FBI, CIA PLAY A LITTLE GAME OF SNOW WHITE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150137-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2012
• Sequence Number: 137
• Publication Date: January 6, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150137-7
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ON PAGE 3
THE WASHINGTON POST
6 January 1982
FBI, CIA Play
A Little Game
Of Snow White
The FBI and CIA are playing a
little game of Snow White: "Mirror,
mirror, on the wall, who's the purest
of them all?"
The CIA, it seems, has its doubts
about the FBI's elite, 110-man coun-
terintelligence staff. This is a role..
reversal of the days when the late
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
doubted the CIA people's loyalty.
Here's one incident:
In late October, the FBI assigned
two G-men to the CIA for liaison
duty. The FBI agents belonged to
the bureau's counterintelligence
force, supposedly the creme de la
creme.
But in the course of their duties,
the FBI men would have access to
documents even beyond the top-
secret category for which they had
been cleared. So the CIA made them
submit to the agency's rigorous poly-
graph tests, something the FBI does
not require.
One of the G-men passed the lie-
detector test:- the other flunked. The
CIA refused to give the second man
clearance.
The questions in the CIA's poly-
graph examinations are extremely
personal. They include such subjects
as sexual preference and practices,
past and present, and any other per-
sonality traits that might render a
CIA employee vulnerable to black-
mail, greed or ideological temptation.
All CIA employes know they may
be asked to take a lie-detector test at
any time, without warning or stated
reason. An innocent-looking red se-
curity pass merely turns up on the
employe's desk. It's a non-refusable
invitation to the security office for
interrogation, while, hooked up to the
sweat-and-pulse beat machine.
But FBI agents aren't accustomed
to such treatment. So when the one
agent failed the CIA polygraph, his
bureau bosses were unimpressed.
The questions the G-man flunked
involved his continuing contacts with
the KGB. Sources told my associates
Dale Van Atta and Indy Badhwar
that the agent, as a counterintelli-
gence officer, dealt with undercover
KGB people as part of his job. He
may have expressed some sympathy
for one of his KGB targets. No big
deal, according to the FBI.
But to the CIA, the FBI man was
a potential double agent. CIA Direc-
tor William J. Casey and his deputy,
Adm. Bobby R. Inman, were report-
edly alarmed by the polygraph test
results. They suggested that all 110
FBI counterintelligence agents be
run through the CIA's lie-detector
tests. Inman, a fan of polygraphs
since his days as head of the Nation-
al Security Agency, strongly urged
the idea. ,
When FBI Director William Web;
star broached the idea tentatively, he;
was confronted with a virtual rebel-
lion. The counterintelligence staff
refused to submit to the rival agen-
cy's polygraphs, and some threat--
ened to quit en masse if required to
do so. Webster told the CIA to for-,
get about the polygraph tests. ,
What Webster didn't realiid, ac-
cording to my sources, is that there
were two reasons his counterintelli-
gence agents didn't want to take the
polygraph tests. One was their pro-
fessional distaste for being pushed.
around by another bureaucracy. _
But the main reason was fear that
the CIA lie-detectors might turn up
some unpleasant information.
Footnote: A CIA spokesman de- .
nied that any such dustup with the
FBI has occurred.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150137-7