FORMER U.S. INTELLIGENCE AIDES ASK: WAS A LESSON OF THE 70'S FORGOTTEN?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504490001-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 22, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504490001-2
ARTICLE APPEMW NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAGE 22 December 1986
Former U. S. In teffig6nce Aides Ask:
Was a Lesson of the 70's Forgotten?
By CHARLES MOHR
Specul to The Mew York Tines
WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 - Whether
Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North, when he
was a member of the National Security
Council staff, acted on his own to divert
money from the Iran arms sale to as-
sist Nicaraguan rebels intrigues sev-
eral former officials and practioners of
the craft of intelligence.
But if Colonel North did not act on his
own, these former officials and others
say, they are mystified as to why his
superiors apparently entrusted him
with such functions as evaluating, plan-
ning, managing, financing and conceal-
ing the existence of the diversion to the
contras and other covert actions.
The Iran arms sale, these former of-
ficials say, reinforces old lessons about
the hazards of covert intelligence ac-
tions and underlines a newer lesson
about entrusting the direction and ex-
ecution of secret operations to ama-
rteurs and deputized private citizens.
Breaking Proactive Barriers
The former officials say White House
officials may have forgotten or misun-
derstood a series of mishaps that crip-
pled United States intelligence circles
in the 1970's.
Several of the former officials said
one of the more obvious mistakes was a
try to avoid legal and customary prac-
tices of notifying Congress of covert ac-
tions. But they said an even graver
criticism would be that the laws and
Presidential directives on intelligence
activities enacted in the Ford and Car-
ter Administrations, and in theory car-
ried on by President Reagan, appar-
ently were ignored or failed in practice.
The intent of these mechanisms was
to insure Presidential accountability
for covert operations, said Morton
Halperin, a former member of the Na-
tional Security Council staff and an of-
ficial of the American Civil Liberties
Union who worked with the Senate and
House select committees on intelli-
gence to write new legislation in 1980.
"A major motive was to get rid of the
whole concept of Presidential deniabil-
ity," Mr. Halperin said, "to make sure
that covert operations could not be un-
dertaken without the President's
knowledge and informed approval."
Kenneth Bass, the Department of
Justice specialist on intelligence law in
the Carter Administration, agreed,
saying: "People were sick of argu-
ments over whether it was Bobby Ken-
nedy or Jack Kennedy who approved
trying to poison Castro. The aim was to
insure Presidential accountability."
Maintaining 'On-Line' Control
Stanfield Turner, the Director of
Central Intelligence in the Carter Ad-
ministration and a retired admiral,
said the procedures to prevent the mttt-
ation of covert actions without Presi-
dential knowledge "were a very impor-
tant concept."
He added, "The kind of off-line
operations permitted in the Reagan
Administration are bound to lead to
trouble."
The C.I.A. has always used non-Gov-
ernment personnel and "outside as-
sets." The distinction of Colonel
North's case, experts said, is that in the
past the "off-line operators" were not
used to manage, direct and evaluate
covert operations.
"There is nothing unusual or wrong
in contracting with an international
arms dealer to furnish a given supply
of weapons for a project," said Admi-
ral Turner, who is believed to have
done just that to assist Afghan rebels
and in some other cases. "But there is
no reason the arms dealer has to know
the destination and the group the arms
are being delivered to."
Richard Moe, the chief of staff for
Vice President Walter F. Mondale, said
it appeared that the Reagan Adminis-
tration had made the mistake of
"privatizing covert action, diplomacy
and even war."
Need for a Political Base
In its final report in 1976 of its inves-
tigations into past intelligence scan-
dals the Senate Select Committee to
Study Governmental Operations with
Respect to Intelligence Activities,"
popularly known as the Church com-
mittee, said:
"The committee has found that when
covert operations have been consistent
with, and in tactical support of, policies
which have emerged from a national
debate and the established processes of
government, these operations have
tended to be a success."
That conclusion is still embraced as
true by almost all those familiar with
the history of covert operations. said,
"In other words," said one former in-
telligence operator, "you can get away
with spooky business if it advances a
cause the country as a whole is agreed
on and the Congress approves."
Secrecy Taken Too Far
The outside critics uniformly as-
sumed that a primary reason the White
House tried to conceal the Iran arms
sale and the diversion of proceeds to
the Nicaraguan rebels was that it knew
it did not have and could not obtain the
approval of Congress, or even of senior
Cabinet members.
One expert said that while it was dif-
ficult enough to keep a more orthodox
covert action secret, the Reagan White
House apparently compounded its diffi-
culties by trying to keep the Depart-
ments of State and Defense and at least
parts of the C.I.A. in the dark as well.
"It simply won't work," Admiral
Turner said. "Colonel North appar-
ently got in trouble, first crack out of
the box, at the Lisbon airport, and had
to turn to the C.I.A. to get him out of
trouble."
Admiral Turner seemed to be allud-
ing to reported testimony about the
second arms shipment. of Hawk an-
tiaircraft missile components, in
November 1985. The shipment went as
far as Portugal, but then no aircraft
could be found to transship the parts to
Iran. According to sources who heard
the testimony about the problem, Colo-
nel North had to telephone a senior
C.I.A. official, Duane Clarridge, who
put Colonel North in touch with an air
charter company previously owned
and used by the C.I.A.
That event reportedly caused John
McMahon, who was then deputy direc-
tor of the C.I.A. but who has since re-
tired, to become angry and to insist
that established procedures be fol-
lowed for subsequent arms shipments
by obtaining a written "intelligence
finding" from the President.
Tinkering With the Law
The outside critics regard the White
House's apparent disregard or modi-
fication of the "finding" procedure as
one of the most fundamental mistakes
of the Iran arms sale case.
The finding concept became law in'
the so-called Hughes-Ryan Act of 1974
and was recodified in the Intelligence
Act of 1980. In a finding authorizing a
covert action, the President is required
to certify that the action is "important
to national security," a protection
against frivolous acts. The require-
ment for a Presidential finding is in-
tended to insure that covert acts can-
not be concealed from the President
himself.
Lastly, the preparation of drafts of a
written finding is intended to insure
that the practicality and desirability of
the contemplated covert action will be
reviewed by responsible officials from
several departments of Government.
"Restraint is the most important
function of the President's advisers."
Mr. Moe said, "There is so much than
can and often does go wrong with cov-
ert actions."
But another former official asserted
that restraint "is just what the White
House people apparently didn't want."
Their motive for secrecy was not only.
to conceal this from Congress but from
George Shultz," who is Secretary of
State and who disapproved of the plan.
'Gentleman's Agreement' Broken
By law, the Presidential finding ap-
proving a covert action is to be com-
municated by the Director of Central
Intelligence to the two intelligence
committees of Congress at some time.
The law permits delay in some cir-
cumstances, but according to experts,
Continued
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almost every C.I.A. director has made
an extra-legal "gentleman's agree.
ment" with the oversight committees
as to when and how the director will in-
form Congress of covert actions.
Trail of graisss Premises
Admiral Turner, according to a for-
mer White House official, had an
agreement to inform the committees
within 48 hours of the time President
Carter signed a finding. He did not do
this when Mr. Carter signed a finding
approving the rescue of American citi-
zens harbored in Iran by the Canadian
Embassy. But his failure to do so
caused no controversy because it was
an action in support of a popularly ac-
cepted cause, and one that risked no
major embarrassment if it were ex-
posed.
William J. Casey, the current C.I.A.
chief, also had an "ad hoc, common-
sense gentleman's agreement, even
though it was forced out of him, with
the committees," an intelligence spe-
cialist said.
However, according to several ex-
perts Mr. Casey had repeatedly and
seriously violated the agreement long
before the present controversy.
For instance, in April 1984 Senator
Barry Goldwater, then chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, sent
Mr. Casey an angry letter berating the
director for not clearly informing the
committee of a program to mine Nica-
raguan harbors.
Mr. Casey apologized in writing and,
reportedly, made a new gentleman's
agreement. But, according to recent
testimony, he urged that the finding ap-
proving the Iran arms sale not be re-
ported to the committees.
Describing those past controversies
in his 1985 book on the C.I.A., "Secrecy
and Democracy," Admiral Turner
wrote of the Reagan Administration,
"The Administration's willingness re-
peatedly to flout the Congress reflected
a view that oversight was an impedi-
ment rather than a necessity for good
intelligence in a society like ours."
Sloppy Intelligence Work
Some of the critics of the way the
Iran operation was conducted said that
the use of off-line management and
deputized private individuals in man-
agement roles goes beyond bad politics
or borderline illegality. They say it also
makes for sloppy intelligence work.
Some, for instance, were shocked
that Colonel North and the former na-
tional security adviser, Robert C.
McFarlane, who had the highest level
of national security secrecy clearance,
would go personally to Teheran where
they conceivably could have been de.
tained, made hostage and interrogated
or even tortured about United States
secrets.
Representative George E. Brown Jr.,
Democrat of California and a member
of the House Intelligence Committee,
said that although it was unlikely that
the Iranian Government would have
arrested the two men, it was probably
"highly imprudent" of them to have
gone to Iran.
Other manifestations of amateurism
were pointed out by several experts.
One involved the supply flights to con-
tra forces within Nicaragua that led to
the crash of an aircraft, the capture of
Eugene Hausenfus and the death of the
rest of the crew. The Administration
has denied that it was directly involved
in the flights, but the Assistant Secre-
tary of State for Inter-American Af-
fairs, Elliott Abrams, publicly ap-
plauded the program.
A former intelligence official said,
"Real professionals would have had an
extraction program to rescue crews
once they ended up on the ground."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504490001-2