TINKER, TINKER, TINKER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500240014-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2000
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: November 28, 1983
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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TINKER, TINKER, TINK1
B MORTON KONDRACIu
~~ryry STATINTk NEW REPUBLIC
Ed For Release 2001 /6?'8/MvelflbkxR- "QP01 _00
. Casey's smart (and rich), but does he run a fi
ARTICLE 1',
U NTITED STATES intelligence apparently had an
idea that the so-called Party of God, an Iranian-
connected, Syrian-protected Shiite Moslem group that car-
bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut last April, was plan-
ning an attack on U.S. Marines. But U.S. intelligence
did not have agents inside the group and therefore could
not warn with precision that it was planning the truck-
bombing that killed more than 230 Marines on October 23.
U.S. intelligence knew, too, that Cuba and the Soviet
Union were militarizing
Grenada, but again the
United States had no in-
telligence agents on the
island and underestimat-
ed Cuban troop strength.
The U.S. had not pene-
trated Maurice Bishop's
New Jewel Movement,
and did not know that
Bishop's colleagues were
planning to oust and kill
him. And when Prime
Minister Eugenia Charles
of Dominica reported to
the White House press
on October 25 that "we
noted with great interest
the movements between
Soviet Embassies and
known activists" prior to
Bishop's assassination, it
also was news to White
House polieymakers.
On the other hand, the
faded in the stretcl
bet money, I'd say
across the board."
Casey's prescier
lance, is likely to bi
ing to well-inform
more disturbing re
tell the President I
dropov had pushe,
Central Intelligence Agency did predict correctly that the
Soviet Union would not invade Poland in 1981, but would
crack down through Polish authorities instead. Using its
superb technical capabilities, U.S. intelligence was able to
develop a precise analysis of how Korean Air Lines' Flight
007 was tracked by the Soviet Union, lost, found again,
and shot down. And, several months before Leonid
Brezhnev's death, the director of Central Intelligence, Wil-
liam Casey, reported to President Reagan that Brezhnev
likely would not be succeeded by a collective leadership,
as agency analysts had concluded. "Chernenko peaked
too soon," Casey wrote Reagan in a memo. "Kirilenko
zier was Kianappea oy
the Red Brigades in Italy,
the C.I.A. dug hard to
discover who had him
and where; but U.S. offi-
cials say that in general,
journalists like Claire
Sterling have put togeth-
er a better picture of in-
ternational terrorist net-
works than the C.I.A.
When Turkish gunman
Mohammed Ali Agca
shot the Pope, they say,
the President found out
more about Soviet and
Bulgarian involvement
from Reader's Digest than
from U.S. intelligence.
The C.I.A. can't know everything, but the Republican
Party correctly declared in its 1980 election platform that
"the United States requires a realistic assessment of the
threats it faces" and "must have the best intelligence capa-
bility in the world." The platform said, "Republicans
pledge this for the United States." Three years into this
Republican Administration, the United States certainly
has a better intelligence capability than it did in 1980-it
could hardly fail in that-but overall it is still far from the
best in the world. Can William J. Casey make it so? Well,.
he gets credit for trying-even from his adversaries-but
there's reason to doubt that he can.
CAN.TIIVUED
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500240014-5
 15
STATINTL
ARTICLEW3F644d For Release 2004/O E O1 DP91-00901
ON PAGE 1 14 November 1983
Congress at Work
U.S. Spying:
Y1a ? we
e _~merges
By ROBERT C. TOM
Times Staff Writer
. - WASHINGTON--Seven years
ago, in the wake of charges that U.S.
intelligence agencies' had engaged
in assassination attempts and do-
mestic spying, the United States
became the world's first democracy
to try to control secret spy activities
through legislative committees.
The Senate and House intelli-
gence committees created then are
the only significant reform to have
come from sensational congression-
al investigations that produced 200
formal findings and more than 40
proposals for change. All other
major reform attempts have failed.
Across the political spectrum,
from conservative Sen. Barry Gold-
water (R-Ariz.) to liberal former
Vice. President Walter F. Mondale,
the committees are given high
grades for their performance in
monitoring U.S. intelligence activi-
ties. But within the last year, parti-
sanship has erupted and thrown a
deep shadow over the future of the
committees.
Consensus Breaks Down
The consensus on which the pan-
els operated for six years-that
intelligence oversight, much like
intelligence activities themselves
and the military services, should be
above politics-broke down when
the Democratic-controlled House
Intelligence Committee voted along
party lines to release a staff report
critical of U.S. intelligence efforts in
Nicaragua, -..
This "politicization of intelli-
gence" has since been decried by
conservatives, who see the House
committee as having become "a
weapon against this Administra-
tion" and fear that the same thing
would occur in the Senate commit-
tee if it were not Republican-con-
trolled. Some libeca.ls, on the other
'hand, applaud it as a fair extension
of party fights over foreign policy.
The immediate danger, according
to Adm. Bobby B. Inman, the highly
respected former deputy director of
central intelligence .who served 'in
high posts in both Democratic and
Republican administrations, ??ls that
when (the committees) make ded-
sions along party lines, they run a
high risk of drawing. a partisan
reaction from :the .Administration .in
power."
Possible Retaliation Seen
Some Democrats believe that
such a retaliation may have oc-
curred this year with release of an
FBI report suggesting that the
Soviet secret police manipulate nu-
clear freeze advocates, among
whom were most of the Democrats
in the House.
Some Republicans, for their part,
suggest that the Democrats resorted
to partisanship after news leaks
became ineffective as a congres-
sional weapon for vetoing intelli-
gence operations. In Nicaragua, for
instance, U.S. funding and arming of
anti-Sandinista guerrillas-"the
most overt covert operation in his-
tory," as one intelligence official put
it-has continued and even in-
creased, despite news leaks about
the operation. Leaks about similar
aid to anti-Soviet Afghan rebels and
anti-Libyan forces in Chad have not
forced a curtailment in the opera-
tions.
The partisanship, which each
party accuses the other of starting, seems certain', to
continue on the issue of Central America. It also could
6111 over into two other controversial areas in which
tt Administration has recently acted:
;--Paramilitary operations. The total number of
covert, or secret, activities by the CIA has risen only
marginally, to perhaps 15 compared to 10 or 12 in the
laet years of the Jimmy Carter Administration. "Coy rt
activities per se are not controversial, but covert
paramilitary operations are," one congressman said. I ,
~fl'o the dismay of many Democrats, most of the n! w
Reagan Administration covert activities have been
paramilitary, involving the costly purchase of fore gn
atlas and equipment to disguise the source. The Car er
Administration put greater emphasis on secret pro-
Associated Press
Barry Goldwater
more difficult.
grams to spread disinfor-
mation and to fund pro-
American politicians in
foreign countries, sources
said.
-A new spy unit in, b
e
Defense Intellige ce
Agency. As proposed, it
was to be in addition to he
Arm 's new Intellia ice
Support Agency set up in
this Administration to ser-
vice the elite, and-terror-
ist Strike Force Delta,
sources said. Republicans
and Democrats joined to
oppose the new DIA it,
sources said, on the
grounds that it would
overlap with CIA hun an
intelligence collection of-
forts and make control) of
such sensitive operations
But the need for tactical, on-the-ground intellige
fqr the military services was starkly demonstrated 1
failure" showed that the CIA, with its larger focus
foreign political, economic and strategic issues, of
Approved For Release 2001/03/
STATINTL
station in El Salvador two years before the rebel)
iiegan there in 1980.) Pentagon requests for its o
ce
on
en
Political conditions and public attitudes toward
intelligence agencies have changed significantly since
11976 when Congress conducted investigations into
intelligence abuses and the committees, headed by
former Sen. Frank Church (D-Ida.) and former Rep.
Otis Pike (D-N.Y. ), called for drastic reforms.
clandestine collection service could be revived
result.
 ARTICLE APPEARED NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAGAn06#MZA. 66
Release 2001M/n!I'A40P9S1TWk
other nations. `But if you break it down
Experts Say 5 Arms Pacts Suggest over five years, or $8 million a year
in military aid doesn't buy control of a
country, even one as small as Gre-
?
1 fi osco w Had Designs on Grenada i nada Differing Interpretations
By PHILIP TAUBMAN
Special to 71e Now York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - United
States military and intelligence ex-
perts said today that five Soviet-bloc
military aid agreements with the for-
mer Government -of Grenada sug-
gested that the Soviet Union and Cuba
appeared to have been preparing to use
Grenada as a guerrilla training site or
a depot for the shipment of military
equipment to leftist rebels in Latin
.America.
The experts said the agreements
would have provided aid that exceeded
the needs of the Grenadian armed
forces.
Russians Promised Weapons
The specialists, including former
senior officials 'in Republican and
Democratic Administrations, said the
amount of military aid outlined in the
agreements, more than $38 million
over five years, did not show in them-
selves that the island was in danger of
being occupied by Cuba.
Copies of the agreements were made
public by the State Department on Fri-
day.
Under the secret agreements, the
Soviet Union and North Korea prom-
ised to send Grenada large numbers of
weapons, including 4,000 submachine
guns, 2,500 automatic rifles, 7,000
mines, 15,000 grenades, 60 armored
personnel carriers and more than
10,000 military uniforms. Cuba agreed
to base 27 military advisers in Grenada
full time until the expiration of its
agreement with Grenada on Dec. 31,
1984.
But, the experts said, the quantity of
arms and ammunition, and the number
of advisers called for in the agree-
ments, did not by themselves neces-
sarily mean that the island was becom-
ing a Soviet-Cuban colony.
President Reagan, in an address to
the nation on Oct. 27, two days after
Another former Defense Department
official who specialized in military
assistance matters for the Carter Ad-
ministration said the military aid pack-
ages with Grenada could be interpreted
several ways.
The official said: "If you're predis-
posed to see a Soviet and Cuban threat,
then you can find evidence of a signifi-
cant military buildup in Grenada and
carry it one step farther to see the mak-
ings of a Soviet-Cuban puppet state. On
the other hand, if you bring a different
bias to the agreements, it's possible to
argue that a paranoid, Marxist leader-
United States forces invaded Grenada, ? ship was rushing to improve its armed
said American troops reached the is- .N forces for fear that Grenada might be
land ? Just -in time" to prevent a invaded someday."
planned "Cuban occupation."
Reagan Administration officials said
today that the military agreements
formed only part of the Government's
contention that Grenada was rapidly
falling under Soviet and Cuban control.
The officials cited earlier Administra-
tion reports about large stockpiles of
military equipment already located on
the island, the construction of a 10,000-
foot runway at Point Salines that could
accommodate long-range Soviet bomb-
ers and advanced jet fighter aircraft
and minutes of meetings among Grena-
dian leaders.
Bobby R. Inman, Deputy Director of
Central Intelligence in the first two
years of the Reagan Administration,
said today that based on descriptions of
the agreements he had seen in news re-
ports, "it appears that Grenada was
going to be used by the Soviet Union
and Cuba as a contingency depot to fa- , tion suggested "that Grenada would
cilitate the export of revolution in this 1 have become a fortified Soviet military
hemisphere." i outpost."
Mr. Inman, who resigned last year to He said the Soviet and Cuban pres-
go into private business, added: '?I ence the United States found in Gre-
can't draw an automatic conclusion nada "may be summed up as the mili-
tary underpinnings" for the use of Gre-
about the degree of Soviet and Cuban nada as "a staging area for subversion
control these agreements meant for of nearby countries, for interdiction of
Grenada. In democratic countries, shipping lanes and for transit of troops
where military aid is usually overt, the 1 and supplies from Cuba to Africa and
control that flows from such agree- from Eastern Europe and Libya to
ments is relatively limited, but in na- Central America."
tions with an authoritarian govern- I Administration officials denied today
ent, whether right or left, the poten that the State Department, concerned
m
?L..,? r1.e A.........-......,....1A -tea ~-' -- _'-
"es"in
control becomes much greater." Z `t i. ~..,... int and Cuban ba uban aadelayed public
"activities s
A former senior Defense Department Grenada, , intentionally who served in the Carter Ad- Gr
ministration said: "The amount of aid release of the ie papers until
specified in the agreements was far television on Friday tcove coverage on
more than Grenada could absorb for its The ision officials news broadcasts.
rid that the release of
own use, suggesting that the weapons
were going to be re-exported or used mechanical the documents nts said
and
was problems delayed
in n copying and
d
for training paramilitary forces from assembling the the papers and getting final
approval for their publication from Sir
Paul Scoon, the Governor General of
Approved For Release 2001/03/0,7 : CIA-RDP91GE91 R000500240014-5
Minutes of Grenadian' Meetings
The official added, "It might not be
convincing, but the Russians could take
the United States military assistance
program in El Salvador or Honduras
and by just presenting the raw num-
bers of guns and ammunition make the
propaganda argument that the United
States is turning those countries into a
military bastion."
Reagan Administration officials said
that minutes of meetings among
Grenadian leftist leaders showed a
growing dependence on Cuba, with fre-
quent references to meetings with the
Cuban Ambassador and repeated con-
cern about how the Cubans would react
to various political decisions. These
records were also made public by the
State Department on Friday.
Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth
W. Dam told an editors' conference in
Kentucky on Friday that, taken togeth-