AS CIA DIRECTOR, BUSH SOUGHT TO RESTRICT PROBE OF AGENCY OFFICIALS BY JUSTICE DEPT.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580030-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: September 30, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/25 :CIA-RDP99-014488000401580030-8
As CIA Director, Bush Sought to Restrict
Probe of Agency Officials by Justice De t.
By JIM MANN, Times Staff Wrtter
ANN ARBOR, Mich.-While he
was director of the CIA, Vice
President George Bush secretly
battled with the Justice Depart-
ment and White House officials in
art effort to restrict a federal crimi-
na~ investigation of senior CU
officials, according to newly re-
leased files in the Gerald R. Ford
presidential librazy.
The new materials show that in
October, 1976, citing the need to
protect intelligence sources, Bush
repeatedly sought to prevent some
documents from being declassified
and CIA witnesses from being
called before a federal grand jury.
The grand jury was investigating
charges that officials working for
or with the CIA, including former
CIA Director Richard M. Helms,
had lied under oath to Congress
about CIA operations in Chile.
No Written Directive
When White House officials re-
minded Bush that President Ford
had already given a public pledge
that his Administration would not
use the classification process or
take any other action to prevent
the exposure of illegal activities,
Bush still balked, saying that he
had not personally received any
written directive from the Presi-
dent speilingout this policy.
"An impasse exists between the
Justice Department and Director
George Bush of the CIA ... "
White House counsel Philip W.
Buchen wrote to President Ford.
Buchen told the President that
failure of the Justice Department to
obtain the information in dispute
"would abort the pending investi-
gation and lead to no prosecu-
tion....'
In a memo at the time to another
White House official, Bush said,
"There is no intention on my part
or on the pazt of this agency to take
any action that might reasonably
be construed as an effort to thwart
or frustrate the investigation being
conducted by the [Justice] Depart-
ment.
"At the same time, I mean to do
wlrtatever is necessazy and appro-
priate to carry out my statutory
mandate to protect intelligence
sources and methods, believing as I
do that such protection is at the
heart of the Agency's ability to
function effectively," he said.
president Ford supported the
Jt>~tice Department and his White
House aides and instructed Bush to
le>j federal prosecutors have what
tl>Ry needed. The Justice Depart-
m~nt investigation eventually re-
suned in Helms' 1977 plea of no
coptest to two criminal chazges of
fading to testify "fully, completely
anti accurately" to Congress.
'~jn addition to running contrary
to;~he Ford Administration's stated
p6licy, Bush's efforts contrasted
sharply with those of his immediate
predecessor at the CIA, former
Director William E. Colby. It was
Colby who first referred to the
Justice Department the allegations
of false testimony by CIA officials,
thus leading to the criminal prose-
cution that Bush was seeking Lo I
restrict.
Snpports Poinde~er
The new information about Bush
is?contained in more than 60 bones
01; files kept by Buchen while
serving in the Ford White House.
Professional azchivists at the Ford
Librazy, who have been gradually
Processing files from the Ford
Administration for public release,
opened the collection of Buchen
files on Sept. 8. A Times reporter
found them in the course of other
research.
When asked for comment, Craig ,
Fuller, Bush's chief of staff, said
through a spokeswoman that the '~
vice president's office first heazd of
the Buchen files when questions
were raised by The Times on
Thursday. He said he would with-
hold comment until seeing the
documents. Stephen Hart, a
spokesman for the vice president in
Washington, also refused to com-
ment.
Bush's defense of clandestine
operatives facing criminal chazges
has a modern echo. During his
current campaign for the White
House, Bush has expressed strong
support for former national securi-
ty adviser John M. Poindexter and
former Lt. Col. Oliver L. North,
who face federal criminal charges
stemming from the secret sale of
arms to Iran and the diversion of
profits from these sales to the
Nicaraguan Contras. The vice
president has said he hopes that the
two men will be acquitted.
~?i~~?rl~I~~~
The Washington Post _
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
The 1976 dispute between Bush
and the Justice Department con-
cerned allegations that CIA offi-
cials, including Helms, had given
false testimony under oath to the
Senate Foreign Relations Commit-
tee and later to a special commis-
sion, headed by then-Vice Presi-
dent Nelson A. Rockefeller, that
was investigating improper activi-
ties by the CIA.
The testimony in question con-
cerned CIA operations in Chile
during and after the 1970 election
of Salvador Allende, a Marxist, as
president of that country. It also
concerned CIA connections with
International Telephone k Tele-
graph Co., which had substantial
holdings in Chile,
In early 1973, when asked at
Senate hearings whether the CIA
had sought to have money passed
to opponents of Allende, Helms
testified without qualification, "No,
sir." In addition, ITT executives
denied working with the CIA
against Allende. In 1975, the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence
found that the CIA had fimneled
more than 1800.000 to opponents of
Allende, who died during a coup in
September, 1973.
The Justice Department investi-
gation was supervised by then-
Atty. Gen. Edward H. Levi and by
the head of the Justice Depart-
ment's criminal division, Dick
Thornburgh, who is now President
Reagan's attorney general. Thorn-
burgh is now a strong supporter of
Bush and has left the door open for
the possibility that he will stay on
as attorney general if Bush is
elected to the White House.
In the late spring and eazly
summer of 1976, Thornburgh and
Levi wmte to the White House to
get a series of White House files
and archives concerning CIA ac-
tivities in Chile for use in the
Justice Department investigation.
Wrote Memo to Fori
But the inquiry apparently
stalled because of resistance from
Bush. According to the newly re-
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 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/25 :CIA-RDP99-014488000401580030-8
leased Buchen (ilea, on Oct. 22,
1976, Buchen wrote a memo to
President Ford entitled "Differ-
ences Between the CIA and the
Department of Justice."
"Throughout the various inves-
tigations of alleged abuses by the
CIA and other intelligence agen-
cies, you have taken the position
that evidence of offenses against
the statutes of the United States
should be submitted to the Depart-
ment of Justice," the memo began.
However, Buchen went on, de-
api a series of negotiations, the
Department had reached an
im with Bush "over the call-
ing f certain witnesses and use in
evi nce of documents that reveal
th identification and CIA Con-
n ores for the purposes of a grand
Nr nvestigation and possible trial
co~nB to Buchen, the CIA
pr t or former employees and
tw ' er sources who had supplied
Ac~ording to a separate memo in
theltfiles, written by Bush, the two
CIS sources in question were ITT
e loyeea.
e Justice Department had al-
Y agreed that, at least for
th ---- ~ ..so,....
Persons. It had also agreed to
av disclosing the location and
tit of one of the persons and to
c another individual before the
gr d jury under an alias
_ther the requirements of the
to a eight persons stiff! in quee-
n are to be respected by George
B . 'said Buchen. who was the
sib for intelligence matters~~~~~
ne days earlier. Bush -,~,~
611[emo iv >File.
in a Ford White House,?John 0.
M ah. In that memo, also
co _ reed, in the library files, Bush '
ti by the Justice -- --? ? Ga-
in Helms and the CIA~Partment
on ChUe. testimony
Bush indicated that the CIA was
willing to declassify most of the
documents wanted by the Justice
Department and to allow most of
the witnesses sought by the Justice
Department to appear before a
grand jury or even a public trial.
But Bush wrote that there were
some present or former employees
being identified as potential wit-
nesaea who had been working
under cover, "with the result that
their public identiffcation with CIA
could compromise operations in
which they have been in-
volved ...." Similarly, he said,
some classified documents identi-
fied sources who had been prom-
ised confidentiality by the CIA.
However, Buchen said he disa-
greed with Bush's arguments. He
reminded Ford that, on several
occasions, he had served notice
that all potential evidence of
wrongdoing, by the CIA or any
other officials, would be turned
over to the Justice Department.
For example, in a 1975 speech,
Ford had said, ' I can assure you
? .that under no circumstances
will there be any action by me or
people working with me to use the
classification process to prevent
chrunmtlvl y~bY any rfederal
authority."
Buchen cited this promise in his
memo and said: "I strongly recom-
mend that you authorize me to
advise George Bush that your poli-
cy as it should guild his actions is
the same as you stated it to
Ewib Toll >lrori Policy
Buchen also questioned conten-
tions that national security would
be damaged by the criminal prose-
cution. He noted that, in this
particular case. information about
the CIA's sources was already
known.
Furthermore, $uchen said,
"Failure to permit disclosure of the
requested information would abort
the pending investigation and lead
to no prosecution, with the conse-
quences that otherwise prosecuta-
ble persona will be saved from
Prosecution merely to protect their
identities and CIA connections
from disclosure.
~~i~~al~~~~
"Such an outcome would be
~teipreted as setting a pre-
cedent for never investigating or
P~cuttrtg a confidential source of
inta~tion even though he may
have committed perjury ... ,,,
According to the fries, Ford ap-
proved Buchen's recommendation.
On Oct. 25, 1876, the White House
~uns~ wrote to Bush, telling him
President's policy was
what he had already publicly an-
naun~, and that evidence con-
cerning criminal acts should be
turned over to the Justice Depart-
ment. Subsequently, the investiga _
pore Proceeded, leading to Helms'
~~~ ?~~na1~?~g the JiInIIIY
e Ford Library -files contain
. ~~-_ - -
~ CIA d!;'eeEor, a part of Bush's
career about winch little informa-
tionhascome id light:
-$uah was appointed CIA ~_
rector in November, 1975, after a
five-month search in which the
lei candidates were originally
then-Solicitor General Robert H.
Bork aryl She Court Justice
Byron lt. White.
Filling the CIA job eventually
became Paz't of a general Ford
Administration shake-up. Bush's
appointment was such a hurried,
last-minute affair that a White
House official prepazed a typed
draft of a cable to Bush in China
that said, "Congratulations on your
selection by the President as Sec-
retazy of Commerce." The words
"Secretary of Commerce" were
crossed out and the words "Direc-
tor of the Central Intelligence
Agency" were written in.
When Ford took office after
Richard M. Nixon's resignation in
1974, Bush was chairman of the
Republican National Committee.
Ford soon named Btffih as head of
the U.S. liaison office in China.
On July 10, 1975, Donald Ruma-
, fell, an assistant to the President,
sent Ford a short and a longer list
of possible candidates for CIA di-
rector. The short list contained 15
names, the longer list 64 names.
Bush was pre the short list.
However, Rumsfeld indicated that
he had sounded out a number of
people about the candidates and
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~.
then gave Ford a "recommended
list" of~ seven top names. Bork was
at the top of this list, followed by
Justice White. Bush was not on the
recommended list.
A "confidential" description of
the candidates attached by Rums-
feld listed Bush's advantages; "~-
perience in government and diplo-
macy; generally familiar with
components of the intelligence
community and their missions;
management experience; high in-
tegrity and proven adaptability,"
Rumsfeld's memo did not explain
hoe' ?! w'hY Bush was considered
generally familiar with the intelli-
gence community. Bush's previous
lobe in the executive branch had
been as the U.S. envoy to China and
as U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations.
But Rumaleld'a confidential
memo listed one major disadvan-
tage: Bush's previous job as head of
the Republican National Commit-
tee "lends undesirable political
cast," the memo said. Before Bush's
aPPo~tment, no politician had ever
headed the CIA.
9.
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