WASHINGTON CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100020005-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: September 22, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

. Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100020005-5
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
22 September 1983
WASHINGTON
CIA
BY ELMER W. LAKMI
Former government officials and scholars who helped shape existing laws on
relations between Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency urged
STAT
Committee and White House security adviser, said existing laws give "sufficient
basis for vigorous congressional oversight" of covert operations.
Aaron and others testified before the House Intelligence Committee on a bill
to require the president to obtain the advance consent of Congress for secret
military operations abroad.
Thursday that the laws not be changed.
David Aaron, a former senior staff member of the Senate Intelligence
To go further, as proposed in the legislation, was ' likely to create
dangerous inflexibility in the power of the president to act,' ' he said.
Aaron, now vice president of Oppenheimer and Co. Inc., served as a national
security adviser to President Carter after his service in the Senate.
William Miller, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts
University, agreed with the concerns of some committee members that it is ''very
hard to stop' ' secret paramilitary operations once started.
But Miller, a former Foreign Service officer and senior Senate aide, said
present law gives ''clear authority' for Congress to be informed of covert
actions.
In ' ' rare cases, ' ' he said, it is possible for Congress to resort to cutting
off funds or public disclosure to halt objectionable operations.
Ray Cline of Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International
Studies, also told the panel that it did " not seem .. feasible'' '' to give
members of Congress a veto over presidential decisions on covert action.
. Cline, author of the 1982 book ''The CIA: Reality vs. Myth, " said he
believed such a veto would also be ''constitutionally wrong.'
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100020005-5