THE MAULING OF THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100032-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: June 18, 1975
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100032-6
CHARLESTON EVENING POST
18 JUNE 1975 -
The Mauling Of The CIA
WASHINGTON - Is the CIA being
"McCarthy-ized" by the left, using-the
same tactics as those of the late Sen. Joe
McCarthy. who two decades ago all but
gutted the U.S. Foreign Service from the
far right?
This is the question increasingly asked
among Washington observers who today
see the CIA - not to mention the other
intelligence services such as code-break-
ing, National Security Agency NSA or
Defense. Intelligence Agency DIA -
being mauled by low blows, exposed for
exposure's sake and, as top officials of
all agencies privately admit, chilled into
cautious inactivity at a time when stakes
in the world game have never been
higher and the United States has never
been more exposed.
THE CRY OF McCARTHYISM from-
the left takes on special point as liberal-
left Democratic members of the House
Select Committee on Intelligence last
week sought to depose their chairman,
Rep. Lucien. Nedzi D -. Mich., himself a
respected liberal, for not having exposed
long-past CIA abuses to which he earlier
became privy as chairman of a House
Armed Services subcommittee on intel-.
ligence.
(McCarthyism: ? the political practice
of publicizing accusations of alleged
wrongdoing without regard to evidence,
in order to suppress opposition or institu-
tions.)
Nedzi, who ironically is regarded by
the CIA as a tough and uncompromising ABC show, Frank Sturgis, has never
congressional watchdog, now takes the been connected with the agency.
position; as he has often in the past; that
his function as head of the only standing `L IN ADDITION to widespread media
House of Representatives intelligence- and liberal or left-wing flak, the CIA has
oversight panel is to monitor and, where been suffering from serious internal
necessary, correct current performance bleeding ever since U.S. District Judge
by the CIA rather than muckrake long Albert V. BRYAN last year declined to
past abuses in no danger of being repeat- enforce the supposedly inviolable CIA
ed. secrecy oath against ex-special assistant
But the attempt to purge Nedzi - to the Director of CIA, Victor Marchetti,
incidentally to defenestrate yet another whose sensational book, "The Cult of
Democratic committee chairman - is Intelligence", was published, showing in
only one battle in what the intelligence boldface more than 200 highly classified
services and their "consumers" in the disclosures the CIA had gone to court to
White House, State and Defense increas- prevent.
ingly perceive as a witchhunt intended One piece of good news for the agency
by merciless exposure to immobilize if came last month when the Supreme
not cripple the government's "third Court, by an 8-1 vote, sustained the D.C..;
arm" in the conduct of relations with Circuit Court of Appeals in its
what the Supreme Court once called "the sharp reversal of Judge Bryan's crip-
vast external realm abroad." pling anti-CIA decision, with the result
THE FORCES aligned'against the CIA that agency judgments on disclosure of
a loose coalition of the doctri- secrets are once again binding and en-
comprise naire left, anti-establishmentarian poli- forceable.
ex-
ticians and writers, segments of the Even worse' this another recent an the Marchetti book,
pose media, disgruntled or publicity-seeking 1 "Inside the Company; CIA Diary", ub
CIA alumni, and - no doubt =- deep in lished in England by Phillip Agee, the
the shadows, CIA's implacable rival, one ex-CIA agent whom senior officials
Russia's Committee on State Security, ? will.expressly characterize as a defec-
better known as the KGB. tor.
Expressing doubt, however, that any
central anti-CIA conspiracy exists, or
that the elite agency's ordeal results
from KGB manipulation, Director of
Central Intelligence William Colby told a
reporter, "The KGB would have to run
to keep up with developments happening
now.,,
Conspiracy or not, however, ever since
New York Times reporter Seymour
Hersh last December charged and
failed to establish - that there was
"massive and "illegal" CIA "spying"
on more than 10,000 Americans, the
agency has come under a drumfire of
accusation and, worse from the CIA
standpoint, unsparing and reckless expo- j
sure of hitherto closely guarded national
secrets.
Besides The Times' anti-CIA crusade, !
which in turn sparked high-level, high-
visibility investigations by the White!
House chaired by Vice President Nelson!
Rockefeller and probes by both housesi
of Cnneress. the avenev wac aivan a1
rough ride on May 30 in a 60-minute ABC-
TV special "Close-Up: the CIA", which
some viewers found to be an intelligence
version of the mauling handedAhe
Armed Services in CBS - TV's bitterly
controversial "Selling of the Pentagon."
"Bill Colby should get equal time to
reply from ABC after that one," said one
retired CIA executive, who pointed out;
what the agency has since officially
placed on record, that one of the princi-
Agee, who admits in his book his
relationship with the Cuban Communist
Party, is known to have made at least
five trips to Cuba under official sponsor-
ship. He is scheduled to conduct a brief-,
ing here. in Washington this week under;
the aegis of Rep. Ronald Dellums, D:
Cal., who has invited fellow members of
the House of Representatives to attend
and who is one of the House Intelligence
Committee members seeking to depose
Rep. Nedzi as chairman.
BESIDES the high-visibility charges'
leveled at the CIA of having planned
assassinations, of undermining govern-
ments in Chile and elsewhere, of con-1
ducting "massive" domestic espionage,
and of exploiting other government agen-
cies for intelligence cover, the intense,
investigative focus on every aspect of
U.S. intelligence operations is unavoida-
bly disclosing a mass of less conspicuous
information, which is nonetheless of en-
ormous aggregate value to the crosstown
rival team in Moscow.
But the worst danger in this congres-
sional and media exposure, as seen by,
director Colby, is the chill it inevitably !
places in hitherto fruitful and top-secret
relationships between the CIA and other,
friendly foreign intelligence services.I
"Will you be passing our stuff over to
Congress?" is the .most insistent and
concerned question Colby says he gets
from abroad.
It is still impossible to assess the full
damage to the CIA's- usefulness likely to;
Colby, who says he has to be an
optimist to hold his present job, points j
out, surprisingly, that CIA job-applica-
tions - of good quality, he says - are
up. Where less than a thousand initial
applications could have been expected'
last January, the month after the initial
Hersh attacks in the New York Times,
the CIA actually got1,700.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100032-6
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418ROO0100100032-6
Not anything like 1,700 will be hired,
especially with appropriations getting,
tighter and tighter. The agency, reportedi
to have some 15,000 employes and an!
annual budget of about $750 million, has
in fact been losing money, in terms "of
constant, non-inflated dollars, ever since
1969, even though - as in the case of the
defense budget - dollar amounts have
risen each year.
MOST OF THE MONEY, according to
Colby, goes into big technical systems'
.presumably, though he did not mention
it, like the SS Glomar Explorer, which is
credited with raising parts of a Russian
nuclear submarine from the Pacific
floor, and into hiring top-quality people.
No little expenditure, he adds, goes into
academic-type research and analysis by
top experts of vast amounts of open-
source unclassified information readily
obtainable.
But Mr. Colby makes no effort to
minimize concern over what has been
happening to the CIA in the past month's
torrent of exposure. "The agency," he
said, "should be like a pail - open only
at the top. If there's a leak or a hole in
the bottom, you end up with no water and
no pail."
t,0
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418ROO0100100032-6