EXCERPTS OF RECENT LOS ANGELES TIMES EDITORIAL OPINION ON INTELLIGENCE ISSUES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00914R002800050014-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 27, 2007
• Sequence Number: 14
• Content Type: REPORT

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EXCERPTS OF RECENT LOS ANGELES TIMES
EDITORIAL OPINION ON INTELLIGENCE ISSUES
The LOS ANGELES TIMES has adopted a number of positions on intelligence
issues that are at variance with our views and you can expect questions
in these pertinent areas. Following is a selection of excerpts from the
newspaper's editorials during the past year:
1. DCI's Performance and Finances --
"The indications are in fact that Casey has been doing a good
job at the Central Intelligence Agency. Not least, he has done a
lot to restore morale in an agency beset in recent years by scandal,
questionable management and the loss of some of its most experienced
professionals. But appearance as well as performance counts, and
now fresh questions have been raised about whether Casey is doing
what he should be doing to avoid the appearance of financial conflicts
of interest as he goes about his intelligence work.
"Casey, as it happens, is one of the few top government officials
with access to secret international economic developments who has
not placed his stock holdings in a blind trust. No law requires
that he do so, though in two previous government jobs Casey did
separate himself from the management of his stock portfolio.
Moreover, Casey's two predecessors as director of Central Intelligence
put their stocks into blind trusts, and for good reason. The CIA
gathers and analyzes mountains of information, much of which could
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affect the business activities of American concerns. Avoiding any
suspicion of conflict of interest because of access to this
information is clearly important.
"Casey and his wife own stock in 27 corporations with major
overseas operations, including oil and strategic minerals. Surely,
the prudent and proper course would be for Casey to place these
holdings in a blind trust as other high officials, including
President Reagan, have wisely done." (6 December 1981)
"Casey's immediate predecessors at the CIA, George Bush and
Stansfield Turner, voluntarily placed their investments in blind
trusts to avoid any suspicions of conflicts of interest. Casey does
not want to do that. Instead, he has now agreed to a rather curious
'screening arrangement,' under which senior CIA officials will be
kept advised of his stock transactions. If these officials think
that they see a potential conflict between Casey's official duties
and his private financial interests, they may exclude Casey from
making a decision on an official matter. Casey, meanwhile, would
retain full freedom to buy and sell stocks as he chose.
"This is a cumbersome arrangement, and a troubling one. It
suggests that the nation's top intelligence official could, at
times, be isolated from the decision-making process that is part of
his legal responsibility in order to protect him from a possible
interest conflict.
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"It would clearly be far better if Casey were able to perform
his job fully without reference to his personal financial affairs.
That could be done if he would do what his predecessors did, and
what he himself did in two earlier important government jobs:
Place his investments in a blind trust." (12 July 1982)
2. FOIA --
"The most sensitive area is national security. The law's
critics, chief among them CIA Director William Casey, contend that
it endangers intelligence activities. He said recently, 'I question
very seriously whether a secret intelligence agency and a Freedom of
Information Act can coexist for very long.' He added that 'they are
incompatible' because the law 'gives foreign intelligence agencies,
and anyone else, a legal license to poke into our files.'
"That was a curious assertion. The act exempts from disclosure
documents related to national security.
"Casey is correct when he complains that the Freedom of Information
Act puts the United States in a unique position among nations. It
does. It is designed to require government to conform in fact as
well as theory to the principle of open government." (3 October 1982)
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3. Identities Legislation --
"In considering any law that hampers the ability of the press
to expose official derelictions, the history of abuses of power by
the intelligence agencies should not be forgotten, but apparently it
has been.
"We are now confronted with an act that, whatever the good
intentions of its sponsors, goes too far. Its reach should have
been limited to present and former government officials who breach
their trust." (15 June 1982)
4. E/0 12333 --
"The new directive, which Reagan said will help the nation
'confront the increasing challenge of espionage and terrorism' is
both reassuring and disquieting. . . .
"One troublesome aspect of the order is that it brings the CIA
sharply into domestic intelligence and blurs the line between the
agency and the FBI. The line between the operations of the two
agencies may be thin at times, but we think it would have been wiser
to depend on the FBI for intelligence at home while restricting the
CIA to operations abroad, with both cooperating as necessary. . . .
"The House and Senate oversight panels and the new White House
board [IOB] might profitably review the intelligence hearings in the
1970s. They revealed that a default of their oversight responsibilities
by congressional panels made possible extensive abuses of power by
intelligence agencies.
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"Yet congressional review, no matter how efficiently performed,
is no substitute for a congressional charter governing the shadowy
area of intelligence. It is a difficult task, but one that Congress
must confront and accomplish." (13 December 1981)
"The Reagan Administration pulled back from more drastic ideas
in issuing new guidelines for the CIA late last year but the agency
did obtain formal permission to engage in some activities within the
United States. Still, the Reagan order was careful not to return
the agency to the days when it operated almost as a law unto itself
with wide-ranging powers.
"But the Administration is not through with the agency, and
officials are studying the possiblility of further changes. The
Administration should move with caution in this area, just as it has
in the past.
"Its decision last year, for example, to avoid the more drastic
proposals for 'unleashing' the CIA did reflect sound judgment."
(27 April 1982)
5. E/0 12356 [Classification] -
"In a democracy, tension will always exist between the public's
right to information about government and the government's need for
secrecy on information affecting national security. The executive
order that was signed Friday by President Reagan comes down heavily
on the side of secrecy. . . .
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"The government has vital secrets to protect, and they must be
protected, but the new order, which imposes excessive restrictions
on information, also represents a danger to national security by
creating an aura of suspicion about the government." (6 April 1982)
6. Access to Scientific Information --
"Adm. Bobby R. Inman, the deputy director of Central intelligence,
has urged scientists to cooperate voluntarily with the government's
approach. Failure to do so, Inman has warned, could lead to far
more onerous restrictions on published scientific research than
might otherwise be the case. Inman has suggested that scientists
might have to submit certain papers to the government for pre-publication
screening in an effort to satisfy national-security concerns. What
he is talking about is giving the government the power of censorship
over unclassified material. That censorship would be limited in
application, perhaps, but would be censorship nonetheless, and would
run head on into both guarantees of free speech and the necessity
for scientists, in their own interests and in the national interest,
to communicate freely with each other. . . .
"Science thrives when scientific communications are unimpaired.
It would be self-defeating if the American government's concern
about what the Russians might learn served to inhibit the free
interchange of ideas in U.S. science and technology. It would be
self-destructive if our open society became semi-closed in the name.
of protecting freedom." (7 February 1982)
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7. Use of Journalists --
"Former President Jimmy Carter has revealed in his memoirs that
during the Iranian hostage crisis 'our agents . . moved freely in
and out of Tehran under the guise of business or media missions.'
His disclosure raises two separate aspects of the same problem,
which is the independent status of news reporters.
"It. is bad policy either for the government to disguise its
secret agents as journalists or to employ legitimate journalists as
agents. Both practices undermine the credibility of the press. . . .
"The duty of a journalist is clear. A reporter should be
independent of the CIA or any other government agency. One who
accepts a secret assignment undermines his own credibility and not
only compromises his own news organization but brings all other
correspondents under suspicion.
"Even if no correspondent accepts a secret assignment, the CIA
rule that permits the agency to attempt to recruit them clouds their
independent position. And, of course, so does the policy of
disguising secret agents as journalists." (15 October 1982)
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You may expect to be asked questions on the following subjects,
which are divided into topical issues and matters related to your
administration as DCI.
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STAT
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