CIA, STATE HEDGE ON STORY ABOUT CLANDESTINE AID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000200830013-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: October 4, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00845R000200830013-1
ARTICLE
OR Ph GE
WASHINGTON TIMES
4 October 1983
CIA, .State hedge on story about
1desfiui~111111111 ai
ev A WASHINGTON TIMES STAFF WRITER
CIA and State Department spokes-
men yesterday hedged their denials of
a Newsweek story that the agency's
covert activities division was helping
insurgencies in Angola and Kampu-
chea.
A CIA spokesman told The Washing-
ton Times he was "pretty sure we can
deny" the report of covert aid going to
rebel forces in Angola, and that "we
follow the law."
U.S. aid to rebel groups in that coun-
try has been unlawful since 1975,
when Congress passed 'the so-called
Clark amendment. barring clandes-
tine anti-government activities in
Angola.
Sources close to Chester Crocker,
assistant secretary of state for Afri-
can affairs, told The Times recently
that, under an agreement reached by
roving Ambassador Vernon Waters,
the United States would exchange
diplomatic relations with the Angolan
-government once it announced- a
phased withdrawal of Cuban troops
from the country.
State Department spokesman Alan
Romberg said, since the Clark amend-
ment was still in effect, he assumed
the report of CIA aid "must be
untrue"
South African sources told The
Times last month the UNITA move-
ment of Jonas Savimbi, which oper-
ates mostly in southern Angola, and
the Front for the National Liberation
of Angola, which operates in the north,
have received Soviet weaponry cap-
tured from Palestinian '--forces by
Israel in Lebanon last year,-with Israel
being paid for the arms by the United
States and the weapons being passed
on by South Africa..---?~?
CIA and State Department spokes-
men would. neither confirm nor deny
the Newsweek claim that the CIA was -
furnishing arms through China to the
forces of Pol Pot, the ousted dictator
of Kampuchea, who reportedly killed
about one-third of the country's 6 mil-
lion people while he was in power.
"We don't comment on such allega-
tions," said CIA spokesman Dale 1
Peterson.
Po1Pot's Khmer.Rouge movement is
part of an alliance of movements
- resisting ..the government. in Phnom
'Penh, which is under zheprotection of_
Vietnamese forces which are opposed
by the United States,,-China and the
five-nation Association of Southeast
Asian Nations.
The Newsweek cover story, "The
Secret Warriors: The CIA -is Back in
Business" said officers of the CIA's
covert branch had increased from
about 300 to over 1.000 in the past two
years. Covert support was said to be
going to resistance and terror groups
in Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Chad and
Afghanistan, where the Mujahedrn
guerrillas were to have received S100
million in military and economic aid.
"I can't confirm everything in that
story," said Peterson of the Newsweek
cover. "The stuff about covert activity
? didn't come from here"
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00845R000200830013-1