IN FROM THE COLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00364R002204280143-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 19, 2007
• Sequence Number: 143
• Publication Date: March 5, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/12/19: CIA-RDP85M00364R002204280143-9
? ~~r' THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
--~-- 5 March 1982
in From the Cold
Long Out of Fashion,
Spy Agencies Now Get
Priority in Washington
Administration -Adds Agents
And Analysts, Pays Heed
To Once-Ignored 'Nations
But Is It. Politicising -CIA?
By Gsit n F.SErE .
SwfjReporero;.Teo: WA"SrRSer douxxwt.
I ASI-iINGTON-Radio listeners in At-
lanta may have. been startled recently to
hear a mellifluous voice saying, "We're the
Central Intelligence Agency, looking for
very special people to train for a career
with us."
The announcer explained that if listeners
'could "make on-the-spot decisions. have ini-
tiative and self-reliance, are willing to live
abroad," they could qualify for a job. The,
ad closed with these instructions: "Get "in
touch if you believe you are special enough
for a career with the Central intelligence
Agency."
. That ad and a - similar one run in Salt
Lake City represent the CIA's first effort to
recruit new employes with broadcast adver-
tising. And the Atlanta experiment. it,, par-I
titular, was a big hit. "lt absolutelyi
swamped us with responses," a CIA official
says. . .
The commercials are just one sign that]
the Reagan administration has begun trying
to make good on its promise to rebuild
America's intelligence system. Both in radio
and newspaper ads. the CIA is recruiting;
full-time analysts for duty either at its head-
quarters near here or at posts abroad. Over-
all, the administration has begun quietly in-
creasing the intelligence system's secret
budget by roughly the same rate as the Pen-
tagon's 1851c rise for fiscal 1983. Meanwhile,
tl:e CIA is assembling a . five-year master
plan for beefing up the intelligence'corr-mu
pity, which many in Congress now agree
was worn thin by-staffing and budget re-
straints during the 1960s and 1970s. - ?'
Emphasis on People
The Reagan administration's plans will
make some broad changes in the way the
U.S. intelligence system does its work in the
1980s. The emphasis will be on adding ana-
lysts and clandestine agents, after the re-
cent heavy dependence or spy gadgetry for
bodgetary reasons. Many of the new people
will be used to build up the CIA's knowledge
about developing countries:.that promise to
be the world hot spots in the 1980s. "L? there
is a broad, general underlying approach, it
says you have to devote a 'lot of time and at-
tention. to understanding in depth countries
that haven't been centers of attention in the
Ms,"_; a. senior U.S. intelligence official
says-.
At this- point Congress and the public
seem willing to support the administration's
.plans. But some lawmakers sound a. warn-
ing. They say the new congressional consen-
sus for rebuilding intelligence could be
threatened by what some consider. another.
trend: the Reagan administration's inclina-
tion to "politicize" the intelligence commu-
nity to fitits policies.
.
? Some lawmakers think politics, rather
than a desire for objective intelligence, lies
behind the appointment of some intelligence
officials. And they charge that some recent
CIA work has been tailored to fit adminis-
tration views. Democratic Sen. Paul Tson-
gas -of Massachusetts recently stormed out
of a closed-door briefing on Central Amer
-ica, charging that the session had turned
..into a political harangue rather than a'pres-
entaticn of intelligence information.
The meeting was given by Constantine
Menges, a conservative Latin American ex-
pert hired by the Reagan administration as
the CIA's national intelligence officer for
Latin America. Afterward, Sen. Tsongas
and two other Democratic Senators sent a
letter to CIA -Director William Casey com-
plaining that the meeting "bordered on pal-4
.icy prescription rather than a straightfor
ward analysis of available intelligences
data." .
Some Senators suspected that the CIA'sI
-analyses of the administration's proposal tol
sell Awacs radar planes to Saudi Arabia-
were shaded to push the sale. Likewise, they
objected when Mr. Casey ordered CIA ana-.
lusts to rewrite a report on terrorism to in-;1
elude more emphasis on the Soviet role in
international terrorism.
"It goes back to. the whole question of
whether we're going -to. have An -agency giv-
ing what we -need-unvarnished, unencum-
bered, straight facts," says Democratic Sen.
Joseph Biden of Delaware, a member of .the.,
Senate Intelligence Committee,:. .-..: a
Consensus on the Need ' : ?
For now, though, the Reagan administra.
tion's big plans benefit from a new belief
around Washington that the U.S. intelligence
community was dangerously weakened in
the 1970s. (The CIA, operating from its
heavily wooded 219-acre headquarters site in
Langley, Va?.is the biggest. but far from
the only, part of this community. The 1
agency gathers and analyzes intelligence,
.but also coordinates the work of a dozen
lesser intelligence agencies.)
Both budget and personnel figures for the
intelligence community are secret. But one
top intelligence official says that the number
of. people devoted to U.S. intelligence beg'
a long and steady decline. in 1967. By the
mid-1970s, he says, almost one-third of the
personnel devoted to intelligence in the 196Us
had been lopped off.
Ray Cline, a former high CIA official,
adds that from 1970 to 1974 U.S. spending on
intelligence increased little if any. As a re-
sult, he says, inflation cut the real invest-
ment in Intelligence by 33% to 50%. ....
Some of the reduction resulted from the
end of the Vietnam war, which had required
an intelligence buildup. But other factors ii
were at work;- too. Revelations of abuses by
the CIA undercut congressional support for
intelligence spending. Also. the intelligence,
agencies were hurt-bv the government-wide;
slashing of overseas personnel-.in the earlyi
)970s in an attempt to stem the"flow ofdoF
Jars out of the U.S. : -
Both Democrats and Republicans now
find large gaps -in the nation's intelligence
capabilities: " Tbe?,.U.S. intelligence systemi
isn't ableto deal with multiple.crises. as'we
have experienced recently,'without diverting:
resources from other high-priority mis
siors," the Senate Intelligence Committeei
said in a recent report. "Moreover: in many
areas of'the Third World, -coverage=by the-
U.S. intelligence system is either marginal;
or nonexistent. '
The CIA has suffered a "brain drain" of
top analysts, Sen. Biden says. Its language.;
abilities have declined; during the upheaval':
in Iran, a community-wide search turned up !
only two Farsi-speaking employes who could
be put to work analyzing events there, a for- j
mer official says. And because few new!
agents have been joining up, some two-
thirds of the higher-ups in the CIA's clandes-
tine services are technically eligible for re-;
tirement because they are more than 50
years old.. :._ ,..
One area `-ri -}rich `the. US: Intelligence,
system,remains.atnparauleled Is in spy tech-:
nology.`F6t-eicam'ple' .tbe U.S:has satellites!
with cameras that can spot cars and trucks!
moving down roads; and it has spy planes;
with cameras that can easily distinguish ob-I
jects less than a-yard in diameter. . ....J Under the Reagan ' administration'st
plans, this electronic wizardry will be Bevel-I
oiled further. But the initial emphasis will
be elsewhere. "The intelligence program 1s4
trying to wean itself off the pattern of heavy]
investment in technical resources'and;deni
gration of other intelligence ,means," one,;
White House officiahsays_
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The Reagan a.drninistration thinks the hu-
man spy corps has been-neglected because
of the focus on- electronics; and intelligence
officials see.-se: era, dangers in that trend.
For one, spy satellites can detect move
ments but net policy intentions:. During the
Polish crisis, spy-satellite-photos have told
U.S. policy makers fore. months about the
movement of Soviet and Polish. troops, but
only a human spy with access to govern-
ment officials could tell the U.S. about politi-
cal planning. In the end the U.S. didn't find
out about the imposition of martial law until
It was under-way. What's more.; after the
martial-law crackdown, cloudy- -weather
hampered the collection of intelligence from,
satellites over Poland for several days.
Vulneribiliry Issue-..:::
Satellites also. will : become inc'teasingly
vulnerable if the ' Soviet Union develops, they
ability:to.shoot them out 'of .:orbit. Ground-1
based eavesdropping-devices.are. similarly
vulnerable. "If the Carter program had con:
tinued:-;7he-President vould?jiave.faced the
prospect of, catastrophic losses of intelli-
gence if the- enemy had ? the abilityto stop
the technical collections," a white House of-
ficial says.
So the-Reagan.administration-is-starting
to 'beef up, the U.S? corps of. Intelligence,
agents overseas:-But` officials warn -that
training a spptMJong aad pains- takirig.pro.
cess, so it,will- be several years before an;!
r +
big gains-can be niaile-'i
Intelligence-..officials.'-also , believe; that
budget limits have left the CIA with too few
analysts to interpret -the -vast amounts of.in-
formation .modern electronic: spy , systems
can gatheY' And in -some cases more ana-
q.lysts are needeit'simpiY to examine mounds
of open material such as foreign newspa-
.pers. So the CIA is building up its staff ofl.
analysts. to improve the'quality-of forecasts'
reaching policy makers: "I think probab)y;
f_the .largest ,single-.increment of- people- is'
going to have to come in processing and
analysis, ever. more than in human collec.
'tion abroad." one senior official says. TO?-ac-
commodate its enlarged-staff, the CIA hasi
-proposed constructing a new'building`6at
would roughly double the size of its head-,
.quarters.
Problems of Reb
uilding ..,,..:. .
But -the ' rebuilding effort :hasn't": been,
without its problems. While reorganizing its;
analytical operation,. the CIA moved its So-1
viet,ana)ysts:out of-'the-Langley headquar-j
ters into offices iii nearby Vienna;:where:
they' had more space; officials said. -The!
move, made in mid-October, separated the;
Soviet analysts from the Polish analysts-just
before: .the Polish. crackdownr'?'Cornmitni-1
cations between the-Soviets-and. Poles'mayj
be more difficult in the'U.S. intelligence sys-;
tern than it is over there ,".one official quips.;
Furthermore, recent . reorganizations
aimed at efficiency have caused hard feel-I
"lugs among some top analysts and hurt.mo-
rale among lower)evel employes.,'The
quality and quantity of the product. has
fallen a bit" because of the shakeups, one'
career official says. . . 1
Although neither administration nor con-;
gressional officials will discuss details.
both acknowledge that the Reagan adminis-
tration is picking up where the Carter ad-
,ministration left off in building the CIA's j
abilities to conduct "covert operations" -
'undercover operations ranging from distri-
bution of propaganda to efforts to unsettle'
unfriendly governments.. Stanfield Turner,
the director of central intelligence during
the Carter administration, says the CIA had
little more than "zero ability" to carry out
covert operations when he took office, but he
says the potential was built up "rather
handily" during his term.
In general, Congress looks, favorably on
these moves. But- many members nurse a
growing suspicion that politics is-.spilling
over into the operation of the intelligence
system. The worries started with the ap-
pointment of Mr. Casey, who served as the
Reagan campaign manager, and his subse-
quent appointment of a Reagan campaign
,aide, :Max . Huge!,.: to head-- the - CIA's . spy
operations: tMr: Hugel' resigned. after' hero l
accused:of improper business practices:i
Since then, lawmakers have also 'sus
petted that politics affected* the~President's;
decision to reconstitute the-'Foreign Intelli-l
gence Advisory Board; a group- of outsiders!
who offer ' advice on intelligence work.-Thei
board is weighted with conservative Repu
licans and. includes President Reagan`s
friend Alfred S.. Bloomingdale:--a former
chairman of Diner's Club, and.-Martin An-
derson, who has just left his postas'a to
White House adviser.- Also, Richard Allen
became a part-time consultant to-the board.
after his departure 'as the :President's na-
tional-security adviser:-'
Some Senators' remain bitter"-over Mr:
Casey's hiring of - Mr. -Hugel - and :over the.
CIA chief's conduct during the -Senate Intel-?
ligence Committee's investigationof:his own"*
finances. Congressional- investigators'found]
that Mr. Casey had failed to- make a re-O"
quired disclosure--of numerous investments,:
liabilities and -law clients that- included the;
governments of South Korea and Indonesia.]
Many. committee members thought` :-Ir.
Casey was arrogant and less than candid
with Congress.:
"I would say it will continue to be a prob-
lem for certain members-of the committee," .
says Republican Sen. David Durenberger of
Minnesota, who adds that many of his own.
doubts about Mr. Casey have eased.' ?'Bill'si
a salesman. He has been a salesman ,all his
life, and one of the complaints about a sales--J
man is that he: doesn't always tell. you:.ev-
erything.that's.inthe padkage,"
Approved For Release 2007/12/19: CIA-RDP85M00364R002204280143-9