'OVERSIGHT'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100050112-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Sequence Number: 112
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/06/21 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000100050112-5
f it 1 COST
19 February 1977 pJ
X ? -t , J
t-LN AS the early editions of ycster"-'s Wash- - had continued the subsidies in the face of a Iindin;,
jr.Lt-on Pest were appe aril'g on the strel4s Thurs- by his own Intelligence Oversight Board that the pay-
Cd_';.' night telling about ?J yci rs of secret {.IA subsi- menu constituted an "impropriety"; (2) Secretary of
dies to King Hussein of Jordan, the former director State Cyrus Vance, right up to the moment of his ar-
of the CIA, George Bush,- was appearing on 1VETA's rival in Amman yesterday to visit the Jordanian mon-
"Agranst:y at Large" program, telling about the cur- arch, was reportedly ignorant of an arrangement
rent state of CIA "oversight": that one would have thought was a rather important
- Ir. Bush:... in. the future as in. the recent past, item in U.S. Tordanian relations; (3) the Senate Intel-
ligence Committee, which was set up last year to pro-
covert actions . _ : are staffed out very differently. ?
..ind there are presidential findings, and those find- vide a sounder system of oversight of CIA, "-vvas not
ings are reported in timely fashion under the law to given the full story... of the secret payments to Ilus-
sez en committees of the United States Congress. So' seen," according to Bob ~~ oodward's report in yester-
we are protected in this country.... day's Post. }
1'l7r.A_gronsky: I wonder how protected weave..'.. Those are the questions about the CIAs so-called
_11'r. Bush: WVell, I know more about it than you do, payoffs to King Hussein that we find most interesting
and Pm telling you it works according to the law and: -and. most disquieting. lip you have to pick and
according to the procedures set out by the President choose among the CIA abuses and excesses over the
in the executive order... I think the directives are - past two decades or so, bribing foreign heads of state
such, and Ithink the executive order is such, -and strikes us as measurably less offensive than blowing
then I think the education of the culture is such that up their palaces or-if you will forgive an expression
the rights of t' rte American people are properly safe- appropriate to the mentality of those who were
guarded against the kinds. of (covert) abuses you're . thinking up these schemes---bumping them off. It is
talking about. not that we-would condone bribery, it is simply that
in the year 19x7 it is hard to understand the state of'
So. much for the.,.way "oversight" supposedly had affairs in Jordan and the Mideast 20 years earlier-
been reformed and made. fool-proof under'the Ford and when you do understand it, still harder to make
administration: The question remains: How much of categorical judgments about the nature of American
this new approach to supervision of the CIA actually aid to King Hussein. The United -States. was not then
carried over in transition to President Carter? Mr. `supporting the "lifestyle"-of a "playboy prince" Hun-
Bush had something to say about this as we1L sein was not then a prince; by 1957, when the 'Tay
I had fit e sessions with (i47r. Carter), three rather offs" began, he had been king for four years and the
issue was not so much his lifestyle as his life, and that
long, intensive briefings, in which we covered not of his kingdom whose "integrity and independence"
.only the trouble spots in the world'. . it also covered was then held by John Foster Dulles to be "vital" to
the most sensitive aspects of-the business that the- the national security of the United States. Whether,. President must know about it, thesourcesand ~neth.. in 1977, this is an appropriate way to protect vital -
gds part of the business.... American interests is an important question. But it is
From the foregoing it would seem safe to conclude* not nearly as important, in our view, as the question
that President Carter knew just about everything of. -of whether there- now. exists an "oversight" system
significance that his predecessor knew about current that does, in fact, provide these "protections" to the ,
CIA operations of all kinds, and that the congres- American public that George Bush was talking about-
sional overseers of. the CIA were equally well-in Thursday night.-
formed. In particular, it would seem safe to conclude "Oversight," our dictionary says, means "supertd-
that Mr. Carter knew, about -the payments to King lion, watchful care." But when it is used in quite an-
Hussein;which CIA officials are now explaining en- other way, it can also mean something altogether.dif-
tirely in terms of exceedingly sensitive "sources and ferent-a "failure to notice or consider, an omission.
methods" of intelligence gathering. But if that is so, or error due to carelessness." In the light of the reve-
how could it be that : a` : lations of the CIA/Hussein connection, it becomes
(1) President `Carter'- apparently.'professes not to necessary to ask all over again just what meaning of
have heard about the U.S. government's clandestine'. the word administration officials and members of
financial relations with King Hussein until this week, - Congress have in mind when they talk so assuredly
and, thus, could not have known that President Ford about "oversight" with respect to the CIA.
STAT
Approved For Release 2007/06/21 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000100050112-5