FEDERAL ATTORNEY ASKED TO RESIGN BECAUSE OF INTELLIGENCE DISCLOSURE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303200034-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: April 2, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303200034-8
NE',-; YO-71K TP4 S
2 APRIL 1962
., :7 i bill is sen e8gan,
P'~. er tto ey `sk e to Res"gn- In an interview pubilshed by The San
Diego union. Mr. Kennedy asserted ;
.:J+~~'ause o i i 1J1.5 OSUr~ that since last November the Justice
By PHILIP TAUB.XL4
' Syeelal to :~!fe~ Yar4 i.~w .
W.15HINNG 7C', , Acrd I_Je;stlce De. can was a key intel igencesource in
partment offi,"acs said today that a CentralArnerica,
United States Attorney is San Diego
hAd ., At'iai .,% .u;.,., ?n.a Mr. Kennedy was summoned to
came a week al-er be disclosed that the
Central Inteil:gmce Agency had played
a role In bloc}c-.g rresecution of a for-
mer Mexican Gove,nmert official a
majorcriminalcase. .. , .
The officials n ported that William-. H.
Kennedy, appointed as United States
Attorney by P;esidrnt -Reagan last
year, was asked to resign oz ? 't'r ed es.
day. ~" . ,..a.? .._ --
It was not known whether Kee
nedy had acceded to the request. Staff
members in his office had no response
to the report of his pending ouster, and
he did not return telephone calls re.
questing his comment.
Last week, in a newspaper ir.tte. riew-.
Mr. Kennedy disclosed that t_*;e ;us-,ice
Decal tment had blocked prosecution of
the former chief of :dezi 's nati~, ai
police in an 38 million stolen car case
after the C.I.A. advised that the Mcxi-
Department has withheld approval to
indict Miguel Nassar Ham, the former
head of the Mexico's Directorate of
Federal Security, because the C.I.A.
had told the department that Mr. Nas-
sar was Its "most important source In
Mexico and Central America."
washing on for tneedr+.*3 with senior ,?"uor teagan administration offs.I
department officials Monday and was calls said Mr. Nassar's connections,
primanded for makin the disclosure. with the C.I.A. were ecnsidered partictr-i
g larly sensitive because the intelli e
Initially, department officials indicated g-nee
Mr. Kennedy would be permitted to activities Information n he provided involved the
ken * a of guerrilla leaders from EI
p his job, but they said ..hey later de- Salvadorand Guatemala.
cided his comments violated Gove
rn-
:Went rules prohibiting the release of
-iii, additlcn, officials said they felt
that accepting Mr. Kennedy's conduct
might suggest that the Reagan Admin-
istraticn was not serious about pending
They said that under Mr. Nassar's di-dcan ff
h d iconducted joint inteiligen police
ering operations with the C.I.A. and i
passed on sensitive information about.
Soviet and Cuban assistance of guer-1
rilla forces in El Salvador. According to
then 4.
legislation treat Rouid make it a Federal i e ? dais, Mr. Nassar, who left his !
crime to disclose the identities of intelli? I police job in January and whose where- 4
gence agents working for the United
States. The legislation, known as the In-
telligence Identities Protection Act, has
been approved by both the House and
Senate and is?exp1ected to- become law
of some of the information used 5 the
Administration to justify its assertions'
of outside interference in El Salvador.
Justice De rtrnent oMc!ais said
that evidence implicating Mr. Nassar in
the stolen car case first appeared last
year after a Federal grand jury In San
D.ego indicted 28 Mexicans on charges i
oof staling almost WD cars In southern
otzue and transporting them to
Mexico to be sold at inflated prices.
Fourteen of the suspects were arrested
when they entered the United States
last fall and were later convicted. Department officials said two of the
defendants implicated Mr. Nassar in
their testimony.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303200034-8