JUDGE HITS CIA POLICY ON SUSPECTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000300520008-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 1998
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: June 1, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

VIRGINIA St)N
Sanitized - Approved Fc fPRbleW,EhAF-RDP75
CPYRGHT
Judge Hfts
u
e
ge em nt S. aynswor
criticized the CIA's methods in
. RICHMOND (UPI) - The Chic
of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of
Appeals said Wednesday the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency may be
resorting to slander to discredit
persons it suspects of being com-
munist agents,
F H
?J
d CI
hearing an appeal from a natural-
ized Canadian who won praise as
a Guerilla fighter against Russia
in World War II.
TILE .MAN, Eerik Heine, -47, led
freedom fighters in the captive
Baltic States of Estonia. The CIA
now brands him ' a Soviet KGB
agent and says he penetrated
Estonian immigrant groups in
Canada and the United States. .
Heine, of the- Montreal suburb
of Roxdale, asked the court to
force open CIA files and make
the agency prove that his accu-
sor, a Hyattsville, Md., man
works for the super-secret agency
and is immune from prosecution
for slander in a $110,000 suit..
His accuser is Juri Raus, pub-
licly an engineer for the U. S.
Bureau of Roads, privately on the
CIA payroll, the agency said, to
glean information from Estonian
invmigrants. Raus also was a
guerilla fighter against Russia
when the Baltic states were. seiz-
ed.
CIA Director Richard Helms, in
Federal 'District Court. in Balti-
more, Md., defended Raus, he
was on the Agency's payroll when
he called Heine a KGB agent.
SINCE TILE lower court hear-
ing, however, the CIA has dropped
,out of the case, at least in public.
Judge Haynsworth said the
agency's policy appeared to show
an extraordinary instance of the
exercise of governmental author-
ity."
He said it appeared that top CIA
officials could order agents to "go
out and slander an individual."
Haynsworth also asked attorneys
for Raus why, if the CIA is vital-
ly concerned with.national secur-
ity aspects of the case, did it ever
get involved in the first place in-
stead of "leaving the defendant to
fend . for himself."
Raus'. attorney said the CIA
! ad to defend its agent as a mat-
t r of principle to avoid paying
ander damages to a person it
Neves is an enemy agent.
IIAiS INVOE:D the cloak of
;,tional security in, his defense
ud said if the CIA had to explain
w he worked for them or to
on-Lit detailed proof of employ-
1 ,cnt then national security would
damaged.
;it~rneys for Heine,' who be-
eyed they have a landmark case,
rgued that if Raus ban commit
'e slander they claimed, then the
A would have "Carte Blanche
Lander cards to hurl accusations
gainst any citizen."
They said a "more penetra
inquiry" by the courts might
how Raus in fact is no more an
mploye of the CIA "than the rank
and file of the Retail Clerks In-
rnational Association."
1
If Raus and the CIA win, the
eine lawyers said,. "a travel
gency, the National Student As-
ciation, 'the Ancient Order of
ibcrnians, the American Express
ompany or the Trapp Family
lagers" could slander at will.
Raus was charged with calling
eine a KGB agent during speech-
to Estonian groups in New York
luring November, 1963, , and in
aryland during 1964.
The court's decision was expect-
in two to three months:'
FOIAb3b
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000300520008-7