PRESS CLIPPINGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05T00644R000501350002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 36
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 5, 2009
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 12, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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CHARTERS
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THE NATION
12 February 1980
THE AGENCY'S BILL
NIOY THAN
UNLEASHES
C.I.A.
THE The C.I.A. has spied on our own people. The
RB.1. has committed burglaries.... This is a
time for change in our country. I don't want the
people to change. I want the Government to
change.
-Jimmy Carter, Dallas, September 24, 1976
GEORGE LARDNER Jr.
Television crews and Congressional aides squeezed
up against one another in a Senate hearing room
last month for a bizarre lesson in semantics. The
drive for "reform" of the Central Intelligence
Agency and the rest of the nation's intelligence
community had taken a new turning, as Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan proceeded to demon-
strate at a crowded press conference.
It was the day after President Carter's State of
the Union Message with its alarums over the Per-
sian Gulf and what Carter called "unwarranted
restraints" on our intelligence-gathering activi-
ties. Moynihan and six colleagues-four Republi-
cans and two Democrats-seized on the occasion
to introduce what they christened the Intelli-
gence Reform Act of 1980. Simply put, the pro-
posal amounts to an official secrets act. It would
enable the C.I.A. to close the door on most of its
misdeeds, past, present or anticipated. It would
repeal the law governing covert operations and
lift Congressional restraints in effect for the past
six years. It would provide for the prosecution of
citizens who disclose certain information, even if
it is in the public domain.
Moynihan, of course, characterized the meas-
ure differently. It was simply a modest beginning,
he said-a three-part proposal that "should be
seen as but the first blocks in the reconstruction
of our intelligence community, not the final edi-
fiice." "For too long," Moynihan continued, "we have seen
in our own nation a threat to our liberties which, more prop-
crly, ought to be seen in places outside our country. Simply
stated, we have enemies in the world. It is the K.G.B., not
the C.I.A., which threatens democracy."
The speech was vintage Moynihan. But the bill, known as
S. 2216, could have been .written by the C.I.A.-as indeed
much of. it was. Moynihan seemed chagrined by a reporter's
question to that effect, until an aide informed the Senator
that not a few of the provisions had come from C.I.A. head-
quarters in Langley, Virginia. Whereupon Moynihan har-
rumphed that he saw nothing wrong with that. "We have
made no effort to exclude theist," he said of the C.I.A.'s
draftsmen. Senator Malcolm Wallop, a co-sponsor of the
measure, called it "normal procedure" for a bill affecting a
Government agency. Neither dwelt on what that did to the
word "reform."
With all the war talk bubbling around Washington, how-
magically
ever, it is comforting to dream
The Moynihan bill can
us back from the brink.
head of steam behind it. Similar legislation is already
pending in the House. The Carter Administration seems
especially keen on giving the Agency a freer hand for covert
actions, in a harking back to "the good old days" of the
1950s and 1960s when it restored the Shah of Iran to his
throne, engineered the overthrow of President Jacobo
Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala and finally plunged us into the
Bay of Pigs. The new drive has raised speculation about the
possibility of covert aid to the Moslem rebels in Afghani-
stan-as though overt aid were somehow unthinkable. Secre-
cy is more beguiling. it avoids hard questions, such as
ll want to eo to war-and where-and when.
govern the U.S. intelligence community.
ea
whether we r
Although the crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan have solidified the new mood, it has been
building for some time, beginning, in fact, with the final
days of the Senate and House investigations of 1975-76 into
the C.I.A.'s and the Federal Bureau of investigation's ex-
cesses in the name of national security. A new rule of law
was promised. The only result was the creation of the per-
manent Senate and House intelligence committees, which
were assigned the task of supervising America's spies and
counterspies. They quickly fell prey to the Washington rule
that the regulators shall lie down with the regulated and
became even more secretive. The two committees have pro-
duced only one law of any significance: a statute setting up a
special court that issues secret warrants permitting electronic';
surveillance of American citizens in national security cases.
The chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelli-
gence, Birch Bayh, hailed its passage in 1978 as "a land-
mark in the development of effective legal safeguards for',
constitutional rights." He predicted that it would pave.the'
way for enactment of a comprehensive legislative charter to
coxTZ1g.
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The President who said he wanted "the Government to
change" promised a charter, too. He assigned Vice Presi-
dent Mondale as his point man, charged with the task of
producing controls that ? the intelligence agencies could
digest. They digested Mondale instead. The Vice President
turned out to be so ineffectual-and so inattentive-that he
launched the Carter-Mondale re-election effort last year
unaware that the charter legislation had yet to be sent to,
Capitol Hill. This lapse caused some embarrassment when
Mondale opened the campaign last September in Florida
and listed reform of the intelligence agencies as one of the
Administration's accomplishments. He professed surprise
on being told-by a reporter, after the speech, that the C.I.A.
charter had not, yet been introduced. He promised the
reporter an interview on the subject. Then he went on to
California to tell a crowd there that "we have proposed
legislation for charters for the F.B.I. and the C.I.A." Mon-
dale subsequently declined to be interviewed about the mat-
ter. "He just feels he has had no time to focus on it,"- a
spokesman said.
Then came Iran and Afghanistan. The Administration
began pressing hard for one of the C.I.A.'s long-stated ob-
jectives: repeal of the Hughes-Ryan amendment governing
covert operations. (See editorial, "Leash the C.I.A.," The
Nation, January 26.) Suddenly, the new vogue word was
"revitalization" of the C.I.A.
An irony of the alleged dismantling of the Agency as a
result of the 1975-76 investigations is that the two most
significant reforms were enacted before the exposes took
place. One was the Hughes-Ryan amendment, which Con-
gress tacked onto the 1974 Foreign Assistance Act following
a furor over C.I.A. activities in Chile. The amendment pro-
vided that covert action-"other than activities intended
solely for obtaining necessary intelligence"-could be
undertaken only if the President finds each such operation
"important to the national security" and reports it "in a
timely fashion ... to the appropriate committee of the
Congress." ("Covert action," as the Senate intelligence
committee puts it, "is defined as clandestine activity de-
signed to influence foreign governments, events, organiza-
tions or persons in support of U.S. foreign policy in such a
way that the involvement of the U.S. Government is not ap-
parent. In its attempts directly to influence events, it is dis-
tinguishable from clandestine intelligence gathering-often
referred to as espionage.")
The C.I.A. has been railing against the rule ever since, de-
nouncing it as an invitation to leaks since it requires reports
to eight Congressional committees-the Foreign Affairs,
Armed Services, Appropriations and Intelligence commit-
tees of both House and Senate. By Moynihan's arithmetic,
that means disclosure to "some 180 legislators and almost as
many staff" whenever the C.I.A. undertakes a mission out-
side the realm of intelligence collection.
Actually, the circle of lawmakers privy td such secres is
much more limited. On some of the committees, only the
ranking members are informed. On the intelligence commit-
tees, which would continue to receive reports of "substan-
tial" undertakings under the Moynihan bill, only the mem-
bers plus a few top aides are apprised. What seems to bother
the C.I.A. most about Hughes-Ryan is the restraint it im-
poses. According to Senator Walter Huddleston, the Agency
has decided against some projects-and modified others
-out of fear of disclosure.
With characteristic understatement, Huddleston, a rank-
ing member of the Senate intelligence committee, allows
that such restraint may have been. "a good thing." He also
told a reporter that he knows of no leaks that could defi-
nitely be blamed on Hughes-Ryan. The risks of disclosure
by Congress have, in any case, always been exaggerated. ?A
1971 C.I.A. study found that only one of every twenty
serious leaks of information come from Capitol Hill. Most
of them can be traced to high-level Administration officials,
to the Pentagon and to the intelligence and diplomatic com-
munities. In the early 1970s. there were an estimated
400,000 to 500,000 people within the executive branch
alone who were cleared for top secret information.
Moynihan's proposed Intelligence Reform Act of 1980
would do much more than restrict the reporting of what
used to be called "dirty tricks" to the House and Senate in-
telligence committees. It would also restore, at least to a lim-
ited extent, the doctrine of Presidential "deniability,"
whereby the Chief Executive could disclaim any knowledge
of such undertakings. The President would have to approve
only those covert operations involving "substantial re-
sources or risks." The National Security Council would pass
on the rest, and these would not have to be reported to any
Congressional committee at all. "You can defeat the pur-
pose of reporting by reporting too much," Moynihan de -
oared in justification of this provision. "We are requiring
the reporting of events we will really pay attention to."
The other key reform proposed by Moynihan and com-
?any involves the Freedom of Information Act (EO.I.A.),
,vhich has had the C.I.A. grumbling ever since it was forced
to comply with it under a series of amendments Congress
enacted in 1974. Until then, C.I.A. documents could be
automatically withheld from public scrutiny simply by invo-
cation of the "national security" exemption, but Congress
changed the rule by providing that the reasons for such
secrecy could be challenged in court. It also set down dead-
lines for compliance.
To hear the C.I.A. tell it, the information released has
been thoroughly inconsequential. "(C]he information fur-
nished is almost always fragmentary and is often mislead-
ing," C.I.A. Deputy Director Frank C. Carlucci argued last
August in a letter to the White House Office of Manage-
ment and Budget. "Therefore the information is more often
than not of little use to the recipient." Never mind that the
law has produced volume after volume about the assassina-
tion of President Kennedy, the C.1.A.'s controversial drug-
testing programs and its illegal domestic spying operations.
Never mind that the documents released under the F.O.I.A.
show far more extensive surveillance than even the Rockefel-
ler Commission was told about.
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Carlucci asked for the Carter Administration's support of
a measure that would put most C.I.A. files beyond the pale
of the F.O.I.A. The "loss to the public from the removal of
these files from the F.O.I.A. process," he maintained,
"would be minimal." Carlucci has acknowledged that the
C.I.A. can protect its legitimate secrets under the Freedom
of Information Act as it-stands, but the Agency contends
that the law is still "inappropriate, unnecessary ... and
harmful" because its sources abroad remain fearful of
disclosure.
Despite the Agency's claim that what it releases is "of little
use," it complains that anyone, including avowed enemies
like former C.I.A. officer Philip Agee, can ask for its docu-
ments. In fact, the C.I.A. treats many requests cavalierly-
ignoring some, "losing" others, delaying still more-but it
insists on assigning four people to Agee's petitions as a P.R.
gimmick to dramatize its complaint about the law. Ordinary
citizens get no such consideration, but that inconsistency
doesn't seem to bother the C.I.A.'s allies in Congress.
"Modification of the Freedom of Information Act makes
sense," Wallop intoned at the press conference with Moyni-
han. "Congress never intended that the American taxpayers
should pay to provide Philip Agee with four full-time
research assistants within the C.I.A., but that is precisely
what happened under the law in 1978." k
The C.I.A.'s proposal-drafted by Langley and intro-
duced by Moynihan word for word as part of his bill-
would permit general freedom of information requests only
for what Carlucci called "finished intelligence products."
For the rest of its files, only American citizens could apply
and they could ask, Carlucci said, only for "what, if any,
information we have on them personally."
That may touch off a stiff fight. "All properly classified .
information is protected under the law now," says the
American Civil Liberties Union's legislative representative,
Jerry Berman. "None of it has leaked out under F.O.I.A.
Vital secrets have been lost to spies, but not under the Free-
dom of Information Act."
The last of the "modest measures" (Wallop's phrase) in
the joint Moynihan-C.I.A. package could prove even more
controversial. It was actually drafted by C.I.A. lawyers and
staffers of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and
introduced in the House last year as e separate measure by
all fourteen members of the committee. It would make it a
crime to disclose the names of C.I.A. operatives stationed
abroad-even if the disclosure came after the agent had
returned home.
The stiffest penalties in the bill-ten years in prison and a
550,000 fine-would be imposed on offenders who have had
authorized access to classified information-former C.I.A.
employees, for example. Others, such as journalists, would
face a year in prison and a $5,000 fine if the Government
could show they intended "to impair or impede the foreign
intelligence activities of the United States." The proposal
even contains a little fillip designed to overcome a World
War Il-era court decision that barred an espionage prosecu-
tion for sending material already published in U.S. news-
papers and magazines to Germany. Under the new bill, it
would still be a crime to -disclose" a name taken from
public sources-for instance, an old State Department bio-
graphical register-so long as the Government was still
"taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual's
intelligence relationship to the United States."
The C.I.A. has depicted this proposal as being aimed sole-
ly at Agee and an anti-C.I.A. "'coterie dedicated to exposing
the names of agents," but it would clearly have a much
broader impact. (See editorial, "Naming Names," The 1\'a-
Lion, December 1, 1979.) "There's a lot of intelligent people
who think the bill is unconstitutional," said one House
lawyer. "I said intelligent people, not intelligence people.
- there's a diffcrc.-.. II
c
o
inistration has already given its blessings
Ad
m
The Carter
to the three-part package as part of the long-promised char-
ter for the C.I.A., but there are few officials who think that
so comprehensive a measure stands a chance of enactment.
The charter, moreover, has been evolving from a strict code
of conduct for the intelligence community into a license for
wide-ranging secret activities with few blanket prohibitions.
Still to be introduced at-this writing, it would, for instance,
ban assassinations but impose no penalties on those who ig-!
nore the injunction. It would also sanction everything from
burglaries to wiretapping of law-abiding Americans abroad,'
so long as the Government thinks some important informa-
tion might be acquired.
Huddleston still hopes to get a charter through the Sen-
ate, rather than just the Moynihan bill, S. 2216, but he
agrees that in its present mood the House will give the
C.I.A. only the cold-war rearmament of S. 22.16. The char-
ter might get bogged down in election-year rhetoric and be-
sides, the C.1.:&.. can burgle abroad right now, without hav-
ing to meet statutory standards for breaking and entering.
As a result, Huddleston isn't even sure he can get a char-
ter reported out of his own Senate intelligence committee. r
Moynihan, Wallop and two other sponsors of S. 2216, Sen-
ators Henry M. Jackson and John H. Chafee, all sit on the..
same panel. As chairman of the subcommittee on charters :
and guidelines, Huddleston could bottle up S. 2216 and in-
sist on taking it from there only as part of an overall charter.
But he says he doesn't intend to try that gambit. He plans to
report out both S. 2216 and a comprehensive charter, and
then let the full-committee make up its mind.
Administration insiders say the Carter White House isn't
going to push hard for "a full charter" either. Who ever
said the C.I.A. did anything really. wrong anyway? Jimmy
Who? fl
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THE BOSTON GLOBE
12 February 1980
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