NATIONAL SECURITY SECRETS HAMPER U.S. PROSECUTORS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300450038-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 25, 2004
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: August 20, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

ARTICLE 1,PPEARED
ON PAS:
/4 ! o l ~c t l aL a1 cj~ih " -
,' ation,al Security
Secrets Hamper
U.S. Prosecutors
By Charles R. Babcock
. Washington Poet Stet: writer..
A decision on whether to prosecute
Lockheed Aircraft Corp. and one -of
its former top executives is being de-
layed= to-;check- eleventh-hour claims
by defense attorneys that national se-
crets might be disclosed at. a trial. ? ..,.
Sources familiar with the investiga-
tion-of Lockheed's payments to for
:eign:officials'said the;-Central'Intelli
gence Agency has been asked to'check
the - validity -.of the. claims `%vhich`,
came- after the Justice Department's -
crimiiuaI':divisien recommended prose. 41
cution in. 'April. - , : s i
The Lockheed case is the-latest?ita a
series of sensitive lxivestigattons rim
which national security- considerations
,have collided..with_-.and threaten t .
derail=-prosecutionv.--'
On Friday, for. instance; there-
reports about two criminal cases that
have been complicated bye national. .e-
curity.
s, In one; the government announced
it would drop : three of six felon'
ch;:rges against a senior executive of
International Telephone. and Tele
graph Corp. because it would have
had -to disclose classified documents
'at the trial. . . -?
A similar concern was -a factor in.
the Justice Department's decision last
fall to let former CIA director Rich-
and M. Helms plead "no contest!'. to a
misdemeanor charge from. the -same
inrestigatioir of ITT-CIA. collusion-; in-
In-tlif, other case; a former CI.k em-'.,;
--;ploye. ; William-. P. Kampiles, was ar-
::restecL.on .charges that"iie "sold',-top
secret information to the Russians,
but his prosecution maybe difficult.
The Los Angeles Times ,quoted a U.S.
intelligence source as saying of that
case.- "One of, the problenis Is: that in'
order. to prosecute we might.have to?
release. classified infdrmation "and we
just can't do~?ihat,,. :
Deputy Attorneyry:Generai Benjamin
R. Civiletii,said in a: recent interview,
that weighing :the - effect-..of national
i,: sc .army ,on,-poteyt(a,:.pro$ecutions is'
lril a;~5nti`uruti ru:b C'.4(,0`l Ltd}f(.'-
20 August 1978
about the toughest issue his prosecu-
tors face.
"if that issue raises its head we try
to pursue the investigation hard. We
may be able to make a case without
entering the field. So I don't ignore
it. But I don't throw up my hands
either when the issue come up. We
try ? to work around it. And in 9 out
of 10 cases we can," Civiletti said.
. Critics of decisions like the govern-
ment's disposition of the Helms case
say' "national security" has' become
such a fuzzy area that defendants can
make frivolous claims in, efforts; to
prevent prosecution.' ?, ...:
FBI officials accused of participat-
ing in illegal break-ins in the early
1970s, for example, claimed-the - so-
called "black bag jobs" were neces-
sary, because the Weather , Under-
ground fugitives they were pursuing
had- ties to foreign powers. The -Jus-
t1c6-Department rejected such slaims.
U.S. District Court 'Judge Gerhard
A Gesell rejected a national security
defense when former Nixon White
House . aide John .: Ehrlichman way,
convicted of authorizing a break-in ,at,
the office of Daniel -Ellsberg's psychic.
trist in 1971. ?
Details- of Lockheed's claims could
not be learned. But the matter is not
yet-considered serious enough to in-
volve Civiletti, Attorney General Grif-
fin B.'Bel. or CIA Director Stanfield
Turner, officials said.
Mitchell Rogovin,i who.' represents
former Lockheed 'President A. C.
Kotchian,. has talked,to criminal divi-
sion head Philip B.7Heyman about
the' ease. Rogovin . himself has close
ties to the CIA, :having served as its
liaison ::with the Internal Revenue-
Service- Service- and as its lawyer during re--
cent congressional investigations.
The Wall Street=-Journal reported-
-last year that government investigate
-tors had found indications that the.,
.CIA knewabout and probably encour--.
aged bribes from American corpora-
tions to foreign government officials.
-Lockheed, for instance, paid several
million dollars in "agent's fees" to Yo-
shio Kodama, who had ties with' the
CIA and was a major fundraiser for
Japan's ruling party.
But it is not believed that Rogovin's
national security claims went as far as
alleging that such potentially explo-
sive ties between U.S. intelligence and
multinational corporations would be
exposed at trial. -
In the Lockheed, ITT-Chile and CIA
espionage cases prosecutors have had
a chance to balance the need to pro-
tect national secrets with the equally,
'
legitimate duty to uphold the law. ,
A more troublesome example of the
conflict between intelligence secrets
and law enforcement was seen in the
recent investigations of South Korean:
influence-buying in Congress, '
A Senate Intelligence- Committee
study showed that the CIA -at times
refused to.--pass along early evidence
of the- scandal to the FBI or- Justice I
Department forfear of compromising
One one occasion CIA headquarters
officials wouldn`t even allow the sta-
tion chief In Seoul to brief the US
..
ambassador about alleged br11ery of
members of Congress ..by. South Ko-
rean agents. --,
Indications of -illegal South Korean,
lobbying were largely ignored for
more than five years. Not until later
' 1975 did the evidence .. some of it ap-,
parentiy obtained by supersecret Na-
tional Security Agency intercepts of t
Korean diplothatic traffic - lead to a
full scale Justice Department invest;- j
gation. . `.:,..:.:..:. , .,.-.1
Even then the most senstitive mate.
tive leads. It could not. bC use at a
pected payments from Korean offs--'j
.'vials, such as former ambassador Kim
Dong Jo,'could not be found. So some.
STAT
Approved For Release 2005/01/11 : CIA-RDP88-01315R0