CONTROVERSY INVOLVING HELMS AND AN AIDE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302620007-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: August 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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STAT
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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
All Things Considered
August 5, 1986 7:30 PM
STATION WAMU-FM
NPR Network
Controversy Involving Helms and An Aide
Washington, DC
NOAH ADAMS: Administration sources confirmed today that the FBI
is investigating an aide to Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
The aide, Christopher Manion, is suspected of having leaked secret
information to the Chilean government.
Senator Helms has strongly denied that he or his staff had
anything to do with the alleged leak. Helms has charged that the State
Department is orchestrating a smear campaign against him.
NPR's Richard Gonzalez reports.
RICHARD GONZALEZ: The alleged leak involves the ability of U.S.
intelligence to monitor internal communications of the Chilean armed forces.
It is through intercepted messages like these that U.S. officials reportedly
learned of undisclosed details of the July burning death of Washington
resident Rodriguez Rojas. Government troops have been accused of Rojas'
murder.
Sources also said the intelligence technology also allows
unspecified contact with a growing opposition to President Augusto Pinochet
within the Chilean armed forces.
Administration sources say that Manion, who is being investigated
by the FBI, attended a Senate Intelligence Committee briefing on Chile.
Information on intelligence technology disclosed at that briefing eventually
made its way to the Chilean government. However, a Helms staff member denie,i
that Manion could have been privy to information from this source since the
Intelligence Committee briefing was open only to its members and staffers.
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
Material supplied by Radio N Reports. Inc. may be used for file and reverence purposes only It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited
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Christopher Manion, who is the brother of Daniel Manion, the
recently confirmed federal judge, works for Senate Foreign Relations, not the
Intelligence Committee and would, therefore, not be allowed to attend
intelligence briefings.
At a press conference yesterday, Senator Helms accused the State
Department and the CIA of launching a smear campaign against him.
SENATOR JESSE HELMS: It's quite obvious they want to silence me.
They want to intimidate me, and they want to harass me, and it's not going to
work.
GONZALEZ: Helms singled out the State Department's top Latin
America policymaker, Elliot Abrams, as the source of the accusation. It is
Abrams who reported the alleged leak to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Helms has waged a bitter war of words with the State Department
which, he says, is full of liberal career officers who frequently sabotage the
Administration's foreign policy. Yesterday, Helms charged that Abrams and the
State Department were trying to retaliate against him for blocking Senate
confirmation of diplomatic appointments.
Helms' reputation for using parliamentary procedures to delay
diplomatic nominations has even drawn the criticism of fellow Republicans,
like Senators Nancy Kassenbaum and Richard Lugar.
At the State Department today, spokesman Charles Redman defended
Abrams against Helms' charges.
CHARLES REDMAN: The Department did not request investigation.
That was done, as you know, by the Senate Intelligence Committee. I can't go
into the specifics of what role may or may not have been played by any
particular administration official but, again, in a general sense I can tell
you that administration officials did nothing other than the professional
discharge of their responsibilities.
GONZALEZ: Helms also charged that Abrams leaked the accusations
to the New York Times. Abrams has denied that charge.
Meanwhile, the subject of the FBI investigation, Christopher
Manion, flatly denied that he leaked any information to Chile.
I'm Richard Gonzalez, in Washington.
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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
PROGRAM All Things Considered STATION WAMU FM
NPR Network
DATE August 5, 1986 7:40 PM CITY Washington DC
SUBJECT Harvard's Fact-Finding Team
NOAH ADAMS: Two faculty members of the Harvard
University Medical School have just returned from Chile.
They were there on a fact-finding mission sponsored by
the Physicians for Human Rights of Summerville, Massachusetts.
Dr. Carola Eisenberg says she and a colleague went to a
prison in Santiago to check on two members of the Chilean Medical
Society who were arrested and detained last month.
DR. CAROLA EISENBERG: They sat in a prison for 25 days,
and when we asked the judge why, he said they were disturbing the
internal peace. And we asked him in what way, and he said they
supported a strike which took place on July 2nd and 3rd, and they
were sent to the jail for policital prisoners and other crimes.
ADAMS: Have they been tried?
EISENBERG: No, but they think they have enough -- the
government thinks they have enough evidence. They are going to
try. The first part was just an investigating procedure, and
they're now in the second stage in which they will be tried.
ADAMS: Are physicians in Chile -- have doctors there
been especially political?
EISENBERG: I think they have been. I think they have
been, and I don't know what you mean by political, but they have
been actively involved in trying to understand what's been
happening in their country.
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
Material supplied by Radio N Reports, Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. it may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited
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I mean, some of them have not been political, but they have been
taking care of patients following their own ethical code. If their patients
who have come to them were of their own political persuasion, then they were
considered themselves dangerous even if they were not.
ADAMS: I'm sorry, I don't quite understand that? The physicians
have been getting into trouble because of the political nature of their
patients?
ADAMS: What did you find out about the leaders of the medical
association there? How are they being treated?
EISENBERG: They are not being mistreated. They are not being
mistreated, but they don't have any freedom, obviously, to come or go. They
are also, and this I find somewhat amusing, they are also asked, like all of
the other prisoners are asked - in order to be in this jail, which is more
centrally located and better than other jails - they are being asked to pay
for room and board.
ADAMS: The government's charging for being in jail?
ADAMS: You also went to Chile to ascertain the - the condition
of Ms. Catana who was, along with Rodriguez Rojas who died, who was burned
during a demonstration. What about her medical care? Were you - were you
satisfied as to the quality of the care?
EISENBERG: They do not have the types of medicines we have in
ADAMS: The government of Chile said that these two were ready to
throw Molotov cocktails and, in fact, set themselves on fire.
According to the version I heard from other patients, they were
apprehended as was Carmen's sister and fiancee. They were taken about a block
way from where they were. It was the military police taking them away. His
sister and her boyfriend were released or escaped, and the two young people
were taken about a block away. They were ordered to stand up. They were
doused with flammable material, first in the back, from the top of the head to
the back to about their knees. Then, they were asked to turn around and then
they threw a match.
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They were then draped with blankets and taken to a truck. The
soldiers sat on top of them. They were taken to [name unintelligible] which
is about 20-25 minutes by taxi from the center part of the city, and they were
dumped on the side of a road. I don't know how they did it, because one had
been unconscious for a period of time. But they managed to get out of the
blankets and they began to walk, charred. People were so fightened of what
they saw, and the scene must have been absolutely gruesome and frightening to
the people. A woman sent for an ambulance and they were transported to the
hospital for emergencies.
ADAMS: Dr. Carolla Eisenberg of the Physicians for Human Rights.
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