CIA'S OFFICIAL MOUTHPIECES PREFER THE TIGHT-LIPPED APPROACH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000707040005-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: January 26, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707040005-2
TALLAHASSEE
26 January 1987
Not Aso public
.a airs
tion-in-Terms award, a ontradlc-
Consider.
'-WASHINGTON' - The voice on the
other end of the telephone was describing
the duties and frustrations of speaking for
the Central Intelligence Agency.
"It's an organization that is really mis-
understood," said the voice, which identi-
fled itself as that of Kathy Pherson the
CIA's media-relations clij but w ich re-
fuaed to grant a face-to-face interview or to
allow the interview to be taped.
Welcome to the CIA public-affairs of-
fice - a department that seems to have the
inside track on the Franz K fk C
tight-Ii~pCd approach
By a Waltara '
CIA's official mouthpieces prefer
ginia suburbs of Washington is an office
where the public and media are invited to
direct questions about the Free World's
largest spy agency. _ ' a`1
But when the phone' rings, the office
workers consider it their primary function
to explain why, most likely, they can't pro-
vide the information sought.
"The most important thing I do is try to
explain to people why intelligence people
can't talk about everything," said Pherson,
who has been explaining the unasked for
about five years.
On the other hand, Pherson said, peo-
ple tend not to believe the CIA, even after
it issues a flat denial of something.
"They think you're lying. They just as-
In a closely guarded building in the Vir-
The most important thing redo
is try to explain to people why
intelligence people cant talk;
about everything.
- , Kathy. Pherson
i1
sume that a denial is no comment," Pher-
son said, adding with a sigh, "I know what
we've gone through to make a denial."
In the wake of the Iran-Contra affair,
the CIA has been making more ,than its
usual quota of denials.
In quick succession, the CIA 'recently
has said it had nothing to do with a plane-
load of arms shot down in Nicaragua, knew
sales .profits to Nicaragua's Contras, and
did not provide phony spy-satellite data to
Iraq and Iran.
-This outpouring isn't a reversal of poli-
cy, though. The CIA takes its secrets seri-
ously, including those about the public-af.
fairs office.
. "We don't talk about numbers of peo-
ple in any of the departments, even public
affairs, but we're not very big." Pherson
said. - ,
The public-affairs office was formally
organized in 1977, although the agency al-
ways has had somebody available not to
provide information informally. The office
also conducts VIP tours, arranges back-
ground briefings, checks books and articles
by CIA veterans to prevent national-secu-
rity leaks and explains the CIA to other
government agencies.
Kathy Pherson, by the way, really is
Kathy Pherson's name, she said, although
adopting a cover name has occurred to her.
,.Pherson works for Geo a ander, a of-.
rice's director, who declined an interview. .
- Both have come up through the agency
and neither, Pherson said, was particularly
"thrilled" about qn article on their office.
"My background is in intelligence analy-
sis," she said.
Pherson declined to provide any per-
sonal details, but, based on a slip of the
tongue that she was in sixth grade in 1962,
a Kn~'gbt-Ridder Newspapers analysis has con.
cluded she is about 36 years old.
Herb Het, the former CIA public-affairs
director who organized the office under Presi-
dent Carter's administration, suggested the
agency was more open then.
But Pherson, who also worked for Hetu, said
there is no substantial difference in the way the
agency operates now and that she is rather
proud of the office's consistency. Some of the
openness in the Carter years may have been
"optics," she said. ?
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707040005-2
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for
Hetu. who was a Navy infotmation' officer
and representative for-the Bimtannial Com-
mission before coming to the CIA, recently'
hasn't said much as the spokesman for the spe-
cial review commission, headed by former Sen.,
Jobe Tower, R-Teas, tha Investigating the'
National Security Council. '
The CIA's inability to provide much infor-,
oration cuts two ways, according to Hetu, Pher-
son and others interviewed. "The CIA is fair.
game for anybody that wants to accuse the"
agency of anything,". Hetu said.
_.Do attitude at the CIA into hunker down,4
take your hits and go on, with the attitude that
this too shall pass," said, William Doswel
R '
'pnewspiper and pubic. latio pereofi who had
lheaded the office during an early period of the.
},Reagan administration...+.
But within the confines of what they could
y, all of the CIA; representatives defended
their honeity. "I may, not be able to answer your
question to your satisfaction," Doswell said,
but whatever I tell_ you is going to be true."
Still, the limits of the job sometimes are just
as aggravating to the person speaking as to the
person spoken to. ,~ .
"I was privy to every secret in the place. It's
a PR man's dream,?. Doswell said. "But the
frustrating thing was couldn't tall anybody."
Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707040005-2
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707040005-2