SECURITY BREACH BUFFOONERY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580004-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580004-3
ON PAGE
JOHN LOFTON
Ben Bradlee
So, remembering Gentle Ben's
letter to the A.G. last year, Mr. Helms
wrote Mr. B. about his paper's recent
anti-Qaddafi-plot story. And what
the senator wanted to know was this:
have you turned yourself in to the
A.G., since this story quotes from
"top-secret" intelligence documents
and is, thus, a national security vio-
lation? Tb which Mr. B. replied:
Security breach buffoonery
Funny guy, that Ben Bradlee,
executive editor of The
Washington Post. How
funny? Well, let me tell you
about one of his jokes.
In May of last year, laugh-a-
minute-Ben wrote Attorney General
William French Smith to complain
about an "apparent national security
violation" allegedly committed by
Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of
North Carolina - the revelation that
the CIA bought the election in El
Salvador for Jose Napoleon Duarte.
Writing as one who has "long had an
interest in national security viola-
tions:' Mr. B. wondered if the at-
torney general knew of any security
breach as "significant" as that com-
mitted by Mr. Helms?
TYeating this inquiry with the dis-
dain it so richly deserved - because
it was hogwash - the attorney gen-
eral replied with five paragraphs of
gobbledygook that ran in The Post
under the headline: "Perfectly
Clear? Smith 'responds' on Helms
'leak. '
A real thigh-slapper, right?
OK. Now, comes a front-page
story in the Nov 3, 1985, Post, by Bob
Woodward, headlined:- "CIA Anti-
Qaddafi Plan Backed. Reagan Au-
thorizes Covert Operation to Under-
mine Libyan Regime." Quoting from
"a top-secret" 29-page "Vulnerabil-
ity Assessment" done by the CIA
and other intelligence agencies,
dated June 18, 1984, this story re-
ported that Mr. Reagan had autho-
rized a CIA covert operation de-
signed to undermine the Libyan
regime headed by Col. Muammar
Qaddafi, according to "informed
government sources."
John Lofton is a staff columnist for
The Washington Times.
"T'\ ear Sen. Helms: I had to
WASHINGTON TIMES
4 December 1985
refresh my memory
about that letter written
15 months ago. You must understand
that I am on your side in this matter.
My letter was meant as a joke; hence
the quotes around 'responds' and
'leak.'[ thought then, and I think now,
that your revelation that the CIA
bought the election of El Salvador
for Duarte should have been pub-
lished, and had we had it before you,
we would have published it before
you.
Sincerely,
Ben Bradlee."
Ha-ha. A real laugh riot, right?
But The Post's story about the
CIA's alleged anti-Qaddafi covert op-
eration ain't quite as humorous.
For openers, in an interview
broadcast by the Tripoli Voice of
Greater Arab Homeland in Arabic,
Col. Qaddafi said that if The Post
story is true, "then we will have to
move and we will have to fight our-
selves. From a point of self-defense,
we shall move the battle inside
America, and we shall subvert from
inside." An action calls for an action
on a reciprocal basis, he said.
And in The Post itself, Demo-
cratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana,
chairman of the House Permanent
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Z.
Select Committee on Intelligence,
was quoted as saying that The Post
story about the alleged anti-Qaddafi
operation is "a very serious leak of a
different magnitude than the oth-
ers."
Furthermore, The Post also re-
ported that several senior U.S. of-
ficials have questioned the wisdom
of the paper's decision to publish this
article, a decision they say has com-
promised U.S. diplomacy and seri-
ously embarrassed the opposition to
Col. Qaddafi and his Arab backers.
Incredible as it may sound, Post
Managing Editor Leonard Downie
was quoted in this same Post story
as saying that the whole question of
what kinds of covert operations the
CIA should engage in "is one suit-
able for public scrutiny" (emphasis
mine). Mr. Downie said The Post dis-
closed no precise details of what the
CIA was planning to do, "which we.
should not and did not do."
And this is not the first time The
Post has run dangerous information
damaging to the effort to get rid of
Muammar Qaddafi. In a recently
published book Intelligence
Requirements for the 1980s. Herbert
Romerstein, a former professional
staff member of the House Commit-
tee on Intelligence, says The Post
helped incite Col. Qaddafi to a fever
pitch in 1981 when it reported that
several members of the House Intel-
ligence Committee had sent a letter
to the CIA protesting a certain co-
vert operation against Libya.
Newsweek magazine, which is
owned by The Post, falsely asserted
- according to Mr. Romerstein -
that this alleged covert operation
was "a plot to kill Libyan dictator
Qaddafi. The so-called Free Officers
Association, Qaddafi's supporters in
Libya, then threatened to murder
President Reagan. Thus was born
the 'Libyan hit team'
threat.... "
And in May this year, our intel-
ligence community was sharply
critical of another Bob Woodward/
Post story which left a totally erro-
neous impression that the CIA was
somehow connected with the March
8 bombing in a Beirut suburb that
killed more than 80 Shi'ite Moslems.
This implication was so off-base that
even the Democrat-dominated
House Select Intelligence Commit-
tee dismissed it. And a Reagan ad-
ministration official said of this Post
story:
"(It) put the lives of every Amer-
ican in Lebanon in jeopardy.... I
find it utterly contemptible. It in-
vites retaliation against every Amer-
ican in Beirut, including women and
children."
I ndeed, one of the terrorists who
hijacked TWA Flight 847 report-
edly cited this Post story to jus-
tify his brutal murder of. Robert
Stethem, the Navy diver who was
aboard this aircraft.
At a Jonathan Institute confer
ence on international terrorism last
year, when asked whether the news
media should share information
with an international agency to com-
bat terrorism, The Post's Bob Wood-
ward replied: "It's not our job. Our
job, simply and happily, is to find out
what's going on and publish it."
Well, this may be a simple ap-
proach, but it is not always a happy
one. Ask the surviving friends and
relatives of Bob Stethem. He's dead.
And it's not because of any informa-
tion disclosed by Jesse Helms, Mr.
Bradlee.
But then, no hard feelings. Maybe
these stories were also a joke, right? 1
Ha-ha.
Footnote: In a Nov 26 letter to Mr.
Bradlee, Sen. Helms writes: "I am
obliged to ask if you would be willing
to publish, even belatedly, that The
Post never believed that I 'leaked
classified information.' The 1984
election is behind us, and The Post
didn't succeed in its efforts to unseat
me. So it would not do harm to The
Post's political purpose to set this
record straight."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0807580004-3