CONGRESS, OVERSIGHT AND THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP95M00249R000801120004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 16, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: REPORT

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CONGRESS, OVERSIGHT AND THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE
COMMUNITY
After the Central Intelligence Agency was created by the National Security Act of
1947, congressional oversight over the Agency was exercised by senior members of the
House and Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees. That oversight
was far from vigorous. The attitude of those senior Senators and Congressmen was
summed up in 1956 by then Senator Saltonstall of Massachusetts who said that: "It is
not a question of reluctance on the part of CIA officials to speak to us. Instead it is a
question of our reluctance ... to seek information and knowledge on subjects which I
personally, as a member of Congress and as a citizen, would rather not have, unless I
believed it to be my responsibility to have it because it might involve the lives of
American citizens."
That attitude changed dramatically in 1975 following media reports of illegal and
improper activities by U.S. intelligence agencies. Those revelations caused both houses
of Congress to examine the effectiveness of their oversight over the intelligence
agencies. Out of that effort came the creation of two select committees, the Church
Committee in the Senate and the Pike Committee in the House, tasked not only to
investigate the allegations of wrongdoing but also to conduct a thorough review of the
operations, budgets and effectiveness of the intelligence agencies. It is safe to say that,
at least since 1947, the intelligence community had not had such an intense
congressional investigation of its activities.
Each of the select committees recommended to its respective house that a
permanent oversight committee for intelligence be created. In 1976, the Senate acted
to create such a committee and in 1977, the House followed suit. As a result, the
Congress is now a major factor in the intelligence activities of this country.
While serious Congressional interest in the activities of the intelligence com-
munity first was stimulated by (and in turn stimulated) the news media, its
relationship to the intelligence community has acquired a different cast with the
creation of the new permanent intelligence committees. Out of those -years of
psychological trauma for many in the intelligence business has come a new attitude
and a new working relationship on the part of intelligence professionals as well as the
Congress. Adjustments in methods of operation-never easy in either the Federal
bureaucracy or Capitol Hill-have been made to the benefit of both and to the
ultimate benefit of the American people.
What are the fundamentals of Congressional oversight? According to the bi-
partisan leadership of the House of Representatives, who commissioned a workshop on
Congressional Oversight and Investigations:
"Today the American people expect more effectiveness and efficiency in
government.
' Congressional Record-April 9, 1956, p. S.5292, quoted in the "Final Report of the Select Committee
to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities," United States Senate, Book 1,
p. 149, S. Rept. 94-755.
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"They want the Congress to do a better job of identifying and dealing with
problems before they become crises. They want us to eliminate ineffective and
wasteful programs and fraud in government. They want us to curb the abuses
of governmental power and restrain overly burdensome regulations. They want
us to have the facts when we legislate and they want us to determine rationally
how the national budget should be spent.
"We believe that a crucial step in reaching these objectives is to improve
the capability of the Congress to oversee the implementation of laws, policies
and programs of the Federal government." 2
Those concepts apply to all areas of government, including intelligence. How,
then, does Congressional oversight work with respect to the intelligence community?
While there are some differences in subcommittee structure between the House and
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, basically they exercise the same functions.
For the purposes of this article, the House committee will be used as the model.
As the statement above by the House Leadership indicated, the issue of efficiency
in spending the budget is of major concern in the operations of the nation's
intelligence services. Also of keen interest is the question of the effectiveness or quality
of the activities of those services. Then, there is the matter of "abuses" of
governmental power and the need to guard against the intelligence agencies commit-
ting such abuses. Completing the list of major concerns is that of legislating rationally
in the area of intelligence.
Effectiveness of Intelligence
Assessing the effectiveness of intelligence is one of the most difficult yet
important tasks facing the oversight committees. One of the key factors leading to the
creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 was the perception that, had there
been such a central intelligence function in 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor would
have been anticipated. However, a review of events over the past thirty-four years
suggests that anticipating events and providing effective and timely warning is more
difficult than was realized in 1947.
One of the first steps taken by the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence was to examine the state of the nation's indications and Warning system.
That study revealed that there existed no focal point within the intelligence
community for the Indications and Warning function. It spotlighted that- weakness in
the intelligence system and insisted that the Director of Central intelligence address
the issue. As a result, a National Intelligence Officer for Warning was created-a first
step toward improving Indications and Warning effectiveness.
The I&W case is illustrative of one of the several ways a Congressional oversight
committee can act to improve the effectiveness of the intelligence community. In that
instance, the committee spotted a problem and then urged responsible executive
branch officials to solve it.
In another case, that of the fall of the Shah of Iran, the committee's post mortem
found that the failure of top policymakers to appreciate the fragility of the Shah's
position was due only in part to inadequate intelligence collection and analysis. The
= Letters of transmittal, Thomas P. O'Neill, Speaker, John J. Rhodes, Minority Leader, Jim Wright,
Majority Leader, "Workshop On Congressional Oversight and Investigations," U.S. House of Representa-
tives, Ninety-sixth Congress, First Session, October 22, 1979, House Document No. 96-217.
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study concluded that the policymakers themselves were in part to blame. They did not
ask the intelligence people to assess the Shah's opposition. Quite the contrary, concern
over offending the Shah by having either Embassy personnel or CIA officers contact
opponents of the regime discouraged such contacts. A staff study of that crisis
concluded that: "long-standing U.S. attitudes toward the Shah inhibited intelligence
collection, dampened policymakers' appetite for analysis of the Shah's position, and
deafened policymakers to the warning implicit in available current intelligence." 3
The point this example brings home is that the effectiveness of intelligence
depends in large measure on the receptiveness of the policymakers to the intelligence
provided and on their willingness to properly task the intelligence agencies.
A third area which the committee has examined in assessing the effectiveness of
intelligence is that of the use and management of analytical personnel. Several steps
have been taken at the CIA in recent years to improve the quality of intelligence ana-
lysts. Additional steps are planned. For example, scholars from the academic world
have been brought into CIA to meld their knowledge and intellectual disciplines to the
analytic capabilities resident at Langley. Efforts are being made to ensure that analysts
spend some years living and working in the countries they are to analyze. In the case
of military intelligence, the committee has taken several steps over the last two years
to help improve the quality of analysis. The Defense Intelligence School for some time
has been seeking legislation to allow it to confer a Masters degree in the area of foreign
intelligence studies. Legislation so authorizing that degree was passed in 1980. In
another case, the committee voted additional slots to help strengthen analysis in
certain areas where it was felt that there was insufficient coverage.
Of course, assignment of analytic personnel overseas can be thwarted by
Executive Branch action such as the MODE ? program, which restricts the number of
U.S. personnel in each Embassy. Action by the Congress to authorize additional slots
can be thwarted by a presidentially-directed hiring freeze.
The most important factor in improving the quality of intelligence analysis is that
of management within the intelligence community itself. Senior intelligence officers
need to do a better job of utilizing the talent available. When the committee learned
that for many years the U.S. intelligence community had underestimated the North
Korean ground force order of battle by a factor of two, it asked the DCI for the num-
ber of intelligence analysts the United States Government had working on_thaL.order
of battle. The DCI, it discovered, did not have that information and had no
bureaucratic mechanism to assemble such data. The committee had to levy its own
data call on the CIA, DIA, 8th Army, USARPAC, etc. It discovered that a number of
analysts were working on various aspects of the order of battle problem. No one,
however, was coordinating those disparate efforts to ensure that adequate analytic
resources were being devoted to the ground forces order of battle.
The committee has taken the position that, although the nature of bureaucratic
structures of authority may limit the ability of the DCI to manage production by non-
CIA centers of analysis, it does not seem unreasonable to expect the DCI, as the
nation's senior intelligence officer, to be aware of analytic problems, to know whether
' "Iran: Evaluation of U.S. Intelligence Performance Prior to November 1978," Staff Report
Subcommittee on Evaluation, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. House of Representatives,
January 1979, p. 7. GPO #38-745
' "Monitoring Overseas Direct Employment" which is an OMB reporting requirement on the numbers
of permanent Embassy employees at each U.S. Embassy.
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or not the CIA has adequate resources to cover shortfalls they create and to alert the
Secretaries of Defense, State, etc., of the need to employ their own assets whenever he
finds that the CIA cannot cover a vital subject. The committee has urged the DCI to
work closely with senior intelligence officers in other agencies to better manage scarce
analytic talent. Some progress has been made in that regard.
Abuses and Oversight
All Congressional committees are charged with guarding against abuses of power
by government agencies. The two select committees on intelligence regularly receive
and investigate complaints from employees and from the public about alleged illegal,
or improper activities by elements of the intelligence community. Further, Executive
Order 12036 requires the Director of Central Intelligence and the heads of depart-
ments and agencies involved in intelligence activities to "report in a timely fashion to"
the two select committees "information relating to intelligence activities that are
illegal or improper and corrective actions that are taken and planned." S Over the last
three years, no illegal activities on the part of the U.S. intelligence agencies have been
reported.
For the last several years, an extended debate has occurred on the pros and cons
of legislation spelling out in some detail what activities the intelligence agencies are
allowed to undertake and what methods of operation are to be permitted. That debate
has involved both select committees, the Executive Branch, including the White
House and the Department of justice, as well as a wide spectrum of the American
public. Extensive guidelines have been developed within the Executive Branch under
the guidance of the Attorney General to cover those activities of the intelligence
services which might involve a "U.S. person."
During the 96th Congress, no consensus was developed to support an extensive list
of legislative restrictions on intelligence activities. Agreement was reached, however,
on language which for the first time put into law the obligation of the DCI and other
intelligence officials to keep the two select committees fully and currently informed of
all intelligence activities, as well as any illegalities.6 Compliance with the concept
embodied in that language will depend on the trust which exists between the
committees on the one hand and the intelligence officials on the other. But, good faith
implementation of that law will enable the two committees to carry out their
responsibilities for vigorous oversight and to guard against misuse of the nation's
intelligence activities.
Cooperation with oversight committees' requests for information has varied from
agency to agency. Some respond quickly and completely. In the case of others,
however, the process is much like pulling teeth. Committee Members and staff have
found a great deal of truth in the old adage that you must ask the right question if you
want the right answer.
Closely connected with the willingness of officials in the intelligence services to
share sensitive information with the oversight committees is the question of how
closely those committees will hold that information. From the beginning, the
Chairman and Members of both select committees recognized that their attitudes
Executive Order 12036, "United States Intelligence Activities," January 26, 1978, Sec. 3-403. 43 Fed.
Reg. 3674.
Public Law 96-450, October 14, 1980, "Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1981." Sec. 407.
94 Stat. 1975.
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towards security would be a major factor in establishing a relationship of trust with the
intelligence community. The resolutions adopted by each House of Congress establish-
ing the select committees directed the committees to adopt in their rules regulations to
protect the confidentiality of classified information in their possession. The same
resolutions also established procedures for the investigation and punishment of any
unauthorized disclosure of classified information by a Member or staff employee.
Further, all prospective staff employees must meet the criteria established by the
DCI for Executive Branch employees who will receive access to sensitive compart-
mented intelligence. The committees have compartmented their staff's access to
intelligence on a need-to-know basis. Strict controls have been implemented from the
inception of both committees for the handling, storage, dissemination and destruction
of classified information. Each staff employee must sign a non-disclosure agreement
before being hired. Both select committees have put careful thought and much effort
into the security aspects of their operations. They have received the full cooperation,
and the certification, of the various security offices within the intelligence community
in creating a secure environment on the Hill.
Legislation on Intelligence
Traditionally, very little legislation has been passed affecting the U.S. intelligence
community. Over the past several years, however, a number of legislative measures
have been introduced and passed affecting, in one way or another, the way the
intelligence agencies operate. For example, in response to Congressional concerns that
the United States might become involved clandestinely in a war such as Laos or
Angola without the knowledge of the Congress, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 was
amended by the so-called Hughes-Ryan Amendment to require that:
"No funds appropriated under the authority of this or any other Act may
be expended by or on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency for operations
in foreign countries, other than activities intended solely for obtaining
necessary intelligence, unless and until the President finds that each such
operation is important to the national security of the United States and reports,
in a timely fashion, a description and scope of such operation to the
appropriate committees of the Congress, including the Committee on Foreign
Relations of the United States Senate and the Committee on Foreign Affairs.of
the United States House of Representatives."
Thus, for the first time by law, the Congress became fully involved in reviewing
the covert action program of the CIA. Even though the Hughes-Ryan Amendment did
not give the "appropriate committees of the Congress" veto power over covert actions,
the clear implication was, and was taken to be, that the Congress wanted a major re-
duction in CIA's non-intelligence collection activities, i.e., paramilitary, propaganda,
political action, etc.
For their part, many in the White House and the CIA came to feel that even if
major covert actions were warranted and could be satisfactorily explained, the
requirement to inform "appropriate" committee's-which by 1977 had expanded to
eight, the House and Senate Appropriations and Armed Services Committees, House
and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence and the Senate Foreign Relations and
House Foreign Affairs Committees-posed too high a risk of public disclosure of
covert action programs. By 1980, the Congress also had come to agree with that
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viewpoint. Both select committees recommended that only the two intelligence
committees be informed of covert actions.'
As a result of the covert action reporting requirements, the select committees
have served as a kind of "murder board" before which the Central Intelligence
Agency must present the rationale behind each such program. Within the Executive
Branch, there can often be such enthusiasm for a covert action that the independence
of the review process can be questioned. Knowledge that each approved covert action
must be defended before the two select committees encourages thorough review
before a proposal is passed to the President for approval.
Another area where legislation was needed concerns the "graymail" problem. For
years, the Executive Branch had been reluctant to bring criminal charges against
individuals in possession of classified information which might be revealed in the
course of a trial. The implied threat of such revelations served as a kind of blackmail,
or "graymail" as it came to be known.
In 1980, both intelligence committees reported out, and the Congress passed, the
Classified Information Procedures Act," which established pretrial, trial and appellate
procedures for criminal cases involving classified information. The legislation allows
persons accused of criminal acts to defend themselves while providing the Govern-
ment with procedures to protect classified information from being disclosed
unnecessarily.
The Congress-again through its intelligence committees-and the Executive
Branch also worked together to produce the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of
1978 9 which created a special court to authorize applications for orders approving the
use of electronic surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence within the United States.
Prior to the enactment of that legislation, electronic surveillance within the United
States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence had been authorized by the
Attorney General on the basis of the inherent constitutional powers of the President.
However, two consecutive Attorneys General, one in a Republican Administration and
one in a Democratic Administration, argued the need for a legal basis for obtaining
court ordered surveillances to protect intelligence officers and the Attorney General
from being successfully sued by subjects of such surveillance.
The select ccmmittees have also secured passage of legislation on a variety of
matters to assist the intelligence community in functioning more effectively. For
example, National Security Agency personnel assigned overseas are now authorized
certain allowances and benefits comparable to those provided by the State Depart-
ment to employees of the Foreign Service. The Department of Defense and the
Central Intelligence Agency have been authorized by law to pay death gratuities to
the surviving dependents of any intelligence employee who dies as a result of injuries
outside the United States and "whose death resulted from hostile or terrorist activities
or occurred in connection with an intelligence activity having a substantial element of
risk. "
In short, the existence of two select committees on intelligence has provided a
focal point for the Executive Branch whenever legislation has been needed for the in-
telligence community.
' Public Law 96-450-October 14, 1980, "Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1981." 94 Stat.
1975.
" Public Law 96-456-October 15, 1980, "Classified Information Procedures Act." 94 Stat. 2025.
" Public Law 95-511, "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978." October 25, 1978. 92 Stat. 1783.
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Program and Budget Authorization
Rule XLVIII of the U.S. House of Representatives sets forth the duties of the Per-
manent Select Committee on Intelligence. One duty is to consider each year
authorizations for:
(A) The Central Intelligence Agency and Director of Central Intelligence;
(B) The Defense Intelligence Agency;
(C) The National Security Agency;
(D) The intelligence and intelligence-related activities of other agencies
and subdivisions of the Department of Defense;
(E) The intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the Department
of State; and
(F) The intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, including all activities of the Intelligence Division.
What that language means is that every year when the President forwards to
Congress his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, the two select committees on
intelligence review those portions of the budget request which fund the intelligence
and intelligence-related activities of the U.S. Government. In the course of extensive
Committee hearings (usually more than 50 hours) and detailed staff study in
preparation for those hearings, each program is thoroughly examined and each
program manager is afforded every opportunity to fully justify his budget request.
For the most part, the select committees have been supportive of the budget
requests for intelligence. In fact, they have added manpower spaces in certain cases
where the committee believed the budget request was too low.
In other instances, the budget has been cut because the justification presented to
the committee did not adequately support the request or because of unnecessary
duplication between two or more programs. The House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence conducts an almost unique cross-program review of projects in both the
National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) budget and the Intelligence-Related
Activities budget of the Defense Department.
The Intelligence-Related Activities (IRA) category is an aggregation of activities
within the budget of the Department of Defense which:
"a. Respond to operational commanders' tasking for time sensitive infor-
mation on foreign entities;
"b. Respond to national intelligence community tasking of systems whose
primary mission is support to operating forces;
"c. Train personnel for intelligence duties;
"d. Provide an intelligence reserve; or
"e. Are devoted to research and development intelligence or related
capabilities.
"Specifically excluded are programs which are so closely integrated with a
weapon system that their primary function is to provide immediate-use
targeting data." 10
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In fiscal year 1981, the Defense Department began to refer to IRA as TIARA,
Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities, but the definition remained the same.
The distinction between an intelligence collection system which responds to an
operational (military) commander's tasking for time sensitive information and one
which responds to someone else's tasking for time sensitive information often is hard to
make. One system may be able to satisfy tasking from a variety of sources, including
operational commanders. In many cases, operational commanders' requirements
cannot be met by collection systems funded in the NFIP, so a separate capability has
to be provided. In other cases, however, the committee has found instances where
proposed collection capabilities in the TIARA account duplicated capabilities in the
NFIP.
The cross-program review by the House Select Committee is important because
no truly effective review of the TIARA and NFIP accounts has been conducted within
the Executive Branch. A mechanism exists for such a review but there is an
understandable hesitancy for one element of the bureaucracy to buy trouble by
poaching on the turf of another element of the bureaucracy. From the point of view of
the committee, an effective cross-program review by responsible Executive Branch
officials is much to be desired and it regularly recommends improvement in that area.
Another issue of concern to both select committees is the insufficient attention to
out-year planning. Each of the last few years, the National Foreign Intelligence
Program budget appeared to have been constructed with budget constraints playing
the deciding role in what went into the program and what did not. Consequently,
decisions affecting very expensive technical systems or mixes of systems requiring
multi-year commitments of funds have been delayed year after year. The result has
been a thinning of collection capabilities and an escalation of costs when the decisions
are finally made to proceed with the necessary new systems. The committees continue
to work with responsible intelligence community officials to develop better long-range
planning.
Perhaps the most vexing and intractable problem the select committees have
grappled with has been that of the cascade of "leaks" of classified intelligence
information over the past several years by Executive Branch officials. Nothing angers
a Member of either committee more than being lectured in a closed session of the
committee by a senior intelligence official about the sensitivity of the information
being discussed and then finding the same information in the next day's newspaper
attributed to "intelligence officials" or "knowledgeable Administration sources." In
spite of persistent efforts by both committees to have the most damaging leaks
investigated, little, if anything, has been done to identify the leakers. This issue is cer-
tain to continue to be a major concern of the two select committees. Some measure of
that concern can be made by the fact that at the confirmation hearing for Mr. Casey
to be Director of Central Intelligence, both Senator Huddleston and Senator Moynihan
expressed their determination to continue to work to stop the leaking of classified
information. Mr. Casey responded by stating that "the kind of purposeful leaks that
have occurred cannot be tolerated, and you cannot maintain an effective and
successful intelligence service if the people who are providing information feel it is not
secure," raising the hope that strong efforts will be made in the future to deter such
leaks.
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A close working relationship has developed between the intelligence community
and the select committees over the past several years. At his confirmation hearing,
DCI Casey summed up the relationship well:
"To carry out its assignment, the intelligence community needs both
public support and the full participation and cooperation of the Congress. I am
pleased that after a period of turmoil the Executive and Legislative Branches
have now institutionalized their arrangements in the Intelligence Authorization
Act of 1981. I pledge care and diligence in protecting the legal rights of
American citizens. I pledge also to work closely with Congress on this as well as
in monitoring and improving the performance of the intelligence community.
Particularly through the Intelligence Committee's study of U.S. intelligence
products, procedures and budgets, Congress will provide a valued independent
source of review to ensure we are achieving all that is humanly possible and the
Congress will be in a position to provide any necessary legislation."
The continuation of that relationship will help ensure that the intelligence
community receives the resources and the legislation it needs to meet its challenges
and that it will have strong public support from the Congress.
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