INTERVIEW WITH CLAIRE STERLING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500150013-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2005
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: February 14, 1984
• Content Type: TRANS

b STAT
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RADIO 1V REPORTS,
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 (301) 656
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM
The Larry King Show
STATION
WTOP Radio
MBS Network
DATE
February 14, 1984
12:05 A.M.
CITY
Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT
Interview With Claire Sterling
LARRY KING: We have a return visit tonight from this
world's finest reporters, Claire Sterling. Her previous book
--her previous visit was the% reason for the previous book. The
Terror Network was a major seller. And now Miss Sterling is the
author of The Time of the Assassins, published by Holt Rinehart
Winston, billed as under -- the underbilling is "The journalist
who first brought the plot to kill the Pope into the open now
brings us the inside story she alone is qualified to tell." The
Time of the Assassins: Anatomy of an Investigation....
We welcome to our microphones Claire Sterling, the
veteran journalist. Her previous work, The Terror Network was --
that was a major seller.
CLAIRE STERLING: Yes, it was.
KING: What I mean, you really did well with.that book.
STERLING: Yeah.
KING: Did you expect to? Do authors ever...
STERLING: No. I thought I was going -- I had a big
fight on my hands, but in the end it did very well.
KING: How did you -- let's go bank a little -- get into
this particular niche you got into? Not just a foreign corres-
pondent, but a foreign correspondent who is-interested in terror-
ism, a foreign correspondent who uncovers things, a kind of, you
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OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. 0 NEW YORK 0 LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ' ? DETROIT 0 AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
 Ci: PAGE
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13 February 19&
C.I.A. Seeks to Read Moscow Auguries.
By PHILIP TAUBMAN dais said, would probably reflect a. specific individualsas the new Gen-. STAT
reluctance among older Soviet lead- eral Secretary.
wTk*Newm WASHINGTON, P'?`~ WASHINGTON, Feb. Feb1212 era to turn over power to younger Chairman of Commission
-- When men like Mr. Gorbachev who might The- growing consensus that Mr.-
Soviet
1. Brezhnev the 15 months leader Leonid Reagan rule for 20 years or more. Chernenko will succeed Mr. Andro-
As the R Reagan Ad- Ad- As the C.I.A.'s Soviet analysts intelligence officials said, was
died 15 m
ministration was ready. In a memo to scrambled over the weekend to keep based primarily on his selection as .
President Reagan, William J. Casey, up with developments in Moscow, chairman of.the funeral commission
the Director of Central Intelligence. they could appreciate the assessment and on-his appearance at the head of,
picked Yuri V. Andr*pcrv as a dark of Richard Helms, a former C.I.A. di- the line when Soviet leaders passed
horse closing last at at the the finish to sun rector, who described the Kremlin
.
coed Mr. Brezhuev. leadership as "the toughest target of Within ndr days s o of body.
Mr. Breztrn
Mr. Casey and the Soviet experts at all" for American intelligence agent
the Central Intelligence Agency ap-, des. death in November 1982, the CZ.A-,
prescient on this produced a 29-page classiuted.report.
parently were not as on -7
occasion, When,Mr. Andropov died "If Chernenko is not officially Mr. Andropov that included a de
Thursday, the C.I.A. dismissed the named in the next 24 hours, we'll tailed account of agency reports on
first news reports about the death, know there's a donnybrook going on his background, his ascent to power,
saying they were unfounded. in the leadership," one intelligence an assessment of his likely impacton,
After acknowledging that ? the - official said. the Soviet Government and_reiatians
Soviet leader was dead, intelligence with the West,-and adescription of his
officials said Friday that Mikhail S. The deliberations inside the Krem- personal life and health. lin Gorbachev, a member of both the cannot be photographed by Amen - In a summary, according to an Ad-
Soviet Communist Party Politburo can satellites. Nor can the conversa- :.ministration official, the report con-
and the Secretariat, seemed to be the tions and politicking in the Politburo cluded that "Andropov will be a for-
most likely candidate to succeed Mr. be monitored by; electronic eaves- midable adversary." The report
Andropav as General Secretary of the dropping equipment, intelligence offi- added: "He is perhaps the most com--
Communist party. Those` officials cials say. They said the United States plicated and p?-tin of all the cur:
said Mr. Gorbachev was followed, in was once able to collect information rent Soviet leaders. He is ruthless,
order, by Grigory V. Romanov, also a by intercepting the radio conversa- clever, well-informed, .a tough in-, l
member of the Politburo and the - tions of Soviet leaders as they rode fighter and cunning."
Defense Minister Dmitri around Moscow in limousines. The Much of the report, intelligence of-
Soviets eventually learned about that ficials said, was drawn from the
Secretariat; rerretarian v; at; and Konstantin U. Cher-
nenko, the last of the three men who prance and ended it by encoding the Soviet press, interviews with Soviet
are members of the politburo and the communications. defectors and emigres and observa-
Secretariat. The C.I.A. depends on information lions by American intelligence agents
By today, the consensus in the gathered by agents and collected and diplomats in Moscow. The lack of
C.I.A. and the Reagan Administra from sources both inside the Soviet inside sources, the officials said, was
lion was that Mr.. Chernenko, a Union and abroad. "It's old-fashioned evident in the report's comment that
Brezhnev protege who was out intelligence," one C.I.A. official said. Mr. Andropov had married twice but
maneuvered by Mr. Andropov in 198'2, --The Kremlin is one place where we it was unclear whether his second
would emerge at least temporarily as can't depend on high technology to wife was alive. On Saturday intelb-
the new Soviet leader. penetrate the?target." gence officials in Washington felt the
The initial betting on Mr. Gorba- confusion about that issue had been
cbev illustrated the difficulty of This weekend the C.I.A.'s experts resolved when Mr. Andropov's
trying to analyze, much less predict, on the Soviet Union, directed by Rob- widow, Tatyana, appeared beside the
the decisions and actions of the Soviet Gates. the Deputy Director for bier in Moscow.
intelligence officials said. irate ce who is a Soviet authority Intelligence officials declined to de:'
leadership, ship, ev, al the young himself, red through volumes of scribe in detail this weekend's C.I.A.
Mr. Gorbachev, the Politburo 52- computerized information about reports about the policies and health
eat member believed Pto be olit Mr. - Soviet leaders. of Mr. Chernenko, Mr. Gorbachev or
was widely . An dr Working in a nondescript office other Soviet leaders,, except to say
acv's s personal lchoil choice for r a successor. . that Mr. Chernenko might prove to be
building h Vienna, Va., a Washington a interim leader. They said Mr. Cher-
Passed Over Once suburb, the staff of the Soviet depart- nenko has suffered for years from
Mr. Chernenko was not only passed meat prepared papers for Adminis- emphysema
over once for the top spot, but was t ration officials about the succession The key power broKe3' in the succes-
also associated with an old- process itseif, compiled profiles c) sion, as he was when Mr. Brezhnev STAT
leadership that Mr. Andropov had leading candidates, and examined the died, is probably Marshal Ustinov,
indirectly criticized. He is 72 years implicationsffor the Soviet Union and the officials said.
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 ;fl7 e r,. R -'; WALL STREET JOURNAL
' Epp, oved For Release 21)061WUA2a3CIA1-FMP91-
I'i~ r?f nN `
tits 1"i~4.
Inside Information
From Kremlin Hard
To Come By in U.S.
Lack of Intelligence Data
Has Officials -Speculating-
On Andropov's Successor.
Staff Reporter of THEW ALL STnEET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON-Last Friday morning, as
the world reacted to the death of Soviet
a cable arrived on
leader t Yuri Andropov,
the desks of senior U.S. officials from an
American ambassador overseas. The cable
knowingly predicted that Mr. Andropov
would give up his post as Soviet head. of
state next month, but remain as Communist
Party leader.
The ill-timed cable illustrates a basic in
elligence-gathering problem for, the U.S.:
At a time when the Soviet Union is going
through a crucial change of leadership, the
U.S. knows almost nothing abouLdecislon-
making within the Kremlin.
"You would be shocked at how little we
know" about the Soviet Union, says a senior
administration official who reads the daily
flow of intelligence reports. "If we confessed
our ignorance, we'd be 'better off."
The lack of intelligence information is so
chronic that, according to one congressional
source, the 'U.S. ""had absolutely no idea"
where the ailing Mr. Andropov was for more
than four months. By one account, U.S. in-
telligence agencies went at least 152 days
without being able to fix Mr. Andropov's lo-
cation. Previously, since 1922, the longest
the U.S. had ever been in the dark about a
Soviet leader's whereabouts was 10 days, ac-
cording to this source.' .
In the effort to locate Mr. Andropov, a
U.S. Embassy officer in Moscow at one point
stationed himself on a street corner near the
Kremlin and tried to spot the Soviet leader's
limousine. A motorcade eventually ap-
peared, but the embassy man couldn't spot
Mr. Andropov.
-
1 "If there is a weakness in our intelli
ence apparatus, it's i our ability to figure
out what the leaders th Soviet are
going to do in any riven situation." says
Richard Helms-former director of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency. He notes that in
some cases "we may not even divine for
some timg..j
fet able natureof it.
The U.S. is in the dark now, as the Sovi-
ets are struggling to choose a new, leader,
because of its inability to penetrate the tiny
group of Soviet officials who are privy to
major decisions. Malcolm Toon, former U.S.
ambassador to the Soviet Union, estimates
that a maximum of 100 Soviet officials actu-
ally know what's going on-and they aren't
talking.
Inevitably, this causes some serious U.S.
miscalculations. Senior administration offi-
cials say they~were convinced that Mr. An-
dropov would reappear in public last De-
cember at a scheduled meeting of the Su-
preme Soviet, partly because of Soviet leaks
that seem, in retrospect, to have been disin-
formation.
To be sure, there have been some recent
.intelligence successes in evaluating the Sovi-
ets. Months ago,--U.S. S. analysts correctly di-
agnosed that Mr. Andropov was suffering
from a kidney failure, complicated by diabe-
tes. "We knew be was going to die, but we
didn't know when," says an influential.U.S.
official.
U.S. information about Mr. Andropov's
health came partly from several American
doctors who visited recently with Dr. Yev-
geny Chazov, a top Soviet medical authority
who treat's members of the Politburo. U.S.
officials also note reports that the American
doctors who visited Dr. Chazov may have
provided him with medical equipment to
help-:treat Mr. Andropov.
A senior administration official notes one
ironic benefit of the lack of inside informa-
tion about Kremlin politics: Because the
U.S. knows so little, it isn't tempted to try to
play favorites among the Soviet leadership.
The official argues that any such attempt to
manipulate Soviet decisions would be "a
snare and a delusion."
"Even if you owned a member of'the Po-
litburo, that wouldn't give you the whole
story," explains another senior U.S. official.
""You would have to own them all."
By DAVID IGNATIUS
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 ABC NIGHTLINE
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KOPPEL: Good evening. I'm Ted Koppel, and this is Nightlij
the battleship New Jersey shelled targets in Lebanon today. But in capitals
around the world, it's not the sounds of fighting, it's the signal from
Washington that's getting the most attention. What will the U.S. pullback in
Lebanon mean in the long run? We'll talk about the consequences of the U.S. move
with Richard Helms, former director of the CIA and former U.S. ambassador to
Iran, and with former CIA deputy director, Admiral Bobby Inman.
KOPPEL: With us live now in our Washington bureau is Richard\Helms, former
director of the Central Intelligence Agency and former U.S. ambassador to Iran;
and from our affiliate, KVUE, in Austin, Texas, Adm.\Bobby\Inman, former deputy
CIA director. Gentlemen, both of you have spent a professional lifetime
analyzing events such as these. Ambassador Helms, those big guns off the coast
of Lebanon now, are they covering a retreat or somehow setting a new policy?
RICHARD HELMS (Former CIA Director): I don't know that they're doing either,
Ted. It seems to me that, uh, with the collapse of the Gemayel government and
the disintegration of the Lebanese army, that it's very sensible to pull our
Marines out of Beirut and put them aboard the ships at sea. After all, the
president, I believe it was last December, said that if the government of Lebanon
were to collapse, there was no point in keeping the Marines there. And with the
current fighting going on, it seems to me the Marines are a target and they're
accomplishing almost nothing of their original mission and, therefore, the time
to do is (sic) cut our losses, get them out, and then reassess the situation and
see what we can do constructively in a atmosphere (sic);in which the Marines are
no longer the issue.
KOPPEL: Well, you raise an interesting point, namely, the statement that the
president made last December. It seemed to iae that by saying if the government
collapses, he was almost saying to the Syrian government, 'Put enough pressure on
the Gemayel government, cause it to collapse, and we'll pull out.' HELMS: Well,
I don't, I'm sure that that isn't what he had in mind.
KOPPEL: Oh, I'm sure it wasn't. HELMS: And I, and I can't believe that the
Syrians took it as meaning that, either. Uh, after all, the situation of the
sectarian fighting and so forth is a factor of Lebanese politics, and it may well
be that when the Lebanese face the stark reality that there're no more
peacekeeping forces there, they may settle down, get some sense of their own, and
start to try to put a government back together again that can run the country.
KOPPEL: Admiral Inman, you remember the lamentable days back during the, the
last few years of our role in Vietnam, when it at times seemed as though our
policy in Vietnam was that we had gotten in there so that we might have the right
to withdraw our troops from Vietnam. This is almost beginning to sound the same
way. 1 mean, here we've been in there for 17 months now with the Marines so that
we have what, the right to be able to pull them out again? That's not a.-
successful policy. What is our policy? ADMIRAL BOBBY INMAN (Former Deputy
Director, CIA): Well, inevitably, you've got a, a no-win situation when you have
an unstable government. If you look at this situation in perspective, it was the
collapse of the Lebanese army in 1975 that brought about the collapse of the
governments and essentially dividing the country of Lebanon., and particularly the
city of Beirut, into Christian and Moslem enclaves. Uh, we read a lot of
articles after the Israeli invasion that the situation was changed, that now was
r4MI 1W
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 Approved For Release 2006/01/12 : CIA-RDP91-00901 000500150013-6
WASHINGTON TIMES
ARTICLE APE RED 1 February 1985
CORD MEYER
Scenario
for a Bay..
o Pi*
s`
yen before he has had a
chance- to savor his massive
electoral victory, President
Ronald Reagan finds him-
self on a collision course with the
Democratic majority in the House
i over the covert aid the United States
has been giving the Contras fighting
in Nicaragua.
In the Senate, the new chairman
of the Intelligence Committee, Dave
Durenberger, R-Minn., is telling the.
administration that the only way to
save the arms aid to the guerrillas is
tr, go public. -
'Ib dee en Mr. Rea an's-dilemma
the to uentia voices of former CIA
directors Richard Helms and James
Schlesinger are being raised to warn
that the hea involvement of the,
intelligence agency in this contro-
versial and no-longer-secret ro'ect
is ero mg the agency's support in
Congress over-the long term. .
Rolling with these punches, Mr.
Reagan has made it clear that he has
no intention of abandoning the Con-
tras by permanently cutting their,
supply lines. But he has agreed that
all possible ways o assisting the
guerrillas be explored to see if there
are practical options other than CIA
funding. Since the vote on whether
to renew the CIA arms aid cannot be
held until March, the administration
has a month to decide on its G ra egv.
-It is likely that few decisions in the
next four years will more profoundly
affect the American position in the
world and Mr. Reagan's place in the
history books than how he manages
this enormously difficult dilemma
involving the future of Central
America. In their initial review of
the available o tions. Reagan offi-
ce s are finding no easy alternative
solutions and the renewal of auasi-
secret CIA funding may turn out to
be the only realistic way of helping
the Contras..
At first glance, Mr. Durenberger's
proposal to make the arms assis-
tance available by open vote as part
of the foreign aid package has the
appeal of forthrightness and sim-
plicity. But under the law, the United
States can only give such military
aid to duly recognized governments
.or international entities and the
president would have to report
openly to Congress within 60 days
and obtain the support . of both
Houses.
In effect, ".going public"with mili-
tary aid to the Contras would require
breaking relations with the Nicara-
guan government and giving some
kind of formal recognition to the
main guerrilla group. A U.S. Con-.
gress that balks at quiet support to
the Contras is not ready for a virtual
declaration of war against the Sari-
dinista regime that would eliminate
the remaining possibility of negoti-:.
ration, persuasion, and pressure.
Until the conclusion is .reached
that there is no hope .of getting the.,
Sandinistas to agree to an open soci
ety and free elections, a complete
diplomatic break is premature. At
present, it would not. have the sup-
port of most Latin countries nor of
our European allies
If -publicly voted U.S. arms aid to-]
the Contras is a : mirage, , there
remains the possibility that friendly
third countries might be persuaded
to provide the arms the U.S.. Con-
gress is reluctant to supply..In fact,
:one or-two governments., 'have
.stepped in to assist the Contrs since
the U.S. aid was suspended last May-
But this assistance was-a stop-gap
measure designed to see the Contras
through to the promised renewal of
U.S. aid this year. If it becomes clear '
that the United States is perma-,
nently terminating its aid, there is
-little hope that others will help when
they see the United States is unwill-
ing to protect its own vital interests.
If it turns out that CIA funding,
with all its drawbacks: is the only
feasible way of supplying the Con-
eras Reagan officials believe that
the predictably disastrous conse
uences of American wt rawa
can c ange enoua votes to save t e
aid. A decision to cut off the Contras
would amount to a congressionally
man ated Bay o Res and would
send out the si nal that the U d
States has a din proved to be an
unre table ally.
The Sandinistas would take the
U.S. pullout as a green light for a
major offensive with their helicopter
gunships to crush the Contras and to
impose a militarized state on the
ST AT
Cuban pattern.. The democratic
opposition groups that still exist
openly inside Nicaragua have con-
sistently warned.: that the Contra
threat is their -only protection
against a Sandinista crackdown.
Released from the necessity of
defending its own territory from the
Contra attacks, the large Sandinista
-army would be freed to step up the
flow of arms and trained guerrillas.
into El` Salvador and Guatemala. A
very major increase in the
American assistance programs to
Honduras and Costa Rica would be.
necessary over many years to have a
chance of preventing their retreat
into a frightened neutrality- Aid to
the Contras is cheap at the price,.
when the cost of its withdrawal, is
soberly calculated.
Finally, the Reagan administra-
;; tion can make a strong case that a ,
renewal of aid to the guerrillas at
this critical moment could have a
dramatic impact on the Nicaraguan
civil war. Symbolizing American,,
determination to stay-- the course,
this decision would present the Sandinistas a choice between the even
tual risk of defeat or the holding of
the genuinely free elections they
once promised,.:,
Cord Meyer is a nationally sY di-'
cated columnist.
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