SENATE ACTING AS IF INDISCRETION WERE THE BETTER PART OF VALOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302620026-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: May 22, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302620026-2 STAT
A' t.E APPE
ON PAGE A 2
WASHINGTON POST
22 May 1984
Senate Acting as if Indiscretion
Were the Better Part of Valor
A great silence has fallen in the Senate
over the strange case of the allegations that
Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) blabbed secrets
of the Select Committee on Intelligence on
the floor.
Back home in North Carolina, however,
where Helms is fighting for his political life,
his alleged indiscretion is becoming an is-
sue, which seems to be the real reason that
no one in the Senate wants to move against
him for his embarrassing accusations about
the Salvadoran election. Helms claims that
the CIA bought victory for Jose Napoleon
Duarte, who1 as it happens, is a guest _in
Washington this week.
Democrats, who find Helms obnoxious
on many counts, have held their fire be-
cause they fear that if they haul him up
before the Select Committee on Ethics,
North Carolina voters might see it as a bla-
tantly partisan move intended to help Gov.
James B. Hunt, the moderate Democrat
who is in a neck-and-neck race with the
ultra-conservative Helms.
Republicans, who are grinding their
teeth over Helms' declaration that Roberto
D'Aubuisson, Duarte's beaten right-wing
rival, is "someone who openly espoused the
principles of the Republican Party of the
United States," are nonetheless rallying to
Helms for the larger good of reelecting him
and keeping Republican control of the Sen-
ate.
Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), chair-
man of the'Senate intelligence committee
and 'usually a stern defender of state se-
crets, went to North Carolina over the
weekend and put in a good word for the
embattled Helms. He said that a letter that
he and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-
-N.Y.), vice chairman of the intelligence
committee, wrote to Senate Majority Lead-
er Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.) and
Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd
(D-W.Va.) contained no rebuke of Helms
for disclosing classified information.
The letter is classified. The only copy of
it reportedly is locked in the intelligence
committee's safe. Someone who has seen it,
but who cannot be identified, said that
McGrory
PSST!
while Goldwater and Moynihan mentioned
Helms, they reached no conclusions about
his guilt and recommended no action.
Even so, the letter to the leaders
prompted one from them in which they
caution senators against divulging informa-
tion that might be classified, although they
do not say anyone has done so.
It's a pretty dramatic contrast to what
happened to_one legislator who spilled this
beans on the CIA.
In 1975, a liberal, Rep. Michael Harring-
ton (D-Mass.), revealed the agency's role in
the overthrow of Salvador Allende of Chile.
The House Armed Services Committee
voted to rebuke Harrington and denied
him further access to classified material.
He was under a cloud for months until the
House Committee on Standards of Official
Conduct decided to dismiss the charges.
The difference is that Harrington said
that he got his information from classified
documents and Helms has not. Although it
is said that in two lengthy Senate speeches
he appeared to be quoting from transcripts
of intelligence committee briefings, Helms
insists that he got his information from a
radio broadcast in El Salvador. No one
seems to know the date or content of the
broadcast.
The Senate ethics committee apparently
has no intention of looking into the allega-
tions against Helms or into Helms' coun-
tercharge that Moynihan leaked the letter.
None of this has deterred Hunt, who has
lost his once-huge lead over the darling of
the Moral Majority, from attacking Helms
as someone who does not play by the Sen-
ate rules. Patriotic Tar Heelers are said to
beincensed by Helms' whistlp owjw on
the CIA and increasingly to be baffled by
his deep involvement in the affairs of
11 Ian
which iis, ocourse, committed to the Art.
ex-
termination of the Querrillas
The White House is irritated by Helms'
heavy-handed encouragement of D'Aubuis-
son's cries that he was robbed.
Duarte's election was a political necessity
if Congress is to vote further military aid to
El Salvador. Just about everybody except
Helms is glad Duarte won. And while a
nearly million-dollar CIA contribution is
more or less acknowledged, the "made in
the U.S.A." label Helms is plastering on
Duarte's victory does not help.
In his first appearance in this country
this week, a "Meet the Press" broadcast,
Duarte seemed to be showing more appre-
ciation-for which side his bread is buttered
on than the resolve to end the war and the
"death squads" he exhibited while cam-
paigning.
The conciliatory streak has been
bleached out. He will talk to the rebels but
will not share power with them. He en-
dorses the covert war against Nicaragua,
which would seem to cancel his previously
announced plan to go to Managua for di-
alogue with the Sandinistas.
The White House, which is rabidly se-
curity conscious, has had nothing to say
about Helms' sabotage efforts. Keeping the
Senate in Republican hands has taken pre-
cedence over the need to keep its secrets.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302620026-2