FBI S TAPS GOT LITTLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01731R002000050002-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 3, 2002
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 3, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

II \ ~g
Approved For Release 20025/D9 TRi7P80RO1731 R002000050002-7
R
By JEREMIAH O'LEARY
Star-News Staff Writer
Twelve of the 17 U.S. of-
ficials and newspapermen
whose phones were tapped
by the FBI between 1969
and 1971 were completely
innocent of involvement in
national security leaks,
former FBI official Wil-
liam C. Sullivan said yes-
terday.
It. was to safeguard the
identity of the innocent
parties, the onetime assist-
ant to FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover said, that
he removed the wiretap
logs and authorizations
from his office and gave
them to Assistant Atty.
Gen. Robert Mardian.
Sullivan, for many years
head of the FBI's Domes-
tic Intelligence Division,
would not disclose the
identities of any who were
subjected to electronic
surveillance. It is known
that four were newsmen
and that the list of officials
tapped was furnished by
the office of national secu-
rity adviser Henry A. Kis-
singer.
Sullivan said he became
worried about the security
of the wiretap file when he
had a falling-out with
Hoover late in 1.971. Be-
lieving his FBI days were
numbered, he said, he
went to Mardian and told
him the wiretap docu-
ments were in his office,
not in regular files.
"HOOVER had told me
to keep them in my of-
fice," Sullivan said. "He
never told me why. I told
Mardian that the docu-
ments on the taps, request-
ed by the White House and
authorized by the Justice
Department, were in my
office and asked what I
should do with them.
"Mardian said he didn't
have authority to tell me
what to do but would ask
other people. Later lie
and that the Attorney Gen-
eral (John N. Mitchell)
had authorized me to give
them to Mardian rather
than have them floating
around in my file cabi-
net."
Sullivan said he never
knew what Mardian did
with the documents until
they became pertinent to
the trial of Daniel Ellsberg
and he called Mardian in
Arizona to ask where they
were. That call came
about when Asst. Atty.
Gen. Henry Petersen con-
tacted Sullivan last month
about the documents were.
Mardian told him, Sullivan
said, that the documents
had been turned over to
White House aide John D.
Ehrlichman because he
(Mardian) "couldn't imag-
ine a safer place for
them."
Sullivan said his instruc-
tions from Mardian when
he handed over the docu-
ments last fall were to re-
fer any questions from any
source to the attorney
general. But there were no
inquiries until the climax
of the Ellsberg trial and it
was in Ehrlichman's safe
that the FBI found and
recovered the documents.
"BEFORE I left the
FBI," Sullivan said, "I
told Mark Felt (his succes-
sor as No. 3 man at the
FBI) that the documents
were in Mardian's posses-
sion. As far as I was con-
cerned, they were not lost,
misplaced or misused. I
got rid of them so they
could not be used for im-
proper purposes."
Sullivan also said that
he and Hoover conferred
several times between
July 23 and July 28, 1970
when they received the
plan approved by Presi-
dent Nixon for expanded
intelligence operations.
This plan included re-
sumption of previous ac-
wiretaps, surveillance,
and surreptitious entry,
mail covers, and even
techniques for mass arrest
in major disorders.
Resumption of the intel-
ligence activities was in a
list of options approved by
an interagency committee
consisting of the FBI, CIA,
the Defense Intelligence
Agency and the National
Security Agency with
Hoover as chairman. Sulli-
van said, ""hen the work-
ing paper came to the FBI,
Hoover called me in two or
three times and asked me
what I thought, what are
the dangers in each
option? We approved some
of the .recommendations
but we agreed that others
held dangers. It was a
matter of expediency, not
principle.
"HOOVER was con-
cerned about his image
and his place in history.
And he would never under-
take an intelligence opera-
tion without the protection
of proper and legal author-
ization. There was nothing
new or original in the pro-
posals. They were all
things we had been doing
for years until Hoover
suspended many of our
intelligence operations in
1966.
"The upshot of it was
that we favored some of
the options but opposed
others. I can't say what
went on in his mind but he
rejected the whole plan
because there were parts
of it we agreed should not
be approved. That finished
it."
Sullivan said that if the
FBI had been doing what
it should have been doing
in the 1966-71 period, "this
ad hoc committee (the
White House "plumbers")
would never have come,
into existence.
Sullivan, 61, now coordi-
nator for narcotics intelli-
gence at the Justice De-
partment, said the plum-
bers went far beyond what
anyone intended them to
do. He said he has never
met E. Howard Hunt,
knew G. Gordon Liddy
only slightly and found
Egil Krogh, boss of the
plumbers, uncommunica-
tive.
He emphatically denied
that he ever said that
Hoover was of "unsound
mind," as an interviewer
recently quoted him.
"I DISAGREED with
Hoover in some of his deci-
sions," Sullivan said. "But
I: never questioned the
soundness of his mind.
Right up to the last day I
saw him he was sharp and
vital, old but not senile. It
was his reasoning and his
judgment 'I disagreed
with and I broke with him
deliberately because the
situation at the FBI in 1971
had become terrible."
"Our disputes were on
professional judgments,"
Sullivan said.
HE, indicated his major
disagreement with Hoover
was on the suspension of
FBI surveillance of for-
eign intelligence agents.
Other sources have said
that Sullivan, a career
counter-intelligence man,
favored continued concen-
tration on foreign espio-
nage agents at a time
when Hoover was break-
ing liaison with other gov-
ernment agencies and
suspending FBI undercov-
er operations in 1966.
came to me and said he cepted counter-intelli-
had taken it up with AI Xovl hFOP ases3M2a1?9/11 : CIA-RDP80RO1731 R002000050002-7
12OF17CLEARED