NOT TO PROCEED WITH SLANDER SUIT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400190090-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 28, 2000
• Sequence Number: 90
• Publication Date: April 28, 1966
• Content Type: TRANS

FOApprovedp a P"B&VA-RDP75-00001 R000400190090-5
PROGRAM Newsnight
STATION WTOP-TV
DATE April 28, 1966 6:00 PM CITY Washington, DC
NOT TO PROCEED WITH SLANDER SUIT
` JULIAN BARBER: "Attorneys for the plaintiff today sought
to question a self-declared CIA agent whots accused of slander
in a suit filed in Federal Court in Baltimore. The attempt
took place at a special pre-trial examination presided over by
Judge Rosell Thompson, but the agent wasn't talking.
"Sam Donaldson has the story."
DONALDSON: "The United States Government, by way of an aff-
idavit signed by Admiral William Rayborn, head of the CIA, today
reaffirmed its insistence that to proceed with the slander suit
brought against one of its agents would jeopardize national
security.
"The agent, 39 year old Uri Rouse (?) of Hyattsville, Mary-
land, sat on the witness stand in Judge Rosell Thompson's
Baltimore courtroom, while attorneys for the plaintiff, Eric
Haine (?) tried to question him in the pre-trial examination.
"But to almost every question that had even a remote bearing
on the case, government attorneys instructed Rouse not to answer.
And Judge Thompson said the law required him to uphold their
assertion that the witness should remain silent in the interest
of national security.
"The CIA's own general counsel, Lawrence Houston, did.allow
Rouse to admit uttering the alleged slander. 'Yes', said Rouse
when asked whether he had told the gathering of Estonian emigres
in New York City in 1963, that Eric Haine was a dispatched agent
of the KGB, the Soviet secret spy organization. 'I stated,'
declared Rouse, 'that whoever does not believe what I said is
free to contact the FBI.' But when Haine's attorneys attempted
to discover Rouse's exact relationship to the CIA or FBI, how
much he was paid for talking about him, who actually gave him
the information to pass along. The government invoked its
claim to secrecy.
"The man who brought the suit, Eric Haine, is like Rouse, a
native of Estonia. Haine now lives in Canada. He denies any
association with the Soviet Union and says he only wants to c
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 -2-
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his name."
MAN: "Uri Rouse at the orders of the CIA has said that you are
a Soviet spy, or at least, in the early 60's you were a represent-
ative of the NKVD. You deny this?"
HAINE: "Completely. I deny it."
MAN: "Well, what basis of this charge could there be? Were
you active in working the Estonian community in Canada and the
United States?"
0"HAINE: "I was active there, but why these accusations were
brought forward, I have not the slightest idea."
MAN: "Well, what were you telling the Estonian immigrants
to this country and in Canada?"
HAINE: ''to keep alive the idea of Estonian freedom and independ-
ence."
MAN: "When.did you first meet Uri Rouse?"
HAINE: "I believe it was 1961 when he invited me to speak in
an official category (?) in Lakewood, that's by New York."
MAN: "What was your subject?"
HAINE: "Resistance in Estonia against the Communist rule and
the Communists."
DONALDSON: "In the normal slander case, truth in the absence
of malice would be a defense, but the government having admitted
the words claimed to be slanderous were uttered at its order has
no intention of trying to prove them, it simply declares that
Rouse was acting for the CIA, and states that to say anything
more would be against the best interests of the United States on
security grounds.
"So the government has asked the court to enter a summary judge-
ment against the plaintiff, Eric Haine, and dismiss the suit.
Arguments on that motion have been set'for May 13th."
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