CHILEAN WAS SOURCE IN HELMS INQUIRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870018-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: August 7, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870018-2
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WASHINGTON POST
7 August 1986
Chilean Was Source in Helms Inquiry
Santiago Aide Complained to U.S. Envoy of `Spies' Stealing Secrets
By Joanne Omang
Washington Post Staff Writer
A Chilean government official
waste source for administration
charges t at someone i
of en. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) leaked
sensitive intelligence information to
Chile. a State Department official
said yesterday.
The Chilean complained to U.S.
Ambassador Harry G. Barnes on
July 16 that "spies" were stealing
Chilean military secrets and, when
Barnes asked what he meant, the
Chilean said Helms' office had told
him so, the U.S. official said.
Helms called the account "a con-
coction," adding yesterday, "There
is no such Chilean official unless
he's lying through his teeth."
Barnes "would have no credibility in
any court of law," Helms said.
Sources close to the event said
the issue involved a classified
Chilean armed forces report blam-
ing Chilean soldiers for the burning
death July 6 of a young antigovern-
ment demonstrator.
Knowing that the United States
had the report enabled the Chileans
to shut down a U.S. intelligence..
gathering operation that had been
very productive, the sources'said.
An FBI investigation into the al-
leged leak began July 18 at the re-
quest of the Senate Select Commit-
tee on Intelligence and has focused
on Christopher Manion, a commit-
tee staff aide to Helms, as a possi-
ble suspect, the sources said.
Manion and Helms have denied
involvement, and Helms yesterday
accused "a coalition of the media,
the Marxists and the State Depart-
ment" of seeking to destabilize
Chile through a disinformation cam-
paign.
The existence of a written
Chilean military document was first
reported yesterday by National
Public Radio.
According to The Washington
Post's sources, the Central Intel-
ligence Agency cited the internal
study in its congressional briefings
as evidence that the Chilean gov-
ernment knew its soldiers had
doused demonstrator Rodrigo Rojas
de Negri, 19, a Washington resi-
dent who was visiting his native
Chile, with gasoline and set him
afire in Santiago on July 2. He died
four days later.
Manion was among those who
received a CIA briefing on the Rojas
case, but Helms did not, an intel-
ligence community source said.
Barnes heard from the indignant
Chilean official "within hours" of
Manion's briefing, the State De-
partment official said.
The official stressed that that did
not necessarily mean it was Manion
who made contact with Santiago.
In an interview, Helms chal-
lenged the State Department to
produce evidence against his office.
"There is none; it's a hoax," de-
signed to discredit him because of
his firm opposition to department
policies, he said.
The military report blaming
Chilean soldiers may not exist ei-
ther, he said, adding, "The CIA say-
ing it doesn't make it true."
One intelligence official said CIA
details of the report in its briefings
"are almost a road map to how we
got the information." The tech-
niques in question had been used to
monitor army support for Chilean
President Augusto Pinochet, among
other things, and have been closed
down. "That's why we were upset,"
the official said.
A Chilean Embassy spokesman
here reiterated Chile's position that
it has received no intelligence leaks.
A Chilean official noted that the af-
fair has at least documented CIA co-
vert-intelligence activity in Chile and
said "this of course has to have an
impact" on U.S.-Chilean relations.
That could include monitoring
U.S. Embassy personnel, visa de-
lays or difficulty in obtaining inter-
views, the official said.
In a speech yesterday in Green-
ville, N.C., Helms said the State
Department has targeted him in
part because he had revealed $2
million in CIA aid to President Jose
Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador in
1984. "I blew the whistle on them,"
Helms said.
Helms visited Chile the week af-
ter Rojas died and endorsed Pino-
chet's claim that Rojas had acciden-
tally set himself afire with a device
he had been carrying. Helms crit-
icized Barnes for attending Kolas
funeral and defended Chile's prog-
ress toward democracy, which the
State Department has been trying
to accelerate.
The State Department, not for
the first time, was furious at Helms,
but this time one of its officials went
public. Elliott Abrams, assistant
secretary of state for inter-Amer-
ican affairs, publicly called Helms'
remarks "indefensible."
Later, Abrams "mentioned" to
Sen. David F. Durenberger (R-
Minn.), chairman of the intelligence
committee, the department's dis-
may about the leaked information
and the suspicion that Helms' office
was involved, according to an Ab-
rams spokesman. That led to the
chairman's request for a probe.
In the interview, Helms said oth-
er committee members told him
they were "indignant" that they had
not been consulted about an inves-
tigation request.
He noted that Morton I. Abra-
mowitz, director of the State De-
partment's Bureau of Investigation
and Research and familiar with in-
telligence activity, "doesn't like me
either because I blew the whistle on
him selling Taiwan down the river."
Helms has opposed Abramowitz's
nomination to be assistant secre-
tary of that bureau. Helms said,
"You have the makings of a nice
little conspiracy down there [in the
State Department] against a sen-
ator who has dared to call their
hand about the private agenda of
the bureaucracy" to undermine
President Reagan's policies.
In a speech prepared for delivery
today, Helms says Barnes and Ab-
rams are working to "support the
violent communist left" and have
left democratic forces in Chile "high
and dry."
A spokesman for Abrams reiter-
ated U.S. praise for Barnes and sup-
port for "transition to democratic
rule in Chile by the most effective
means." Helms is "simply wrong" in
his other charges, the spokesman
said.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870018-2