SENATORS QUESTION CIA'S COVERT ACTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403610014-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: April 27, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403610014-6
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BOSTON GLOBE
27 April 1986
Senators question
CIA's covert actions
Cohen. Leahy urge debate on role
By Stephen Kurkjian
Globe Staff
"Trevor was the man respon-
sible for gathering and guarding
secrets vital to America's securi-
ty.... While the law required
him to report to members of the
House and Senate Intelligence
Oversight Committees. he never
went beyond his two rules for
dealing with legislators: 'If they
didn't ask the right question,
they wouldn't get the right an-
swer. And if they asked the right
question, they would only get
half the right answer.'
- "The Double Man,"
by William S. Cohen
and Gary Hart
WASHINGTON - When he
wrote those sentences for his nov-
el on the shadowy world between
US intelligence and Washington
politics, Sen. William S. Cohen (R-
Maine) had only a layman's view
of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But in the three years that he has
been a member of the Senate com-
mittee that is responsible for mon-
itoring the agency's operation, he
has come to learn there is as much
fact in the words as fiction.
Cohen is one of only 33 mem-
bers of Congress - and probably
less than 100 in the entire US gov-
ernment - who are informed of co-
vert CIA operations before they
take place. At least, that's what is
required by the law that was en-
acted after disclosures in the mid-
1970s that the CIA had participat-
ed in a range of illegal activities.
from attempts to assassinate for-
eign leaders to spying on Amei-i-
ran citizens.
There have been times in past
years - most notably the 1983
mining of Nicaraguan harbors
pnd the funding of a handbook
at advised rebels on how to
r;cutralize" Sandinista leaders -
fl at they learned of a secret CIA
Operation through newspaper re-
.ports; such incidents serve to un-
derline the suspicion that the CIA
js selective in what Information it
provides Congress.
While Cohen and his fellow
New Englander on the committee,
Sen. Patrick V. Leahy (D-Vt.). be-
lieve that the CIA has done a bet-
ter job of late in keeping Congress
informed of US covert operations,
they voiced a new set of concerns
in separate statements last week.
In essence, they asked whether
the Reagan administration's se-
cret aid to anticommunist insur-
gencies should be curtailed, or at
least be made known publicly so
its desirability can be debated by
Congress.
"The new reliance on covert
military action as a normal in-
strument of foreign policy - even
as a substitute for foreign policy -
has strained the current oversight
process to the breaking point,"
Leahy told a meeting of the Associ-
ation of Former Intelligence Offi-
cers.
Echoing Leahy's remarks, Co-
hen said in an interview on
Thursday: "There are no real
guidelines."
Although he did not identify
which insurgencies were receiving
CIA aid, 'Leahy criticized the Rea-
gan administration's "clear deter-
mination" to make greater use of
such operations.
Such a policy gives rise to the
following question, he said: "Can
a democracy like the United States
engage in a large-scale, so-called
covert paramilitary operation, us-
ing our intelligence agencies as in-
struments in waging proxy wars
against the Soviet Union or its cli-
ents?" Echoing Leahy's remarks,
Cohen said in an interview on
Thursday that in many instances
the only people who are not told of
CIA backing of an anticommunist
military campaign are the Ameri-
can public.
"The people we're giving the
money to know it's coming from
the CIA, and the people they're
fighting know it's CIA," Cohen
said. "Who do we think we're hid-
ing it from?"
"Deniability"
Intelligence observers have as-
serted in the past that such secre-
cy was maintained for two basic
reasons: to preserve the agency's
"deniability" in case of embar-
rassing military events and to
avoid provoking the Soviet Union
into providing its side with fur-
ther support.
While he acknowledged those
arguments, Cohen said they do
not outweigh the need for congres-
sional debate on funding of long-
term military operations being
conducted with US money in for-
eign countries.
Cohen said he fully supports
the need to keep secret "truly un-
dercover, covert operations." But
he says they are usually smaller
in scope and last less time than
paramilitary operations.
"Right now there are no real
guidelines for us to go by," he
said. "Before too much longer we
may have to decide that if it is a
paramilitary operation, that we
take the debate to another room
and open the doors." At present,
those doors are shut tight, with a
capitol police officer on guard. The
House and Senate committees con-
duct all business in private.
Under the 1980 law that estab-
lished the present procedure, the
president must keep the commit-
tees "fully and currently in-
formed" of all US intelligence ac-
tivities as well as provide notice to
the committees before covert oper-
ations begin.
While the committees do not
have the power to veto a covert op-
eration, "we do have the power of
persuasion," Cohen said. "There
have been times that an Idea
spawned In the dead of nigh has
been made to look awfully foolish
in the light of day."
Reluctance voiced
Committee members expressed
extreme reluctance to provide any
specific information about what
they discuss in their briefings by
the CIA.
D"
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403610014-6
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403610014-6
at
"The big fear is leaks," said
one committee staffer. "I've wo-
ken up from nightmares where I
dreamt I said something I
shouldn't have."
"Come around to the office an-
ytime," Rep. Edward P. Boland (D-
Mass.). former chairman of the
House Intelligence Committee
would tell reporters. "As long as
you're not looking for any news."
Complying with House rules. Bo-
land stepped down after seven
years as chairman of the commit-
tee in 1985. During his tenure. Bo-
land, like Cohen and Leahy,
viewed CIA funding of paramili-
tary operations with much skepti-
cism. In fact Boland was responsi-
ble for cutting off CIA funding to
the Nicaraguan rebels in 1983
after an estimated $80 million had
been spent by the agency fighting
the Nicaraguan government. Bo-,
land turned against the aid after
getting mixed signals from Wil-
liam Casey, the director of Central
Intelligence, on how US money
was being spent.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403610014-6