CAN CONGRESS KEEP SECRETS AND KEEP A REIN ON THE C.I.A.?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000202000006-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: June 12, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/09: CIA-RDP90-00552R000202000006-3
TART ICE 1.7E"?--'157./,!
ON FAG _.._!-~
NEW YORK TIMES
12 June 1983
A ROUNDTABLE: The Battle Over 'Covert
Can Congress Keel a ecre s any.
Question: Committee. These committees have not, until now,
j been partisan. There have been large, momentous dis-
The House Foreign Affairs thin them, but they have been philo-
Committee voted last week to Mr. dine. It tends to discredit the procedures. I
support those procedures but always with the reserva-
support the House Intelligence.. tion that political interests being as paramount as they
Committee bill that would. - are in the lives of politicians, if something really diffi-
-cult came along, the procedure might break down. It
terminate covert activities in has become a political football. Once that happens, I
don't see how you can ask the President and the C.I.A.
Nicaragua. Does Congress have ' to disclose covert actions in advance.
a legitimate role Mr. Bader. Congress has the obligation and au-
- thority to review organization, activities and budget
in the conduct and management and, through the oversight committees, the right to
dispute the President or. whether a particular covert
of covert activities? activity is right or wrong. It also can vote to take it to
Keep a Rein on the C.I.;:A.?
Mr. Wallop. It has a role but it ought not to think
that it's the President and the executive branch - ac-
tions such as the House committee indulged in, where
you leave off matters of judgment, of oversight for
purely partisan political acts.
Q. There was partisan momentum?
Mr. Wallop. Absolutely. That committee knew
from the beginning what was going on and that the re.
quirements they had laid down a year ago were being
followed to the T.
Mr. Fowler. I fail to see how the question of a cov-
ert activity that' is no longer covert can be made a
question of partisanship; it is just not fraught with
political advantage.
The record was clear. We had an operation in
Nicaragua that was exposed by the press, brought to
the attention of the world by the coverage given to the
contras, who thanked the American people on televi-
sion for supporting their revolution through the C.I.A.
The House committee was saying that we had common
ground in the interdiction of arms (for El Salvador)
that were coming out of Nicaragua but that to continue
covertly, in the light of all evidence to the contrary,
should not be done.
Mr. Bader. Covert action is intended to be an ex-
tension of foreign policy; you do not want to do any-
thing clandestine that is inconsistent with what you are
avowing publicly. The Administration saw fit in April
to make a public spectacle of that clandestine activity
in Nicaragua by facilitating the press to come into the
camps. The uproar in the House came in May, in part
because many members were skeptical about whether
there was a connection between avowed U.S. policy not
to destabilize or destroy the Government and what
many thought was actually happening.
Mr. Wallop. It is the political dimension that has
idamaged_ the credibility of the House Intelligence
the floor and the Senate can-decide that such an ac-
tivity is wrong; information concerning it can be dis-
closed by vote. So the mechanisms are there.
Mr. Cline. The process was supposed to get each
house of Congress involved before you turned it out to
the press and the public. That's what seems disgrace-
ful about the House action.
Mr. Bader. This has been the first time in six or
seven years that there has been a brouhaha of this di-
mension.
Mr. Cline. Isn't that partly because there haven't
been any major controversial covert actions?
Mr. Wallop. The Boland Amendment said it was
not our purpose to overthrow the (Nicaraguan) Gov-
ernment. Indeed, it is not. It may well be the insur-
gents' and you can see why, when talking to television,
they would express their thanks and do anything they
could to gain an attraction to their movement among
people within that part of the world. But if it still is not
our purpose, then the Boland Amendment has been
abided by.
Mr. Cline. Wrapping the U.S. flag around these
groups is very popular, and usually there's nothing the
C.I.A. can do to stop it if you're going to support such
movements.
Q. Didn't the President refer to the guerrillas in
Nicaragua as freedom fighters? .
Mr. Fowler. It's terribly disingenuous to make the
argument the Administration has made that because
our mens rea (intent) is not the same as theirs, that
somehow we have clean hands and can disavow (their)
publicly declared intentions of trying*to overthrow the
Sandinista Government.
We do have commoq objectives in Central Amer-
ica - to stop the export of revolution in Nicaragua to
El Salvador. But there is no reason we cannot do that
overtly, with our head held high, in conjunction with
our friends in the hemisphere who are very worried
about the size of the Sandinista army, _Our neighbors
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/09: CIA-RDP90-00552R000202000006-3