IS THERE A WAY TO STOP CIA LEAKS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580031-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: July 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580031-3
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE,___44
ARNOLD BEICHMAN
president Reagan delivered an
important speech July 8
about terrorism. In general
terms, he outlined what the
United States would do about such
crises in the future.
However, I'm sorry to announce
that the U.S. government can do
nothing about terrorism and,
therefore, will do nothing until Pres-
ident Reagan deals effectively with
what should be regarded as White
House Priority Number One: a
secure and leakproof CIA.
Is it already too late in the day to
hope for such a miracle? Or is it
impossible ever to have an intelli-
gence organization in the most open
society in the world, one which
would be secure and leakproof
against its enemies abroad and at
home?
Only in America is it possible to,
publish regularly a magazine, pur-
chasable at newsstands, which spe-
cializes in disclosing names and
activities of people it identifies as
CIA agents and with consequent risk
to their lives.
Until President Reagan can be
sure that whatever counterterrorist
strategy he and his advisers select
for future execution will not end up
on the front page of The Washington
Post, nothing is going to happen to
diminish the terrorist power now
deployed so successfully by the
Radical Entente: Syria ? not Nica-
ragua, Mr President ? Iran, Libya,
North Korea, and Cuba. However'
ingenious the counterterrorist
strategy and tactics may be, unless
they are kept secret, the United
States will remain powerless to pro-
tect American or other travelers
against terrorist ideologues.
And let me say here that I have no
intention of engaging in any Wash-
ington Post bashing. If some CIA
officer, in violation of his oath, wants
to leak secrets ? and how else could
the Post know about the CIA oper-
ations except through a CIA source
who talked to somebody? ? and the
media feels the story ought to be
told, there is precious little that can
be done about it, as we all know from
the "Pentagon Papers" affair.
It may very well be that there is
little at the present time to prevent
The Washington Post or any other
medium from uncovering any new
CIA strategy against counterter-
rorism and publishing it on Page 1.1
WASHINGTON TIMES
24 July 1985
Is there a way to
stop CIA leaks?
ready to believe that The Wash-
ington Post knows a lot more CIA
secrets that, for good reason, it
doesn't print.
In the July 8 Time, four former
CIA directors ? Richard Helms,
William Colby, James Schlesinger,
and Stansfield ibmer ? offered
their ideas about U.S. options for
countering terrorism.
Mr. Helms was the only one of the
four men to raise the question about
CIA internal security He said, "We
also need improved cooperation
among free-world intelligence ser-
vices. As long as we have a leaky
Congress and a leaky oversight pro-
cess, friendly services are simply
not going to share with us."
On May 12, The Washington Post
published a Page 1 report that mem-
bers of a CIA-trained counter-
terrorist squad were responsible for
a March 8 car bombing in a Beirut
suburb. The atrocity killed more
than 80 Shi'ite Moslems, blood-
brothers of those who later hijacked
TWA Flight 847.
While the Post didn't say that the
CIA had ordered the bombing, it did
say that the CIA had "an indirect
connection" with it. It was good of
the Post to publish the CIA dis-
claimer of any connection with the
bombing. But who in the Middle
East, let alone Beirut, would believe
it?
Now there are several possible
sources from whom the Post could
have learned about the CIA squad. It
could be:
? An anonymous phone-caller
sponsored by the Soviet KGB or any
of its surrogate services. There are
some people who think that, because
CIA counter-espionage for a decade
has been its weakest service, that the
U.S. intelligence agency has been
deeply penetrated. Is there more
than one Kim Philby in the CIA?
(General Walter Bedell Smith at a
Senate hearing to confirm his
appointment by President Truman
in 1950 as CIA director was asked
whether he thought the CIA had
been penetrated by the Soviets. He
replied that he worked on the
assumption that it had.)
? A CIA officer who opposes coun-
terterrorist training within the CIA
or such training by an agency sub-
sidiary.
Continued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580031-3