IS THERE A WAY TO STOP CIA LEAKS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440034-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 28, 2011
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: July 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-R
ARTMLE OFEARED
ON PAGs-
ARNOLD BEICIEWAN
President Reagan delivered an
important speech July 8
about terrorism. In general
terms, he outlined what the
United States would do about such
crises in the future.
However, I'm sorry to announce
that the U.S. government can do-
nothing about terrorism and,.
therefore, will do nothing until Pres-
ident Reagan deals effectively with '
what should be regarded as White
House Priority Number One: a
secure and leakproof CIA.
Is -it already too late in the day to
hope for such a miracle? Or is it
impossible ever to have an intelli-
gence organization in the most open
society in the world, one which.
would be secure and leakproof
against its enemies abroad and at
home?
Only in America is it possible to,
publish regularly a magazine, pur-.
chasable at newsstands, which spe-
cializes in disclosing names and:
activities of people it identifies as-
CIA agents and with consequent risk
Jo .their lives.
Until President Reagan can be
sure that whatever counterterrorist'
strategy he and his advisers select
for future execution will not end up
on the front page of The Washington,
Post, nothing is going to happen to
diminish the terrorist power now
deployed so successfully by the
Radical Entente: Syria - not Nica-
ragua, Mr. President - Iran, Libya, :
North Korea, and Cuba. However'
ingenious the counterterrorist.
strategy and tactics may be, unless
they are kept secret, the United
States will remain powerless to pro-
tect American or other travelers
against terrorist ideologues.
And let me say here that I have no
intention of engaging in any Wash-
ington post bashing. If some CIA
officer, in violation of his oath, wants
to leak secrets - and how else could
the post know about the CIA oper
ations except through a CIA source
who talked to somebody? - and the
media feels the story ought to be
told, there is precious little that can
be done about it, as we all know from
the "Pentagon Papers" affair.
It may very well be that there is
little at.the present time to prevent
The Washington Post or any other
medium from uncovering any new
CIA strategy against counterter-
rorism and publishing it on Page 1. I
WASHINGTON TIMES
24 July 1985
Is there a way to
stop CIA leaks?
am ready to believe that The Wash-
ington Post knows a lot more CIA
secrets that, for good reason, it
doesn't print.
In the July 8 Time, four former
CIA directors - Richard Helms,
William Colby, James Schlesinger,
and Stansfield Turner - offered
their ideas about U.S. options for
countering terrorism.
. Mr. Helms was the only one of the
four men to raise the question about
CIA internal security. He said, "We
also need improved cooperation
among free-world intelligence ser-
vices. As long as we have a leaky
Congress and a leaky oversight pro-
cess, friendly services are simply
not going to share with us:'
On May 12, The Washington Post
published a Page 1 report that mem-
bers of a CIA-trained counter-
terrorist squad were responsible for
a March 8 car bombing in a Beirut
.suburb. The atrocity killed more
than 80 Shi'ite Moslems, blood-
brothers of those who later hijacked
.TWA Flight 847.
While the Post didn't say that the'
CIA had ordered the bombing, it did
say that the CIA had "an indirect
connection" with it. It was good of
the Post to publish the CIA dis-,
claimer of any connection with the
bombing. But who in the Middle
East, let alone Beirut, would believe
it? .
Now there are several possible
sources from whom the Post could
have learned about the CIA squad. It
could be:
? An anonymous phone-caller
sponsored by the Soviet KGB or any
of its surrogate services. There are
some people who think that, because
CIA counter-espionage for a decade
has been its weakest service, that the
U.S. intelligence. agency has been
deeply penetrated. Is there more
than one Kim Philby in the CIA?
(General Walter Bedell Smith at a
Senate hearing to confirm his
appointment by President Truman
in 1950 as CIA director was asked
whether he thought the CIA had
been penetrated by the Soviets. He
replied that he worked on the
assumption that it had.)
? A CIA officer who opposes coun-
terterrorist training within the CIA,
or such training by an agency sub-
sidiary.
Continued
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? A member of the counterter-
rorist squad itself, a "plant,' who had
successfully passed CIA counterin-
telligence security checks. Afterall,
"rewards" or cash bribes can work
both ways. Libya's Qadaffi can
match the United States in such mat-
ters, dollar for dollar. And, anyway,
how do you subvert a suicide
bomber?
? One of the members of either
the House or Senate Select Commit-
tee on Intelligence Oversight, all of
whom, according to law, must, be
briefed regularly by the CIA on its covert activities, or one of the com-
mittee's staffers. However,
knowledgeable people I have talked
to disagree with opinions such as Mr.
Helms's and believe that the com-
mittees and their staffs, at least in
the past, have been protective of CIA
secrets.
? A Post staff member who works
for the CIA and is able to feed the
newspaper these exclusive stories.
? Officials of other departments
of government, privy to CIA plans.
There are other ways - and I'm
only using the Post because its story
may have had unintended conse-
quences - by which the paper could
have discovered the alleged connec-
tion of the CIA with the Beirut car-
bombing.
Regardless how the story was
obtained, the point is that the CIA
simply is too leaky to be entrusted
with the kind of mission President
Reagan has in mind, one which
demands 100 percent secrecy.:Or
put another way, the CIA has for-too
long been the victim of media leaks
about which its executives seem-
ingly can do nothing. Think of all the
books and articles published in; the
past decade by former CIA officers
exposing the agency's dastardly
deeds in Vietnam, Africa, Latin
America, and in the United States
itself.
CIA usefulness, therefore. :1n
counterterrorist enterprises is mini-
mal. In the light of the Post story, can
you imagine CIA staff recruiting
problems as it seeks "secret"
operatives for future, if any, counter-
terrorist programs?
If President Reagan hopes to. sthp
state-sponsored terrorism, he Will
have to establish an entirely differ-
ent agency of government, one
whose existence, new assignment,
and composition will not be publicly
announced either in the Federal
Register or in The Washington Post.
I don't think the CIA can any
longer guarantee its own'security.
Does anyone think it can?
Perhaps the imaginative and
resourceful CIA Director William
Casey, who lives in an intelligence
world he never made, ought to be
assigned to run, let's call it SUB.
MAG, for "submerged agency." Let
him recruit his own handpicked
staff, responsible to him and to Pres-
ident Reagan alone, and not to the
unfortunate CIA "old boy" network
which ought to have been retired
four years ago. Things couldn't be
any worse. SUBMAG might be an
improvement.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440034-9