LETTER TO HOWARD H. BAKER FROM W.E. COLBY RE CONGRESSMAN NEDZI'S COMMENTS IN THE WASHINGTON POST

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 01474404
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: August 7, 2017
• Case Number: F-2007-00094
• Publication Date: February 23, 1974

Approved for Release: 2017/01/18 C01474404
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20505
(b)(3)
23 February 1974
Honorable Howard H. Baker
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Baker:
In your letter, of February 22 you refer to Congressman
Nedzi's comments in the Washington Post of February 22. I
believe that Mr. Nedzi refers there to the same records and
information which we have provided to you, plus the
extensive hearings he conducted on this overall subject,
with one supplementary item. You will recall that I showed
you our log of the room tapes with some hand written notes
of our initial ideas as to who the "guests" mentioned therein
might be. When I showed you these we were in the course of
trying to reconstruct who these guests might be from old
calendars, notes, etc. After I showed this initial effort
to you, we continued this process and produced what we think
is the best account we can reconstruct in this way. We
showed this final version to Mr. Nedzi and I would be quite
happy to show it to you. The main point is that it contains
no additional names which relate to "Watergate". Most of the
names are either foreign intelligence officials or individuals
within the United States Government or private individuals
concerned with foreign intelligence matters or other CIA
business.
The fact of CIA's relationship with some of the foreign
intelligence personalities is quite sensitive from their point
of view, so I would not like this reconstructed log to leave
our hands, but as I said above I would be happy to show it
to you on a classified basis at any time you would desire.
I think you will find that it does not contribute anything
significant to your investigation.
Sincerely,
E. Colby
Director
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Approved for Release: 2017/01/18 C01474404
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20505
23 February 1974
Honorable Howard H. Baker
United States Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Dear Senator Baker:
In your letter of February 22 you referred to the fact
that I reported to you that Mr. Woodward of the Washington
Post apparently had a copy of Mr. Thompson's memorandum to
you. N\
Your understanding understanding of my comments is accurate. Mr.
Bernstein of the Post early on February 21 called to ask me
some questions. I was not able to reply to his call until
later in the afternoon, when I was told that Mr. Woodward was
handling his calls. I thus spoke to Mr. Woodward who
indicated that he had a copy of Mr. Thompson's memorandum and
proceeded to interrogate me on it, with copious quotes of its
language. Since I had a copy of it, thanks to your letter,
I am sure that he was actually reading from a copy of it. He
made no reference to your covering letter to me, which caused
me to surmise that he did not have a copy of that. I have
no idea of how Mr. Woodward might have obtained a copy of the
memorandum.
I did not inform Mr. Woodward that I also had a copy of
the Thompson memorandum but I'did indicate familiarity with
the questions he was asking, stating that you had been in
contact with me about a number of matters including these.
My explanation was that you had posed a number of questions
in your continuing investigation, that we were answering them
and that I did not see any issue between us. I did refer
to the fact that I have certain inhibitions on how much of our
sensitive material I could allow to leave the Agency's control
but said that I have every intention to display to you any-
thing we have in any way relating to your Committee's
investigation.
Sincerely,
W. E. Colby
Director
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Approved for Release: 2017/01/18 C01474404
� SAM J. ERVIN, JR., N.C., CHAIRI.
rIOWARD H. BAKER, JR., TENN. VICE C AN
HERMAN E. TALMADGE, GA. EDWARD J. GURNEY. FLA.
DANIEL K. INOUYE, HAWAII LOWELL P. WEICKER, JR., CONN.
JOSEPH M. MFINTOYA, N. MEX.
SAMUEL DASH
CHIEF COUNSEL AND STAFF DIRECTOR
FRED D. THOMPSON
MINORITY COUNSEL
RUFUS L. EDMISTEN
DEPUTY COUNSEL
February 22, 1974
Honorable William E. Colby
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D. C. 20505
Dear Bill:
9,1Cnifeb ZiEctifez Zenafe
SMXOTCOMMITTEEON
PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ACTIVITIES
(PURSUANT TO S. RES. 60, 03D CONGRESS)
WASHINGTON. D.C. 20510
A February 22 issue of The Washington Post carries a story by
Laurence Stern quoting Representative Lucien Nedzi as concluding
that no Watergate-related or presidential conversations were
destroyed by the CIA in a "major house-cleaning of tape record-
ings in January, 1973."
Nedzi is quoted as basing his judgment on a voluminous report,
including logs, notes and memoranda, delivered to him yesterday
by the CIA.
Of course you have very kindly supplied me with certain records
of room tapes, telephone tapes, appointment records, and so
forth. In some cases the parties to the conversations are
identified; in many they are not. In no case, as I recall,
is the subject matter identified.
Are the records to which Nedzi referred in the Post the same
records which you supplied to me? Has Nedzi been supplied with
records beyond those? If so, I respectfully request them as
soon as possible.
If there is
interviews,
destruction
like--which
White House
as well.
any other information beyond records--for instance,
oral conversations and the like relating to the
of tapes, transcripts of tapes, memoranda or the
might have to do with Watergate personalities or
conversations relating to Watergate, I want that
I appreciate your cooperation and I
from you. k -
3
Yours very truly,
look forward to hearing
HHBJr:d1
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