THE CIA PRESS: HOW THE CIA ZAPPED TRUMAN
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K
Document Page Count:
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Document Creation Date:
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Document Release Date:
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Sequence Number:
24
Case Number:
Publication Date:
August 8, 1980
Content Type:
REPORT
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r
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August 8, 1980
STAT
THE CIA "PRESS": HOW THE CIA ZAPPED TRUMAN
by John Kelly
STAT
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...we are a service-oriented board, we aHre Hetu
Former CIA careerist Ray Cline once told Congress
that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was "only
an amendment." At the time, Cline did not elaborate.
CIA testimony has now elucidated Cline's cryptic remark.
Quite apparently, the CIA operates as if the First Amendment
did not exist and acts against U.S. citizens according to
this belief.
On March 6, 1980, Herbert E. Hetu, Director of the
Office of Public Affairs and Chairperson, Publication
Review Board of the CIA, testified before the House Perma-
nent Select Committee on Intelligence. Accompanying Hetu,
and also testifying, were Charles Wilson, Ernest Mayerf eld,
John Peyton, L. Cole Black, and Marlene Bozan, all CIA
employees.
Hetu stated that in June 1976 the CIA established
"the Publications Review Board (PRB) and laid out the duties
of that board, the membership, and the means by which they
would clear manuscripts, I mean, review manuscripts. We do
not clear manuscripts. Hetu and the others then proceeded
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to describe a censoring and clearing process, even slip-
ping into using the word, "cleared."
For CIA employees, the CIA's First Amendment policy
is cut and dry. The CIA imposes "reasonable restrictions
on employee activities that in other contexts might be
"
protected by the First Amendment. Of course, the CIA
determines what is are "reasonable restrictions." One
is reminded here of the illustration of the Constitution
stamped with:
"VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW."
Representative Eawaru 8uiatiu. --~-
all former employees to provide material for review with
equal diligence?"
Herbert Hetu: "yes, sir...."
Former CIA employees are required to submit their
writings to the PRB ostensibly to prevent the publication
of classified material. This questionable but reasonable-
sounding stricture is exposed for what it is by the ex-
emption of some former employees. CIA testimony revealed
that the spy novels of E. Howard Hunt, the newspaper
columns of Thomas Braden and Cord Meyer, some of Miles
Copeland's books, and the lectures of Lyman Kirkpatrick
were not being reviewed by the PRB. As Mayerfeld put
It is obvious that we have grtter
concern about people like Snepp...
We have less concern that Mr. Meyer
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would deliberately reveal of a secret
or would deliberately do harm.
When Hetu was asked why certain former CIA employees
were not reviewed, he simply said, "I don't know the
answer to that."
Former CIA officer, Frank Snepp is the author
of the book, Decent Interval which the CIA had the Justice
Department take to the Supreme Court solely because
Snepp did not submit his manuscript to the PRB for prior
review. In court, the Justice attorneys did not argue
that Decent Interval contained classified information.
As the following dialogue shows, the CIA operates
under the conviction that material not reviewed by
PRB, by that fact alone, threatens national security.
Mr. Aspin: I guess why I am puzzled
is that you are saying that
it is the act of publishing
without being reviewed that
is detrimental?
Mr. Mayerf eld: Precisely that.
Mr. Aspin: But it is not the material
that could be detrimental.
Mr. Mayerf eld: Only if it is classified
would it be detrimental to
the national security.
Mr. Aspin: Let me ask about another
part of the Supreme Court
decision. That is the
part on page 5 whe:'6. it
says both the District
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Court of Appeals found that a
former intelligence agent's
publication of unreviewed
material relating to intelli-
gence activities can be detri-
mental to vital national
interests, even if the published
information is unclassified.
What is your view of that?
Mr. Mayerf eld: Oh, I most emphati-
cally agree with that statement.
That, indeed, is the whole
point of the~Snepp case, and I
think Director Turner, in the
course of the trial, testified
to this eloquently.... it
doesn't matter whether there is
anything in there or not which
in fact hurts,..."
Despite this testimony, Mayerf eld contended that:
...the Marchetti case, which remains
the law on this issue, remains quite
clear, that we can only delete or
prevent the publication of classified
material.
And, what, according to Mayerf eld, is a classi-
It has got to have a stamp on it,
it has got to be dated, and the identity
of the classifier has got to be dis-
closed.
In short, Mayerf eld said that based on the Marchetti
decision the PRB could prevent the publication of only
classified material.
"But it is in his head. We can't classify his head."
Herbert Hetu
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But, wait. Hetu brought up the following hypotheti-
cal situation.
,..you might have an author who is a
former intelligence officer, case
officer, say, in the case of Cord
Meyer who, for the first time ever,
writes about an operation. It is
no place written down, it has never
been classified per se. He is the
first one ever to put it down in a
manuscript, and it is in his book....
And what, according to Hetu, happens to this un-
classified material? Quite simply, it "becomes classi-
fiable."
Committee Chief Counsel, Michael J. O'Neil pro-
tested: "But Marchetti suggested you cannot excise that
material."
"No," retorted Mayerf eld, "I am not sure that is
correct."
"Is the contention that it could then be classi-
field and therefore made the subject of strictures under
the agreement?" asked O'Neil.
"Yes, indeed," responded Mayerf eld.
Well, how can this be? Quite simply, according
to Mayerf eld,
...the Fourth Circuit when it said
those words in the Marchetti case,
did not perceive the problems that
you perceive right now. It said
"
"classified" and meant "clas_ yfiable.
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In addition to being able to read the minds of
judges, Mayerf eld proferred the following consolation.
There aren't many questions about this,
and that is one reason why John Peyton
is on this board because he knows
what the courts will permit to claim,
or where the courts will uphold our
claim of classification. There is not
much gray area there.
Hence, the PRB believes it can prevent publication
of classified and classifiable material. Still, Hetu
...we consider ourselves negotiators.
We often sit down with authors and
work out the differences. In other
words, it is not an arbitrary, cold-
blooded process.
And, what about whether or not something is properly
classified? Well, according to Charles Wilson:
... it would be incorrect to assume
that we are negotiating the classifi-
cation of the proposed deletion. This
is not debatable.
CIA's testimony also brought out that the entire
review, if you will, including appeals, occurred within
the CIA with the CIA's Inspector General representing
both the author and the CIA during an appeal. Wilson,
an attorney, called this procedure "impartial" while
proffering the following piece of self-congratulatory
puff.
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I know that you would say, perhaps,
that the Inspector General within the
CIA, is a CIA mechanism and there-
fore is tainted. However, as far
as the rest of us within CIA who
are not within the IG component are
concerned, it is impartial and in
a position to look at both sides
of the issue and go into it in some
depth, which was done in this one
instance. It was an excellent piece
of staff work in my opinion on the
part of our IG who forwarded a very
fair set of documents to the Deputy
Director for his final decision on
that, and in this case, there were
three items at issue, and the Deputy
Director upheld the decision of the
PRB on all three of those...."
In addition to its self-proclaimed impartiality,
Mayerf eld claimed that:
..it would be our contention--and I
think the courts have really supported
us on that, that it is the people who
classify the information, the people who
own the information (my emphasis) are
in the best position to make a determi-
nation whether or not anything is
classified.
Owned information is the literal antithesis of free
speech. The concept of owned information has not been
generally upheld or supported by the courts. If the CIA
owns information, then any persons who obtain this infor-
mation, whether or not they publish, could technically
be prosecuted for stealing property. But then, the
First Amendment is "only an amendment." Besides, W/ there
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is the comfort of Wilson that one "can write the article
or make the speech at his possible peril."
Mr. Aspin: "...How about suing Bill Colby for
the proceedings from the French edition!"
Mr. Wilson: "We could not sue him on the same
grounds as Snepp, in my opinion..."
At the hearing, Hetu also put forth the consolation
Indeed, in 6-2, Admiral Turner insisted
that the one line be put in there that
says approval will not be denied solely
(partially?) because the subject matter
may be embarrassing to or critical of
the Agency. That was one of the refine-
ments in the regulation, and that is
assiduously followed.
While this may or may not be true with regard to
present and past CIA employees, it is not true for the
general public. What the hearings did not mention was
that the CIA tries to "review" all publications by anyone
about the CIA. Not only does the CIA review; it also takes
action against its critics ranging from bad-mouthing to
attempts to neutralize, retract, or discredit a given
publication. This operation is seen in the following
narration about an article entitled, "Limit CIA Role
to Intelligence" published in The Wash_ igton Poston
December 21, 1963 by former President Harry S. Truman.
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This article contained nothing even resembling classified
information and, of course, Truman had never been an
employee of the CIA. The article was, however, critical,
so the CIA went into action--after all, the First Amend-
ment is "only an amendment."
on January 7, 1964, Dulles wrote Truman a thank-
you note for his "kind comments" about The Craft of
Intelligence.
Dulles used this occasion to immediately light into
Truman by saying "...I was deeply disturbed by the con-
cluding paragraphs of your article."
Then, after agreeing that the CIA's "primary mission"
should be intelligence, Dulles disagreed with:
what you say about CIA being injected
into peacetime cloak and dagger opera-
tions and your admonition that CIA should
terminate its operational duties'...
also I differ with your comment that CIA
has become 'at times a policy-making arm
of the government.'
(A few weeks earlier, Dulles had intervened with Repre-
sentative John V. Linday (D-N.Y.) to stop a pending
Congressional resolution. )
Dulles then tells Truman why he should not be
calling for the termination of the CIA's peacetime
cloak and dagger operations. It is not because his
call is based on an inaccurate assessment. It is because:
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...you (Dulles' underline), through
National Security Council action,
approved the organization within CIA
of a new office to carry out covert opera-
tions directed against secret communist
subversion.
Dulles then claims, without substantiation, that
"communist subversion" in the form of "wars of libera-
tion" still necessitates CIA's covert operations.
Still, Dulles' primary reason for opposing Truman's
call is that Truman started covert operations. Truman
was not wrong. Simply because he had been involved,
Truman should not be criticizing the CIA. That Dulles
was reacting strongly was seen in the filing of his
correspondences and Truman's article with the CIA under
its "CIA Attacks File." Dulles defined as a CIA attack an
article by the man Dulles called the "father" of the
CIA.
Dulles followed his ad hominem rebuttal with a
disturbing rebuttal indicating, at best, his incomprehension
of democracy.
I do not believe these operations
as your article suggests, present any
danger to our free institution so long
as they are subject to high policy
guidance.
In the United States, the government is suppose to
be run with the consent of the governeca _not secretly by a
few so-called high officials. Moreover, the CIA has
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conducted some of its most reprehensible operations,
such as its war in Laos, when it was most subject to high
policy guidance.
It may be argued that Dulles implied to Truman that
he was abetting communism since,
Throughout this period the Soviets
havee 1eavored by every form of
attack (my emphasis) to drive us
out of the business of countering their
subversive operations.
But, even if Truman's CIA recommendations would not
aid the Soviet Union, they would, of course, according to
Dulles, "seriously prejudice our national security."
As with the CIA's PRB, the criterion for censor-
ship is national security as defined by them.
Dulles' concludes his letter by saying he would
like to visit Truman to reveal "highly secret." details
which he could not mention in "open mail." The implica-
tion was that these "highly secret" details would con-
vince Truman of his errors.
"You guys are going to have one hell of a budget.
It means that every time anybody who is a former CIA employee
writes anything, a column or makes a speech or anywhere
mentions the word 'intelligence' or CI'.-, he is going to
have to submit that to you for review."
Representative Les Aspin
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There is no indication that Truman responded to
Dulles' letter or request for a personal visit. Dulles'
however, was not to be deterred. He telegrammed Truman
on April 13, 1964, to request a visit. Truman's secretary
called back to grant the request.
Before sending his telegram, Dulles had been in con-
tact with CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston and had ob-
tained a "working memorandum" from Cord Meyer to use in his
visit with Truman. Cord Meyer, among other things, oversaw
the CIA's censorship of the press. He personally attempted
to prevent publiciation of the book, The Politics of Heroin
in southeast Asia by Al McCoy. Although the book was pub-
lished unchanged, Meyer did manage to get Harper and Row to
give the CIA a pre-publication copy of the manuscript for
censoring. Harper and Row did so after a letter from CIA
General Counsel Lawrence Houston, which stated, in part,
that
...I find it difficult to believe...that
a responsible publisher would wish to be
associated with an attack on our government
involving the vicious international drug
traffic without at least trying to as-
certain the facts.
Meyer had also attempted to censor an up-coming article
by his former CIA partner, Thomas Braden. In this attempt,
Meyer tried to solicit Dulles' assistar^=e, by sending him an
advance copy of the article and noting that:
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I think Tom meant well but obviously it
is going to be very damaging. I really
can't understand why he did it.
Despite this assessment, the CIA did not have Braden
taken to court before or after publication.
The bizarre element of this CIA intervention was
that Braden's article was directed at neutralizing the
effects of the recent CIA exposes. As Braden told the
New York TiMe&;
It seemed to me that it was time to put
the record straight and that's why I
wrote what I did....
I think it is important to answer out-
rageous charges against the CIA.. even
if the publicity makes the agency un-
comf ortable.
CIA censorship knows no rhyme or reason which makes
it all the more dangerous.
I don't see how an independent and, if you will,
an impartial body can make a determination
as to whether a piece of CIA information re-
quires protection under the Executive Order.
Ernest Mayerfeld
Regarding the Meyer memo, which listed covert opera-
tions under Truman, Dulles later told Houston that:
did not suggest to Mr. Truman that it was other than a
working memorandum .L (my emphasis) had ,-: epared." Apparently,
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the CIA lies to, and does not trust, even former presidents.
Indeed, when Truman asked to keep the Meyer memo, Dulles
"said that this had several items that he might not wish
to keep, including the last page, which I eliminated from
the memorandum..." Dulles then told Truman to mark the
document "secret" and "asked him to destroy it and not
add it to his files..." Not satisfied, Dulles told Houston
that, "Later I spoke to his personal secretary, Miss Rose
Conway and told her to keep her eye on the memorandum and to
see that it was in absolutely safe hands until it was
destroyed."
Houston had also been in contact with CIA Director,
John McCone regarding the matter and had given Dulles a
copy of a memo he had written to McCone.
Given McCone's involvement, it seems accurate to say
that Dulles was carrying out a CIA assignment particularly
in light of Dulles' following retirement statement.
At the request of the president and of Mr.
John A. McCone, I will make myself avail-
able as a consultant to my successor as he
may wish."
For his trip to Truman, Dulles "motored" from Kansas
City to Independence with several current CIA officers in-
cluding Mr. H. A. Mountain whom he introduced to Truman.
Shortly after his visit, Dulles sent a our page memo to
or
Houston detailing his version of the visit. Footnoted to
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Dulles' memo was that one copy of the memo was sent to the
"Truman file"--presumably indicating that, for exercising
his freedom of speech, the CIA had secretly opened a file
on a former president and the very man who had created the
CIA.
These and other factors, warrant saying that Truman
had become a CIA target. This, despite his referring to Dulles
and McCone in the Eos article as "men of the highest
character, patriotism and integrity.... 11
According to his report of the visit, Dulles first
buttered up Truman by telling him "he was one of my heroes...."
Dulles was apparently a bit put off, however, because
"...I found Mr. Truman more quick and alert than I had been
given to believe he would be." (Dulles did not mention who
gave him this assessment.)
persevering, Dulles made the same point as his letter
of January 7, 1967, viz., Truman had created covert operations.
He then pulled out a copy of the Post article "which I
suggested seemed to me to be a misrepresentation of his
position." After looking at the article, Truman, according
to Dulles, was "astounded," "highly disturbed," said this was
"all wrong" and "several times said he would see what he could
do about it."
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One has to wonder here about Dulles' report. it
is difficult to believe Truman would be astounded, highly
disturbed, and call all wrong his own article which had
been widely published some four months earlier. If Truman
had considered it all wrong, why had he published it, and
why had he not already done something about it? Even Dulles
brings into question this part of his report since he
concludes, "It is even possible, maybe probable, that he
(Truman) will do nothing when he thinks it over." (This
is some analysis of one's hero.)
The subsequent facts also question Dulles' description
of Truman's reactions since Truman did nothing about the
article. He did not even have published a letter-to-the
editor. Even if Truman had been "induced" by someone else
--which Dulles, without substantiation, asserted was the
case--, it is difficult to believe he would not have taken
some action about something highly disturbing and all wrong.
Dulles ended his report urging continued CIA pressure
on Truman through his "old friend Clark Clifford"; a birth-
day message from McCone "referring to President Truman in
connection with the organization of the CIA;" and "possibly
in other ways."
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Ten years later the CIA was still following up the
Truman article even though both he and Dulles were dead.
As the CIA then saw the article:
The starter's flag had been dropped, and
the contestants raced into the field....
it was open season on CIA over the 1963
year-end holidays, and for more than nine
years since then the article in question
has been stock-in-trade for writers of
books and articles attacking (my emphasis)
CIA,..."
To hear only the CIA, one would not realize that
the article had no reforming effect on the agency and
not a single one of Truman's recommendations came close
to being effected. On the contrary, since Truman's
article, the CIA escalated one of its biggest covert
operations, the secret war in Laos.
Like Dulles, the CIA, ten years later, asserted
that Truman, "the source for these attacks" should not
have written the article since he had initiated covert
operations. Also like Dulles, the CIA did not question
the accuracy of Truman's assertions or the validity of
his recommendations.
The CIA then proferred the following.
Had Truman written the statement? It
developed he had not (CIA emphasis),
but as the Germans say "Lies have long
legs," and by the time a denial could
have been obtained, the imph::'t of the
original statement was so widespread
that a denial never would have caught
up with it.
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We are suppose to believe that the CIA, with its
own long legs in the media, decided not to respond to Truman's
"attack" even after determining that someone else had written
the article.
The truth of the matter was that the CIA could not
justifiably denounce Truman' s article as a lie because Truman
believed what it said whether or not it was written by him.
This became apparent during a CIA follow-up six weeks after
Dulles' visit. Lt. General Marshal S. (Pat) Carter Deputy
Director of Current Intelligence and his executive assistant,
Enno 11. Knoche were at Truman's house ostensibly to provide
him with his regular briefing as a former president. Accord-
ing to a Knoche memo, prior to the briefing, Truman's assis-
tant, David Noyes "admitted quite freely the authorship of the
Truman article on the CIA which was published on 22 December
)963..." Knoche then speculated that:
It is highly doubtful whether President
Truman ever saw the article prior to its
publication, as he was already beginning to
age considerably at that time. (Six weeks
earlier, Dulles had found Truman "quick
and alert.")
At the briefing, Carter again reminded Truman that he
had initiated covert operations. According to Knoche:
Truman broke in on the General's statement
to say yes, he knew all that, it was im-
portant work, and he would order it to be
done again under the same circu.-tances. v
He went on to add, however, that he had
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set up the CIA to pull together basic
information required by the presidency
but which had been denied to him by State
and Pentagon handling procedures. He
said this was the main purpose.
"General Carter dropped the subject at that point, and
went on with the briefing," according to the CIA. Thus, there
was no denial to catch up with a lie that did not exist.
And, the only one with long legs was the CIA which ten
years later was still reviewing Truman's article.
it is clear from the Truman episode that the CIA is
not just "going after" its past and present employees. The
or
oing after" any and all critics despite Ernest Mayfeld's
CIA 1 g
testimony that the CIA considers "as an important First Amend-
ment right which ought not to be abridged, the right to
criticize one's government." If a former president of the
United States is not free to criticize the CIA, who is?
The past two years have also made clear that the CIA is
escalating its assault on the First Amendment. Ernest Magerfeld
testified that while the CIA was "happy" with being awarded
it does not believe civil
the royalties from Decent Ir~tPrv ,
damages are an adequate "deterrent." "The reason why we
brought this litigation was to get an effective deterrent,"
said Mayerfeld. CWhat happened to protecting national security?)
And, some people who simply want "to hurt us" Cthe CIA that
is, not necessarily national securityk, Loaned -Mayerfeld,
are not deterred by fiduciary damages. Therefore, the CIA
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is "seeking....legislation to criminalize the publication."
In its "seeking," the CIA, which is forbidden by law
to make policy, wrote a bill for Senator Patrick Moynihan
which authorized prison sentences for anyone publishing cer-
tain, classified and unclassified, information about the
CIA. Even the Department of Justice, which has-always looked
the other way with respect to CIA crimes, gagged at this bill
and testified that it was probably unconstitutional. Tom
Wicker of The New York Times summarized this and other CIA-
instigated bills as "a quasi-Official Secrets Acts that
would surely have been used against the press as well as
'leakers' of secrets."
The CIA's assault on the First Amendment exposes its am-
bition to be an invisible government. This, in turn, speaks
to the CIA's destabilization of democracy at home. For as
a founder of our country, James Madison, wrote:
A people who mean to be their own governors
must arm themselves with the power knowledge
gives. A popular government without popular
information or the means of acquiring it is
but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or
perhaps both.
Democracy in the United States is a farce and non-existent
unless it rests upon the most basic principle of the Declaration
of Independence, "consent of the governed." And, consent
or lack of consent does not exist unless the governed know to
what they are consenting. Thus, when the-CIA resumes its
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assault on the First Amendment, it is crucial to democracy at
home that Congress and the people not only resist but also open
up the CIA as jimmy Carter swore he would do.
To Congress, I would repeat the urging of the late
Senator Wayne Morse in 1956 long before many of the CIA's crimes
were known..
... it is long overdue thatthe Congress
of the United States should assume its clear
responsibility in this matter. We should
proceed, without hesitation, to give the
people of the country a service they are
entitled to have from us,...thus bringing
the CIA under the surveillance of the
Congress, and putting an end to this type
of government by secrecy on the part of the
president of the United States.
To my fellow Americans, I would also quote the
urgings and warnings of Senator Morse.
When the President of the United States
says that the matter of the CIA is tooshows
sensitive for Congress to take up, have
the American people what many of
long known, namely, his lack of understanding
and appreciation of the legislation process
of the Government, and the check and balance
system of the Constitution.... It is about
time the American people made that clear
to the President.... dangerous shoals lie
ahead, shoals which can easily wreck our
whole ship of freedom which has been built
up under our great Constitution.... It can
happen in America, if we do not stand on
guard in relation to the principle of checks
and balances under the Constitution.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/15: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100120024-8