SENATE ENDORSES HELMS MEASURE DIRECTING C.I.A.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201830043-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: September 26, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201830043-4
Senate Endorses
Helms Measure
Directing C.I.A.
ell,
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - The Sen-
ate passed secret legislation Wednes-
day that legislators and Administra-
tion officials say undercuts the author-
ity of the Central Intelligence Agency
to manage its own affairs.
Senator Jesse Helms, the conserva-
tive Republican from North Carolina,
proposed the new requirements as part
of an amendment to the annual bill es-
tablishing and extending program and
setting spending limits on the C.I.A.
and other intelligence agencies. He
said they would give direction to an
agency that had become a "loose can-
"
Details Are Classified
The maneuvering this week over the
amendments, which will now go to a se-
cret conference committee to work out
differences between the Senate and
House versions, prompted a confronta-
tion between Senator Helms and Wil-
liam J. Casey, the Director of Central
'Intelligence.
The Senate passed one amendment
on a voice vote; its details, as well as
nearly all the other provisions affect-
ing the intelligence agencies, were con-
tained in a classified appendix avail-
able only to senators. Another Helms
amendment, demanding that the C.I.A.
look into allegations of human rights
violations and drug dealing by the Gov-
ernment of Panama, passed by a vote
of 53 to 47.
Senator Helms said the votes re-
flected broad support in the Senate for
more explicit direction of the C.I.A. But,
some Administration officials said the
vote suggested that the Senate ac-
cepted the amendments as Senator
Helms's price for letting an intelli-
gence authorization bill pass
unimpeded before the end of this ses-
sion of Congress.
In recounting his dealings with Mr.
Casey on the amendments, Senator
Helms said the Director told him over
the phone late Tuesday that.he would
agree to the changes. The Senator said
they had been previously worked out in
negotiations between his staff, the Sen-
ate Intelligence Committee staff, and
C.I.A. officials.'
26 September 1986
Within hours, Senator Helms said,
Mr. Casey reversed himself and began
lobbying to derail the amendments.
In an interview today, Mr. Casey said
he changed his mind after seeing the
wording of the legislation. "We had a
long talk," said Mr. Casey. "When the
papers came over, they were a little
different than. I understood."
Senator Helms and Mr. Casey spoke
again Wednesday me-ning. Both men
agree that the tone was heated.
"I told him it was micromanagement
of the agency, that's why I objected,"
said Mr. Casey.
"He was not pleased," recalled Mr.
Helms. "He kept saying, 'take out this,
take out that. I said: 'It's too late.
You're asking me to unscramble an
for the C.I.A. One of the most notable of
these seeks to enhance the independ-
ence of the Defense Intelligence Agen-
cy, the Pentagon's intelligence service.
According to intelligence sources, the
amendment demands that. the D.I.A.
become the focal point for all intelli-
gence on military affairs. Part of this
includes prohibiting the agency from
coordinating its annual publication on
"Soviet Military Power" with the C.I.A.
Closer Cooperation Recently
In recent years, the Defense Intelli-
gence Agency and the C.I.A. have
begun working in closer cooperation on
intelligence estimates, and some con-
servative critics of the C.I.A. are un-
happy with this trend. The critics be-
lieve the D.I.A. takes a more hard-line
- and in their opinion, realistic - view
of Soviet military prowess. Others in
the intelligence field, including former
Director of Central Intelligence Stans-
field Turner, have argued that the
D.I.A. consistently overstates the
Soviet threat in an effort to serve its
chief constituency, the Pentagon.
Another provision of this amendment
would set up a team of 15 experts from
outside the Government that would
spend a year reviewing some of the
basic intelligence findings of the C.I.A.
Their report would be delive-ed to the
President and Congress at the end of
this year.
The panel would answer a list of
more than two dozen specific ques-
tions, including such issues as the ef-
fect of Soviet deception on arms con-
trol, the accuracy of American esti-
mates of Soviet missile capabilities,
and the C.I.A.'s purported failure to
call attention to violations of conven-
tions on chemical and biological war-
fare. Many of the issues raised are fre-
quent items of criticism of the agency
by conservatives in Congress.
The approach of calling on a team of
outside experts was used in 1976, when
a group that came to be called the "B
Team" offered a view of Soviet inten-
tions that was much starker than that
of the C.I.A.
Mr. Helms said he believed the C.I.A.
resisted his amendments because the
agency bridles at taking any direction
from Congress.
Some Congressional and Administra-
tion officials have said the amend-
ments were initially intended to retali-
ate against Senator Durenberger.
These sources suggested that Sena-
tor Helms was angered when the
Minnesotan asked the Justice Depart-
ment to investigate whether Mr. Helms
or anyone on his staff had orovided
egg.' " I told him I just couldn't change
it, and I didn't want to."
The conversation ended abruptly.
Initially, Senator Helms said that Mr.
Casey had hung up the phone. Later to-
day, after questions were raised about
the incident, Mr. Casey insisted that he
had not hung up on Mr. Helms, who
said in turn that he accepted this ac-
count of events.
"The phone went blank," Mr. Helms
said. "I said 'hello, hello' and realized
the line was dead. I accept his version
that he thought the conversation was
over. I've talked with him about this,
and I've got no adversarial relatonship
with Bill Casey."
Helms Not on Panel
The bill, worked out in months of
closed hearings by the Intelligence
Committee in cooperation with the
C.I.A. and other agencies, already con-
tained a variety of restrictions and
policy directives. Senator Helms, who
is not a member of the committee,
added his amendments when the bill
came to the floor.
Mr. Casey attributed the chain of
events that ended with Senate passage
of the Helms amendments to a decision
by Senator Dave Durenberger, the
Minnesota Republican who is chair-
man of the Intelligence Committee, to
move the bill in the waning days of the
Congress.
"There was pressure and Durenber-
ger figured this was the quickest way
to get an authorization bill," said Mr.
Casey. "Then they made that deal with
Helms. I didn't have anything to do
with it."
According to Senate aides, the
C.I.A.'s office of Congressional liason
had agreed to the amendments on
Tuesday, before Mr. Casey had a
chance to review their language.
The Senate passed two sets of
amendments proposed by Senator
Helms.
The first, offered in public session,
demanded that the C.I.A. prepare a re-
port to Congress on whether the mili-
tary forces of Panama engage in drug
trafficking, human rights violations
and gun running.
Another amendment, the provisions
of which were classified, contained a
package of Senator Helms's proposals
CorttlnueXl
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classified information to Chile.
Senator Helms denies this account,
and has said his amendments grew out
of his longstanding concerns about the
C.I.A.
On Tuesday, Senator Helms said, he
described the amendments to Mr.
Casey over the phone and got his ap-
proval for them.
At a dinner for President Reagan
hours later, Senator Helms said he
learned that Mr. Casey had changed
is mind and had asked Senator Paul
Laxalt, Republican of Nevada, to block
the bill. Mr Casey said the request to
ielay the bill was made by the White
House.
The next day, Senator Helms and Mr.
Casey had their stormy conversation.
At the same time, according to Ad-
ministration and congressional
sources, Mr. Casey had been calling
White House officials and others in
Congress in his effort to derail the
measure.
He was also calling Senator Bob
Dole, the Senate Majority leader, but
Senate sources said that Mr. Dole
would not take the call.
"He did not want to be the one to give
Casey the bad news, which was that
this thing was going through," said one
Senate aide.
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