GOVERNMENT SECRETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640036-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: December 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640036-9
^^-lrl.EAPNtA1( CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
ONPAGE_ 24 December 1985
LIGHTLY
Government secrets
By Guernsey Le Pelley
S PY has become a household word. At the rate spies
are being nabbed, one out of every seven
Americans must be selling government secrets.
On a recent bus ride I made it a point to study my fel-
low passengers. I was horrified to discover that practi-
cally all of them looked like spies. I suppose you can't tell
a `lpr by his looks. If spies looked like spies they would
get caught sooner, instead of running around loose for 20
years.
I decided that the sinister, foreign-looking types
around me, with thick eyebrows, were all probably inno-
cent. Either that or various nations hire them to flood the
streets as decoys. No, the real spy would turn out to be
the sweet, bespectacled, white haired lady with the enor-
mous knitting bag.
And the spies are all such nice family types. It makes
me wonder about organizations such as the PTA and
HARP. When a mild-mannered man approached me on
the street and asked where the US Coast Guard station
was, I didn't want to tell him. What would a mild-man-
nered man with rimless glasses, who looked like a
vacuum cleaner salesman, want with the location of the
Coast Guard? When he explained he owned a power boat
and wanted to join the Coast Guard Ausiliary I realized I
was being too cautious.
One thing that worried me was a remark made by
President Reagan early in December. He emphatically
said that the United States "will not hesitate to root out
and prosecute the spies of any nation." Any nation? Now
that gave me a creepy feeling. It sounded as if hitherto we
have been allowing some nations to spy on us as a ges-
ture of goodwill. Or maybe the US feels it is in bad taste
to nab friendly-nation-type-spies. At any rate, friendly
nations seem to have an easier time of it.
Back in the days of Mata Hari nobody fooled around.
If a person got caught spying he got shot; after all, he was
clearly in the business of shooting you. Shooting spies is
now considered to be in very bad taste.
Today, spying has become more a case for the social
worker than the FBI or the Federal Courts. If a person
feels he has been mistreated by society this seems to
present some justification for selling classified docu-
ments to the enemy for large sums of money. Or at least
for enough to buy a new car.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640036-9