AN INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR BIRCH BAYH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100440017-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: January 9, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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X10 IV REPORTS, I NC.
701 'XI. LARD AVENUE, CHEW CHASE, MARYLAND 200;5 656-4068
The Today Show
WRC TV
NBC Network
100
January 9, ti 7:11 AM
An Interview with Senator Birch Bayh
Washington, D. C.
TOM BROKAW: It's 7:11 now. Lots of questions being
raised these days about United States' intelligence as a result
of what happened to us in Iran and in Afghanistan. Among other
things, the questions involve what we should be doing about
future intelligence activities, whether this is a good step
forward for the CIA now, whether people will begin once again
to take it more seriously.
Standing by in Washington with Bob Abernethy this
morning is Senator Birch Bayh. He's Chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee. And they are kind of overseers of
the CIA.
Gentlemen, good morning.
BOB ABERNETHY: Good morning, Tom. Welcome, Senator.
On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the
quality of the information we're now getting from Southwest
Asia?
SENATOR BIRCH BAYH: It depends on what kind of in-
formation. Some of it I'd rate 10-plus, and some of it much
lower.
ABERNETHY: Well, for instance, it's been reported
that the CIA estimated about 15,000 Soviet troops in a position
to invade Afghanistan. In fact, the invasion force turned out
to be around 50,000; now up to around 100,000. I don't know
whether that's true. But If It's true, how would you explain
that?
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SENATOR BAYH: Well first of all, I explain it by
saying I don't think I want to get into a position of trying
to degrade certain publications' news sources, but they better
take a look at sources. Because I had been briefed, members
of the Intelligence Committee had been briefed over a signifi-
cant period of time. We did know that the Soviets were massing
troops on the Afghan border. We've known that for some time.
I don't think anybody at the Pentagon or anybody at the State
Department was surprised about the size of the force. We knew
the force was there. We could be relatively sure of what was
there. We didn't know what was in the minds of the people as
to when and where they were going to use this force.
ABERNETHY: Knew the capacity, but didn't know the
SENATOR BAYH: That's accurate.
ABERNETHY: What about -- what about in Iran with
the students there in the Embassy? Is it realistic to think
that we should have know that they might be about to take
hostages at the Embassy?
SENATOR BAYH: I think we should have known that. I
think we have to look at the Iranian situation and distinguish
it from the Afghan situation. There was a policy decision made
back in the late '60s, early '70s when we decided that we were
g o i n g to base a l l of our influence, the whole ba l l game on the
Shah, that we were really going to denigrate our intelligence
collection efforts, that we weren't going to....
Take our information from him.
SENATOR BAYH: Yes. We weren't going to try to in-
filtrate the groups, because SAVAK would find out and we would
pique the Shah, and thus he would not....
ABERNETHY: But the Shah was overthrown last February.
Do you think we shou I d have known more than we knew about what
the students were going to do?
SENATOR BAYH: Well, it takes a while. Once you've
caught off a source of information and have refused to take
advantage of the capabilities that our intelligence collection
system has, it takes a good while to develop credible sources
again within a country.
ABERNETHY: Let me take you back to Afghanistan. The
Soviets set up a regime friendly to them there a year or more
ago. And since then there have been people opposed to that
regime.
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Can you say whether we have in any way been trying to
help them?
SENATOR BAYH: Well, I think I can say that when
significant numbers of people in Afghanistan were determined
to try to assert themselves and to try to have some say in
what kind of government Afghanistan should have and not have
it imposed on them by the Soviets, that we did take certain
steps to help them do what any group of citizens should be
able to do in a country.
ABERNETHY: A lot of people in Washington, as you
know, think that there's been a significant change here in the
last few....
SENATOR BAYH: I don't want to -- let's not double-
talk. I don't think you would expect me, or your viewers
wouldn't expect me to lay it all out.
SENATOR BAYH: And so I don't want it to look like
we're just double-talking.
ABERNETHY: Yes, but we're trying to get -- we're try-
ing to get some sense of your sense of what the reality is,
about what we know and what we can do.
SENATOR BAYH: Yes. Frankly, my own personal opinion
is that, you know, I don't like to see the Soviet Union sending
in troops. I don't like to see them installing puppets. And
whenever we can assist people to do the kinds of things that
people ought to have the right to do, frankly, I think we ought
to do that.
ABERNETHY: Okay. That gets precisely to the ques-
tion I wanted to ask you. I think a lot of people think
there's been a kind of change in this town in the last couple
of weeks, a greater willingness to use force. Does that ex-
tend, do you think, to a new willingness to approve secret
operations by the CIA?
SENATOR BAYH: Well, Bob, I think it's important
to understand that there is no law prohibiting secret opera-
tions. There has been a set of rules established first by
President Ford, and reinforced and strengthened by President
Carter, working with the intelligence committees of the Senate
and the House, in which if you're going to do this kind of
thing, you check it out with Congress. And that is what
has been done. And I think that's what should be done.
ABERNETHY: But are you satisfied that if it seemed
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in our national interest to try to mount some kind of secret
operation in Southwest Asia, that we have the capacity, the
ability to do so?
SENATOR BAYH: Yes, I think so. And certainly Con-
gress has not been a roadblock in that regard.
ABERNETHY: Tom has a question.
BROKAW: A question, couple of questions, Senator,
first of all about the basing of American spy planes in Egypt.
Is that a given fact now? We've been hearing reports out of
there about joint exercises, and so on? Do we expect to have
more American planes based in Egypt for over-flights of Afghan-
istan and so on?
SENATOR BAYH: Tom, I ' d rather not talk. about specific
bases. I think we have ample capacity to base our planes, to
collect the kind of information we need.
BROKAW: Do you think that the President has been
tough enough in his response to the Soviet invasion of Aghanistan?
BROKAW: What about the political effect of all of
this on Iowa next week? I know you keep a close ear to the
political rumblings around the country. What do you think the
effect of this will be on the President's drive for renomina-
tion, especially against your friend and Senate colleague,
Senator Kennedy?
SENATOR BAYH: Well, I have a couple of friends,
maybe three, running for President in Iowa. So please don't
get me involved in that. I think what the President did was
rather courageous, whether you agree with his posture or not.
And I have real concerns about the use of grain in the way it
was used. But that's been done. And we have to, it seems to
me, react in a way that's going to minimize, if not totally
relieve, the hardship on the farmers.
I don't know what impact that's going to have on Iowa.
One of the things that I'm concerned about is that a situation
like Afghanistan, particularly in the business that we're in-
volved in, the crazy business of collecting intelligence, I
think it's important for us to have good Intel I igence, to have
the best intelligence system it's possible for us to develop.
And we're good at it. Our people in the intelligence business
are experts. And I don't want to see that kind of thing drug
into the political arena. I don't think that's the kind of
thing -- who is elected, who is nominated, who wins in those
caucuses in Iowa -- is nearly as important to me as doing what
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we can to provide more resources and the right kind of resources
so that the President, whoever he might be, has an even better
intelligence system next year than he has now.
BROKAW: But if I can in the closing seconds here, Bob,
get back here to the grain situation, Senator Kennedy is opposed
to the grain embargo; President Carter is in favor of it. Where
do you stand, one side or the other?
SENATOR BAYH: I'm concerned about embargoes. I
want to see what kind of proof we have that the other grain
producing nations will cooperate with us. If they don't, they
can "backdoor" us to death.
ABERNETHY: One quick question, Senator. Are you
satisfied that if we wanted to send weapons some way, through
some way, through some channel to the people remaining, who
are fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, that we could so?
SENATOR BAYH: No question about it.
ABERNETHY: Thank you very much.
Tom?
BROKAW: That's the kind of answer we've been looking
for, at least in terms of length, for some time from Washington.
SENATOR BAYH: It's hard to get that kind from me.
BROKAW: Nineteen past the hour now.
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