A CLEAR PLAN TO HANDLE TERRORISM STILL ELUDES DIVIDED REAGAN CAMP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500140015-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 1, 2000
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: June 20, 1985
• Content Type: NSPR

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tl'CLE APPEARED 20 June 1985
Policy Vacuum
A Clear Plan to Handle
Terrorism Still Eludes
Divided Reagan Camp
Some Doubt Value of Force;
Priority of Saving Lives
Leaves U.S. Few Options
Successes Go Unpublicized
By DAVID IGNATIUS
fLaff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON-Ronald Reagan, for all
his tough talk, has failed to develop a co-
herent anti-terrorism policy.
The impotence of the U.S. policy has
been dramatically demonstrated by the hi-
jacking of TWA Flight 847. The seeming in-
ability to develop a long-run strategy for
dealing with such terrorism largely re-
flects the intractable nature of the ter-
rorism problem itself, which is as frustrat-
ing for Mr. Reagan as it was for Jimmy
Carter. But some experts say it also stems
from such mundane troubles as bickering
among cabinet officers, foot-dragging by
bureaucrats who are skeptical of anti-ter-,
rorism efforts, and gung-ho schemes that
have backfired.
For example, the Pentagon has been
consistently skeptical about retaliation and
delayed for months developing what one
official calls a "menu of targets." That list
is finally available, but it is of limited use
because it emphasizes targets in Iran. The
U.S. assumed that the next terrorist act
would come from the same Iranian-backed
group that was responsible for earlier ter-
rorist attacks against the U.S. But the hi-
jackers of Flight 847, it appears, aren't
part of that pro-Iranian faction.
Terrorism experts criticize the wide
gap between the administration's rhetoric
and action. But "I don't think anybody has
discovered an anti-terrorism policy that
works," says former Undersecretary of
State Lawrence Eagleburger. "The Is-
raelis haven't. We haven't. We are all fac-
ing a new kind of warfare and we don't
know how to deal with it."
Different Strain
One problem is that the terrorists of the
1980s are different from those of the 1970s,
some experts say. The gunmen now are
mostly Shiite Moslems, rather than Pales-
tinians. And the techniques used against
Palestinian terrorism a decade ago-such
as intelligence penetration of their opera-
tions and ars retaliation againsthe per-
petrators-may not wor against Shine
terrorism.
Administration officials say they proba-
bly lost any chance for a quick rescue mis-
sion to free the Flight 847 hostages after
the first 48 hours. Such a move was dis-
cussed but was ruled out because of techni-
cal problems. There is a continuing debate
within the administration, however, over
whether the U.S. should apply force if the
crisis drags on.
"The U.S. could mount a raid of sub-
stantial size-because that's what it would
take-and go into Beirut after the Amal
leadership and the people who perpetrated
this," says one senior administration offi-
cial involved in managing the crisis.
Few Options
But President Reagan seems deter-
mined to seek a peaceful resolution of the
crisis that saves the hostages' lives. "I
could get mad enough now to think of a
couple of things we could do to retaliate,
but I would probably be sentencing a num-
ber of Americans to death If I did it," Mr.
Reagan said at his news conference Tues.
ay night.
Richard ems a former ambassador
Iran and r CIA director, applauds
r. Reagan for showing restraint in an ex-
aspeerating situation. He explains: "The
President, at this stage, has no useful mili
tary options-in fact, few options of any
>
Mr. Reagan may yet find a solution to
the current crisis. But administration offi-
cials agree that as long as saving hostage
lives is the top priority, the U.S. will have
limited options in handling terrorist inci-
dents. A tougher policy would require the
U.S. to subordinate the welfare of the hos-
tages to broader national concerns-a
painful step for any U.S. president.
Yet "these aren't attacks just against
the victims, they are attacks against the
U.S. and its interests," argues a senior
official who advocates a tougher line.
New Concern
Quarrels within the administration have
hindered development of a coherent anti-
terrorism strategy. The reaction to the Oc-
tober 1983 bombing of Marine headquar-
ters in Beirut, for example, was a case
study in bickering and indecision.
Shortly after the bombing, U.S. intelli-
gence identified a terrorist target in Leba-
non's Bekaa vallere was a top-level
debate Nov. 97983, two weeks after the
bombing, about whether to attack the tar-
get. But President Reagan was leaving
that day on a trip to Korea, so officials de-
cided to postpone a decision until he re-
turned a week later.
When he got back, disagreements be-
tween the State Department and the Penta-
gon over the operation continued, and the
U.S. at the last minute backed out of plans
for a joint reprisal raid with France. The
French went ahead on their own on Nov.
17. There never has been any American re-
taliation for the bomb that killed 241 Amer-
ican Marines.
Some of the administration's problems
involve the technical difficulties of operat-
ing so far from home. For example, the
U.S. couldn't move its special "Delta
Force" commando unit to the Middle East
quickly enough last Friday to strike in the
first few hours of the hijacking, when a
rescue mission would have had the best
chance of success. The only way to be
ready in the future, officials say, would be
to keep a unit stationed permanently in the
Mediterranean. rather than at Fort Bragg,
N.C.
In hindsight, U.S. officials wonder
whether they should have bombed the run-
way at Beirut to prevent the TWA flight
from landing there-where it would be
hardest to mount a rescue operation.
Lack of reliable intelligence also con-
tinues to hinder the U.S. Former CIA offi-
cials say the ro em stems from a decline
in the number of American penetration
agents inside terrorist groups-especially
inside the Shiite groups that pose the main
problem-and from strained relationships
could provide inside information.
one former CIA official contrasts the
current hijacking crisis with a successful
anti-terrorist operation in 1972. The CIA,
e recalls, received information from a
friendly Arab intelligence service that Pal-
estinians planned to hiiack a TWA flight
bound from Rome to Tel Aviv. The CIA
alerted the Italian Do ice, who abbe the
terrorists in a Rome airport lounge as they
passed weapons to a colleague arriving
from Beneha?i. ibva The TWA Mane
made its trip without mishap.
What worries some U.S. officials most
at the moment is the possibility that the
pro-Iranian "Islamic Jihad" faction, which
wasn't part of the initial hijacking, has
taken control of some of the prisoners and
will use them to bargain for the release of
17 of its members held in Kuwait. Officials
fear that this group may hold the three
TWA crew members still on board and
seven people with "Jewish-sounding
names" who were removed from the
plane, plus seven Americans kidnapped
earlier in Beirut. The fear is that Islamic
Jihad might seek to trade these 17 Ameri-
cans for the Shiite prisoners in Kuwait and j
might kill them if any of the Kuwaiti pris-
oners are executed.
Continued
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The administration has tried in recent
months to push wary CIA and military o i-
cials into tougher antiterrorism programs.
including closer links with other nations'
s services. But these efforts have some-
times _ ac ire .
Preemptive Strikes?
The CIA, for example, resisted for
months the arguments by some a minis-
tration hard-liners that the U ,S. s lg
mount preempt ve operations. The a&Mcj
viewed such tactics as perilously close to
assassination ? tactic that pe ring
the CIA into disrepute in the 1970s. Reluc-
tant y the agency last December endorsed
a new presidential program that would
have the CIA train the Lebanese an other
friendly Arab intelligence services to pr-
empt terrorists.
The plan proved a disaster. The Leba-
nese sDv erv c Ike the rest of the coun-
try, had largely disintegrated by early tnis
Year. Some of its members decided to un-
dertake a preemptive operation o t eir
own in a car bomb atta c march 8 against
Shiite re igious leader Mohammed Hussein
Fa om
issed Sheik Fadlallah but killed about 80
others. The CIA insists it didn't have any
involvement in the o ration and didn't
train those w carried it out. But in the
m mg, the
uproar that followed the
agency retreated from the plan to train
A-Ts forpreemptiveoperations.
Administration officialsbelieve that de-
veloping a sound anti-terrorism policy has
been difficult because elements of such a
policy go against the American character.
Our virtues are frequently our vulnerabil-
ities," contends Noel Koch, a deputy assis-
tant secretary of defense who helps super-
vise counterterrorism planning._ "The
value we place on an open society is ex-
ploitable. Our respect for human life4s ex-
ploitable. And so there is question of how
to maintain these values and yet defend
ourselves. There are no happy choices
available."
Unpublicized Successes
U.S. officials insist that the anti-ter-
. ey
rorism effort isn t7; bad as it look,
point to betterr transport capability for
Delta Force: better command and control
procedures that reduce the layers of Pen-
tagon bureaucracy involved in military op-
erations: and better handling of intelli-
gence information, including a new s stem
that allows anti-terrorism officials to moni-
tor raw intelligence re rts immediately
and assess what information is new and
important.
Officials also claim that the U.S. has
helped avert some terrorist operations, in-
cluding a recent plot to kill Libyan dissi-
dents in the U.S., a plot to blow up the
American embassy in Cairo and attacks
planned against American facilities in Leb-
anon at the time of the U.S. presidential
election and inauguration. -
'The problem isn't with the administra-
tion, it's with the nature of terrorism,"
says Robert Oakley, the coordinator of the
State Department's anti-terrorism pro-
gram. ''Given the nature of the problem
and the way terrorists operate, we won't
always succeed in deterring terrorism, and
often when we do it can't be publicized.
The public is going to be more aware of
the failures than the successes."
The toughest problem of all, officials
say, is developing a long-run strategy to
contain the explosion of Shiite terrorism in
the Mideast that has followed the Iranian
revolution. Israeli anti-terrorism methods
that were developed in the 1970s to deal
with Palestinian terror don't help much
now, they say.
"Shiite terrorism is much different than
Palestinian," says Fadi Hayek, the spokes-
man for the Christian "Lebanese Forces"
militia in Washington. "It isn t a political
and nationalist movement, it is a religious
and transnational movement. It has roots
and bases in various countries, which
makes it difficult to spot. And because the
Shiite community has little political struc-
ture, there aren't any pressure points."
Penetration and other intelligence-gath-
ering techniques don't work well with the
Shiite groups because of their loose struc-
ture, and intimidation tactics don't work
well because the Shiite fighters are in-
tensely motivated. The Palestinians, in
contrast, tend to have well-structured lead-
ership and frequent morale problems.
Because the Shiites are sometimes
eager for martyrdom, Mr. Hayek notes,
"the usual mechanics of political negotia-
tion don't apply."
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LJJOHN LOFT ON
WASHINGTON TIMES
18 June 1986
in. gaps about t:
Fillig
"Later, in a discussion with only
four editors, Helms was told the
IIC1tOfl st('J)I'V c bout Mr. story The Post was told
about Mr. Pelton's revelations to the
ress-bashing is fine when it is
appropriate. And when the
press violates the law, it is
appropriate to bash the
I press. But if the Reagan administra-
tion is to have a credible policy re-
garding the leaking of classified in-
formation, it must also bash those
who leak to the press. And this
means not only firing government
officials who leak but also crim-
inally prosecuting them, as well as
ex-government officials who leak.
Take, for example, the Pelton case,
the case involving former National
Security Agency employee Ronald
Pelton and his revelations to the So-
viets. According to a former top U.S.
intelligence official who requests
anonymity, the details about what
Mr. Pelton gave the Soviets was not
a story The Washington Post picked
up off someone's desk. Not at all. As
my source explained it to me, this
story was "pushed and pushed hard"
by individuals from two different
places.
One pusher of the Pelton story
was, allegedly, a former staffer on
the Senate Select Committee on In-
telligence. And another pusher of
the Pelton story, who knew "a great
deal of it," was, supposedly, a person
presently on the staff of President
Reagan's National Security Council.
Thus, it is understandable that
Washington Post executive edit-or
Benjamin Bradlee was upset when
CIA Director William Casey and
President Reagan leaned on The
Post and threatened to prosecute the
paper criminally if i published all it
knew about the Pelton
I' a upset. too. if one administra-
tion official fed me a story and then
other administration officials
threatened me with 'ail if I pub-
lished it.
But, even so, Mr. Bradlee appar-
ently has not told it like it really was
regarding The Post's role in this flap.
Writing in The Post, he says that last
February, at an editors' conference
in Florida, Post editors held a semi-
nar on national security and the
press. Among the attendees at this
gathering was former CIA director
Richard Helms, who was present,
says Mr. Bradlee, "to give us the per-
spective of an old intelligence hand"
Soviets - J.L.] and asked what were
the chances that the Russians did
not know the whole story. He (Mr.
Helms) felt the chances were slim.
He felt specifically that Mikhail
Gorbachev himself might not know,
but he would certainly know if The
Post published the story and his re-
action as the new leader was hard to
predict, and potentially volatile.
Helms gave no advice."
But is this an accurate rendering
of what Mr. Helms said? Well, Mr.
Helms tells me that this is "a partial
rendering" of what he said. Is it true
that he gave The Post no advice re-
garding the publication of the infor-
mation it had about Mr. Pelton's rev-
elations? Well, Mr. Helms says this is
literally true but then he wasn't
asked for any advice. He says:
"Given the context of the conversa-
tion and the circumstances, the con-
versation from my side would seem
to have indicated what my position
was so I didn't have to voice my opin-
ion."
When I ask Mr. Helms if he be-
lieves he left the impression with
The Post editors that they ought not
to run what they told him, orally, they
knew about Mr. Pelton's revelations,
he says: Yes, "that's correct " He says
that indeed he did leave this impres-
sion "and that's what I intended to
do:"
In his piece in The Post, Mr. Brad-
lee also says that last April "an edi-
tor" of The Post met with former
National Security Agency director
Adm. Bobby Inman to discuss the
Pelton story "in great detail." And
Adm. Inman, says Mr. Bradlee, "felt
it was unlikely the Russians were
unware of anything in The Post's
story, but on balance argued against
publishing"
But is this an accurate rendering
of what Adm. Inman said? Well,
Adm. Inman tells me that the
unnamed Post editor was Mr. Brad-
lee. He says he met for about an hour-
and-a-half at Mr. Bradlee's home.
And he says that while what The Post
finally published about the Pelton
case was "a lot less than what was in
their original story," still he would
have preferred that The Post not
publish anything at all.
As regards Mr. Bradlee's report-
As Mr. Bradlee tells itApproved For Release 2006/01/12 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500 04Mrgt sting our secrets.
ing that he, on balance, argued
against The Post's publishing its
original story, Adm. Inman ex-
claims,,with a laugh, "On ice,
hell;' he didn't want any article tub-
previous dialo
ues
---
with Mr. Bradlee, he always u ged
h
im not to print stories like the Fel-
ton story.
In his Post piece, Mr. Bradlee
wonders what all the fuss is about?
He wonders if Reagan administra-
tion officials really believe that lithe
people who run The Post would
really betray their country?
He declares: "We don't allow the
government - or anyone else -- to
decide what we should print. Th t is
our job, and doing it responsibl is
what a free press is all about" And
he says the press, "and it aloe,"
must determine what is in the public
interest, "in a useful, timely, and
sponsible manner-. serving loci
not government."
re-
ty,
But there is a very serious prob-
lem with this kind of hairy-chested,
breast-beating approach tnthe ques-
tion of the media and national secu-
rity matters. And it is this: because
the press never has access - and
shouldn't have - to as much intel-
ligence information as do our dilly
authorized intelligence agencies,
the press - "and it alone" - can
never decide what best serves the
national interest of the country. And
to argt' ! otherwise is by definition
irresponsible.
Furthermore, one doesn't have to
intend to betray our country to be-
tray our country and compromise its
intelligence-gathering sources and
methods. And what the Russians id
or did not already know about what
Pelton revealed is not the only qu s-
tion concerning his case. By 4l1
accounts, it is a good bet that t the
Soviets did know the details of wheat
was in The Post's original Pelton sto-
ries. But this doesn't mean a lot of
other parties hostile to our country
also knew them. And the Soviets are
not the only target of the techniques
exposed by Pelton. So, what is to be
gained by alerting these countries to
the possibility that they might be
similarly targeted?
But I end where I began. Press
reporting of classified information
which is illegal to reveal is a serious
problem. When such information is
reported, and the law is violated,
those reporting it should be pros-
ecuted. But much of this kind of in-
formation would never be reported
if it weren't first leaked to the press
by government or ex-government of-
ficials. And until the government
cracks down hard and prosecutes
these parties, it cannot be said that
the government is really serious