CHANGING CLIMATE MAY STYMIE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY BILL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600070040-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2004
• Sequence Number: 40
• Publication Date: July 10, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

DATE a C- , - PAGE
Ch-nging Clama
Intelligence Agency
w Bit!
By George Lardner Jr? why I say we're at a very delicate
Washington Post Staff Wrltcr stage, right now."
Two years ago, when David Atlee Bayh indicated that he was speak-
Phillips and like-minded defenders of ing of administration concern over
j the Central Intelligence Agency- set some recent news leaks about actual
and proposed covert operations, which
out on the college lecture circuit, they must now be reported to Congress,
were routinely confronted by hecklers however vaguely.
= and protesters denouncing them as "The whole matter-charters, over-
"assassins." - sight and everything-I think is going
to rise or fall on the (congressional)
The climate has changed. The inves- security question," Bayh told a re.
tigations are over. The recriminations porter. "If we cannot convince the
have subsided. The apologists have president that we can handle this in.
turned into advocates, urging, even formation'securely, he's not going to
demanding, a stronger hand for the give it to us for oversight and he's not
CIA and the rest of the intelligence going to continue to support charter
community despite the record of legislation that forces the intelligence
abuses, agencies to give it to us for over
"There's absolutely no 'question sight."
about it," says Phillips, the founder There is also a troubling catch. to
and-past president of the Association that proposition, Bayh said. Officials
of Former Intelligence Officers. "A of every administration have been
lot of people are saying, 'Gee, the known to leak secret tidbits of infor-
agency has won.' Well, I'm afraid we - mation from time to time themselves,
haven't won. But we have survived." for. various reasons. That is also hap-
'
WASHINGTON V"80d For Release 2004/05/21 : CIA-RDP81 00 0R00
they may yet be able to claim vic-
tory. The CIA-and its congressional
overseers, who were first organized in
1975 to cope with disclosures of illegal
domestic spying and other 'misdeeds-
pening these days, Bayh is convinced.
"Now"what ax they're grinding and
whether it's to release information so
DAVID ATLEE PHILLIPS
... we have survived"
that when it hits the papers, they can For the intelligence agencies, other
say, 'Well, look, this is what happens goals-and potential signs of who
when Congress gets. it,, I don't know," ,,,,- ,..h,. ,;.-
(S. 2525), has been drafted and debated
at Senate hearings for months now,
but all sides dismiss it as nothing
more than a talking paper, a starting
point.
Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), who
served as the chairman of the original
Senate Intelligence Committee and its
unprecedented investigations, thinks
or
th
been
i
i
i
case, is the law under which the presi- '? 7.. a ~u"vt. auu vt a btetute inaL
dent must notify Congress of the vould give the CIA more, rather than
CIA's covert operations-which would les, freedom to undertake covert ac
be.. euphemistically renamed "special donns.
activities". under S. 2525. Repeal of "There's been a failure on the part
the Hughes-Ryan Amendment, which of the administration and Congress, in
Congress adopted in 1974, stands at or particular, to start off with first
near the top of any official's le things first, which is to define the na-
p y g' +nrn nF +ho +y,,.,..,4 n r_.Y r
Angleton, former CIA counterintelli-
Under Hughes-Ryan, covert actions gence chief
nd
h
i
a
now c
a
rman of the
in- foreign countries can be under- Security and Intelligence Fund. "Once
taken only if the president finds each you define the threat
o
a
, y
u c
n come
has been the defense mechanism of such operation "important to the'na- up with rules and regulations to con-
the agency and it-could easily have tional security" and reports it "in a 'fine the threat. That way, you can get
been foreseen . . ', Memories are very timely fashion to the appropriate com- rid of all this adversary business [wit,,h
short. I think the shrewd operators, mittees of the Congress," currently Congress and the courts) brought in
she friends of the CIA, recognized four in.each house. Past and present by the left wing."
CIA officials regularly denounce the At present, the rules governing U.S-
th
could at tihold oas on their side, ut against legislat i that they
h cy proviso as a "disaster" even though intelligence agencies are embodied in
tion." most of the leaks for which Hughes- an executive order President Carter
Ryan is blamed probably, would have issued in January, which contains var-
Other senators, members of the occurred anyway.
ions prohibitions and restrictions on
Present committee such as Walter D.
Huddlesto,i D Former CIA Director William L. covert operations, including a ban on
( Ky.) and Charles McC. Colby, for instance, believes the assassinations. Critics such as the
Mathias (R-Md.), profess to be more.. House Intelligence Committee headed Center for National Security Studies
optimistic, Insisting that a new legisla- by Otis Pike (D-N.Y.) was "mainly" re- have -complained that it also leaves
tive charter for the intelligence com- sponsible for the fact that "every new the door- open for extensive surveil-
mthnity will indeed be passed, proba- thing [covert action] that I briefed lance without a warrant, including
bly next year. They point out that the Congress about during 1975 leaked." break-ins, directed against people in
Carter administration is, after all, - But the Pike committee, like' the ' this country.
committed to that goal. Church committee, would have gotten. ?
But there i s; increasing: uncertainty that information .