CIA OFFICER RIFLES FILES OF HILL PANEL; CIA OFFICER, SINCE FIRED, RIFLED HILL PANEL'S FILES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100160008-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2011
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: June 18, 1979
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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LEVEL I - 8 OF 8 STORIES
Copyright o 1979 The Washington Post
June 18, 1979, Monday, Final Edition
SECTION: First Section; Al
LENGTH: 1130 words
HEADLINE: CIA Officer Rifles Files of Hill Panel;.
CIA Officer, Since Fired, Rifled Hill Panel's Files
BYLINE: By George Lardner Jr., Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
The House Assassinations Committee discovered last summer that its most
sensitive files had been rifled, and then traced fingerprints on them to an
officer of the CIA, according to informed sources.
The incident involved surreptitious entry of a combination safe at the
congressional committee's offices, the sources said. The safe was reserved for
physical evidence of President Kennedy's assassination, including the autopsy
photos, X-rays and other articles, such as the so-called "magic bullet" that
wounded both Kennedy and Texas Gov. John B. Connally.
Apparently nothing had been taken, but, the source said, there was no doubt
that the files in the safe had been tampered with. For instance, they said the
autospy photos of the head shot that killed Kennedy had been taken out of their
slip cases and were left in disarray inside the three-drawer safe.
"It looked as though someone had just run out," one source said.
After several inquiries by a reporter this week, the CIA acknowledged that it
has dismissed the individual in question, but indicated that it plans no further
action.
"We're satisfied that it was just a matter of curiosity [on the individual
CIA officer's part]," said CIA spokesman Herbert Hetu.
Asked whether it might have been a matter of conscious CIA spying on a
congressional committee, Hetu replied, "Good, lord, no."
The unauthorized entry was discovered when a committee staff member went to
inspect some autopsy photos in the safe one afternoon, probably in July, sources
said.
"Blakely [the House committee's chief counsel, 6. Robert Blakey] was told
right away," one source recounted. "Only three or four people were supposed to
have access to that safe. And I understand that one of them said he'd locked it
the night before."
Fingerprint experts from the D.C. plolice department, where several committee
staffers had old friends, were called in.. By then, someone had thoughtlessly
had the documents rearranged neatly, so that there were other prints on them and
on the safe. But the security-conscious committee reportedly had fingerprint
records of everyone who worked for it, both those with access to the safe and
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A 1979 The Washington Post, June 18, 1979
those who had no business being there.
Sources said the only unauthorized set of prints the police found belonged to
Regis . Blahut, a CIA liaison officer who had been detailed to assist the
committee with the CIA records it needed for its investigations.
"His fingerprints were all over the place," one source reported. "On the
photos, inside the safe, and on all sorts of different packages."
Particularly telling, another source indicated, was the fact that some of the
prints were found on autopsy photos themselves rather than the plastic sleeves
in which they had been encased.
The episode reportedly produced a great wave of anxiety within the CIA, which
has been claiming for several years that it has learned its lessons and that its
domestic spying and misdeeds are a relic of the past. In any case, the agency
launched an intensive internal investigation, including polygraph examinations
of Blahut and perhaps a number of his superiors.
In a brief telephone interview with The Washington Post, Blahut denied any
wrongdoing. He acknowledged that his fingerprints had been found on the
documents in question, but insisted that there was an innocent explanation. He
refused, however, to say what that was.
"There's other things that are involved that are detrimental to other
things." he said. Asked what he meant by that, he refused to elaborate.
"I signed an oath of secrecy [with the CIA]," he said. "I cannot discuss it
any further."
Sources quoted Blakey, who was kept informed of the CIA's in-house inquiry,
as having stated on several occasions that Blahut had been given three polygraph
examinations in all and that he had failed them in important respects.
"He denied he did it, and he flunked that," one source said. "They also
asked him whether anyone ordered him to do it. He said no one, and he flunked
that."
Blahut, who said he worked for that CIA office of security, insisted that he
had come through the tests with his credibility unblemished.
"I've aireadly defended myself to my employers," he said when he asked about
the incident. "As far as I'm concerned, that's all cleared up."
Blakey, who has been working on the now moribund Assassination Committee's
final report in recent weeks, refused to comment. Sources said he seized on the
incident last year and used it as leverage to get the CIA to cough up a number
of documents it had been holding back from the committee. Some of the records
reportedly pertained to Lee Harvey Oswald's visit to Mexico City in September
1963.
"There was a marked improvement," one former staffer recalled. "All of a
sudden, they were giving us everything we wanted. Blakey kept saying he wanted
to go slow, to let them [the CIA) conduct the investigation . . . But I think
he'd have to admit we wanted better cooperation."
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8 1979 The Washington Post, June 18, 1979
Asked one question after another about the incident, including the
identification of the CIA officer's fingerprints, Blakey kept saying: "I won't
discuss the matter." Asked if he would deny it, he said, "No."
Most members of the House committee apparently were kept in the dark. Even
the chairman of the subcommittee that investigated the Kennedy assassination,
Rep. Richardson Preyer (D-N.C.), said he was unaware of it when queried by a
reporter. Later, after checking with Chairman Louis Stakes (U-Ohio), Preyer
declined to comment beyond saying:
"Blakey and Lou [Stokes] were handling the CIA stuff. I don't have my nose
out of joint about it. Talk to Lou."
Stokes declined to talk. "The matter was terminated," he said. "There's no
need for me to comment."
It was not clear what other CIA officials might have been given polygraph
tests before the inquiry was dropped although sources said that one of Blahut's
superiors, Scott Breckinridge of the CIA inspector general's office, had been
expected to be given one. There were also reports that CIA Deputy Director
Frank Carlucci had offered "in a magnanimous way" to take one.
Breckinridge is a veteran CIA official who served as the agency's chief
liaison officer with the Senate Intelligence Committee during its 1975-56
investigations of the intelligence community. He also wrote the top-secret CIA
inspector general's report in 1967 on CIA assassination plots against Cuban
Premier Fidel Castro.
Breckinridge retired recently. He could not be reached for comment. CIA
spokesman Hetu said his retirement had nothing to do with the rummaging of the
House committee's safe.
As for Carlucci, Hutu told a reporter, "He doesn't remember having said what
you said he said."
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