REPORTERS, SPIES HAVE CLOSE TIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500050029-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 2, 2004
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: September 21, 1986
• Content Type: NSPR

MFt I nu f. r-- 6
reporters,
spies have
close ties
Their `affinity'
breeds suspicion
By FRANK GREVE
Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - While no
evidence has been offered that
U.S. News & World Report corre-
spondent Nicholas Daniloff spied
for the CIA in Moscow, it Is not
surprising that Soviet officiate
suspect American reporters ~t
espionage.
Indeed, reporters and Cl
agents historically have been NO
chummy that Joseph Fromm, then
chief foreign editor for U.S. News,
told a congressional committee in
1977 that "a foreign government
could be forgiven for assuming
that there is some kind of informal
link."
Fromm's testimony came amid a
series of embarrassing disclosures
about the CIA's use of reporters as
informants, conduits of disinfor-
mation, spies - and even spy
masters. The disclosures produced
reforms and a climate of mutual
suspicion that shattered what
Washington Post reporter Ward
Just calls "the natural affinity
between journalists and spies."
And yet, while reporters and
CIA operatives are separated to-
day by CIA regulations, they are
not divorced. Though agency rules
bar the actual hiring of accredited
American journalists for. covert
missions, Informal information-
trading - what former CIA
Director William Colby terms
"
mutual back-scratching" - still
is encouraged.
"We'd be stupid to cut that off,"
Kathy Pherson, the CIA's media
director, said last week. "Journal-
ists have the same rights as any
other American citizen."
In addition, CIA Director Wil-
liam Casey can declare exceptions
to the reporter-hiring barn in "an
emergency involving human lives
or critical national interests." For-
mer Director Stanfield Turner
Y' authorized three such. exceptions
- one involving Iran - between
1977 and 1980.
Editors `naive'
Turner told, a convention of
newspaper editors In 1980 that
they were "naive" to think any
formal regulation could end alli-
ances between reporters and the
CIA. "I think a lot of correspon-
dents are patriotic enough' to
serve the CIA - perhaps without
even Informing their superiors,
said Turner, adding he "would not
hesitate" to approach them.
Many analysts believe Turner's
remarks were intended to improve
the cover available to CIA agents
by forcing foreign counterintelli-
gence agencies to include report-
ers as suspects.
Soviet officials hardly needed
the encouragement. In the past 30
years, they have expelled 28 U.S.
correspondents who, in that closed
and suspicious society, must adopt
the nosy and secretive habits of
spies to do their jobs.
Last week, Daniloff said he may
have triggered Soviet suspicions
when he "worked energetically
and probed deeply" to report on
such subjects as Soviet military
units in Afghanistan, nuclear
waste dumps and the shooting
down of Korean Airlines Flight
007.
Such topics involved "secret
information," according to Foreign
Ministry spokesman Genrtadi Ger-
asimov.
Daniloff denied "any connection
with any government agency" and
Soviet allegations that he "acted
on instructions" from two former
U.S. Embassy diplomats identified
by Soviet officials as CIA spies.
But he did not address the question
of whether the two men had been
sources or acquaintances.
"It's a fair supposition that, in a
community like Moscow, he might
have made their acquaintance,"
ventured U.S. News senior'editor
James C. Kilpatrick. "Other for-
mer Moscow correspondents have
told me they knew nearly every.
one in the U.S. Embassy."
No special relationship
He added that the magazine's
policy is "that our correspondents
should have no special relationship
of any kind with any intelligence
agency. It's a no-no." Kilpatrick
acknowledged that the policy does
not rule out CIA personnel as
sources: "The operant word is
special."
Intelligence sources say, howev-
er, that Moscow long has been
considered too risky for "deep
cover" CIA operations, including
those that might Involve a report-
er. Significantly, although exposes
during the late 1970s named
dozens of reporters and news
organizations that had cooperated
with the CIA for pay or patrio-
tism, no Moscow-based American
correspondent ever has been
linked publicly to the agency.
Much of what is known about
reporter-spy relations comes from
an extraordinary series of House
and Senate Intelligence Committee
hearings held in 1977, plus the
CIA's published regulations and a
Freedom of Information Act law- -
suit settled in 1982.
Together these sources establish
that, through the mid-'70s, hun-
dreds of American reporters
worked hand-in-glove with the
CIA, and dozens were employed
by the agency.
A few, like the late columnist
Joseph Alsop, admitted volunteer-
ing their services: "I've done
things for them when I thought
they were the right thing to do,"
Alsop said in 1977. "1 call it doing
my duty as a citizen." Others, like
New York Times columnist C.L.
Sulzberger, acknowledged helpful-
ness on a "totally informal" basis.
ABC correspondent Sam Jaffe 'S
said he had helped the agency -
but denied reports that he had
been paid to do so. CBS boss
William Paley recalled meeting
with top CIA officials to discuss
opening a CBS News bureau
abroad as a cover for an agency
operative - but said he could not
recall whether the network had
done so.
Scores of reporters acknowl.
edge. that they were debriefed by
the CIA after visits to Communist
countries.
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Didn't name names
In 1982, the CIA described how
it had used reporters, without
naming names. The disclosure, in
an affidavit, was part of the
settlement of a Freedom of Infor-
mation suit by Judith Miller, a
former Progressive magazine re-
porter now working for The New
York Times, that sought details of
the agency's relationship with
journalists.
"Some, perhaps a plurality,
were simply sources of foreign
intelligence; others provided cover
or served as a funding mecha-
nism" for agency activities, the
affidavit said.
"Some provided nonattributable
material for use by the CIA,
collaborated in or worked on
CIA-produced materials or were
used for the placement of CIA-pre-
pared material in the foreign
media," it continued.
"Others assisted in nonmedia
activities by spotting, assessing or
recruiting potential sources or by
handling other agents, and still
others assisted by providing access
to individuals of Intelligence Inter-
est or by generating local support
for U.S. policies ano activities."
It concluded: "Finally, with
respect to some of these individu-
als, the CIA simply provided
informational assistance or re-
quested assistance in suppressing a
media item such as a news story."
The term "handling other
agents" means directing and sup-
porting spies, debriefing them,
writing reports based on their
findings and paying the agents,
according to a guide published by
the McLean, Va.-based Association
of Former Intelligence Officers.
Besides using reporters, the CIA
sometimes dispatched its own
employees on intelligence missions
abroad "who 'served as real or
pretended journalists," according
to testimony by Colby, the former
CIA director, before the House
Intelligence Committee in Decem-
ber 1977.
In a few cases, he said, Ameri-
can reporters were told by the CIA
what to report in their dispatches.
Colby said photographers, driv-
ers and other unaccredited person-
nel working for American news
bureaus abroad - includigg some
free-lance writers - were still
considered fair game for agency
employment (though more recent
regulations require the prior con-
sent of the news organization's top
management).
CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500050029-0
Recruiting foreigners
Colby also successfully opposed
restrictions on recruitment of for-
eign reporters or exploiting for-
eign news media. "I believe that
we should not disarm ourselves in
this contest in the hopes that the
rest of the world will be gentler,"
he said.
These days, reporters and CIA
officials recoil when asked to
discuss journalist-spy ties. In Mos-
cow, for example, U.S. briefers
won't even talk about the CIA rule
against hiring reporters, saying,
"We just don't comment on intelli-
gence matters."
Clearly, however, contacts still
are frequent between CIA nprcnn.
nel and American, - journalists
abroad. "I consider, and most
foreign correspondents consider,
intelligence people good sources of
information," Fromm. now a con-
tributing editor to U.S. News, said
Friday.
4 "I was just in Japan and Korea,
and a New York Times correspon-
dent was with me. He asked me
who the CIA station chief In Seoul
was, figuring he was probably the
best source of information. There's
nothing' illegitimate about it,"
Fromm added, even though, in
Soviet eyes; such contact might
make the reporter seem to be "an
unpaid spy.'
The somewhat different point of
view of a CIA station chief was
argued in an affidavit contained in
,the Miller lawsuit.
The unnamed chief said an agent
would approach a correspondent
"because he's the guy who knows
where all the skeletons are, what's
the real story on so-and-so. They
make an appointment. They talk.
The agency man has information
to make him look good. If those
meetings don't prove fruitful to
the agency man, they will end. So
it behooves the journalist to make
them useful."
Fromm . himself acknowledged
the point in his December 1977
testimony before the House Intelli-
gence Committee. "Obviously, the
CIA's interest is to get information
from a correspondent beyond that
which he would report or have
reported, because otherwise they
could get it," he said.
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 1ctE A
.FACE
THE DANILOFF CASE
or Release 20?4A'/ : -bP91-00
14 September 1986
STATINTL
Spies and journalists often fish the same waters
By Ethan Bronner
Globe Staff
Toward the end of the Vietnam
War, just weeks before Saigon
fell to the North Vietnamese,
the Saigon station chief for
the Central Intelligence Agen-
cy telephoned correspondents of major
American news organizations several
times a day.
Washington was breathing down his
neck, and many of his operatives were
gone. Had they heard anything new?
Correspondents recall they gave the
agent, Thomas Polgar, what they had,
some reluctantly but others willingly.
During the previous months and years,
Polgar had been helpful to them. He had
been,'in fact, one of their best American
sources, a man who, unlike certain For-
eign Service officers, had no apparent ax
to grind, In the Vietnamese jungle of po-
litical disinformation, he spoke, by and
large, dispassionately.
Were those reporters working, albeit
temporarily, for the CIA? Were they com-
promising themselves professionally?
"Any foreign correspondent who Is
overseas for any length of time who
doesn't have some CIA contacts is not do-
ing his job," said Keyes Beech, a retired,
Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent
who spent three decades in Asia for the
Chicago Daily News. "They are in the
business of gathering information. and so
are we. And you don't get If you don't
give."
The complex question of relations be=
tween correspondents and American in-
telligence officers has been raised anew
by the Soviet charges of espionage
against Nicholas Daniloff. Moscow corre-
spondent for US News and World Report.
Soviet watchers, especially those who
know Daniloff, are virtually unanimous
in their belief that he has been framed by
the KGB, angry over the arrest on spying
charges of one of its officers in New York.
Yet there has been a rich history of re-
lations between the CIA and American
correspondents, especially in the two dec-
ades immediately after World War 11. Sev-
eral dozen reporters are documented to
have been on the CIA payroll, and scores
of others to have provided occasional ser-
vices, both journalistic and otherwise.
free of charge.
Joseph Alsop, the syndicated colum-
nist who is now retired, said he did sever-
al favors for the CIA, including taking a
trip to Laos In 1952 and one to the Philip-
pines in 1953. In both cases, the CIA felt
his coverage would affect the political sit-
uation, and he complied. On other occa-
sions, he said, he has done small non-
journalistic favors, but declined to elabo-
rate.
"I have the utmost contempt for any
colleague who refuses to help out his gov-
ernment when asked to do so, as long he
doesn't accept money," Alsop said. "Is It
wicked to behave as a patriot nowa-
days?"
According to CIA files made public un-
der the Freedom of Information Act sever-
al years ago, journalists acted as sources
of foreign Intelligence, provided cover, of-
fered material for use by the CIA and col-
laborated in or worked on CIA-produced
articles for placement in foreign newspa-
pers. Others assessed or recruited poten-
tial sources or provided access to people
in whom the CIA was interested.
A number of major news organiza-
tions, including The New York Times.
Newsweek magazine, the Christian Sci-
ence Monitor, CBS, ABC and the Associat-
ed Press, cooperated with the CIA in var-
ious ways at one time, according to pub-
lished reports and interviews with those
involved.
"During my operational days, I used to
run my people as journalists." said Wil-
Ilam Colby. CIA director from 1973 to
1976. "Most other countries, including
democratic ones, have no compunction
against using journalists for intelll9tnpe.
During the 1950s and '60s. American
journalists felt much freer to work ;w4th
the CIA. It was only in the 1970s thatpij'o-
pie started getting hysterical about such
contact. The CIA needed journalists to get
at people and places we couldn't. Otie'of
our biggest problems is cover. I think it's
time we all pulled our socks up and .it
this thing in perspective."
Daniel Schorr, longtime corresporide}it
for CBS and now a commentator foi Ila-
cotitmu"Sd
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 tional Pubg-pp g Fnorgg[q;~ro;904/11/29 : C~~AvF ft~QQ Qa ,~Pt~~~R sQt -0
the 1950s. lie said the era of the Cold
War, when it was widely perceived that
national security was keenly threatened,
produced a very particular mood.
"There was a whole different ethic in
those days," he said. "When Khruschev
came to the UN, CBS gave permission to
have a CIA guy in our booth so he could
try to lip-read the private conversations."
Harrison Salisbury, who covered Mos-
cow for The New York Times throughout
the difficult Stalin years, said his confi-
dential memos to his editors ended up in
the hands of the CIA. He is convinced his
editors gave them directly to the CIA,
which, he said, maintained in those years
a New York agent who was on close terms
with New York Times editors.
During the 1970s, the Watergate scan-
dal and the Vietnam War helped produce
a new political culture. A generation of re-
porters brought up on an adversarial re-
lationship with their government exposed
and criticized the relationship between
the CIA and the media.
Congressional hearings on the work of
the CIA were held, and news organiza-
tions engaged In a. period of self-search-
ing. In4977, investigative reporter Carl
Bernstein wrote a landmark article for
Rolling Stone magazine alleging that, ac-
cording to CIA sources and files, more
than 400 American journalists had se-
cretly carried out assignments for the CIA
over the previous 25 years.
Three months later, The New York
Times produced a three-part series saying
it had been able to identify 70 such cases.
Among them numbered at least one of its
own previous full-time and one past part-
time reporter.
During that period, organizations
such as the Overseas Press Club and the
American Society of Newspaper Editors
condemned the use of journalists by the
CIA and called for a stop to It. Congress
held hearings with the aim of legislating
curbs on the CIA. A key witness during
the hearings was Daniloff, who supported
such legislation.
Moreover, the CIA itself was getting
skittish about such close relations with a
mistrustful press and decided to restrict
contacts. It issued internal regulations
forbidding itself from entering into any
relationship with journalists accredited
to a US news organization for the purpose
of conducting intelligence activities.
Although there is every reason to be-
lieve the rules have been respected, there
are two rarely-mentioned loopholes: Vol-
untary work by journalists is allowed,
and restrictions on hiring can be over-
come with the permission of the CIA di-
rector.
to the level of the 1950s. David K.
Shipler, who has served for The New York
Times in Saigon, Moscow and Jerusalem.
said he views CIA agents like anyone else:
sources of information, but nothing more.
lie recently turned down a request that
he lecture CIA agents on the Soviet
Union.
"The last years have led to a clearer
sense among both journalists and the CIA
that there Is little to be gained from a rela-
tionship that could be misunderstood,"
said Peter Osnos, former foreign corre-
spondent for The Washington Post.
But some reporters and intelligence of-
ficers overseas continue to meet at cock-
tail parties and to play tennis together,
and there Is little way of predicting what
could bring about another swing. The
tenor of political debate has shifted to the
right since the 1970s, and those who urge
greater cooperation between the two com-
munities feel encouraged.
Admiral Stansfield "Turner, former CIA
director, said: "The whole trend In our so-
ciety against government, military and
the intelligence field is changing. At Yale,
144 students applied for 18 slots in a
seminar I'm giving. This at a campus
where [former Defense Secretary Robert]
,McNamara wasn't allo',Ned to speak.
Things are changing."
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90 PAM
WASHINGTON TIMES
8 September 1986
CIA rules prohibit
journalists on payroll
By Rita McWilliams
and Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Central Intelligence Agency
continues to follow internal reg-
ulations established during the
Carter administration that prohibit
using U.S. reporters for intelligence
activity, a CIA spokesman said yes-
terday.
The regulations, established dur-
ing Stansfield 'Itirner's reign as CIA
chief, remain in effect and are
closely followed, said CIA
spokesman Sharon Foster.
The rules specifically bar the CIA
from taking part in "any relation-
ships with full-time or part-time
journalists accredited by a U.S. news
service, newspaper, periodical, ra-
dio or television network or station,
for the purpose of conducting any
intelligence activities."
The regulations were announced
Dec. 2, 1977, after then-Senate Intel-
ligence Committee Chairman Daniel
Inouye, Hawaii Democrat, said he
would propose legislation prohibit-
ing the use of journalists for intel-
ligence work.
At the time, Mr. Inouye said he
had "come to the conclusion that no
intelligence agency should be in-
volved with working journalists."
The CIA, however, is permitted to
use journalists working for foreign
publications and broadcast outlets
in its overseas intelligence gather-
ing.
Moreover, the regulations say the
CIA would not deny "the opportu-
nity" for any person "to furnish in-
formation which may be useful to his
or her government" Also, the CIA is
permitted to have "unpaid relation-
ships with journalists or other mem-
bers of the U.S. news media organi-
zations who voluntarily maintain
contact for the purpose of providing
information on matters of foreign in-
telligence or foreign counterintelli-
gence to the U.S. government:'
The issue of journalists and spy-
ing surfaced with the recent arrest
of U.S. News and World Report Mos-
cow correspondent Nicholas
Daniloff, who was charged yester-
day by the Soviets with espionage.
Mr. Daniloff, and officials of the
magazine and the U.S. government,
have said the Soviets set him up.
Even President Reagan said in a per-
sonal letter to Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev that he would personally
vouch for Mr. Daniloff's innocence.
In 1978, Mr. Daniloff testified be-
fore the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee that Congress should create a
formal prohibition against "paid,
regular or contractual relations be-
tween intelligence agencies and
journalists."
He said recruiting of reporters
would damage the integrity of the
press, according to Friday's editions
of The New York 'l'imes.
House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Lee Hamilton said: "I'm
not aware of any policy with regard
to the use or non-use of journalists
- I don't know if there is any rule."
William Colby, who worked for
many years as a CIA clandestine ser-
vices operative before preceding
Mr. Turner as CIA director, admitted
using American journalists for intel-
ligence work.
"I've handled journalists as my
agents in foreign situations, but I
never told them what to write when
they wrote home to their American
papers;' Mr. Colby said. "They were
very useful in terms of getting into
things that officials can't get into in
foreign countries."
Mr. Colby, however, dismissed the
idea that Mr. Daniloff was engaged
in espionage as a "total put-on by the
Soviets" designed to bargain for the
release of Gennady Zakharov, an al-
leged Soviet spy recently arrested in
New York.
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RADIOFosefEPOR1
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 (301) 65.
SiATINTL
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM CBS Nightwatch STATION WUSA-1V
CBS Network
Septemher 8, 1986 2:00 A.M.
Washington, D.C.
Spies and Defectors
TERENCF SMITH: Spies and defectors. Usually their
tales are relegated to the real:-n of fictional thrillers. Lately,
tlloligh, more and more of these cases ar(~ making front-page news.
Is it a new phase of the super,_),rq,~r cold war?
Joining Iis with their views are former CIA Director
William.Colby and Vladimir Sakharov. He's a former KGB agent who
defected to the United States in 1971.
Gentlemen, welcome.
It's certainly in the news. And we are confronted now
with a new pattern, or at least the latest version of a new
pattern, in the case of Nicholas Daniloff, the U.S. News & World
Report reporter who was seized in 'Moscow in what appeas to us to
hr- .-f clear effort to arrange a trade with a Soviet employee of
the U.N. who was picked up in New York.
Do you accept it as that, Mr. Sakharov, from face value?
VLADIMIR SAKHAROV: Absolutely. The Soviets had to
frame somebody. Daniloff was there. And they need need [unin-
telligible].
SMITH: But can it he that simple, Mr. Colby? I mean
because if it is that simple, where does that lead?
COL'IY: Well, I think the most interesting aspect is not
the seizure of DanilloFF but the fact that the KGB could force it.
Apparently, one of the reasons was that the lawyer in the case in
New York apparently did not bring to the attention of the judge
the fact that our government would have agreed to paroling Mr.
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