LETTER TO JAMES M. FREY FROM CLAIR E. GEORGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00338R000200300005-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 22, 2008
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: April 20, 1984
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2008/08/22 : CIA-RDP86B00338R000200300005-4
Central Intdll Ace Agency
20 April 1984
Mr. James M. Frey
Assistant Director for Legislative Reference
Office of Management and Budget
Washington, D.C. 20503
Dear Mr. Frey:
This is in response to your request for the views of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on a draft legislative
proposal on reciprocity and equivalence for inclusion in the
Fiscal Year 1985 Intelligence Authorization Act.
This draft proposal, known as the Huddleston-Leahy
proposal, would:
(a) express the sense of the Congress that the
numbers and privileges of official representatives of
foreign governments that engage in hostile intelligence
activities within the United States should not exceed those
numbers and privileges afforded to official representatives
of the United States;
(b) require that the number of persons granted
diplomatic status, privileges and immunities who represent
governments that engage in intelligence activities harmful
to the national security of the U.S. shall not exceed the
number of Americans granted similar status and rights in
such countries;
(c) require regular reports to several Congressional
Committees on actions taken to eliminate the disparity
between the number of official foreign government
representatives granted diplomatic status, privileges and
immunities in the U.S. and the number of Americans granted
the same status and privileges in such countries; and
(d) repeal the provision in the State Department
Basic Authorities Act of 1956 that requires that the
Director of the Office of Foreign Missions be a member of
the Foreign Service for at least ten years and have certain
other qualifications before being appointed as Director.
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While the CIA supports the primary objective of this
legislation, which is to reduce the presence of affected
intelligence services in the U.S. by requiring an equivalence
between the number of foreign government representatives with
diplomatic status and privileges in the U.S. and the number of
U.S. representatives with similar status and privileges
overseas, the CIA is concerned that certain portions of this
proposal could redound to the detriment of United States
collection activities.
In this regard, the CIA has no objection to section (a) of
the proposed amendment, which expresses the sense of the
Congress that disparities between the number of foreign
government representatives with diplomatic status and
privileges in the U.S. and U.S. representatives with similar
status and privileges in foreign countries should be
eliminated. Appropriate legislation in this area could result
in an equality of numbers of people granted diplomatic
privileges. This, indeed, is desirable to reduce the
counterintelligence threat. Care should be taken, however,
that such legislation does not affect existing agreements. We
also have a concern that the mechanism for achieving this goal,
which is set out in sections (b) and (c), could result in
retaliatory measures by the subject foreign governments. Since
these concerns, as well as the statutory changes proposed in
section (d), primarily affect State Department equities, we
must ultimately defer to their views on these matters.
Sincerely,
STAT
Clair E. George
Director, Office of Legislative Liaison
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