GATES DENIES SLANT GIVEN CIA REPORTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301310008-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: September 30, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/24: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301310008-3
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today `
The Chicago Tribune
Date
STAT
Gates denies slant
given CIA reports
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Deputy CIA Director Robert
Gates denied yesterday that the CIA
"cooks" intelligence estimates to
support U.S. policy, ontradicting
charges by Secretary of State
George Shultz that it does.
"There is no charge to which we
in the CIA are more sensitive than
that of 'cooking' intelligence - of
slanting our reporting to support
policy," Mr. Gates said in a speech at
Prince c University's Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and Interna-
tional Affairs.
While some intelligence esti-
mates reflect the biases of certain
analysts and are sometimes wrong,
Mr. Gates said, he denied the agency
slanted its analysis.
"Sometimes we have been wrong,
but on problems large and small, we
have not flinched from our honest
view," he said.
Mr. Gates' remarks challenged
testimony by Mr. Shultz before Con-
gress' Iran-Contra investigating
committee last July. Mr. Shultz testi-
fied that the CIA had become "too
involved" in providing information
about Iran and carrying out the co-
vert Iran policy initiative.
The secretary of state, who
feuded with then-CIA Director Wil-
liam Casey over the Iran policy,
accused the CIA of allowing "your
analysis and the selection of infor-
mation that's presented [to] favor the
policy that you're advocating."
The CIA concluded in early 1985
that Iran was becoming unstable
and that the Soviet threat to Iran was
growing. The analysis was used by
some policymakers to launch the se-
cret change in U.S. policy that led to
the administration scandal.
Although the Iran initiative and
Mr. Shultz were not mentioned in the
speech, intelligence sources said the
Gates speech was directed against
the Shultz testimony..
About 95 percent of the CIA bud-
get is spent on collecting intelli-
gence and analyzing it, Mr. Gates
said.
Mr. Gates quoting CIA Director
William Webster said the agency
would avoid 'politicizing" its intel-
ligence product and will "tell it like
it is."
The CIA is often at odds with pol-
icymakers in the administration,
and in recent years, the Congress,
over U.S. foreign policy, Mr. Gates
said.
Mr. Gates said CIA analysts were
overzealous in trying to debunk 1981
charges by then-Secretary of State
Alexander Haig that the Soviet
Union was behind international ter-
rorism.
After Mr. Haig spoke out about
the Soviet role in terrorism, "agency
analysts intitially set out not to ad-
dress the issue in all its aspects but
rather to prove the secretary
wrong," he said.
"But in so doing, they went too far
themselves and failed in the early
drafts to describe extensive and sup-
port for terrorists groups and their
sponsors;' Mr. Gates said.
He described the episode as an
example of CIA analysts' effort "to
poke an analytical finger in the
policy eye."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/24: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301310008-3