OS - AGENCY RESPONSE TO SENATOR HELMS

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06619068
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: February 6, 2020
• Case Number: F-2013-01784
• Publication Date: February 26, 1990

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CLASSIFY AS APPROP
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MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
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DRV BY
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( 40)
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Senator David L. Boren, Chairman
Senator William S. Cohen, Vice Chairman
Select Committee on Intelligence
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510-6475
Dear Senators Boren and Cohen:
In response to your letter of January 16, 1990, I have
addressed the issues raised by Senator Helms in his letter to
you dated October 18, 1989.
Regarding the likelihood that CIA and the State Department
have been penetrated by Soviet or other hostile intelligence
services, regardless of the results of any competitive analysis,
and even in the absence of clear evidence to suggest it, we must
assume that to be the case. The issue of penetration of CIA in
general, absent specific indicators on which to base a particu-
lar investigation, is handled via reinvestigations of employees
periodically throughout their career and via other vetting pro-
cedures which include routine use of the polygraph tailored to -
counterintelligence issues as exemplified in the case of Sharon
Scranage. More classic investigation occurs on a case-by-case
basis, as you correctly note, and requires that there be some
specific indicator that a compromise has taken place so that
analysis might begin to determine its source. Since espionage
is a clandestine activity intended not to be discovered, and
since constitutional provisions prohibit monitoring the
activities of American citizens who are not already of counter-
intelligence concern for some reason, the majority of leads to
perpetrators of espionage come to our attention from defectors
such as Yurchenko, sensitive sources still working in place,
friendly foreign intelligence services with similar sources or
as by-products of operations abroad directed against hostile
intelligence services, Virtually (W(1)
every such lead involving an American, whether firmly identified (b)(3)
or not and regardless of the source of the lead information, is
consistently provided to the FBI which has primary responsibil-
ity for investigating Americans and which has law enforcement
authority. If the subject of a lead is active duty military,
the information is also shared with the appropriate service.
Within CIA skilled analysts from both the Counterintelligence
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Center and the Office of Security maintain close liaison in
person and through correspondence with counterparts at the FBI
and the counterintelligence components of State and other
agencies to exchange data and compare analyses during the
course of espionage research and investigations.
Concerning the five cases of "probable" espionage alleged
by Senator Helms, those of James Kronthal and John Paisley were
thoroughly examined on repeated occasions over the years and
absolutely no evidence was ever found to substantiate the highly
speculative and sensationalist media allegations to the effect
that these two individuals were long-time "moles" inside the
CIA. In 1979, for example, in response to suggestions from the
SSCI and PFIAB to open a post mortem investigation of Paisley,
the FBI reviewed all available data and concluded definitively
that Paisley had made no voyages to the Soviet Union while he
was a member of the Merchant Marine as had been alleged, and it
fully supported CIA's own analysis in all respects. Further-
more, in the years since Kronthal's and Paisley's deaths by
suicide in 1953 and 1978 respectively, no Soviet defector or
other source of information on Americans recruited by the
Soviet KGB ever provided lead data which might remotely pertain
to Kronthal or Paisley.
The case of Karel Koecher is a different matter as he was,
indeed, an agent of Czech intelliaence since 1962 who was
exposed in 1982 He had been (W(1)
directed to gain employment on the staff of any U.S. senator or (b)(3)
with a component of U.S. intelligence. The-circumstances of
his duplicity, arrest and subsequent exchange are all well
known and in the public domain.
b)(1)
b)(3)
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(b)
(b)
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Sincerely,
William H. Webster
Director of Central Intelligence
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