CALIBRATING INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500070029-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2000
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: February 13, 1982
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

STATINTL
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ON FAGS 0
WILLIAM E. COLBY
13 February 1982
Calibrating
Intelligence
I n the midst of the uproar surrounding
increased protection of leading govern-
ment officials against possible Libyan
terrorist attacks, President Reagan issued
his long-awaited executive order with
respect to intelligence. The most important
aspect of the new order is the slight dif-
ference between it and the earlier orders of
President Carter and President Ford.
Three fundamental changes have oc-
curred in American intelligence in the past
few years. First, the very thought of a pub-
lic Presidential order establishing guide-
lines for intelligence is a contradiction of
the spy traditions of total secrecy. Second,
the careful arrangements in the older for
accountability for decision making contrast
sharply with the polite myth of the spy
world that the spy caught was disowned by
his king or patron. Lastly, the role of Con-
gress has fundamentally changed, by stat-
ute as well as executive order. The earlier
belief that Congress did not want to know
the secrets of intelligence is replaced by
Senate and House Committees on Intelli-
gence, who must know the secrets (and
have shown they can keep the secrets) to in-
sure that intelligence does what it is sup-
posed to do and not what it should not do.
The new order changes none of these
fundamentals. Rather, it calibrates the
guidance for American intelligence be-
tween the extremes of oversecrecyof earlier
years and overexposure during the past few
years. The title change of one section of the
order from "restrictions on intelligence ac-
tivities" to "conduct of intelligence activi-
ties" bespeaks recognition of the need for
intelligence activities as well as the need to
restrain them. The absolute prohibition
against the Central Intelligence Agency's
being involved in domestic activities is re-
placed by recognition that a small terrorist
group here might properly be penetrated in
order to determine the extent of its support
and manipulation by Libya's Qaddafi. But
the penetration will be subject to the basic
so that the purpose of the penetration must
be foreign intelligence. There will also be a
clear chain of accountability for the deci-
sions made and the Congressional commit-
tees must weigh and consider the justifica-
tion for such domestic activities, to ap-
prove those that make sense and disap-
prove those which they feel to be wrong.
Some the calibrations may be debatable,
but the Administration generally accepted
recommendations for change of earlier
drafts to be more rather than less restric-
tive, to the satisfaction of the committees
that were invited to comment. Of greatest
importance is the fact that this order has
been issued, so that the intelligence agen-
cies can put their minds to the inure impor-
tant challenges of intelligence work rather
than legalistic debates about the wording of
a charter.
I he morale and real effects of the vio-
lent attacks on American intelligence for its
misdeeds of the past have not yet been re-
paired, however. This depends upon pas-
sage by the Congress of a statute to punish
employees who reveal the secrets they learn
during their service. It will also protect the
intelligence services against those who
would willfully expose them to danger by
revealing their identities so as to destroy the 1
intelligence system that Congress has de-
cided is necessary for the nation's safety.
This bill lost out in the pre-adjournment
rush by threat of long debate by some op-
posed to certain wording in the bill. There
are legitimate differences over how such a
law should be phrased, but a clear signal is'
needed for our agencies and our friends
abroad that the United States will protect
its necessary secrets while it conducts a new
and responsible intelligence system.
((William E. Colby, former director of
the C. LA., now practices law in Washing-
ton, D. C., and previously contributed "A
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4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20015 656-4068
STATINTL
DATE
February 9, 1982 10:30 PM
STATION WETA TV
PBS Network
Washington, DC
PETER KROUGH: The dramatic rescue of General James
Dozier from the Italian Red Brigade provided a brief respite
from a growing sense of helplessness in the face of international
terrorism. But Dozier's release was also accompanied by predic-
tions of violent retaliation and warnings that global terrorism
Is still on the rise.
Terrorism has been labeled international public enemy
number one by the Reagan Administration, which is alarmed by
increasing evidence of Russian, Cuban and Libyan sponsorship.
But for Americans, terrorism has not been a local problem. Dur-
ing the last decade, 3600 people died in terrorist attacks
around the world, but only 80 were killed in the United States.
Nevertheless, Americans, especially diplomats and businessmen,
are becoming the prime targets of terrorists abroad. About one-
third of all terrorist incidents are now directed at American
personnel or property. And concern about terrorism is reflected
increasingly in our foreign policy. It has taken at least rhe-
torical precedence over concern for human rights. Abhorrence
for terrorism is one factor that has restrained three Presidents
from dealing directly with the Palestinian Liberation Organiza-
tion. And the debate over who is responsible for the most ter-
ror in El Salvador, the government or the insurgents, may ulti-
mately determine the direction of our policy there.
Tonight we'll look at the challenge of global terrorism
to American interests at home and abroad with William Colby, for-
mer Director of the CIA and Scott Thompson, a leading authority
on terrorism and professor at the Fletcher School of Law and
diplomacy.
Gentlemen, is the alarm sounded by this Administration
OFRCES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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over international terrorism, labeling it, In effect, as inter-
national public enemy number one, exaggerated or is it warranted
by the facts?
Mr. Colby?
WILLIAM COLBY: Well, it's warranted by the facts,
clearly. There are a lot of terrorists in the world. There are
a lot of groups that conduct terror. Now, some of them try to
use euphemisms about "your terrorist is my freedom fighter," and
all that sort of thing. But there are an awful lot of very
bitter, very violent groups in the world, for ethnic, religious,
racial, political reasons.
KROUGH: Do you agree, Dr. Thompson, that this is a
leading problem?
SCOTT THOMPSON: It's a leading problem. And one of
the additional reason's it's a leading problem is there's a lot
of enmity between states in the world. And this finds its out-
let not in the form of nuclear war between the United States
and the Soviet Union or major war between large states in most
places in time, but by harboring terrorists from the other side,
by giving aid and comfort to a terrorist from a third party, so
forth and so on. And as long as there are as many weapons flowing
and as many people with an interest in keeping the terrorist well-.
oiled and well-financed, there's going to be a great international
problem.
KROUGH: But by dealing with the problem so loudly,
don't we run the risk of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?
That is, the terrorists will feel that they have to now be strong
to demonstrate that they really are this serious a problem.
COLBY: No, you don't. One of the main things you
have to do about terrorism, aside from intelligence work, aside
from security work, is to convince the people that It's important
to them, so that they will support the government and the pro-
grams against terrorism. Public support is a vital element of
efforts against terrorism. And therefore the people must be
convinced that these people are operating as outlaws, what we
used to call outlaws when we had our terrorists in this country,
and they should assist the forces of order in suppressing them.
KROUGH: But what really explains the timing of.this?
Because terrorism has been around for a long time and there have
been incidents of terrorism right along. We've been seeing them
throughout the last decade.
Are incidents on the rise? Is this a more serious
problem, and why?
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THOMPSON: Yes. In fact, you know, we used to say
that the guerrilla, the terrorist was a forlorn and hopeless
person who was really fighting a romantic battle against great
odds and he would die out, as all those before him did. This
is no longer the case because it's no longer a weapon simply
of the weak. It's also a weapon of the strong.
Look, let's call a spade a spade. We know that the
Soviet Union is one of those powers that is intimately involved
in this whole process. And they have...
KROUGH: What is the evidence for that, Dr. Thompson?
This is something that is asserted, but is it provable?
THOMPSON: It's provable in all the ways.that it can
ever be provable. I'm not looking to the. KGB to come out, the
way the CIA has, with mea culpas and say, "Gosh, we did it," you
know. Since that's not In the cards, we've got to use the evi-
dentiary rules that we use, for example, in identifying counter-
Intelligence -- in counterintelligence to identify spies in our
midst. We don't expect a Philby to get up and confess. We have
to prove by circumstantial evidence that he, in fact, is guilty,
or someone like him.
KROUGH: What is the circumstantial evidence? Where
do you follow it?
THOMPSON: The circumstantial proof is that these fel-
lows go in and out of Czechoslovakia, out of the Soviet Union,
they're using their weapons; that these things happen in sequen-
ces. I. mean you have to believe that somebody has an interest
in this when you've got Dozier being kidnapped in Italy, an
American military official being killed on the streets of Paris
at a time when America Is talking about withdrawal from Europe.
This just can't be wholly accidental.
KROUGH: This sounds like a conspiracy operation that
.you are developing here supported by this country's principal
adversary.
Do you see it the same way?
COLBY: I think there are three things. First, there's
a clear involvement of the Soviet Union in training, in supporting,
in logistics, through Libya, through Cuba, through the Palestin-
ians, for various terrorist groups.
Now, the Soviets make no secret of their belief that
they are supporting wars of national liberation, in their words.
But, in fact, what that amounts to Is a bomb in a marketplace
someplace that kills a lot of people.
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Now, the second level is the effort by independent
groups which are fed a little by the atmosphere, the Red Bri-
gades, who are not directly supported by the Soviets, but who
certainly feed of the assistance that happens.
And then the third is the counter-terror that you may
hear of that does exist in certain countries. When the situation
got so bad in Argentina, In Uruguay, that the forces to overturn
the government were totally out of control, and the government
reacted in a terrorist way.
KROUGH: But doesn't this bring us into the problem of
defining terrorism? Now, you dismiss the notion, I think quite
appropriately, of the terrorist-patriot dichotomy. But there are
other gray lines here that we cross on the way to discovering
what is really terrorism. I mean there is a kind of a ,blur be-
tween terrorism and guerrilla warfare. And what definition ob-
jectively holds and can we defend as being essentially an apoli-
tical definition of this phenomenon?
COLBY: Well, I think you have to do two things. First,
there's a terrorist tactic. And I think that can be defined as
killing or injuring innocent people, innocent bystanders. In
other words, an attack against the forces, the police, the govern-
ment would not be included. An attack at a bus stop randomly
killing the people there, that is terrorism. I-don't care who's
doing it for what reason, it's terrorism.
The other is the protest group which has no logical
basis for existence because the political channels are open for
change. Now, when that exists, as the Weathermen in this country,
they are terrorists, because the political channels are open if
they can rally the political support. And, therefore, if they
decline to do it and instead begin to kill people, they're ter-
rorists.
KROUGH: Do I sense that you would go further, Dr.
Thompson, In equating terrorism, really, with wars of national
liberation themselves or the tactics by which they are pursued?
THOMPSON: No, but I'd rather say it this way: The
contest between the United States and the Soviet Union right now
is a contest over different forms of order. And the Soviet Union
has, in its definition of what the correlation of forces is, more
than just a military balance In mind. If they can break down the
sense of order In the West by encouraging, indirectly, as Bill.
Colby has suggested -- and I would wholly agree with him that
this is an indirect thing -- if they can break down the confi-
dence in democratic institutions, if the liberal institutions of
the West can crumble, as in a novel just published today by a
very distinguished German novelist, where Germany Is shown ten
years from now or a while down the road after the society has
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been atomized, there would be nothing to fight for. There would
be nothing to believe in if the terrorists ultimately have their
way.
And so, I'm saying that -- I'm agreeing with Bill's
definitions, but saying that the problem probably is even broader.
You see, you've got to -- I think we need to come right out and
be very blunt about the problem today. Take, for example, the
assassination attempt on the Pope. I believe there is overwhel-
ming circumstantial evidence of the kind that would convict in
our courts of law, that would convict a traitor without his con-
fession, that would convict Agca of having been a Soviet agent
doing the Soviet will to kill the Pope.
Now, I consider -- I'm taking this very, very seriously.
It's a very serious accusation. I think the evidence Is there.
I think the people that have found it are in the process of pre-
senting it. And I think we've got to come out and say, "Look,
there are some people that have an interest in the present inter-
national order and there are some people that are trying to upset
It."
KROUGH: This is a very substantial interpretation or
revelation of what happened to the Pope.
THOMPSON: Yes, it is.
KROUGH: Is there evidence for this?
COLBY: I'm not familiar with the evidence.
THOMPSON: The evidence...
KROUGH: Just to move on here. Isn't this basically a
no-win situation for the Soviets, in the sense -- or the Cubans
or whoever else Is engaged in it with them -- because doesn't
terrorism eventually come full circle, really, and strike the
perpetrators of it? I mean everyone gets involved in this. As
a matter of fact, the 1980 report of the CIA pointed out that
next to the Americans, Soviet Individuals and institutions were
the principal objects of terrorism.
THOMPSON: And they were the original ones that were
afraid of it. After all, they advocated the anti-hijacking laws
in the 1940s because they were the ones who were getting...
COLBY: Having their planes taken away.
THOMPSON: So they're always very careful on things
.like hijacking, on protecting diplomats. They're punctillious
about the legalities on terrorism. But then, as Lenin said over
and over again, you know, when you can use the legalities against
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the bourgeois order, by all means do so. And, you know, so they
want to have their cake and eat it too.
And I agree with you, it's a double-edged sword and It
might come back. But I think the evidence is overwhelming that
they are in there turning the sword in one direction right now.
COLBY: And I'm not so sure of that premise, that it
comes back on them. I've seen the use of terror to destroy the
organs of government and totally confuse the people as to where
their best interest is until they finally yield. This is what
wars of national liberation, the rural attack on the urban cen-
ters, and so forth, In Latin America. That's why the Cubans have
been training people in this kind of activity. It's why the Viet-
namese were doing It throughout Indochina.
This is not a new kind of a tactic, but a very conscious
use. The FLN in Algeria used terror against the people to demon-
strate the weakness of the French colonial rule. Now, they may
have had a legitimate basis for objecting to French colonial rule.
But in my mind, they used terror -- i.e., the slaughter of inno-
cents -- in order to demonstrate the French inability to protect
them.
KROUGH: What is it in the contemporary environment
that is feeding terrorism today and exaggerating it, exacerbating
it, driving it into new and different forms? What is our environ-
ment that is so fertile for international terrorism?
COLBY: Well, one thing is the delicate nature of the
international system today. We have all these very fine choke
points in the system that can be stopped and hurt.
And secondly, the guerrilla theater, which we saw a
lot of a few years ago, the dramatic effect of a terroris attack
far exceeding its effect on the Individual.
COLBY: ...a great media thing. The capture of Prime
Minister Moro and his eventual murder was a total slam at the
Italian state, the contempt with which these terrorists said
that they thought they could destroy the Italian state by taking
one of its figures In that fashion, which is largely a media
hype of the actual fact being done.
KROUGH: And contributed to by the communications revo-
lution and satellite communication.
COLBY: Well, and the instant attention throughout the
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THOMPSON: The other side of that coin Is that terror-
ists learn from each other in Japan and the Middle East, you know,
overnight by satellite communication. And the very transnational
charcter of the world right now, by which we usually take comfort
and we say the world is knitting itself together; but in fact, you
know, the terrorists are getting together and cooperating.
COLBY: When you can move across national borders with
the ease with which you can move in Europe -- and that's through-
out the European Community -- then you have all sorts of abilities
to hide.
KROUGH: Isn't there just a whole lot more money and
arms sloshing around the world, too, to support this kind of
activity?
THOMPSON: That's right.
COLBY: Well, and there are particular weapons that are
particularly dangerous, you know. There's a heat-seeking shoulder-
held rocket that can knock an aircraft out of the sky that they
picked up In the outskirts of Rome at the end of the Fumecino (?)
airport, sent over there, conveniently, through the Libyan pouch.
I mean. this sort of thing can be a disatrous problem.
KROUGH: Nevertheless, the general impression is that
while-Incidents of terrorism, which I think dipped in the last
couple of years and have gone up during this year, have Increased
recently, the number of groups Involved in terrorist activities
has declined. That Is, we no longer see the Japanese Red Army.
We're not dealing with the Symbionese Liberation. We're not
dealing with the Weathermen. We seem to be dealing with the Red
Brigades and Basques, some Armenians.
Isn't the number of actors here really diminished?
COLBY: But I don't think they just went away and de-
cided not to. I think they were pretty well suppressed by some
very good and some very legal police work In various countries
and cooperation among the countries on this subject. That's'what
made it very difficult for them to operate.
THOMPSON: You know. I think we've got a long ways to
go before we have really effective police cooperation between
the Europeans.
COLBY: It's a very difficult subject, finding terror-
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KROUGH: Meanwhile, what American interests, what Amer-
ican Investments, security requirements are really threatened by
terrorism? Because what we are talking about here is mostly
Americans abroad. We do not have thise phenomenon at home.
KROUGH: Do you think it's...
COLBY:, To a degree, we do. I mean l e t ' s face it, a l l
of our Presidents have been shot at recently. I mean that's
rather a terrorist situation to live in.
KROUGH: What would you say is the potential for having
a rise of terrorism domestically in the United States, and what
would underpin it were it to develop?
THOMPSON: If our national will to maintain a coherent
.state diminishes, there's going to be terrorism. In other words,
if these jokers that are trying to get our people abroad -- and
you said, correctly, that one-third of all the incidents are
directed at Americans. Now, it's convenient to get them abroad.
If it's more convenient to get them here, they'll try to get them
here. I mean I think there are people that are out to get Amer-
icans. I don't think one is being a conspiracist by saying that
that's true. You know, when you look at the data it's perfectly
obvious what's going on. A lot of radical groups really have It
in their mind to prove that the United States can be had, and .
very often they're proved right, you know. And so we have to be
on our guard.
KROUGH: Where are we most vulnerable, would you say,
domestically? Is it on race issues? Is it on the Puerto Rican
problem?
COLBY: No. I think the main thing we have is if we
polarize our politics very sharply, through the economic situ-
ation, through political demagogy that comes up In various ways,
it could happen. Then you get the frustration and then you get
the feeling that the political system is not responding to legi-
timate needs, and then you get the group turning off and going
into terrorism.
That was the phenomenon during the Vietnam War. That's
why you got bombings throughout this country during the Vietnam,
War. Several hundred bombings a year took place in this country.
And that was a terrorist action. There's no question about It.
Whatever you think about the motives for or against the Vietnam
War, these people were going outside the political system in
order to enforce their will.
THOMPSON: There's another factor here. We have been
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very lucky in having secure borders, hitherto. I don't think
that is going to be forever the case. I think there's overwhel-
ming evidence that Mexican politics are going dramatically to
the left, that there's increasing penetration of Mexican politics
by people who are not friendly to the United States. And I
think, given the porosity of this border, we could anticipate in
10-15 years, if the present trend continues, a very deleterious
decrease In national security within our own borders.
KROUGH: What kinds of terrorists really pose the
greatest threat to us? Somebody has.sald that there are crazies,
criminals, and crusaders. Which -- terrorists of which category
are most likely to present the most serious problems to us? Are
we talking just about nihilists and anarchists?
KROUGH: Or are we talking about crusaders?
COLBY: Well, I think you're talking about some crazies.
And that's just a given. That's going to exist come hell or high
water over the years. There's no question about It. They have
to be just controlled by the Secret Service and all the rest to
keep them from shooting our Presidents.
You'll get some crusaders. But if you have an open
political system, the crusaders really can't get very much sup-
port. And they need support in order to hide, In order to oper-
ate, in order to recruit.
So your real problem, then, Is the criminals who then
use the techniques of terrorism and wrap themselves in political
garb In order to carry out what some people used to call free
enterprise terrorism, ransom and things like this. One ransom
of $12 million was paid in a South American case a few years ago.
Well, that kept that group happy and prosperous for a long time.
And...
KROUGH: This was the Monteneros in Argentina.
COLBY: Yes, that's right. And you've had the same
thing exist in Italy and other places, pure private enterprise
terrorism.
KROUGH: Speaking of Latin America, as you did in
relation to Mexico and with the Monteneros, why is It that we
seem to be most vulnerable there? This Is where the highest
Incidence is for us of businessmen and Institutions coming under
attack, both embassies and businessmen.
COLBY: Well, because of the symbolism of the American
business in Latin American, the history of our business operations
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and our national operations with respect to Latin America. It's
a very symbolic target, even more so than someplace else. You
go into Latin America and it's the Yankee that's the problem.
You go Into Africa and, yes, the Americans, but also the British
and the French and all the rest of it. And in Asia it gets all
confused as to who the real enemy for the terrorist is.
KROUGH: Dr. Thompson, do you see the contemporary ter-
rorist as very much in the mode of the historical terrorist, or
different in kind, different in mode of operation, different in
activity and outlook?
THOMPSON: You can find parallels to every contemporary
terrorist in, oh, the People's Will group in Russia a hundred
years ago. You can find parallels to everything. But I think
that it is a qualitative new order -- qualitatively new order,
given the factors that Bill Colby suggested earlier.
I would stress that most of the terrorists, I think,
that we have to fear are quite rational people. You know, there
are some crazies...
KROUGH: Well, isn't this hopeful, then? Because if...
THOMPSON: No.
KROUGH: ...you're dealing with them, they will -- I
mean you can get deterrence...
THOMPSON: No, no. It's much less hopeful. These are
people that are rational. They're very determined. They're doing
their thing. Their thing is tot you know, create chaos. They've
figured out. They know how to bomb. They know how to kidnap
American businessmen. They know how to do all sorts of things.
They get training In camps outside of Prague, outside of Moscow,
in Syria, in Libya, in Iraq. They -- these are people that, for
whatever reason, have been radicalized and are sort of a trans-
national floating element In the world.
But you can't call them crazies. I agree with Bill
Colby that there Is an element of the crazies. Those we can con-
trol for reasonably.
KROUGH: Looking ahead and building on your description
of the modern terrorist, are we likely to see a really major es-.
calation of the kind of terrorism that is employed, a difference
in kind of terrorism -- that Is., moving from hostage-taking,
kidnapping, bombing, threatening to threats of mass destruction,
holding whole populations hostage, and so forth?
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COLBY: Yes. You will have attacks on aircraft, for
instance. Not just hijacking, but from the, ground. You wi l I
have some uses of modern technology to hit at, oh, cable lines,
satellite stations, things of this nature, symbolic kind of
targets. And you will have, eventually, down the road some-
where, somebody threatening the use of nuclear weapons or some
of the other high technologies.
THOMPSON: It's already happened several dozen times,
but we proved they were frauds. But I think it's going to hap-
pen, I assume you're saying, for real one of these days. It's
pretty frightening.
COLBY: Yes. It's a very frightening thing.
THOMPSON: But, see, I think, it's already happening in
a pretty serious way. You know, the -- Paul Henza (?) has done
a wonderful piece on how Turkey was practically fractured by,
as he put it in the Wall Street Journal, sustained and long-term
Soviet aid to terrorists in that state. It's not only the Soviet
Union. In this particular case of Turkey, I think you can give
them a really substantial share of the credit.
KROUGH: When we face something like that -- hopefully,
we do not. But if we do, will our policy of no negotiation and
no ransom payments hold up in the face of something of that con-
sequence?
KROUGH: So Is It really -- is it really viable for us
to be announcing that we...
COLBY: Well, you can be announcing it, but you better
be ready to negotiate about something. There may be some nego-
tiations possible in these things.
THOMPSON: You're going to use the no-negotiation policy
when you think it's going to be advantageous to do it, and the
terrorist Isn't going to know when you're going to pull this on
him.
KROUGH: But,-in fact, we have negotiated in the past.
THOMPSON: Of course.
KROUGH: I mean for the Iranians and...
THOMPSON: Of course.
KROUGH: I don't know whether we were involved in the
negotiations for the release of Dozier or who put up the $1,500,000.
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But this Is not an ironclad kind of...
COLBY: Of course not.
KROUGH: ...kind of thing.
What is the best defense against what we have just been
talking about, the frightening prospect of nuclear or biological
blackmail?
COLBY: Well, ,f think, first, good Intelligence, which
really gets into exchanging information with other friendly ser-
vices around the world; a good development of files of people
involved in these movements. Why they're involved in them, what
kind of motives, what kind of people they are, what the strategy
is. It's very unlikely that you're going to get to the actual
operation in many cases. But you can learn enough about it so
that you can do it.
KROUGH: Infiltration is required, penetration?
COLBY: If you can possibly do so, surely.
THOMPSON: In Italy, you know, we really have done a
tremendous job. Rather, the Italians have...
COLBY: ...careful Interrogation and the putting some
people into the movement to tell you more about it.
KROUGH: Are we equipped to do that?
THOMPSON: We're not.
COLBY: Well, we're not very well fixed.
THOMPSON: We did -- we've made some tragic -- we've
lost some tragic opportunities because of the atmosphere in this
country, where the CIA was running operations that would have
successfully shown the ultimate paymasters of these operations,
it was believed. And these operations had to be suspended be-
cause it just looked too risky in view of the American political
environment.
KROUGH: Well, here we're putting billions and billions
into defense. This would seem to be almost right at the first
line of our defense, to have a capability to protect against....
COLBY: Well, this -- obviously, we've gone through the
worst of our binge during the mid-seventies on the subject of
intelligence. And I believe that the nation is now sobering up
on the subject. And I think that you will see a growth. But as
Scott mentions, I think we've lost several years.
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KROUGH: And if it happens, we haven't prevented it
through intelligence, do we have a strong anti-terrorist attack
force?
COLBY: WelI, I think then you do need security ser-
vices, security forces, things of that...
KROUGH: Aren't other governments pretty far ahead of
us on this one?
THOMPSON: We're playing a very effective game of
catch-up, as best I can gather.
COLBY: 'I wouldn't knock it too much. And I wouldn't
judge the Iranian debacle...
THOMPSON: The desert classic really did.n't...
COLBY: Well, that was hardly a move against terrorists.
That was a rather major operation.
THOMPSON: And it wasn't organized by the unit tasked
for this purpose.
KROUGH: Dr. Thompson, I think the dramatic underlining
of the Soviet complicity, purported complicity in the assassin-
ation attempt of the Pope is really quite a major -- a major bit
of evidence. Is the veil going to be lifted on this, do you
think, in the next few weeks? Do we have something to look for-
ward to?
THOMPSON: I hope so. All the evidence has been accumu-
lated by some diligent people and it's awaiting publication. The
basic'points are that all the statements made about this fellow
turned out to be false. He was not a fanatic Muslim. He was --
he, rather, had his associations on the left. There was a great
deal of knowledge about his associations in Europe. He was run-
ning around with lots of money for 18 months. He was able to
escape. He was able to get from one place to the other. He was
not operating alone. There Is overwhelming evidence, I gather,
of this.
KROUGH: And a report is about to be released on this?
THOMPSON: By private individuals who have done some
very -- who have long experience in the intelligence field and
people I have tremendous confidence in.
And then you finally -- they finally asked the final
question: Who could benefit from the assassination of a Pope
who was Polish, who had said he would greet Soviet tanks in War-
saw himself if they so moved? You know, it wasn't the right-wing
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Muslim fundamentalists that had an interest in getting rid of
this Pope. And so that you ask the questions in the same way
you would draw a line around a Soviet agent operating, say, as
a mole within the CIA, the way your associates working for you
would have done. And you can come up with just as much evidence
as they would have ever done to prove the point.
KROUGH: And you're sure this is an objective report
and not a novel that we are about to...
THOMPSON: Oh, no, no. This is very serious stuff by
some of our most competent intelligence people
KROUGH: Thank you very much, Dr. Thompson.
And thank you very much, Bill Colby.
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