CONGRESS IS CRIPPLING THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504820012-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: November 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved
ARTICLE AP
QF of
ON PAGE
Congress
Is Crippling
the CIA
ROWLAND EVANS AND ROBERT NOVAK
Charged with "overseeing"
U.S. intelligence, too
many lawmakers, with
too many political axes to
grind, are leaking too
many vital secrets.
It's time to plug the holes
T 5 A.M. ON OCTOBER 11, 1985, a
stretch limousine carrying
I~~, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.)
pulled up to CIA headquarters in
Langley, Va. Vice chairman of the
powerful Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence, Leahy had asked
for a full briefing on the Achille
Lauro hijacking. But why before
dawn?
Because Leahy had agreed to
appear on the CBS "Morning
News" at 7 a.m. to comment on the
interception by U.S. pilots of the
hijackers' plane. Following his
meeting, Leahy, who now pos-
sessed every secret in the case, was
driven directly to CBS studios in
Washington. "It's a major triumph
for the United States," reported
Leahy. Then he made an extraordi-
nary disclosure: "When [Egyptian
President Hosni] Mubarak went on
the news yesterday and said the
hijackers had left Egypt, we knew
that wasn't so. Our intelligence was
very, very good."
Leahy had inadvertently tipped
intelligence specialists from Cairo
to Moscow that the United States
had intercepted Mubarak's phone
calls and heard that the Achilk
Lauro hijackers were still in Egypt.
The conversations had been "read"
by communications intelligence and
flashed to computers in Fort Meade,
Md., where the National Security
Agency daily monitors thousands of
intercepted voice signals.
for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504820012-3
READERS DIGEST
November 1986
The disclosure would brin
Egyptian countermeasures to safe
guard subsequent telephone call
Every government in the world toe
note, and reacted by tightening sea
rity on communications. Leahy is
silted to an incensed CIA direct,
William Casey that Administratic
officials had publicly disclosed tl
hijackers' whereabouts the day b
fore he went on TV.
This incident is one of mai
showing that the current era
Congressional oversight of the C
is simply not working. Instead, t
Senate and House Intelligence Coi__
mittees have become conduits for
classified information. CIA efforts to
thwart international terrorist actions
or to lend support to anti-communist
guerrillas are difficult enough, but
keeping those operations secret has
become nearly impossible. And vital
intelligence-sharing by U.S. allies has
been severely hampered by concerns
in foreign capitals over the leakage of
information passed to Washington.
Pattern of Leaks. Under the
present oversight sys;Fm, the 31
members of the House and Senate
committees, plus more than 6o staff
members, are informed of pro-
posed covert operations. "Any one
of these people who does not be-
lieve in an operation can appoint
himself or herself to stop it," says
Rep. Michael DeWine (R., Ohio).
"All they need to do is call a report-
er." Thus, the ability to make or
break government policy is widely
dispersed.
Congressional leaks concern
Rep. Henry Hyde (R., Ill.), a mem-
ber of the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence. He has
bluntly scolded colleagues, remind-
ing them that with Congress's "need
to know" for oversight purposes
"goes the overriding responsibility
to keep much of that information
"
secret.
press reports of a CIA briefing of
The impact on U.S. relations the Senate Intelligence Committee
with allies has been severe. Casey that revealed our knowledge of a
has testified that leaks "do more top-secret Indian proposal to make
damage than anything else" to U.S. a preemptive strike against Paki-
intelligence and to "our reputation stan's nuclear facility. Realizing its
and reliability" among allies. In security had been compromised,
fact, concern about American leak- the Indian government launched
age has spread across the world, an investigation. The probe broke
often disrupting U.S. policy. For up a French intelligence ring that
t"
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504820012-3
operations of the U-2 spy plane.
Until 1974, a small group of
senior members of Congress
worked with floor leaders of both
parties as an informal oversight
panel. They were briefed by the
CIA director himself, usually with-
out Congressional staff present.
But questionable domestic sur-
veillance activities, assassination
plans, and other abuses by the CIA
in the 197os led to the branding of
the agency as a "rogue elephant,"
transforming that collegial atmos-
phere. A rapid politicization of
intelligence marked the new era of
CIA oversight. In 1982, for exam-
pie, the Democratic-controlled
House Intelligence Committee re-
leased a staff report asserting that
the Administration was cooking in-
telligence to gain support for its
policy in Central America. Accord-
ing to the committee's own intelli-
gence consultant, former deputy
director of the CIA Adm. Bobby
Inman, the report was "filled with
biases," and in fact had been pre-
pared at the specific request of com-
mittee members with a partisan ax
to grind. Furious that he had not
been consulted, Inman resigned.
A clear breach of secrecy oc-
curred, in September 1984 with