HELMS WANTS TO KNOW IF U.S. SPIED ON HIM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302320029-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: August 11, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302320029-4
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WASHINGTON TIMES
11 August 1986
Helms wants to know
if U.S. spied on him
\ By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sen. Jesse Helms has asked the
Justice Department to investigate
whether the CIA and National Secu-
rity Agency illegally spied on him
during his recent trip to Chile.
In an Aug. 5 letter to Attorney
General Edwin Meese III, Mr.
Helms, North Carolina Republican,
charged that the intelligence ser-
vices may have violated "executive
orders and legal restrictions" that
forbid surveillance of U.S. citizens
abroad.
"My concern lies with the possi-
bility that the CIA and other U.S.
intelligence organizations may be
unlawfully invading the vrivacv of
senators, including me," Mr. Helms
wrote. "... Accordingly, I request an
FBI investigation of the CIA and the
NSA to determine whether the
Helms delegation was under U.S.
electronic or physical surveillance
at anytime during its trip to Chile in
July 1986."
A Justice Department spokesman
confirmed that the letter had been
received, but declined further com-
ment.
The Helms' letter is the latest
salvo in the battle between the sen-
ator and several Reagan administra-
tion agencies.
The FBI said it was conducting a
"leak investigation" of Mr. Helms
and his staff following reports that
U.S. intelligence information was
passed illegally to the government of
Chile.
Christopher Manion, a Helms
aide on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, and another unidentifed
staff member are under suspicion in
the investigation, congressional
sources say.
Mr. Helms charged last week that
the State Department and the CIA
have engaged in a "smear cam-
paign" against him because of his
opposition to what he has described
as a Reagan administration cam-
paign to destabilize Chile's military
government.
He also accused Assistant Secre-
tary of State Elliott Abrams of sup-
plying false information to the Sen-
ate which led to the leak
investigation, a charge Mr. Abrams
denied.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveil-
lance Act of 1978 restricts spying on
Americans to. cases where there is
evidence of criminality. The law,
however, allows the NSA to intercept
communications between foreign
embassies and their governments.
but requires intelligence agencies to
limit spying on people not directly
under surveillance.
In addition, President Carter in
1978 issued an executive order re-
stricting agencies from spying on
Americans abroad, but a Reagan ad-
ministration directive in 1981 re-
portedly relaxed controls on over-
seas monitoring of Americans.
One application of the prohibition
occurred in 1978 when Carter ad-
ministration officials turned down a
CIA request to wiretap telephone
conversations in France of Ibrahim
Yazdi, at the time an aide to Iran's
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, ac-
cording to published reports. The re-
quest was denied because Mr. Yazdi
was an American citizen.
Mr. Helms charged in his letter
that recent press attacks against
him and his staff for allegedly leak-
ing classified information to the
Chilean government were "frivolous
and false."
"Yet some of the information ap-
pearing in the press claims to have
reference to conversations we had in
Chile, and subsequently, about mat-
ters which are in no way classified,"
Mr. Helms wrote.
A Helms staff aide said the dele-
gation held a 21/2-hour meeting with
Chilean Interior Minister Ricardo
Garcia Rodriguez July 9. Mr. Helms
spent about 50 minutes of the meet-
ing asking the Chilean leader to pro-
vide details on the case of American
permanent resident Rodrigo Rojas.
Mr. Rojas was burned to death in
Chile during anti-government pro-
tests in an incident now under inves-
tigation by the Chilean government.
Witnesses said men dressed as sol-
diers poured a liquid over him and
set him afire. Several members of
the Chilean military have been ar-
rested in connection with the inci-
dent.
The leak investigation of Mr.
Helms and his staff reportedly fo-
cuses on the compromise of a U.S.
agent in the Chilean military who
supplied an internal military report
on the burning death to the U.S. gov-
ernment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Helms asked Sen-
ate Majority Leader Robert Dole in
an Aug. 7 letter to be notified in ad-
vance of any Senate action on the
fiscal 1987 House and Senate Intelli-
gence Authorization bills in order to
give the senator time "to study both
measures in depth."
"I intend to offer a package of
amendments related to
strengthening counterintelligence,
competitive analysis, improvements
in verification by national technical
means, and protection of [intelli-
gence] sources and methods:'
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302320029-4