STATEMENT W.E. COLBY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BEFORE DEFENSE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-01042R000300010001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 95
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 20, 1975
• Content Type: STATEMENT

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Statement
W.E. Colby
Director of Central Intelligence
Before
Defense Subcommittee
of the
House Appropriations Committee
February 20, 1975
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Mr. Chairman:
Our national intelligence agency, the CIA, is
the object of great attention and concern. A series
of serious allegations have been made by the press
and other critics about our operations and
activities.
At the same time, a number of responsible
Americans are concerned that a degree of hysteria
can develop that will result in serious damage
to our country's essential intelligence work by
throwing the baby out with the bath water.
There is equally serious concern within the
CIA itself as to whether its personnel can continue
to make their important contribution to our country
or will be the target of ex post facto sensationalism
and recrimination for actions taken at earlier times
under a different atmosphere than today's.
I welcome this opportunity to describe the im-
portance of our intelligence, how it works and what
it does, and the small extent to which its activities
may in past years have come close to or even over-
stepped proper bounds. We certainly make no claim
that nothing improper occurred, but we do think it
important that such incidents be given only their
proper proportion.
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It would perhaps be useful, Mr. Chairman, to
start by reviewing some of the allegations made
recently about the CIA.
The leading charge was that, in direct violation
of its charter, CIA conducted a "massive illegal
domestic intelligence operation" against the ariti-
Vietnam war and other dissident elements in recent
years. In my testimony to the Senate Appropria :ions
and Armed Services Committees, on 15 and 16 January,
I flatly denied this allegation. I pointed out that
CIA instead had conducted a counterintelligence
operation directed at possible foreign links to
American dissidents, under the authority of the
National Security Act and the National Security
Council Intelligence Directives which govern its
activities and in response to Presidential concern
over this possibility. Thus this operation was
neither massive, illegal, nor domestic, as alleged.
The same allegations stated that "dozens of'
other illegal activities," including break-ins,
wire tapping, and surreptitious inspection of
mail, were undertaken by members of the CIA in the
United States beginning in the 1950's. Again I
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reported to the Senate Appropriations and Armed
Services Committees a few such activities that
in fact occurred. I pointed out that most such
actions were taken under the general charge of
the National Security Act on the Director of
Central Intelligence to protect intelligence
sources and methods against unauthorized dis-
closure. Whether or not they were appropriate,
there are very few institutions in or out of
Government which in a 27-year history do not on
occasion make a misstep, but in CIA's case such
instances were few and far between and quite
exceptional to the main thrust of its efforts.
Another allegation given prominence was
apparently based on the statements of an anonymous
source who claimed that, while employed by the
CIA in New York in the late 60s and early 70s,
"he and other CIA agents had also participated
in telephone wiretaps and break-ins" in the New
York area. As I told the journalist involved
before the story was printed, it does not bear
any relation to CIA's actual activities in that
area. Nor can we identify any former employee
who answers to the journalist's description of
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his source. I fear that the journalist has been
the victim of what we in the intelligence trade
call a fabricator.
Another published allegation was that CIA,
through Agency-owned corporate structures organized
to provide apparent sponsorship for its overseas
operations, manages a "$200--million-a-year top-
secret corporate empire" which could circumvent
the will of Congress. This allegation is also
false. CIA does maintain certain corporate support
structures that are essential to conducting its
operations and concealing CIA's role overseas.
These activities are managed, however, in the most
meticulous manner by CIA to ensure the safekeeping
of the Government's investment, and to audit these
activities to ensure that they stay within proper
bounds.
One individual continues to give national promi-
nence to an allegation that CIA was somehow more in-
volved in Watergate and its cover-up than has been
demonstrated publicly. His lack of credibility
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should cause the charge to fall of its own weight,
but in addition I believe the extensive investiga-
tions made into this subject, and in particular
the tapes most. recently released, indicate that
CIA's limited assistance in 1971 certainly had
nothing to do with the Watergate in 1972, and that
CIA was the institution that said "No" to the
cover-up rather than be involved in it.
There are also a number of allegations of im-
proper CIA relationships with domestic police forces.
The facts are that CIA maintained friendly liaison
relationships with a number of police forces for
assistance in CIA's mission of investigating its
applicants, contractors, and similar contacts.
These relationships from time to time included
various mutual courtesies which have been warped
into allegations of improper CIA manipulation of
these police forces for domestic purposes. These
allegations are false. Since the 1973 legislation
barring any CIA assistance to the Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration, CIA has terminated any
assistance to the LEAA and in compliance with the
spirit as well as the letter of that particular
law has terminated any assistance to local police
forces as well.
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Aft One charge stems from a dangerous misunder-
standing of the true nature of the modern intel-
ligence process. CIA invited several U.S. industrial
firms to bid on a contract to study new foreign
developments in transportation technology. This
has been alleged to constitute a program to spy
on our closest allies. In truth, of course, it is
nothing of the kind. The prospective contractor
was only expected to conduct open research and
analyze information made available to him. Intel-
ligence work today includes analysis as one of
its major elements. It is no longer synonymous
with spying.
Mr. Chairman, these exaggerations and misrepre-
sentations of CIA's activities can do irreparable
harm to our national intelligence apparatus and if
carried to the extreme could blindfold our country
as it looks abroad. To this Committee I of course
need not stress the importance of our intelligence
work to our defense. May I only remind you that our
intelligence must not only tell us what threats we
face today but also what threats are on the drawing
boards or in the research laboratories of potential
enemies that might threaten us some years hence.
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This Committee is well aware of the contribution
intelligence makes to decisions about defense
levels. I would also like to remind you of its
contribution to the Strategic Arms Limitation
and similar treaties. Such agreements help
reduce the need for. the heavy expense of arms.
I would like to stress another aspect of
intelligence today -- its contribution to peace-
keeping. Aside from its assistance to our ability
to make treaties to reduce tensions between us and
other nations, it has on occasion provided our
Government information with which it has been
able to convince other nations not to initiate
hostilities against their neighbors. This peace-
keening role can grow in importance as our intelli-
gence coverage improves. Correspondingly, it can
decline if our intelligence machinery is made
ineffectual through irresponsible exposure or
ill-founded exaggeration.
Mr. Chairman, CIA does carry out some of its
activities within the United States. About three-
fourths of its employees live and work in this
country. Most are in the Washington Metropolitan
Area, performing analysis, staff direction,
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administrative support and Headquarters activities.
About ten percent of CIA's employees work in the
United States outside the Headquarters area. They
perform support functions that must be done in
the United States, such as personnel recruitment
and screening or contracting for technical intel-
ligence devices. They also collect foreign
intelligence here. Much information on the world
is available from private American citizens and
from foreigners within the United States, and it
would be foolish indeed to spend large sums and
take great risks abroad to obtain what can be-
acquired cheaply and safely here.
CIA's Domestic Collection Division has repre-
sentatives in 36 American cities. These represen-
tatives contact residents of the United States who
are willing to share with their Government information
they possess on foreign areas and developments.
They provide this information voluntarily, in full
awareness that they are contributing information to
the Government. They are assured that their relation-
ship will be kept confidential and that proprietary
interests, say on the part of a businessman, will
not be compromised. This program focuses exclusively
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on the collection of information about foreign areas
and developments.
The Foreign Resources Division of CIA was
I
known until 19,72 as the Domestic Operations Division.
Its principal mission is to develop relationships
with foreigners in the United States who might be
of assistance in the collection of intelligence
abroad. In this process it also collects foreign
intelligence from foreigners in the United States.
It has offices in 8 United States cities, and its
work is closely coordinated with the FBI, which
has the responsibility for identifying and
countering foreign intelligence officers working
within the United States against our internal
security.
The Agency's Office of Security has 8 field
offices in the United States, engaged in conducting
security investigations of individuals with whom
CIA anticipates some relationship -- employment,
contractual, informational, or operational. In
order not to reveal during the investigation pro-
cess the fact of CIA's connection with the individual,
which might destroy the basis of the relationship,
such investigators normally do not identify them-
selves as working for CIA.
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Another responsibility.of the office of Security
is the investigation of unauthorized disclosures of
classified intelligence. This function stems
from my responsibility under the National Security
Act to protect intelligence sources and methods
against unauthorized disclosure. Thus the Office
of Security would prepare a damage assessment and
endeavor to determine the source of a leak so that
we could take corrective action.
Mr. Chairman, CIA conducts a broad program of
research and development, largely through contracts
with U.S. industrial firms and, research institutes.
In many such contracts, CIA sponsorship of the
project must be hidden from many of the individuals
working on the program itself. This was the case
in the development of the U-2 aircraft, for example,
so that the ultimate purpose of the aircraft,
to fly over hostile territory for photographic
purposed, would not be known beyond the necessary
small circle rather than by the entire work force.
Operations of this sort require complicated cover
and funding arrangements.. It is for this purpose
that the CIA does maintain a variety of arrangements
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within the private sector to provide cover and
support in the field of funding, insurance, security,
and auditing.
The Agency's Cover and Commercial Staff arranges
this cooperation with U.S. business firms and
operates the proprietary activities maintained by
CIA, to provide essential cover for CIA's foreign
intelligence work.
The Agency's Office of Personnel has a Recruit-
ment Division to hire Americans with the required
skills and expertise for Agency employment. It
maintains 12 domestic field offices from which such
Agency recruiters operate. In addition to these
recruitment efforts, of course, we have confidential
arrangements with some Americans who agree to assist
us in the conduct of our foreign intelligence work.
The Agency's Office of Training also must do
a large amount of its work within the United States.
We maintain a number of training installations in
which the various disciplines required for CIA's
missions are taught. These cover everything from
language and communications training to clandestine
operations and intelligence analysis. Occasionally
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some of this training is conducted by sending a
student on a mock exercise into a large U.S. city
environment to expose him to some of the problems
of operating in a clandestine manner. In such
cases, however, the subject of the action would
be another Agency employee participating in the
exercise.
In addition to these direct activities, the
Agency has cooperated and collaborated with a number
of governmental elements in the United States.
This begins with the extensive collaboration and
coordination with the other elements of the
Intelligence Coitununity, such as the Department of
Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
These joint activities are ones in which it is
proper for one Government agency to assist another
within the principles established by the Economy
Act. As I noted at the outset, an example of this
was the counterintelligence program conducted
during recent years, in which CIA focused on the
question of whether foreign manipulation or support
was going to American dissident elements from abroad.
The research and development of some of the complex
technical equipment required.for intelligence is in
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many cases conducted jointly by the Department of
Defense and CIA, as the resulting flow of information
will be of value to both. Similarly, there is an
exchange of trainees with various Government agencies,
both to improve the breadth of knowledge of the CIA
trainees and to orient trainees from other agencies
on the role of intelligence in American foreign policy.
As I noted earlier, in the course of these
various activities, there have been occasions when
CIA may have exceeded its proper bounds. I have
outlined a number of these in my report to the
Senate Appropriations Committee, a copy of which
I submit herewith for your record, along with some
changes in detail which have come out of our con-
tinuing investigation. I think it important to
make three points with respect to any such events:
1. They were undertaken in the belief
that they fell within the Agency's charter
to collect foreign intelligence or to pro-
tect intelligence sources and methods.
2. The Agency has held and adhered
to the principle that its responsibilities
lie in the field of foreign intelligence
and not domestic intelligence, and any of
the above activities were believed to have
been related to foreign intelligence.
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3. Any missteps by CIA were few and
far between, have been corrected, and in
no way justify the outcry which has been
raised against CIA.
Mr. Chairman, in May 1973 Director Schlesinger
issued a notice to all CIA employees instructing
and inviting them to report to him or to the Inspector
General any matter in CIA's history which they
deemed questionable under CIA's charter. This
instruction has been made a matter of regulation
within CIA and is brought to the attention of each
employee once a year. As a result of the May 1973
memorandum, various incidents were collected and
brought to the attention of the Chairman of the
House and the Acting Chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committees. They were then used as the
basis of a very specific series of internal
instructions issued in August 1973 directing the
termination, modification, or other appropriate
action with respect to such incidents in order
to ensure that CIA remains within its proper
charter. These instructions have been carried
out and are periodically reviewed to ensure
continued compliance.
It appears that some version of these matters
came to the attention of the New York Times reporter
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who wrote the article of December 22, 1974. A
day or two before the article appeared, he con-
tacted me stating he had obtained information of
great importance indicating that CIA had engaged
in a massive domestic intelligence activity,
including wiretaps, break-ins, and a variety of
other actions. In response to his request, I met
with him and explained to him that he had mixed
and magnified two separate subjects, i.e., the
foreign counterintelligence effort properly con-
ducted by CIA and those few activities that the
Agency's own investigation had revealed and termi-
nated in 1973. He obviously did not accept my ex-
planation and, instead, alleged that CIA had con-
ducted a "massive illegal domestic intelligence
operation." I am confident that the investigations
of the President's Commission and the Select Com-
mittees will verify the accuracy of my version of
these events. I also believe that any serious re-
view of my report to the Senate Appropriations Com-
mittee will show that I essentially denied his
version rather than confirmed it as some have
alleged. The sensational atmosphere surrounding
intelligence, however; encourages oversimplication
and disproportionate stress on a few missteps rather
than on the high quality of CIA's basic work.
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Mr. Chairman, these last two months have placed
American intelligence. in danger. The almost
hysterical excitement that surrounds any news story
mentioning CIA, or referring even to a perfectly
legitimate activity of CIA, has raised the question
whether secret intelligence operations can be
conducted by the United States. A number of the
intelligence services abroad with which CIA works
have expressed concern over its situation and over
the fate of the sensitive information they provide
to us. A number of our individual agents abroad
are deeply worried that their names might be
revealed with resultant danger to their lives as
well as their livelihoods. A number of Americans
who have collaborated with CIA as a patriotic
contribution to their country are deeply concerned
that their reputations will be besmirched and their
businesses ruined by sensational misrepresentation of
this association. And our own employees are torn
between the sensational allegations of CIA misdeeds
and their own knowledge that they served their nation
during critical times in the best way they knew how.
I believe it a time for a review of what this
nation needs and wants in the field of intelligence
and the determination therefrom of how, and con-
sequently-whether, American intelligence will
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operate. In this process, I believe four things
are necessary.
First, it is essential that asober and res-
ponsible review of our intelligence apparatus take
place. By reason of the sensitivity of some of
these matters, it is essential that it be conducted
without a sequence of sensational allegations and
exposures. I am sure that the responsible members
of the President's Commission and of the Select
Committees will take this approach.
Second, the inquiries must be conducted in a
manner that protects the secrecy of these sensitive
matters after as well as during the investigations.
For this reason, I am recommending to the investigating
bodies, and the President's Commission has already
accepted, arrangements for the physical security of
the material to be developed, secrecy agreements
for the staffs similar to those utilized by the
Intelligence Community and recently ratified by
the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and arrange-
ments for compartmentation of the different levels
of sensitivity of the information to be provided.
There must not only be no exposure of our most
sensitive material, such as the names of our agents
and collaborators and the specifics of our sensitive
technical machinery, there must not even be a risk
that this occur.
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Third, I look forward to clarification from
these inquiries of the proper authority and limitations
of American intelligence. For example, in my
confirmation hearing I suggested the addition of
the word "foreign" before the word "intelligence"
whenever it appears in the National Security Act
referring to CIA, to make crystal clear its function.
I also expect that the arrangements for authorization
and oversight of the operations of CIA and the
Intelligence Community will be reviewed and clarified
wherever necessary. But in the establishment of
these new rules, it will be essential to include
arrangements for their modification, as the rules
of 1975 may be no better fitted for the pfoblems
our nation will face in 1990 than those of 1947
may be considered by some for 1975.
Fourth, I believe it essential to improve our
tools to protect those secrets necessary to the suc-
cess of American intelligence and even the conduct of
foreign policy. I am charged by the National
Security Act with the protection of intelligence
sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure.
If there is to be no gray area in this charge,
I believe it essential that the tools to carry
it out be plainly identified and adequate.
Today they include our screening and orientation
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process, our physical arrangements to protect our
material, and the secrecy agreement we require of
our employees. But intelligence sources and methods
do not have the kind of protection provided by the
criminal penalties that apply to the unauthorized
revelation of income tax returns, census returns,
and cotton statistics. One of our ex-employees has
recently published a book abroad, where he is out of
range of our injunction process, in which he claims
to reveal the name of every individual, American
and foreign, that he could remember working with,
acknowledging the "important encouragement" of the
Communist Party of Cuba in writing the book. I
believe it absurd for anyone to be immune from
criminal prosecution for such an act.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this opportunity
to speak publicly about the serious situation of
American intelligence today. This is a matter that
concerns not only us in the Intelligence Community,
and our critics, but our entire nation. American
intelligence today, thanks to the dedicated work
of thousands of professionals, and in particular my
predecessors in this post, has improved in quality
to a degree undreamed of a few decades ago. Thanks
to it, our Government's policymakers can draw on
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factual information and reasoned analysis in
cases where until recently they had to rely only
on hunches, circumstantial evidence, and cautious
hopes. It is not only helping our Government to
be better informed about the complex world in
which we live, it is also serving the Congress and
the people to help them play their full role in
American decisionmaking. During 1974, for example,
CIA alone appeared before 17 Congressional com-
mittees or subcommittees on 48 occasions and had
substantive discussions on foreign developments
with journalists on some 600 occasions.
As public understanding of the real nature of
modern intelligence grows, I am confident that there
will be an equal growth in public support of its
necessities, including the fact that its details
cannot be exposed to the bright glare of publicity
or irresponsible exaggeration. With this, I believe
1975 can mark the year in which America reaffirmed
the need for intelligence to protect itself and
to maintain world peace, and replaced the sensa-
tional, romantic, but outdated intelligence image
of the mystery writers with a mature understanding
of the modern intelligence process. Intelligence:: is
still an exciting profession, but in the intellectual
and technological sense, not just the physical.
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2 January 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR:. Deputy Director, for .Intelligence.
Deputy. Director. for Operations
Deputy: Direc.to:r for Science 'and. Technology
Dep.uty to __the 'DCI. 'for Nati.onal. Inte.l'ligence ;Officers
Deputy to. the. DCI. for .the Intelligerice:Community
General - Counsel'
Legislative 'Counse-l
Insp-cctor General
SUBJECT DCI. Briefing Concerning Domestic Activities. -
Attache'a for.. your information and re.tenti.on is a copy
of ,the transcript :of the DCI presentation in the auditorium
on 30 December 19.74,. concerning .the allegations that the Agency
has been. involved. in domestic activities.- Although the report
is stamped .'?Administrative Internal Use- Onlys",. you may wish
to . exercise some reasonable 'precaution in, the handling of
this material until.-and unless- :the Director auth razes::further
dissemination.
STAT
Executive Officer
Deputy. Director for Administration
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Attachment
Transcript
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DCI SPEECH - 30 December 1974
DCI: Well I'm sorry, for a variety of reasons,
to disrupt your morning. Mostly I'm sorry for the
amount of hullabaloo that we're in for again I see.
The Agency has had this kind of problem before, as many
of you will remember, from the Bay of Pigs to the Ramparts
case and, most recently, Chile and now another.
.What I thought I would do today is give you a rough
outline of where we. stand, of where I think we're going
to go and answer various specific questions that I know
you have in your minds, and then be prepared to answer
Where we stand. We obviously were accused in the
New York Times of conducting a massive domestic intelli-
gence operation. That's not so. And I indicated that
that's an inaccurate characterization of what this Agency
has been doing. What the Agency has done pursuant to its
law, which says that it shall not have any law. enforcement,
police, subpoena powers or internal security functions,
has been to work on foreign intelligence and foreign
counterintelligence. Now, in the course of that, there
were a few things where we probably. stepped a little over
the edge. For example, in following a foreign intelligence
or foreign counterintelligence case, we quite naturally
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run across the names of Americans sometimes.
and defend the Constitution of the United States against
Charter. All of us.have taken an oath ,to support and
If those
deal with internal security we pass those to the FBI.
Now there's nothing wrong with that.. It fits within our
foreign-and domestic. We are obliged under-
to.conduct
foreign counterintelligence activities, and we are entitled
to help.our country ;to defend itself, against foreign and
Now where we may,have slipped over the edge, in a few
cases, is in setting up an operation. We sometimes would
.put somebody into a radical movement here as a way of
developing their credentials for work abroad...-Again,."
no problems. That's.just part. of the foreign intelligence
operation. But in the course: of working into that group
domestic enemies.
and . developing those credentials sometimes they reported
material while they were in that operation. Now that,.::
if it were substantial we would pass it onto the. FBI.
We would probably make a record of it, and in that way
we built up a file of names of Americans and some know-
ledge of American activities. But the.activity was not
aimed at the domestic groups. The activity was aimed at
preparing somebody to go abroad to work in the.things that
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~; A___R A 4?--RT
are quite proper,in our Charter.
There is another area, hacjever If you look into
both the article and the history of this Agency, you will
all remember last year when Director Schlesinger sent out
a memorandum which said that he knew that there were some
questionable activities in the Agency's past history, and
he wanted reports- of those accumulated. We did accumulate
anything that people thought were questionable, and in the
course of that we built up a little collection.- I went
and briefed the Chairmen of the House and the Senate
Armed Services Committees on those activities. And you'll
also recall that in the succee ding-__mAnthsy_we sent out a
memorandum.to the different Deputy Directorates and specifi--
cally referred to each of those cases that was brought up in
that exercise. And, we made it very clear as to the proper
limits of that activity and the things that we would not do
that would be improper.
Now, I think that, in other words, that exercise, both
of briefing the Chairmen and of sending-out the Directives,
has essentially put the Agency in a position where I can say
with good conscience that I don't know of any improper
activity going on now, and I don't think there is any
improper activity going on now.
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As to the past.
As to the past, -there were.
things running back as far as 1950,,the early '50s, and
you have to realize, and.I think most Americans, sensible
Americans, realize that we're talking about a different.
atmosphere and a different political climate and a
-different feeling of what this Agency was for.and what it
was about, and that at that time, in those succeeding
years between then and this post-Vietnam, post-Watergate
atmosphere, there have been a lot of changes in basic
attitudes and climate. And some of the things that really
looked reasonable at that time don't look reasonable now.
We've found a few of those, we found a few things where if
you take the statute which says that the Director is.
responsible for the, protection of intelligence sources
and methods, some of our security activities, some of our
protection of our sources and methods and protection -of
the Agency, certainly went over the edge of what we. should
have been doing. There are a few cases of that, and I
have reported those to the President and they were reported
to the Chairmen of the two Committees a year or so ago.
So these I have referred to in various situations as skeletons
in the family closet which, hopefully, should. remain there.
Obviously they didn't.
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What happened, I think, was that Mr. Hersh talked
to various ex-employees, and he got an edge on.the
first program, the counterintelligence program, and. then
he got a few hints of some of the other activities that
had been brought together last year. It's my estimate'that
he probably got those hints from people who contributed to
that collection rather than from having seen the collection
itself or gotten it from anyone who had access to the
collection itself. And this is a normal journalistic
practice. It's obviously part of. the muckraking or
exposure school of journalism.' But once, with a little
hint or two, any reasonably intelligent-reporter can get
enormous additional amounts of information by going to
people who in perfectly good faith are horrified by the
allegation and then proceed to try to clarify .the-real
facts and the real justification for that reporter: And
if you do that to enough people, you can collect the
whole story without too much trouble.
And in this case what Mr. Hersh did, I am convinced--
and, frankly, I told him so -- he put two or three totally
disconnected elements together to make his story. He put
the fact of the counterintelligence program and the fact
5
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 Approved For Release 2005/1;2123.; CIA-RDP83-pta42
that it was aimed at foreign links. to American dissidents
.
and he took some of the individual wrong things that
CIA did in the past, added them together and.created,a
massive domestic,intelligernce activity.
I'm reminded a little bit of Macy's parade where
you take a thin film of fact,
create an illusion that
population.
think in
and, as you know, we
similar problems..
Now those are essentially the facts,o
-
.~_ _ to
go-in-ta-z e-Lai1 T ~: "I 'd1d
I'm
into detail
with the President. And, I want to leave with
President,
as I think is proper, the decision as to what to
do for the next step. Ithink he will be back here, as
you've seen in the papers, this week and will probably
have a session, and then he'll announce just exactly what
he's going to do with this report and what he's going to
do as further steps.
But I think that I want to reassure those of you who
may have suspected that our counterintelligence activity
was indeed a massive domestic intelligence activity, that
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fill it with_h
t air,
and
captures the gaze of the entire
a way we"are facing that problem
have in the past faced somewhat
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it wasn't, that it was within the proper Charter of
the Agency, that there were some individual errors made
in it and wrong things done in it, that separately the
Agency in the last 25 years has done a few wrong things
but they weren't connected with that domestic intelligence
activity, and that they were very exceptional to the basic
thrust of the Agency's activity. And they were, I think,
the kind of thing that can be expected if you run.a large
institution for 25 years, be that institution a Government
agency, a corporation, an academic institution or maybe
even a publication affair. You will have some things that
are done wrong in that size an operation over that many
years.
Now, unfortunately, we are in this post-Vietnam and
post-V/atergate mentality and with the strong stress on
morality and a little bit of revisionist history and all
this, and so we are going to take a few brickbats and a
few pies in the face over things that were done at
previous times. This we are a little bit used to, as we
have done it before and I wouldn't be surprised in the
future if certain things change, certain atmospheres
change, that some of the things that we do now will either
be thought of as too much or too little in later years.
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So that is part of the post audit way in which we run,
a lot of our democratic : surveillance of our Government
in this society and I think that we have to expect it.
Now, let, me go to a .couple of # the other things...
.
The first is the
question of are we purging the CI Staff,
are we going throughwa massive clean-up campaign, and
-so forth. The answer. , is no. As I think I've indicated,
I'm reasonably confident that with some small edges of the
problem that their functions were proper .and that there is
no question of any massive illegal activity in that.
Mr. Angleton-- I did.meet Mr. Angleton before this
article appeared --.I havenot,seen him since then -- and
at.that time I did inform him that Ithought it was time
for some successor leadership to take over those functions.
I did not ask him to retire or resign, but,I pointed out
the very substantial. financial benefits that you're all
aware of for people who do retire. But.I assured him that
if he elected not to,.,that I would find another job for him,
and I outlined what Ithought it was, so that I left the
option up to him to stay in the Agency and do something
different, not do what he's been doing, but to go ahead
and either to retire or not to retire as he chose.
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On the other three gentlemen mentioned in this
morning's paper, they were not asked to resign or retire..
They were told. that they would not succeed as the Chief
of the CI Staff, and I think that led them to make the
same decision to retire under the benefits of the Retire-
ment Legislation that they face. So I don't think they
were pushed out. They were not given the succession that was going to go somewhere else -- but they were told
that the leadership of the CI Staff was going to change
and if they remained after the change, why that was a
matter of their choice. But I stress -- and I do want to
stress this for their benefit -- they were not being purged
for any wrongdoing; this is not any clean-up campaign aimed
at them. It's-been my feeling for a number of months -- and
I have discussed this with various people over the past
number of months -- that some change in the organizational
structure and the management of CI Staff was appropriate, and,
unfortunately, it all came to a head here at the same
time. But I won't say that it's totally disconnected
with all this, because I don't think anybody would believe
me if I did, whether it was true or not. But the
fact is that this has coincided, certainly, with
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this development but that it doses not represent any
indication of illegal activity, improper activity, or
any effort to cleanup some terrible place in the Agency.
Now I' d 'like
of illegal
activities. I indicated that
to mention the question
some of the things that
we found by dredging through the Agency's-skeletons-were
technically illegal.
There are some things
within the Charter of
Now there
are two levels of this.
that are proper, but they're not
this Agency-to do, and in that sense
they're actions which we are not authorized to do but they
are not things that are a crime. Those_ things I think
we've cleaned up." There are really a very few things which
technically, ,..
in a technical sense, might be carried.as an,
actual violation of some criminal statute of the United
States. Now I do not propose, I do not believe that Cher,.,,-
are any of these which are the subject of real prosecutioal
and of conviction of the people involved, because there w