CHANGING CLIMATE MAY STYMIE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY BILL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600070043-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2004
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: July 10, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For RelWA5ffiqqgT.
Changing- Climate May.. Stymie
Intelligence Agency Bill,
By George Lardner Jr. 4
Washington Post Staff writer -
Two years ago, when David Atlee
Phillips and like-minded defenders of
the Central Intelligence Agency set
out on the college lecture circuit, they
were routinely confronted by hecklers
and protesters denouncing them as
"assassins"
The climate has changed. The inves-
tigations are over. The recriminations
have subsided. The apologists have
turned into advocates, urging, even
demanding, a stronger hand for the
CIA and the rest of the intelligence
`community despite the record of
abuses.
"There's absolutely no question
,about it," says Phillips, the founder
and past president of the Association
of Former Intelligence Officers.' "A
lot of people are saying, 'Gee, the
agency has won.' Well, I'm afraid we
haven't won. But we have survived"
They may yet be able to claim vic- I
tory. The CIA-and its congressional i
overseers, who were first organized in
1975 to cope with disclosures of illegal
domestic spying and other misdeeds-
stand today at a crucial juncture.
A comprehensive piece of legisla-
tion, the National Intelligence Reorg-
anization and Reform Act of 1978
(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
it is already too late.
"Reforms have been delayed to
death," he said in an interview. "This
has been the defense mechanism of
the agency and it could easily have
been foreseen . . . Memories are very
short. I think the shrewd operators,
the friends of the CIA, recognized
that time was on their side, that they
could hold out against legislative ac-
tion."
Other senators, members of the
present committee such as Walter D.
Huddleston (D-Ky.) and Charles McC.
Mathias (R-Md.), profess to be more
optimistic, insisting that a new legisla-
tive charter for the intelligence com-
munity will indeed-be passed, proba-
bly next year. They,point out that the
Carter - administration is, after all,
committed to that goal.
But there" is increasing' uncertainty
as to just. ,what kind=of intelligence re-.
forms could get: through,-. Congress
these days and which of those the 'ad-
ministration will wind up supporting.
The tensions over Africa, the recrimi-
nations with the Soviet Union over
spies here and there and other signs
of what the Russians have called "a
chilly war," c o u 1 d, officials agree,
produce a stiffer line from the White
House.
"We're at a. critical period right
now," acknowledges Senate Intelli-
gence 'Committee Chairman Birch
Bayh (D-Ind.). "There are significantly
more questions being raised in the ex-
ecutive branch right. now about the fu-
ture of (congressional) oversight than
there have been in the past. That's
why I say we're at a very delicate
stage right now." -
Bayh,indicated that he was speak-
ing of administration concern over
some recent news leaks about actual
and proposed covert operations, which
must now be reported to Congress,
however vaguely.
"The whole matter-charters, over-
sight and everything-I think is going
to rise or fall on the (congressional)
security question," Bayh told a re-
porter. "If we cannot convince the
president that we can handle this in.
formation securely, he's not going to
give it to us for oversight and he's not
going to continue to support charter
legislation that forces the intelligence
agencies to give it to us for over-
sight."
There is also a troubling catch to
that proposition, Bayh said. Officials
of every administration have been
known to leak secret tidbits of infor-
mation from time to time themselves,
for various reasons. That is also hap-
pening these days,.Bayh is convinced.
whether it's to release information so
that when it hits the papers, they can
say, 'Well, look, this is what happens
when Congress gets it,' I don't know,"
One of the chief targets of the U.S.
intelligence establishment, in any
case, is the law under which the presi-
dent must notify Congress of the
CIA's covert operations-which would
be euphemistically renamed "special-
activities" under S. 2525. Repeal of
,the Hughes-Ryan Amendment, which
Congress adopted in 1974, stands at or
near the top of any CIA official's leg-
islative "wish list."
Under Hughes-Ryan,' covert actions
in foreign countries can be under-
taken only if the president finds each
such operation "important to the na-
tional security" and reports it "in a
timely fashion to the appropriate com-
mittees -of the Congress," currently
four in each- house. Past and present
CIA officials regularly denounce the
proviso as~a "disaster" even though
most of the leaks for which Hughes-
Ryan is blamed probably-would have
occurred anyway..
Former CIA Director William E.
Colby, for instance, . believes the
House Intelligence Committee headed
by Otis Pike (D-N.Y.) was "mainly" re-
sponsible for the fact that "every new
thing [covert action] that I briefed
,Congress about during 1975 leaked."
But the Pike committee, like the:
Church committee, would have gotten'
that information anyway, in the
course of its congressionally man- -
Ryan had never been passed. Its sue-:
cessors, the permanent Senate and
House Intelligence committees, will
continue to get that information even
if Hughes-Ryan is repealed. Only the
three other committees in each house,
Appropriations, Armed Services and
Foreign or International Relations,
will be cut off.
Still, repeal of Hughes-Ryan has be-
come a goal for the intelligence com-
munity in the legislative battles that
lie ahead.
"Four committees in each house is
absurd," Colby declared. "The breadth
of the reporting makes it much less of
a secret, more .-of a topic of
conversation.'."."-
Approved For Release 2004/05/21 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R000600070043-2
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 Approved For RelerX tO f &lTa I RYV 1 0980R008ifiQ(y1UcQGA-$-2 regular meetings in
the F Street offices of the director of
central intelligence. Its strategy will
For the intelligence agencit s, other
goals-and potential signs of who
wins, who loses-include passage of a
law that would make it a felony for
intelligence officers, past or present,
to reveal a secret and of a statute that
would give the CIA more, rather than
less, freedom to undertake covert ac-
tions.
"There's been a failure on the part
of the administration and Congress, in -
particular, to start off with first
things first, which is to define the na-
ture of the threat," asserts James J.
Angleton, former CIA counterintelli-
gence chief and now chairman of the
Security and Intelligence Fund. "Once
you define the threat, you can come
up with rules and regulations to con-
fine the threat. That way, you can get
rid of all this adversary business [with
Congress and the courts] brought in
by the left wing."
At present, the rules governing U.S.
intelligence agencies are embodied in
an executive order President Carter
issued in January, which contains var-
ious prohibitions and restrictions on
covert operations, including a ban on
assassinations. Critics such as the
Center for National Security Studies
have complained that it also leaves
the door open for extensive surveil-
lance without a warrant, including
break-ins, directed against people in
this country.
"The order contains the most ex-
plicit and far reaching claim of an in-
herent, presidential right to intrude
without a- warrant into areas pro-
away
things, fbuthe t then
, ent the do those powr'
be to argue against anything that de-
parts from the structure of the execu-
tive order, to hold out for more flexi-
bility and less restrictions on covert
tected by the Fourth Amendment ever
stated publicly by an American presi-
dent," observes the center's - director,
Morton H. Halperin.
Designed as a temporary charter,.
the executive order was written in
close consultation with the Senate In-
telligence Committee, which then in-
troduced the proposed National Intel-
ligence Reorganization and Reform
Act. It would put the American intelli-
gence community under a new direc-
tor of national intelligence and re-
strict a wide range of abuses such as
burglaries, mail intercepts and drug
experimentation. Slightly stronger
than Carter's executive order and
stitched together with a wide array of
reporting requirements, it has also
been assailed from all sides.
On the one hand, tha American
Civil Liberties Union regards the 263-
page bill as "very close to being worse
than nothing," reports ACLU. legisla-.
tive counsel Jerry Berman.
"The bill broadly authorizes covert
operations, paramilitary operations
and intrusive investigations of Ameri-
can citizens," he protested. "It takes
them, with all the flexibility he had The Senate bill defines covert ac-
before. As for the prohibitions in the
bill, you could drive a truck through tions "in such a way that you'd have
some of them. It says, for instance, no to rule out a lot of things done today,"
covert operations resulting in 'mass one source said. Under S. 2525, such
destruction of property.' What's
operations would have to be"`essential
`mass.
The Security and Intelligence Fund to the conduct of the foreign policy or
sees it differently., Angleton clearly the national defense" and not just
considers the bill the product of a ,i "important to the national security,"
left-wing cabal, an "altogether famil- as present law requires.
iar company of ..wreckers" led by Such restrictive readings, it must be
"arch-liberal politicians" such as Vice noted, are not CIA's normal style and
President e. perhaps reflect only a strategic posi-
S: 2525, the he fun fund says in its tion of the moment. As one of the
cent situation report, is "so drastic stic. in n leading students of the agency, Harry
its language, so summary in its au- Howe Ransom, says in his book. "The
thority, that it will, if adopted in any- Intelligence Establishment," "Probably
thing like its present form, leave the no other organization of the federal
two principal intelligence agencies- government has taken such liberties in
the CIA and the FBI-all but impo- interpreting its legally assigned func-
tent as far as coping successfully with tions as has the .CIA."
subversion, espionage and terror is The administration's professed res-
concerned." ervations, however, are so extensive
"I don't think the president has that its intelligence experts will prob-
shown any leadership in the matter," ably produce a "counterdraft" to S.
Angleton added. Instead, he said, Car- 2525 sometime this fall. It is also
ter has left it to 14Iondale - whom the . counting on the House to insist on a
fund describes as Church's . once more conservative tack.
"ardent lieutenant" on the Senate In- A na test of sentiments in
preliminary
telligence Committee -;and to David
Aaron, Mondale's former Senate aide, the House is expected this summer
who is now deputy White House as- when a bill to control national secu-
sistant for national security. rity.wiretaps and bugging comes up
, In any event, congressional sources for a vote. Originally a slice of S.
say that Aaron's boss at the White 2525, it narrowly escaped premature
House, Zbigniew Brzezinski, has death last month in a House Judiciary
shown absolutely no interest in the subcommittee where -liberals and con-
y servatives alike were hoping to shoot
subject. Indeed, by Brzezinski's re?? it down, for completely opposite rea-
ported standards, he ought ught to be op- sons.
posed to major portions of both S.
2525 and the Carter executive order. Church says he senses little enthusi-
According to a Carter article in The asm for S. 2525 in Congress at the mo-
New Yorker, Brzezinski has not only ment, much less for stronger controls.
expressed concern about the restric- "It may very well be that last year
tions placed on the CIA as a result of -the first year of the new administra-
the disclosures of recent years, but he tion-represented the last best chance
is also troubled by the number of re- for enacting into law the reforms my
views required for certain operations. committee recommended (in 1976)."
And he is said to think that Carter he said.. "I thought during the cam.*
ought to have "deniability" - that co- paign that a high priority was going
vert actions should be carried out in to be attached to the `cloak and dag-
such a way that the president could ger effort,' but it became clear that
disclaim them instead of being held this was of secondary importance to the
new administration."
accountable for them. -Alluding to the strong intelligence-
Not surprisingly, former CIA Direr- establishment flavor of the Senate
tor Richard M. Helms says he's heard hearings thus far on S. 2525, Church
various accounts of where the admin- added: "It is obvious by now that very
istration stands on the issue of intelli- - little thought is any longer being
genre "reforms" and isn't sure which given to the fact that these. agencies
account, if any, is correct. were engaged in gross violations of
"I must say I've had the second- or American law ... Now we are being
third-hand impression that the White treated to tendentious testimony that
House is more interested in control- any limitations on the CIA with re-
ling the (CIA) organization than it is spect to covert activities in the future.
in the legislation," Helms said. would be 'demeaning' (as Washington
Administration officials, however, lawyer Clark Clifford, (the leadoff wit
say aclose watch is being maintained ness
ut it) to the agency-as if the
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