213;41
197E
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Meeting at the White House with the President, Senator Bayh,
and Senator Huddleston on the Question of Charter Legislat on,
26 April 1978
1. Senator Bayh made the point that the Committee had put the most
restrictive language into the draft legislation on the grounds that it
could be worked back out during discussion. He did say that they had
already compromised wherever the Community had made a good argument.
They had accepted our view but where our arguments were not convincing
they had left the more restrictive language in. The President took
exception to this "most restrictive" procedure on the grounds that it
generated an adversarial relationship and put the Administration in a
defensive posture. Senator Bayh indicated that was not what he intended.
There was obviously a strong feeling on both his and Huddleston's par`.
that they had already conceded a great deal. I mentioned to them in
private discussion afterwards that we really were pretty busy concentrating
on the Executive Order at the period when we were also commenting on their
urgent draft, hence we probably didn't do as good a job as possible.
2. The President said he'd like to proceed in three phases:
a. Staff analysis of the draft document. He stressed
here and several other times that he was very surprised at
the degree of detail in the draft document.
b. Presentation of an analysis of key points to the
President.
c. The President signing off on the principles which
would be used by our negotiators in dealing with the Committee.
He clearly ruled out any idea of anyone being designated to
negotiate now on a combined Congressional/Executive working
group.
Approved For Release 2006/11/16: CIA-RDP81 M00980R000800030014-6
 Approved For Release 2006/11/16: CIA-l DP81M0098OR000800030014-6
3. The President later suggested that we start by trying to ruin
through this three-phase process for Titles IV, V and VI (later amended
by Harold Brown to be III, IV, V and VI) ; that we then proceed to tha -,
organizational matters in Title I; and that finally we take up the rn ;t
difficult issue of Title II.
4. The President made a number of comments about the difficulties
if you get too locked in to detailed wording. He pointed out thn problems
he had had in one minor covert action propaganda program which took K ii
six months to get started because of various legal impediments and io er-
pretations.
5. Finally, the President indicated that he thought by the midd?e of
May we could be ready to proceed on 'the charters for the individual atgencies.
6. For OGC: I think we need to come up on our own and soon &- h a
list of what will be the specific principles under each Title that p,riaps
should go to the President either for resolution because there will he
.differences within the Executive Branch or because we will be taking
important exception with the draft legislation. I do not an vast detail
but the broad areas. For instance, under the 68 reporting items I wonId
like to see if we could characterize that into one or two items with different
kinds of reporting, some of which we object to and some of which we accept.
In short, we should end up with Presidential approval of a principle i
reporting, leaving the detailed decisions on which reports fall undo,
which principle to lower level discussions. We are never going to gp-
through to the SCC/Presidential review if we don't do some boiling do;-a
so that the working groups have guidance and need come back to the SGt;
only in those instances when there's genuine difference of opinion on
interpretation of the guidance for a specific sentence in the draft h 1l.
W A N A V I L L U efn:K
Director
u l 6 ` 00 11 l? V
?' 9
GO; llyiwv~
Approved For Release 2006/11/16: CIA-RDP81M0098OR000800030014-6
 Approved For Release 2006/11/16: CIA-RDP81M00980R000800030014-6
Approved For Release 2006/11/16: CIA-RDP81M00980R000800030014-6