BUSH TRIED TO BAR PROBE OF CIA ROLE IN CHILE, PAPER SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580031-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: September 30, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sl Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/25: CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580031-7
STAT
BUSH TRIED TO BAR PROBE OF CIA ROLE IN C ILE, p SAYS
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 : n co+ 8
WASHINGTON, Sept 30, Reuter - George Bush as CIA director
attempted to block a federal investigation of agency operations
in Chile in 1976, the Los Angeles Time said on Friday.
Bush attempted to hold back documents on earlier Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) activities in Chile which the Justice
Department sought for a federal grand jury, according to files
in the Gerald Ford presidential library in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
the newspaper said.
In October, 1976, Bush who was then CIA director, pleaded
the need to protect intelligence sources in a dispute with the
Ford White House and Justice Department over the documents and
permission for CIA witnesses to appear before the jury.
The grand jury was investigating charges that former CIA
director Richard Helms and same of his officers had lied to
Congress about Chilean operations.
The CIA was suspected of playing a major role in the 1973
Chilean military coup in which Marxist President Salvador
Allende was killed.
President Ford had publicly pledged cooperation with
Congress in its post-Watergate probe of CIA clandestine
operations.
The newspaper said Bush wrote in a memo to the White House:
"I mean to do whatever is necessary and appropriate to carry
out my statutory mandate to protect intelligence sources and
methods."
Eventually the White House instructed Bush to let federal
prosecutors have the evidence they sought.
The investigation led in 1977 to a plea of no contest by
Helms to two criminal charges of lying to Congress. He was
fined 2,000 dollars and given a two-year suspended sentence.
3.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/25: CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580031-7